Cold Pastoral

by Margaret Duley

  “Mornin’, Mrs. Keilly. Ain’t it frozen now?”

  The woman put her bucket on the ground and rested her arms on the glazed pickets of a fence.

  “Fair beautiful it is, Mrs. Houlihan. This child is tryin’ to stay home from school.”

  “You spoil her, Mrs. Keilly, and set her above your boys. And what would she be doin’ home from school? Not working, I’ll be bound!”

  Entranced with a promise of a holiday Mary Immaculate held her tongue. She knew she had a better chance now, since Mrs. Houlihan had criticised her mother. She was right. Josephine answered with a tart edge to her voice.

  “And why shouldn’t she, Mrs. Houlihan? ’Tis little enough childhood we get in these parts. The Lord never sent this day to give to long division. As it is she romps through her lessons. Do her good to take a spell after the winter.”

  “This won’t last,” said the woman gloomily. “After the rain ’twill be pullin’ and haulin’ by night. You’d better run back, Mary, when you see the sky come over.”

  The child looked at the woman with a pity as cold and clear as the ice-stroke of the world. Mrs. Houlihan was the ugliness of the beach destroying the beauty of the land and the sea. Her skin was as grey and mottled as the belly of a cod, and her eyes had the same wet look. Her lips were so intimately withdrawn that she seemed to be sucking them herself. Her arms on the picket fence were as flat as two thin boards. Her bones were immodest, poking through the thinnest coating of skin. Mary Immaculate’s eyes deserted her ugliness, while Josephine answered with the lightheartedness of the day.

  “Land sakes, Mrs. Houlihan, she wouldn’t know the weather till it fell on her.”

  Mrs. Houlihan puckered her toothless mouth and searched her mind for another hindrance. Finding it she shook her head.

  “Those that walk in the woods today will be up to no good. ’Tis a grand day for them to come out.”

  Mary Immaculate scarcely breathed.

  For once Josephine was not dismayed. The day itself was like a Benediction, and she felt as responsive as her daughter. She anwered her neighbour from the sanctuary of her faith.

  “And what do you think I’ve had my doors and windows blessed for, Mrs. Houlihan? Those that leave my house rightly come home again. I see to that.”

  Her mother saw to that!

  Mary Immaculate stepped stealthily ahead from under her eyes.

  Adventure shouted in the air. It was a hair-breadth day and she knew it. Tilting her face to the sun, she felt bathed in a golden wash.

  At the same time her body received the tang of the icy world. Ice, heat, diamond-dust snow, blue of the sea and the sky blended tomake a wild alchemy. Every sense was accentuated to a fine awareness. Dazzled eyes saw the world as a dream, nose dilated to invigoration, flesh eased against atmosphere blent of warmth and chill, while parted lips savoured the day in a distillation of taste. A cold clack of voices came from the tops of the trees. The whimpers and the whistles of the branches had changed to a crystal summons.

  Josephine stirred with a long sigh. In spite of the day work had to go on. There would be no fairy appetites returning from the fish-room. Her dishes were waiting! She spoke briskly to her daughter, but for a few more moments the briskness only went into her voice.

  “Well now, Mary Immaculate, as you’ve got a holiday you may as well make use of it. I could idle, myself, and no mistake.”

  Mary Immaculate turned to run into the house to get her outdoor things. In that position she was taken with the strangest moment of her life. When she was free of it her youth and ignorance relegated it to the realm of queer feelings. When years had spun strangely away and she heard her husband talking about the sensation of arrested time her mind took an instant leap to that morning in the Cove. Like Molly Conway’s eyes it could always become a projection on her mind.

  A childish Lot, staring back, she was part of the silver thaw. Frozen on her ice-picket fence Mrs Houlihan’s chin, nose and brow looked as if the fins of a fish had been joined to give her a face. The wood-pile was a stack of glass spruce. Glazed sawdust by the wood-horse made a pool of yellow on the ground. A bit of wire netting had become a frosted cobweb. The snow sloping up behind her mother threw her figure into hard relief. Glass trees tiered up and made an occasional clearing for a house like a coloured box. Somebody had cut the Cove out of ice and stuck it up in front of her eyes. They were all held and clamped to the ground. Even the trees had stopped the dry clack of their stiffened branches.

