Ultima Thule (22 page)

Brought up at length alongside a rail-and-post fence, the horse stood shaking and sweating, its red nostrils working like bellows, the marks of the lash on its lathered hide. And Richard was trembling too. His hand shook so that he could hardly replace the whip in its socket.

With an unspoken "Thank God!" Mary slid to the ground, dragging Cuffy after her. Her legs felt as if they were made of pulp.

"I think this must be the place . . . . I think I see a house . . . . No, no, you stop here. I'll go on and find out." (Impossible for him to face strangers in the state he was in.) "Hush, Cuffy! It's all right now." Saying this she made to draw the child under a bush; he was lying sobbing just as she had dropped him.

But Cuffy pushed her away. "Leave me alone!" He only wanted to stop where he was. And cry. He felt so dreadfully miserable. For the poor horse. . . it couldn't cry for itself. . . only run and run -- and it hadn't done anything . . . 'cept be very old and tired . . . prayeth best who loveth best . . . oh! everything was turned all black inside him. But for Papa, too, because . . . he didn't know why . . . only . . . when Mamma had gone and Papa thought nobody would see him, he went up to the horse's neck and stroked it. And that made him cry more still.

But when he came and sat down by him and said "Cuffy," and put out his arms, then he went straight into them, and Papa held him tight, so that he could feel the hard sticking-out bone that was his shoulder. And they just sat and never spoke a word, till they heard Mamma coming back; and then Papa let him go, and he jumped up and pretended to be looking at something on the ground.

Marry carried a dipper of water.

"Yes, this is it right enough. There's been an accident -- the son -- they're afraid he's broken his leg. Oh, why can't people send clearer messages! Can you rig up some splints? A man's bringing a bucket for the horse. Come, let me dust you down. No, I'll wait here I'd rather."

Richard went off bag in hand: she watched him displacing and replacing slip-rails, walking stiffly over the rough ground. Just before he vanished he turned and waved, and she waved back. But this last duty performed, she sat heavily down, and dropped her head in her hands. And there she sat, forgetful of where she was, of Cuffy, the heat, the return journey that had to be faced: just sat, limp and spent, thinking things from which she would once have shrunk in horror.

All the way home Cuffy carried in his pocket half one of the nicest sugar-biscuits the people had sent him out by Papa. It was a present for the horse. But when the moment came to give it, his courage failed. Everybody else had forgotten: the horse, too: it was in a great hurry to get back to its stable. He didn't like to be the only one to remember, to make it look as if he was still sorry. So, having feebly fingered the biscuit -- the sugary top had melted and stuck to his pocket -- he ate it up himself.

FOR some time after this, Cuffy fought shy of his father; and tried never, if he could help it, to be alone with him. It wasn't only embarrassment at having been nursed and petted like a baby. The events of the drive had left a kind of fear behind them: a fear not of his father, but for him: he was afraid of having to see what Papa was feeling. If he was with him, he didn't seem able not to. And he didn't like it. For he wanted so awf'ly much to be happy -- in this house that he loved, with the verandah, and the garden, and the fowls, and the Lagoon -- and when he saw Papa miserable, he couldn't be. So he gave the end of the verandah on which the surgery opened a wide berth; avoiding the dining-room, too. . . when it wasn't just meals. For there was no sofa in the surgery, and if Papa had a headache he sometimes went and lay down in the dining-room.

But he couldn't always manage it.

There was that day Mamma sent him in to fetch her scissors, and Papa was on the sofa with the blind down and his eyes shut, and his feet sticking over the end. Cuffy walked on the tips of his toes. But just when he thought he was safe, Papa was watching him. And put his hand out and said: "Come here to me, Cuffy. There's something I wish to say to you."

The words struck chill. With resistance in every limb, Cuffy obeyed.

"Pull up the hassock; sit down." And there he was, alone in the dark with Papa, his heart going pit-a-pat.

Papa took his hand. And held on to it. "You're getting a big boy now; you'll soon be seven years old . . . when I was not much older than that, my dear, I was being thrashed because I could not turn French phrases into Latin."

"What's Latin?" (Oh, perhaps after all it was just going to be about when Papa was little.)

"Latin is one of the dead languages."

