A Fugue in Time

by Rumer Godden

  ‘Dash it all Slater—’ murmurs Lark.

  The Eye and Griselda read: –

  ‘Look,’ said Wilfred, reads the Eye. ‘There is a cocoanut tree; watch me and I shall soon get you something to drink.’ So saying, he climbed up to the tree and drawing his jackknife –

  ‘What is a jackknife?’ asks Roly.

  ‘Listen,’ says the Eye. And drawing his jackknife he skilfully cut down the fruit and threw it to Francis on the beach below.

  And the princess did not sleep a wink, reads Griselda. Not a wink of sleep all night. She tossed and turned and turned and tossed –

  ‘Like this,’ says Freddie lifting and bumping himself up and down on his stool.

  … and she was bruised black and blue all over. And when she got up in the morning she told the Queen she had not closed an eye all night.

  ‘Like this,’ says Freddie. He closes an eye and finds he can only close two, not one by itself.

  ‘Little silly,’ says Lena and she scornfully winks and opens in turn each of her jealous pale-blue eyes. ‘Look Mamma. I can do it,’ says Lena.

  A new voice speaks on the wireless and this is what Verity has been waiting for. ‘… and now Juanita Lopez of Montevideo is going to give birthday greetings to Young Listeners who have birthdays to-day, in England. It is Juanita’s birthday too of course. She is nine years old to-day. Juanita.’

  ‘Hullo everybody,’ says Juanita. ‘This is Juanita Lopez of Montevideo speaking to you in the Young Listeners’ Friendship League. I wish a happy birthday to Alexander Buckland of Br-righton and to Joanna Jayne of Eastbourne who, like me, are nine to-day; to Constance Mary Ponsonby of Willingham who is eight and to Ger-rald and Ger-raldine White of Ang-mer-ring who also are eight; to …’ Verity waits breathlessly while the long long list unfolds.

  That other little boy, dark-faced, in the dark serge sailor suit and black socks and shoes, flies upstairs, up from the hall to the landing, from the landing up the second flight, with a blissful incredulous face.

  ‘Dash it Slater,’ says Lark under her breath. ‘Dash it Slater.’

  The Eye and Griselda read on: –

  Francis responded by taking out his knife …

  ‘Oh I am glad they had one each,’ says Roly. ‘I was afraid Francis wasn’t going to have one.’

  … and opened the luscious white-fleshed nut.

  The Queen was delighted and called everybody in the court to come …

  Elizabeth, watching Griselda’s throat as it rises out of her sapphire-blue dress, gives an enormous yawn.

  … and said to them, ‘This is a real princess.’

  ‘You are getting sleepy,’ says Griselda.

  Roly seems to catch Elizabeth’s yawn.

  ‘You are getting sleepy,’ says the Eye.

  On the wireless Juanita has worked through the names.

  ‘And last of all before we say “Good night”, gr-reetings to Verity Dane of the gr-reat city of London who is seven years old to-day.’

  Verity gives a whoop of joy. ‘You heard Mummie? You heard? That was for me. That was for me.’ It is his first public moment. He, his Me, has been publicly recognized.

  ‘Good night to my fr-riends in England.’

  ‘Good night Juanita and thank you. Now Uncle Billy is going to sing.’

  Elizabeth puts her hand over the lump, the small rounded apple in Griselda’s throat, and holds it. ‘Don’t read. Sing,’ she commands. ‘A song for me, a song for Freddie and one for Lena.’

  ‘And one for Miss Manners,’ says Lena. ‘I think you have forgotten her.’

  A ship a ship a-sailing,

  A-Sailing on the sea …

  sings Uncle Billy, and Griselda might easily sing the same song; she sings it often.

  And oh! it was all laden

  With lovely things for me.

  The sky is dark now outside the window.

  Uncle Billy has a nutty rollicking voice. Verity listens with his chin on the back of the chair; Verity is a solemn little boy with blue eyes and chestnut hair, the colouring of his great-great-uncle Rolls, of Rollo, of Roly, Elizabeth and Griselda. He is a shade darker than they, but then his father is very dark indeed.

  Apples in the cabin,

  And toffees in the hold …

  Again the dark little boy in the dark sailor suit flies upstairs.

  The sails were made of satin,

  The masts were made of gold.

