Death, My Darling Daughters

by Jonathan Stagge

  “Yes.”

  “Just now Bobby said he was in love with me. Do you suppose he meant it?”

  “Heaven forbid,” I said.

  “Of course he’s awfully young, only eight,” mused my daughter. Then, abandoning further reflection on this delicate subject, she launched once again into her piping rendition of Lorie’s favorite old English ballad:

  “Two, two the lily-white boys,

  Clothed all in green-O.”

  She stopped. “The lily-white boys. Do you suppose that means the White twins, Daddy?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, they are clothed all in green-O today, aren’t they?” Dawn grabbed at a clump of black-eyed susans as we caught up with Renton and Phoebe.

  “Daddy, what happened to the lily-white boys in the song?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I do know what ought to happen to the White boys in real life.”

  “What?”

  “They should be hit on the head and thrown into the Brays’ duckpond.”

  My daughter seemed to find this suggestion infinitely amusing. She giggled and, pushing past Renton and Phoebe with a shocking lapse into babyishness, started to run up the hill, weaving her way through the other guests and chanting:

  “Two, two the horrid White boys,

  Clothed all in green-O.

  Hit them, hit them on the head

  And throw them in the pond-O.”

  “Oh, you naughtiness!” caroled Avril Lane. “What a bad, bad thing to sing.”

  But she didn’t sound as if she meant it. As for the other members of the picnic party, none of them—not even Dr. Jessup—made any comment whatsoever.

  CHAPTER II

  Phoebe’s rebellious impulse to change the location of the picnic did not turn out well. The walk to the rock by the old sawmill was longer, steeper, and rougher than the ingeniously designed path to Ernesta’s barbecue pit. The climb made the Reverend Jessup wheeze and complain of his heart. Avril managed to turn her ankle and slip with little breathless cries into a tiny brook from which she had to be rescued by Caleb and subsequently helped up the hill on his arm—a state of affairs which pleased neither George Raynor, Lorie, nor even Phoebe herself, who, I knew, would stand no nonsense between her beloved son and a woman twenty years his senior.

  And, when we reached the actual spot, it was not as charming as Phoebe’s memory of it. Chokecherry saplings had crept across the clearing, blocking most of the view into the valley. The rock itself was overgrown with yellow fungi; an occasional mosquito whined on the evening air; and Love Drummond, who suffered from rheumatism, found the grass still wet from a recent rainstorm and refused peevishly to sit down until Renton Forbes spread his jacket for her. To add to the general gloom, the ink-blue cloud was infecting the sky with the threat of more rain and accelerating nightfall.

  All these were minor tragedies and could have been glossed over by a modicum of social agility on the part of the hostess, and a little good will on the part of the guests. But Lorie was confused and miserable, and the rest of the party, like revolutionary peasants with no disciplinarian to control them, was disintegrating into a rabble.

  Once again I realized how much Skipton needed Ernesta Bray.

  The only members of the party who were still thoroughly enjoying themselves were the White twins. They had discovered the thick, clammy fungi and, tearing them off the rock, began to pelt each other and everyone else.

  “I’m throwing garbage,” screamed Billy. “Dirty, stinking garbage.”

  “I’m throwing garbage,” echoed Bobby. “Great, fat, dirty, filthy garbage.”

  It was, ironically, Ernesta who saved the day by remote control. When Phoebe and Renton Forbes unpacked the picnic baskets, the sight of a luscious maple walnut layer cake quieted the twins. The Reverend Jessup, whose only lay enthusiasm was food, brightened considerably as he caught a glimpse of a lobster mousse and an avocado salad. Even Love Drummond was lured into forgetting her rheumatism by the jar of caviar, once she had studied its label and made sure that the characters on it were genuinely Russian and that Ernesta had not got away with dyed salmon eggs. With a touch of brilliant intuition, typical of her, Ernesta had also added two quarts of champagne.

  As the champagne circulated, it brought a fictitious gaiety. Dr. Jessup, who made a subtle distinction between spirituous liquors and wines, had a glass and, while the meal was actually in progress, a reasonably good humor prevailed.

