Ultima Thule (30 page)

"He shall never come again, dear." (Though how were you to help it, if he just walked in?)

Behind the locked door (she seemed always to be locking doors now) she sat, wide-lapped in her full skirts; and, when Richard had railed himself tired, he knelt down before her and laid his face on her dress. Her hands went to and fro over the grey head, on which the hair was wearing so thin. What could she do for him? . . . what was to become of him? . . . when every small mischance so maddened, so exasperated him. That a stupid, boorish act like Purdy's could so shatter his self-control! Her heart wept over him; this heart which, since the evening before, had lain under the shadow of a new fear; a fear so ominous that she still did not dare to put it into words; but against which, for her children's sake, she might need to take up arms . . . to lock, so to speak, yet another door.

The upshot of the matter was that she had to replace the destroyed note by one from her jealously guarded store. This Richard haughtily sealed up and posted back, without a single covering word.

There was, however, one bright side to the affair. And again it was the children who benefited.

In running them out after breakfast to buy some lollipops, Purdy had got permission from the postmaster, an old friend of his, to take them up the lighthouse; and so the three of them went up and up and up a staircase that twisted like a corkscrew, hundreds of steps, till they came to where the great lamp was that shone at night; and then, tightly holding hands, they walked round the little narrow platform outside and looked down at the sea, all bubbly and frothy, and the white roofs of the houses. They found their own, and it didn't look any bigger than a doll's-house. Afterwards they were asked inside the post office -- right inside! -- and they peeped through the little window where the stamps were sold, and saw the holes where the letters were kept; and the two tel'graph machines that went click, click; and how tape ran away on wheels with little dots and dashes on it, that the postmaster said were words. And then he took them into his house behind to see his Mamma and his four grown-up sisters, who were ever so nice, and asked their names, and said Cuffy was a big boy for his age, and Luce was a cuddly darling; and they cut a cake specially for them, and showed them a ship their Papa had made all by himself, even the little wooden men that stood on the decks. They laughed and joked with Mr. Purdy, and they had the most lovely teeth, and sang songs for them till Cuffy was wild with delight.

Thus, through Purdy's agency, a house was opened to the children the like of which they had never known: a home over which no shadow brooded; in which the key was set to laughter and high spirits, and the nonsensical gaiety that children love. Cuffy and Lucie, petted and made much of, completely lost their hearts to their new friends, and talked so much of them, teasing to be allowed to visit them, that Mary felt it incumbent on her to tie on her bonnet and pay a call in person. She came back entirely reassured. The daughters, one and all Australian-born, were charming and accomplished girls; while in old Mrs. Spence, the widow of an English university man who in the early days had turned from unprofitable gold-digging to Government service, she found one who, in kindliness and tolerance, in humour and common sense, reminded her vividly of her own mother, long since dead.

To the children this old lady early became "Granny"; and even Cuffy, who had begun to fight shy of his mother's knee, was not above sitting on hers. A Granny was diffrunt . . . didn't make you feel such a baby. And it was of her kind old face that he eventually succeeded in asking his famous question.

"Bless the child! . . . now what can he mean?" Then, noting the sensitive flush that mounted, Granny cried: "Pauline, come you here! -- Pauline will know, my dear. She's ever so much cleverer than a silly old woman like me."

And pretty Pauline -- they were all four so pretty and so nice that Cuffy couldn't tell which he liked best -- knelt down before him, he sitting on Granny's lap, and, with her dress bunching out round her and her hands on his knees, explained, without laughing a bit. Noblesse oblige didn't mean the obliging female nobleman at all: he had got it mixed up with poet and poetess. "What it says, Cuffy dear, is that people who are born to a high rank . . . like Kings and Queens . . . must always remember who they are and act accordingly. Little gentlemen must always behave like gentlemen, and never do anything low or mean. Do you see?"

And Cuffy nodded . . . and nodded again. Yes, now he knew. And he never would! -- But he knew something else, too. He loved Pauline more'n anybody in the world.

"THERE you go . . . tripping again. You keep one in a perfect fidget," sighed Mary.

"It's these confounded shoes. They're at least two sizes too big."

"I told you so! But you were so set on having them easy."

