by Jane Gardam
Mrs Marsh was a convert. Her family had been vaguely C of E. She had accepted her husband’s faith after a fervourless girlhood from a mixture of reasons badly thought out. Her mind anyway had been at the time on other matters, for it was Marsh’s solemnity and interest in good that had first excited her—and Marsh so stern and steady and small at home had been such an astonishment in Turner Street. Genesis and Exodus and the prophets thundered in her ears and set up tingling of a different order from any which had threatened their untalkative courtship or their never-discussed and business-like interludes in bed. The eyes of the Saints shone in Turner Street. They smiled at Mrs Marsh admiringly, enviously as she left the hall.
She loved Marsh. She loved him in fact on Sundays more than at any time they had ever been alone. Except for the first time. Had she known it she was like a wife standing by a husband at a football match watching a yelling stranger, deliciously excited to find she shared a bed with a man she hardly knew.
It was her only excitement.
For as a Primal Saint Mrs Marsh knew nothing of football matches, nor cinemas, nor theatres, nor concerts. She could address herself to no painting or graven image or new hat. She couldn’t drink alcohol. She could eat—so long as it was not excessively or with delight, but she must never buy a cigarette, paint her face or improve on God’s ideas for her hair. ‘I am a convert,’ she would often say calmly, knees apart, easy. Only in the smocking on Margaret’s dresses and the flounces on the baby’s cot was there sign of a regression, and Marsh spotting these and surprised that she could not see in them the whiff of sin had prayed sometimes about them. On his short straight-toed walk to the bank and back he sometimes wondered why smocking and flounces were the petty things from the world of the damned she held dear, and let remain. But remain they did.
And so did Lydia.
Before Lydia Mrs Marsh had done without a maid, and no great hardship. Though the house was big it was so bare and tidy it caused nobody much trouble. Marsh had a clean shirt every day which Mrs Marsh slowly and peacefully ironed each evening. His shoes seemed to stay polished and his suits never seemed to need pressing. The cooking he liked was plain, no hobbies sullied the household and the only book left about to gather dust was the front room Bible. Margaret was quiet and good and spent most of her time alone, school friends who were not Primal being discouraged.
And then, with the baby, Lydia was in their midst. There had been some sort of a muddle which Margaret and her mother never fathomed. Some distant Saints in Bishop Auckland had recommended a good girl wanting a place—from a devout family, strong in the faith and a good scrubber—and a week or so later, like a rainbow on the step, had stood Lydia drooping a cigarette and carrying a battered gladstone bag. Mrs Marsh had stood very still and Marsh turned quickly away to his room.
‘Me trunk’s ter foller,’ Lydia had announced, striding in.
‘I think,’ said Mrs Marsh, ‘you will have to take off your—lipstick.’
‘Oke,’ said Lydia lighting another cigarette. ‘Shall I mek tea?’
Mrs Marsh flew to open the kitchen window. ‘Oh—no smoking!’ she said. ‘Didn’t you know—?’
‘Oke,’ said Lydia putting the cigarette out by dropping it in the sink and running the tap on it. ‘Don’t look so scared. I’ll keep it to me room.’
‘We thought—you see, we thought—,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you know? Mr Marsh, and I of course, and the children—we are The Faithful.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ said Lydia. ‘Where d’you keep yer butter?’ She had begun to cut scones. Then she began to butter them thickly and put them on a plate. She had piled them up in a way that looked comforting and caught Margaret’s eye as the kettle began to sing. ‘Int’ they bonny?’ she asked. ‘How about jam?’
Coming into the dining room to remove the empty plates later she had stood for a moment arms akimbo surveying the scene and then as if satisfied began to stack a tray up with dirty dishes. ‘Pass up now, Margaret,’ she had said as if she’d been there for years.
‘Just a moment,’ Marsh had looked at her. ‘Shall we say Grace?’
When she had left the room he had sat staring in front of him.
‘Of course,’ said Elinor Marsh humbly, ‘I know. She will have to go.’
‘Why?’ He lifted neat brows.
