Cold Pastoral (4 page)

“Where's that?”

“Olympus was a high mountain with a peak that touched the Heavens. After Venus came down to earth Adonis was killed by a wild boar, and because she loved him so much she changed him into a flower—”

“A cracker-berry?”

“No,” he said smiling, “not a cracker-berry.”

“A scent-bottle?”

“Wait till you're told,” commanded her mother.

“No, Mary, neither of those flowers. It was an anemone, sometimes called a wind-flower.”

“Oh!”she said breathlessly. “A wind-flower! They should grow in the woods, where we've all kinds of wind.”

“But they don't, my child. They're a little too fragile for these parts.
Now
, Mary, I told you that story because I want you to remember that Venus became a patron of commerce, and commerce in your life means your father's fish. For that reason you must try and get in tune with your life, because by and by you'll marry a fisherman, and you wouldn't be any help to him—”

Josephine sighed with relief. The moral at last, though Father Melchior had been a long time getting to it. It seemed to her that he might have got to Benedict's fish without winding his way through a crowd of naked women.

“Can I go?” asked Mary Immaculate, looking at her mother.

“Stay where you are,” her mother commanded.

“No, Josephine, let her go. I know she wants to go berrypicking.”

“And fearful I am for her, Father, when she goes flyin' off. I'd feel safer if she stayed near the beach.”

The Priest knew his people! In his long sojourn he had never been able to eradicate the Celtic folk-lore they mixed so strangely with religion.

“Nonsense, Josephine,” he said perseveringly. “You must not encourage superstition.”

“Superstition, Father!” she said, dropping her knitting in her lap. “Sure, Benedict was held when he went in for a few birds and, beggin' your pardon, Father, there's the living example of Molly Conway.”

The Priest shook his head. “Just a poor village simple, Josephine, stricken at birth by the will of God.”

“It's not what we say,” muttered her mother, unwilling to argue with such authority. “Bless my child, Father, against them that get held.”

The Priest looked at the white-skinned child. With elfish rudeness he saw her dart away, out the door, over the granite slab, over the wood-horse and over the hills to climb Olympus.

Mary Immaculate did not want to be blessed against the fairies! They were her companions, along with the sun, the wind and the sea. Some day when courage was high and her blood ran with exciting daring she was going to defy the ceremony at the door. Then she might have a real adventure!

“…THE FANCIFUL PAGE AND THE
FAIRY-TALE READ BUT IN YOUTH.”

T
hose that get held.

The annals of Celtic folk-lore had dwindled to a fear of the Little People. A life on the fringe of the sea had released them from any identification with fairy dells, forts or grots. Nor were they sure whether fairies were little men with beards or flitting figures in spangled dresses.

Mary Immaculate devised her own lore! Like a person doing research she gathered the stories of the village, making a world around them. Over the hills and away from the sound of the sea the fairies seemed friendly and real. There were many places for them! Secret little groves where the sun shone through in golden chinks, wayward marshes threatening to the feet, and many ponds blowing with sedge and purple weeds. Others were completely covered with heart-shaped lily-pads and white and yellow flowers dreaming in the sun. She could make the fairies hop from pad to pad, tire them out with leapfrog and send them to sleep in the gleaming lilies. There was much to hold her in her strong and vivid world. The sea dominated the life of her people, and the land reflected its mood. It was a bold world with many faces.

Mary Immaculate did not spare the Little People. Her own light body took the variations of weather, and in turn she gave them to the sun, the wind and the sea. Sometimes she saw them with bedraggled dresses, other times frozen and held themselves, in crystal frost. It amused her to think of the fairies being held. Many times she felt cruel towards them and called them out of the trees and flowers. It was exciting to defy them, knowing they could not get her when she was protected by the ceremony at the door. Her knowledge of them as evil agencies had filtered into her mind from conversation with older children. That they might be a threat came as a revelation from a big girl when they were in the woods looking for berries. Running ahead, Mary Immaculate had kicked over a fairy-cap. Large and flat, like the crust of new bread, it lay spilled from its stalk.

