Ultima Thule (31 page)

"What's it really mean, Bridget, cranky?" he asked, out of this pain, of the small servant-girl.

And Bridget, who was little more than a child herself, first looked round to make sure that her mistress was not within hearing, then mysteriously put her mouth to his ear and whispered: "It means . . . what your Pa is."

Granny, on whose knee he sat, held him from her for an instant, then snatched him close. "Why bother your little head with such things?"

"I just want to know."

As usual Granny turned to Pauline for aid; and Pauline came over to them and asked "Who's been saying things to you, my dear? Take no notice, Cuffy. Oh, well, it just means . . . different -- yes, that's what it means: different from other people." But he saw her look at Granny and Granny at her; and his piece of cake was extra big that day, and had more currants in it than Luce's.

But a "diffrunt doctor" didn't mean anything at all.

But now you and Luce never stopped running all the way home, and you went a long way round, so as not to have to go down the street where the State School was. And when Papa took you for a walk, you chose the hidjus way at the back. When all the time you might have gone on the real beach, by the real sea.

For what a lovely place this would have been, if it hadn't been for Papa. There wasn't any wattle here to shut your eyes and smell and smell at and you couldn't smell the sun either, like in Barambogie. But the beach and the sea made up for everything. You could have played on the beach till you died. The sand was hot and yellow and so soft that it felt like a silk dress running through your fingers; and there were big shells with the noise of the sea in them, and little ones with edges like teeth; and brown and green and red and pink seaweed; and pools to paddle in; and caves to explore when the tide went out. And soon lots of little boys and girls -- nice ones -- who you could have played with if you had been allowed, came to the seaside, too. But Mamma always said: keep to yourselves. Which meant there was only him and Luce. And then you learned to swim. The bathing-woman said you were a born fish; and you wished you were: then you could have stopped in the water for ever -- and never have needed to go home again -- or for walks with Papa.

Fear. All sorts of fears.

One was, when he lay in bed at night and listened to the wind, which never stopped crying. Mamma said it was because the room was at a corner of the house, and the corner caught the wind; but Bridget said it was dead people: the noise people made when they were dead. "But my little sister Lallie's dead!" "Well, then, it's her you hear." (But Lallie had never cried like that.) But Bridget said it was the voice of her soul in torment, hot in hell; and though he knew this wasn't true, because Lallie was in heaven, he couldn't help thinking about it at night, when he was awake in the dark. Then it did sound like a voice -- lots of voices -- and as if they were crying and sobbing because they were being hurt. Other times it seemed as if the wind was screeching just at him, very angry, and getting angrier and angrier, till he had to sit up in bed and call out (not too loud because of Luce):"Oh! what's the matter?" But it didn't stop: it just went on. And even if you stuffed your fingers in both your ears, you couldn't shut it out; it was too treble. Till you couldn't stand it any longer, and jumped out of your own bed and went to Luce's, and lifted the blankets and got in beside her -- she was always fast asleep -- and held on to her little fat back. And then you went to sleep, too.

But Mamma was cross in the morning when she came in and found you: she said it wasn't nice to sleep two in one bed.

"But you and Papa do!"

"That's quite different. A big double bed."

"Couldn't Luce and me have a double bed, too?"

"Certainly not," said Mamma; and was ashamed of him for being afraid of the dark. Which he wasn't.

Worse still were those nights when he had to lie and think about what was going to happen to them when all their money was done. Mamma didn't know; she often said: "What is to become of us?" And it was Papa's fault.They never ought to have come to live here; they ought to have gone to a place called Narrong, where there was plenty of money; but Papa wouldn't; so now they hadn't enough, and quite soon mightn't have any at all. Perhaps not anything to eat either. His mind threw up a picture of Luce crying for bread, which so moved him that he had to hurry on. Maria's mother had taken in washing. But you couldn't think of Mamma doing that: standing at the tubs and mangling and ironing, and getting scolded if the buttons came off. No, he wouldn't ever let her! He'd hold her hands, so that she couldn't use the soap. Or else he'd pour the water out of the tubs.

But quite the most frightening thing was, when no more money was left, Mamma and Papa might have to go to prison. Once, when he was little, he'd heard them talking about somebody who couldn't pay his debts, and so had cheated people and been put in gaol. And this dim memory returning now to torture him, he rolled and writhed, in one of childhood's hellish agonies. What would he and Luce do? How could they get up in the morning and have breakfast, and know what to put on, or what they were to practise, without Mamma and -- no! just without Mamma. And though he might talk big and say he wouldn't let her be a washerwoman, yet inside him he knew quite well he was only a little boy, and not a bit of use, really. If the sergeant came and said she had to go to prison, nothing he could do would stop her. Oh, Mamma . . . Mamma! She alone, her dear, substantial presence, stood guard between him and his shadowy throng of fears. And now, when he and Lucie raced home hand in hand of an afternoon, their first joint impulse was to make sure of Mamma: to see that she was still there . . . hadn't gone out, or. . . been taken away. Only close up to where she stood, radiating love and safety, a very pillar of strength, was it possible for their fragile minds to sustain, uninjured, the grim tragedy that overhung their home, darkening the air, blotting out the sun, shattering to ruin all accustomed things; in a fashion at once monstrous and incredible.