  But, unfortunately, the effects of the champagne were cumulative, at least upon Avril Lane. Over the walnut cake, her silvery laughter became progressively more tinkly, her pretty, sidewise glances at Caleb more frequent. Finally, completely abandoning her role of genius in favor of the cozier role of Little Woman, she nestled her head against Caleb’s bare arm and giggled:

  “Oh, Avril, you bad one. I think you’re a little tipsy.”

  To my surprise, Caleb, who, so far as I knew, had always entertained a young contempt for our local lady of letters, seemed affected by the champagne too. He grinned down at Avril intimately and, slipping his arm around her, drew her closer, saying:

  “Make you feel better?”

  As he did so, I noticed that he darted a strange, almost malicious glance at Lorie. I had no idea of what was in his mind, but I was sure that Lorie had, for, although she made a pretense of not noticing him, a deep flush, half of resentment, half of embarrassment, spread from her throat to her face.

  George Raynor was reacting too. There was no anger, however, in the look he threw his wife, only a hurt, dogged bewilderment. Poor George. Probably Avril had explained to him before their marriage that a woman of her exceptional talents was not to be shackled by the vulgar conventions of a bourgeois society.

  Renton Forbes, in an attempt to gloss the situation over, started circulating to pick up the empty plates. He only made matters worse, for when he stooped for Avril’s, she lifted her free arm and drew him down on her other side, caroling:

  “Poor Avril, needs two men to keep her warm.”

  The twins, in appalling imitation, threw themselves at Dawn, nuzzled titteringly on either side of her, and shouted in unison:

  “Dawn needs two men to keep her warm. Dawn needs two men to keep her warm.”

  The situation was becoming unpleasant, and since neither Lorie nor Phoebe seemed able to control it, I suggested to Lorie that she sing.

  Clutching at this straw, Phoebe broke in: “Yes, Lorie dear. Sing for us.”

  “Oh yes,” exclaimed Dawn, ignoring the pawing advances of Bobby White with admirable poise. “Sing ‘Green Grow the Rushes-O.’ Please, Lorie, sing that.”

  Her face still a faint pink, Lorie muttered: “All right. If you really want me to.”

  She crossed to the black case and took out the guitar. The twins, eying it dubiously, suddenly got up together.

  “I don’t wanna hear any old song,” said Billy.

  “Dirty, stinking, fat old song,” added Bobby.

  “I wanna go to the sawmill,” said Billy.

  “I wanna go to the sawmill,” said Bobby.

  They started tearing up the slope into the wood.

  “I’ll saw you into a hundred thousand pieces,” said Bobby.

  “I’ll saw you into a million billion pieces,” said Billy.

  Love Drummond watched them disappear with an expression half of relief, half of apprehension. “I suppose it’s safe, isn’t it, Lorie?”

  “Oh yes, the saw was taken away years ago. There’s just the old building and a big sawdust pile.”

  “Then I won’t have their deaths on my conscience.” Love Drummond yawned. “All right, Lorie. Go ahead and sing your song.”

  Lorie dropped, cross-legged, onto the grass, holding the guitar close to her. In the fading light her thin, delicate face had the lonely beauty of a Pierra della Francesca angel and her platinum hair gleamed almost white. She struck a soft chord on the strings. Something in her stillness and the ripple of the chord caug
ht the attention of the whole group. Everyone stopped talking and shifted slightly and then was very quiet.

  “You sing the questions, Dawn,” she said.

  With a starkly simple chord accompaniment on the guitar, she started to sing. Her voice was small and clear and lovely as her face. It had a magic of its own which conjured up an atmosphere of old, forgotten things.

  “I’ll sing you one-O,

  Green grow the rushes-O.”

  Dawn’s small voice broke in:

  “What is your one-O?”

  Lorie again:

  “One is one

  And all alone

  And ever more shall be-O.”

  The strange ballad moved on. “I’ll sing you two-O.” “I’ll sing you three-O.” “I’ll sing you four-O.” And each time, the answer to the latest question recapitulated all that had gone before. Apart from an occasional muffled shout from the White twins at the sawmill, the whole mountainside seemed silent. The gloom, half storm, half night, deepened over the little clearing. The spindly chokecherry saplings darkened into silhouettes. A small patch of the Konapic River, just visible below, gleamed silver. The faces around me, shadowy and intent, seemed silver too.

