Cold Pastoral

by Margaret Duley

  “It would have been a loss,” he said, smiling at the road.

  “So,” she said with a long sacrificial sigh expressing her cold and hunger, “I put the slice of bread under my feet and lay down. Funny enough, I went straight to sleep. I’ll never forget it when I woke up. The moon was above me all alone in the sky. There wasn’t a star. It was white, awfully white everywhere, and the trees were like ghosts rapping together from a little wind. They sounded more like bones than boughs. It was a glass world, shining in the moonlight. It seemed to get into my head, and when I closed my eyes I saw moons like glass plates. I felt queer, so opened them and ate a bit of my roof. Then I know I saw the Little People, just as I like them, with shiny dresses and silver wings. They danced and danced without a sound and ran up to my feet and back, as long as I watched. It was like a game, and I remembered laughing out loud. Then I went to sleep again, and when I woke it was dull and heavy and all the silver was gone. It felt damp and grey and the sky looked like water. A few snowflakes came down and I thought Mother Holle was making her bed. You know, David, when it snows—”

  “Yes, I know—Grimm!”

  “I tried to get up, but I couldn’t, because the backs of my rubbers were frozen to the ground and I didn’t feel my hands at all. I took off my mitts and I saw my fingers were gone. I knew what to do and I dug them into the roof of my house, and by the middle of the morning they came back. How they tingled, David! It was much worse than the frostbite, so I let them go again. When I woke up I didn’t know whether I had any feet or hands. After that it got mixed and I only knew when it was dark and light. Sometimes I’d be myself and think of Mom home washing dishes and then I’d be seeing the Little People hopping around me. When the snow fell in big flakes I thought it might cover me, but it fell so lightly that I scarcely felt it. I was sure I was the only person left in the world. Everybody had died, and though I felt queer I didn’t feel sick. I thought I had to die, but it was easy and the silence was lovely. When I was free and running round I used to be sorry for the trees and flowers because they had to stay in the same place. But when I was part of the ground I felt part of it, as if I was just another plant or something that was dying to come up again in the spring. The wind used to sing me to sleep, and it was white and cold, and I felt like winter. David,” she almost screamed, looking into his expressive face, “you’ve got a tear in your eye.”

  Without the smallest embarrassment he pulled at the handbrake, stopping by a clump of spruce trees, sheltering a round blue pond.

  “Yes,” he confessed. “I was always an emotional fool.” He extracted a large handkerchief and wiped his glasses, and she thought his eyes looked naked without them.

  “Mary,” he told her in adult language, “people write learned books about the things you’ve said so simply. They exhaust themselves talking about microcosm in relation to macrocosm, which, in simpler form, is man in relation to the great whole—”

  “Talk sense, David,” she said in Benedict’s manner.

  He laughed, starting his car again.

  “You remind me of cold dew, and then…”

  There was silence, while she watched the country with irresponsible eyes. David recalled her again.

  “I suppose there were many materialists who believed nothing but the bare outlines of your adventure.”

  She examined his face and then answered with great illumination, “I suppose you mean the people who said I was cracked.”

  “Probably,” he said with a slight grimace, “though I hate slang from a dryad mouth.”

  The Fitz Henrys were exacting! Tim was the only human who thought she was right as she was. Driving through the country she occupied herself with the making of a man. Philip, David and Tim were shaken up in a bag to make a blend.

  “Mary?”

  “Yes,” she said very politely.

  “Have you told Philip how you felt in the woods?”

  “Of course not,” she said at once.

  “Why?”

  “He doesn’t want to hear.”

  David gave her a very acute sidelong glance.

  “What makes you say that?”

  She hesitated.

  “Tell David,” he said beguilingly.

  Instinct told her what she said would stay with him.

  “Philip,” she said quickly, “is only interested in Mary Fitz Henry.”

  “M’mm,” he said, frowning. “No room for Mary Keilly?”

  “None,” she said lightly, as if it didn’t matter.

  “Do you mind?”

  “No, of course not. Philip is—”

  “I know, darling, like St. Joseph.”

