Parson's Nine

by Noel Streatfeild

  Love,

  Esdras.”

  With the anxiety about Tobit relieved, and the excitement of Esther’s wedding over, Susanna had more time for her private thoughts. Time, instead of moving at its usual leisurely speed, seemed to her suddenly to be galloping. Her and Baruch’s birthday, which only a short time before had been a good year away, was looming on top of them, separated from them merely by three months. “In three months,” she said to herself, “Baruch will have to join the Army.” “He can’t,” her reason retorted. “He may join, he may think he’ll stand it, but he won’t. All his life he’s avoided things he doesn’t like, so how will he stand them now?” “But he’ll have to,” Susanna muttered. “He can’t run away from the war.”

  One sunny day as she walked to the hospital she saw a patient basking on a seat, the blue of his hospital uniform a vivid patch against the trees, and a determination seized her to face her fears and learn the worst.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Mornin’, nurse.”

  “Lovely out here, isn’t it?”

  “Yus, but too quiet for me; give me Deptford ‘Igh Street.”

  “Is that where you live?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Aren’t you glad to be home in England?”

  The man grinned at her.

  “You betcher life I am.”

  Susanna nervously scratched at the grass with her toe.

  “Were you ever frightened in France?”

  “No, can’t say as I was, what wiv one fing and another always too blinkin’ busy.”

  “But some of the others were?”

  “You betcher life they was.” He gave a reminiscent chuckle. “Takes some of ’em funny ways, cold feet does.”

  “Do any of them ever run away?”

  “ ’Undreds.”

  “Hundreds? But aren’t they punished?”

  “Punished! You betcher life they are.”

  “How?”

  “They shoots ’em.”

  “Shoot them!” Susanna’s hand shot up to her mouth. “Oh, no!”

  “Yus, that’s right. And fer why? Cowardice in the fice of the enemy—see?”

  “Oh—oh—well, good morning.”

  “Good mornin’, nurse.”

  From that moment panic seized her. During the day hours she held it in check by cramming her time with any and every occupation which kept her mind subdued, but her nights were unbearable; often she only kept herself from screaming by biting the sheet, and always by day or night her heart beat to the same phrase:

  “Why can’t I go instead of him? Why can’t I go instead of him?”

  She began to look so wretchedly ill that Catherine, in spite of her protests, decided to send her to stay with Judith. She got as far as writing—“Darling Judith. I think Susanna—” But she got no further, for David, looking grey-faced, came to her with twitching lips holding a telegram.

  “Darling, Esdras has been killed.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  One day in July Susanna went to London. The need for a visit to the oculist, together with the fact that Tobit had been moved into a hospital there, caused the school authorities to allow Baruch a day in town. Catherine, still distressed at her white face, leapt at the opportunity, and sent Susanna up to meet him. They joined forces in his oculist’s waiting-room.

  “Hullo,” he said in an offhand whisper, for there were other people present.

  “Hullo,” she retorted with equal indifference.

  They set off down the street, Susanna, as soon as the door had closed behind them, full of conversation.

  “Mummy has given me ten shillings for our lunch, and we can have it where we like, and then you are to go and see Tobit while I buy a hat and try and get a new vegetable dish to match the plates—Maud dropped the old one—and then I’m coming back to fetch you from Tobit’s hospital, and I’ve got some more money for us to have tea before your train.”

  “Have you any meat coupons?”

  “No, mummy used all ours for a joint; we’ll have to have offal.”

  Baruch sighed.

  “All right, but I’m awfully hungry. We don’t get much to eat at school.”

  They turned into a restaurant and sat down at a marble-topped table.

  “Have you any insides?” Susanna asked the waitress politely. “We haven’t any coupons.”

  They bent their heads over the menu, and discussed the problem of whether it should be a piece of ox-liver or a stuffed heart.

  “You’d never know Tobit had only one leg,” Susanna remarked cheerfully, as the waitress went off with their order. “Of course, being in bed you can’t see, and he talks as though he’d do everything as usual when he gets up; doesn’t seem a bit ill, though he’s had five operations.”

  Baruch shivered.

  “Awful. Poor Tobit, I would hate it.”

  “Well, he might have been killed.”

  “Yes.”

  A constrained silence fell on them. Each was hoping desperately that the other wouldn’t mention Esdras or Sirach, who had become embarrassing now they were dead. Awkwardly Susanna changed the subject.

  “Had a nice term?”

  “M’m. Got off a lot of things because of military training.”

  “Done any writing?”

  “Just a bit.”

  “Our Land?”

  “Oh, sometimes.” He flushed. “It’s most awful rot, of course.”

  “You never show it to me now.”

  “You’re always so busy with your old hospital.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  But Baruch’s attention had focused on the waitress.

  “Good,” he remarked. “Here’s our food.”

  After lunch they went to the hospital. Susanna climbed up the steps with Baruch and left him on the doormat.

  “I’ll be back to fetch you at half-past three.”

  “Do you think Tobit will want to talk to me all that long?”

  “Of course he will.”

  “I say, Sukey.” He followed her down the steps. “Does he look different?”

  “I told you he didn’t.”

