Summer Will Show (6 page)

“Of course we won’t go there again if it frightens you. There will be no need to go. Your cough is almost cured, isn’t it?”

Though a child be born, nursed, the creature and study of endless nourishing days, she thought, it is never one’s own to understand. Its every movement bruises one, is as terrifying and incomprehensible as the first movement in the womb, as alien as that first announcement of a separate life. And as though it were her own mysterious pain she rocked and comforted, Sophia rocked and comforted her child. Her mind, despairingly detached from her emotions, surveyed the lawn before her, noticed that a bough had withered on the copper beech and must be lopped off, wondered when Damian and Caspar would come in sight again, beheld Caspar’s little trunk being lifted from the carriage, recollected the list of clothes that were considered necessary by the Trebennick Academy, revised her own supplementary list, and wondered again if it would be right to send the boy there. But if one cannot understand even one’s own children, how hope to judge best for the bastard of one’s half-uncle and some unknown quadroon, passionate and servile, her gold ear-rings swinging proudly, and the marks of the lash maybe on her back?

And how hope, her thought went on, to trace or elicit the connection in Augusta’s mind between Caspar being a heathen and the visit to the lime-kiln? No, no, distraction was the only hope: to be busy, to do the next thing, and the next thing. And already Damian and the half-caste were in sight, and the child in her arms wept no longer.

During the week that Caspar stayed at Blandamer the household disapprobation hardened, and behind it, rearing up like a range of further mountains, ice-summits of the neighbourhood’s disapproval disclosed themselves. That the child should be viewed askance because he was coloured and a stranger was no more than natural; but he had more than that to call down wrath. He was not more black than vivid, not more of a stranger than of a phoenix.

Every one who came in contact with him — and no one could keep away — must need call out some achievement, as people prod monkeys at a fair; and then, angered by the brilliant response, sulk, grumble, and belittle it. The boy could ride. The groom took him from Damian’s pony, mounted him on the bay mare and set him at a jump. Over and over the boy went, and cantering back, slid off the excited beast like a silk shawl dropping to the ground. Roger went off snarling and talking of circus-riders. Mr. Foscot, the curate of the next parish, who came once a week when the weather was fine to give Damian swimming lessons, challenged the visitor to dive. From the first plunge Caspar came up discoloured and quivering, his body aghast at the chilly lake-water; but for all that, being anxious to please, and vain, he dived repeatedly, and in swimming outstripped the curate, looking back from the end of the course, his chattering teeth displayed in a smile of pleasure at having done well. Mr. Foscot praised him duly; but also admonished him against staying in the water too long, since to do so would be bad for Damian and inconsiderate.

Mr. Harwood, the rector, also noticed the boy, enquiring if he knew his catechism. Caspar had never heard of the catechism. “I don’t know what Church he belongs to,” Sophia had interposed, coldly. Mr. Harwood was well enough in his proper place, in his restored Gothic, cushioned by her supplies of red felt and green velvet; and admirable in the parish; but this interview took place in her dining-room.

“I am a Protestant, please.”

“Then you should know your catechism, my boy.”

Damian only was privy to what followed. Not till later in Caspar’s visit did Sophia hear how, having borrowed Damian’s Prayer Book and learned the catechism by heart, adding several collects as a gratuity, Caspar, accompanied by Damian, called upon Mr. Harwood and insisted upon a hearing.

“Very glib, remarkable quickness,” the rector had added, telling this story. “But such facility — I expect, Mrs. Willoughby, that you share my opinion — is not altogether desirable. Light come, light go, you know.”

Seeing her frown he added that he preferred Damian’s type of mind. But even this sop did not appease Sophia; and with irony she amused herself by taking the old man to the conservatory and picking him a bouquet of her gaudiest and most delicate tropical plants. “I am afraid these are all I can offer you,” she said. “There are no violets left.” But, delighted and admiring, he did not perceive the insinuation.

With the same shortsighted partisanship all the household set themselves to match one boy against the other. And Caspar was always the readier, the more agile, the more daring. Each new feat increased their bile against him. They seemed bent on calling out his best in order to trample on it.