  They both laughed together with sunny mutuality.

  A wide curve brought them in view of the sea. The world fell away in a valley, full of alders and spruce, and a pair of waterfalls frothing as twins. There was enough beach for a whole shore. Descending, the road flattened and rose again to the height of a headland. Then David stopped beside a rustic fence with one row of dark trees. Peering through, she could see a long, low house.

  “This, Mary, is my humble abode.”

  “It’s grand for a cottage,” she said, impressed.

  “A few minor comforts, my dear. Out you get.”

  Through a rustic gate they went up a gravel path ending in a one-storyed garage concealed by a trellis. Morning glory climbed up, straining in the air like young question-marks. The house stood in a big square, sloping to a fence with a gate, opening on the headland. The sea seemed endless, widening away to dim land making a bay.

  “Let’s look at the sea first,” he suggested, walking down the slope. The only garden had been suppressed to herbaceous borders growing at the base of the solid fences. Pale perennials seemed dimmed by a flaunt of peonies.

  Mary Immaculate was running, sniffing and savouring.

  “David, how gorgeous to smell the sea without fish. It gives you a chance to smell the earth, too. I love it. I killed one of Mater’s plants just to get that wet smell.”

  The fact did not seem to depress him. He was smiling at the way her hair blew back from her face. Limping behind, he quoted to her back: “The divine earth sent forth new grass and dewy lotus, crocus and hyacinth!”

  “David,’’ she said reverently, “what lovely things you know!”

  She brought up on her feet, frankly admiring his range. He went ahead, smiling at the sea.

  “I was preparing for you all winter, Mary, by reading how much Greek and Roman poetry is identified with nature. You see, there is a unity. Come on,” he invited, opening the gate.

  With a wild young spurt she rushed through.

  “Stop!” he almost roared.

  She brought up on a brink. Poised on an overhanging bank she saw it fall steeply away. Steps broken by several platforms descended to the beach. Fastened to the fence was a bench built for long-gazing. David sat down, grabbing her with a long arm.

  “You’re a reckless little fool. You nearly went over.”

  “The sea couldn’t drown me,” she said omnipotently. “I was born on it.”

  “It couldn’t wet you either, I suppose?”

  Searching his face, she knew he was more amused than irritated. Her mind leaped ahead to her lunch. He would let her eat with supreme indifference to well-balanced food.

  “David, you’re lovely,” she said from a full heart.

  “Like St. Joseph, I suppose?”

  “No,” she said definitely. “St. Joseph is much more particular.”

  TEN

  “SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER.”

  Her introductions were providential, weighted with cues lending hints of direction. She entered no one’s life unobtrusively. Mild presentations and maidenly shrinkings did not belong to her. Her quality of youth could be piercing, blinding those of “gone by” with the light of “to come”. Her step was impulsive, long and flowing from the hips as if to annihilate distance to many Meccas. Because she was Mary Immaculate of many identifications, her
nose had begun to similize the Fitz Henry nostril. Her blood had been oxygenated at birth. She was born to breathe big.

  Felice arrived at a time when she was unable to meet the boat. Signalled on Sunday morning, Mary Immaculate saw it enter the harbour, on her way to eleven o’clock Mass. There was an interminable sermon, the antithesis of the day.

  Outside summer was in its prime. Inside, sunlight streamed through the stained-glass robes of saints and martyrs. Patches of blood-red, purple and blue coloured the congregation. Muffled through the panes came the sounds of the world. There seemed to be barks, shouts, swishes, and a sense of humanity urged hither and thither. Summer was fugitive, overfull of sea, sky and gourmand youth. As if oppressed with red blood, the priest preached of modesty, virtue, the brevity of bathing-suits and the audacity of shorts.

  When the congregation was unleashed it surged in one leap from the thong of the Mass. Separating herself, Mary Immaculate ran under a stone arch bearing an exalted statue of St. John. When she arrived at the Place she found Felice and David had gone to the cottage.

