The Oracles Read online

‘You hold your tongue about Martha. Understand?’

  ‘And what if I don’t?’

  He had been walking up and down excitedly, but now he drew up and looked at her.

  What if she did not? One cannot beat one’s wife, he thought. What does one do when she seems to be asking for it? Would she really prefer to be beaten, or did she want it both ways? Did she expect the privileges both of an equal and of an inferior?

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It will only be one step nearer, won’t it?’

  ‘Nearer? To what?’

  He gave her a look, so sad that it frightened her a little.

  ‘Nearer to what, Dickie? What do you mean?’

  ‘Let’s not put it into words. I suppose I mean a point from which we can’t come back.’

  Did he mean that all this would not blow over in due course? Why did he have to take everything so seriously?

  ‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘I won’t say anything to anybody, if you must make all this song and dance about it.’

  She spoke sullenly, but he was satisfied. He knew that she would always keep her word.

  Does he think I’m mentally deficient? she wondered. Do I make a habit of telling stories I can’t prove? Of course I wouldn’t spread this all over the town until I was quite sure; he ought to know that, after being married to me for two years. Fancy taking me seriously just because I teased him a little.

  ‘Can I go now?’ she asked, with provoking meekness.

  ‘What? Oh yes. That’s all I wanted to say.’

  She went downstairs with her pile of linen. It was just like him to suppose that she would have time, on a Monday, to go rushing round the town with any story at all. He could never get it into his head that washing-day was hard work.

  Nor had she, as a matter of fact, much wish to meet her friends until she had disarmed all possible criticism by a spectacular transformation of the children. People would think, and say, that she had acted in a very peculiar way. She meant to silence them by securing their applause. She meant to silence her own conscience, which kept on suggesting that she was being very mean to Dickie. A miraculous improvement in the little Swanns was to atone for everything.

  Presently she heard the door slam behind him. He was in a hurry to get down to the office and ring up The Moorings. Further dealings with Martha Rawson were not agreeable to him, for he had made up his mind to steer clear of her. He saw no alternative, however, and tackled the distasteful task at the earliest possible moment.

  He spoke on the telephone, first to Don and then to Martha. Their distress was obviously quite genuine. They were shocked and horrified. All was as he had thought; they knew nothing of the children’s plight and had supposed Elizabeth still to be at Summersdown. Serafina’s appearance had been, to them, quite inexplicable. They blamed themselves severely for sending her off, and explained that this sudden interruption to their party had flustered and confused them.

  Something, declared Martha, must of course be done at once. Something would have been done sooner, had she known sooner. It was exceedingly kind of the Pattisons to have come forward like this, and she was most grateful, but the responsibility must be regarded as hers. Dickie was to thank Christina for all her trouble and assure her that other arrangements would be made immediately. Such a burden must not be imposed upon her for a moment longer than was necessary. There was an excellent progressive school at Brixcombe, over which Martha appeared to have some hold; she was sure that it would receive the little Swanns at the request of so influential a patron. Mr. Archer’s money must be returned. He had no right to interfere in Conrad’s affairs, whatever his pretensions might be. He must be sent about his business, since there was no knowing what he might attempt to do next; from disposing of the children he might proceed to claim some interest in the contents of the studio. It was therefore imperative that Joe should be removed from Dickie’s dressing-room at the earliest possible moment.

  Dickie heard all this with relief. He was glad that this plague of children was not to afflict his house for long; he was glad that Martha had been able to clear her character to some extent. He put the whole business out of his mind, plunged into the day’s work, and thought no more of the Cygnets until he encountered them in his front garden when he went home.

  Since they were no longer so distressing a problem he was able, for the first time, to view them with charity. They were, in any case, easier to view. A great change had taken place in their appearance. Christina, in spite of her washing-day, had begun upon her miracle. She had managed to clothe them. They were combed and washed. Even their complexions had improved; they were less pasty and Joe’s cheeks were quite pink. Christina’s prompt attention to their bowels might account for this.

  The group which they made held Dickie’s attention. They had been left in charge of Bobbins for a few minutes. Christina felt no fear in doing this; their gentleness and care of the baby had struck her ever since she had known them.

