Cold Pastoral (7 page)

Josephine rose from her knees and dragged round like a lacklustre drudge. Swollen in the eyes and mouth she continued working for her husband and sons. The romance in her life was spilled, gone with the last sight of her child dancing down the slope. Her duty was left, and she prayed on her feet. Father Melchior sat in her kitchen and tendered the consolations of religion. For once Josephine had to fight unorthodoxy. Who could think of Mary Immaculate expiating in Purgatory? If she was dead, she was flying through Heaven asking the Saints and the Blessed Virgin many questions.

Benedict was ready to give up. Already Mary Immaculate was approaching a legend. Far-sighted fishermen looked uneasily at the beach, but the police pressed them on. They wanted evidence of a hopeless search.

The weather varied but changed without venom. The frost was light, the air damp, the wind constant but moderate and the snow dry, wet and frozen in turn. Once it blew with a snow-flurry and powdered the world with a new covering. Once it drizzled and froze, and the trees were taken in another glaze. The day was grey, and the forests rattled, steely and cold. The police were ready to bring home the body of a dead child.

The fourth day the sun was in the sky and the snow under foot had the tread of coarse salt. Many men had gone back to the repairing of lines and twines for the coming fishery. Only Benedict went on, but his mind was back with the men.

Molly Conway was released by relations grown weary of restraining her. Her gaolers were back on the beach, acquiescent to let things be. Mrs. Houlihan was tired telling the same story, and Mrs. Rolls was unmystically scrubbing her floor. The village wanted to be ordinary again. The rigour of living did not permit a continuation of exaltation. The time came when Benedict climbed down by the waterfall and landed in the valley with finality.

“'Tis useless,” he declared to his sons. “Go home and get a mug-up and go down to the fish-room.” Wordlessly they filed down the valley.

Molly Conway stayed Benedict's progress, but he ignored her, trying to brush past. Whimpering, she touched him and ran back a few steps towards the waterfall. Her retreat gave him an unimpeded way down the valley. He was stopped again by the approach of a police-sergeant. “It seems hopeless, Mr. Keilly. We've searched every point within ten miles. No child could go further.”

“No,” said Benedict, looking towards the beach.

Molly Conway ran back and touched the sergeant. “Who
is
this woman, Mr. Keilly? I've been watching her all morning. She's like a dog trying to draw someone away.” In sight of the sea the long range of Benedict's blue eyes refused focus to Molly Conway. “Daft,” he said laconically.

“But what's troubling her?” persisted the sergeant, turning to see Molly Conway beckon him on. She looked wild and distraught, with baffled blue eyes.

“Deaf and dumb,” said Benedict dismissingly. “Take no notice.”

“Does she know the child is lost?”

“How could she?” asked Benedict stolidly. “Didn't I tell you she was deaf and dumb?”

“So are animals, but they've got something else. I had a dog once who acted like that, and blessed if it didn't take me to the thing I couldn't find.”

“She'll find nothing but a few clouts if she keeps on.”

“Did she know the child? Have any contact with her? Try and think, man. It might help.”

With his face turned to the sea Benedict screwed up his eyes.

“Well, she did, now I come to think of it. I heard her mother say she used to pick her a posy, and my girl didn't mind if she touched her. That's a lot in this Cove.”

“Ah,” said the sergeant thoughtfully.

“What help would that be?” asked Benedict. “It's sense you want to search the woods. I'm done. I'm goin' back to the beach.”

“Pity to give up, Mr. Keilly.”

“I've got six sons and a woman to feed, and I'm behind for the spring. 'Tis no good. Come and have a bite with us and talk to her mother,” he said civilly. Benedict was determined. Straightening his shoulders, his long rubbers slushed through the snow. He knew work, endurance, acceptance and the faculty of keeping his mind on his hands. What sorrow he felt for the loss of his daughter was dulled by the strain of his body. He had glimpsed in her something different from himself, but he was not fitted for the processes of thought, and she lasted in his mind like the memory of intensified summer. She was beyond him. Much better he understood the ways of his skiff.

As a father the sergeant dismissed him and returned to his study of Molly Conway. She had stopped another police man, climbing down by the waterfall. Whimpering, she fell back when he brushed her aside.

