Cold Pastoral

by Margaret Duley

  “Shut up!” said Philip vigorously. “It was a perfectly natural act of a child who’s seen maimed creatures—”

  “And I’m sure I saw whiskers, too,” interrupted David, intent on his picture. “Knowing her, I hardly expected fear of a mouse, but I didn’t anticipate anything quite so nerveless—”

  “In her world she couldn’t afford nerves. She’s not a product of people who pay three guineas a time to discuss childish shocks—”

  “The robbers,” said David lazily. “Felice paid a hundred guineas to get cured of claustrophobia under trees. That’s why I can’t afford my own phobias. I’m sure I was born with one skin too little. I was excoriated in the fire of ’92, or was it ’46? Hannah will tell me. It left me with spiritual haemophilia. I’m a bleeder over life’s agonies. It comes from a long line of spirits born to the purple—”

  “You’re a fool,” said Philip amiably. “It comes from a line of time-wasters. That’s a better diagnosis for your purple spirit—”

  “You can go, Phil,” said David, closing his eyes. “I’m unhappy because Mary is so brave and you’re so sensible. You’re excused to operate on any of God’s creatures you find at large.”

  A long drowsy silence was shattered by the rush of Mary Immaculate’s feet and the wild joy of her voice.

  “Philip, David, look at me!”

  The brothers sat up.

  “Good gracious, darling,” said David, blinking, “you’re very bare and beautiful!”

  “Yes, aren’t I?” she agreed, strutting in front of them both.

  There was something in the childish parade of her body that gave the men the consciousness that might have been hers. She was too tender with adolescence, easing childhood away. Felice had brought her a bathing-suit like a green sheath, with sandals, and a towellingcape being twirled in the air. Her head was enclosed in a helmet outlining the neat skull, while legs and thighs shimmered with a white bloom.

  “My back is bare, too,” she said, craning her head over her shoulder to see the extent of her nudity. The brothers had the full benefit of the milky skin, narrow hips and tender curves showing barely perceptible womanhood. In her green-and-white, she suggested a flower springing from the earth.

  Felice followed more decorously, wrapped in a cape. Her legs were frail and she stripped meagrely, but she had no consciousness. Being David’s wife had removed all inferiority.

  “We’re going bathing, David. I’m so glad Rufus came back. I did think when I had him vetted he would stop eating the birds.”

  “Not exactly the same instinct, dear,” smiled David, looking at the shimmer of Mary Immaculate’s legs.

  “Is it wise to go bathing, Felice, right off the ocean?” cautioned Philip. “Mary—”

  “Why not, Phil? We had a good crossing and I feel very fit.”

  “Oh, don’t stop us, Philip. I’m dying to feel the water. I’m sure it will blue me.”

  “Pagan,” grinned David, rising from his chair. “Let’s go to the look-out, Phil, and watch them, unless you’d like to go in yourself.”

  “I’m afraid I feel drowsy and the cold water will wake me up.”

  “The North Atlantic!” said David with a shiver. “Only these fat women can bear it. Run off, children! The old men will sit and watch Helen pass by.”

  “Who’s she, David?” asked the child, running by his side.

  “None of your business,” he said with a charming smile.

  “Rude, David,” she grinned.

  Outside on the bank David subsided on the seat against the fence.

  “Can you swim, Mary?”

  “I expect so, David,” she said, looking down on the bathers. “Come on, Felice.”

  Every step down the hazardous stairs was a joyous bound.

  “Take care, Mary,” commanded Philip.

  The laugh that floated back went out to sea again like a bell of youth.

  “Yes, Philip,” she called with vocal co-operation

  His eyes watched her headlong descent until she gained the beach.

