02 Morning at Jalna (15 page)

“It’s been a jolly good evening, hasn’t it, Gussie? I guess it’s worth a crime or two to have such fun.”

Would he never show sense? Augusta in exasperation took him by the ear and led him to the stairs. He uttered a squeak of protest. The door of the sitting room, already ajar, was pushed open and Philip and Nero stood there.

“What’s this?” demanded Philip.

“I made Ernest some tea,” said Augusta.

“Why are you holding him by the ear?”

“To keep him quiet while we passed your door, Papa.”

“Upon my word, a strange way of keeping a boy quiet, eh, Ernest?”

In two strides Philip was beside them. He took Ernest under the arms, lifted him till their faces were on a level, then kissed him.

“Good night,” he said, “and now off you go.” He bent over Gussie and touched her forehead with his small blond moustache that ended in waxed points. One of these points pricked her on the forehead. “Good girl, Gussie,” he said. He stood with one arm upraised to the hanging oil lamp, waiting till they reached the top of the stairs before turning it out. The light fell softly on his sunburnt fair face, his blue eyes raised toward his children, his hair worn rather long and bleached to straw colour by the picnic sun. Gussie hesitated a moment, looking back at him. It was not often that she felt drawn in affection towards her sire. More often she regarded him dubiously or with a certain apprehension. But now she saw him looking young — young and fair and kindly to his children.

As the hall below was lost in darkness, Augusta and Ernest reached the boys’ bedroom. Nicholas was in bed fast asleep. He had tried to keep awake for them but had not been able to.

“If only he knew,” giggled Ernest, “of all I’ve done, wouldn’t he be envious?”

“You have a queer way of looking at things,” said Augusta. “Have you said your prayers?”

He nodded an affirmative and scrambled into bed. Well, it was not quite a lie. She had not asked if he had said his prayers
tonight
. He would say them snug in bed beside Nicholas, that is, if he could keep awake. Nero had decided that he would like to sleep on the bed with the boys. He scrambled in at their feet, making the mattress groan with his weight.

“Goodnight,” Augusta said and blew out the candle.

She went softly out of the room.

How quiet — how frighteningly quiet and dark it was when she had gone! Ernest snuggled against Nicholas’s back and pressed his ice-cold feet under Nero. Nero uttered a protesting groan and Nicholas began to gabble in his sleep. Ernest tried to remember his prayers but could not for the life of him remember how they began. Well — he would say the hind part and arrive so much sooner at the end. He murmured:

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

In my little bed I lie,

Heavenly Father, hear my cry —

Lord, protect me through the night

And keep me safe till morning light.

He was not sure that he had said it properly. Still, it would do. The apple pie, the cream, the strong tea, lay comfortably in his stomach. His mind was at peace, for he knew what he had to do.

The sound of a whistle came from the hall below. Nero well knew that summons was for him. With a groan he tumbled off the bed and lumbered down the stairs. At the same time Ernest fell fast asleep.

Augusta, in her room, sat by the open window. Her elbow on the sill, she rested her head on her hand. The dove sat drowsy on her shoulder. It had been safe to open the shutters because, while she was with him, he would not fly out, and if he did he would return, as he had done time and again.

She raised her hair from her forehead to let the night air cool it. She had been told, ever since she was little, that night air was bad. It was bad for all ailments and could even cause sickness in the healthy. But there was something in the night which was more in concord with her spirit than was the day. The hemlocks and spruces along the drive were now dense and mysterious. She could picture a horseman, in velvet cloak, wearing a plumed helmet, galloping along the drive. He drew in his horse beneath her window. He raised his arm and she could see the glint of his breastplate beneath his cloak. He lowered his visor and she could see that his face was the face of Guy Lacey. Her head drooped and she closed her eyes.

“My dove — my lovely dove,” she whispered, and the dove made little moaning noises.

“Thou hast dove’s eyes,” she whispered, and the dove pressed his breast to her cheek in an ecstasy of companionship.

When again she opened her eyes, the horseman had vanished. Was that the beat of hooves she heard in the distance? No — it was the sound of the stream, down in the ravine, passing in the cool darkness beneath the rustic bridge. In the mystery of the lawn the young white birch tree stood naked, its narrow golden leaves on the grass like a cast-off garment.

Augusta’s head drooped to the windowsill. The dove, finding it difficult to keep his foothold on her shoulder, moved to the back of her neck. A breeze ruffled her hair. She realized that she was tired and for a while she slept.

When she woke she saw the candle burning low. She thought of the two boys snug in bed. Quickly she drew off her clothes and found her nightdress folded under her pillow. Before putting it on she carried the candle in front of the looking-glass and gazed pensively at her naked reflection in the glass. Why did it interest her so greatly, she wondered.
Whoo-whoo!
cried an owl from the ravine. The dove had been shut in his cage, but at the cry of the owl he raised his head from under his wing and gave an enquiring look towards the ravine.

It seemed no time till the misty morning sunlight shone through the scented boughs of the pines into the room. The days were growing shorter. This, she realized, was a Sunday morning. There would be breakfast, with perhaps ripe pears on the table — one’s best clothes — and then church.

She poured water out of the ewer into the basin, where it fell tinkling with a chill sound. She could hear the boys quarrelling in their room as to whether or not Ernest’s ears should be washed.

“There is sand in your ears. I can see it,” came in Nicholas’s voice.

“My ears are cleaner than yours,” said Ernest. “They are the cleanest ears in the family.”

“Go and tell that to Mamma.”

“All right — I will.”

“What a little liar you are!”

Gussie hurried down the stairs. For some reason she felt light and gay.

