A Treacherous Country

by K. M. Kruimink

  ‘I do not know. It was foolish of me, I suppose. I was with William O’Riordan, who was acquainted with the horse-seller, and I suppose I was inclined to trust him. I did not think of questioning the proceedings, that is all.’ I took a few halting steps into the shadow of the alley. ‘I was quite glad that somebody was telling me what to do.’

  ‘Come, Gabriel, let us go,’ Jack said. ‘This is not our purpose.’

  I was only too pleased to step back into the light, although the odour of the place had already pasted itself thickly onto my skin.

  ‘And you will come and meet my mother? Come and stay?’ Jack asked me, as we hurried in pursuit of our group.

  ‘You are very kind to invite me, but I should not wish to impose myself on her, if she is not expecting me,’ I said.

  ‘Well—yes, I do not know that she shall be expecting you, but Mrs Heron is coming, for they are of an age, and always liked one another, and it will be no trouble for you to come, too, for she—my mother—likes visitors. Especially visitors from England. You know my father died; you know that he founded the station, and then sold it to Heron, and then died. She has been alone ever since. You have given me the harpoons,’ he said, talking over me a little, for he could see I was making another refusal. ‘Let me offer you this.’ And then, when I was silent, he added, ‘I told Mr Heron you would go with me there,’ and, finally, ‘Where else shall you go?’

  And so I accepted. There was a great comfort in having it settled, and having a place I could go, although I certainly did not know what to expect of Jack’s mother.

  ‘My mother is alone, as well,’ I said.

  ‘Your father also died? I am sorry to hear it.’

  ‘No—he is alive, and they dwell in the same house. But she is quite friendless. Well—she has my brother, Freddie. But he has so little sway over domestic matters.’

  A leaf of news-paper scurried across the street and flattened itself against a lamp-post. A bareheaded woman, her loose red hair pinned by the breeze to the air above her, smiled at me. Oh, dear God, I thought, if only some nice woman would come along, and take me apart, piece by piece, and wrap each limb in pages from the Colonial Times, and put my heart and other organs in her pockets, and pack my body parts in her basket, and take me in all my pieces home and make me into

  jugged man, and serve me to her friends with bread-and-butter!

  ‘You have a faraway look in your eyes,’ said William to me,

  turning to look at us as we drew near our party once again.

  ‘Are you thinking of Mrs Cook?’ asked Mrs Heron. She was setting a good, firm pace, her little boots very deftly avoiding all the most disgusting items upon the ground, her head high and her form neat, in radiant defiance of the slovenly types all around her, like the sublime young individual with the red hair.

  I felt my blood rising and evaporating out of my skin.

  A rat stopped to raise its eyebrows at me.

  After Mamma and I had said goodbye to one another there in her attic-room, I turned away from her to face down the enormous Betty Sikes. This person was occupying the entire doorway, a gladiatorial set to her body, shaking her keys like some crude Christian-slaying weapon in order to hasten me to go, even while blocking my exit. I was compelled—not by Betty, but by some instinct—to look back and ask Mamma, in one of those moments of unreality when I could not quite believe what I was saying, ‘Why did you marry him?’

  ‘I was young, I suppose,’ she said, looking out of the casement. ‘It is nearly thirty years ago now, you know. And I imagine they told me what to do—to marry him. And I did not know him well.’

  ‘He has always been unkind,’ I said.

  Mamma made a quick, dismissive movement with her hands. ‘Not that so much,’ she said. ‘The difficulty is more that he has never understood that I am a person too.’

  We both spoke quite slowly, calmly, in a light and conversational tone. ‘Perhaps we ought to have talked of this sooner,’ I said.

  ‘What good would that have done?’ she asked me.

  I could not answer this. Should she have felt less solitary? Should I? I moved nearer her. Betty Sikes rattled her keys and heaved a great sigh from the doorway. I sat by Mamma on her little wooden bench, deliberately avoiding Betty’s eye. ‘Your life might have been quite different, if you had made a different choice then,’ I said.

  ‘That is true of all our lives, Gabriel,’ she said, still looking away. ‘They might always have been other than they are. It is of no use at all to anybody to regret one’s past decisions.’

