Cold Pastoral (3 page)

At first they thought she must die—until something reminded her of her heritage. People born to the assault of the wind and the slap of the sea had a “Y” quantity of endurance. It was impossible to be defeated by the accident of birth in a skiff. Although infant lungs, violated by the air of the North Atlantic, showed signs of not being able to contain it, they became soothed by the glow from her mother's stove. She thrived, not in size, but in quality. Josephine was soon up and about, and during very cold nights slept on the kitchen settle, getting up to feed the stove with spruce-logs. It was a luxury unheard of in the Cove, but the manner of Mary Immaculate's birth and the change of sex in her issue made Josephine superstitious about tending the breath of life. By day her daughter slept in a wooden cradle, was taken up and fed, put down to sleep again until she grew to some waking moments. Then long eyes in a minute face followed her mother's figure round the kitchen. Often while Josephine was stirring a cauldron of food the spoon would slow as she stared at her child. “Glory be to God, Mary Immaculate, by the looks of you I had no hand in your makin', nor your Pop, neither. Did the fairies come out to the skiff to leave me a changeling? If they did, you're a powerful change to Molly Conway! By the sweet face of you I'd say the angels were ticklin' your feet.”

After the loutishness of her sons Josephine loved to wash the tiny baby and hold it naked in her lap. Like a skinful of milk it looked, in contrast to the blackleaded surface of the stove. A small, narrow baby, long for its age! And how it strained towards the few spots of colour in the kitchen! The bright red in the robe of the Sacred Heart, the blue of the Virgin's hood and the gold of the lustre jug! Even the glow from the bars of the kitchen stove was an attraction! She didn't like anything dark. On her first Ash Wednesday she roared when Josephine bathed her with a smut on her brow: but when her brothers returned from Mass on Palm Sunday she grabbed the bright green boughs.

Benedict would gaze at his daughter from far-seeing blue eyes, as if trying to focus something out of his vision. With a cup of stewed tea in his hand he would declare, “Woman, she's powerful light from stem to stern.”

“That she is, Benedict! And a fair treat to wash after them with a stern like a western craft.”

Benedict could doubt the advantage of such lightness.

“This is no life for canoes. She's like nothing yet!”

Such comments were balm to Josephine. “That she's not! She's the dead spit of the angels in Heaven.”

Unprepared to call up the imagery of the angels in Heaven, Benedict would clod-hopper back to the beach. Once he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stooped to lift the baby from Josephine's lap. At that moment he saw his hands for the first time in his life. The sight of them against a delicate skin gave him an acute shock, and he jerked them back to the pockets of his overalls. His hands were his maintenance and knew a multiplicity of crafts, having built his house, his fish-room, his stage-head, his boat and his oars. Calloused, cracked, blunted at the finger-tips, scarred with lines and twines and splitting-knives, their ugliness hurt him against his child's skin. In his world of work and wrest and food eaten from hand to mouth he had no knowledge of any other kind of life. In that brief second he saw his daughter amongst different people, with work that gave them smooth hands. After that he was afraid to touch her, and he came to regard her like the sun or the horizon—something visible to his eyes but out of reach of his hands. It was necessary to dismiss something he could not handle. As she grew she became her mother's child.

To her brothers she was a toy. They poked at her with fishy fingers and hung over her cradle with loud claps of laughter. Then her white brow would contract, as if she found their size and violence oppressive. But she was staunch and took a great deal of poking before she gave way to tears. When her lip went down in protest Josephine raised her voice. “Leave off, now, you great loons! You haven't got the sense to see she's not a great heifer like yourselves. I've a mind to raise my hand to the lot of you.” A few impartial cuffs would disperse them, and if any of them howled she placated them with slices of bread and molasses. There was no rancour in Josephine. She blew through her day like a high wind without edges.

