The Reckoning (83 page)

But Marcus knew the sound and look of a door closing as
well as any man; and though he was at bottom a simple soul,
he loved her too much not to be able to act at least as well as that.

 
Polly was walking through the Italian garden with Father
Moineau. It was a mild day with a smell of woodsmoke in the
air, and the sunshine was vague and pleasant like an absent
minded caress. It said a great deal for Polly's recovery that
she had voluntarily entered the Italian garden, and was actu
ally enjoying walking between the tall, darkly formal hedges which closed in the view on all sides. The green of them was
almost black in the shadows, and against them the marble
statues stood out dead white like bleached bones.

‘
Aunt Héloïse tells me that any number of previous owners
of Morland Place have meant to change this garden. The
intention is recorded again and again in the Household Book,
but somehow no-one ever gets round to it.'

‘
Yes, that's right. I've been reading it too,' said Father
Moineau. He looked around him appreciatively. 'I'm glad
they did not dig this up, after their various passing fashions. There's something timeless about it. When I walk here, I can
almost feel the hot, southern sun, and smell that particular
smell of aromatic plants ...’

He drifted off for a moment, and then came back to say,
‘It's a wonderful document, the Household Book. Have you read it?' Polly shook her head. 'Oh you should, you should.
All of history is there, if you know how to read between the
lines. I have been trying to persuade her ladyship to write a
history of Morland Place — and I'm not the first to suggest it
— but she says she has not the time, and I suppose she is
right.'

‘
She's busy every hour of the day,' Polly agreed. 'I feel I
ought to do more to help, but whenever I offer, it always
seems everything has just that minute been done.’

Moineau smiled sidelong at her. 'She wishes you to have a
long holiday, and grow well and strong.'

‘But I haven't been ill.'

‘
Indeed you have. But I think you are getting better.'
They stepped through the last section of hedge and came
out onto the bank of the moat. Polly looked up in affection at
the old rosy brick of the house, its every imperfection and
irregularity thrown into sharp relief by the westering of the
sun.

‘
It's this place,' she said simply. 'There's something healing
about it.'

‘
It's a good place,' Father Moineau said. 'I said so when I
first came here. But it's a kind of goodness which is going out
of the world, and the world will be the poorer for it.'

‘
What do you mean?' Polly asked. They turned their backs
to the sun and walked along the bank towards the Long Walk.
‘There's an order here,' Moineau said. 'Each person knows
his place, and is comfortable in it; each place has its privileges
and its responsibilities. It creates a stillness.'

‘Yes,' said Polly.

‘
Outside, the world has grown restless. It craves change,
movement, novelty — all the time something new, something different. It is the fault of the Revolution, at least in part.’

‘
Because people stepped out of their place?'

‘
Yes; and because men permitted themselves to do things
they knew were wrong, believing that they did them to
achieve a good end, and that they could cease to do them
when the end was achieved.' He sighed. 'But of course, it does
not happen that way.’

He paused for so long that Polly felt he needed prompting.
‘How does it happen, then?’

He looked at her rather curiously, as though he had been
thinking about something else, and had only just noticed she
was there. 'We humans have constructed walls around us, of
laws and customs and interdicts — which are necessary,
because in our cleverness we are very dangerous creatures.
We have not the simplicity of the animals to keep us true. The effect of all these rules is to restrain us — perhaps, you know,
as we restrain lunatics,' he added with a smile, ‘so that they
shan't hurt us or themselves.’

She returned the smile faintly: she had an idea where this
was leading.

‘
Yes, we are very like lunatics, we clever animals,' he con
tinued, evidently struck with the idea.

‘
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,' Polly
murmured.

‘
Bien sûr,'
he agreed vaguely. He had not read Shakespeare.
‘But when we are restrained, when we grow quiet, into that
quietness creeps another sound, something we cannot hear
when we go rushing and bellowing about: we hear the voice of
God, telling us how to make sense of things, telling us if we
have got things right. In our madness, we cannot hear it; and
without it, there is no end to our madness. It is — how do you
call it —?' He made a gesture with both hands.

‘A vicious circle?' Polly said.

He nodded. 'Here, at Morland Place, there is the stillness.
But in the restless world outside there is no chance for that
voice to be heard, and so people do things they know are
wrong, and having done them, tell themselves they were not
so bad after all. It is bad fruit, which makes you sick in a
particular way — it makes you want more.' He paused, and
then felt his way back to where he had started. 'So it was with
the Revolution. Every bad thing that was done made the next
worse thing not only easier, but inevitable.'

