“May we go down the front stairs, please?” Ben was saying when he came back to awareness of his surroundings. “I want to look at the deer.”
“What deer, me love?” asked Auntie Rose.
“The one in the alcove where the stairs branch,” said Ben. “I saw it from below.”
“You mean the little old stone goat?” asked Auntie Rose. “It’s nothin’ to look at, dearie. Just some rubbishy old thing me husband dug up in the onion bed. ‘Throw it in the river, Fred,’ I said, but he would put in there in that cupboard place. After he died I’d meant to throw it out, and then I hadn’t the heart. Set store by it, Fred did. He’d take queer fancies for all sorts of rubbish, Fred would. Odd chap, he was, though a good husband, and in the trade though he was, only took a glass too much once in a way as a matter of business. There it is, dearie.”
They had come halfway down the lovely branching staircase and stood before the alcove in the paneling, looking at the little stone figure that Auntie Rose had thought was a goat. But Ben, even from below, had known better. He stood now looking at it with reverence, while the others, after a cursory glance at what seemed to be a bit of carved stone of no particular attraction and nearly worn away by weather, looked at Ben, puzzled by his rapt attention. He stretched out a hand as though to touch the creature, then drew it back as though he felt his touch might be a profanation. “Pick it up, ducks,” said Auntie Rose with a touch of impatience. “It won’t bite. Stone, it is.”
Ben took the little image very gently into his hands. “It’s a deer all right,” he said. “Look at the curve of the neck, the antlers.” Suddenly he caught his breath. “Look at the way the antlers are carved, holding up a cross.”
“H’m?” said George.
“Yes,” insisted Ben. “Look.”
His thin, sensitive fingers passed over the little figure like the fingers of a sculptor over the clay, and for a brief moment the brightness of his vision compelled the others to see what he saw: a beautiful white deer with a proud neck and a delicate pointed face beneath the spreading antlers that unmistakably branched inwards to form a cross. Then the sudden flash died to a spark that lit his own vision only, and the others saw what they had seen before, just a worn stone image of some little animal with horns, only they saw now that it was possibly a deer, and that the horns were undoubtedly twisted in a rather unusual way.
“Must be very old though,” said George with respect.
“This was a pilgrim inn,” said Ben, putting the little deer gently back into his niche. “I expect, if we knew where to look, we’d find frescoes of lives of the saints hidden under the wallpapers, and perhaps more holy images that tumbled off the roof into the garden.” He looked at Auntie Rose. “Was this the only one you ever found?”
“Fred found a few odd broken bits, diggin’ the garden, an’ brought ’em in. But them I did throw out when he was gone. Not one of them had a head to it even. He’d only kept ’em because of some old wives’ tale his great-granny had told him when he had the scarlet fever as a lad.”
“What tale?” demanded Ben sharply.
Auntie Rose rubbed her nose, trying to recollect it. “Somethin’ about some old monk from the Abbey who had a fancy for birds an’ beasts. He built a chapel in the woods, Fred’s great-granny told him, an’ he’d feed the creatures there, an’ tend to ’em when they were sick. Just some tale the old great-granny made up to keep Fred quiet when he had the fever on him. But Fred, he believed it. He’d swallow anythin’, Fred would. An’ he got the notion that old monk had carved the animals that fell off the roof, an’ those birds an’ beasts there on the wooden pillars. Only a man who loved the creatures, Fred said, could get ’em so lifelike. Loved animals, Fred did. Wouldn’t never shoot anythin’. . . . Soft he was.”
Ben let out a sigh of exasperation. “Auntie Rose, you oughtn’t to have thrown away the other holy images, even though they had no heads.”
“Is that a holy image?” asked Jerry, gazing round-eyed at the deer.
“Yes,” said Ben.
“What’s a holy image?” asked José, also round-eyed.
“Something someone makes for the love of God,” said Ben steadily.
George and Tommy both shot up their left sleeves and looked at their wrist watches, the invariable custom of both of them when embarrassed. The twins and Ben were continually embarrassing them, the twins by the questions they asked, and Ben because he never evaded their questions but answered them with the truth as he saw it.