  ‘Perhaps it is no use, and yet, it is quite natural to do, when one is—unhappy,’ I said.

  ‘True,’ said she, finally turning her head, with what seemed to be an Herculean effort, to look at me. It was a shock to meet her eyes, as though we had until this point been occupying slightly different planes, and had now, finally, met. ‘You look sad, my darling,’ she said, resting her cold palm against my cheek for a moment.

  I dropped my head and leant forward until I rested against her shoulder. How seldom I was touched by human hand! She smoothed and smoothed my hair, her nervous movements reminding me very much of Freddie.

  ‘Even so, I do not regret it,’ she murmured. ‘For how could I wish my children had never been born?’

  ‘Well, I cannot speak to that, because I do not yet have children,’ I said. ‘Although I am glad to have life. But Father is so … well, I do not like to say it. But he is so very much that way.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mamma. ‘À qui il a été beaucoup donné, il sera beaucoup demandé.’

  I straightened and made a literary sound of concurrence. Mamma knew I had done poorly at French. I suppose once my affectation of understanding may have made her smile, but not that day.

  ‘It is something like: He to whom much is given, expects much,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, that is him.’

  ‘Here is another for you,’ she said. ‘And you must look it up yourself, if you truly cannot understand me, although it is simpler than the first, and so I hope you might: De qui je me fie Dieu me garde.’

  Cook’s was a mean cottage amongst mean cottages, which made nothing of the sunshine, or the huge mountain hulking above us all, or the forest, or the sea—it was a house looking inwards towards itself, turning all other things out. The door was set wide open, for, I conjectured, what little sunlight the rosy dusk might now admit. We had all but Mrs Heron to stoop going in, that we might not hit our heads on the low lintel. Within it was as plain a place as one might imagine, but neatly and cleanly kept, swept and scrubbed. The hearth was the dominating fixture of the room, with a low fire flickering, and a pot hanging from one of two hooks above the flames, a low curl of steam falling from its lip. Before this was a girl seated at her mangle. Our shadows fell across her, but the firelight behind her lit her profile with a gentle brilliance. She sighed, and seemed to say something to herself, shook her head a little, and finally looked up at us. She was a slip of a thing, young, with ancient hands, and not even the faintest hint of the possibility that she might once have smiled, not even as a very little girl, before she knew of the world. Her hair was of no colour at all, and simply took on the colours of whatever was behind her, which, as she looked around at us, was now the fire, and now the brick, and now the raw stone wall. This hair was plaited tightly upon her head, but damp pieces had fallen down, which the baby bundled onto her back caught at. This, I supposed, was Mrs Cook. She turned and turned the handle of her mangle and fed the same red garment through the rollers over and again.

  ‘Please do you step out of the sunlight,’ she said to us. ‘It is better if I can spare the candles.’

  We arranged ourselves here and there from the doorway, and the sun fell across Mrs Cook once more. She winced a little, although it was not bright. Two more little children of indeterminate sex de-congealed themselves from the darkest corner and mutely presented themselves to their mother.

  Mrs Heron stepped forwards, her hu
sband’s letter folded tightly in her hands.

  Mrs Cook glanced at this. ‘I cannot read,’ she said. ‘I have the ability, but not the luxury. Please read it to me.’

  Another woman had slipped into the house behind us. She was somewhat older than Mrs Cook, and wore her hair under a mob cap, her bosom crossed with an apron. No one remarked upon her, so she said, ‘I am a Neighbour,’ and planted herself there in such a way that we understood her presence was Compulsory.

  ‘Do you prefer your good Neighbour to take the children?’ asked Mrs Heron.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mrs Cook. ‘Please, just read it to me.’

  Mrs Heron began:

  Dear Mrs Cook,

  I am writing in order to fulfil a sad duty. I deeply regret to notify you of the accidental Death of your Husband, Edward Cook, which occurred during the diligent performance of his Duties upon the 13th day of July, 1842. I wish to convey my most heartfelt Condolences to you, and to your Family, and to place myself at your service in any matter in which I might be of some assistance.

