Parson's Nine

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Come on. Shut up, young Sirach.”

  “Cry baby, cry. Poke your finger in your eye, and tell your mother it wasn’t I.”

  The train puffed away. Esdras, grinning, appeared at the window.

  “ ‘Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,’ ” he shouted.

  Miss Crosby took advantage of Sirach’s departure to impress on Baruch that in a little more than a year he would be going to school. Baruch looked startled.

  “Me! When?”

  “When you are eight.”

  Miss Crosby told Nannie what she had done. “I’ve been trying to prepare Baruch for the fact that he will have to go to school next year.”

  “Well, I’m glad I won’t be here when the time comes.”

  “Why? He will settle down; all children do.”

  “They may. Baruch’s a different kettle of fish. If I was Mrs. Churston I should keep him at home.”

  Miss Crosby looked shocked.

  “Good gracious me, Nannie, you can’t give in to every child’s whims. They’ve all got to learn. It makes men of them.”

  “Well, it’s no good meeting troubles halfway.” Nannie dismissed the subject with a shake of her head. “Fancy Sirach trying to take Samson to school pushing him to the station in the pram done up in a rug.”

  “Poor little boy, he is so devoted to the dog.”

  Nannie laughed.

  “Always was. Why, I remember when we hadn’t had the dog more than a week the Bishop came. Mr. Churston brought him up to the nursery to see the children; then he said, ‘Will you bless them, my Lord?’ Well, of course it was all very nice to start with, but it got a bit monotonous seeing there were nine of them, and they all over the place and not taking a bit of notice. Minnie and me stood against the wall like a couple of stuffed idols. Then I happened to look down and saw Samson deliberately pull a button off his Lordship’s gaiters. I didn’t know what to do, and had just decided ‘Least said—’ when Sirach sees Samson’s got something in his mouth, goes to him, takes out the button, and brings it to the Bishop, who was just blessing Judith. ‘You’re a very bad man,’ he says, ‘to give your button to our dog; it will make him ill.’ ”

  “What did the Bishop say?”

  “Would you believe it, he laughed, took off his gaiter, asked me to sew on the button, and said he thought, after having tried to poison our dog, the least he could do was to let us poison him, and might he stay to tea.”

  In the garden, Baruch said to Susanna:

  “Did you hear what Crossy said?”

  “ ‘Bout school?”

  “Yes.”

  “P’raps Mummy won’t make you go.”

  Baruch thoughtfully pulled a leaf to pieces.

  “She made Tobit.”

  There was a pause. Susanna dug a little hole with her finger, and buried a dead worm. The interment over, she raised her head.

  “What’ll we do?”

  Baruch looked round to make sure no one was listening.

  “Sukey, you ’member Pilgrim’s Progress what Daddy told us? Well, I’ve been thinking, and I b’lieve those is the D’lectable Mountains.” He pointed to some hills in the distance.

  “Those?” Susanna stared.

  “Yes. And I b’lieve if we climbed those we’d find the C’lestial City on the other side. And you and me could live there always.”

  “And there wouldn’t be no school?”

  “No, of course not, silly.”

  “Let’s go,” said Susanna, holding out her hand.

  Together they walked out of the gate. Up the village street, over a stile, and there straight across the fields before them, if many miles away, lay the Delectable Mountains.

  It was teatime before they were missed.

  “Where’s Baruch and Susanna?” Nannie asked.

  The garden was searched. Everybody shouted. By six o’clock, Catherine, badly frightened, sent David on a horse in one direction and the doctor and various farmers in others.

  The sun set at about seven o’clock. It sank in a fiery display of orange and gold. Baruch and Susanna watched it in admiration.

  “That, I s’pose, will be the lights from the C’lestial City,” said Susanna.

  It grew rapidly dark, and rather cold. She shrank closer to Baruch.

  “Baruch, are you frightened?”

  “What of?”

  “Ghosts an’ witches an’ little men with long arms an’ dragons.”

  “Not me, I’d frighten them jolly quick if they came near us.”

  “Would you?” Susanna was greatly impressed by such bravery. At the same time it seemed to her tempting the wild creatures of the night to threaten them openly like that. “I know you would fight them, Baruch, if they came, but don’t you think it’s best to whisper when you say so, so that they won’t hear?”

  The night grew steadily darker. The twins stumbled along in the blackness.

  “Will we walk all night, Baruch? We aren’t at the D’lectable Mountains yet.”

  “We might sit down a little while.”

  “The grass’ll be wet.”

  “There’s nothing else to sit on.”

  “No,” Susanna wearily agreed.

  They heard a clip-clop in the distance.

  Susanna clutched Baruch.

  “Listen! A dragon!”

  “Sounds more like a horse to me. Dragons shuffle rather when they walk, havin’ no hoofs.”

  “Oh, Baruch, I s’pect it is a horse, but do let’s hide till it’s gone by in case it’s pretending to be a dragon.”

  “If it’s only pretending, it won’t hurt us,” Baruch objected; but he allowed himself to be dragged under a hedge.

