Cold Pastoral (10 page)

David, born on the day of the fire, did not shape towards the family traditions. He disdained business and could not understand the difference in fish-tails. Cures were a foreign language to him, and ships means of transportation to enjoy the surface of the sea. What swam under did not concern him. His father had to accept it in view of his affable repudiation of such knowledge. The fruit of the ice-fields brought the same reaction. The killing of the seals distressed him, and when one of his father's captains told him they wept real tears, he no longer went to the wharves when the laden ships came in. His brothers, Arthur and John, had no such repugnance. They could transform the nursery floor into ice-fields and dash at cushions and mats with gaffs and scalping-knives. Whooping like Indians, they would pile up pans, topping them with their father's flag. Their dearest possession was a white-coat with the tears in its eyes reduced to shining glass. They were the promise of Fitz Henry and Sons, the product of their father's line. When Philip was a little boy tumbling round the floor in awe of his magnificent brothers, it was David who always picked him up. Similar in appearance David and Philip were their mother's sons, with her pale face, black hair, prowlike nose with nostrils arched in delicate disdain.

August 1914 found David a dilettante with enough money from a maiden aunt to keep him in comfort for life. Arthur and John were assimilating the ramifications of Fitz Henry and Sons. Philip was on the Atlantic, returning from his first year of English school. He was thirteen, with a fixed determination to be a doctor. He landed to find his brothers on the eve of volunteering and his father grim with worry. Cargoes with war risks, the Mediterranean ports closing, fishermen leaving their bays and coves—it was a little more than fluctuation. As if to pursue the down-curve of his fortunes, two bad fisheries ensued, and later an appalling sealing disaster. Steaming in like a hearse garlanded with ice, one of his ships unloaded a crew of frozen men. With the memory of their stark bodies in his mind, Philip Fitz Henry heard of the toll of Beaumont Hamel. In the harvest of one day Arthur was killed instantly, John blown to pieces and David severely wounded.

Resilience was almost spent, and house and heart felt the same impoverishment. Paint dulled, grass became overgrown, dust settled on the unused rooms. The Place mourned for its gallant sons, feeling the drag of springless feet. Hannah crept round after her mistress, trying to perform three people's work. The sons had been her children!

In England Philip waited for David to be transported from France. During that period he received his last letter from his father.

My Dear Son,

Your mother and I speak of you particularly, realising your desolation from
the loss of your brothers.It seems incredible that they are dead. We could
be convinced of it more if they had lain for a while in the Place. I seem to
require that much evidence. We are glad you did not risk coming out.
Lonely as it is for you, it is a comfort to know one of us will be there when
David gets to England. His report said wounds multiple, and he appears
to be full of shrapnel. Much of it is innocuous, but a large piece in the knee
makes him unfit for further service. I enclose his letter. It explains certain
things and the fact that he is married. Your mother took it with great
understanding, and we have heard from the girl's people. They seem to be
solid financially if a trifle eccentric. As you know, the firm is hard hit and,
with Arthur and John gone, its continuity in our name seems impossible.
Neither you nor David are business men. It is useless to regret such things
when there are greater losses to consider. Perhaps you are wondering why
I talk so finally, when I might carry on myself. The fact is, my days are
numbered. I have had two heart attacks with excessive pain in the arms
and chest. I know it is angina and the word is a knell to worry and action.
The first attack I kept from your mother, as it occurred in my office; but
now she is aware of my condition. A magnificent woman, the sort that
makes a man regret his hour has struck. This is the year of our Silver
Jubilee. We intended it to be such an occasion, with all of you home.
However, our tradition has trained us to accept acts of God without the
waste of rebellion.

With regard to the Place. Two years ago I made it over to your mother. For
her security I have always carried a hundred thousand life insurance, which
will be hers entirely and yours after her death. There will be nothing from
the business. Your education is assured. That sum I set aside in good years.
I suggest you finish your English school and enter a Canadian University.
It will keep you closer to your mother, and make your return easier should
she need you. Further, a combination of that kind equips a man better for
life on this side of the water. I am writing to David of this. Some of it is
his own suggestion. He has acquitted himself most creditably, and we are
very proud of him. With his temperament he hated war more than most
men. I hope he will get invalided home and bring his wife out.

To you I commend your mother and the Place. Four generations of
continuity in this country is a great deal. It is a life so many leave when
fortune is made. Age makes one conscious of the long springs and the
bitter winds. It is foolish of a man to wish to dispose of property beyond one
generation, but in spite of that I wish the Place could stay in our name. Your
mother's income cannot support it, but in time a successful practice will give
you the augmentation. Your ability and our name will help towards that
end. David will come and go, and I trust keep his rooms in the Place. From
this moment I feel I am passing you a great responsibility, and it means the
curtailment of youth and all its privileges. Your brothers were brought up
more spaciously, with everything we could give them. Acts of God, my
son! I try to dwell on that. We have been subject so often to the winds and
the waves.

And so I leave you, your mother and the Place.

Your affectionate father,
     
PHILIP FITZ HENRY

David's letter was peculiarly David.

Dear Father,

It is understanding of you to excuse me from giving details of the action. At
present it is too close to see, but now that it is over I am glad I did not make
a complete ass of myself. It would have been so fatally easy. War is uncomfortable,
and so very inglorious and dirty. I wonder if anybody enjoys exalted
moments. What remains of me is not much use for further service. I had a
nice sprinkling of shrapnel and a few O.S. pieces in my chest and knee.
The bits that lodged in my knee are the worst. They tell me I am going to
have a decoration. I remember doing something with a machine-gun, but it
seems so ridiculous. I intended to make myself as inconspicuous as possible,
only I tripped over Arthur. He looked asleep on the ground. I was raging.
However, there was no time to say
vale
to one's brother. The rest is just
noise and bewilderment and the proverbial waking up to hear someone say
‘Drink this, please'. I see nothing in war to commend it, and my mind
seethes with heresies.