Entering the surgery Mahony kicked the inoffensive slippers from his feet, and drew on his boots. After which, having opened the door by a crack, to peer and listen, he stole into the passage to fetch hat and stick.

But Mary, in process of clearing the breakfast-table, caught him in the act. "What? . . . going out already? I declare your consulting hours become more of a farce every day. Well, at least take the children with you."

"No, that I can't. They're such a drag."

And therewith he whipped out of the house and down the path, not slackening his pace till he had turned a corner: Mary was quite capable of coming after him and hauling him back. And escape he must -- from the prison cell that was his room; from the laming surveillance to which she subjected him. Only out of doors, with the wind sweeping through him, the wild expanse of sea tossing in the sunlight, could he for a little forget what threatened; forget her dogging and hounding; enjoy a fictitious peace. . . dream of safety . . . forget -- forget.

He made for the Bluff where, for an hour or more, he wandered to and fro: from the old grey lighthouse and flagstaff at one end, to pier and township at the other. He carried his hat in his hand, and the sea wind played with his fine, longish hair till it stood up like a halo of feathers round his head. That no chance passer-by should use them as spy-holes, he kept his eyes glued to the ground; but at the same time he talked to himself without pause; no longer mumbling and muttering as of old, but in a clear voice for any to hear, and stressing his words with forcible gestures: throwing out an open palm; thumping a closed fist in the air; silencing an imaginary listener with a contemptuous outward fling of the hand.

He was obliged to be energetic, for it was Mary he argued with, Mary he laboured to convince; and this could only be done by means of a tub-thumper's over-emphasis. Where he was in question. She believed others readily enough. But he never had her wholly with him; invariably she kept back some thought or feeling; was very woman in her want of straightness and simplicity. Even here, while shouting her down with: "I tell you once for all that it is so!" he felt that he was not moving her. -- But stay! What was it he sought to convince her of? Confound the thing! it had slipped the leash and was gone again: grope as he might, standing stockstill the while in the middle of the path and glaring seawards, he could not recapture it. Not that this was anything new. Nowadays his mind seemed a mere receptacle for disjointed thoughts, which sprang into it from nowhere, skimmed across it and vanished . . . like birds of the air. Birds. Of Paradise. Parrakeets . . . their sumptuous green and blue and rosy plumage. You caught one, clasped it round, and, even as you held it, felt its soft shape elude you, the slender tail-feathers glide past till but the empty hole of your curled hand remained. A wonderful flight of parrakeets he had once seen at . . . at . . . now what was the name of that place? -- a Y and a K, and a Y. Damnation take it! this, too, had flown; and though he scoured and searched, working letter by letter through the alphabet: first the initial consonants, then the companion vowels.. . fitting them together -- mnemonics -- artificial memory . . . failing powers . . . proper names went first -- gone, gone! . . . everything was gone now, lost in a blistering haze.

Such a frenzied racking of his poor old brain invariably ended thus . . . with a mind empty as a drum. And though he crouched, balled like a spider, ready to pounce on the meagrest image that shewed, nothing came: the very tension he was at held thought at bay. His senses on the other hand were strung to a morbid pitch; and little by little a clammy fear stole over him lest he should never again know connected thought; be condemned eternally to exist in this state of vacuity. Or the terror would shift, and resolve itself into an anticipation of what would, what must happen, to end the strain. For there was nothing final about it: the blood roared in his ears, his pulses thudded like a ship's engines, the while he waited: for a roar fit to burst his eardrums; for the sky to topple and fall upon his head, with a crash like that of splitting beams. Thunder -- thunder breaking amid high mountains . . . echoing and reechoing . . . rolling to and fro. Or oneself, with closed eyes and a cavernous mouth, emitting a scream: a mad and horrid scream that had nothing human left in it, and the uttering of which would change the face of things for ever. This might escape him at any moment; here and now: wind and sea were powerless against it -- he could feel it swelling . . . mounting in his throat. He fought it down: gritted his teeth, balled his fists, his breath escaping him in hoarse, short jerks. Help,help! . . . for God's sake, help!

And help approached . . . in the shape of a middle-aged woman who came trapesing along, dragging a small child by the hand.