  Here Mrs Heron paused in order to peer at the young woman. Mrs Heron’s voice had trembled as she read the letter aloud, but Mrs Cook sat on, her hands strong and unwavering in her work. Mrs Heron resumed:

  I will endeavour to describe the Tragic Circumstances of that afternoon, that you might find some peace in the assurance of your late Husband’s excellent conduct, and in the knowledge that those around him did not abandon him, but made an admirable attempt—

  ‘Please stop,’ said Mrs Cook. The young wife—widow—was yet at her work, and gave no sign of having understood what Mrs Heron had read to her, except that copious quantities of Tears were flowing freely from her eyes and falling unchecked down her face. I had the thought that it was quite contrary to her work to be weeping such a flood, for she would soak the cloth.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

  ‘He is with friends, nearby, awaiting your wishes,’ said Mrs Heron.

  ‘Which friends?’

  Mrs Heron gave the names of Mary and the men who remained with Cook’s body.

  ‘I do not know those people.’

  ‘They are friends nevertheless, my dear.’

  Mrs Cook had perhaps not been called Dear for some time, for she now commenced a quite visible battle against more tears. She pressed her face into the crook of her elbow for a moment, her hands slowing in their work.

  ‘You will have to bring him here,’ she told us, her voice muffled in her sleeve. ‘If you would be so kind.’

  ‘Yes, we shall bring him wherever you wish.’

  She sighed and lifted her face to us once more. ‘Yes—here. Bring him here, if you please,’ she said, and then, ‘Did you get the whale?—or was it lost?’

  ‘We brought it in. If you should like, I shall read the rest of the letter to you, for it is not long, and you shall hear exactly what occurred.’

  ‘No—please. No,’ she said, her eyes upon her work. ‘No. Leave the letter with me, please. Please do put it on the table.’

  Mrs Heron did this.

  ‘If you would be so kind,’ said Mrs Cook, ‘perhaps you might tell me in so many words what the letter says.’

  ‘Of course I shall,’ said Mrs Heron. ‘Well, Mrs Cook, it recommends me to you, and introduces me as Mrs Heron, Mr Heron’s wife, and exhorts you to make use of me, and that I will give you what comfort I might. And it introduces Mr O’Riordan and Mr Fox, who are here, and who tried to help preserve your husband’s life. And it describes the Hunt on which Mr Cook died. And it offers Mr Heron’s service, and his profoundest regrets, again, and asks you to please only apply to him for assistance, and he will give it, whatever it might be.’

  Mrs Cook nodded.

  ‘It says that Mr Cook exchanged poetical extracts with another man within the boat, and was in good cheer—’

  ‘No!’ she cried, her face contorted in sudden pain. ‘Stop!’ A trembling came upon her.

  ‘What should you like us to do, my dear Mrs Cook?’ Mrs Heron asked delicately, and edged nearer the girl, without touching her.

  ‘I do not know!’ she said fiercely. And then, ‘What shall I do! Is there a commission?’

  ‘Yes; included in the packet of Wages.’

  ‘And that sum is everything?’

  ‘Yes, that is all Mr Cook was owed, with the addition of—I hope you will forgive—a token sum towards his burial fees, and something for the children.’ In fact, this sum was not at all token, and had been put there by Mr Heron, at the behest of the men, most of whom had taken the decision to give some proportion of their own commissions to the widow.

  Mrs Cook looked at her two elder children. ‘I will never fail them,’ she said.

  ‘I am sure you will not,’ said Mrs Heron, drawing close. She stooped to press Mrs Cook’s hands with her own, that she might stop working, and perhaps to quell the trembling. ‘You strike me as a person of some fortitude.’

  ‘I am paid for this,’ said Mrs Cook, her face white and ghastly, pulling her hands away from Mrs Heron in order that she might gesture at the mangle. The tears had stopped. ‘Pennies.’

  As they conversed, the older child had come to a sad realisation. Its face broke like the cracking of an egg, and it began to cry most forlornly, which set off its younger siblings. Mrs Cook calmly rose and took her mangle and attempted to throw it against the wall, but it was too heavy, and so it merely toppled over with a very dull thud. She seemed that she might be taken by a swoon, for her head drooped on her thin neck, and she staggered dumbly forwards. The Neighbour sailed forth like a great Steamship and caught the young widow and steered her through a little door and into some dark place beyond.