  Griselda’s voice is dreamy, her cheek is on Elizabeth’s head, and Elizabeth’s hand, warm and firm, is on Griselda’s throat. ‘It feels alive, like a bird in my hand, when you sing,’ says Elizabeth.

  ‘It is wrong, very wrong, not to care for your own little children,’ Griselda says long ago. ‘Someday I shall be punished.’

  ‘My darling love!’ the Eye answers her.

  It is another evening but no children have come downstairs. The house is hushed, the servants tread differently, the boys and Selina have been sent hastily away, there is straw down in front of the house in the road. The Eye does not go to the office, he waits awkwardly between the study and the stairs, and Griselda is invisible, shut into the nurseries. Dr Flower’s greys wait twice or even three times a day; they are there now, down in the street below; the knife boy has been sent out to hold them while Dr Flower’s coachman has a mug of porter and a slice of pie in the kitchen.

  ‘Go and lie down,’ says Dr Flower to Griselda. ‘Nurse and I are here. You must get some sleep.’ And he murmurs all the usual murmurs about conserving strength.

  And what shall I do with my strength, asks Griselda, if …?

  She does not ask it aloud. She prefers not to speak to anyone; in fact she finds it impossible. ‘Go and lie down. Sleep.’ Obediently she goes.

  She is very tired. With stiff hands she takes down her hair that feels heavy and dusty on her head; she realizes that she has not taken it down for two days and nights, not since Freddie … but she cannot, will not, think about Freddie. With numb fingers she shakes out her hair; she does not look in the glass but she has an impression of white cheeks and haggard hot blue eyes; that may be from the last time she looked in it, two days ago. She unbuttons her bodice, a velvet one, and there are stains down the front of it, from the milk that Freddie pushed away out of her hand. She steps out of her wide heavy-banded skirt that she has worn trailing because the crinoline bumped against the bed. ‘You hurt my head,’ said a little croaking offended voice. ‘I didn’t mean to. I wouldn’t hurt you my dearest.’ She left off the crinoline, and her rustling taffeta petticoat, now she stands in her plain white underslip and winds the Paisley shawl round her and lies down on the couch and pulls the afghan over her feet. While she is straining, listening for a sound upstairs, she is asleep.

  ‘Griselda. Griselda.’

  It is Dr Flower running down the stairs, his face shocked. ‘Griselda!’

  ‘Doctor!’ The children’s nurse calls him. ‘Doctor! Doctor!’ she screams and comes running after him to the stairs. He stops and turns and she shakes her head and bursts into tears, stifling her mouth with her apron. They both look at Griselda’s door.

  Griselda has heard. Even in her exhausted sleep one sense is awake. She is up and out of the door in her shawl, her hair down, her eyes big with fright. They grow more frightened as she sees the nurse, and Dr Flower comes to her down the stairs. ‘Is she worse?’

  ‘She is dead.’ Dr Flower says it gently, simply and finally.

  ‘But … she was asleep,’ says Griselda. ‘I left her asleep. It was – Freddie who died. That was Freddie,’ she says urgently. ‘That was Freddie. This is Elizabeth.’ She runs past him up the stairs into the nursery.

  Elizabeth’s hand, as Dr Flower lays it down, lies gently on the bed; it is soft and warm, the fingers curled, a sleeping hand. Her face, when he has bent and closed her eyes, is a sleeping face; her hair lies on the pillow naturally, except for the short ends where they have cut it; her lips are red.

  ‘She is asleep,’ s
ays Griselda in a whisper. She touches Elizabeth’s fingers. ‘She is warm.’

  ‘She was a very sick little girl,’ says Dr Flower. ‘Now she can rest.’

  Griselda slowly stands up. She goes slowly to the window.

  In China – in China – when a child dies they take its coat – its coat or a little shoe, some garment, and they run with it out into the street, down the street, everywhere, calling its name. ‘Come back. Come back.’ Before it is too late they call its name … Griselda looks up, above the top branches of the plane-tree to the sky where the day is over, where there are points of stars. ‘Freddie. Elizabeth. Come back. Come back Elizabeth. Elizabeth come back.’

  She begins to weep desperately and painfully. ‘I want John,’ she cries. ‘Oh where is John? I want John. I want John. I want John.’

  Grizel was crying on the landing. She cried more quietly than Griselda, but then she was crying for herself.

