Oscar and Lucinda (10 page)

The Thirty-nine Articles

shaded his eyes with his hand as he peered towards Oscar.

Oscar sat on a straight-backed chair. He had been invited to share the rug, but he preferred to sit with his face in shadow.

'It will be pleasant in its own way/' said Mrs Stratton who had stood up again and was pacing up and down-she could not seem to help herself-inside the hedge. "It will be pleasant in its way. You will take tea."

"It will be pleasant," agreed Mr Stratton, "but they have not forgotten Dr Pusey, you know. They will be rigorous in their examining."

"They will be rigorous," agreed Mrs Stratton, "but they will notsurely not, Hugh-expect a parrot."

Mr Stratton grunted-his back was bad-he could not find a good position. "At Trinity, perhaps."

"But not at Oriel."

"No."

"And he must not expect, Hugh, it will be like his catechism. He must know the land around the subject as it were. Do you understand me, Oscar?"

"Yes," said Oscar. His trousers were cutting in between his legs. He was growing out of the clothes he had arrived in. House martins flew to and fro above his head to their nest inside the gable of the house.

He did not like it when Mrs Stratton started talking, as she often did, about the "land around the subject." When she spoke like this she would-she was doing it now-begin to pace. Oscar saw this land in his mind's eye-it was full of swamps and ditches. There were areas of tall grass and thick mist. You could get lost in the land that Mrs Stratton was so keen for him to enter. He wished only to believe in the Thirty-nine Articles of Faith. He was ready to believe in them as he believed in the Bible. And when Mrs Stratton wished to drag him out into the marshy "land around the subject" he would sit up straight in his chair and stretch his face into a smile. Mrs Stratton picked up her big blue skirt in one hand as she strode across the rough, scythed grass. She did not seek to confuse her husband's pupil. She merely wished to question whether divine grace is directly
given
or whether it must be
sought
from scripture. Her husband sipped barley water. The pupil smiled at her attentively. Mrs Stratton was very happy. Oscar's smile was a mask on his face. He tried not to hear a word the woman spoke. She brought doubt and argument. He wanted only certainty. He blocked her out. He silently recited 59

Oscar and Lucinda v

the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed.

Mrs Stratton galloped across the "land around." She sought the high ground, then abandoned it. She plunged into ditches and trotted proudly across bright green valleys. She set up her question, then knocked it down-she argued that her own question was incorrect. She set a light to it and watched it burn. Divine grace, she now proclaimed, was neither sought nor given. Oscar's face hurt from smiling.

Mrs Stratton walked as far as the quince tree and then came back to proclaim that divine grace was to be
proposed
by the Church and
proved by
the individual. She argued brightly with her husband on this point, waving her hands up and down as if conducting music. Oscar found it almost unbearable, and yet-it was obvious-the Strattons were enjoying themselves immensely. Mr Stratton called for Mrs Millar to brew fresh tea on three occasions and did not once worry about how much they had left and how long that might last. Mrs Stratton said that we must use our judgement in the determination of doctrine. She also said it was a sin to doubt.

She also said that doubt was the highest state for a Christian.

Oscar held on, like a frightened boy on a high mast in a big sea.

19

Christian Stories

My father, my mother, my brother, my sister and11 believed the following: 13*;^ ; The miracle of the loaves and the fishes. ' - ;

The miracle of the virgin birth.

All those miracles involving the healing of the sick and the driving out of demons. -«. *

We believed Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

60

Palm Sunday in New South Wales

We believed God spoke from the burning bush.

We believed Moses' rod turned into a serpent.

We believed Aaron's rod turned into a serpent.

We believed the river turned to blood.

We believed God sent the plague of frogs.

We believed God sent the plague of lice.

We believed God sent the plague of murrain. «

Of boils.

Of hail.

Of locusts.

We believed God took the firstborn of the Egyptians.

We believed the story of Jonah and the whale.

We believed Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt.

We believed God parted the waters of the Red Sea.

We believed Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee, that he turned water into wine, that he rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven.