  “I know how Faust felt,” sighed David from his choice of idleness. “When I look at her I feel nothing can replace youth, living and loving, and being in tune with nature. She makes me feel jaded and conscious of my age. I doubt very much if she’ll attract much physical love from men. She’s too tall and white, and too much like cold dew. I can see her twenty, thirty, forty, still with that dryad look. It won’t be sustained on virginity, either; it has a deeper quality, something from green fields and cold snows. Men will be conscious of smuts and luxuriate in an altar. Even if she had the fabric of a courtesan she’d find it hard to seduce. To a man it would be like defiling white samite. I—”

  “Damn it all,” exploded Philip, “you’re talking of a child! it’s, It’s—”

  “The simple truth,” said David, unrepentant. “Other men will recognise the quality that compelled the first uncalculated action of your life. I’ve no manners, phil! What do you feel about her?”

  Protected from the sun by his glasses, David gazed searchingly at his brother. Like his mother, the pupil and iris of his eyes merged into one. Philip’s eyes were wide and clear, and a more definite brown. They came back from the sea to endure his brother’s scrutiny.

  “If you must know, damn you,” he said with concentrated sincerity, “Iwish it was her eighteenth birthday today, and I’d make her marry me before she realised there was another man in the world.”

  “Now that,” said David humorously, “is what I call an answer. No evasion—”

  philip’s short laugh stopped him.

  “What would be the good of evasion? You’d only ask me again.”

  “I think I would,” David admitted, gazing at Philip with concern. “I love Mary myself, but she’s more important when she affects you and Mater. Isn’t it dangerous to indulge that one-minded way? Why not go out more and let yourself go? Now that you’re established, you’ve more leisure. Some other interest might claim you. I see lots of flaming youth around.”

  “It can flame without me,” said Philip decisively. “I happen to know what I want. Mater’s comfort, the preservation of the Place and Mary! My leisure will go to her. This winter I’m going to flood the tennis-court and make a rink. I’ll teach her to waltz—”

  “Why not take her to the rinks?”

  “Too many people and we’d be too far away from Mater. I think she knows how I feel, and in return no hand-picked companion could be better. If Mater is going to miss her, I won’t send her to school in England.”

  “My dear Phil! Would you deny her normal advantages—”

  “Normal advantages are here for her, Dave. I don’t want her to go myself. She’s so much to come home to; so happy and sweet-tempered, so full of conversation—”

  “I know,” said David quickly, realising the emptiness of his brother’s emotional life. At thirty his knowledge of women was entirely clinical! Idealisation was dangerous allied to the uncertain returns from a beautiful unusual child. In inner disquietude David searched for the white helmet capping Philip’s child. Felice was swimming away while Mary stood still, watching bathers enter and leave the sea. She seemed to turn more towards those who plunged forward in the icy blue. Suddenly she ran down the grey stones, throwing herself in the water with a luxury of immersion. The impetus of a long, springing motion took her far out on the shining sea.

  “She can swim, then,” said David absently. “My God, can she? Philip!”

  His brother wheeled round to see white arms sawing the air in wild surprise.

  “God, the little fool!” shouted Philip, leaping towards the steps. “I’m coming, Mary!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

  “She’s drowning!” screamed David to the beach, and answering calls came back with the sound of feet crashing over stones.

  Herd anxiety ran like the throw of a chain.

  “Yes,” said David out loud, “the little fool! Can you swim? I expect so! We’re the fools!”

&
nbsp; Reaching one of the platforms of the crazy wooden steps, he realised the futility of another headlong descent. The sea showed no signs of Mary Immaculate. Sleekly it had closed over her, hiding its secret under an innocent level. Claiming its own, it was not permitted to hold. A strong body shot forward like a projectile, while sun made a glint on a Nordic head. Disappearing, it came up, followed by shoulders churning the water to a maelstrom. The co-operation of life saving was being upset by a wild struggle.

  “God!” said David unhappily.

  A brown arm made a curve in the air and spent its force against the bosom of the sea.

  “God,” said David again, “he’s knocked her out!”

  Peace came back to the water, disturbed only by a swimmer doing a job in a perfect way.

  “He knows how,” said David, addressing a company that was not there. Continuing his descent he saw his wife wringing her hands as she wavered towards her cape. His sensitiveness flinched to see the limp body of Mary Immaculate trailed at the side of a muscular young man. Within his depth he swung her across his chest, carrying her like some sacrificial offering. The downward droop of white arms and legs suggested beauty slain for some palliation.

