George Glenn and Lilly

George Glenn and Lilly are linked by a private intimacy that the novel makes legible through gestures, overheard remarks, and the aftermath of George’s death, rather than through a direct account of how their relationship began. Lilly’s regular visits to the meadow and their disappearances into George’s shepherd’s caravan suggest a concealed affair; at the same time, the text leaves its precise terms and duration unstated. Her grief at his body, and her later attempt to apologize to Kate, turn that secrecy into a visible source of conflict.

A Private Connection

Lilly is a familiar presence in the meadow. She sometimes arrives in the evening, and the sheep know her for her short, sharp screams at small mishaps: stepping in droppings, catching her skirt on a hedge, or hearing George say something she dislikes. They also know that she and George often disappear together into his shepherd’s caravan. Her artificial lilac perfume marks her arrival, but the more consequential clue is the repeated pattern of leaving the flock’s view with George. The sheep are accustomed to the pair’s conduct, even when they do not understand what it means.

The caravan stands behind the hay barn, beside George’s small vegetable garden. George had once used it to travel around the countryside with another flock; more recently, he kept odds and ends there. Its ordinary, practical place in the meadow gives the private meetings an unremarkable setting. The sheep’s account does not describe what happens inside, but the regularity of the disappearances makes their connection difficult to dismiss as a single encounter. George’s life in the meadow was otherwise familiar to the flock: he worked nearby, repaired things, and read aloud to them. Lilly’s visits therefore occur within the setting of his everyday life, but remain apart from the sheep’s understanding of it.

Suspicion Made Public

When the sheep find George dead, Lilly arrives after Gabriel, the butcher, and the thin man. Her face is flushed, her red hair untidy, and her perfume carries across the path. On seeing George, she gives a sharp scream, but this is unlike the little cries the sheep have learned to disregard. She falls to her knees beside him, ignores the rain-wet grass, and moves her hands over his sweater and jacket, tugging at his collar. Her physical response makes her grief unmistakable to the watching flock.

The butcher pulls her roughly away and warns her not to make a spectacle of herself. He tells her that she has other worries and asks why anyone would suspect her; Lilly answers that she and George got along fine. The butcher uses that apparent closeness against her: he says their having got along will be enough to raise questions, invokes George’s last will and testament, and points to Lilly’s limited prospects of making money from cosmetics or from sleeping around. He then directs her to be nice to Ham if she wants to avoid trouble. This exchange does not establish what the will says or prove that Lilly killed George. It does show how quickly her connection to him becomes a possible liability, and how the butcher uses the threat of suspicion to pressure her.

Kate and the Aftermath

Miss Maple later reports what happened at Kate’s house. After people had visited through the day to express sympathy, Lilly arrived late in the evening. Kate stopped crying when she saw her. Lilly said she was sorry; Kate answered that at least Lilly had not had George, then slammed the door in her face. The exchange turns an implication into an open rupture: Kate treats Lilly as someone who might have shared an intimate claim on her husband, while Lilly’s apology suggests remorse or a wish to make amends, without explaining what she believes she has done.

The scene does not supply a private conversation between the women or settle the history of their connection to George. Kate’s brief, cutting response is all the sheep hear of the confrontation, and the door ends the encounter before Lilly can explain herself. The contrast between the public visitors’ repeated condolences and this late, rejected apology gives the grief a second, more personal dimension. George’s death has not only removed the man at the center of their lives; it has exposed a tension that his presence had kept concealed.

Secrecy and What Remains Unknown

The novel’s evidence about George and Lilly accumulates indirectly: the caravan meetings, the butcher’s insinuations, Lilly’s grief, and Kate’s refusal to hear her. Together, these details strongly suggest a secret affair, but they do not provide a full chronology or Lilly’s own account of it. George’s status as a married man is part of the conflict, while the sheep’s limited knowledge shapes how the relationship reaches the reader: they observe entrances, exits, gestures, and fragments of conversation, then infer what human secrecy may mean.

Later, Rebecca tells the sheep a story about a girl with a secret father and an unsecret father. The girl and the secret father are fond of one another, quarrel, and remain apart until a letter tells her that he intends to travel to Europe and wants to see her first; she keeps him waiting, and he dies before they meet. The story gives the novel another language for concealed intimacy and belated regret, but it does not name Lilly or establish her role in the girl’s family. It therefore deepens the book’s pattern of relationships revealed through partial stories without resolving the specific facts of George and Lilly’s bond. What remains decisive is the contrast between their apparently private meetings and the public consequences of George’s death: suspicion, grief, and a door shut before reconciliation can occur.