AS if struck by a beneficent blindness, Mary, alone unseeing, alone unsuspecting, held to her way. And, in excuse of her wilful ignoring of many a half-thought and passing impression, her care to keep these from coming to consciousness, there was this to be said: she knew Richard so well. Who but she had endured, for the better part of a lifetime, his whimsies, his crotchets? When had she ever thought of him, or spoken of him, but as queer, freakish, eccentric? Hence, was it now to be wondered at that, as age crept on and added its quota, his peculiarities should wax rather than wane? The older, the odder seemed but natural to her, who had never looked for anything else.

Meanwhile October passed into November, November into December; and one day -- overnight, as it seemed -- the season was upon them. The houses on either side were full of new faces; there was hardly a spare seat in church on Sunday; you had to wait your turn for a cabin at the baths. And the deck of the little steamer, which came daily, was crowded with lively, white-clad people. Now was the time . . . if ever . . . for Richard's fortunes to turn.

But the days dragged by in the old monotony; not a single new patient knocked at the door. Instead, by the end of the week Mary had definite information that old Barker was being called out again. Yes, people were actually preferring this antediluvian old man to Richard. And could one altogether blame them? Who would want to consult a doctor who went about talking to himself, and without a hat? . . . who omitted to brush his hair or brush the fluff off his coat-collar, and thought nothing of appearing in public with a two-days' growth on his chin? She could imagine landladies and hotel-keepers advising their guests: "Oh, I shouldn't have him, if I were you. Extremely queer! Goes nowhere."

Boarders. It was boarders or nothing now . . . and not a moment to lose either, with a season that lasted for a bare three months. Like the majority of people in Shortlands, she would have to seize the chance and make money while she could, by throwing open her house to strangers. Grimly she tied on her bonnet and went down into the township, to hang out her name and her terms as a boarding-housekeeper; to face the curious looks, the whispers and raised eyebrows: what? . . . the grand Mrs. Mahony? . . . reduced to taking in lodgers? Not till she got home again did she know how high she had carried her head, how rigidly set her jaw, over the taking of this step which would once have seemed like the end of the world to her. But, true to herself, she refused to allow her strength to be sapped by vain regrets. Instead, she turned with stubborn energy to the re- arrangement of her house. If Richard and she moved into the children's bedroom, and the children slept in a small inner room lit by a skylight, she would have two good-sized bedrooms to let, in which she could put up as many as four to five people. At two guineas a head this would bring in ten a week. Ten guineas a week for three months! . . . of which not a penny should pass out of her own hands.

On the day this happened -- and in the swiftness and secrecy of her final decision there was something that resembled a dash of revenge -- on this day, Richard was out as usual all the morning, strolling about on cliffs or beach. And though he came home to dinner, he was in one of his most vacant moods, when he just sat and ate -- ravenously -- noticing nothing of what went on around him. -- But anyhow she would not at this eleventh hour have started to thresh the matter out with him. Better, first to get everything irrevocably fixed and settled.

Perhaps, though, she had a dim foreboding of what awaited her. For the next time he came back he was wider awake, and took in the situation at a glance. And then there was a scene the like of which she had never known. He behaved like a madman, stamping and shouting about the house, abusing her, and frightening the poor children out of their wits. In vain she followed him, reasoning, arguing, throwing his own words in his teeth: had the idea not been his, originally? Besides, what else was left for her to do, with no patients, no money coming in, and old Barker resuming practice? He would not listen. Frenzy seized him at the thought of his threatened privacy: strangers to occupy his bedroom, hang their hats in the passage, go in and out of his front door. Not as long as he lived! "My mother . . . my sisters . . . the old home in Dublin -- they would sooner have starved!" And as he spoke he sent hat and stick flying across the hall table, and the brass card-tray clattering to the floor. He kicked it to one side, and with an equally rough push past Mary, who had stooped to recover it, banged into the surgery and locked the door. And there he remained. She could neither get at him nor get a word out of him.

Late that night the children, their parents' neighbours now, sat miserably huddled up together. Lucie had been fast asleep; but Cuffy had so far only managed to doze uneasily, in this funny room where the window was in the roof instead of the wall: he was quite sure something would look in at him through it, or else fall down on his head. Now they sat and clung to each other, listening . . . listening . . . their little hearts pounding in their chests. "Oh, don't, Papa! Oh, what's he doing to her?" To which Cuffy gave back sturdily: "I don't hear anything, Luce, truly I don't!" "Oh,yes,you do! And now I'll know she go away . . . Mamma will . . . and leave us." "No, she won't. She told me so yesterday -- promised she wouldn't ever!" Though his teeth were chattering with fear.