  Captive as the Cove, Mary Immaculate saw her mother. Her hair was fair and oily round a face scorched from the kitchen stove. Her cheeks were plump and loose, sagging away from bones and muscles. Her lips were soft and open to the air, revealing even teeth needing attention. In the glare of the sun the cavities were black-edged, like the sombre line of a Mass-card. Her body was plump, unconfined in the hips and the bust. Both had the same globe-like lines straining at wool. Above the arms the skin was fine and white, but the hands and wrists that had known constant submergence in pails and dish-pans of water looked swollen and red. Mary Immaculate saw what her life had done to her mother. She was not beautiful! Only her eyes commanded attention. Big and black-lashed they looked down the ravine with the rich brown of molasses. She had been a servant! What did it mean to be a servant? A servant was a creature who did other people’s work. Hewers of wood and drawers of water. Where had she heard that? From Father Melchior when he had told her of the homely honour of work. Work! That was the Cove! Fish from the traps and the trawls, fish from the hook and the line. Bait to follow the seasons! Fish thrown up on the stage-heads, fish with black backs and silver bellies, fish with goggling eyes. Fish slit with knives, and spurting blood and guts! Fish drying on the flakes, and flies buzzing in a horde. Smell wafting to the land, smell penetrating to the groves of spruce and fir!

  Standing like an ice-dream the child was released by her mother’s voice.

  “Stir yourself now and get off, or we’ll both dream the day away.”

  Mary Immaculate moved cautiously, feeling that her mother had not noticed a thing. What strange moment had revealed the Cove like that? When the sun and the day came back to her she cast it away. All the recklessness of youth, childish abandon and intense joy of living went into the hop, skip and a jump she made towards the granite step at the back door.

  Her clothes were on a hook in the kitchen.

  “Mom,” she pleaded, reaching for her woollen cap. “Can I leave off my over-stockings? I’ll run lighter without.”

  “You’ll have to run heavy, then,” answered her mother firmly. “It’s only March. Ne’er cast a clout—”

  “All right, Mom,” she said agreeably, sitting down on the floor and throwing out a knitted stocking that came up to her thighs.

  By the work of her mother’s hands she was the best dressed child in the village. From her neck to her toes, her skin to her coat, she was clothed in wool. The wool was coarse, but the garments were fine and beautifully shaped. Josephine increased and decreased in the right places, and her child’s clothes fitted smoothly. The wool she had knitted could be measured in miles.

  Mary Immaculate dressed with her eye on her mother. Pulling a pair of rubbers on her feet, she looked towards the door and back to her mother again. Josephine’s red arm was raising a kettle from the top of the stove. Steam ran over her face as she poured water into a basin stacked with dirty dishes.

  The ceremony at the door!

  Aloft on its frame rested a narrow shelf bearing a homely altar of the Sacred Heart. In front of the pottery figure stood a tiny lamp with a frosted globe. The tending of this everlasting flame was Josephine’s most holy chore. The last thing at night and the first thing in the morning she creaked on a chair and brought the lamp down to her kitchen table. There it was trimmed, polished and oiled, to burn in odourless devotion. Like a florid vestal she was dedicated to its continuity. When the house rocked like a cradle and whistled in its seams and its sills it seemed as if the tiny lam
p must be hurled to the floor. Josephine knew that it would not! The Sacred Heart held it up better than any law of gravity! In summer it burned in an imperceptible flame, dulled by the sun. Then Mary Immaculate searched the woods for the most delicate flowers and made an offering to the altar. Under the supporting shelf and all round the door ran a row of brass rings, fastened with an occasional nail. These were blessed! Thus at the door of her kitchen Josephine guarded her family. That they should be sure of a safe return it was necessary to make certain observances.

  Mary Immaculate had made them many times a day as long as she could remember. Genuflecting to the Sacred Heart, she would step out, step back and walk freely away in the knowledge of a safe return.

  Mary Immaculate planned things to take her mother out of the room. Through the open door the light was golden and the snow glistened with its diamond shower. One leap and perhaps her mother wouldn’t notice! That seemed impossible. Josephine set the ceremony at the door above the care of their bodies. Delay was necessary.

  “Mom, give me a slice of bread in case I get hungry.”

  “Now, Mary Immaculate, you’re not going to make a day of it. You come back and eat properly. I’m going to make a boiled pudding with lassey sauce.”