  Serafina sat upon a rug on the grass, with Bobbins in her lap. Her hair had been smoothly brushed back from her bony forehead and braided. She wore a blue dress. For once her sharp restless face was calm, as she gazed down at her charge in an ecstatic trance. Dinah, who knelt beside her, reflected the same gravity. For the first time Dickie perceived Dinah’s likeness to Conrad; in a girl it was unfortunate and gave her an elderly look. Bobbins, rosy and lively, with the radiant bloom of a well-tended child, might have belonged to some different species, might have been some godling tended by awestruck mortals.

  Amidst all this motionless solemnity a little private game was going on between Bobbins and Joe, who, smiling, held out a nasturtium towards which the baby stretched a dimpled hand. It was Joe’s smile which arrested Dickie’s attention; an unusual smile, never seen on an adult face. There was in it indulgence toward a younger creature, yet a certain complicity, the tacit understanding of an equal. These two were living in a world apart; they attached their own meaning to a nasturtium.

  Pretty! thought Dickie, looking also at the wall of flowers which rose up like a tapestry behind their small heads. Beautiful. I’ve seen it before. Where? A Memling … in several Memlings … this group—the grave girl, grave angels, grave saints, and that quiet little game going on between the Child and one of the young-eyed cherubim. Young-eyed! Fantastic, unrealistic pictures, they might be called. But here it is. Here it is, he told his doppelgänger, who, on this occasion, failed to turn up. He was alone and nobody else was looking at it.

  He hurried into the house to find Christina before the group broke up. She liked Memling and he was sure that she would like this; looking at it together, they might bury the hatchet. Through the open kitchen door he could see lines of sheets and shirts flapping gently in the breeze. Christina came in with a basket of pegs.

  ‘Tina,’ he began, ‘do come …’

  But she interrupted him furiously.

  ‘So you rang up Martha Rawson?’

  ‘Yes. Has she …?’

  ‘Did you, or did you not, give her leave to come and take those children away?’

  ‘Why … I … I …’

  ‘Because that’s what she seems to think. She telephoned. I had quite a job to convince her that she’s going to do nothing of the sort, whatever you and she may have arranged between you.’

  ‘Now, Tina, she has a far better claim.…’

  ‘No she hasn’t. They’ve been entrusted to me.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘I’ve more right than she has, since there’s nobody really to say who has the right. I’m prepared to do it myself, and do it properly. She means to shove them into one of those awful … She’ll have to kidnap them if she wants them. I don’t give them up of my own accord.’

  ‘Do be reasonable. She’s their father’s intimate friend. We are only slight acquaintances. Supposing he’s deserted them? Supposing he’s dead? She’s a rich woman. I’m not …’

  ‘What kind of a woman are you, then?’

  �
��You’ll hand those children over when she sends for them. This is my house, remember, and I have some say in what goes on here.’

  ‘I won’t. She may be rich. But I’d be sorry for a dog, I’d be sorry for a rat, handed over to her. She isn’t kind. She doesn’t want them because she’s sorry for them. I’ve always been fond of them and taken an interest in them, but she only thinks of her honour and glory. She doesn’t want anybody else to butt in over Mr. Swann’s affairs, because she thinks he’s famous. If anything happened to make him less famous she’d drop them like a hot potato. I don’t trust her a yard and nor do you. If it was Bobbins, which would you give him to? Me or Martha?’

  Dickie had no immediate reply. It was quite true that he did not trust Martha a yard.

  ‘You haven’t any answer to that,’ said Christina, ‘because you know I’m right, and you know you oughtn’t to have gone behind my back like that. Are you going to cut the grass before supper? You said you would if you got home early.’

  The grass certainly needed cutting. It had better be cut. He took himself off to do it.

  The Memling group had broken up and taken itself indoors when he brought the mower to the front lawn. This was very small, and to cut it was a tiresome little job; he was always having to turn the machine round. He set about it after giving a friendly nod over the fence to his next-door neighbour, who had been sent out upon exactly the same errand. Up and down their tiny lawns they went, in opposite directions, passing one another at a laburnum tree which grew halfway along the fence.

