Parson's Nine

by Noel Streatfeild

The music started again. A two-step this time—“Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The dancers all returned to the long gallery. The children felt a little noise was permissible. As they ate, they beat time with their spoons on the tray.

  “Come on and hear, come on and hear, Alexander’s ragtime band,

  Come on and hear, come on and hear, it’s the best band in the land.

  They can play a bugle-call like you never heard before,

  So natural that you want to go to war—”

  “Ssh!” whispered Susanna. “The dance has finished; they’re coming back.”

  The dancers streamed into the hall. A mass of delicate colour in the soft lamplight. Manasses chuckled.

  “I say, look! Poor old Tobit’s got landed with Esther.”

  They stared down at their sister’s flapperish figure and flopping pink hair-ribbons.

  “Well, I can’t think who else would dance with her,” said Maccabeus thoughtfully.

  “They might,” Susanna objected. “They might think they had to since it’s Grandfather’s house.”

  Miss Crosby came out of her bedroom and joined them.

  “Time for bed, Maccabeus.”

  “Oh, Crossy, just one more dance.”

  “But you can’t see the dancing from here.”

  “No, but we can hear, and they play such lovely things.”

  “All right, just one more, but you must come directly it’s over.”

  Another waltz struck up. The notes of the velvety violins found their way caressingly through the old walls.

  The children listened entranced.

  “Makes the house feel all different, somehow,” said Susanna softly. “Music does make things gay.”

  “Waltzes aren’t gay,” Baruch argued. “They’re sad in a nice way.”

  The last notes quivered and died. Miss Crosby put her arm round Maccabeus.

  “Come on, old man, bedtime.”

  Protesting, Maccabeus was led away. Hurrying footsteps were heard along the corridor, and Sirach bustled into view. They surrounded him, whispering:

  “Hullo!”

  “Why aren’t you at the dance?”

  “Couldn’t get any partners except Esther, I suppose.”

  He turned his full dance card towards them.

  “Sucks!”

  “Well, what are you doing, then?” they demanded.

  “If you really want to know, I’m taking a little bit of supper to poor old Samson. He’s on my bed.”

  He removed a selection of sandwiches from one pocket and a painfully-crushed meringue from the other. Baruch looked disgusted.

  “You might remember those are being my Etons next Christmas.”

  Sirach pulled out the lining of his left-hand pocket and examined the accumulation of fluffs mixed with sugar and cream clinging to it.

  “That’ll be all right. I left a silkworm in this pocket once, and it went as bad as bad, but it’s quite all right now.”

  Baruch looked after his brother with the strained sick expression Susanna had come to dread.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’ll wash the pockets for you.”

  Miss Crosby came for Manasses. He went bedwards grumbling.

  “One would think I was a baby instead of nearly twelve, and old enough to sit up for hours and hours and never notice.”

  In a quarter of an hour Miss Crosby was back. She put an arm round each of the twins.

  “Almost bedtime, dears.”

  “Look at Judith, Crossy,” Susanna whispered.

  They all looked down. Judith was at the bottom of the stairs. Not the scowling, sulky Judith they were accustomed to, but an eager, radiant Judith, with shining, starry eyes, flushed cheeks, and parted lips, standing talking to that same man the children had seen her with earlier in the evening.

  “Who is he, Crossy?” asked Susanna.

  Miss Crosby looked anxious.

  “I have no idea. But I should imagine he is the father of some girl who is here tonight, and that Judith, very properly, is being polite to some of the elder people.”

  “Judith jolly well doesn’t look like that when she’s being polite,” said Baruch.

  To the twins’ amazement, the usually calm Miss Crosby lost her temper.

  “You are both staring and gossiping like a couple of servants. Go along to bed at once.”

  Judith was talking to Sir Harry Groves, a friend of her Grandfather’s and a distinguished archaeologist. Although he had a place near the Castle, he had lived abroad for years, which had prematurely aged him. He was forty-five, but looked a good deal older.