  Rolls, as he came out, changed from the dressing-room, heard her and went to her where she stood disconsolately against the window. ‘Why are you crying Grizel?’

  He put his arm round her and, as he touched her, emotion surged up in her and she sobbed out, ‘I love Pax.’

  Rolls’s voice was calm. ‘Is that something to cry for?’

  ‘Yes it is,’ sobbed Grizel fiercely. ‘Now I won’t know a minute’s peace, night or day.’

  ‘Don’t be so old for your age,’ said Rolls. ‘You shouldn’t want peace yet.’

  ‘But I do. I have always wanted to be peaceful and tidy and settled, and if I love Pax I can’t be any of those things,’ wailed Grizel. ‘I can’t arrange anything,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘No, you can’t arrange it,’ agreed Rolls, still calm.

  ‘This hideous hideous war!’

  ‘But that isn’t the war,’ said Rolls reasonably. ‘That is life my dear child, not the war. You can’t arrange life. It doesn’t let you. I tried,’ said Rolls. ‘I failed.’

  Grizel did not answer. At this moment she was interested solely in herself and Pax. ‘I was horrid to Pax just now,’ she cried.

  ‘I expect you were,’ said Rolls. ‘I told you you were a shrew. You are Selina’s niece you know.’

  Don’t keep talking about old people, old people who are dead and gone and useless now. Don’t keep on talking as if this were something to do with them. This is Pax and me. Me! Me! Me! cried Grizel silently.

  ‘Good God my God, must you cry again?’ said Rolls testily. ‘I cheated myself of love. I was a fool. Don’t you be a fool. Be young! Be ardent! And don’t cry! Don’t cry! Don’t cry!’

  Far above the house, into the quiet night, came the sound of an aeroplane. There was no alert. No gunfire. It was a plane, flying alone. And as it came over the house it made a loud droning that filled their ears.

  ‘You see,’ said Grizel.

  ‘Well?’ asked Rolls.

  ‘I can’t endure it,’ said Grizel loudly. ‘Maybe other people can, but I can’t. It is no use, Uncle Rolls. I have quite decided. I am not going to marry Pax.’

  NIGHT

  It is night.

  There is a moon and because there is no reflected dome of light over the city, the moonlight marks it very plainly; it shows, like a map, roofs and domes and spires and the open spaces of parks, and the gleam of the Thames and the lines of the bridges over it.

  The moonlight exposes the whole city to the sky.

  Along the walls and up the stairs of Number 99 Wiltshire Place are gilt sconces for candles. Selina keeps them when she puts in gaslight because to remove them means ruining the paper. They have survived and now candles were burning in them, candles in threes, knots of lambent yellow flames up the staircase wall, along the hall and landing, and in the drawing-room.

  ‘Give them candlelight,’ said the Marchesa. ‘Candles everywhere.’

  There are degrees of candles. In the beginning, in that green far-off time when the house is first taken, the knife boy who sleeps behind the kitchen is given a dip; and the little scullery maid is given another so that she may come down in the dark morning, her face and body stiff with sleep, to start the fires. There are funeral candles of twisted white wax in huge brass candlesticks supplied by the undertaker to stand at the head and foot of the bed; there are the little gay birthday-cake candles blown out by a ring of children’s breaths and there are others, smaller still, shedding their wax quickly on the dark boughs of Christmas trees. There is a candle in the watchman’s lantern that burns slowly through the night. It is just the right length to last it through.

  Griselda often hears the watchman. She often lies awake after her John, tired and healthily satisfied, has fallen asleep. Griselda is glad, happy, that she satisfies him; she is proud of the completeness of her hold on him; and yet, mingled with this and her own joy, and sometimes it is joy though sometimes it is near repulsion, is scorn of John, of the Eye, for being so easily satisfied. You think you have me, Griselda might have said, but you don’t. You only have a part of me and afterwards John I am strangely more inaccessible to you than before.

  She lies awake. She hears the watchman. ‘Ten o’clock. All’s well.’