But Damian showed only the purest delight in the successes of the elder boy, and if Caspar had had no other gifts his music would have been enough to birdlime the English child. He had brought a small beribboned guitar on which he accompanied his ditties, singing in a thrilling oversweet treble, forgetful of himself, as a bird sings, his slender fingers clawing the wires with the pattering agility of a bird’s footing. He sang every evening, sitting on the terrace, his head leaning against the balustrade, his eyes half-closed, singing hymns and love-songs and melancholy negro rants, his fingers pattering over the dry wires. And Damian, like an entranced dog, would sit as close as possible, his lips moving with the singer’s, his whole being rapt and intent. Sophia lacked the instinct of music, Caspar’s songs were apt to be particularly irritating to her since she could not understand the words. But she was glad to make one of the music party, soothed by the sight of her child’s pleasure, caressed by the outer wave-lengths of a world into which she could not enter; and while the music lasted she would stay, gazing at the picture the children made — the picture of two white cherubs and a black.

Often she told herself that it was impossible to dismiss this being to the Trebennick Academy. Yet she did nothing. With Caspar’s coming something came into her life which supplanted all her disciplined and voluntary efficiency, a kind of unbinding spell which worked upon her lullingly as the scent of some opiate flower. His beauty — a bloom of youth and of youth only — his character, so pliable, sweet and shallow, and the wide-open flattery which he gave to her, all worked her into a holiday frame of mind. It was not possible, while Caspar was in the house, to do anything but enjoy: enjoy the ample summer weather, the smooth striped lawns over which they strolled, the waving of the full-flourished boughs, the baskets of warm raspberries, the clematis pattern of stars, the smooth-running gait of her household, the sweet cry of one crystal dish jarred against another, the duskier bloom coming upon the outdoor peaches along the south wall, her children’s laughter, the cool amethysts she clasped about her neck. Seeing Caspar unharmed by slights and snubs, she troubled herself no more about them; and the sense of being superior to such foolish things heightened her pleasure, seeming to make her move more grandly and freely above their pettiness, as though she were invulnerable as one of those vast white clouds that ambled so nobly overhead. It was all a dream, it could not last, soon her anxious days would repossess her — and surely Augusta had a little snuffle, one sneeze would bring down this enchanted world about her ears; but till the sneeze, till the crash, she would lie basking, trouble herself about that place in Cornwall no more than Caspar troubled himself.

So, doing nothing, too deep in living for action, she swam through the week of the visit until its last day. Then her warm world was rent away from her by a sudden outcry of anger from Damian. The three were playing on the lawn, and she jumped up and ran through the opened french window, alert with anger at this threat to her content, furious and ready to pounce. Like a hawk she was on them. Augusta was in tears, Damian was pulling her hair. She heard the half-caste implore, his voice urgent with fear. “Don’t be angry, don’t quarrel, loveys. Oh, don’t!”

“What’s all this?”

They were silent, Augusta checking her tears with surprise at the sudden onslaught.

“Caspar! Were you teasing them? Is this your fault?” He shook his head despairingly.

“What has happened?”

Still he did not answer, wringing his small hands and casting deploring looks from one child to the other. Then Augusta began to weep again.

“Horrid Damian, hateful boy! You are a bad brother, you hurt me.”

“Hold your tongue, silly!”

“You did hurt me, you did, you did! You pulled my hair, and it’s given me a headache, and you aren’t sorry in the least, for you didn’t stop, even when Caspar begged you. Caspar is a fool. He ought to have knocked you down. But he can do nothing, he can only play his silly guitar.”

She turned to the half-caste, and tried to make a face at him, but more tears ruined the attempt. He had come towards her on his knees, and with a cry of sympathy began to stroke the jangled curls.

“Go away! I don’t want you. You’re
black
!”

“Augusta!”

But before the word was out of Sophia’s mouth Damian hurled himself upon his sister, scratching and buffeting her.

“How dare you, Augusta, how dare you? I’ll kill you for that. Caspar is my friend, and he isn’t black, and I’ll kill you for saying so.”

“Black, black! He is black. A blackamoor! And he’s not a proper boy either, he’s only a bastard. Harlowe said so. I heard her. A black bastard, that’s all your Caspar is.”