  ‘Now don’t you go tearing at your hair and beating your breast in front of the children,’ the Neighbour was saying. ‘Let us go within, and you may have a good scream, and throw your fists about, but you must be composed when you come out again.’

  Mrs Heron was drawn after them, and silence billowed after her. There was no screaming after all—none that we could hear, in any case. The two children left behind stopped crying and looked up at us, their mouths describing the shapes of Ripples upon the Water when a stone has been cast within, and their cheeks red, and great teardrops yet caught in their lower eyelashes. They looked from one of us to the other, and eventually presented themselves to Jack.

  ‘There was once a king who had an ambitious brother,’ said Jack, as we all stood looking down at the children who looked at us. ‘The king was good and the brother was evil. What do you suppose the brother wanted?’

  ‘To be the new king,’ whispered the elder child, hiccuping through the words.

  ‘Yes, that is correct. The evil brother wished to become the new king. What do you suppose he did?’

  ‘He killed his brother.’

  ‘No—for he was cowardly. Instead, he went into the castle dungeons, and stalked amongst the wretches chained therein, and found the most wretched wretch of all—this wretch was a creeping, cadaverous wretch, who had been sentenced to be chained to the dungeon wall for all his days until his dying breath—and when his dying breath was near, he was to be taken and beheaded—for he was a Murderer. He had hung there upon the dungeon wall for thirteen years and would have hung there for God only knows how much longer had the king’s brother not come upon him. The king’s brother—who was a Duke—had sentenced this Murderer himself, and when he had told the Murderer of his terrible fate, the Murderer had cast himself at the Duke’s feet, and embraced his legs, and begged him for his Freedom, and said he would do anything to serve the Duke, if only he would have mercy. Of course, you and I know that the Duke did not have a merciful bone in his body, but he did have a good Nose for a deal, and when he found the Murderer in the dungeon, half mad with the Torture of Confinement, he said, “My friend, your time has come.” And he leant into the stench of the man and whispered his terrible plot, and put an axe in his hand.

  ‘The King slept with two guards outside his
chambers, but in the peaceful Kingdom, under the auspices of the Good and Gentle King, the guards were entirely unprepared for any kind of incursion, and, when the Murderer came, disguised as a servant, and offered them food and wine, they ate and drank themselves into a stupor.’

  ‘The Murderer had poisoned the wine and food,’ the older child told Jack.

  ‘You may be correct. In any case, the guards were sound asleep, and the Murderer crept past them, and into the King’s bedchamber. The axe was very sharp, and the Murderer leapt upon the King’s chest, and pressed the blade of the axe against his throat, and His Majesty awoke to the terrifying sight of the Murderer’s yellow and rotten teeth bared in a terrible smile down at him!

  ‘“King,” said the Murderer. “I have been sent to kill you, for I have been promised my Freedom. But if you give me something greater, I shall spare you.”

  ‘“What greater thing is there than Freedom?” asked the King.

  ‘“Why, money, of course, and a beautiful wife! Make me a Lord, and give me your daughter to marry, and I shall spare your life.”

  ‘“Yes, in that we are agreed—my child is more precious than Freedom,” said the King. “I will not betray her. You might have riches, but you will never have my daughter.” And so the Murderer chopped off his head.

  ‘It was the Duke’s scheme that the Murderer should chop up the King’s body and feed him to the pigs. So the Murderer took his axe, and hacked the poor King’s body into little pieces, and tied them all up in the blanket. But when he came to pick up the King’s head and put it also in the blanket, it rolled away from him! And the Murderer made to seize it once more, and once more it rolled away! Every attempt the Murderer made to catch the head failed, for every time the head would shake from side to side and roll out of his grasp. The Murderer made a final lunge, and took the head, whose eyes were staring up at him, and it rolled again from side to side, and slipped out of his dreadful hands, and shouted and cried: “Murder! Murder!” And the guards awoke—’