  “Do you think he’ll want to show me where they’ve cut his leg off?”

  “He didn’t show me. I should think it’s all tied up.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would be.” Gingerly, dragging his feet, he climbed the steps again, gave a longing glance after Susanna’s retreating back, then unwillingly rang the bell. The door was opened with great promptitude by a pretty V.A.D. who smiled at him. Baruch turned crimson.

  “Can I—could I see my brother?” he stammered.

  “We’ve a lot of brothers here; which might yours be?”

  “Tobit. Tobit Churston, I mean.”

  “Of course, you’re the twin, and you’ve got a day off from school, haven’t you? You see, he’s told me all about you. Come along, you’ll get him to yourself, for the other men in his room have gone for a drive.”

  Tobit, smoking his pipe, was sitting up in bed reading an article on gardening. Baruch was immensely relieved at sight of him, he looked so exactly as usual.

  “Hullo, are you better?” he asked.

  “Much, thanks. How’s everything?”

  “All right. We’d a house match yesterday.”

  “Who won?”

  “We did,” said Baruch, and immediately plunged into school gossip.

  “What’s the latest news from home?” asked Tobit, when they’d exhausted school subjects. “Did Susanna say? I thought mother looked an awful wreck when I saw her last week. Of course, she’s taken old Esdras being pipped off pretty badly, but I think what’s really got her is that young Sirach was burned to death.” He sucked at his pipe ruminantly. “Funny the things women fu
ss about, as if being burned was the worst thing that could happen to you. Do you know, I’ve seen—”

  When Susanna arrived at the hospital the V.A.D. was looking out for her.

  “What did you give that twin of yours for lunch? One of the nurses met him staggering down the passage from your brother’s room looking ghastly; she made him sit down, and gave him some brandy, and he’s better now, but he still looks a wreck. You’d better take him across to the park for a bit to give him some air.”

  Susanna, eyeing his appearance with dismay, took Baruch into Hyde Park. In silence they walked on to the grass and sat down on a seat. People chattered round them, birds sang, an aeroplane droned overhead, but Baruch seemed to hear and see nothing; he sat gazing in front of him, with his hands clenched, and beads of perspiration dripping off his forehead, till suddenly, with a choked cry, he dropped his head into his hands and began to sob.

  Susanna was torn between pity for Baruch and shame at the way he was making them both conspicuous.

  “Oh, I say, what is it? You must stop, you’re too old to cry; people are looking at us.”

  But Baruch was blind to everything but his agony of mind.

  “Sukey,” he gasped. “What am I going to do?”

  Susanna stared at his heaving shoulders.

  “Is it the war?” she half whispered.

  He nodded.

  “I can’t go, I can’t go; what am I going to do?”

  Susanna looked round. They were the objects of interested stares. Inexperienced though she was, she realised that in his present state, the longer he sat and brooded, the worse his hysteria would become. She got to her feet.

  “Well, it’s no good sitting here fussing,” she said firmly. “Come along, I want my tea.”

  She led Baruch to a teashop. He walked stumblingly as though he had lost control of his limbs, his teeth chattered without ceasing. She sat him down in a chair and gave him a strong cup of tea. It revived him a little.

  “Now,” she said. “Tell me what’s happened.”

  “Nothing. It’s just that I’ve not thought before. Sukey, you know I’m not afraid to go to the war, not to be killed like the others, or wounded like Tobit, if it’s got to happen I don’t mind that. But, Sukey, it’s—” His head fell on his arms.

  “Baruch.” She shook him. “Has Tobit been telling you things?”

  He raised his face, which looked grey and old, and nodded.

  “But, Baruch, you’ve not got to go yet; it’s a month before we’re eighteen, and then you’ve got to be trained, and the war may be over before you’re sent to the front.”

  But he shook his head.

  “It won’t be over; they’ll make me go.”

  “Would you like the Navy better?” she asked tentatively.

  But he was in a mood of despair, past reasoning. “They’ll make me go,” he repeated.

  She took him to his train on the top of a bus, hoping it would do him good, but he leant against the rails the whole way, looking too ill to hold himself upright, and didn’t seem to hear her when she spoke to him. In complete silence they got off the bus, went into the station, on to the platform, and found an empty carriage, where Baruch sank on to the seat in a hunched heap. Susanna racked her brains for something comforting to say, but such gift for words as she possessed deserted her, and tongue-tied she heard the whistle blow, saw the flag wave, and, powerless to help him, allowed Baruch to vanish out of her sight.

  All the way home in the train she sat and faced facts. Her nightmares of the past months had materialised and almost crushed her. Baruch was seeing things now as she had feared he must, and, as she had expected, couldn’t face up to them, but was reduced to hysteria. Yet, as he said himself, they’d make him go. What then? What would Baruch do faced with horrors? Shivering in spite of the warm night, Susanna heard again the wounded Tommy—“They shoots ’em. They shoots ’em just the sime.” She arrived home looking so white and tired that Catherine was horrified.

  “Give her some dinner in bed, Crossy,” she directed, as she hurried off to her hospital.