  She thinks again of travelling. The rivers of China. She sees herself on a river with yellow water between banks of rice-fields where Chinese cultivators and Chinese egrets are at work; the cultivators work at their rice crops, the egrets at catching insects; the cultivators wear blue clothes, great circular straw hats; the egrets wear slim feathers, dazzling white. I am sailing in a junk, says Griselda, but the word junk brings her back abruptly to the bazaar at the Guildhall she is helping with next day. A sigh escapes into the darkness but she makes no movement that would disturb the Eye, wake John beside her. The Eye lies peacefully, sleeping confidently and well. Griselda looks into the darkness. She would like to think of that far river but she thinks instinctively of the near bazaar.

  ‘Eleven o’clock,’ calls the watchman. ‘All’s well.’

  Griselda faints at dinner one night years later. When Dr Flower arrives, he finds the Eye pacing the hall in apprehension and indignation. ‘She has never done such a thing before,’ says the Eye. ‘She has come round but she isn’t herself. She asked me to leave her alone!’

  ‘Hm!’ says Dr Flower. ‘Hmm?’ He looks at the Eye over the wing-tips of his high immaculate starched collar. ‘I think you owe me a glass of port, John, fetching me out at this time of night. Go into the study and I shall join you.’

  Dr Flower goes into the drawing-room. Griselda is lying on a couch, her head turned away, her eyes shut.

  ‘Well Griselda.’

  She does not move. She says with her eyes still shut: ‘They needn’t have sent for you. I am sorry.’

  He sits down by her and feels her pulse. ‘Tell me,’ he says.

  She opens her eyes and tries to smile at him but it is only a bitter little half-smile and it disappears. ‘It is about three months,’ she says. ‘I tried to think it wasn’t true, but you see it is. It will be born at the beginning of December.’

  Dr Flower has never seen Griselda look so plain; she is still wearing black; for three years she has worn black, and in her pallor, with dark liverish patches under her eyes and her hair dulled and heavy, she looks lifeless. He questions her and she sits with her hands clasped tightly so that the knuckles and wrists are white. ‘It will be born in December,’ she says.

  ‘I am glad about it,’ says little Dr Flower. ‘I am glad about it Griselda. It will replace those other two.’

  Freddie and – Elizabeth were people, Griselda cries fiercely, you don’t replace people! But she cries it silently: she does not contradict Dr Flower. She stands up and goes to the fire because she is very cold. ‘Stupid to faint. To bring you out so late,’ she says.

  ‘I am going to take you into the study now,’ says Dr Flower, ‘John has a glass of wine.’

  ‘I don’t want a glass of wine.’ She holds out her hands to the fire and the firelight lights the edges of them and makes
them look sensitive and thin as the electric glow made Pax’s. ‘I don’t think I want to see John just now,’ says Griselda slowly.

  ‘What is it Griselda?’

  ‘Dr Flower, you must have seen hundreds of babies: brought them into the world as you did ours. How can you go on being so hopeful about each one?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Dr Flower. ‘But I am.’

  ‘Are you? Can you be?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Dr Flower. ‘You think that is sentimental, don’t you Griselda?’

  ‘I think it is silly,’ says Griselda. ‘How – funny to be hopeful about Elizabeth and Freddie who promised so much and lived five years and died in pain; about boys who grow up and turn into soldiers and kill other boys and die themselves, wiped out, just when they should have flowered; ‘the flower of English manhood’, that is what they call it, don’t they? About factory children, and those little girls and boys who worked in the mines, those children Lord Ashley fought for; and little girls who grow up into maids and are shut up all their lives to work in a house like this; about their mistresses treading the little treadmill like a squirrel in a cage, round and round so that it will turn round all over again. You must be extraordinarily hopeful Dr Flower.’

  ‘I am,’ says Dr Flower.

  ‘How can you be?’

  ‘Because,’ says Dr Flower firmly, his pink cheeks rising out of his collar-tips above his snow-white stock, his white hair shining, ‘because I believe it will be ultimately just.’

  ‘Just? But it is wickedly unjust.’

  ‘Now, yes. Ultimately not.’

  ‘How could it be? How could it possibly be?’

  ‘It is too giant for us to understand,’ says Dr Flower. ‘But in the end we shall be satisfied.’

  ‘You believe that?’ says Griselda and again she says, ‘How – funny. How separated we all are. You and I, in this room.’ And she says to the fire, ‘I believe in nothing at all’ – and in the same moment she cries, ‘Giant! Yes. It crushes all us little things.’ And then she says clearly and without any drama, ‘This time it is going to kill me.’