Parson's Nine
Page 6
“I have to watch him all the time,” said Miss Crosby. “I don’t believe he knows what fear is. He follows his brothers everywhere. And wherever her fat legs will carry her, Susanna follows him, though I believe half the time she’s terrified.”
“If he’s never afraid, why is he so fussy? I never knew a baby make such a fuss at touching or looking at something he doesn’t like. It really makes him quite ill. I suppose he’ll grow more sensible when he’s older.”
Miss Crosby laughed comfortably.
“Don’t you worry; he’ll have all that nonsense knocked out of him when he goes to school.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Autumn found the twins beginning lessons. Nothing elaborate, mainly handcrafts. With five children to teach, Miss Crosby had her hands full. After Christmas Catherine went for another holiday abroad. David hated her going. But this year he merely asked:
“Must you go, dear?”
Catherine stroked his cheek.
“Yes, darling, I’m afraid I must.”
She spoke to Miss Crosby about it.
“I suppose it’s dreadful of me. It’s the spring coming, I think. I feel I’ll do something desperate if I don’t get away from everything for a bit. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“Don’t you sometimes just ache for your holiday? To know you’ll be free of the children, all of us, for three weeks?”
“No. It’s different for me. You see, I have one job, and I love it. You have a never-finished, indefinite job. Your husband, your children, your house, the parish. Your time is never your own. All the same, I wonder that you go away without worrying what I am teaching.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you don’t know what I’m teaching, do you?”
“How serious you are. I know you aren’t teaching anything I shouldn’t like. You would ask me first. Look at the way you came and told me you hated the children fasting in Lent, and you thought their Sundays would turn them into heathen, and wanted to tell them so.”
“I haven’t altered my views.”
“No, but you did what I asked: left everything to do with religion to their father.”
“Very weak-minded of me.” Miss Crosby paused. “Do you realise how strongly I feel on the woman question?”
“What, women’s suffrage!” Catherine laughed. “Don’t let my husband know. He is entirely of the ‘hand that rocks the cradle’ persuasion.”
“But you.” Miss Crosby’s eyes glowed. “You are an intelligent woman. Don’t you feel it’s a bitter wrong that your sex should have no say in governing the country?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, you know,” said Catherine apologetically. “You see, it doesn’t really concern us married women. And if it did it wouldn’t make any difference; we’d always vote the same way as our husbands; we do hate arguments in bed.”
Miss Crosby blushed.
“But your girls. Don’t you care what they think?”
“Not a bit, bless them. They are only babies.”
“Well, as long as you know.”
That summer Esther had measles. Sirach and Susanna caught it from her. To everyone’s surprise, Judith, Baruch, and the babies avoided the complaint. The end of July found Esther up, but still spotty, Sirach and Susanna in bed, the rest of the family out of quarantine, and Esdras and Tobit due back from school. Catherine was at her wits’ end what to do with them all. In the end she and Minnie took the four healthy members of the family to Hastings, where Esdras and Tobit could join them, leaving Miss Crosby and Nannie in charge of the invalids.
Esdras wrote:
“Dear Mummy please do not worry that I mind not coming home I do not most of our chaps know the sea and say it is well worth a visit can we take a boat over to France Jones says they go tell Esther Sirach and Susanna that I am sorry they are lying sick of a fever but anyway they are not at a gate full of sores salute the brethren from me Esdras.”
Judith, reading the letter, said sadly to her mother:
“Doesn’t get better of the Bible, does he, spite of school?”
Tobit wrote, protesting:
“Dear Mummy please do not worry about measles I would much rather catch them and come home than go to the sea and not have it this is becos I have a lot to do in my garden and its no erthy god saying you can do it at the end of the holidays I want more time than that so please expect me home as usual love Tobit.”
“Can he come, Mummy?” asked Judith.
“No, I’m afraid not, poor man. He must just do what he can to his garden when we get home in September.”
The twins were not warned of their coming separation, though no real trouble was anticipated. The first morning, when Susanna had not appeared, Baruch had asked where she was.
“Got the measles, dear,” Nannie had explained.
“Where?”
“She’s in the spare room with Esther. But you’re not to go in. Understand now?”
Baruch nodded. After breakfast he had gone to the landing outside the spare room, and after a time he had heard her cry. Every morning he had gone to her door and waited till he heard some sound from her. Then, contentedly, he would trot out into the garden. All the grown-ups, knowing nothing of his vigil at the spare room door, were amazed at the calm way he took their separation. “He’s too little to care,” they said. On the day they left for Hastings, Catherine walked with him to the station, and only popped him into the carriage just as the train was starting. He turned very red.
“Where we goin’?”
“To the sea, darling. Esther, Sirach and Susanna are coming later on.”
“Want to go home.”
“But you’ll love the sea. You shall bathe and paddle, and there’ll be miles of lovely sand for you to dig in. And Daddy is coming down for a fortnight, and perhaps he’ll take you out in a boat—”
Her voice tailed away. Baruch’s face was scarlet. He looked scared.