"How can it . . . be dead? It isn't a . . . a man."

"Things perish, too, child. A language dies when it is no longer in common use; when it ceases to be a means of communication between living people."

This was too much for Cuffy. He struggled with the idea for a moment, then gave it up, and asked: "Why did you have to? And why did your Mamma let you be thrashed?" (Lots and lots of questions. Papa always told.)

"Convention demanded it . . . convention and tradition. . . the slavish tradition of a country that has always rated the dead lion higher than the live dog. And thralls to this notion were those in whose hands at that time lay the training of the young. The torturing rather! A lifetime lies between, but I can still feel something of the misery, the hopelessness, the inability to understand what was required of you, the dread of what awaited you was your task ill done or left undone. A forlorn and frightened child . . . with no one to turn to, for help or advice. That most sensitive, most delicate of instruments -- the mind of a little child! Small wonder that I vowed to myself, if ever I had children of my own . . . to let the young brain lie fallow . . . not so much as the alphabet . . . the A B C . . ." Thus, forgetful of his little hearer, Mahony rambled on. And Cuffy, listening to a lot more of such talk (nasty talk!) kept still as a broody hen, not shuffling his feet, or sniffling, or doing anything to interrupt, for fear of what might come next.

Then Papa stopped and was so quiet he thought he'd gone to sleep again. He hoped so. He'd stay there till he was quite sure. But through his trying too hard not to make a noise, a button squeaked, and Papa opened his eyes.

"But . . . this wasn't what I brought you here to say." He looked fondly at the child and stroked his rough, little-boy hand. "Listen, Cuffy. Papa hasn't felt at all well lately, and is sometimes very troubled . . . about many things. And he wants you, my dear, to promise him that if anything should . . . I mean if I should" -- he paused, seeking a euphemism -- "if I should have to leave you, leave you all, then I want you to promise me that you will look after Mamma for me, take care of her in my place, and be a help to her in every way you can. Will you?"

Cuffy nodded: his throat felt much too tight to speak. Dropping his head he watched his toe draw something on the carpet. To hear Papa say things like this made him feel like he did when he had to take his clothes off.

"Your little sister too, of course, but Mamma most of all. She has had so much to bear . . . so much care and trouble. And I fear there's more to come. Be good to her, Cuffy! -- And one other thing. Whatever happens, my little son . . . and who knows what life may have in store for you . . . I want you never to forget that you are a gentleman -- a gentleman first and foremost -- no matter what you do or where you go, or who your companions may be. Noblesse oblige. With that for your motto you cannot go far wrong."

"What a lot of little hairs you've got on your hand, Papa!" Cuffy blurted this out, hardly knowing what he said. Nobody . . . not even Papa . . . had the right to speak such things to him. They hurt.

Free at last he ran to the garden, where he fell to playing his wildest, merriest games. And Mahony, lying listening to the childish rout, thought sadly to himself: "No use . . . too young."

That Papa might be going away stayed Cuffy's secret: he didn't even tell Lucie. Or at least not till she got a secret, too. He saw at once there was something up; and it didn't take him half a jiffy to worm it out of her. They sat on the other side of the fowl-house; but she whispered, all the same. "I fink Mamma's going away."

Cuffy, leaning over her with his arm round her neck, jerked upright, eyes and mouth wide open. What? . . . Mamma, too? Oh, but that couldn't be true . . . it couldn't! He laughed out loud, and was very stout and bold in denial because of the fright it gave him. "Besides, if she did, she'd take us with her."

But his little sister shook her head. "I heard her tell Papa yesterday, one of vese days she'd just pack her boxes an' walk outer the house an' leave bof him an' the child'en. An' then he could see how he liked it." And the chubby face wrinkled piteously.

"Hush, Luce! they'll hear you -- don't cry, there's a good girl. I'll look after you . . . always! An' when I'm a big man I'll . . . I'll marry you. So there! Won't that be nice?"