  Introduced to Judith by her Grandfather, civility had forced him to ask her for a dance, though he was always bored by young girls.

  “I’m afraid it’s a case of sitting out rather than dancing,” he apologised as the music started. “I can’t do any of these new-fangled steps—which is dull for you. At your age you want to dance.”

  “That’s quite all right, thank you,” Judith replied politely. “As a matter of fact, I’m rather glad to sit, for my shoes are a bit tight; we ordered them by post instead of fitting them.”

  He smiled.

  “I’ve got out of the habit of wearing evening shoes at all; you see, I’ve been in the wilds a long time.”

  “Where?”

  “Oh, all over the place. Egypt mostly.”

  “What for?”

  “Looking around at old walls and things, and sometimes writing about them.”

  “Do tell me about it?”

  He told her of his work, simply. Her interest flattered him. He thought her questions most intelligent. He didn’t really care for women with brains, couldn’t see what use they were to them. Still, sitting out at a dance, it was a pleasure to talk sensibly to something as pretty as Judith. They sat out again. He was amazed how much he enjoyed it. When her next partner, an Oxford friend of Esdras’s, came to fetch her, he felt suddenly annoyed. “Young cub,” he said to himself. Judith danced away, then looked up in her partner’s face and laughed. “Damn the boy!” he thought. “What’s he said that’s amusing?” Then knew himself for a fool. “Bless my soul, am I letting myself get jealous over a girl young enough to be my daughter? I must need a drink.” He wandered into the library and found Lord Bristone, who was spending his evening there, with an anxious Sims hovering near him.

  “Hullo, Harry! Havin’ a good time? Give Sir Harry a drink, Sims.”

  “Thanks. I’ve been making friends with that jolly little granddaughter of yours.”

  “Judith? Pretty girl, pretty girl, looks nice in—What’s Miss Judith wearin’, Sims?”

  “White, m’Lord.”

  “That’s right,” he agreed, enunciating his words with care. “White. Damn pretty girl—got a damn pretty mother, too. You’ve met m’daughter-in-law?”

  “Only to shake hands with when I arrived.”

  “Mus’ meet her, mus’ meet her, fine woman. How she came to marry that miserable little psalm-singing son of mine I can’t imagine. Always on his knees, that boy. Disgustin’, I call it. Unwholesome. There’s a ri’ time for everything, an’ kneelin’s for Sundays. I’ve said to him over an’ over again, ‘Give your knees a res’, m’boy, and wear out your bottom for a change sittin’ on a horse.’ ”

  He stretched out his hand for the decanter. Sims coughed nervously and threw an agonised look of appeal at Sir Harry, who gently took the decanter from the old man, pretending to pour himself out another drink.

  “I’d like to meet your daughter-in-law. Would you introduce me to her?”

  “What, now?”

  “Well, why not?”

  “Sims, go an’ find Mrs. David.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to drag her away from the ballroom. Suppose we go and find her.”

 
“You are a damned restless fellow. Can’t you sit still a minute or two an’ have a quiet drink?” He slipped his arm through Sir Harry’s. “All ri’, come along, if you must.”

  Catherine stood in the door of the long gallery. Sir Harry stood beside her.

  “I’ve been making the acquaintance of your daughter.”

  “Being an admirable chaperone, I had noticed.”

  “I wondered whether perhaps you’d bring her over to tea one afternoon. I have some photographs and things which might amuse her.” In spite of the tight hold he kept on himself, he knew he was sounding absurdly eager.

  Catherine looked at him with an amused twinkle.

  “It’s sweet of you to bother yourself with a baby like my Judith. If you are sure she won’t bore you, I shall be delighted.”

  Catherine took Judith to tea with him three days later. It was the first of many invitations, and Judith insisted on accepting them all. Luncheons, teas, picnics, motor-drives. Then one day he asked her to marry him. He asked her haltingly, painfully conscious of his years, but Judith eagerly, and without hesitation, said “Yes.” She drove home beside Catherine with shining eyes.