“Want to go home,” he whispered. He began to cry, softly at first, then loud, hysterical sobs. “Wan’a go home. Wan’a go home.”
Neither Catherine nor Minnie could pacify him. They showed him cows and sheep out of the window. They offered him chocolate. It was no good. He cried the whole way to London. In the cab crossing to Victoria, Catherine showed him the Horse Guards riding by. Usually such a sight would have enchanted him: he loved soldiers. But today it was no good. He shrank into a corner of the cab, sobbing:
“Wan’a go home. Wan’a go home.”
Without ceasing he howled for the two hours it took to reach Hastings, and arrived such a white, sodden little object that although it was barely teatime, Catherine told Minnie to put him to bed. He refused to eat anything, and while they had their tea they heard his heart-breaking sobs and hiccups going on upstairs. Unable to bear it any longer, Catherine took Judith for a walk. Judith was a tonic.
“My goodness me! What a silly fuss he does make, Mummy.”
Catherine smiled. She had been feeling in despair. But now she wondered if it was merely a baby’s naughty fit of temper. She was silly to let it weigh on her. He’d be as right as rain in the morning.
Minnie took a different view.
“Ssh!” she whispered, when they got back. “He’s just fallen asleep. He was terribly sick first, poor little chap. He’s worn himself out.”
“I expect he’ll be all right in the morning, Minnie,” said Catherine consolingly.
“I wish I thought so, ‘um.”
Judith in bed, Catherine tried to bury herself in a book. She couldn’t. She kept straining to hear if Baruch was crying. She had just given up in despair, and picked up her sewing, when the doorbell rang, and Miss Crosby came in. Catherine turned white.
“What is it?”
“Don’t worry. Nothing serious. I’ve come for Baruch.”
“I couldn’t find the Vicar,” Miss Crosby explained. “There was a train going, so I thought I’d come for him myself.”
“But Susanna? Is she going on all right now? Does she know you’ve gone to fetch Baruch?”
“Yes. The doctor told her. But she was crying so, and she’s so tiny, I thought she might not have understood. So I packed my bag, put on my travelling things, and came in to her ready for the journey. ‘Where you going?’ she asked me. She was already quieter, the drug was taking effect. ‘To fetch Baruch,’ I said. ‘When he be back?’ she wanted to know. ‘Very soon after you wake up,’ I told her. Then I talked to her very seriously. ‘You are a big girl now, Susanna, almost five. Quite big enough to know that I always tell you the truth. I am starting to fetch Baruch this minute. I shall bring him back just as quickly as I can. But if I do this for you, I want you to eat everything Nannie gives you, and to go to sleep now like a good girl.’ She was almost asleep before I left. I am sure she will be all right; she quite understood.”
There was no train back to London till the next morning. Catherine and Miss Crosby went for a walk. Miss Crosby had heard of the trouble they had had with Baruch. The two women walked in silence for some time. Then Catherine burst out:
“I don’t like it. It’s uncanny. Nobody told Susanna Baruch was going away. How did she know?”
“They are in exceptionally close sympathy with each other.”
“Will they always be like this? What’s to happen when he goes to school? He must some day.”
“That won’t be for another three years.”
“Will they have outgrown this—” Catherine fumbled for a word—“this queerness by then?”
“I hope so. I must get them used to the idea.”
Susanna’s two days of temperature retarded her recovery. Esther, Sirach and Nannie left for Hastings, leaving Miss Crosby with the twins. The children had not been allowed to see each other, but every morning Baruch stood outside the spare-room door, shouting:
“Sukey! Sukey!”
Till back came Susanna’s:
“Baruch!”
They never asked to be allowed to say any more. They seemed utterly contented to know they were under the same roof. Two days before they left for Hastings the doctor pronounced Susanna quite well, and free from infection.
“There,” said Miss Crosby, kissing her as she buttoned her coat. “Run into the garden and find Baruch.”
The twins met in the middle of the lawn. They looked at each other, but said nothing. Then Baruch held out his hand.
“I’ve made a little house. Come an’ see.”
CHAPTER NINE
To Catherine her children seemed to grow up with appalling rapidity. She could hardly bear it when in the spring of 1907 Maccabeus reached such years of discretion that he was old enough to do an hour’s lessons every morning. Sirach, who still seemed very much a baby, was to go to school next term, and Esdras was actually working for a public school scholarship.
“It’s awful, Nannie,” she said. “I almost feel as though I must have another. Not one baby in the house. It doesn’t seem possible, does it?”
“No ‘um, it doesn’t, and that’s a fact. I’m afraid it means that I must soon be packing. I’ve been meaning to speak to you about it for some time. There’ll be no work for me here soon that a nursery maid couldn’t do.”
“Rubbish, Nannie! Maccabeus is only four. Of course he needs you. I don’t want you ever to leave us; there’ll always be a home for you here.”
Nannie shook her head.
“I must have little babies; it’s the way I’m made. Even now I’m getting restless, can’t bear to see a baby in the village without picking it up. If it suits you, I’d like to be looking out for something. I’d like to get a baby next spring or thereabouts.”