A few steps brought the sergeant to her side.

“Hello,” he said genially.

Kind vibrations reached Molly Conway. Wheeling on her scow-like feet she examined his face. Wonderingly, the odd pair regarded each other. Both were baffied, but both wanted the same thing.

“Hello,” he said again, reassured by her eyes. The police sergeant recognised her gently, as Mary Immaculate had when tendering bouquets of flowers. The changeling gibbered into formless speech. Old hands plucked at his sleeves, while her shawl sprawled away from her back.

“All right, Mother,” he said receptively, “I believe you! Now, where do you want to go?”

It was Molly Conway's great day. The sergeant swooped after her shawl and gave it a comfortable hoist over her shoulders.

“There, Mother, keep yourself warm. It's not summer, you know.”

One look behind told her he was following. Reaching the waterfall she made upward motions and started a scrambling climb. From a position of grotesque unbalance she was drawn back, while a pat and a smile stilled her to patience. The sergeant raised his voice and yelled down the valley.

“Here, you, run and get Mr. Keilly! Tell her mother we're going to try again. Get the party together and the first aid equipment.”

A policeman gaped for a minute at Molly Conway and then slushed down the valley.

Hope that had waned to acceptance sprang back to hope. People began running, and soon Benedict was seen returning from the direction of the beach, while Josephine almost fell down the slope. Reaching the waterfall, the sergeant's quick hand saved her from sprawling on her face.

“Steady now,” he said kindly.

“Glory be to God!” she sobbed. “Have you found her?”

“Not yet, ma'am, but I think we're going to. We've tried sense. Now I'm going to give this woman the lead.”

“Molly Conway,” moaned Josephine.”'Tis the will of God. I might have known! I should have guessed.” Feverishly she blessed herself, while tears made dirty rivers on her cheeks.

Benedict clod-hoppered up and heard the new plan. “Molly Conway,” he muttered. “She couldn't find the head of a pin.”

“Shush, Benedict,” reproved his wife. “We must have faith. 'Tis strange ways He chooses sometimes.”

Benedict grunted but squared his shoulders for another tramp.

Walking like a scow lying back on its keel Molly Conway led the way. In her awkward scramble up the slope the sergeant lent a hand, but when she was on the heights he let her go. She walked like a woman certain of her way.

The snow was dull, loose as salt and heavy round the feet. All sound became condensed to crunching and slushing. Entering the forests black-green gloom closed over their heads. Through trees, thick, thin, tall, bare, evergreen and those purple with blight they moved in single file. Once somebody muttered protestingly, “We've been this way a dozen times already. Have a heart.” He was silenced with a sharp, “Shut up.”

In a coma of faith Josephine pressed close to Molly Conway. Her mind had left her body and whispered of Acts of Hope. The ways of men had failed and He had pointed the way. At that moment she could have endured martyrdom, her mind floated in such exaltation. She knew without doubt that they were walking towards her child. Molly Conway! Molly Conway! What she had to spare from her singing soul went into planning rewards for the village changeling. She would visit her in her affliction, and when she was dead she would have Masses said for her soul. Benedict would lay aside a few quintals of fish for the purpose.

The changeling walked on, undisturbed in her own world. Compensation for undeveloped faculties was apparent in the decision of her lead. The frequent dilation of a fleshy nose indicated she was smelling her way. When they came to a grove too thick for penetration, she walked to where the trees were better spaced. The evergreens were wearisome in their sameness. Variation lay on the ground, in a dip, a rise, or a granite rock. Several times they crossed a clearing where the snow undulated like a frozen sea. Once they had to jump a river. Its banks looked solid, but as they paused for a leap their feet sank to the pull of an icy current. Their recoil lent a sharp impetus to their springs. Molly Conway landed with the flat slap of a dory, Josephine with the inspired lightness of her mind,while the men splashed with the weight of their boots.

The walk went on until there was a discernible change in Molly Conway. Raising her head and dilating her nostrils, she had the appearance of a horse in sight of its stable. The increased speed of her walk diffused a herd quiver of excitement. Breath quickened as they stumbled towards another clearing. Breaking through, Molly Conway stood back on her heels with a cessation of motion. All followed her example, stilled to wild anticipation.

