Cold Pastoral (14 page)

The school was small, standing in a square of trees. It was a place where daughters were sacrosanct from the rough and tumble of larger schools. There the curriculum was enhanced by many graces. The graces were all highly extra, embracing music, art, elocution, dancing and deportment. Mary Immaculate was down for all the extras, with a special arrangement for private tuition in voice and elocution. They expected her to face everything, but they gave her a prevision of events.

The mater spoke freely.

“You may notice attitudes. Take no notice! If you maintain an integrity of spirit yourself, little stings will not hurt you. Stay on the edge of things as an observer until you find your own feet.”

“Do you mean hold my tongue, Mater?”

“Yes. And if you're called up in class take your time and do your best. It doesn't matter if you fail, but it matters a great deal if you don't try.”

“I was bright in the Cove, Mater. I got up to Elizabeth and pounds, shillings and pence.”

“Maybe, my dear, and I'm sure you'll fall in line very fast; but your school was in an isolated district. You'll find girls with more knowledge than yourself, and in some respects with a great deal less. Different ways of living! Above all, do not be combative or pert. Remember, Philip and I are here to help you.”

It was a thought she could dwell on if she became hard pressed.

As she was leaving the Place under Philip's escort she heard something that was a sturdy reinforcement.

“You look very nice, Mary. Your clothes are becoming.”

Her uniform was satisfactory: brown tunic over a cream silk blouse, brown shoes and stockings, and a brown cloth coat, with a felt hat. Every pleat hung with precision, and seams were in their proper places. Inside she felt smooth and harmonious.

Her identification with nature had given her courage to lie on the ground in dreamlike frost. Such courage could disintegrate in different circumstances. As she endured the scrutiny of forty pairs of eyes she became conscious of her throat as an obstruction to swallowing. The adults were reassuring, but she had no knowledge of pampered little girls. For the first time in her life she wanted to be part of the furniture—something they would not notice. It was impossible. She was a target of interest. The routine of class kept everything normal until she heard her name.

“Now I think we will ask our new pupil, Mary Fitz Henry, to read the next verse.”

Hands cold on the book, she rose to her feet. To herself her voice sounded like the rattle of a tin with a stone inside. The passage was difficult and she faltered uncertainly.

    “Beneath these rugged elms, that yew tree's shade,
        Where heaves the earth in many a mould'ring heap,
    Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
        The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”

“very well attempted, mary.”

She knew it was the kindness of an older person trying to help her
out. Her ordinary facility seemed to have fled. As she sat down a cool
little voice behind whispered, “baynoddy!”

It was what she needed—the slap of childish rudeness. She became
herself with a light varnish of ice. Faculties returned, ready to be
called forth. Daughters of kings could not upset her now. When
she could peer round she met a pair of blue-fringed eyes in a face
framed in dark curls. It was a very pretty face. Very detached, mary
immaculate decided brown did not suit it.

At recess they were given an apple and turned out on the square
of grass where she braced herself against the trunk of a tree. Several
girls spoke tentatively and she responded with civil brevity. It surprised
her to find they knew all about her.

“Are you better?”

“Your feet and hands look as if nothing had happened!”

“Fancy Lady Fitz Henry adopting you!”

“Weren't you frightened out in the woods? I've never been out
after dark without my parents or a maid.”

“When the policemen were searching for you they prayed for you
in church. Fancy seeing someone they pray for in church! 'Tis like
meeting our gracious Queen Elizabeth, Mary the Queen Mother—”

“Don't be so foolish, Phyllis, prayers can be more than words. i
Prayed for her, too, because Mother said she couldn't sleep, thinking
of a child lying out in the snow. Mother wanted to go and see you in
hospital, only the Fitz Henrys said no visitors.”

“Yes,” said a cool little voice; “a lot of charitable organizations wanted to send fruit and flowers.”

“What a pig you are, Betty,” said a nice voice; “she's prettier than you are, thank goodness, so your nose is broken at last.”

The small girl tossed her black curls.

