A Canterbury Tale Page #4

- Is that how you do it in America?

It's how we do it

in my part of America.

But we take off the strips

when we put the planks away in stock.

Well, so do us.

How long do you allow

for seasoning timber?

- A year for every inch of thickness.

- Same here.

You can't hurry an elm.

- No. But some folks try to, all the same.

- Yeah. Capitalists.

Can't stand to see

their money lie idle a piece.

- And the war.

- Why the war?

Folks go mad.

They cut oak at midsummer.

- No.

- I'm telling you, yes.

- Oak should be cut in winter.

- Course.

- Or the spring.

- That's right.

- And beech in the fall.

- And plank it out -

- At Christmas.

- Yeah.

- That's how my dad taught me.

- Ah. You was well brought up.

- In the timber business, was you?

- Lumber.

- Oh.

- My granddad had the first mill in our parts.

- Yeah.

- Dad - He was a cabinetmaker.

I cut my teeth on wood shavings.

Cut his teeth on wood-

Dad - He made my cradle

out of cedar of Lebanon.

He said what was

good enough for Solomon...

was good enough

for a Johnson of Johnson County.

Gee, I can smell that cedar now.

Ah.

Can I bum a ride off you, ma'am?

- Jump in.

- Looks like a good way to see the sights.

Just a minute, missy.

We have our dinner at midday.

I'd like to have you join us, Sergeant.

That is if you ain't got nothing better to do.

- Thanks a lot. I'd be glad to.

- Ah, that'll be fine.

Get up.

Hey, Mother?

- Yes, Jim?

- One extra for dinner.

- I was thinking of a cottage pie, Jim.

- Ah, well, think of a good big un.

Nice piece of weatherboarding,

that water mill.

I must ask the old gentleman

who built it.

I'll bet it was a Horton.

How did you manage

to get round Mr. Horton in that way?

I believe you are a detective.

We speak the same language.

I'm English,

and I don't speak their language.

He knows about wood, see,

and so do I.

- That's it.

- That was it.

Oh, look at that house.

What a perfect place.

I wonder whose it is...

and what it's like at the back.

Whoa.

What wouldn't I give

to grow old in a place like that.

Tom.

Breakfast.

Beats me.

Last night I could have

believed anything.

But this morning...

if ever a man

looked - looked right, he did.

Yeah. It don't add up.

Whoa.

But, you know, Alison,

things don't add up in life.

Look, Bob.

Are you positively off tonight?

Positively.

But I'll see you before I go...

and tell you what I find out

from old Jim Horton.

What I'll find to do the rest

of the afternoon I don't know.

There's a movie.

It's Saturday. They have a matinee.

What? Go to a single feature?

Not me.

- Write some postcards.

- I'll have to do that to the folks from Canterbury.

- Write to your girl.

- I don't write my girl anymore.

How do you expect her to write to you

if you don't write to her?

You've got that in reverse English.

She doesn't write to me anymore,

so I don't write to her.

- That's the way it is.

- That's the way it is.

Perhaps she has written.

I haven't had a letter in seven weeks.

Sometimes the mail's lost by enemy action.

A ship might have gone down.

Yes. A ship might have gone down...

the address might have been wrong...

there are a hell of a lot

of Johnsons in the army...

maybe she was ill,

maybe her mother was ill.

I've had all the maybes.

I cabled her.

I haven't heard a thing.

She was a swell girl, Alison.

We used to talk.

She liked the woods.

She learned some of the birdcalls

I taught her real well for a girl.

She caught her first rainbow

with my rod.

Two and a half pounds.

She broiled it herself.

We've been walking in the woods often,

following the trail...

and haven't said a word

for two hours...

and then both said

the same thing together.

What do you figure it means

when that happens?

It means love.

It means no letter in seven weeks.

I don't believe this enemy action stuff.

All the other fellas

get letters from their girls.

If a ship goes down,

it can't just be...

that particular part of the ship where

my letters are dumped that goes down, can it?

Well...

so long, Alison.

I hope you don't mind my calling you

by your first name.

I shall miss being called ma'am.

Time marches on.

Which way does your road go...

ma'am?

He knows.

I hope up that hill.

- Why that hill?

- That's where the Pilgrims Road runs.

- Along that hill?

- Yes.

From the bend

at the eastern edge of the hill...

pilgrims saw Canterbury

for the first time.

- You've seen it?

- Yes.

With a friend of mine.

- Boy or a girl?

- Boy.

I hope he writes to you.

No, he doesn't.

Maybe the mail was lost by enemy action.

No, Bob.

As it happens,

he was lost by enemy action.

- He was a pilot.

- Shot down?

- Yes.

- Sorry.

I hope you'll have better luck.

Get up.

Whoa.

I'm Prudence Honeywood.

My sister telephoned you were coming.

Glad to see you.

We're shorthanded here.

- Smiler brought you along all right, I hope.

- Yes, Miss Honeywood.

- Not afraid of work, are you?

- No.

- Can you tie sheaves?

- Yes.

- Cart muck?

- Yes.

- Lift potatoes?

- Yes.

- Lead a harrow?

- Not very straight.

Neither can I.

Can you spud wheat?

- Yes.

- Spread lime?

- If I have to.

- You'll have to. Know anything about hops?

- Not a thing.

- Hmm.

Most of the hands are in the fields today.

You'd better stay here this morning.

You can put your bag in that shed.

See you a little later.

Sue tells me you had

a frightening experience last night.

Wasn't frightening.

It was just unpleasant.

- Hmm.

- And annoying.

I thought so. It's happened to other girls.

None of them died.

My sister likes to dramatize things.

You know the type.

- Do I know them.

- Well, do you or don't you?

- I worked in a London store before the war.

- Selling things?

Yes. Garden furniture.

Picnic baskets.

All that sort of thing.

- Did you like the job?

- Not much.

It was better than

selling ordinary furniture.

I used to imagine my deck chairs

in beautiful gardens...

and my picnic baskets

opened in the woods and fields.

So you like gardens and the country?

Mmm.

Hope you won't miss

your London store here.

I shan't.

You get up at sunrise.

But you don't have to queue for the bus.

It's hot and sweaty this time of the year.

- You should see the stores in August.

- Hmm.

- The flies are the very devil.

- So were the customers.

That's your room over there.

The end one.

- You won't get much of a view, I'm afraid.

- You should have seen the view

from my room in London.

Was it a long street with every house

a different sort of sadness in it?

It was a long row of back gardens...

and the tall, sad houses

were all the same.

- Ghastly in winter.

- Airless in summer.

- You seem to know them.

- The only man who ever asked me to marry him

wanted me to live in a house like that.

I'm still a maid.

- Miss Honeywood.

- Call me Pru. You might as well.

I don't like Prudence -

name or quality.

Pru and Sue we've always been.

She likes Susanna.

You spoke of other girls who had

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