  Mary Immaculate could regret him as a delightful time-waster, an incessant talker and a frequent playmate, until he went with Philip on the train. He returned just as he left; pale, leisured and full of other conversation. He spoke of sportsmen he had met, flies he had not used, books he intended to read and silvery salmon he had not caught. Philip said nothing, but looked refreshed and well. Lightly bronzed, he unpacked a box of delicately smoked salmon and some fat trout lying in moss. Almost at once he put his holiday behind him in a quick change to the dark clothes of his profession.

  Mary Immaculate’s disappointment was mitigated by Philip’s intention of motoring her to the cottage. It appeared Rufus had not travelled well and needed to be settled at once. Costing three pounds to transport, his appetite had failed and he had refused his first land meal.

  Early afternoon found the mater immovable in a canopied chair on her lawn. The air was drowsy, insects idle and languid in their hum. Philip went without conscience. Feeling the measure of his mother’s content, it bequeathed him his own. Further comfort in the disposal of his patients released him to the enjoyment of Mary Immaculate. Gay in a sprigged dress with a drawstring neck, she sat up with forward-gazing eyes. Lady Fitz Henry was training her to a control of her legs and arms, but she found it impossible to loll. Ease against cushions lessened the scope of vision. Rounding the curve descending to David’s village, the sea appeared blue, green and lucent with copper paths. People bathed or stretched their bodies on smooth grey stones. She felt naked flesh must rise from the sea, stained with colour.

  A dip to sea level, a rise to a headland brought them to David’s cottage. Walking to the front facing the sea, they mounted five steps leading to a verandah. Ignoring the closed front door, Philip pulled a wire screen from floor-length windows.

  “What’s that?” asked Mary Immaculate, stiffening the long lines of her body. Fixed on the step of an exciting interior, she heard the hoarse squawk of some forest creature. Its shrill repeat took her mind off Dutch-blue walls, deep chairs with gay covers.

  “Brute beast!” ejaculated David’s disturbed voice.

  An energetic stamp of a foot evicted a wild ginger streak. Almost unidentifiable in moving colour, it sped between Mary Immaculate’s legs, hurled past Philip, leaving a deposit of hair on his trouser-legs.

  “Good God!” said Philip, startled. “Rufus! His appetite has come back.”

  A light, tortured voice came from the hall.

  “David, David darling, do something! I can’t bear it! Oh, the poor wretched thing, what can I do? Look, look, David, it’s all mangled and its wing is half off. Do something, I implore you, darling.”

  “Do, Felice, what can i do?” David’s voice was full of distaste. Mary Immaculate could feel the unseen repulsion of his nostrils. Identifying the distress of a blackbird, she moved stealthily forward on feet seeming cushioned with animal pads. A backward fling of her hand commanded Philip not to tread on her heels. Magnetism claiming him, he followed on the tips of his toes. Easing through the door like a secret, she took a tortured situation from David and Felice. Either they had too much humanity or too little to forget themselves in action. Seeing it all, Mary Immaculate’s eyes acquired animal glaze. There was a black-haired woman squatting in front of a corner, making ineffectual grabs at something replying in hoarse panic. David was leaning against a newel-post with his lips curled away from his teeth. He looked like Lilas pouring wine.

  “God!” he said in bitter disgust.

  Nervous hands had worried the bird out of a corner. As it hopped across a strip of carpet, it represented the cruelty of nature. Faculty of flight was gone in a wing dragging from a mangled back. Bare of feathers it was raw like slaughtered flesh. The agitation of its plight had entered small bowels emitting a series of watery droppings.

  “Oh, poor thing, poor thing!” wailed Felice in a high, light voice.

  “Shushhh—” breathed Mary Immaculate on long sibilance.

  The bird had gone into another corner, swelling its chest with its bursting heart.

  There was no thud in the way she fell on her knee, and her crawl was predacious, sinuous and slow with patience. Poising in immobility she crouched, gazing at the bird. Seeing the intense yellow of her eyes, David’s shocked sensitiveness expected to see her grow tawny stripes. From Interest and fascination they let her alone; Felice on her haunches, Philip filling the door and David rigid against the newel-post. The bird did not squawk or move. Whether in trust or mesmerism it awaited its fate. Hardly aware that her hand had moved, they saw it enclosing the bird. Falling back on her heels, she stroked the tiny head with the tip of one finger.