  The clip-clop came nearer. It was one of the farmers searching for the children. He swung his lantern up and down the lane. The night air was cold, it made his nose run; he gave a loud snort to clear his nostrils. To Susanna, peering through the hedge, the light and the snort together appeared as fire blown through its nose by an angry dragon. She gave a terrified scream, and ran. The farmer at once gave chase, and soon had both the children on the back of his horse, which he led to the Vicarage.

  When the twins were in bed, Catherine came up to see them. She visited Baruch first.

  “Why were you so naughty? You frightened us all terribly, and gave everyone such a lot of trouble.”

  Baruch looked ashamed, but refused to answer.

  “Where were you going, darling?”

  “D’lectable Mountains.”

  “The what?”

  “D’lectable Mountains in Pilgrim’s Progress. They’re over there. So I thought we’d go to the C’lestial City; it can’t be very far.”

  Catherine questioned Susanna.

  “Baruch says you were looking for the Celestial City. Why did you want to go there, darling?”

  Susanna shook her head.

  “Why were you so frightened when Mr. Sales found you?”

  “I’d been playing dragons. Then I stopped playing, but they wouldn’t stop pretending.”

  Catherine asked Nannie’s advice.

  “What shall I do, Nannie?”

  “Well ‘um, if they think Marford Hills are those mountains, the best thing you can do is to take them to the top. When they’re up there, they’ll soon see there’s nothing on the other side, no Celestial City or that.”

  Catherine waited till the summer holidays. Then she hired a wagonette and took all the children for a picnic to Marford Hills. Before they started, she explained to the twins at great length that they were not going to the Delectable Mountains, and that there would be no Celestial City on the other side, but she made no impression.

  “I think you are wrong, Mummy,” said Baruch politely.

  As the wagonette climbed slo
wly to the top of the hill, his brothers teased him about the vision he expected.

  “ ‘And I John saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,’ ” Esdras quoted.

  “Be quiet,” Catherine scolded him. “Sometimes you verge on blasphemy. I’m sure you don’t mean it, but one day you’ll give great offence to somebody.”

  “But I do mean it,” Esdras objected. “If Baruch’s right, and there really is a Holy City, that’s how it’s goin’ to look.”

  “I think we ought to sing,” Tobit suggested, “seeing it’s a sort of pilgrimage we’re making.”

  “Jerusalem, my happy home,

  Name ever dear to me,

  When shall my labours have an end?

  Thy joys when shall I see?”

  The children joyfully shouted the hymn to the full extent of their lungs, and so singing came to the top of the hill. There their voices died away, and they stared across the valley at the opposite hillside, spellbound.

  It happened that a rich man, who was also an amateur astronomer, had built himself a house there, and had recently added a private observatory. It was a horrible affair, large and ornate, lavishly picked out in gold paint. The house was hidden in the trees, but the sun turned the observatory into a thing of gold. In a thousand quivering points of light, it appeared a part at least of the Celestial City of the twins’ imaginings.

  “Mummy, what is it?” asked Judith, awestruck.

  Baruch smiled. “You see, Mummy, there it is.”

  Catherine, in the face of such an answer to supreme faith, couldn’t find it in her heart to disillusion him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Returning from the Easter visit to Grandfather, the children found the garden, which had looked almost dead when they went away, dressed as though for a royal procession. The twins ran out on to the lawn, and stood under the monkey-puzzle, amazed. The laburnums hung in waving cascades of yellow. The lilac flaunted its mauve-scented loveliness against a background of dark evergreens. The tulips stood in rows raising their proud little red faces to the sky. Susanna said:

  “The garden looks all pleased to see us back.”

  “I wish everything was like gardens,” Baruch answered.

  “How?”

  “Oh, smelling nice and everything, and so clean, nothing to mind there isn’t in a garden.”

  “Well, there’s gardens everywhere, there was a garden at Grandfather’s.”

  “I think only your own garden’s quite safe.”

  “How? From bears and things, you mean?”

  “Bears! There aren’t any bears in England, silly.”

  There was a noise. They heard Judith’s shrill, excited voice.

  “Let’s go and see,” said Susanna.

  The other children and a wildly excited Samson were gathered round Tobit’s garden. Judith held out a tin.

  “Look! Here’s that fish Tobit caught before we went away. He forgot it, and just look at it now.”

  The twins looked. For Baruch the garden faded. The sky was a mass of jumping stars. All the bells in the world began to ring. Without a word he fell forward on to his face.

  Doctor Phillips, who had brought all the children into the world, gave Baruch a thorough overhauling. He patted Catherine’s shoulder in a fatherly way as he left the house.

  “There, my dear. Nothing in the world to worry about. The boy is as sound as a bell. I expect he’s been making a little pig of himself at the Castle. I’ve told Nannie to give him a good dose. Fainting fits often come from an upset stomach.”

  “But, Doctor Phillips, I’m sure there’s more to it than that. This isn’t the first time things of this sort have happened. Something that looks or smells unpleasant seems to have a curiously acute effect on him. It’s so odd, for none of the other children are like that. I can’t help feeling there must be something wrong with him.”

  “He’s a bit more highly-strung than the others, perhaps. But don’t you worry, you wait till he gets to school, he’ll be a different lad. Wonderful how school life knocks all the peculiarities out of a boy.”

