The Tree of Heaven | Page 4

he was
destroying her dream. He replied that he didn't want to destroy her
dream, but the tree really was an ash. You could tell by the bark, and by
the leaves and by the number and the shape of the leaflets. And anyhow,
that was the first he'd heard about her dream.
"You don't know," said Frances, "what goes on inside me."
She said that if any of the children developed an imagination he needn't
think he had anything to do with it.

"I shan't," said Anthony. "I wouldn't have anything to do with it if I
could. Facts are good enough for me. The children must be brought up
to realize facts."
An ash-tree was a fact and a tree of Heaven was a fancy; unless by any
chance she meant ailanthus glandulosa. (He knew she didn't.) If she
wanted to know, the buds of the ash were black like ebony. The buds of
the tree of Heaven were rose-red, like--like bad mahogany. Wait till the
spring and look at the buds.
Frances waited till the spring and looked at the buds, and, sure enough,
they were black like ebony.
Anthony also said that if they were choosing a house for the children, it
was no earthly use to think about the old people. For the old people
would go and the children would remain.
As if to show how right he was, Grandpapa had died early in that
summer of 'ninety-five, one month after they had moved into West End
House. That still left Grannie and Auntie Louie and Auntie Emmeline
and Auntie Edie for Anthony to look after.
* * * * *
She was thinking of them now. She hoped that they would come early
in time to see the children. She also hoped that they would go early, so
that she and Anthony might have their three sets of tennis before dinner
in peace.
There would be no peace if Louie and Edie wanted to play too. The one
thing that Anthony could not stand was people wanting to do things
they couldn't do, and spoiling them for those who could. He used to say
that the sight of Louie anywhere near the tennis court put him off his
stroke.
Again, the faint illusion of worry was created by the thought that this
dreadful thing might happen, that Louie and Edie might want to play
and that Anthony would be put off his stroke and be annoyed, and that

his annoyance, his just and legitimate annoyance, would spoil the
perfection of the afternoon. And as she played with the illusion it made
more real her tranquillity, her incredible content.
Her hands were busy now putting decorative stitches into a frock for
John. She had pushed aside a novel by George Moore and a volume of
Ibsen's plays. She disliked Ibsen and disapproved of George Moore.
Her firm, tight little character defended itself against every form of
intellectual disturbance. A copy of the Times had fallen from her lap to
her feet. Jane, the cat, had found it there, and, purring loudly, had
trodden it down into a bed, and now lay on it, asleep. Frances had
informed herself of the affairs of the nation.
At the bottom of her mind was the conviction (profound, because
unconscious) that the affairs of the nation were not to be compared for
interest with her own affairs, and an attitude of condescension, as if she
honoured the Times by reading it and the nation by informing herself of
its affairs; also the very distinct impression that evening papers were
more attractive than morning papers. She would have admitted that
they owed their attraction to the circumstance that Anthony brought
them home with him in his pocket, and that in the evening she was not
obliged to inform herself of what might be happening. Anthony was
certain to inform her.
Not that anything ever did happen. Except strikes; and even then, no
sooner did the features of the strike begin to get dramatic than they
were instantly submerged in the flood of conversation that was let loose
over them. Mrs. Anthony pitied the poor editors and reporters while
Parliament was sitting. She saw them as rather silly, violent and
desperate men, yet pathetic in their silliness, violence and desperation,
snatching at divorces, and breach of promise cases, and fires in paraffin
shops, as drowning men snatch at straws.
Her imagination refused to picture any end to this state of things. There
would just be more speeches and more strikes, and still more speeches,
going on for ever and ever at home; while foreign affairs and the
British Empire went on for ever and ever too, with no connection
between the two lines of sequence, and no likeness, except that both

somehow went