  “Nice,” said her daughter appreciatively. “But I’d like the bread just the same.”

  From the steaming pan of dishes Josephine looked at her child. A denial came to her lips and died in the warmth of her love for her child’s face and body. Her white skin, fair hair like a nimbus and eyes shining like agates won her the slice of bread. Stooping under the table she dragged out a tin and cut a large slice of bread, adding a smear of butter. Wrapping it in a bit of brown paper, she gave it to her daughter.

  “There,” she said. “That’ll hold you.” Adding with happy inconsequence, “don’t eat it, now, till you get back, and then you’ll be safer. Be off with you now. You’ll enjoy yourself I’ll be bound. Your face looks that bright.”

  Josephine went back to the table and picked up her dishcloth. Peering round the pan she searched for a piece of soap. Dropping the cloth her hands made a clatter, parting saucers and plates. Not a soapsud appeared on the disturbed water.

  “I declare,” she said impatiently. “This family eats soap, and it’s not from washin’ faces either. Them big galoots…”

  Josephine had disappeared through a door. It was ordained—as irrevocable as the flame at the foot of the Sacred Heart. The soap was kept in the cold front room they never used. More storehouse than anything else, it was packed with boxes and many objects. In the winter it was as cold as the grave and the place for butter and milk and an occasional dish of cream.

  With a step like an inspired spring Mary Immaculate was out the door. She was running down the slope when her mother called her.

  “Mary Immaculate, did you make your bow?”

  “Yes, Mom,” she said with instantaneous assurance.

  “Good-bye then,” said her mother with a cheerful wave of her dish-cloth.

  Mary Immaculate’s smooth rubbers went skating down the slope. With the face of an angel she sang as she went.

  “I’ve got a sin on my soul. I’ve lied as big as a dog. I’ll go and burn in hell fire. The devil’s got horns and a tail. The fairies have little wings. Who’ll chose, who’ll chose? Left hand, right hand…”

  Singing her thoughts and the account of her misdeed she ran to where the river flattened the verge of the ravine. The power of the sun and the run of the undercurrent were breaking the ice on the surface. Small rivulets seeped through cracks, pressing frosty pancakes under water. On the banks, snow crested and curved like waves leaping to meet.

  Mary Immaculate followed the river, running, walking, stepping from side to side and making a short distance a very long way. She idled on an uncovered stone and sat down in the snow to let the sun warm through her clothes. She had the world to herself. The men were on the beach, the women were in their kitchens and the children were in the small schoolhouse. By the grace of God she was out of doors. In an ecstasy of freedom she lay down on her stomach and licked the snow. The feel of it in her warm mouth was like the hot-cold day. Once she tried to pick up the diamond-dust, but the bright specks died under her hand. She took off her cap and raced to the waterfall and saw that the sun had freed it, giving it back to its foam. Down it rushed, boiling from its very first dip over the rocks. Above soared land to the height of the heads. She started to climb, stopping to look at the occasional emergence of a glazed rock. Under glass the iron-stains of granite had a richer gleam. Suddenly she finished her climb with no more hesitation. The sea was blue and far away, while on the land stood forests and forests of crystal trees. Running into them she sped through endless trunks. Sometimes the sun came through and made golden spots on the snow. Even the shadows were full of light, and where the junipers bent and met a slim spruce they made a glittering arch. Deeper and deeper she ran into the crystal forests.

  FOUR

  “TO STARVE IN ICE…AND THERE TO PINE,

  IMMOVABLE, INFIXED AND FROZEN ROUND PERIODS OF

  TIME, THENCE HURRIED BACK TO FIRE.”

  The thaw and the frost fought all day over the captive trees. Burning in the sky the sun travelled to the west, but in spite of warmth the frost watched its image like a petrified narcissus. Baffled in intensity, heat withdrew to the radiation of bright orange colour. The western sky went out, resigning the village to the moon. White and impersonal it saw the trees without desire. The wind rose for a tussle with the stiffened branches, and the sounds that resulted had a dry clack, like moans grown brittle. The sea sobbed on the beach, turning the stones and searching for something it had lost.