‘Well, I thought you’d . . . I mean the henna and . . . ’
‘She has been sent,’ said Marsh. ‘We are to work His will.’
So the bright bird of paradise shone in the bleak house and on Sundays in Turner Street. Arias went up all day at the kitchen sink. When Margaret got in from school there was dripping-toast and sweet tea and the great happy smile and the big square teeth (‘me teeth’s like elephant toes’) and jokes about knickers and men, and a dreadfully sweet smell of orange peach powder. ‘Nip out an’ fetch us ten Goldflakes,’ she’d say, and Margaret adoringly would run. On the second Sunday Marsh prayed for Lydia, by name—Lydia our sister in the Lord—and several of the Saints turned round and smiled at her. She had smiled too and given a sort of royal wave to things temporal and to come, leaning back easily, flexing her feet. Some of the Saints had spontaneously cried out about it, there and then, reminding God that here was matter He ought quickly to be getting to grips with.
And the Saints were quite right, for two Wednesdays later came the first waft of trouble, for as Marsh walked in through his front door at the end of the day his wife hurtled at him from the staircase, her hair on end and her camisole apparent. ‘They’re not back yet. Kenneth, they’re not. They’re not back yet.’
‘Who?’
‘Margaret and Lydia.’
‘Where did they go?’
‘Well—for the treat.’
‘I . . . ’ Stick, grey trilby carefully placed in slot and on hook of hallstand, face examined for signs of disorder in hallstand mirror, gloves slapped twice for dust and placed neatly on hallstand shelf—‘I am not sure what that is?’
‘Oh, Kenneth—it’s Wednesday. Lydia takes Margaret for an outing. For a treat . . . ’
‘Treats. Treats. There is Turner Street.’
‘Oh, Kenneth! Turner Street—she’s a child.’
‘Who is not! “I went with them to the house of God . . . ”’
‘Kenneth!’
‘“—with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holiday”.’
‘But you agreed. You agreed. You remember. Each Wednesday. They’ve been gone since before two. It’s long past six.’
‘Well, where did they go?’
‘To Eastkirk. I think they always go to Eastkirk.’
‘Why Eastkirk?’
‘Well, the—seaside.’
‘The same sea stands at this front door. Across the promenade.’
‘Yes, but a train ride . . . ’
‘They spend good money.’
‘Perfectly straightforward money,’ she said flushing. ‘Like any other. A shilling or so.’
‘A shilling or so!’
‘But, Kenneth, listen. They’re not here. They’re not back. They know to be back by five to start the tea.’
‘It is precisely ten past six and you are in this state!’
‘But there aren’t many trains. And Kenneth—I’m afraid. I’m afraid about Lydia. Who is she? Who is she anyway? We should never have kept her. She was sent by mistake.’
‘She was sent,’ said Marsh. ‘She is in God’s path.’
‘It’s Margaret I’m thinking of.’
‘Margaret is in God’s path already.’
‘It doesn’t matter whose path she’s in if Lydia’s a kidnapper.’
‘Think what you say please.’ His moustache had never looked more tidy, his little neck more tense. There was a gleam about him. She thought, ‘He’s happy. He likes it. He’s got a chance to show how God’s in his pocket.’ Even while she thought it he put a hand in his pocket and brought out a perfectly square and shiny white handkerchief and shook it out and placed his
nose in the centre of the middle crease. He blew into it then whisked the handkerchief about his nostrils. ‘The goodness of God endureth continually,’ he said, reporting.
‘I think what I say,’ she said, ‘I do think what I say. I think about Margaret and you think about her—Lydia.’
‘Naturally I think about Lydia. I believe that Lydia will be saved.’
‘You never think about Margaret.’
‘This is rubbish.’
‘You never have thought about Margaret. Or about me. Or the baby. You just pray and pray for Lydia. The rest of us . . . How do you know what Lydia is?’
‘I have been shown,’ he said. ‘I have been told what to do for Lydia. I am not in my own hands.’
