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and in her Sunday dress, which seemed a little tight for her,
she looked like one of the farmers’ wives whom Philip used
to call on sometimes with his uncle when he was a small
boy. Then he knew why the sound of her voice was familiar
to him. She spoke just like the people round Blackstable.
‘What part of the country d’you come from?’ he asked
her.
‘I’m a Kentish woman. I come from Ferne.’
‘I thought as much. My uncle’s Vicar of Blackstable.’
‘That’s a funny thing now,’ she said. ‘I was wondering in
Church just now whether you was any connection of Mr.
Carey. Many’s the time I’ve seen ‘im. A cousin of mine mar-
ried Mr. Barker of Roxley Farm, over by Blackstable Church,
and I used to go and stay there often when I was a girl. Isn’t
that a funny thing now?’
She looked at him with a new interest, and a brightness
came into her faded eyes. She asked him whether he knew
Ferne. It was a pretty village about ten miles across country
from Blackstable, and the Vicar had come over sometimes
to Blackstable for the harvest thanksgiving. She mentioned
names of various farmers in the neighbourhood. She was
delighted to talk again of the country in which her youth
was spent, and it was a pleasure to her to recall scenes and
people that had remained in her memory with the tenacity
peculiar to her class. It gave Philip a queer sensation too.
A breath of the country-side seemed to be wafted into that
panelled room in the middle of London. He seemed to see
the fat Kentish fields with their stately elms; and his nostrils
dilated with the scent of the air; it is laden with the salt of

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