“Then a house could be a holy image,” said Caroline.
“Yes,” said Ben.
“Then this house is,” she said.
“Yes,” said Ben.
“Gosh, it’s late!” interrupted Tommy firmly.
“Better be getting along,” agreed George. “Mother will be getting anxious. Thank you more than I can say, Mrs. Spelman, for your kindness and patience, and the splendid tea you gave these children.”
“A pleasure, sir,” said Auntie Rose as they went down the stairs. “And I’ll be hearin’ from you?”
“As soon as possible. But I must consult my wife, of course.”
“Of course, sir.”
They trooped out into the garden and saw the wood all lit up by the westering light as though a thousand candles had been lit upon the trees that stretched their shade deep beyond deep in the dark wood. The water was all aglint too, and the colors of the flowers burned pure and still. The sky was a deep blue-green overhead, and three wild swans were flying upriver to their home. There was no sound in all the world but the beat of the birds’ wings and the soft lapping of the water against the old stone walls. They stood for a moment at the gate at the top of the steps and the peace held them silent. Then Tommy clicked the gate open, Jill kissed the twins, and they went down the steps to the car.
— 3 —
Driving home, the children kept up a perfect racket of excited chatter, but George felt worse and worse. What on earth was Nadine going to say? How on earth had it all come about? What had he said, what had anybody said, to start them off on this wild idea of buying the Herb of Grace and turning it into an inn? He couldn’t for the life of him remember. He was, of course, not committed to anything; it was perfectly possible to back out. . . . But appalled though he felt, the prospect of backing out made him feel worse still. . . . How could he disappoint the children? They were nearly off their heads with delight. How could he disappoint himself? Entering the Herb of Grace had been to him a home-coming; just that. But it must be as Nadine wished. Everything, always, must be as Nadine wished; that was the guiding principle of his life. But she wouldn’t wish to live at the Herb of Grace; he felt dead certain of that. He wished to goodness the expression of her wishes were over. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, the first half hour after they reached home. He wished she’d been with them this afternoon, or that she’d seen the place before they did, for if she had they’d never have got themselves into this mess. Then a curious suspicion flashed into his mind. Had Lucilla, or had she not, seen to it that Nadine should not see the place before they did, should not accompany them this afternoon? And what was this Lucilla had said to Auntie Rose about giving him the first refusal of the place? . . . Undoubtedly his saintly old mother was up to one of her deep games here. Abruptly his wearied mind ceased from thought. He’d say nothing when they got home. He’d just let things take their course.
They started to take them as soon as the car drew up at the front door of Damerosehay. Lucilla and Nadine and Margaret, coming out to welcome the travelers, were told by Jerry at the top of his voice, “There’s a lovely house with a wild wood and Daddy’s going to buy it and we’re all going to live there!”
“What nonsense you talk, darling,” said Nadine.
“But it’s true, Mummy!” yelled José, and then all four children began to talk at once, so that no one could hear a word.
“That’ll do, darlings,” said Lucilla, somehow or other managing to quell the riot without even raising her voice, as was her miraculous habit. “Supper is ready. Wash your hands quickly and come along.”
Hands were washed and they all trooped into the dining room. It was, of course, long past the twins’ bedtime, but as they were much too excited for sleep Lucilla decreed that they should absorb their biscuits and milk with their elders, while those elders were attacking stewed rabbit, rhubarb, and cheese straws, an unusually magnificent repast to which Margaret had mounted, as though upon eagle’s wings, because George was present. The moment the pangs of hunger had been slightly allayed the children started talking again, and once more it was difficult to disentangle one thing from another.
“Let Tommy tell us,” suggested Lucilla.