“Glory be to God, Mary,” whispered the girl. “What have you done? 'Tis their home you've kicked over. They'll come and get you to-night.”

“Get me?” she questioned with wide yellow eyes.

“Get you,” I said. Say your prayers for sure! They'll come to your bed and spirit you away.”

“When?” she asked, half in terror and desire.

“To-night, and no mistake. There's no savin' you, nohow.”

Mary Immaculate tossed her head and flitted through the woods. Just as well to be killed for a sheep as a lamb! Every fairy-cap and puff-ball she saw she kicked over, daring her goggling companion.

In the night she did not feel so brave. Cowering in bed she pulled the quilt up under her chin. Quietly she lay, with her eyes wide open in the darkened room. Through the uncurtained window the white moon watched her, casting a pool of light on the statue of the Sacred Heart. Back to the outside world it guarded the room from invasion. Only the sound of the sea was let in to speak in its changing voice. For the moment she forgot her danger to hear what the sea had to say. Quiet tonight but longing, crying for something it had not got, sighing against the heads and easing up the beach with a mumble of loose stones. It had to suck most of the time and feel something on its tongue. Green eye, greedy, that was the sea! It held her listening until she remembered she was waiting for the fairies to spirit her away. Would they? Some of the courage of daring days made her wish she could get out of bed and remove the statue of the Sacred Heart. All of Josephine's windows had statues! They were there as a rebuke to lightning and a deflection of every evil. Trusting the Sacred Heart she opened her windows to the night. Having lived in the City, she knew air was the thing for her child. Many times Benedict grumbled against her draughts. “What ails you, woman? Am I cuttin' wood to warm the out-doors?” He could endure the most Arctic blasts when he was on the sea, but inside he liked to be stuffy and fill his lungs with bad air.

The fairies did not get Mary Immaculate that night, though she waited until her eyes stung. She was inclined to praise and blame the Sacred Heart and the Holy Picture on her wall. The pool of moonlight moved from the statue and illuminated the Lord in a long robe, with a crook in his hand and a lamb round his neck. His hands and feet had the marks of nails, and a stray little tree grew close to the hem of his gown. It was pointed like a baby spruce! The picture was named in three languages: “The Good Shepherd”; “
LeBon Patron
”; and “
Der Gute Hirt
.” It was all too much for the Little People! Like a breakwater to the sea Josephine had built up a blessed barricade. Half regretting the fairies' non-appearance, Mary Immaculate knew she must tempt them again. She slept, and her dream was full of spangles and cobwebs, and the tinkle of tiny bells.

Those that were held! There were many tales, and they came to her one by one. Uncle Rich's story was the most interesting because it had happened to him when he was a little boy. It was hard to think of Uncle Rich as a little boy! He seemed older than God, with a white beard that hid the dickey he wore to Mass on Sundays. Held in a wood for a whole day, he couldn't get out until he sat down and remembered the way to freedom. He was held! By making the sign of the Cross and turning his coat inside out he ran home without interference.

Many had known the same experience. Benedict was taken when he was shooting partridge in October. In sight of his camp fire he walked all night without advancing a step. He was slow to remember the sign of the Cross, and knew a growing irritation for the loss of his wood-craft. When he performed the releasing ceremony he walked to his camp in three minutes. That was early in his married life, before he capitulated to Josephine's protecting ceremony at the door. Since then it had become a matter of routine before he left his house.