  Regardless of the fact of being fully dressed, Philip waded into the sea to take his child. Straddling like a colossus, the young man placed her across extended arms. As David trod painfully over the beach, the Nordic head and muscular body sent his mind to the clean modelling of Greek sculpture. The Hermes of Praxiteles was panting just a little as drops ran down his body like liquid diamonds.

  “Sorry, sir, very sorry I had to knock her out, but I think she was surprised and couldn’t realise I was saving her. She got me round the neck. I hated to do it, but it was the only way. I don’t think she was in the water long enough to need artificial respiration, but she’s certainly done in—”

  “Thank you,” muttered Philip, working his hand round to one of the child’s wrists. “I’m a doctor, I—”

  “It was beautifully done without the waste of a second,” said David, more competent in the civilities following a rescue. “Cut along, Phil! I’ll come up later.”

  “Yes, dear,” said Felice, shivering in her cape. “We’ll go! Get his card or something—”

  A glance at the magnificent body rebuked the possibilities of his presenting a club address from a pair of blue shorts. He should have been given garlands or a laurel-wreath she thought vaguely, running after Philip’s wet trouser-legs, speeding up the steps. A dangling white arm made a mute wave towards a rescuer still standing in the water. Blue eyes followed an ascent two things hastened. Philip’s anxiety for his child and an intense desire to hide her from gaping spectators.

  “Phil, take her to David’s room. Mine is all luggage. What can I do? What do you want?”

  “Her pulse is all right,” he called back. “She’s unconscious from the blow. Fetch my bag.”

  When Felice stepped under sloping walls a narrow bed had been stripped of glazed chintz with apple-blossoms patterned on white. Mary Immaculate’s green bathing-suit was lying in a corner, while her prone body was wrapped in a fleecy blanket.

  “Is she all right, Phil? It was an unfortunate present. I didn’t know she couldn’t swim.”

  “I didn’t either,” he said grimly, watching the effect of an aromatic capsule.

  “I should have stayed by her—”

  “Nonsense, Felice, I should have known she couldn’t swim. Run and get dressed like a good girl and telephone Mater, in case she hears of this in an indirect way. Tell her everything is quite all right.”

  “Very well, dear, but you must change yourself. I’ll put out some of David’s things.”

  “It’s too warm to take cold,” he said indifferently.

  “Will you leave her all night, Phil? I’ll have a room prepared—”

  “Impossible,” he said instantly. “I have to get back and I wouldn’t consider letting her stay without me. If she’s not all right David can drive us and I’ll hold her. Of all the most abandoned recklessness!”

  As he spoke the child’s eyelids fluttered, opened, while she stared round the room without focus. Glazed eyes came to rest on Philip, trying to blink him into sight.

  “Take your time, Mary,” he said in the fever-reducing voice she knew so well. “You’ll be all right in a minute.”

  “Philip,” she said restlessly as thought came flooding back, “I thought the sea was my friend, but it didn’t hold me up like it did the others. I went down, down! Water in my nose and mouth! It hurt, terribly! I liked dying in the woods better. It was awful! I didn’t feel brave…”

  She shivered, and Philip became soothing and adequate.

  “You were taken off your guard and you panicked. This time you were well and full of fight. Before, you were weak and depleted—”

  He stopped as if he hated the subject himself. Then he gathered up the blanket-cocoon with an intensification of possession.

  “It’s over, thank God,” he muttered.

  Felice tiptoed to the door as if the occasion demanded muted feet.

  “I’ll get dressed and come back. Don’t forget your wet feet, Phil.”

  Mary Immaculate flung back her head for bigger and better breath.

  “I hated it,” she said restlessly. “I came up and felt the sun hot on my face. I went down—I felt—I’ll never know how I felt. It must be the difference in summer-dying—”

  “Oh, stop, Mary! Don’t dwell on it. You’re safe now.”

  With an unreserved face and body she crowded against him. He was safety, sanctuary, and in the core of her shattered being she was awed at the miracle of natural breath.

  “The men in the Cove who die that way? There were so many. It’s not a pleasant death, Philip—”

  “Why do you do such reckless things?” he said sternly.