Tommy’s jaws, champing upon rabbit, stilled for a moment in surprise. He was no raconteur, and it was generally Ben who was called upon for a coherent story. But he was subtly flattered by his grandmother’s choice of himself, and pausing only to remove an obstruction from his mouth and identify it as a piece of the tibia, he plunged into enthusiastic narrative, his rosy face ablaze with excitement, his bright dark eyes fixed upon his mother, whose darling and pet he was. . . . Lucilla had known what she was doing when she directed the full battery of Tommy’s guns upon his mother’s heart, for the disappointing of Tommy was a thing of which Nadine had never yet found herself capable.
“You’re taking things too much for granted, old boy,” George’s voice cut in upon Tommy’s enthusiastic description of the little room where he was going to keep his bones. “Mother has not seen the house yet. She may decide it’s not quite her cup of tea.”
Tommy waved this interruption aside as unworthy of attention and plunged into a description of the boats they would have in the boathouse.
“It all sounds lovely but wildly beyond our means,” said Nadine, when it was next possible to get a word in edgeways. She had gone rather white, and was crumbling her bread and not getting on with her rabbit.
“That’s all right, Mother,” said Tommy. “Father’s going to leave the army and we’re going to run it as an inn. We’ll simply coin money.”
“Will we?” asked Nadine. “I suppose there was electric light laid on? George?”
George wrinkled his brows, tried to rid himself of some sort of vague vision of beautiful oil lamps hanging from equally beautiful old beams, but was saved from the necessity of answering by Ben, who had been devouring rabbit at great speed while Tommy talked, but now laid his knife and fork down on his empty plate and with shining eyes began to tell them a few facts about inns that he had picked up from a book David had. “Ours is a pilgrim inn, Mother, a maison-dieu. All the rooms would have been called after different saints. The old inns all gave their rooms names, you know. The secular ones were named after flowers, mostly. I wonder who painted our sign. Great artists painted the inn signs sometimes, Mother: Hogarth, Moreland, David Cox. You know, Mother, the early plays were given in inn yards, and the modern theater takes its form from the galleries that ran round the yard. . . . I tell you what, next Christmas we’ll act a play at the Herb of Grace! Wouldn’t it be a lark! . . . When the guests come we won’t allow tips, of course. They never had tips in the old days. The tip didn’t come in till the thirteenth century. Mother, do you know the difference between an inn and a public house? The inn is bound to give shelter, rest, and food to the wayfarer at any hour, but the public house is not. Mine Host always greeted the guest and gave him a complimentary glass of wine. Father’ll be good at that, and you’ll be a wonderful hostess, Mother. We’ll have to have a hall porter, a waiter, and a garage mechanic, but we’ll give them the old names: chamberlain, drawer, and ostler.”
“You’ll be chamberlain,” interrupted Caroline suddenly, her cheeks as pink as Tommy’s. “I’ll be drawer, and Tommy ostler.”
“You’re at home very little,” Nadine reminded them dryly. “We’re at home in the holidays,” Tommy told her, “and the holidays—Christmas, Easter, the summer—are just when visitors will come. We’ll do all the work, Mother; Father and us. You won’t have anything to do except look lovely. We’ll get a cook.”
“Where from?” asked Nadine. “And was there a bathroom?” No one seemed to know, and there was a short silence, broken by José. “There’s a river,” said José. “A river for Rat.”
“And a Wild Wood,” said Jerry.
“And a Person with Horns in the Wild Wood,” said José. “It lives in the chapel in the woods that the man made who liked animals.”
“What does she mean?” demanded Caroline.
“She’s mixing up the deer in the alcove with the story Fred’s great-granny told him,” said Ben. His eyes met his grandmother’s and she knew that sometime, when they were alone together, he would have something to tell her, some old legend, such as they both delighted in. Meantime supper was finished, and Lucilla, smiling at him, got up. “Well, children,” she said, “Mother will see about it in the morning.”
Nadine, not committing herself, white-faced and tight-lipped, went upstairs to put the twins to bed. Margaret and Caroline went to the kitchen to do the washing up, and Lucilla to the drawing room with her son and grandsons. There she immediately suggested bridge, and George got no chance at all to ask her what on earth she had been up to. . . . Nadine did not return. . . . They played for an hour, George continually forgetting what was out, and then he could stand it no longer, pleaded a headache, went upstairs, and knocked at Nadine’s door.