Swaying round his stick, which he dug into the gravel for a support, Mahony blocked her way, blurting out incoherencies; in a panic lest she should pass on, abandon him. "Good morn'g, my good woman . . . good morn'g. A pleasant morn'g. Cool breeze. A nice lil girl you have there. A fine child. Know what I'm saying, speak from exp'rience . . . a father myself. Yes, yes, two little girls . . . golden curls, healthy, happy. Like criteks . . . chirking. A boy, too. Porridge for rickets . . . you've let yours walk too soon. Nothing like porridge for forming bone. The Highlanders . . . main sustenance . . . magnif'cent men. -- Eh? What? Well, good day . . . good day!"

For, having edged round and past him, the woman grabbed her child and made off. Not till she had put a safe distance between them did she stop to look round. "Well, I'm blowed! Of all the rum ol' cusses!" There he went, without a hat, his hair standing up anyhow, and talking away nineteen to the dozen. The whole time he'd spoke to her, too, he'd never so much as took his eyes off the ground.

In his wake Mahony left a trail of such open mouths. Espying a man digging a garden, he crossed the road to him and leaned over the fence. A painter was at work on the beach, re-painting a boat: he headed for him, wading ankle-deep through the loose, heavy sand.

Of these, the former spoke up sturdily. "Can't say as I understand what you're drivin' at, mister, with them sissyfass stones you tork of. But this I do know: any one who likes can have my job! An' to-day rather'n to-morrow."

The painter knew the "ol' doctor" by sight and stopped his work to listen, not impolitely, to certain amazing confidences that were made him. After which, watching the departing figure, he thrust his fingers under his cap and vigorously scratched his head. "Crikey! So that's him, is it? Well, they do say . . . and dang me! I b'lieve they're not far wrong."

Dog-tired, footsore, Mahony limped home, his devils exorcised for the time being. At the gate a little figure was on the watch for him -- his youngest, his lovely one, towards whom his heart never failed to warm: her little-girl eyes had nothing of the boy's harassing stare. Holding her to him he walked up the path. Then: "Good God! but I said I had two. What . . . what came over me? The creature will think I was lying . . . boasting!" Where should he find her to put things right? . . . by explaining that one of the two no longer wore bodily form; but had been snatched from them amid pain and distress, the memories of which, thus rudely awakened, he now -- in the twenty odd yards that divided gate from door -- re-lived to their last detail, and so acutely that he groaned aloud.

Hot with the old pity, he laid a tender hand on Mary's shoulder; and following her into the dining-room ate, meekly and submissively, what she set before him: without querulous carping, or fastidious demands for the best bits on the dish. And this chastened mood holding, he even offered in the course of the afternoon to walk the children out for her.

Bidden to dress himself, Cuffy obeyed with the worst possible grace. It was dull enough walking with Mamma, who couldn't tell stories because she was always thinking things; but when it came to going out with Papa. . . well, Mamma never did it herself, and so she didn't know what it was like. But he couldn't ask to be let stop at home, because of Luce. He had to be there to pertect Luce, who was so little and so fat. Mamma was always saying take care of her.

Papa held their hands and they started quite nice; but soon he forgot about them, and walked so quick that they nearly had to run to keep up, and could look at each other across behind him. And they went round by the bay at the back, where the mussels were, and heaps of mud, and no waves at all. Luce got tired direckly. Her face hung down, very red. Somehow he'd got to make Papa go slower.

"Tell us a story." -- He said it twice before Papa heard.

"A story? Child, I've no stories left in me."

("You ask him, Luce.")

"Tell 'bout when you was a little boy, Papa," piped Lucie, and trotted a few steps to draw level.

"No, tell 'bout when you first saw Mamma." Luce, she loved to hear how Papa's big sisters had smacked him and put him to bed without his supper; but he liked best the story of how Papa had seen nothing, only Mamma's leg in a white stocking and a funny black boot, when he saw her first; and it was jumping out of a window. He'd jumped out, too, and chased her; but then he let her go and went away; but as soon as he got home he slapped his leg and called himself a donkey, and hired a horse and galloped ever and ever so many miles back again, to ask her if she'd like to marry him. And first she said she was too young, and then she did. He'd heard it a million times; but it was still exciting to listen to . . . how in a hurry Papa had been.