  “Mummy, guess what happened today while you were talking to the housekeeper—”

  “What?”

  “Sir Harry asked me to marry him.”

  “And I take it you refused him, as you are still calling him ‘Sir Harry.’”

  “Now, Mummy, don’t be difficult.” She slipped her arm through Catherine’s and rubbed her cheek on her sleeve. “I said ‘Yes,’ and he’s coming over to see Grandfather and Daddy about it tonight.”

  “How charmingly old-world of him.”

  “Oh, Mummy, you are being horrid and sarcastic; aren’t you pleased?”

  “Not a bit. He’s old enough to be your father.”

  “What’s age got to do with it? I love him.”

  “Love! Why, you hardly know him. You hadn’t met him a month ago.”

  “A month tomorrow.”

  “But you are a baby, only seventeen; what can you know about love? He’s almost the first man you’ve ever met.”

  “How old were you when you fell in love with Daddy?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “Your Father and I are much of an age, and—”

  Judith suddenly lost her temper.

  “Oh, be quiet, Mummy! Don’t keep saying ‘Age! Age! Age!’ I love him. He’s clever. And I’m going to marry him this July and go back to Egypt with him.”

  Clip clop, clip clop, went the horses’ feet. Catherine found herself listening to them. Clip clop, clip clop. “Oh, why listen to them?” she asked herself. “Fix your mind on Judith, who’s going to do this silly thing. Say something to stop her.” Clip clop, clip clop.

  Judith grew restless in the silence.

  “It’s a shame if you try and stop this. I’ve never had anything I wanted. You wouldn’t let me go to college, you made me work in the parish, and now you want to send me back there. Well, I won’t go. I’m going to marry Harry, and meet clever people. I’m not going to spend my whole life in a country parish amongst fools, getting plainer, and stupider, and more of a parish puss every minute. I’m clever, you know I am, and I mean to live with people who like cleverness. Harry does. He’ll be glad to have a wife he can talk to properly. Already I understand his things a little, but now I’m going to really study them.”

  Clip clop, clip clop. “Oh, Lord, what a fool I’m being,” Catherine thought. “Why do I keep listening to the horses?” Clip clop, clip clop. There was another pause.

  “Judith, dear,” she said at last. “I know I’m being unsympathetic, but you know what a firebrand you are. I don’t want you to do this and then be sorry afterwards. Marriage is such a binding, lasting affair. Harry is a dear. I like him. We all do. But you are only seventeen. You have all your life before you. Don’t rush into this. Couldn’t you wait a bit? Say for two years?”

  “Oh, my goodness!” In her indignation Judith bounced up and down on the seat. “Two years! What a motherish remark! Don’t you understand I want to get away? Of course I love you and Daddy and the others and home and everything, but you none of you understand me. I want to live with clever people, people who do understand. And I’m going to do it.”

  “All right, darling. I won’t fight you. Let’s see what Daddy says. If he agrees, I shall agree too. I still hope you won’t rush things, but I realise just how you feel. Oh, don’t shrug your shoulders. I know you are saying to yourself, ‘She doesn’t understand a bit; how can her generation understand mine?’ Try to forget I’m your mother and think of me merely as an old friend you’ve known for seventeen years; then perhaps you’ll feel I’ve a right to discuss things with you.”

  The horses drew up at the front door. Judith gave her mother’s arm a squeeze.

  “Sorry I was cross, but you were aggravating.”

  She was married in July. David was charmed with his son-in-law.

  “A good, God-fearing man.”

  Lord Bristone approved.

  “Harry’s a bit old for her, but he’ll do. Got a nice place here where he can bring up his children when he’s done messin’ about abroad.”

  Even Miss Crosby, at first bitterly resentful—for marriage at seventeen, and to so old a man, was not what she had hoped for—came to approve of the affair. He was a clever, distinguished man. Judith in his company would meet other clever and distinguished people.