  Lorie reached the twelfth and last verse:

  “I’ll sing you twelve-O,

  Green grow the rushes-O.”

  Once again came Dawn’s reedy, insistent question:

  “What is your twelve-O?”

  And Lorie sang:

  “Twelve for the twelve apostles,

  Eleven for the eleven who went to heaven,

  And ten for the ten commandments.

  Nine for the nine bright shiners

  And eight for the April rainers.

  Seven for the seven stars in the sky

  And six for the six proud walkers.

  Five for the symbols at your door

  And four for the gospel makers.

  Three, three the rivals.

  Two, two the lily-white boys,

  Clothed all in green-O.

  One is one

  And all alone

  And ever more shall be-O.”

  There was one last, plangent chord. Lorie put the guitar down.

  For a few seconds no one spoke. Then Caleb pushed himself away from Avril Lane and got up.

  “That song,” he said violently. “I hate it. It always gives me the creeps.”

  “Nonsense, Caleb.” The Reverend Jessup bestirred himself and clucked. “It is a fine old Christian ballad. One of the oldest Christian ballads in existence, I believe.”

  Avril Lane, bereft of Caleb, had decided, apparently, to hold the spotlight with her alternate personality of intellectual and scholar.

  “Oh no, no, Dr. Jessup,” she said in the small, pedantic voice which she used when she was being The Great Writer. “The ballad is not Christian at all. It is ancient, yes. But it is definitely pre-Christian. Some scholars, I believe, trace it back to a Druidical origin. Its sources are quite lost in obscurity, but it is known that the early churchmen in England tried unsuccessfully to adapt it to the uses of the Christian Church. That is why we have the references to the apostles, the commandments, the gospel makers. But those are interpolations of a much later date, a much later date.”

  “Well, I agree with Caleb,” said Love tartly. “It gives me the creeps. The symbols at your door. And the six proud walkers. Who are the six proud walkers?”

  “Nobody knows,” said Avril. “Some scholars have tried to connect them with King Arthur and his henchmen who are sleeping under a mountain in Wales and will one day emerge to liberate the country. But I find this a most unsatisfactory explanation. It may have a Druidical significance, of course, like the two lily-white boys. Every year, at the feast of the Sacred Oaks, you know, the Druids sacrificed a beautiful, redheaded youth as a blood offering and—”

  “Talking about beautiful, redheaded lily-white boys,” broke in Love rudely, “what’s happened to Bobby and Billy?”

  We all listened. The raucous shouts I had heard from the sawmill had stopped. With the spell of the song still on the clearing, the silence seemed faintly ominous.

  George Raynor said rather anxiously: “Perhaps we should go and find them, Miss Drummond, before it gets quite dark.”

  George Raynor was childless himself, a condition, due, no doubt, to his wife’s decision that no domestic responsibilities should curb her free soul. And he was the only person in Skipton who seemed to have the slightest affection for the White twins.

  Love Drummond got up from Renton Forbes’s coat with a sigh. “I suppose you’re right.” She glanced at Dr. Jessup. “You’d better come too, Hilary. They’ve never shown any respect for your cloth yet, but you may be able to help.”

  The three of them disappeared into the woods. We could hear their voices growing fainter as they called: Bobby. Billy. They had been gone several minutes when Renton Forbes, slipping into his jacket, said:

  “Maybe they need help.”

  But before he left the clearing the air was rent with the familiar, jeering yells and Bobby and Billy came tumbling toward us with George Raynor, Love Drummond, and the Reverend Jessup in their wake.

  “We’ve been playing marbles,” announced Billy.

  “Lovely fat red marbles,” announced Bobby. “I licked Billy at marbles.”

  “Didn’t, either.”

  “Did so.”

  “Didn’t, either.”

  “Did so.”

  Billy hurled himself on Renton Forbes, who happened to be nearest, shouting: “I pushed Bobby into the sawdust pile. I killed Bobby deader’n dead.”

  Bobby, more romantic, had scurried to Dawn and, crouching down at her side, his red hair blazing in the dim light, was slipping something into her hand.