In the dark, narrow, lino-smelling hall the two stood. They glared and Elinor Marsh thought, ‘This has not happened before,’ and Marsh noted only that a spirit of destructive anxiety had entered his wife and he must pray that she should be restored. ‘We’ll go in to the sitting room,’ he said, ‘and be quiet for a moment.’
‘I’m frightened for Margaret. Lydia’s a whore. You can see she’s a whore. She’s from nowhere. We are mad. Mad to let Margaret . . . ’
‘It has been told me,’ said Marsh, ‘that Lydia has been sent and she is not from nowhere. She is from Bishop Auckland.’
‘And it’s been told me,’ cried his wife in a loud and surprising, rolling rather terrible voice, ‘that she is a bad and dreadful and destructive woman.’
She rushed ahead of him into the sitting room with her hand to her face and butted her head into the corner of an over-stuffed sofa. Marsh following saw Margaret and Lydia through the window coming trailing exhaustedly up to the front door. Margaret had her head down and appeared to be playing rather dismally the game where you avoid the lines on the pavement.
‘You think,’ he said, ‘that God had allowed Margaret to be harmed in some way—spirited off—by Lydia?’
‘I don’t know what I think. I know I’m sounding mad. It’s probably after the baby. It’s just that I’m frightened of Lydia. I think she might . . . ’
‘Not bring Margaret back?’ He watched Lydia and Margaret through the window. Lydia looked back at him steadily.
‘Not just that. I think she might change us. I think she is even changing me already. And I’m wondering what she’s teaching Margaret. I’m frightened, Kenneth.’
The front door opened and Lydia’s laugh could be heard. With a wobbling silly cry Mrs Marsh ran towards it. ‘Oh, they’re back! They’re here!’
‘Stop!’ He caught her wrist.
‘—or we won’t be able to go again,’ Lydia was saying in a familiar and validifying voice. ‘Well, who cares? Hell, we’re late for the bleeding tea.’
‘You hear her! You hear her,’ Elinor said, huge-eyed. ‘So now what do you—?’
‘I hear her,’ he said, ‘I hear the work that is in front of me. But I hear nothing that suggests God’s abandoning of Margaret. She’s safe home.’
‘She’s home. Whether she’s safe . . . ’
She fled, past the two girls in the passage, upstairs to the baby taking it up and rocking it though it was already peacefully settled for the night. Margaret watching her run by thought, ‘She’s silly,’ and at the same time, ‘It’s new. She didn’t notice me.’ Her mother had given no sign of their mutual love, the secret moppings and mowings, the sign language of the bond between them which Mrs Marsh was so determined that the arrival of the baby should not weaken.
A weight lifted from Margaret’s heart. Here might be the beginning of the end of an exhausting contract. Maybe life could soon be ordinary again.
Her father, who never greeted anyone, said, ‘Hullo, Margaret. How was Eastkirk? I suppose you missed the train?’ Certainly he was not looking at her as he said it so much as at the buttons straining across Lydia’s satin blouse. The blouse seemed tighter than ever today. It was thinning under the arms. ‘Good afternoon, Lydia.’
‘We missed the damn train,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you yer teas afore I tek me things off, so don’t fret.’ She had to pass very close to Marsh to get to the kitchen. The hard blue buttons touched his chest. He turned and went quickly out of the house, passing Margaret as if she had vanished and Margaret heard Lydia laughing, just out of sight in the kitchen down the dark passage, and the water drumming into the kettle.
Margaret sat down on the hall chair and soon Lydia began to pass to and fro carrying things—ham, a madeira cake and a plate of tomatoes, handfuls of plates and cups—she was casual about trays. At about the seventh trip she gave a scream and dripped milk on her shoes, seeing Margaret watching her in the shadows.
‘Help—you scared the living . . . ’
Margaret rested her chin in the arc of the walking stick and picked up her father’s gloves.
‘What yer thinking? Come on—let’s hear it then.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Didn’t yer like it? Going off all alone like that. Yer Ma and Pa’d never of let yer go off alone like that. Exploring and that. Had the time o’ yer life.’
‘You wouldn’t have liked it either. If you’d thought.’
‘What yer mean, thought?’