  Susanna ate her food, then became suddenly terribly drowsy, and before Maud came for her tray she was asleep.

  She awoke with a jump, and became conscious of a feeling of terror. She had no idea of the time, but the moon was shining, and the house utterly quiet. Gradually her terror grew worse till she was in a state of panic. The palms of her hands were dripping wet, her hair stuck to her forehead, and her heart beat so violently that she felt as though she were being suffocated. Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she staggered out of her bed, crossed the room, and fell half-fainting on to the windowsill, and as she fell her fear culminated in a second of excruciating agony; then, as abruptly as it had come, her fright left her, her heart stopped its wild beating, the soft night breeze dried her forehead, and she felt most exquisitely at peace. After a moment she pulled herself upright and stared into the garden, but there was nothing there to account for her fear; it was all very still. She leant her head against the window and existed without thought, letting wave after wave of peace float over her. Then suddenly without any warning she was utterly drowsy, so, quite unconsciously, she crossed the room once more, climbed into her bed, and was at once asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The feeling of peace and contentment was still with her the next morning, and she sang over her sink as she washed up at the hospital. Mrs. Cary, her fellow scullerymaid, looked at her in surprise. She was a widow, whose husband had been killed in the early days of the war, leaving her with a delicate baby. On this baby’s account she had come to live in the village, and had been thankful to find work she could do, for apart from patriotic reasons, she dreaded the loneliness and depression of unemployed hours. Susanna was a great interest to her. Working and gossiping with her she got to know her fairly well, but never well enough to understand her curiously careworn expression and lack of spirits, which she thought sad and odd in a child. She puzzled over her quite a lot. Now she smiled at her.

  “You’re cheerful this morning.”

  “Yes, and I don’t know why.”

  “Neither do I. When I heard there’d been a convoy in during the night, and we’d got all these soup mugs to wash, my spirits sank into my boots.”

  Susanna fished a collection of bits of carrot and cigarette ends off the top of the water.

  “Ugh! I do hate the feel of slimy things bobbing against my elbows.”

  They were washing up in the scullery and so didn’t hear Catherine come into the kitchen. She beckoned to the head cook and whispered:

  “Where’s Susanna?”

  “In the scullery.” Mrs. Bell looked at Catherine and realised something was wrong. “What is it?”

  Catherine shook her head, her lips trembled, for a moment she couldn’t find her voice, then she pulled herself together.

  “It’s Baruch.”

  “What!”

  “He’s dead.”

  “But—” Mrs. Bell’s eyes travelled to the scullery door, she heard the murmur of conversation. “Oh, God! Poor little Susanna.”

  Catherine nodded.

  “Yes, and I’ve got to tell her.” She straightened her shoulders, threw up her head, and went into the scullery.

  “Susanna dear, will you come a minute, I want to speak to you.” They sat down on a sloping bank outside the back door—“I’ve had some bad news.”

  Susanna looked up from drying her hands on her coarse apron, and saw the pity in her mother’s eyes. She dropped the apron and her fingers shot out as though to ward off what she had to hear.

  “Oh, mummy! Has something happened to Baruch?”

  “Yes, darling. They telegraphed this morning, and daddy talked to his housemaster on the telephone. It seems that last night, somehow, he fell out of the dormitory window and was killed.”

 
Susanna said nothing, a merciful fog was enveloping her. She heard her mother talking, but she couldn’t take in what she said. “Baruch’s been killed,” she told herself. “Baruch’s been killed.” But it meant nothing to her.

  Catherine leaned towards her.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, darling, but it’s very important. Did Baruch ever tell you that he walked in his sleep?”

  Susanna, wrapped still further in her fog, didn’t answer; she was thinking she ought to be back at her washing up.

  “Susanna dear, you must try and answer my question. Did Baruch ever tell you he walked in his sleep?”

  Susanna gazed at the steam from the hot greasy water which was curling through the back door. She was being mean, she felt, to leave Mrs. Cary to do all that washing up alone.

  Catherine took her by the elbow and shook her.

  “Susanna, you must try and attend to me, it’s terribly important. Was Baruch quite happy yesterday?”

  The shaking had thinned the fog. Was Baruch happy yesterday? Was it yesterday they had sat in the park?

  “He cried,” she said reminiscently.

  Catherine started, then thought a moment, eyeing Susanna the while, who was staring inanely once more at the back door.

  “Susanna! Susanna!” Susanna turned blankly to her mother. “I’m going to hurt you a little.” She dug her nails into the palms of Susanna’s hands, who started at the pain and for a second focused her mother clearly through her fog. “Now say this after me. ‘Baruch told me he walked in his sleep.’ ”

  Susanna smiled vaguely. Catherine dug her nails in still deeper.

  “Come on, you’ve got to say it: ‘Baruch told me he walked in his sleep.’ ”

  “Baruch told me he walked in his sleep,” Susanna repeated like a parrot.

  Catherine got up.

  “Come along, darling, we’ll go home.”

  But here Susanna’s fog didn’t penetrate.

  “Home! Why? Of course I can’t go home in the middle of the morning. I’ve a lot of washing up to do, and I haven’t begun the vegetables.”