  Then, chanting: “Dawn needs a man to keep her warm,” he bolted away again and began to struggle ferociously with his twin.

  During the half-anxious minutes of our wait for the White boys, darkness had almost entirely engulfed the clearing. Part of the darkness was caused by the storm clouds. As Phoebe, Lorie, and I scurried around groping for the last dishes to pack in the picnic baskets, the rain began. It was not a violent downpour but steady and chilling. Clucks and little cries of disgust rose from the party. Love Drummond called for a flashlight, and Lorie had to admit she had not thought to bring one. Ernesta would have known how to make this small predicament amusing, but Ernesta wasn’t there, with the result that mild panic ensued.

  Panic, of course, was too strong a word. Disorganization is more accurate. As the rain strengthened and the last pale strip of sky over the valley vanished, everyone started his or her own aimless, independent way down the steep, overgrown mountainside.

  Lorie was one of the first to melt away. I saw George Raynor lumbering after her with one of the picnic baskets, and Phoebe, picking up Lorie’s abandoned guitar case, started in pursuit, calling ineffectual advice. I picked up the second basket and, shouting for Dawn, made my way to the mouth of the trail up which we had ascended the hill.

  Dawn answered my call. Soon I felt her small body bumping against mine, and together we started down the track. Once I had my bearings in the darkness, the descent was relatively easy. But none of the others seemed to have hit the trail. I could hear confused shouts and exclamations at relative distances from us in the shrubby areas around and behind us. I called to give them the position of the trail, but they were all either too confused or too wet and cross to pay me any attention. Soon Dawn and I seemed to have outstripped them all.

  My daughter, who always enjoys minor disasters, was thoroughly happy.

  “Miss Drummond will get her rheumatism back and Dr. Jessup will wheeze and Avril will ruin her silly old dress,” she announced with a faint giggle. “Daddy, isn’t this fun? You can’t see an inch in front of your nose.” Spluttering slightly from the rain, she started to sing:

  “Eight for the April rainers.”

  After a moment of contented silence she said: “I think Bob
by White really does love me, because he gave me a big red marble and said it was an engagement ring.”

  “He did?” I said. “And you accepted it?”

  “Of course.” Dawn sounded superior. “It would have hurt his feelings to refuse. Boys are very sensitive at that age.” She added smugly: “Besides he is rather naughty, Daddy, and I think a little feminine influence would have a sobering effect.”

  Knowing how fiendish my daughter could be herself at the advanced age of twelve, I greeted this remark with some cynicism.

  Around us I could hear vague sounds which told me the rest of the party was still stumbling down the mountain. But suddenly I heard a sound that was not so faint. It was the rapid thump of running feet coming toward us from the left. There was something dimly alarming about the quickness of the footsteps, because I knew the ground there was rough and treacherous. Someone was either eager enough or frightened enough to be speeding through that rainy darkness without thought of a possible fall or a sprained ankle.

  Dawn and I had both instinctively stopped. The footsteps pounded nearer, and I called:

  “Who is it?”

  The footsteps stopped dead, very close. I could even hear harsh, jerky breathing.

  “Who is it?” I called again.

  A figure appeared at our side. I could trace the vague gleam of bare arms and legs and, to my astonishment, I recognized the runner as Caleb Stone.

  “It’s you, Dr. Westlake, isn’t it?”

  “Sure. What’s the trouble? Something wrong?”

  “N-no.” His voice was tentative at first and then angry. “No. Why should anything be wrong?”

  “You were running as if all the six proud walkers were after you.”

  “I was? I …” His voice faded. His hand groped through the darkness and, finding my arm, clung to it hungrily. His grip reminded me absurdly of a little child clutching its parent for safety in the dark. His fingers were shaking too. He tried to laugh but got nowhere with it, and when he spoke again his voice was rasping, almost out of control.

  “There’s your war hero for you, Doctor. Sure, I was running because I’m scared. I’m scared of the dark.” Bitterness welled up in his tone. “Tough guy, aren’t I? It hit me this way after the last nights on Okinawa. At first in the hospital I used to scream all night. I guess they fixed me up pretty good. But sometimes, even now—” He broke off, adding, almost humble: “Mind if I walk the rest of the way with you?”