Catherine was almost in tears.
“Oh, Nannie, I had never thought of you leaving. I had hoped you would stay with us until one of the children married, and then perhaps you could go and look after their babies.”
“I often think of that, and I say to myself: ‘Perhaps in about nine years Judith will be wanting me for her first.’ I’ll be ready to come to her if she does.”
Depressed after her talk with Nannie, Catherine was cheered by the sight of Esdras’s and Tobit’s weekly letters on the hall table. She took them out into the garden.
“Dear Mother we played a match yesterday against Frostons we beat them by three goals and two tries to three goals we were lucky to do this for they usually beat us but they have a rotten team this term for them I expect you are saying Lo thou hast smitten the Edomites and thine heart lifteth thee up to boast Fortesque had his birthday on Sunday he had a jolly good cake and potted meat and a great tub thing of Turkish delight because his people live where it comes from love Esdras.”
“Dear Mummy there was a rugger match yesterday against Frostons we beat them but I forget by how much it is only now Esdras is Captain we can beat them it was nice watching the match because the almond trees are out round the field and there were simply thousands of celandines I’m glad my tulips look like being good this year will you ask Oakes to see a cat does not sit on my forgetmenots like last year Fortesques birthday was on Sunday he gave a tea to all the school he is lucky his Father and Mother live in Turkey he goes and sees them once a year he says the flowers he sees from the train are fine love Tobit.”
Maccabeus came trotting out of the house, released after his hour’s lessons. Catherine invited him to go to the village with her.
“I need company, darling. I’m feeling a very old lady this morning.”
He looked at her gravely.
“Well, you are, aren’t you?”
“Why, how old do you think I am?”
He studied her.
“Almost dead,” he said, slipping his hand into hers.
Although he must have grasped vaguely the fact that some day he was going to school, the actual knowledge that he was to start next term seemed to come to Sirach as a shock. He went to Catherine. She was sitting on the lawn, under the monkey-puzzle. He fingered its sharp edges nervously as he spoke:
“Mummy, do I have to go to school?”
“Yes, darling, I’m afraid you do.”
“I couldn’t just be different an’ stay at home?”
“No, I’m afraid not. But I expect you’ll like school. Esdras and Tobit do.”
“Yes.” He stood on one leg, and swung the other backwards and forwards. There was a long pause. Then he blurted out in a desperate voice:
“Mummy, I can’t go.”
“Why not?”
“It’s ’cos of Samson; I know he’ll die if I go away.”
“Goodness me! Why ever should he?”
“Because nobody doesn’t love him like I do. It’s me who knows when he needs ‘Benbow’s.’ And it’s me who always hear him if he barks in the night. And I’m the one who brushes him every day. And it’s me who washes his feet if he gets them muddy. I think he’ll just die if I go away to school.”
Catherine put her arm round him.
“I realise that you do more for Samson than anyone else. But there are lots of us. Between us we shall look after him while you are away. Tobit was just the same as you. He thought his garden would die when he went away to school, but it hasn’t, you see.”
“That’s because Oakes does it.”<
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“Well, if I can see that Oakes looks after Tobit’s garden, can’t I see that someone looks after Samson? After all, he belongs to everyone, we all love him; surely between us you can trust us to look after him.”
“Just loving him and taking him for walks isn’t all.” Sirach, half crying, tried desperately to explain himself. “Every morning I look at him and see if he’s well. And he and me understand each other, and he tells me just how he’s feeling.”
“I’m sorry, old man; it does seem hard, I know, but I’m afraid you’ve got to face it. Terms aren’t very long things, though; it’ll soon be the summer holidays, and then you’ll be with him again.”
“Terms are three months,” said Sirach, walking sadly away. “And three months is long.”
The Easter visit to the Castle was marred by Sirach’s depression. It seemed as though the return from school of Esdras and Tobit crushed him, making him realise how near his separation from Samson was becoming. When they got home for the last week of the holidays, he mooned about all day with Samson at his heels. He lost his appetite; he looked pale. However, on the morning when they were to leave, he seemed a shade more cheerful, which puzzled Catherine. He wouldn’t wait to walk to the station with her, but hurried on ahead with the twins, Susanna pushing the old family perambulator. As soon as she arrived, Catherine enquired at once what the perambulator was for.
“Jus’ nothin’. Thought I’d push it,” Susanna answered in an offhand manner.
Esdras climbed into the train.
“I say! What’s this under the seat?”
“Nothing,” Sirach said. “Leave it alone, it’s mine.”
But Esdras heard suspicious sounds from the bundle, which appeared to be rugs done up in string. He pulled it out. Samson, wagging all over in his relief at being released from so dreary a prison, bounded on to the platform. Sirach screamed. Samson, as a small thank-offering for freedom, jumped up and down, licking any portion of the family he could reach. Sirach, at such gross ingratitude, screamed louder than ever. The whistle sounded, his brothers pushed him unceremoniously into the carriage.