Philip and Adeline were already at table eating oatmeal porridge. This had been cooked a solid two hours by Mrs. Coveyduck, till it was of a creamy consistency. A large bowl full of it was placed in front of Philip and he had just given himself a second helping when Augusta entered. She dutifully kissed both parents and, with a look askance at the porridge, said, “Just a tiny bit for me, Papa, please.”

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Philip.

“Nothing, except that I’m not fond of porridge.”

“You’d have a better colour if you ate more porridge. Look at your mother’s complexion.”

“That’s the Irish climate,” said Augusta. “This climate dries you up. Mrs. Coveyduck told me so.” She drew back from the dish of porridge Philip set in front of her. “Oh, Papa,” she protested.

“Eat it up,” he ordered.

Just then the two boys romped into the room.

“Boys!” exclaimed Adeline. “Is that the way to come to breakfast on a Sunday morning?”

“Go straight out,” ordered Philip, “and come in properly or you’ll get no breakfast.”

Subdued, the two slunk out and entered again with decorum.

Adeline said, “If my brothers had come rioting to table at my home in Ireland, my father would have thrown them out on their heads and they would have had no morsel of food.” She sighed deeply, then went on, “Ah, what beautiful manners has my father! The courtesy, the amiability of an Irish gentleman! ’Tis my regret that he does not live nearby for a constant example to you.”

This remark, for some reason, appeared to strike Philip as funny. He laughed silently for some moments. It was fortunate that Mrs. Coveyduck placed a platter of poached eggs on toast in front of him at this juncture.

“I’ll wager,” he said to Ernest, “that you’re hungry for your breakfast. Eat your porridge and you may have a poached egg.”

“I am not hungry,” said the little boy. “I’d rather go to church than eat.”

“Good Lord!” Philip laid down his knife and fork and stared in dismay at his son. “He’ll be wanting to take holy orders next.”

Nicholas said, “He’s been talking in that pious way ever since we got up.”

“Part of the time,” returned Ernest, “we were talking about my ears.”

“He has sand in them,” said Nicholas.

After breakfast Adeline had a critical look at both her sons — made Ernest wash his ears and herself attacked the tangles in Nicholas’s thick wavy hair, which he simply smoothed by running a hairbrush over it.

At last the family were ready for church, and very elegant they looked, Adeline in an immense hooped skirt that caused her to take up room for two in the barouche. Philip drove the spanking pair of bays. The two little boys, in velvet jackets and hats with tassels, were in the driver’s seat with him. Nero ran alongside, Augusta, her long black hair floating, sat with her mother.

The church stood on a small but noticeable eminence and was surrounded by trees that had, during the last three days, become almost bare. Above arched the sky of an amazing blueness, like a southern sea. Against it sailed a great flock of passenger pigeons, as over a sea. Nicholas raised an imaginary gun in his arms, fired imaginary shots.

“I brought down three,” he announced.

Ernest ordinarily would have imitated his brother but instead he walked with dignity up the path toward the church. His Sunday shoes squeaked a little, which pleased him.

A slender young man in naval uniform strode along the path and joined Gussie. Adeline greeted him gaily. She was waiting for Philip who had gone to put the horses and Nero in the shed behind the church. Adeline stood in the churchyard on the plot retained by Philip for the family. It was level and grassy. Not a grave yet. Her mind lightly touched the thought, as something inconceivable, that someday, years distant, the hump of a grave would rise there.

The church bell was ringing.

Augusta found herself walking along the aisle with Guy Lacey. The bell had ceased and now James Wilmott was playing a processional hymn on the organ, she and Guy moving in time with it. His naval cap was carried on his arm, his head was bent a little towards her. She felt almost giddy with the splendour of the moment.

Now her parents and the two small boys were close behind. Guy had disappeared into the Lacey pew. Augusta knelt; the wide brim of her hat, the silky black locks of her hair were a retreat for her. She was neither happy nor sad, but like a dreamer who feels himself to be far removed from reality and asks for nothing but to remain in the magic crystal of his dream.

The sonorous voice of Mr. Pink was now heard. Ernest’s little face, with its sunburned nose, was raised to the face of the rector. He drank in the words.

“I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”

“Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.”

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

Adeline looked down complacently at the bent shoulders of this little son. She whispered, “Take your hand out of your pocket.” She took the hand comfortingly in hers.

The service proceeded.

When it came the time for collecting the offertory Philip slipped out from the pew and joined Thomas Brawn, the miller. They moved up and down the aisles presenting the alms dishes at each pew. Philip watched the members of his own family each lay his contribution on the alms dish. When it came to Ernest, he ceremoniously laid the gold pen there. He then folded his arms with a Napoleonic gesture, and looked his sire squarely in the eye.

Philip and Thomas Brawn marched to the chancel steps and presented the offerings to Mr. Pink.

Mr. Pink grew even pinker than was usual, as he stared, scarcely able to believe his eyes, at the gold pen on the alms dish. Indeed he might have been called Mr. Scarlet at that moment without exaggeration.

Philip Whiteoak’s expression was imperturbable. He looked as though it were quite the usual thing to see a gold pen on the alms dish. He looked as though nothing that might appear on the alms dish would surprise him. When he returned to his seat he cast a repressive look at Nicholas, who was shaking with stifled laughter. On their side of the church there was a stir of wonder. On the other side, there was a straining to see what the wonder was about. The Laceys sat on that side and Augusta was thankful that Guy had not witnessed Ernest’s act. She felt ready to faint from embarrassment.

She could not, however, escape him. In the small crush in the vestibule she felt his breath on her ear.

“What was all the stir about?” he whispered.

“Something on the collection plate,” she was forced to answer.

“Did you put it there?”