Cold Pastoral (26 page)

“Old beast,” he said, kicking a hole in the turf. “She knows about us. Why hasn't she split before?”

“I don't know,” she answered wonderingly. “But I do know it's not for my sake. I've stopped worrying about it long ago.”

“Do you ever worry, Gretel?”

“No,” she said, feeling his moodiness. “I believe you'd like it better if I did.”

He sat up and suddenly widened his eyes.

“Make-believe must come to an end.”

She put her hands up as if to ward something off.

“No, no, you're queer today. Don't be any different. Remember you're going away tomorrow.”

There was pleading in her voice, making him mutter his usual agreement.

“But when I come home we must talk and you mustn't put me off with your tin-whistle side—”

“Tim,” she said appalled, “you're unfair. My tin-whistle side—”

“Yes, that's what I mean,” he said, sticking to his guns. “The side they don't know at the Place, the side you can't take out with your doctor—”

“Tim, you're going away tomorrow. Let's remember today and perhaps yesterday.You seem so grown-up.”

“Perhaps I am, Gretel. I'm three years older than you.”

“We've almost been quarrelling.”

“Yes, and I must go soon. I have Mother's car out on the road and she wants it. I wish I could drive you home.”

“You can't, Tim, and I love the river bank. I'm going to pick some leaves.”

She could pick autumn leaves, returning from his last good-bye! He was miserable, until his misery went at the sight of her face. He moved quickly, kneeling beside her. Eyes were heavy again and very wistful.

“It's good-bye,” he said, putting his arms around her waist, and in return her arms went willingly round his neck.

“Timmy-Tim,'' she said softly. “I shall miss you.”

One hand freed itself to touch his familiar face. A happier expression was traced under her fingers.

“Let me look at you, Gretel—I want to stack up for a long time. No girl ever had such a clean face and your voice is the voice of a garden at daybreak.”

“Tim, we've caught the quoting habit. Say good-bye in your own words.”

“I won't,” he said softly. “Other people wrote it for me. They told me to streak your eyes until I came again.”

Leaning back to look in his face, she shook her head.

“We shouldn't have read somuch. We're just people out of books.”

“No, we're not,” he said decidedly. “Let me say what I want to say. Oh, Gretel…” he sighed against her hair. “I hate mining. If it were Arts I could bear it better. Sometimes I think I have no guts. If I had I would have stood up to Uncle and refused to be bossed around. I'm no good at firm stands.”

“It's too late now. Perhaps it will be better when you graduate. Have you any money, Tim? Of your own, I mean.”

“Not that I know of,” he said with a shrug that she could feel against her body. “They didn't read me Father's will. Uncle is executor and he manages everything. Mother is treated as if she were a moron over money. When I want something Uncle doesn't there's no money, and everyone is being denied to put me through university. When he wants something for me there's plenty of money. Work that out.… Oh, Gretel! I'm always grousing to you and you're such an angel. This winter try and think of us…”

“I will, Tim,” she said, surprised.

“Of course, Gretel, but try and think of us a little way ahead.” He stopped a minute and then said vaguely, “Somehow I can't think of myself going down the mine. Never mind, nothing is right but you. Give me a million kisses and I'll go. Tonight I must pack. Why has a fellow got to have a new toothbrush every time he goes away? Gretel, please begin the kisses.”

“Foolish Tim,” she said sanely. “It would take such ages and they wouldn't be as nice as one. I'll kiss you—once—twice—that's good-bye—”

“And I'll kiss you once—twice—three times for good memory. Good-bye, dear Gretel. Stay here until I go, will you?”

“Tim,” she whispered, “don't be unhappy. It will spoil everything. Please be happy before you go.”

“O.K.,” he said with a smile. “Gretel,” he sighed instantly, “I wish you were coming, too. Lovely, lovely face, so clean—”

“I wash quite often.”

“So do lots of people. It's not that. Good-bye, Gretel of the white sails.” With a last touch of her lips and cheeks he was gone, running through the beech trees.