  Clankety – clankety – burra – wurra – wurra – wurra – wurra – wurra – wurra – Brck!

  Turn the thing round. Clankety-clankety.… What is he thinking of? He looks resigned enough. Is he thinking of a liner and a gangplank, and going up it never, never to come back. Is he? Wurra-wurra-Brck! Round.… Entirely my fault. We don’t suit. I shouldn’t have married her. Having married her, I should have put up with it better. Brck! Round. Clankety-clankety.… She’ll never forgive me. She may pretend to, but there’ll always be this bitterness. This bitterness! Brck! Round.… This bitterness, this continual trying to score off me, I cannot stand. Not for ever. When the children go there’ll be something else. Brck! Round.… She’s a good wife. Never looks at another man and feeds me like a Strasbourg goose. I’d rather … tinned food … a slut.… Brck! Round.… Anything would be better than this continual sour bickering. She’ll never drop it, even if I declare I think she’s perfect. I don’t mind being bored.… Brck! Round.… I could stand that, if we could be good-tempered and peaceful. But I won’t stand this for ever … only while Dad is alive. Brck! Round. Can’t break his heart. Idiotic to ruin my life, coming back here to please him and then … Brck! Round.… But not for ever. One day I’ll clear out and sail across the sea … sea … sea.…

  The meek noise of good husbands cutting the grass floated into the house and gratified Christina’s ears as she bustled about putting four children to bed. In Joe’s little room, which looked on to the front garden, it was particularly loud. Joe, in all the glory of his new slumber wear, was finishing a glass of milk. Christina took the glass from him and tucked him up for the night.

  Clankety – clankety – burra – wurra – wurra.…

  ‘Why doesn’t Uncle Dickie have a sort of … sort of … sort of thing he sits on to do that?’

  ‘Because the lawn is so little.’

  ‘There was one in our field. It went round and round and round, and Mr. Hackett sat on it, makin’, makin’ hay. We sawn him when we were in our tree. Weren’t it sad about our tree?’

  ‘Very sad. You must have missed it.’

  ‘Our ole chair did it.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘Killed our poor tree. The ole chair what we used to climb on. So the Traitor took it away.’

  ‘Who’s the Traitor?’

  ‘Marfa. She took it away in her car, din’t she? Did you know what our chair were called?’

  ‘No. I didn’t know it had a name.’

  ‘Nor din’t I till she told me. It’s called Apollo.’

  ‘Apollo? Your chair? Joe! What do you mean?’

  Burra-wurra-wurra-Brck!

  ‘Couldn’t Uncle Dickie get a very, very tiny small sort of thing to sit on?’

  ‘I don’t think they make them as small as that. Why did Martha Rawson take your chair?’

  ‘What for don’t they make them so small?’

  ‘I don’t know. But when did she take the chair? Where was it? In the field?’

  ‘Oh no. It were in the shed. We shut it up in prison. Do you think Bobbins would like a nice lickle snail if I catch one for him tomorrow?’

  ‘Joe! Do try to tell me about the chair. I want so much to know what happened to it.’

  Joe wriggled impatiently.

  ‘I can’t bemember,’ he protested.

  ‘Try to. Try to tell me all you remember and I’ll … give you a chocolate biscuit.’

  This bribe was effective. Joe frowned and then said:

  ‘We were … we were … we were in the field, and we sawn it, we sawn it, hoppin’ about and shootin’ at us, and pretendin’ to be an Arfitax. So we, we, we put it in the shed and we rescued a poor Form what was in the shed, and we put the naughty ole chair in the shed, and then, and then Marfa, Marfa came and took it away.’

  ‘That same day?’

  ‘No. Another day. I … I … I were on guard. So I challenged her and she said, she said it were quite all right. She, she, she wanted to keep it quite safe. And she told me its name. Can I have a biscuit now?’

  ‘Did she say anything else?’

  ‘No-o-o! She said it were very wonderful. She said Conrad made it.’

  ‘What day was it?’

  ‘A long time ago. A year ago?’ suggested Joe.