“She looks all right, but she shouldn't open her mouth. Her voice is
common and her mother was a cook.”

Ice-cold, Mary Immaculate leaned against the tree. What was there
in this world to make her deny her own mother? Josephine with her
red hands stood invisibly in front of her bidding her speak no ill of
her neighbour. With eyes hard as agate she looked straight at the
blue-eyed girl.

“Yes, mymother was a cook, a very good cook. Now she cooks and does all the work besides.”

“Well, my mother wouldn't let me invite you to my house.”

“No,” said Mary Immaculate gently; “Lady Fitz Henry wouldn't let me go. She wants me to have nice things in my life.”

“Ha, ha, ha, Betty, serves you right, you deserved it.”

A tall, ungainly girl with horn-rimmed glasses rushed at Mary Immaculate and threw her arms round her neck. Her voice held the feel of a slobber.

“I think you're lovely. Look at her hair and eyes, girls. I'm going to walk home with her.”

Are you, now? thought Mary Immaculate. The girl's hair smelt dry, like a pony's mane. Extricating herself, she replied, “Thank you very much, but for a few days my adopted brother is calling for me.”

A bell put a stop to her considerable attention. She had tried to keep her voice within the bounds of courtesy, but she was savouring all the feelings the mater had warned her against. She felt she understood murder.

When she found Philip's car waiting she sped towards him on eager feet. The faint hospital smell that clung to him on operating days returned her to the breath of her adopted world. Settled in the seat beside him, she watched him steer through a congested school area. But the founts of volubility were stilled inside her. A sidelong glance at her face made him question, “What is it, Mary? Have you had a difficult morning?”

His voice invited her to ease her mind. There was no stifling like his tone to the Little People. Very slowly she told him about her experiences. She was oppressed with the criticism of herself and her mother. As if her troubles were his, Philip's nostrils responded mutely to her tale.

“Dreadful little snobberies, Mary. Don't take your standards from that wretched little girl. Think of Mater! I'm delighted you acknowledged your mother so strongly. As for your voice, it's improving every day. Keep your chin up, my dear, and if I'm no good to you, Mater will be.”

The child gave a released wriggle. It was one of the moments when Philip was a god.

“So kind, Philip,” she whispered.

That morning having repudiated a physical touch she rubbed her face against his arm.

Philip stopped his car and bought her a box of chocolates.

The strain lessened; she was busy following a crowded routine. School and extras over she had to return to the Place to practise five-finger exercises. Loitering on the way was strictly forbidden. From five to six she was allowed to do as she liked in the garden. Often Lady Fitz Henry joined her and they poked in the earth together.

In spite of Josephine being a cook there were invitations to tea and small maidenly parties. The mater dealt with them all. Many times Mary Immaculate heard her graciously discouraging voice on the telephone.

“Very kind of you, but at present we think it advisable…”

“She's very occupied with as much as she can manage…”

“Perhaps at a later date, if you would be kind enough to repeat the invitation…”

Spring progressed, drawing the harshness from the land. Daffodils trod down crocus, Darwin tulips waved tight secret heads, trees in new bloom veiled the faded fronts of wooden houses and, where open country flowed back from the town, meadows made jade squares in sombre green. A winding river, full from snow, rushed through a lake on its way to the sea.

Winter-born children sped to the country trailing home with hardy blooms. Several times as Mary Immaculate turned into the Place she looked wistfully at the loitering children. Invariably she could identify the flowers in their hands. Where were her own woods, blue ponds and lily-pools, and wet meadows hoarding many secrets? Where were the marsh-marigolds and pale cuckoo-flowers blooming by themselves with no one to see?

Scales, lessons, voice, dancing, elocution; and reminders of her hair, nails, manners and mien! She ached to walk with her eyes on the ground and part the alders on a quiet pond.

She forgot her scales for the river in her ears. From its sound it must have a series of short waterfalls and still stretches lazy over stones.

Neither premeditation nor disobedience made her go! It was an instinct of necessity. Heedlessly she dropped her schoolbooks in the shrub sacred to Lilas' beret and ran toward open country.