  She went still, feeling the hum of the natural day. It included his anger for her misdeeds.

  “Are you very cross with me?” she asked with a desperate cling to his neck.

  Her dependence ousted any mental attitude he might have. The bones were shaken out of him, and his voice became full and indulgent.

  “No, I’m not cross. I know I was angry the day you went for that walk, but tell me why…?”

  “I’m so mean,” she sighed. “I’ve got to know what things are like. Today it looked so easy. People dropped into the sea and went forward in that lovely long way. I thought I could do it, too.”

  Surprise and humility over her incapacity made her press her wet head against his face. It seemed to remind him of her mortality.

  “Go to sleep, Mary, and I’ll hold you like I used to in hospital,” he suggested tenderly.

  “Can I learn to swim, Philip?”

  “Won’t you be frightened?”

  “No,” she said, shocked. “I couldn’t bear to stay frightened of the sea.”

  “Yes, I’ll see about it. Relax now and go to sleep.”

  “Felice said you must change your shoes, Philip.”

  A settling of herself precluded any such possibility taking place. She made of his chest and arms a pillow and bed. She closed her eyes pondering on the rude crash that could shatter the core of joy. So many high moments were a tightrope walk! Tim—What would happen to Tim and herself? Nothing, she thought cosily, we’re too nice! Philip surrounded her. She gave a small contented wriggle, causing response from his arms. She seemed to be his patient again, under his control, body and soul. Nice, she thought, with gathering content.

  Downstairs, Felice played a small cottage piano. Knowing that Mary Immaculate was asleep, her long fingers made soothing contact with a slumber-song. At one of the windows Rufus slept in an orange ball. David came through the screen-door, disposing his body in the deepest chair.

  “Darling,” said Felice, twirling round, “you look exhausted.”

  “Done in,” he admitted with a humorous shrug; “it’s the Mad Hatter’s tea-party. I’m too old for such living. Do you think
you could find me a drink? Pour it yourself, dear. I couldn’t trust that Hebe who feeds our stove with dead birds. I’m beginning to question familiar things.”

  “Darling, what nonsense you talk,” she said with palpable affection in her light voice. “Of course I’ll get you a drink.”

  She left with the movements of a person who could walk through rooms without obtrusion. In a short time she was back with a dark-looking drink.

  “Yes,” he admitted, tasting, “you’ve been generous.”

  “We’ll have tea as a chaser, darling,” she said, sitting down beside him. “Who was the romantic rescuer?”

  “I’ve been talking to him ever since, much to the chagrin of a young thing who was swimming with him dressed in lipstick.”

  “Spoilsport, David,” she accused, drawing her slight legs under her body.

  “Not this time, dear. He was lost already, gone in thrall to chivalry and Mary’s legs. He was a charming boy,” he said, smiling over the edge of his tumbler.

  “But who was he, David? Anybody local? He had a very heroic look!”

  “The Senior Service, dear, a naval officer on a sloop in town. I asked him up for a drink, but Miss Lipstick put her foot down. We made rendezvous for London; Naval and Military. I’m glad he didn’t come up. If we presented him to Mary he might go to her disturbing little head. How is she and where’s Phil? Doing his best bedside?”

  “He is, on our bed, with the child cuddled in his arms, sound asleep. I peeped in, but he was getting on nicely without me.”

  David almost groaned. “What do you think of it, Felice?”

  “I haven’t had much time for thought. I was surprised to see Phil looking so youthful and well. He’s been so staid…”

  “There you are,” said David disconsolately, “agreeing with me when I wanted you to say I was in my dotage. It’s a case of belated adolescence! Just when Father died he would have been young and romantic over a child Mary’s age. Now he’s upstairs getting pins and needles in his arms, a definite indication of his state! Nobody but a boy could endure pins and needles and like it.”

  “Poor Phil,” she said sympathetically, “he’s an angel! Darling, you’ll have to let it alone, hoping she’ll grow up liking to sleep in his arms. I must admit I wasn’t prepared for such dazzling good looks. She shimmers. Phil worships her, I can see that.”