We had none of the doubts of the 1860s. At Christmas we made a star of Bethlehem from cardboard and silver paper.

20

Palm Sunday in New South Wales

They did not have proper palms at home in Exeter. But in Parramatta there were two kinds of palms with which to decorate the church and Elizabeth Mullens, ten years old, just arrived in the colony, was excited.

The children from the Sunday School were to decorate the church. This was not the custom at home. It was the custom here. They waited in the street while the men unstrapped the palm leaves from their cart and threw them on to the street.

There was Letty Savage, the daughter of Dr Savage, and her two

61

Oscar and Luanda

younger brothers. Letty Savage had held Elizabeth's hand and already told her two secrets. There was the Mayor's son, a small pale boy and very quiet. There were two pretty daughters of the clergyman. They were all from good families, and all well behaved. They stood still by the cart, but not too close, and did not talk and giggle.

Elizabeth would never know why she did what she did. It was excitement. It was getting ready for Easter in such warm sunshine. It was wishing Miss Ahearn, the Sunday School teacher, to know that Elizabeth knew all about Palm Sunday.

When the cart drew away she picked up a palm leaf and waved it. She was not boisterous, rather tentative in fact. She waved reverently, as if she were in Jerusalem on that day. There was a man-she could see him, would always see him-with a broad black beard and small jug ears, riding a little fat-bellied horse down Church Street.

All she meant to do was lay the palm beneath the horse's feet.

"Hosanna," she cried-afterwards her voice would sound shrill and silly in her memory-"Hosanna in the highest."

All her life she saw what happened: the horse rearing, the man's mouth open, the dreadful trajectory. The noise his head made was as definite as a walnut cracking. The doll was purchased from the jam jar, or one of the jam jars, for in the earth-floored hut in New South Wales in which Lucinda Leplastrier was born there were a great number of jam jars, some of them visible, some of them not. The less important ones-thick, dumpy, heavy with ha'pennies and farthings, squat toads, unkissed by silversat on the twisted mantel beside the heirloom clock. There were two of these, the bluish one for the plate at church, the scratched green one for stamps and jam and other luxuries; these jars were never full. But there were other taller jars tucked away behind the cast-iron stove, and several others inside the wattle and daub walls, their exact location hidden by the dried mud and one would think, looking at the place, that this particular piece of mud was a part of the daub, or, even if you arrived when it was fresh, that it was nothing but a draught hole her papa had filled as he had filled so many others, with old newspaper and mud.

There were jam jars hidden behind the handsome books her mother dusted-always in the middle of some other task (making white sauce, cutting up the soap into square cakes on the central table), a flick of a rag, whisk, whoosh-a lizard's tongue licking the white clay dust off Carlyle, Dostoevsky, Seneca, Dickens, Tolstoy, John Stuart Mill, and the novels of her old friend Marian Evans behind whose affectionately autographed books there lay an ash-smelling jar filled with pennies and even threepences. This was the birthday jar.

It was from this birthday jar that the doll had come, and sometimes it seemed it was against her mother's wishes-for she was often sharp with Lucinda when she held the doll against her breastand yet sometimes it seemed the doll must have been her mother's idea, for her father would, when he was tired or depressed about their lack of headway with the farm, or the ignorance of their neighbours, tease her mother about her love of luxury. This meant the doll. There had been no other luxury.

The doll was her ninth birthday present. It had come in a ship across the world, just as her mama and papa had. She was very pretty with bright blue eyes and corn-yellow hair. Her cheeks were as smooth as china, and cool against your neck on a hot day. The doll had been purchased by Marian Evans who had gone in a coach to a great exhibition, especially to buy it. And that time Lucinda-much impressed by what she called the "expedition"-did not know what an exhibition really was, but it later occurred to her that the doll must have come from the building she was to so admire in her adult life-the Crystal Palace.

On the day she took Dolly to play over on the back creek, she wrapped her in a white crocheted shawl that she took, without permission, from the Baby Drawer. She wrapped the doll in the shawl because she knew-although her brothers had all died before they were old enough for her to remember them clearly-how it was you should treat a babe in arms.