  Wrapped in a three-cornered shawl Molly Conway emerged for the first time since winter. She kept shambling to the waterfall and back again, trying to beckon people on. Nobody noticed her. As familiar as the common day she was something to see without sight. The red murk of lanterns moved beside figures trudging up the slopes of the ravine. Reaching the height of the heads they disappeared under the trees. Men, who had not left the valley for many days, commended themselves to God and made a dutiful search for Mary Immaculate. The ghostly light of the moon and shadows glassed by ice made them une

  night was bewitched! Sight turned inwards, calling up ghosts of some icy purgation.

  Josephine’s kitchen was full to overflowing. Women with faces prematurely withered rested drudging hands. Above the oilcloth top of the kitchen table shadows lurked in hollowed eyes.

  In silent meditation under the homely altar Josephine knelt, impervious to her neighbours. One hand clutched her beads, while the other was closed over a Child of Mary medal. Her eyes were glazed on the door. Open, it made a cavern of darkness fading to grey and melting towards the gleam of the moonlit snow. The women let her alone. It was natural to pray at such a time.

  Mrs. Houlihan was leader. Having seen the child go, she had a right to the floor. Her mouth made a home for the blackest shadow. Sibilance from indrawn lips held tones of retribution.

  “I warned her! She can’t say I didn’t warn her! Says I: ‘’Tis a grand day for them to be out.’ Did she heed when I spoke? That she didn’t, neither she nor her Ma! Down she went lickety-split, like the dart of a trout, with her hair flyin’ away from her face. Held, that’s what she is, and they say Molly Conway has come out of her house moanin’ like a loon.”

  “Like unto like,” said Mrs. Walsh accusingly.

  “The child was good to her,” said Mrs. Flynn staunchly. “Perhaps she knows where she’s at.”

  “’Tain’t likely,” sniffed Mrs. Walsh; “with all the sensible ones searchin’, and those stayin’ at home doin’ their bit too. Since I heard she was held I’ve offered St. Anthony a settin’ of eggs to find her. ’Tis a sight to offer.”

  Mrs. Walsh looked challengingly round for equal sacrifice. Mrs. Houlihan’s voice depreciated her offering. “I’d wait, Mrs. Walsh, to see if she’s carried in feet first. ’Tis freezing.’�
��

  The women shivered and bent inwards. All except Mrs. Rolls who sat solid as a boulder, with her clothes shelving down from her neck. Above, her nose and chin elongated to preserve the same line. She was profound, mystic and dirty. Nomatter how much information was imparted she continued destroying the circle. When she was ready she scattered the whispers with a voice that seemed to return from some deep world. Her bass rumble did not disturb her immobility.

  “There I sat last night watching the white clouds sailin’ by, and I was reminded of them that had trod the valley before me. There they are, says I, lyin’ down on their backs with their faces turned up to the same moon, and here am I, above the ground wonderin’ who of us’ll be next—”

  “That’s right, Mrs. Rolls,” whispered Mrs. Flynn.

  “And when I heard the child was gone—”

  “Please God, not gone—”

  “And when I heard the child was gone,” continued Mrs. Rolls with mystical certainty, “I was reminded of my own childhood and the things I learnt in the Reader, and I called up the poem of Lucy Grey—”

  Mrs. Houlihan’s whisper was tart” I don’t hold with poultry, Mrs. Rolls.”

  “Poetry, Mrs. Houlihan,” boomed Mrs. Rolls, making the word sound like a mystery.

  “Poetry, then, or whatever it is. I don’t hold with lookin’ for two words—”

  “That’s right, Mrs. Houlihan,” agreed Mrs. Walsh, “plain speakin’ and sayin’ what—”

  “I was reminded of Lucy Grey! And the sweet face of Lucy Grey—”

  “I remember it, too, Mrs. Rolls,”said Mrs. Costello, rushing in with a sudden memory of the Royal Reader. “‘And the sweet face of Lucy Grey nevermore was seen.’”

  “Hushhhhh,” reproved Mrs. Flynn with a kind look at Josephine. In her wish to show off, Mrs. Costello had recited loudly.

  “When oft she crossed the moor—” boomed Mrs. Rolls.

  Mrs. Houlihan’s whispers gathered contempt. “’Tis not Lucy Grey they’re searching for, Mrs. Rolls, and I never heard of no moor in these parts. ’Tis Mary Immaculate they’re searchin’ for, and no mistake.’’