But Cuffy's world tottered. Papa's going would be bad enough . . . though . . . yes . . . he'd take care of Mamma so well that she'd never be worried again. But that she should think of leaving them was not to be borne. Life without Mamma! The nearest he could get to it was when he had once had to stop alone at a big railway station to mind the luggage, while Mamma and Luce went to buy the tickets. It had taken so long, and there were so many people, and he was so sure the train would go without them . . . or else they might forget him, forget to come back . . . or get into a wrong train and he be left there . . . standing there for always. His heart had thumped and thumped . . . and he watched for them till his eyes got so big they almost fell out . . . and the porters were running and shouting . . . and the doors banging . . . oh dear, oh dear!

He knew what the row had been about -- a picture Cousin Emmy had painted quite by herself, and sent as a present to Mamma. Mamma thought it was a lovely picture, and so did he: all sea and rocks, with little men in red caps sitting on them. But Papa said it was a horrible dorb, and he wouldn't have it in his house. And Mamma said that was only because it was made by a relation of hers, and if it had been one of his, he would have liked it; and it was an oil painting, and oil paintings were ever so hard to do; and when she thought of the time it must have taken Emmy, and the work she had put into it . . . besides, she'd always believed he was fond of the girl. And Papa said, Good God, so he was, but what had that to do with "heart"? And Mamma said, well he might talk himself hoarse, but she meant to hang the picture in the drawing-room, and Papa said he forbade it . . . and then he'd run away so as not to hear any more, but Luce didn't, and it was then she heard.

He hated Aunt Zara. Aunt Zara said, with them quarrelling as they did, the house wasn't fit to live in. He went hot all over when she said this. And that night he got a big pin and stuck it in her bed with the point up, so it would run into her when she lay down. And it must have; because she showed it to Mamma next day and was simply furious. And he had to say yes he'd done it, and on purpose. But he wouldn't say he was sorry, because he wasn't; and he stopped naughty, and never did say it at all.

For then the Bishop came to stay, and every one was nice and smiley again.

The Bishop was the same genial, courtly gentleman as of old. Tactfulness itself, too: in the three days he was with them never, by word or by look, did he show himself aware of their changed circumstances. He admired house and garden, complimented Mary on her cooking, and made much of the children. Especially Lucie. "I shall steal this little maid before I'm finished, Mrs. Mahony. Pop her in my pocket and take her home as a present to my wife!" And the chicks were on their best behaviour -- they had had it well dinned into them beforehand not to comment on the Bishop's attire. But even if it had been left to his own discretion, Cuffy would in this case have held his tongue. For, truth to tell, he thought the Bishop's costume just a little rude. To wear your legs as if you were still a little boy, and then . . . to have something hanging down in front. Mamma said it was an apron and all Bishops did -- even a "sufferin'" Bishop like this one. But surely . . . surely . . . if you were a grown-up gentleman . . .

Zara, too, did her share. At table, what with looking after Maria and the dishes, keeping one eye on the children, the other on the Bishop's plate, Mary's own attention was fully occupied. Richard sat for the most part in the silence that was now his normal state; he was, besides, so out of things that he had little left to talk about. Hence it fell to Zara, who was a fluent conversationalist and very well read, to keep the ball rolling. The Bishop and she got on splendidly (Zara had by now, of course, returned to the true fold.) Afterwards, he was loud in her praises. "A very charming woman, your sister, Mrs. Mahony . . . very charming, indeed!" And falling, manlike, under the spell of the widow's cap, he added: "How bravely she bears up, too. So sad, so very sad for her losing her dear husband as she did. Still! . . . God's ways are not our ways. His Will, not ours, be done!"

At which Mary winced. For he had used the self-same words about their own great grief, had worn the same sympathetic face, dispensed a like warm pressure of the hand. And this rankled. It was true she did not parade her loss in yards of crepe. But that any one who troubled to think could compare the two cases! A little child, cut prematurely off, and Hempel, poor old Hempel, Zara's pis aller, who had had one foot in the grave when she married him, whom she had badgered and bullied to the end. But these pious phrases evidently formed the Bishop's stock-in-trade, which he dealt out indiscriminately to whoever suffered loss or calamity. And now her mind jumped back to the afternoon of his arrival, when after tea Richard and he had withdrawn to the surgery. "A most delightful chat," he subsequently described the hour spent in there; though she, listening at the door, knew that Richard had hardly opened his mouth. At the time, she had thought it most kind of the Bishop so to make the best of it. Now, however . . .