  “I dread sending him to school. Do you remember how ill it made Susanna, and how upset Baruch was, that time they had to be separated because she had measles?”

  “They were tiny tots then. Now they’re old enough to understand. You take my advice, my dear. Say nothing about this fainting attack to the boy, and pack him off to school in the autumn, and by Christmas you’ll have a healthy boy who enjoys a bit of smell and dirt with the best of them.”

  Susanna sat on Baruch’s bed.

  “What’s it feel like to faint?”

  “Nothing, silly,” he answered crossly.

  “It must feel like something,” she argued. “Is it like going to sleep?”

  “I said I don’t know.”

  Susanna hunted in the eiderdown.

  “Baruch, what are you going to do about school?”

  “Nothing.”

  She found a long striped feather, and blew it into the air.

  “Nothing at all? Not run away again or anything?”

  “No. It’s no good.” He sat up suddenly. “Sukey, you sit at that end of the bed, and I’ll put my knees up, and we’ll play blow-feather over them.”

  To everyone’s amazement, Baruch went off to school without a murmur. The night before he left, he said to Susanna:

  “If you come to the station, you’re not to cry.”

  “But, if I can’t help it?”

  “You’ve got to help it. I don’t want a lot of women crying on the platform when I go away.”

  “All right, I won’t.”

  They wrote to each other every week, Baruch hiding even from Susanna how acutely he missed her, how much he found to hate. Catherine was sure from the look of her that Susanna was crying herself to sleep each night. She tried to be extra kind in consequence. But the child had accepted Baruch’s stoical creed, and therefore resented sympathy. At the merest hint of it, she would shrug her shoulders, and walk away scowling. Nannie’s departure to “a baby from the month” didn’t make things any easier. Nannie had such a way of understanding, and in spite of not saying anything, making the sufferer feel better. Her absence was a sad loss to Susanna.

  With the departure of Baruch, Miss Crosby had a more compact class. No more boys were sandwiched among the girls, for Manasses and Maccabeus formed a small class to themselves. She was glad. She had always resented the fact that the boys were taught Latin and Greek by their father, when the girls were not. She had disliked spending so much time away from the girls, preparing the boys for school. Now all that was done with. Manasses and Maccabeus would always be too far behind to work with their sisters. From henceforth the three girls would work alone. Judith was her joy. Flushed with interest, her eyes shining with excitement, she would sprawl across the schoolroom table, pulling and dragging at every fragment of learning which came her way. She accepted nothing on hearsay. She had to thoroughly understand before she allowed a fact to take its place in her memory.

  “But, why, Crossy? Why? Why? Why?”

  Esther was a totally different person. For her it was always a search for the line of least resistance. Everything she was taught she tried to remember, because she would certainly get into trouble if she didn’t. She was, had Miss Crosby been forced to speak the truth, a deadly dull pupil. Susanna was a cross between her sisters. She had neither Judith’s brilliance nor Esther’s lethargy. Her life was centred on Baruch. The months while he was away at school were so much wasted time. Without realising it, she subconsciously learned that occupied time passes quicker than time unoccupied, so she worked hard and intelligently. It made the mornings slip by.

  Miss Crosby’s teachings had never been confined to the schoolroom. Now, as the girls grew older, she redoubled her ef
forts. It seemed to her that they were growing up at such a wonderful moment. Three little brands to be plucked for the burning. To be burned on the altar of Women’s Emancipation. She herself was tied by poverty to her work. She couldn’t join in shoutings and smashings for freedom. She chafed at her inactivity, but she comforted herself with the thought that the three girls, thanks to her teaching, would dash out into the world eager to show men how completely they were their equals, how more than suited to take their share in the government of the country. Sometimes she rather doubted Esther’s abilities as a torchbearer. Sometimes she feared she would never make anything of Susanna. But Judith! There was her gift to posterity, for the Cause of Women.

  “What will you be when you grow up, Judith dear?”

  “Something exciting. The first woman to be something. Something a man’s always been before.”

  Gradually, the great women of the past faded into the background, and in their places appeared Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, the three Pankhursts, Lady Constance Lytton, Mrs. Drummond, Miss Annie Kenney, and dozens more, their names changing daily as they flickered in the public eye. They had photographs of many of them cut from the papers. Packing up these pictures one afternoon, an afternoon which had been particularly devoted to the suffragettes and their doings, Susanna whispered furiously to Esther:

  “Oh, Esther, I do hate famous women, don’t you?”

  And Esther, with a ferocity unusual to her, whispered back:

  “Oh, I do.”

  When Baruch returned at Christmas, Susanna was a different person. As soon as she could, she got him to herself.

  “What’s school like?”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “Is it as nasty as what you thought it would be?”

  “I’ve told you it’s all right.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Lessons, of course.”

  “All the time?”

  “’Course not, stupid.”

  “What, then?”

  Baruch peered about to see that nobody was listening.

  “Can you keep a secret, Sukey?”

  She nodded.

  “No, swear,” he ordered.

  “‘See this wet. See this dry. Cut my throat if I lie,’” she recited solemnly with appropriate gesture.