The western sun was dying in an orange dapple when she strolled up the avenue. All over her was the sleekness of some fulfilment. Her ears held the sounds of birds settling down, children shrilling the last shout of the day and woods and trees singing with sap. Her arms held a cluster of pale mauve flowers and her brown hat dangled from her hand.

Philip stood at the wide-open door looking as if he had been there a long time. His figure held no peace and his eyes fired like hot coals.

“Where have you been?”

She should have been extinguished by his voice, falling like a frost on new flowers. A long hand on her shoulders seemed to dig into her bones. For a moment she blinked at him without focus.

“Come in at once!”

The pressure of his hand urged her along. Inside she saw the mater seated quietly by the open fireplace. Furnace heat was gone, but the grate held a pile of crackling birch-billets. Bowls of spring flowers stood on tables and stands round the hall. Raising her eyes from her knitting, the mater regarded the child without anger.

“Mary dear—”

“Mater, if you please, let me attend to this.”

Wonderingly the child gazed at Philip. Here was anger, cold, hard, with an undercurrent of heat. Contained on the surface, it held the undertow of the sea. In the Cove angry people shouted and bawled at the top of their voices. Philip seemed to be shouting in his nose, dilating like a disturbed animal.

“Answer me, Mary, where have you been?”

“Just in the country, Philip,” she said mildly.

The simplicity of her explanation fanned his anger.

“What do you mean, just in the country? It's seven o'clock and you left school at three-thirty. Isn't it a definite rule that you come right home? Whom were you with?”

“I was alone, Philip, picking flowers and running by the river.”

Her crime might have been mitigated if she had gone off with her school-friends. The pressure grew on her shoulder.

“Mary, it's most unnatural to go off on long tramps at your age. Isn't one lesson enough for you? Remember the last experience that nearly killed you. Think of—of…”

He became inarticulate with doubts he could not formulate.

Her light laugh annoyed him further.

“Sure, Philip, the Little People are afraid of the town and, if I got lost now, the woods are beautiful with spring.”

It was the peak of wrong remarks.

“Be quiet!” he snapped. “I've no intention of permitting a repetition of that. You've been disobedient and Mater has been extremely worried.''

The child glanced at Lady Fitz Henry. In the black and white of her tranquillity she looked as if anger could not touch her. Philip was giving the wrong reason for his anger.

Then she saw Hannah peering from the dining-room and making a great show of arranging silver on the sideboard. She was nodding her head in applause to Philip. As his voice went on the folds of her face deepened to sardonic approval.

“Mary, go to bed at once and Hannah will bring you bread and milk. Also you will remember conclusively and irrevocably that you will conform to the life we plan for you. I won't have any furtiveness or sudden impulses to run away and leave us at the mercy of fantastic thoughts.”

Furtiveness! The child hated the word, although unsure of its meaning. Convinced that her happiness had been insulted she answered with smooth insolence, “‘Fantastic', Philip! You told me your thoughts were directive.”

“Go to bed!”

Releasing her, the energy of his voice propelled her towards the stairs. For a moment she paused and looked at her great cluster of flowers. Lady Fitz Henry rose from her chair.

“Give them to me, Mary. You must do as Philip says, but I'll attend to your flowers. They're very pretty.”

“They're no good now,” she said, shaking her head. With a stately back she walked upstairs, with the feel of Philip's frown boring her spine.

In a childish night-dress gathered at the neck, she lay in bed.

Arriving with bread andmilk, Hannah dumped it on a bedside table.

“There,” she said with genuine malice, “you've discovered that you can't be a fly-by-night in this house. If I had my way you'd get the flat of the slipper.”

Mary Immaculate reached for a book and opened it upside down.

“Please leave me, Hannah,” she said with great aloofness. “I have a quiet hour to myself.”

From the bottom of the bed the old woman gave an outraged snort.

“The airs and graces of you! I'd like to make it my job to find out what you were doing. Picking flowers all that time? More likely running wild with some of your own kind.”