For Mary had at last reached what seemed the limits of human endurance. After pleading and imploring; after reasoning, as with a little child: after stabbing him with bitter words, and achieving nothing but to tear and wound her own heart, she gave it up, and, turning bodily from him, as she had already turned in mind and deed, she crushed her face into the pillow and gave way, weeping till she could weep no more; as she had not wept since the death of her child. But on this night no loving arms reached out to her, to soothe and console. Richard might have been made of stone: he lay stockstill, unmoved, staring with glassy eyes into the moonlight.

From sheer exhaustion she thought she must have sunk into a momentary unconsciousness; for, coming to with a start, she found the place beside her empty. Throwing back the sheet she jumped to the floor, her temples a-throb, and ran into the hall. There, among the lines and squares of greenish moonshine that filtered through the open doors of the rooms, stood Richard, a tall white figure, just as he had got out of bed. He was at the front door, fingering the lock, plainly on the point of leaving the house. Abominably frightened, but mindful of the sleeping children, she called to him under her breath: "Richard! What are you doing?"

He did not answer: she had to go up to him and shake his arm. "What's the matter? Where are you going?"

"To find peace."

So gaunt and old . . . the ribbed neck and stooping shoulders . . . the poor thin shanks: and once, he, too, had been young, and handsome, and upstanding. As always, did she compare present with past, an immense compassion swept through Mary, driving every smaller, meaner feeling before it. She put out her arms, put them round him, to hold, to protect. "Oh, but not like this . . . and at this hour. Wait till morning. Come back and try to sleep. Come, my dear, come!"

But he resisted her. Only by dint of half pushing, half pulling, did she manage to get him back to bed. He seemed dazed; as if he were moving in a dream. And though, during the hours that followed, she sometimes believed he slept, she herself did not dare to close her eyes, so great was the fright he had given her.

But Mahony slept as little as she did. With his back to her, withdrawn from any chance contact, he merely put into practice an art learned in scores of wakeful nights: that of lying taut as the dead, while the long hours ticked away. Let her think what she chose . . . think him asleep -- or dead . . . as long as she held her cruel tongue. His hatred of her passed imagining: his mind was a seething cauldron of hate and fury. Fury with himself. For he had been within an ace of deliverance, of getting through that door; beyond which lay everything his heart desired: space . . . freedom . . . peace. One and all drenched in the moon's serene light. This light it was that drew him; affecting him as do certain scenes or people which, on seeing them for the first time, you feel you have known long since . . . in dreams, in a dream life. The sea, too, lay without. Seas . . . silvered masses . . . leaping and tumbling under a great round moon. And then, at the last moment, he had been baulked of his freedom by the knowledge that he was grown too tall for the doorway. To pass through it he would have needed to risk knocking his head against the doorpost, or to stoop; and to-night either alternative was beyond him. His poor head felt so queer . . . so queer. Top-heavy, yet weightless as a toy balloon. Already on first laying it down, he had had the old sensation of sinking through the pillow; of falling head-foremost into nothingness. Hence he dared not risk a blow; or the dizzy fit stooping would entail. And so he had been caught and dragged back; made a prisoner of . . . yet once more. But this time should be the last. Revenge! . . . revenge is sweet. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord: I will repay. Fill the house with strangers, would she? -- his house? Cut the ground from under his feet? -- deprive him of his only haven? . . . why! even a rabbit had its burrow. To be without covert; to know no place to creep to for hiding, when the fit, the burning need of escape seized him? -- And then his eyes. What in God's name should he do with his eyes? Strangers at his table? On your p's and q's with strangers; aye, and on the watch, too, lest they should find you out. And for all this he had only Mary to thank -- Mary, who might have been expected to show mercy. She? As well ask blood of a stone. -- And now such a paroxysm of hatred shook him: the outcome, solidified, intensified, of thousands of conflicts; of the ceaseless clash and war of their opposing temperaments: that it was all he could do to master the itch his fingers felt to close round her throat. But he would be even with her yet! . . . somehow . . . somehow . . . though he did not yet know how. But . . . it would have to do with money! For it was money she was after: with her it had always been money, from first to last. What new tricks was she hatching this time? Was it going to cost money to take these lodgers in? Or was she doing it to make money? He was so confused to-night; his poor brain seemed smothered in cobwebs. But it didn't matter, either way would do. As long as he remembered that it had to do with money. And surely, surely, the long night would now soon end, and day break, and he be free to get up and set about what had to be done. (His home, his poor home, his sole refuge . . . eyes. . . greenish eyes in the moonlight, coming towards him, and, most horribly, without any accompanying face.) First, though, he would have to pull himself together to endure in silence, without an answering shriek, the blast of the mill-whistle -- that thrice-accursed, infernal din! Not much more than an hour now, till it was due to sound.