She railed out of the tumult of Damian’s assault, her cropped hair tangled over her face, wet with spittle, a furious fighting mane, which she shook over her flushed cheeks. A long scratch leaped out on her arm, and began to bleed. Damian thrust his face against hers, snarling, speechless with rage.

It was all Sophia could do to unclench their combat. Raging herself, locked into a stone of anger, she hauled them towards the house.

“Kneel down,” she commanded, trembling with fury, forcing them down with hands that were like stone against their slight shaken flesh. “Stay there and quiet yourselves.”

After that struggle under the midday sun the shaded air of her sitting-room was cold as a tomb. She trembled as she sat down behind her desk, entrenching herself as against two savage animals. Presently she took her Commonplace Book, and began turning over the pages. The children knelt quietly now, subdued by the austere cool of the shaded room. Under her lashes she saw that they had begun to exchange glances, allied again, now that they had her wrath to look forward to.

“Listen.

“
On Tuesday last, Samuel Turvey, a boy of nine years of age, apprentice to a chimney-sweep, was suffocated in the chimney of a house at Worksop. His master declares that the boy, having gone a little way up the chimney, called down that he was wedged, and could go no further. As he had shown sullenness before, and refused other chimneys, a fire of damp straw was kindled on the hearth, in order that he might be obliged to mount. He still expostulated, though he was heard attempting to go further. To the horror of those present, his body then fell to the hearth, he having been rendered unconscious by the smoke, and loosing his hold. Plucked from the fire he was discovered to be badly burned, and died the same day in the workhouse infirmary
.”

She read coldly and slowly. After a pause she asked,

“Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Mamma.”

“Would you like to be a chimney-sweep?”

“No, Mamma.”

The boy’s answer was mechanical. He knelt and trembled, his face was ashen, every now and then it quivered. Her words had fallen on ears almost deaf, he was still absorbed in the bodily aftermath of the quarrel. Augusta cried out,

“What a horrible wicked man!”

“He had his living to make. And chimneys have to be swept. And some chimneys are so built that a brush cannot be put up them, so a boy must go instead. Only it happens that I am rich, and so such things do not happen to you or your brother.”

It was difficult to speak. Her own wrath still kept her throat clenched, her tongue heavy. Her hand trembled, clattering the paper of the book. She laid it aside, and hid the shaking hands in the folds of her shawl. Outside, shrunken in the violent sunlight, she could see Caspar, standing where they had left him, staring at his shadow with hanging head. The gardener’s boy was shearing the edges of the lawn, glancing sometimes over his shoulder at the half-caste, eyeing him with a complacent gulping grin as though the child were a penny spectacle at a fair.

“On just such a morning as this, some unfortunate child has been driven up a dark chimney. And you — you can find nothing better to do than quarrel like wild beasts. Worse! For no animal quarrels without reason, for food, or for supremacy. Be ashamed of yourselves. Now, get up. Go to Hannah, and tell her to put you both to bed, and to draw the blinds. There you shall spend the rest of the day.”

They glanced at each other, as though consulting, and rose. Lagging, they moved towards the door. Then Damian turned back.

“But Caspar. I must say good-bye to him.”

“No.”

An hour later Hannah came to say that the boy was still weeping. Sophia shook her head. A profound disgust and weariness held her back from yielding.

“But I am afraid it will make him ill, madam. He does take on so. Now Miss Augusta — she’s asleep.”

Sophia shook away the plea. He is always ill, she thought, bitterly impatient; and going to the medicine chest she mixed a sedative. Hannah carried it off, divided in her mind between pity for her nursling and gratification at any sundrance between the white child and the coloured.

The table was laid for two, and during luncheon Sophia kept the conversation upon the Trebennick Academy. Still locked in cold rage, she spoke to Caspar severely and practically, explaining that if he wished to gain favour with his teachers and fellows it would not do to play the guitar, dance or sing. The carriage appeared before the windows, the small luggage was loaded on, it was time to start. In the hall the boy hesitated, looked round questioningly. “Your cousins are in disgrace,” she said, and he followed her submissively, hanging his head.