In Benedict's world a woman could make or break a man. Had he been bound to a slattern the toil of his hands would have been for naught. Josephine made him! By encouraging him to a clean cure of his fish and being unsparing of her own energy they always made both ends meet. Benedict and his elder sons worked at the fish, while Josephine managed the house and the sloping square of garden. Decent she was and kept herself apart from the shiftless! In many improvident houses where six crowded under one set of bedclothes Josephine represented gentility. Her family slept two in a bed! Moreover, every person under her roof had two of everything. Others that liked the clean thing had to content themselves with turning a garment inside out. Nor was Josephine sombre in the meagre centre of her house. She could slave from morning till night and speak a civil word at the end of the day. Many dragged through their work with dejected bodies and joyless faces. They had inherited from their ancestry the dim twilight fear of the Celts, and the wind worried them when it filled the valley.

When Mary Immaculate was big enough Dalmatius was allowed to carry her down to the sea. In sight of the beach her nostrils expanded and contracted with the smell of fish and offal. There was a definite expression of disdain on her face. When the wind lifted her hair she crowded into her brother's shoulder. Carrying her inland she lifted her head and nearly danced out of his arms, straining towards the new green of the junipers and the white pear-blossom drifting uphill.

Soon she began to waver round the kitchen in a blue dress of her mother's fashioning. Josephine satisfied her yearning for colour by knitting wool the colour of the Virgin's robe. Ready to pick up at odd moments, garments were always on the needles. Since the birth of her daughter the coarse garments for her husband and sons did not increase as quickly as the white shirts and pale blue dresses.

Talking, she became Mary Mac'yate to herself, while developing decided tastes. The sea was full of soap, and the beach very “pooh-pooh.” The wind hindered her by lifting her drift of pale gold hair and diminishing the sight between her eyelashes. Dull days were passed in the kitchen, round her mother's skirts, while sunny days found her playing on the granite slab at the back door, circling round the stacked-up wood-pile, round and round the wood-horse, or jumping backwards and forwards over the chopping-block. Her companions were her two youngest brothers and a few speckled hens, but both of their preferences lay on the beach. Leo and Pius trotted after their elder brothers, while the hens pecked their way down the valley, heading towards the sea. Growing more venturesome she would turn her face towards the land and wander down the slope, drawn to the waterfall at the head of the valley. Scarcely on her way her mother would screech: “Mary Immaculate, Mary Immaculate, come right back, now.” When she would not heed, her mother would swoop and catty her back to the kitchen. And always that strange ceremony would take place! Mary Immaculate could perform it instantly, as soon as her mother made her face the door.

She grew tall and slender like the delicate scent-bottles growing at the edge of the forests. At a very early age her minute hands would bless herself before touching the simple fare of the village. There was always fish, dried and fresh, and vegetables from Josephine's garden. In the winter the stomach was frequently filled with the bulk of pea-soup floating with fat white bang-bellies. All of the meals were supplemented with bread and tea. There was a period when it was drunk black—until Josephine became reconciled to the acquisition of a goat. It was very much of a poor man's cow after her pale gentle Jersey. Mary Immaculate had a strong memory of it before it died of milk fever. Running into the stable one morning she had become fascinated by the strange emergence of a nose, lying on two tiny hoofs. She was thinking it was a very pretty little nose when her mother descended and dragged her away.

When she was able to peel potatoes and turnips she was sent down the valley to the one-roomed schoolhouse. After her first day she returned chanting, c-a-t—cat, r-a-t—rat, m-a-t—mat. As she grew her questions became a trial to her mother. She accepted nothing without a why or a what, and Josephine accepted everything as the will of God.

What was the sky made of? Was it solid enough to hold the feet of God and his holy angels? If it wasn't, why didn't they fall down in the valley? Did God lie on his stomach and look down? Were the stars peep-holes? Was the devil rich enough to buy coal for hell fire, or did he stack up a woodpile like themselves? How much kindling would it take to burn a lost soul?

When Josephine was defeated she replied vigorously: “Hold your tongue, Mary Immaculate. You'll talk me deaf, dumb, blind and silly. Get on with your lessons. Your Pop pays for you to learn out of books.”