"There is a nasty wind blowing," she told the doll. Her mother did not approve of her speaking with dolls. Had she heard her, she would have said it was 'limiting." Her mother, however, was not therehad been called to help "the poor silly girl" (Mrs O'Hagen) have a baby, and Lucindawho clearly remembered the last occasion Mrs O'Hagen had given birth-knew there would be no more lessons today. To reach the back creek one had first to cross the other creek-really it was a river-behind the house. There were stepping stones across this creek, but they were wobbly and awkward and shifted their position after every rain. She wore her Wellingtons. She also carried the glue-pot she had "borrowed" from her father's workbench, thus establishing beyond doubt that the incident that took place when she finally crossed the twenty-acre paddock and reached the place where tea-coloured water ran across a bed of yellow sand, that the operation she there performed could hardly be seen as impulsive. When her mild and careless father, in a most uncharacteristic temper, called her "secretive" and "wilful" he was only in error to the extent that he did not really believe what he was saying.

It was a bright clear winter day-quite warm when you were sheltered from the wind-with small white clouds like old men's faces scudding across the sky.

Lucinda clambered up the crumbling riverbank and set off across the pasture to the back creek. She was short for her age-counter to her mother's early hopes and expectations. ("She has big feet!" Elizabeth had written triumphantly to Marian Evans; but nothing came of it.) Her steps were small and measured, fast, but not hurried. In truth she was nervous and excited. She had never been to the back creek by herself before and although no one had actually forbidden her, she knew she would be refused permission if she sought it.

The back creek had once been the main creek, until, in the big rains of 1821, it quite suddenly changed its course. So the Mitchell's Creek beside which the Leplastriers had built their hut was a new Mitchell's Creek and the trees that grew there were no more than thirty years old, whilst the back creek contained a richer, tangled growth of old gnarled trees where you could see the scars the blacks had made cutting barks for canoes and other implements. It was dark under the trees by the back creek and the water was stained with fallen leaves and moved slowly. Light came in motes from the ceiling of the canopy and there were small birds which lived on the ground and made alarming scuttling noise in the undergrowth right next to you. It was Blackfellow territory. Lucinda placed her doll on a springy khaki-green tussock, the glue-pot on some dust-dull river gravel. She then collected twigs and bark. She elected to build her little fire competently. She arranged two rocks on which the glue-pot would sit. She had wax matches in her pinny pocket. She lit the fire and watched it, squatting with her bent knees cloaked by the calico pinafore. She had a thoughtful, intelligent face-a high forehead, perfectly arched and clearly denned eyebrows, a mobile, slightly thin but prettily bowed upper lip, which betrayed-by its constant contraction and expansion-her enthusiasms, and a full lower lip, which would one day suggest sensuality but now, set against her large, heavy lidded green eyes, made the false promise of a wry, precocious humour. Her hair was reddish brown, more brown than red except here, by the creek, where a mote of light caught her and showed the red lights in a slightly frizzy halo.

She did not like her hair. It dragged and snagged on her mother's tortoiseshell hairbrush. Both her mother and father had straight black hair through which a comb could pass as if through water. She loved the way the strands of their hair lay so neatly, side by side, like pen lines. She had assumed-until her father had gently disabused herthat her own hair would change when she grew older, that the brush would one day cease to pull and the hairpins might at last have her as neat as she was meant to be.

Indeed the sole purpose of this illicit journey across the back paddock was all to do with her admiration for straight black hair. It was her plan to give a present to her doll, and while the glue-pot began to give off its comforting and distinctive aroma, one inextricably linked (like the smells of bran, pollard, tweed, apple peelings and ink) with her father, she took the doll in her lap and began to pull the hair from its head.

The hair was like her own-curly and frizzy to touch-but blonde, of course, where hers was
frizzy
brown. She pulled the hairs out in little tufts, grimacing and screwing up her eyes.