‘You’d stopped thinking. About me. About anyone. You didn’t care where I’d gone as soon as you saw that horrible man.’
‘Horrible man—what horrible man? He weren’t ’orrible. What man?’
‘He was horrible.’
‘Just cos I amuse meself—I don’t have to give you every minute, do I?’
‘No.’
‘Well then.’
‘But couldn’t you see he was horrible?’
‘He wasn’t ’orrible. He was t’gardener. Up at the ’ouse. The mansion. The Hall!’
‘Rolling about,’ said Margaret into the walking stick.
‘What?’
‘Rolling.’ Her face now in the gloves and turned away.
‘You shurrup talking like that.’
‘You were,’ said Margaret. ‘I saw you. When I came down the bank. Him on top. Legs all—white.’
‘Shurrup.’
‘Yes they were—a lot of white legs. All beastly. Yours—big white hams. Dents in. There,’ she screamed.
Lydia ran at Margaret dropping the milk jug and smashing it. ‘Puckered. Puckered big legs,’ yelled Margaret. Milk fountained all over the trilby on the hook down the wall and on to Margaret’s smocked dress, excellent at the back. ‘All clamped together, rolling, rolling, rolling,’ shrieked Margaret. ‘I hate you, filthy Lydia.’ Lydia seized and shook Margaret and began to cry, and up above where Mrs Marsh still dabbed her welling eyes the baby awoke and howled too, and Marsh returning from his steadying brief examination of the sea across the road opened the front door on Lydia with her hands on his daughter’s throat, his wife wailing on the stairs and patting abstractedly at the roaring baby. Standing very still he looked at them all and saw milk on his hat.
He thought, ‘How primitive. How primitive and strong,’ and closed his eyes in prayer to the God of Battles.
5.
Upright on the black and red birds sat Marsh with Lydia alongside and Margaret opposite. The day was as hot—it was the following Wednesday—the train as lumbrous and slow, the sun as brilliant, dimming the pictures on the carriage walls and showing up the whiteness of the dust in the curves of the patterned seats, dust which flew puffily about if you beat at the area around it with the flat of the hand. Margaret had been doing this now and then, and at last rather often, and dust blew up into the bars of sunlight and vibrated there. Lydia and Marsh watched. Slap went Margaret. Everyone watched the dust. Slap went Margaret, harder.
‘That will do, Margaret. Look at your hand. It will be filthy. “Clean hand and pure heart.” Yes?’
Margaret looked at her hand.
‘Yes?’
‘Psalms.’
‘Yes?’
Lydia yawned largely.
‘Twenty-four four,’ said Margaret.
�
��Good girl.’
Lydia drew away into her corner. There was a heaviness in the air. Nobody, to look at the three of them, would have guessed they were observing a treat. ‘More like a bloody funeral outing, tekkin’ flowers to graves an’ that,’ said Lydia to the Eastkirk geraniums as they got out.
‘What was that?’ He had been ahead with the tickets.
‘Nowt.’
They walked to the promenade and Marsh looked about him. ‘And what do you usually do now?’ Lydia wandered away and Margaret went and looked out over the wooden bar that fenced the cliff. Behind them young men were riding bikes in smaller and smaller circles. They wore black suits and long white silk scarves and very shiny short hair. Their half-day. They made a lot of noise in the direction of Lydia as usual. Marsh led her away and Margaret followed. ‘Can we have ices?’ she called.
After thinking about it Marsh bought two very small ice cream cornets and presented them with ceremony. Lydia and Margaret licked unsmiling. In what might have been an attempt to put things right—though in no way interested in why they were wrong—Marsh turned and bought a third ice for himself, but they had run out of cornets and he had to make do with a sandwich. Margaret and Lydia watched his pink tongue sweeping the edges of the wafer to catch the ice cream as it began to ooze in the heat. He managed excellently, his gloves tucked under his arm, but the boys on bikes began to make noises like whooping cough. One quite helpless with laughter fell off.
Shepherding them away from the ungainly sight Marsh asked. ‘Where can we go where it is quiet? Shall we walk in the woods?’