Molly Conway! She was a stranger tale! Nobody seemed to be sure of her age, even her own people who harboured her in a pink house. She was a deaf mute, strange to look at, with flat feet, a lumpy body and a strange hair-line that left the back of her neck very naked. In summer she wandered unhappily through the valley and in and out of the lanes on the slopes of the ravine. Her appearance was a signal for a wild flight of the children. Mary Immaculate became ashamed of the treatment meted out to her by the village. Even the adults never threw her a kindly word. They had a double dread of her appearance and the thing she represented. A changeling, a substitution, something accomplished by the Little People! For a long time Mary Immaculate was part of the herd, experiencing a real terror as she sped away. One day as she was flying like a hunted deer, her mind spoke to her feet: “Why are you running? I thought you liked the Little People. Stop and see what they did.” She slowed and stopped until she found herself alone in the lane, with Molly Conway coming on. As she approached there came before her the strange wordless sounds that always told her she was near. Feeling her heart rising in her throat, Mary Immaculate knew it was too late to get away. Molly Conway was almost opposite! There she was in a black dress that looked green in the sun, a white apron, shoes like derelict scows and a dusty hat revealing the awful expanse of bare scalp. It was worse than the baldness of old men! That could be smooth and shiny! This was pink and pitted and wrinkled like a prune. Her hands were the same, clasped over her breast. Making low noises in her throat she stopped by the terrified child and the two stared in the strangest regard. Mary Immaculate's fear began to leave her, and in its recession she was conscious of pity and a desire to treat the old woman gently. What could she do? She heard the wordless voice and knew it wasn't hostile! It had the sound of the sea in wistful moods, sad and whimpering at the foot of the heads. She saw the old woman's eyes and knew they were as clean and blue as the wild iris growing on the fringe of the river. Why didn't people know Molly wouldn't hurt a fly? Father Melchior was right. “Hello,” she said, smiling.

The vibrations of a gentle tone brought the changeling's hands in the air like a mute blessing. They ventured as far as the fair head, while her blue eyes explored the effect of her daring. Mary Immaculate stood quite still, waiting for the hands to fall. If they did she knew she could bear it. There were a lot of other things she could like less, such as carrying home a fish from the beach, or separating the skull of a cod's head from its tongue and its jowls. Molly Conway barely touched her! More than that would have been incredible daring for a mute who had walked alone all her life. She seemed in an agony of gratitude.

“Poor thing,” said the child out loud. “Nobody has ever been kind to you. 'Tis a shame.” She smiled, withholding none of her radiant youth.

The returning sounds were full of inarticulate eagerness.

“Wait a minute,” she said eagerly, running up the lane and slipping through a gap to a meadow. Standing by the fence so as not to trample the hay, she reached for a few buttercups, bachelor-buttons and pale magenta clover. Speeding back she offered the small bouquet.

“There,” she said regretfully. “I wish I was in the woods. Do you know about the wild roses there, and the scent-bottles and the maiden's tresses? And there's lots of others I don't know the names of.”

Molly Conway was holding the bouquet as if it were precious ointment.

Mary Immaculate was running through the lanes, waving and looking back.

“Good-bye,” she shrilled, “good-bye.”

As she leaped over the granite slab of her mother's back door she was planning to make her treatment of Molly Conway her first Confession.

“Mom,” she demanded, “tell me about Molly Conway. Everything you know.”

Josephine jumped. “Glory be to God, Mary Immaculate, has she been after you?”

Mary Immaculate was impatient. “No, Mom! I just want to know about her. She's nice.”

“Nice!” screeched Josephine incredulously. She was bleaching flour-sacks and prodding in a saucepan with a bit of stick. Her daughter sat down on the kitchen settle and told her mother about her encounter with the changeling. She had no hesitancy about finding the right words for her feelings.

“Mom, I felt good, as if I'd been blessed. Like it must be when you're absolved. Her eyes are like the blue iris and as gentle as the pictures of the Saints in Heaven.”

“That right?” questioned Josephine, unwilling to warn her daughter against anyone who could make her feel like that.

“Yes, Mom, the Cove doesn't treat her right. Tell me what it really means to be a changeling.”

“It's an elf-child,” said her mother, answering one question.

Mary Immaculate laughed on a wild young note.

“Have sense, Mom,” she said in Benedict's manner. “An elf-child! That would be sure to be pretty. Poor Molly is like a great clodhopper.”

“And
why
is she so queer-looking? For the very reason that we think. And I don't think the fairies are so pretty, neither! That's just your nonsense. 'Tis not superstition, in spite of Father Melchior.”

“Well, what is it then, Mom? Tell me, I'll keep on till you do.”

“That you will,” said Josephine resignedly. “Did you ever give me any peace when you wanted to know anything.”