The sergeant's eyes raked the snow and then contracted in disappointment. The clearing was the same as many others. Snow, rolling away like the frozen waves of the sea. Scattered single trees stood out in black relief.

Molly Conway gave a long strange cry, the cry of a mute trying to make joy form on her lips. Dropping her immobility she crashed forward in a lop-sided run. For a moment they watched, bewildered by the inadequacy of their eyes. Josephine's dry sob beseeched Heaven for sight.

Molly Conway was stumbling, hindered by snow that sustained her on one leg and broke under the other. In her grotesque lop-sided strain every step seemed to threaten her with a fall on her face. There was no impediment in her determination or the line of her direction, leaving as she stumbled holes and footprints in the snow. As if she gave them sharper sight they saw what they had missed.

“Glory be to God!” sobbed Josephine.

“Christ!” ejaculated Benedict.

“Good woman, good woman!” exulted the sergeant, congratulating himself and Molly Conway.

The wind had drifted the snow, cresting it in waves and leaving an illusion of unbroken undulation. When they saw their mistake they sprang as one body. Molly Conway was almost there! She curved, knelt in the snow, raising her hands in habitual hovering.

Following, they found a half-dome of snow, sheltering what was left of Mary Immaculate. She lay like a child dead in a shell. The change in her shattered Josephine's exaltation, making her grovel on the ground.

“Mary Immaculate, are you dead, are you dead?”

The child's eyes unclosed from blue sockets.

“Hello,” she said, like a tired bell. “You passed before, but I couldn't call.”

Josephine moaned in anguish. “Oh, oh, Mary Immaculate, are you starved to death out in the snow?”

In the momentary suspension given to shocked examination her voice touched them like a snowflake.

“I wasn't alone. The Little People stayed by me. When I was hungry I ate snow. I slept when 'twas dark and woke when 'twas light.”

The flare of life went out, succeeded by blue pallor.

“No, no,” protested her mother. “Open your eyes, Mary Immaculate. Oh, has somebody got a drop of rum?”

The sergeant and a policeman had been unrolling a pack.

“Not a drop of spirits,” said the sergeant sharply. “Step aside, now, everyone, please.”

The sergeant and the policeman worked for Mary Immaculate's second survival. That she had endurance and intelligence was apparent by her efforts to preserve herself. Before she lay down to sleep she must have gathered spruce boughs to make a bed. They were scant but sufficient to break her contact with the snow. All but her feet. They stretched beyond, revealing the black heels of her rubbers frozen to the ground. Under her ankles lay the glazed white of a slice of bread.

“God Almighty!” said the sergeant. “She had a piece of bread and didn't eat it.”

“Glory be to God!” cried Josephine hysterically, “that'll save her against the frostbite.” In a frenzy of gratitude she threw her arm round Molly Conway and rocked her backwards and forwards.

One glance told the sergeant that the quickest way to free Mary Immaculate's feet was to cut her out of her rubbers and over-stockings.

There was no feeling in the hands and feet that were bared in the snow. Against the white surface they lay livid and black.

“Loose snow,” directed the sergeant. “And take the stopper from the thermos of milk. The circulation can't be stimulated with this frostbite.”

“Yes, yes, give her a hot drink,” implored Josephine. “She looks like death.”

“Can't be done, ma'am,” he said briskly, rubbing Mary Immaculate's feet in loose snow. “The circulation must be started gradually.”

They worked fast. After a thorough rubbing, the blackened limbs were wrapped in cotton wool, and a few drops of cooled milk poured between her lips. Then she was bundled in blankets.

“Now, Mr. Keilly,” said the sergeant, straightening. “We've had our orders. When you called us in I was instructed to find her, and if she needed attention beyond the scope of this village to transport her to town. The quickest way would be by boat across the Bay, and then by catamaran to the railway. Your consent is necessary, but you can see for yourself the state of her hands and feet. Extreme danger from gangrene if she gets the wrong attention.”

“The skiff!” said Benedict. “I'll go ahead and get her ready.”