  There was no more to be got out of him. Christina gave him the promised biscuit and went into the girls’ room. Serafina had protested against so early a bedtime but had been packed off with the others because her company at the supper table would have been a nuisance.

  ‘If you don’t want to go to sleep just yet,’ said Christina, sitting on the bed, ‘I’ll bring you a nice book. You can read until Uncle Dickie and I have finished supper, and then I’ll come and tuck you up. What sort of book would you like?’

  ‘Any book!’ declared Serafina fervently. ‘I haven’t had a book to read for a long time.’

  ‘I’ll bring you one of the books I had when I was a little girl. Your books were all lost when your poor tree was killed, I suppose?’

  There was no doubt about it; both the children froze at the reference.

  ‘What happened,’ asked Christina carelessly, ‘to that old chair you used to climb up on?’

  This question did not seem to disturb them. They looked vague, and said that they did not know.

  ‘I forgot about it,’ said Serafina.

  ‘Wasn’t it there when you found your tree was dead?’

  ‘No. It was gone by then.’

  ‘Poor chair!’ mourned Dinah.

  ‘Was there nothing in the field, then, besides the tree?’

  Now they were really scared. They looked at her, looked at one another, and looked at her again.

  ‘No,’ said Serafina at last.

  Christina realised that nothing short of the rack would produce any other reply. She let it go. She was sure that she could, in time, get it all out of them.

  Down on the path below there was a rattling and a clatter. Dickie was taking the mower back to the toolshed.

  ‘Hear that?’ said Christina. ‘That’s our mower, going to be locked in our shed. You had a shed, didn’t you? What did you keep in it?’

  Again she was confronted by that frozen stare.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Serafina.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Dinah.

  ‘I’ll get the book.’

  Plain as a pikestaff, thought Christina, going downstairs. She was almost sure that she knew exactly wha
t had happened, although there were certain details which she must confirm. It must have been on the Sunday, the day after the tree was struck. The chair must have been so much twisted that they did not recognise it; only Joe seemed to have done so. They had put it into the shed, where that fool Martha had found it. All the muddle at the party had been because the Apollo was supposed to be in the shed. So now …

  So now there would be no more nonsense about progressive schools. Oh no! If Martha started pushing people about she would hear something which would make her jump. I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else yet, but I thought perhaps you ought to know. Oh no, not at all. I’ve seen a lot of modern statues which looked like thunderstruck garden chairs. I don’t wonder at anybody making a mistake about it. What I’d do, in your shoes, I’d quietly take it away and bury it somewhere. Nobody need know. And I’m so glad you think I’d better keep the children. I thought you would. Of course I won’t say anything. Well, you won’t be saying quite so much after this, will you? Not quite so much about knowing better than the masses. I dare say I’ll tell my husband, someday, but you can be sure he’ll hold his tongue. No, I can’t promise not to mention it to him, because he thinks I can’t give him a surprise. But not yet awhile. Not till I’ve settled with you, Mrs. Rawson. If I told him now, he might warn you.

  Dickie had locked up the mower and was watering the tomato plants. There was the clank of the can and the drumming roar of water from the tap outside the kitchen door. Then silence when he turned the tap off. His footsteps went away down the back garden to the vegetable beds. He was whistling a sad old song:

  And when will you come home, my dear?

  Home, my love, to me?

  This was a moment which she was to remember for the rest of her life; how she stood in the kitchen and heard Dickie’s footsteps going away down the path. He went and never came back, although it was long before she could believe it. The lover, the young husband who had had her maidenhead, who had brought her to this house, who had given her Bobbins, with whom she had squabbled and laughed, went away for ever down the path that evening.

  Even at the time a sudden foreboding seized her as she hunted among her books. Such a silly old song, she thought impatiently. Why should it be called Edward! Edward! Nothing about Edward in it from beginning to end. Yet it always made her sad when Dickie put the record on. It was the tune. Those old tunes had something, that was why they lasted. Two men fought, they never knew why, just about a poor little briary bush! And one killed the other and he had to go away in a ship over sea. And she asked him when he would come home, and he said never! That will never be … be … be.… That will never be!