  “Poor bird,” she said pitifully, “you can’t live like that. It’s better to die.”

  “Yes, yes,” agreed Felice, crawling forward on her knees. “David dear, you must knock it on the head.”

  “I will not,” said David decisively.

  “Philip will, then,” she said, as if she knew he would accept the hard part.

  “If you say so, Felice,” he agreed, making a forward step.

  Mary Immaculate met his eyes.

  “It will hurt it more if you take it from my hand, Philip. I know what to do. Where’s the kitchen?”

  “There,” said Felice, pointing to a closed door.

  Mary Immaculate was through it while they were collecting themselves. Following, they saw a maid filling a bucket at a sink. The girl was square, fresh and a product of Mary Immaculate’s own world. Understanding the impersonal earth, she moved quickly at the child’s direction.

  “There, miss,” she said, stepping aside.

  A decisive plunge took the bird into water. They did not see it again until she brought it up, bedraggled in feathers parting to show seams of white skin. On the palm of her hand it drooped with slacked neck.

  “Is it quite dead?” she asked, holding it out to Philip.

  “Quite dead,” he said gravely.

  Mary Immaculate had a strange capacity for changing servants into human beings. The maid walked to a stove and raised a damper.

  “Fire is clean, miss,” she said suggestively.

  The child looked at the girl, seeing quiet eyes, and skin with the honey pallor of a Jersey cow.

  “I’m a Catholic, and we don’t cremate.”

  The maid smiled. “There’s no churches in the forests, miss.”

  Mary Immaculate smiled back. “I ought to know that,’’ she said, dropping the bird into the fire.

  Startled elders saw the pair return to the sink, where the child washed her hands as the maid passed a towel.

  “My dear,” said Felice, returning to earth, “how are you? What an introduction! David wrote about you, but he hasn’t described you at all. I’m delighted to see you at last.”

  “Hello!”she said, returning the towel and shaking hands. Looking at Felice, she tried to find an answer to David in his wife. In that capacity she was som
ething of a shock. Balance suggested he should be complemented by a beautiful creature, tall like himself. She was short, meagre, with a long face. When women’s brows were becoming increasingly conspicuous and napes were fully revealed, her head looked hot with a weight of hair. Eyes were green under black brows, and her smile was so wide that no teeth could fill it. In her quick graciousness she bared a generous expanse of gum. Hands were smooth and beautiful, and supple from the wrists. Clothes were well cut, depending on themselves for style.

  “Come out of the kitchen, Mary,” said David flippantly.

  Felice slipped her arm through the child’s, drawing her along. “Let them go, my dear. Come upstairs with me while I unpack. I’m in a disgraceful muddle. I’ve brought you a present—”

  “Me?”said the child excitedly. “How gorgeous! What is it?”

  “Wait and see. If you like it, we might use it. Let the men amuse themselves. We’ll have time for them later.”

  Exuberantly Mary Immaculate mounted white stairs with grassgreen carpet. In her cottage Felice had let herself go with colour as vivid as the shades of a summer world.

  The brothers lounged through the large room, going out through the screen door. Rufus was sitting on the top step, gazing at the sea with round sinless eyes.

  “Murderer!” growled David as he went down the steps. “What did you think of that bit of girlishness, Phil?”

  “The doctor in me gave it full marks,” he answered, seating himself in a canvas chair. Advancing his long legs he relaxed in the sun.

  “Humph!” said David, doing the same thing. “But the man waited for her to hide her pretty head.”

  “I’m not so sure…”

  “Well, I am,” said David convincingly. “I’m shattered by that young thing doing something that would give me the creeps. When she was crawling across the floor I’m sure I saw jungle. I hope to God she won’t change into a leopardess and eat you in your bed. You’d be useless with a—”