“Come in,” said Nadine.
He went in. She was sitting up in bed with a book in her hands, a frilly dressing jacket round her shoulders. In the light of her bedside candles she looked absurdly young and altogether lovely. The blood drummed in George’s already aching temples and he caught his breath. He went to the foot of the bed and gripped the old-fashioned brass rail at the bottom of it tightly in both hands. “Nadine!” he whispered.
“I don’t believe you’ve even unpacked yet, darling, have you?” she asked in a light, hard voice. “And I don’t believe Grandmother told you she’d put us in separate rooms.”
Her cruelty was like the lash of a whip in his face and he went white. An agony of pity and remorse seized her. That was the second detestably cruel thing she had said today. What was coming over her? What was happening to her? “George! George! I’m sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t mean to speak in that hateful tone. Come here, darling. Come and sit on my bed and let’s talk.”
He came slowly and sat beside her, and she chafed one of his cold hands between her warm ones, murmuring endearments as she would have to the twins. But she couldn’t undo it. Once again, she had made it clear to him that his lifelong passion was to her nothing but a burden that she must bear. . . . And never by look or word had he let her guess what a lifelong burden to him must be her lack of response to his love. . . . In giving up David she had made for him an immense and splendid sacrifice, yet it seemed to her at this moment that she perpetually rendered it useless by her cruelty. What was the matter with her that the quality of that action seemed powerless to affect the stuff of her daily living? Lucilla, whose early history had been so like her own, had made her unloved husband utterly happy, and had come in the end to love him. Lucilla had succeeded where she was failing. Something or other Lucilla had done, consciously or unconsciously, which she was not doing. As she had thought this morning, something was lacking in her—some herb of grace.
“Nadine,” said George miserably, “about this damn inn. Mother has been up to something about it, but I give you my word I don’t know what. When I started off this afternoon I’d no more idea of buying the place than of buying the Albert Memorial. But when I was there . . . I don’t know what happened . . . the place gave us such a welcome like a personal welcome . . .”
“I believe you,” said Nadine. “I’ve never known you get entangled in Grandmother�
�s schemes for our good other than unconsciously. You liked this house?”
“It felt like home,” said George wretchedly.
“Then we’ll buy it, and if you’d like to do that, run it as an inn.”
He gazed at her in stupefaction.
“You’ve never had a home,” said Nadine. “All those furnished houses we’ve lived in since we married, that detestable Indian bungalow where we quarreled so badly, they were none of them home. The Chelsea house was my home, but not yours. The Herb of Grace will be our home, yours and mine. Our first.”
A ridiculous desire to weep kept George silent, but he crushed her hands in his till she nearly screamed with the pain. “You haven’t even seen the place,” he muttered at last.
“We’ll go tomorrow. Just you and I.”
“You may hate it.”
“No. I don’t think I shall. I need it—the Herb of Grace. . . .”
Then he began talking, as Tommy had done, as Ben had done, with shining eyes like Caroline’s, pouring out his plans for the boathouse, the house, the garden, and the orchard. She listened, smiling agreement, while her exhausted spirit cried out in terror within her. How could she do it? She was so desperately tired. . . . And she’d only just repainted her beloved Chelsea house. . . . A little of her deadly fatigue must have showed in her face at last, for he jumped up full of contrition.
“You’re dead beat,” he said, bending to kiss her. “Selfish beast that I am. Get a good sleep, darling, and we’ll go and see the old place in the morning.” And he went off jaunty as a schoolboy, and she blew out the candles and lay staring with desperation into the dark. Before he came to her she had been steeling herself for refusal, resolutely steeling herself against the passionate enthusiasm that she would never have allowed to develop had she been with them—and how well Grandmother had known that—steeling herself even to the point of disappointing her adored Tommy. And then she had said that cruel thing to George and her horror at herself had betrayed her.
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