I cabled about my marriage which I trust will not be too great a shock. This
is the day of impulsive actions. I found Felice being a Fany in Calais. Like
myself she was thoroughly out of step with her world and agonising over a
small kitten in undesirable surroundings. She is at her best with lame ducks,
and wants a world where a cat, a dog and a bird can lie down with the
lion and the lamb. Other than that she plays the piano divinely, speaks
languages and runs S.P.C.A.'s in unwarlike days. Her mother went mad
round fifty and Felice is haunted she may do the same thing. Her mother
began by hiding under trees. In view of their preponderance round the Place
I intend to take a cottage by the sea.

Just at present it's impossible to speak of the other two, but because of their
going I must mention the Place. We have discussed it before, but this is final.
Let's not be stupid because I am the eldest son. Everything must go to young
Philip.He is the breed with roots, steadiness and a faculty to stay in grooves.
Besides, he has a sense of duty which I have not. He will be steadfast, and
the occasional tempers will be knocked out of him at school. I have my
inheritance from Aunt Sarah. It was good of her not to marry, and to hoard
up her pile for me. Dear old skinflint! I used to think she was poor. It's the
first time I have ever approved of thrifty spinsters.

It may comfort Mater to know that we three were together intermittently
ever since we landed in France. The rest is silence until I see her. It may be
easier then.

Your affectionate,
     
DAVID

While Philip Fitz Henry's special patient was craning her neck to see where he lived, Lady Fitz Henry was stepping into her emerging garden. The dirty edges of the snow looked like the dwindling of a moth-eaten blanket. Through a clot of last year's leaves green tongues poked through, showing evidence of a prodigal autumn planting.

Tall in her garden Lady Fitz Henry relaxed in the sun. Winter was taut, a season of whipcord winds, wearying to the flesh. Spring told her she was muted, but not extinguished when she could feel the pulse of the earth.

A white-skinned brunette, her sixty-four years were only apparent in skin-sag and fine lines round her eyes. Her nose was ageless, disdaining any toll the years could take. Eyes were brown, but their colour was dead. A trifle myopic, pupil and iris merged into one. Stooping to poke in the earth, she displayed the suppleness of a slender woman. It was in her hands that age was evident. Grey-white they looked bleak, and blue round the long, ridged nails.

With a quietude of content she picked her way back to the house. Inside, the hall was square with an overhead gallery of wrought-iron uprights, topped with a walnut rail. From a window at the curve of the stairs sunlight streamed in a shaft. It subtracted from walls rendered sooty by furnace-heat. It embellished the gleam of wood and the mellow paint of English landscapes. It made an ebony cap of Philip's head as he ran downstairs.

“Morning, dear. I heard you go out.”

From his considerable height he barely stooped to touch his mother's cheek with his own. As the faces came together their similarity was arresting. Carved noses jutted toward each other with a unity of design.

At breakfast in a wine-red dining-room with chaste furniture, she poured tea from the Georgian tea-pot saved from the fires. Sitting upright and eating little, she gazed at a conservatory lighting one side of the room. She was enjoying the velvet bloom of a cineraria when she heard Philip's voice.

“Mater, will you do something for me this morning? It's fit for you to go out.”

“Certainly, my son. It's a lovely day. It makes me long to see David.”

“He'll be out in June, dear, and I'll be able to get away in July for two weeks' salmon-fishing.”

“You need the rest, Philip. It's been a hard winter. I wish Dave would stay out. It would be more company for you.”

“It's the winds, Mater. They pick out his wounds, and Felice doesn't like the wind in the trees.”

“M'mm,” said his mother dryly. Tolerant as she was, it was dislike a little beyond her. “What do you want me to do, my son?”

Philip was smiling at a pair of eggs. “See somebody who understands the wind in the trees.”

“Your little girl,” she said at once.

He gave her a quick look. “How did you know?”

“Easily. You pay her so many visits. It's a remarkable survival.”

“Medical miracle!”

Still looking at the cineraria, Lady Fitz Henry pondered out loud. “Philip, why wasn't she afraid? It's uncanny….”

“I don't understand that side of it.” Philip frowned with definite pleats in his white brow. “I'm not a neurologist, but she might be an elemental for all the experience has affected her nerves. There was so much nonsense talked about her.”

“Perhaps the fairies did look after her,” suggested his mother with a small smile.

The pleats in Philip's brow looked jangled. “I've been trying to diminish that idea. She's a mass of superstition, but she's lovely to look at. At least she is now. The modelling of her face is perfect, and her skin…She's something to see after some patients.”

“No doubt,” said his mother, regarding him with deeper interest. He was smiling to himself, and she thought his face looked younger. “Perhaps she bears out your father's theory that the best blood in this country is in the Bays. Many old families came out in the early days, and there's that odd tale of the line from the Irish Princess.”

Philip laughed. “I don't know about that, Mater. Her people are simple fisherfolk, but I hope Mary will have a better chance with this endowment. I couldn't bear to think of her going back to that narrow life.”

“It's the crock of gold, my son.” Lady Fitz Henry's voice was ordinary, but she was regarding her son with a mother's scrutiny. “Is she quite recovered?” she asked gently.

“Almost, and I feel so pleased about her feet. I had to fight the surgeon against a mputation. We had many a wrangle, and he washed his hands of it and said I could take the consequence if gangrene set in.”

“You put your foot down,” said his mother, smiling.