‘Yes,' said Polly. 'I see that.’

He nodded to her. 'You cannot do evil that good may
come, for only evil comes of evil — that is the way of things.’

They turned the corner of the house onto the Long Walk.
At the far end the swans were couched on the grass, preening.
They turned their heads to look at the humans for a moment, then went back to the much more fascinating question of the
state of their plumage, magnificent in their self-possession.

‘
Then what will become of the world?' Polly asked. 'Is there
no way back?'

‘
The way back is as you have found. Just to stop, and be
still, to listen and be healed.'

‘But I didn't do evil that good might come.'

‘
Didn't you?' He cocked his head at her, enquiring as a
bird.

She stared back, wide-eyed. 'Yes,' she said reluctantly, 'I
suppose — in a way. But it wasn't entirely my fault.'
He ignored that. 'It made you sick, did it not?'

‘
It wasn't only that, it was — wondering — not knowing —'
She stopped, and then went on in a painful burst, 'Father
Moineau, can I tell you? I can't tell anyone else.'

‘
Of course you can,' he said, nodding pleasantly, a small,
round, brown man, as little threatening as a tame sparrow. And so it was to him, and not to Miss Rosedale, that Polly
finally poured out her trouble.

She told him of her long captivity at Stainton, and of
Minnie's death, and of the terrible suspicion that had haunted
her ever since that perhaps after all Harvey had killed
Minnie, in order to be free to marry her.

‘
And what made you think that he did this terrible thing?'
Father Moineau asked at last.

‘
Oh, many things — little things, but together —' She
rubbed a hand over her face. 'The fact that the babies fell sick
just after he arrived, when they'd always been perfectly
healthy. And suddenly he was spending so much time with us
when he'd stayed away before. Then what happened to me in
the inn — feeling dizzy and falling asleep so suddenly, as if I'd
been drugged. And afterwards, when he came back for me, he
seemed so strange, nervous and excited.' She stared wide-
eyed at nothing, remembering. 'He drove home fast, talking
all the while. That wasn't like him. And the things he said — I
didn't tell anyone, I didn't dare — but he said that something
would happen soon so that we could be together, that it had
to happen or his life would not be worth living. And after
wards I started to think — I didn't want to believe, but I
couldn't seem to help it. So you see —?' She faltered and
stopped.

‘
Yes, I see. But those things you have told me were not why
you believed,' Moineau said seriously.

‘Not?' Polly looked bewildered.

‘
No,
ma chère.
Suspicion is a sickness which does not
depend on any evidence for its existence. It is a monster which
gets into your head and eats everything it finds there, no
matter what it is, and grows stronger on it.'

‘But where did the monster come from?'

‘
You made it yourself, out of your own sense of wrong
doing. You bred your own sickness. You will be well when you
cast out your sin.'

‘
I did cast it out. We — Harvey and I — I was not sinning
any more,' Polly protested. He gave her the sidelong look
which invited her to answer her own questions. 'You mean —
just being there? But I couldn't have left! Minnie needed me,
she couldn't do without me. I wanted to go, but they wouldn't
let me!' Again the look. Protest weakened. 'I don't see what
else I could have done.'

‘When you do see, you will be well,' he said simply.

‘
Then what must I do?' she asked fretfully. It was answers
she wanted, not riddles.

‘
Stay here,' he said comfortably. 'Be still, be quiet, listen
for the voice of God. You don't have to go to Him – He will
come to you, if you are still enough. That is where that big, restless world outside mistakes: always seeking movement,
change – activity. It is not necessary to
do,
only to
be.'

‘
I don't understand,' Polly said resentfully.

‘
But you will. We will talk again,
ma petite,
many times. I
enjoy your mind so much.' He looked at her downcast face.
‘Don't be discouraged. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy,' said
Father Moineau, and he smiled. 'That is what I tell my boys
every day.’

*

Héloïse came into the drawing-room and found Sophie sitting
at the pianoforte, idly touching the keys. She checked the
cheerful greeting that rose to her lips when she realised that
Sophie was not aware of her presence, that she was, indeed,
very far away. She seemed to be pressing the keys at random,
but after a moment Héloïse discerned that though there were
long gaps between the notes, they actually formed the tune of
La Bayadère, a
soldier's song which had been all the go in
Brussels when the Allied Army gathered there before
Waterloo.