She sat on, gazing unseeingly at the river until its rowdiness became part of her head. Tim was dragging at her, running them both out of childhood. Now the covering over them was as light as leaves. How soon would the wind expose them? was the tiny question forming in her mind. She jerked her shoulders, throwing something off her back. Consequences she knew. Had she not been frostbitten and drowned? Those things had presented their bills with great speed.

She dropped her face in her hands and the river became rushing winds blasting her out of childhood. What was deceit?

She did not pick autumn leaves from the river bank. She had to run by them to drown the process of thought. There was the past ahead of her as she went into the future. The river was making a gigantic noise and she was running with it in a headlong drop to the sea. Going with the current was the only way she knew. Even so it did not stop the tiny peck in the core of her mind. It was the beginning of a ragged hole.

We are not children any more…
I was a child and he was a child…
Her tin-whistle side…

“DRAG ON, LONG NIGHT OF WINTER.”

L
ife, holding the incalculable, ushered in the mater's death. Flesh became ignoble, betraying the fine spirit it housed. If their minds had portrayed her passing, thoughts would have been identical. Privacy would belong to her, peace and quiet breath. As it was she died in hospital, worried by clinical detail. It was a profanation of everything she represented and perhaps her greatest trial. Everything was wrong about it. Wind moaned with them and snow-swirls fretted at the windows. David and Felice were on the eve of sailing, and strapped luggage made the hall look migratory.

Ailing for a day, Lady Fitz Henry ailed in her own room. She said she was bilious, bidding them leave her alone. Even Philip was permitted no more than a finger on her pulse. He went unhappily, knowing it was an inadequate explanation for a woman of austere living. Hannah hovered round with every thought subdued to service.

Returning at four from her college, Mary Immaculate had to shake herself like a dog before she could get rid of winter. Mounting the stairs she heard a dreadful sound, clamping her feet to the floor. When it stopped she leaped ahead. David and Felice were waiting with blanched faces. He had the air of a stricken boy, incapable of decision.

“Mary,” hissed Felice, “this has been going on for some time. Dare I call Philip?”

The girl nodded her head.

“Yes. I'll go in and tell her.”

Inside, the bulk of the room was oppressive, full of snow-light. Hannah was holding a pan while Lady Fitz Henry's body bent double in agony. When the paroxysm was over the old woman retreated with the pan. The girl was appalled. There was fatality about it, a strong elemental smell. The starkness of the Cove came rushing back, with its straight talk of mortality. Repulsion surged for a moment until it was subdued before the need of a beloved body. It was she who made the mater fresh again and smoothed the bedclothes.

“Thank you, dear,” whispered Lady Fitz Henry. Her face was grey, with pinched nostrils. As she looked, the girl saw the invisible bulk of a coffin. For herself she glimpsed the fall of a curtain before the act was over. With a great effort she spoke through stiff lips.

“Mater dear, you're ill. We've sent for Philip. It's unfair not to let him help you.”

“Very well,” came the remote answer.

Uncertain and unhappy the girl knelt by the bed, holding Lady Fitz Henry's hand. Very soon stillness was replaced by a long rigour rippling down the bed.

“Hannah,” she entreated as the old woman returned. “Please get hot-water bottles. She's awfully cold.”

For the first time in her life Hannah took an order from the interloper.

Felice entered the room and it was her last privacy with her mater.

At five the avenue was packed with cars, lopsided in the snow. Storm-coated men shook themselves, stamping snow from their feet. Big linen handkerchiefs mopped professional faces. Philip was like a ghost but, as Mary Immaculate thought irreverently, he looked as calm as God. He was the doctor now before the son, and as usual doing the hard things. Directing, consulting, guiding from room to room, he permitted one opinion at a time. He told his family in one fleeting visit he had suspected her state in the morning.

The others sat in the mater's sitting-room lacing their fingers together until David began to walk. Mary Immaculate got up and looked out of the window. Some of the doctors were going, with a terrific protest of engines and wild whirring of tires. Wheels spun until chains got a grip, letting them jolt away.

At six there was an ambulance at the door, making the most fiendish fuss of all. Machinery was afflicted by the storm. Big and black it snorted for Lady Fitz Henry. Strange men entered with a stretcher and stood outside her door. A white-clad nurse unwrapped herself and went inside. Philip superintended everything with an economy of noise. Eventually he entered the sitting-room, muffled in an overcoat, and with the legs of his trousers tucked inside Arctic gaiters. In respect to his efficiency they kept in the background.