A great many questions were answered by the devout formula: “It's the will of God, that's what it is.” That was the most unsatisfactory answer of all. Sometimes Benedict silenced her when she directed her questions to the sea. Why did it freeze white when it was such a lovely blue on sunny days? Benedict merely replied: “Have sense, maid;” but when she asked with quite definite hope in her voice: “Pop, couldn't I walk on the water when it looks so flat and blue?” he was angry. “Mind yourself now. There's only One could do that.” Occasionally he was more satisfactory and less convinced of her senselessness. When she stood in the valley questioning why the junipers bent to the east when the wind blew the other way he gave her a look of approbation. “It's the poor man's compass, that's what it is.” That was the sort of answer she liked! It made her pleased with God that he gave her father a compass he couldn't buy.

Her mother took her to Mass, and she became very devout, praying with the face of an angel. Taking advantage of her piety, Josephine had her prepared for first Communion. It took longer than most Catholic children, as Father Melchior had three settlements under his charge. Josephine helped by teaching her daughter the Catechism. Convinced that her child was a rare and precious jewel she was shaken by occasional incident. One day she was showing her off to the Priest on an honoured day when he was drinking tea in her kitchen.

“Sure, she knows her Catechism fine, Father. Mary, tell the good Father who made you.”

“Pop,” replied her daughter with cold finality.

Josephine was dismayed. “Beg pardon, Father, that child has as many changes as the sea. There's no counting on what she'll say next.” But the Priest was tolerant, giving a reassuring laugh.

“Josephine, you're rearing the belle of the village. It won't be long before the lads will be round.”

Josephine sniffed, although a sniff was out of place in such company.

“Indeed, Father, I hope she won't go to the likes of them. Drawin' water would break her in two, and she's no love of the fish-room.”

“Indeed,” he said, putting his cup down on Josephine's table. “It won't do, Mary? Don't you like the sea at all?” Mary Immaculate was standing in front of him, by order of her mother.

“Yes, Father,” she said politely. “I like the sea very much, but I hate the smell of the beach.”

Father Melchior looked reproachful. “It's bad to despise your bread and butter, my child.”

She said nothing, waiting to go. It was a beautiful September day and she wanted to pick whorts. She knew a place where they grew, big and purple, with a dry clean bloom. Then there was the little plant that was a white star in spring and four red berries in autumn. They were holding her worse than the Little People. All at once the Priest made her forget the whorts and the cracker-berries.

“
You
should like the sea and its fruits better than anyone, Mary.”

“Why?” she asked with immediate interest.

He smiled indulgently as if enjoying the intensified glow of her yellow eyes.

“Because you were like Venus, born from the sea.”

“Who's she, Father?” she said eagerly.

“Venus, my dear, was…”

Josephine listened, watching the interest in her child's face. Mary Immaculate's mind was like a bit of ground. Sprinkle any seed on it and it would grow.
What
was the good Father telling her? Had he lost his senses? She was hard enough to quell without giving her ideas about the state of her birth. Foam of the sea indeed! It wasn't the way she remembered the skiff ! Pity he didn't tell her about the lives of the Saints and teach her to be reverent to those above. Torn between respect for the infallibility of the Church and her dislike of the tale she grabbed a bit of knitting and continued a rib of two plain two purl. Her cracked hands worried the needles as doubts increased. Goddess of love! What talk! Perfect knitter though she was, she nearly dropped a stitch. Incense on her altar! What blasphemy! The sacrifice of a white goat. That was better. A good enough end for the poor man's cow! Venus, Venus? Her mind stirred to the stimulus of the name. Like a flash she went back to the house in the City. There had been a great picture at the bend of the stairs, with three women posturing in front of a man seated on a bit of a platform. Three naked women! Quickly Josephine mumbled an Aspiration, for fear of impure thoughts. The Judgment of Paris! That was it, though for a long time she had thought the picture had something to do with the capital of France. The housemaid had told her differently. Paris was a man, setting himself up to decide which woman was the most beautiful. Venus was one of the hussies!

With a red face Josephine went on with her knitting.

“And the Greeks called her Aphrodite because she was born of the foam of the sea. She fell in love with Adonis, a very beautiful youth, and because of that she had to leave Olympus—”