But to-day everything went wrong. Papa began all right; but so loud that everybody who was passing could hear. But then he got mixed, and left out the best part, and said the same thing over again. And then he couldn't remember Aunt Tilly's name, and didn't listen when they told him, and got furious with himself. He said he'd be forgetting his own name next, and that would be the end of everything. And then he jumped on to the funny bit in the arbour that Mr. Purdy had teased him about, where he'd kissed somebody called Miss Jinny instead of Mamma . . . and this really truly was funny, because Mamma was so little and spindly and Miss Jinny was fat. But when he came to this he forgot to go on, and that he was telling them a story, and that they were there, and everything. He said: "My God! how could I have done such an idiotic thing? . . . have made such an unspeakable fool of myself. Took her in my arms and kissed her -- the wrong girl . . . the wrong girl. I can hear them still -- their ribald laughter, their jeers and guffaws . . . their rough horseplay. And how she shrank before them . . . my shy little Polly! . . . my little grey dove. I to make her the butt of their vulgar mirth!" And then he made a noise as if something hurt him, and talked about pain-spots one shouldn't ever uncover, but shut up and hide from everybody. And then some more, in a dreadful hoarse voice, about a scream, and somebody who'd soon have to scream out loud if he didn't keep a hold on himself.

Cuffy couldn't bear it any longer; he pulled his hand away (Papa didn't notice) and let Papa and Luce go on alone. He stayed behind and kicked the yellow road-flowers till all their heads fell off. But then Luce looked back, and he could see she was crying. So he had to gallop up and take her hand. And then he called out -- he simply shouted: "Papa! Lucie's tired. She wants to go home to Mamma."

"Tired? . . . my poor little lamb! Such short leggykins! See. . . Papa will carry her." And he tried to lift her up, and first he couldn't, she was so heavy, and when he did, he only staggered a few steps and then put her down again. Luce had to walk home with their hands, and all the way back he made haste and asked questions hard, about the yellow flowers and why they grew on the road, and why the wind always sang in the treble and never in the bass, and always the same tune; till they got to the gate. But you didn't tell how Papa had been . . . not a word! You were too ashamed.

Shame and fear.

If you were coming home from Granny's, walking nicely, holding Luce's hand and taking care of her, and if you met a lot of big, rough, rude boys and girls coming from the State School, what did you do? Once, you would have walked past them on the other side of the road, sticking your chin up, and not taking any notice. Now you still kept on the other side (if you didn't run like mad as soon as you saw them), but you looked down instead of up, and your face got so red it hurt you.

For always now what these children shouted after you was: "Who'd have a cranky doctor for a father? . . . who'd have a cranky doctor for a father!" and they sang it like a song, over and over, till you had gone too far to hear. And you couldn't run away; you wouldn't have! You squeezed Luce's hand till you nearly squeezed it off, and whispered: "Don't cry, Luce . . . don't let them see you cry." And Luce sniffed and sniffed, trying not to.

You didn't tell this either; nor even speak to Luce about it. You just tried to pretend to yourself you didn't know. Like once when Miss Prestwick was new and had taken them too long a walk at Barambogie, and Luce hadn't liked to ask, and had had an accident: he'd been ever so partic'lar then not to look at her; he'd kept his head turned right round the other way. That was "being a gentleman." But this about Papa . . . though you tried your hardest to be one here, too, you couldn't help it; it was always there. Like as if you'd cut your finger and a little clock ticked inside. And being good didn't help either; for it wasn't your fault, you hadn't done anything. And yet were ever so ashamed . . . about somebody . . . who wasn't you . . . yet belonged to you. Somebody people thought silly and had to laugh at . . . for his funny walk . . . and the way he talked. -- Oh, why had one's Papa got to be like this? Other children's Papas weren't. They walked about . . . properly . . . and if they met you they said: "Hullo!" or "How do you do?"

Something else wormed in him. Once in Barambogie he had seen a dreadful-looking boy, with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out, and bulgy eyes like a fish. And when he'd asked Maria she said, oh, he was just cranky and an idjut. But Papa wasn't like that! The thought that any one could think he was, was too awful to bear.