  “I must get you some lives of wives of distinguished men to read. There are many ways, dear, in which you can help, and by influencing your husband become a power, even if an unseen one, in the world.”

  Judith was married correctly in white satin and orange blossom, with Esther and Susanna as bridesmaids, and the choirboys bellowing “The Voice that Breathed o’er Eden,” and the organist painfully thumping out the Wedding March from Lohengrin, and the bellringers, who had taken a day’s holiday from their various work for the occasion, pealing the church bells for hours, and the admiring villagers repeating endlessly, “Don’t Miss Judith make a lovely bride!” and the guests seeing a parting vision of her, slim and lovely in pale grey, as she climbed into the car en route for Southampton, and presently Egypt.

  The gods were kind to her. The sea was calm. After unpacking, she went on deck. There she took a deep, happy breath, realizing that she had got everything she wanted: a brilliant husband, a wonderful and interesting future, where she would have a chance to use her brain at last. Her husband came out of the smoking-room.

  “There you are, dearest, I was just coming to look for you. I’m afraid I’ve deserted you. I’ve been gossiping. I’ve found an old friend on board.”

  “Who?”

  “George Chisholm. You wouldn’t have heard of him, but I suppose he knows more about ancient Egypt than any man living. He’s got a new theory he’s going to advance; that’s what we were chatting about.”

  “What theory is it?”

  Her husband smiled at her and stroked her cheek.

  “That little head of yours is far too pretty to think of serious things. Come and listen to the band.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The beginning of the holidays found only the younger children at home. Esdras was in camp with the Territorials, Tobit with the school O.T.C., and Esther away staying with relations. Round the Vicarage buzzed endless talk of war. David, Catherine and Miss Crosby, trying to discuss the problem levelly, running to each other with every scrap of news. The children, interested at the end of July, were bored with war talk by the fourth of August, especially as the strain of waiting for news, and the feeling of tenseness stretching almost visibly over the country, made the grown-ups short-tempered, with an inclination to snub what appeared to them foolish questions in this time of crisis. David especially found his nerves rubbed ra
w, torn as he was between his cloth and his breeding: cloth that preached the doctrine, “Love one another,” and breeding which cried with equal fervour, “Frustrate their knavish tricks.”

  At luncheon on the fourth they were talking of the mobilization orders, Sir Edward Grey’s speech, and yesterday’s meeting of bankers, when Manasses said suddenly:

  “Suppose we fight the Germans, and they take us, what difference is it going to make to us?”

  There was a pause. David went white with temper.

  “Go to your room,” he said, controlling himself with difficulty, “and try not to talk like a fool.”

  Catherine felt that, all things considered, the children would be better out of the house. She saw an especially nice tea packed for them, and sent them off, together with Samson, with directions to stay out as long as they liked. They didn’t walk far, for the day was hot, and the tea-basket heavy, but at the first suitable spot camped, and settled down to the proper building of a fire. After tea, lying round its ashes, Manasses, who was still smarting from David’s words, and completely puzzled at what appeared to him utterly illogical grown-up bad temper, reverted to his question:

  “What difference would it make to us if the Germans took us? Why was Daddy so cross when I asked him?”

  They tried to look superior, and each put on an “every fool knows that” expression, until Sirach, feeling something more was required, said:

  “It’s because the Germans aren’t Church of England, and he’s afraid if they took us they’d make him give up being one, and be what they are.”

  “What are they?”

  “Roman Catholics, I suppose. All foreigners are.”

  Baruch giggled.

  “Daddy wouldn’t like that; he’d have to kiss the Pope’s toe.”

  Susanna picked up a handful of ashes and made a small castle.

  “If the Germans took us, would the Kaiser rule us instead of the King?” she asked.

  “I suppose so,” Sirach agreed. “But they aren’t going to take us. How could they with our Navy?”

  “What’s more,” Maccabeus broke in truculently, “if there is a war we’ll take them.”

  “What’ll we do with them if we do?” asked Manasses.