“Philip, can I do anything?” whispered Mary Immaculate, slipping her hand in his arm.

“No, my dear,” he said steadily. “They'll operate as soon as possible. One of the doctors has gone ahead to make the arrangements. I'm going in the ambulance with her. Fortunately the plough has been over the roads and it will be fairly easy. I'll telephone as soon as it's over.”

“Will we go?” asked David, deferring to Philip.

“I think not,” he said. “We must be as quiet as possible. It's appalling for her. All that crowd. Yet what can I do?”

He looked stricken. As a son he knew he was doing all the things his mother hated. As doctor he was making a desperate effort to preserve her life.

“It's obstruction,” he explained briefly. “No hope without immediate operation. Doubt if her heart—nothing left—Oh God I…”

For a second his control was shattered.

“Don't, Philip,” whispered Mary. “You're better off. We've got to wait. Aren't you lucky you can help most?”

She was the genius for saying the right thing to the family. He turned with a straightened back.

“Can we see her go, Philip?”

“No, darling,” he said, putting on his gloves. “They gave her a needle and she's drowsy. Don't you think if she saw your faces—she might think—the Place and all that…” he said incoherently.

David got up.

“I'm going in to kiss her, and no one can stop me.”

“Very well, Dave.”

They watched him limp away, waiting until he returned. Quite unconscious of them he sat in a chair and cried.

“She's going to die,” he said desolately.

“Shushhhh, David,” said Felice firmly. “This is no time to give way. We must cancel our sailings at once.”

“I'll telephone, Mary,” Philip said, looking into her steady face.

“I'll sit by it, Philip.”

She felt any token of affection would disturb him so she stood very still. “I'll pray, Philip,” she said, instinctively beseeching her altars.

Philip left, shutting the door. They were left with sounds, the fall of heavy feet, the thud of weight, the scrape of a something against the wall. This time the mater did not ask her carriers to be careful of the wallpaper. As Hannah had accompanied her on the previous descent she accompanied her now. When the last door was shut and the ambulance had started with a dreadful belch, they could hear Hannah's sniffling ascent. Without ceremony she burst in, sitting down with a thud.

“She's gone,” she quavered in old despair. Her face was a riverbed for tears, running criss-cross, diverted by wrinkles. In a little time she looked sodden; as if crying with her whole body she damped her clothes. They did not have the heart to disturb her, and Mary Immaculate knew there was no comfort to bridge the years of dislike. Felice became practical.

“Hannah, I expect Lady Fitz Henry will want some things packed for the hospital. Find a suit-case and put in all her toilet articles, nightdresses, bedjackets and whatever you think necessary.”

Occupation was a challenge. Hannah rose, sniffing her way out. “All right, Mrs. Dave, all right.”

“And, David dear,” said Felice with a soothing firmness, “you must ring for a taxi. In spite of Philip you're the eldest son, and it's grossly unfair to keep you away.”

Mary Immaculate became defensive.

“It's for his own sake, Felice.”

A brief glance acknowledged the fact but she answered quickly. “That's just the point. Phil must not be left alone, David.”

Her decisive voice shattered her husband's indrawn state.

“What did you say?” he asked as if he had missed an important direction.

“Come, dear,” she urged, “you must have some dinner first.”

He stood up obediently. “Yes, dinner,” he muttered. “Like France, bully-beef when your brothers—funny, isn't it?”

“No,” she said normally. “It's natural.”

The girl was left alone, leaning against a window squared in dim light. The wind spoke of violence, but she knew its voices were impersonal. The soul must stand four-square to them or it would cower in fear. She went back to those cold dying days in the woods, remembering that nature was not hostile if one went with it. Unnecessary to wonder if the mater would be staunch. She was not the structure to be licked off like flotsam. If the storm screeched with her passing, it would carry her to a lee-tide. The girl shivered suddenly. “God,” she prayed from some savage memory of the Cove, “spare her the death-rattle.”