Oscar and Lucinda (8 page)

"It is not Oliver," said Mr Stratton (rather smugly, thought Mrs Stratton).

"What is it, then?"

"It is Oscar," said Mr Stratton.

"Oscar?" ,

"Yes."

"What an extraordinary name," said Mrs Stratton.

"I am named after an old friend of my father's."

"Was he a foreigner?" asked Mrs Stratton, but her mind was not on her interrogation. Her husband had unsettled her. She did not understand his face. It bore a calm and powerful look it had not shown for years. He was very still, and this stillness was perhaps the source of his power. In any case it was most unusual.

"He was English, ma'am. It was he who lifted the scales from my papa's eyes." Mrs Stratton had lost interest in Oscar's namesake. She addressed her husband directly on another more urgent matter, not worrying that what she had to say was of a private nature.

"Hugh, the cost." °''

"The boy is called."

"In what sense, Hugh?"

"He is called to Holy Orders," said Hugh Stratton. "He must go to Oriel. I am to coach him for his Articles."

Mrs Stratton pressed her hand against her bosom, not lightly, but hard, to press her heart into stillness. "You have had three glasses," she said.

"Quite right," said Mr Stratton.

'Tomorrow we might talk about it properly," said Mrs Stratton, cocking her head on one side and looking at her husband.

"Quite so," said the Reverend Mr Stratton, rising from his dining chair. He was a little unsteady at first and then he appeared, as he stretched himself, to be of a springier and more athletic type than previously. He flicked his hair back off his forehead. "I think," he swung his arms backwards and forwards, expanding his chest, "that the best plan would be for Oscar to go to bed."

Mrs Stratton looked at her husband's smile. It was lovely, and rather boyish, as if he held roses behind his back, or if not roses, something rarer, some genus hitherto unseen in this part of the country.

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14 Trials

Men and women with lanterns crossed fields sown with winter oats. Sleepy children were raised from bed to pray by cold hearths. The three Groucher men, Timothy, Cyrus and Peter, came to Theophilus and offered to take the boy back by force. They were big men with barrel chests, arms like blacksmiths'; they carried big wooden staves which they thumped on the floor to punctuate their conversation.

Mrs Williams silently sided with the Croucher brothers. She would have paddled his backside with a hairbrush and had him in his bed before the hour was up. But her employer sent the Crouchers away asking "only" that they give up their precious sleep for prayer. Mrs Williams was tired. She wished to sleep. Her employer seemed to expect her to pray beside him. It was a hard floor and no prayer mats, not even the piece of felt she used when scrubbing. Her master prayed loudly. He prayed self-importantly. He prayed as if he were the centre of the universe, as if the only reason the son had run away was so that God could punish the father. He begged God to punish him in some other way. He begged him loudly, continually, but Mrs Williams thought he sounded like a duke talking to a king and not the "poor sinner" he claimed to be. Mrs Williams was fifty-five years old, too old for this sort of nonsense. If she had been God she would have given him a thwack across the earhole and sent him to bed. At fifteen minutes past eleven, the two Anglicans came, bringing red mud and the smell of the taproom into the little limestone cottage. She was permitted to get up from her knees then. She made them tea, but they did not stay long enough to drink it. She was required for more praying, and then she was not-Mr Hopkins rushed out of the house without a lantern. She sat and waited at the kitchen table and after five or ten minutes the wind

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Oscar and Lucinda

brought his voice to her: he was praying, loudly, on the beach.

The last time she had seen this hysteria was when the boy's mother passed on. On that occasion she had tried to calm him. On this occasion she went to bed.

The Vicarage Kitchen

It was true that Lucy Millar did not like her kitchen. It was not a kitchen at all. It was a large pantry into which some previous vicar had moved the stove and sink and, presumably because there was no room to do otherwise, had left behind all the shelves, cupboards and tables which make a kitchen a proper place to be. It was not that the Strattons had not been apologetic. They had, on the day she arrived (with all her references tied up with ribbon), drawn it to her attention. Mrs Millar had been charmed by Mrs Stratton who gave all the appearances of being a firm and practical woman. She could remember her now, her indignant, "Look at this!" when she poked a large finger at the tattered bellows, or tried-she had to give up-to open a minuscule window to the gloomy north. She begged Lucy to imagine how splendid the other, original kitchen would have been before some interfering clergyman had wasted good money squeezing the stove and scullery into the pantry.

Mrs Stratton acted as though none of this was her responsibility. She commiserated with Lucy for having to spend a lovely summer inside a "dreadful pantry." She paid her only sixpence the week and sometimes, although Lucy had four children and two old parents to keep out of the workhouse, only threepence or fourpence, depending on what was available. Lucy was cross enough to spit in the soup.

She was always cross. She was walking here across the Downs at five in the morning or halfwalking, half-running home again at eight at night. She could not count the reasons she might have to be cross.

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The Vicarage Kitchen

There were a hundred inside the kitchen itself, and she made her family tense and unhappy by listing them. It was a litany they had come to dread. They bowed their heads and ate their soup. Today she was even crosser than usual. They had brought that silly Theo-dogus, Theo-whatshis, to sit at her table and they knew-or Mrs Stratton did-or should if she didn't-that this ruined her entire method of working. Because the other room, the old pantry, was so small, she always tried to do as much work as possible at the big table in the original kitchen. She had two tubs in which she washed dishes, and she would prepare all her ingredients in advance, all these little bowls and chipped cups set out across the table-an egg yolk in one, chopped chives in another, the chopped meat soaking in a herby sauce which took the smell out of it, and so on and so forth. She liked this big room. It was as generous as the other was mean. Alone in all the house it was dry. It had a window to the south which often took the brunt of storms in winter but through which you could see-she kept the privet trimmed herself to allow it-calm blue water, and a touch of the red cliff that gave Hennacombe its name.

But then Theo-holius had sat himself down and ruined her day. The place for such visitors was in the book-musty room she called the pigsty (although in public she said "drawing room" like everybody else). He did not belong here.

"Are you saved?" he asked her, first off, no introduction. She told him to mind himself. She had a leg of lamb she wished to bone. But there would be no hot-pot if this man with staring eyes did not eat and go. She went into the so-called kitchen and made dough for the scones. This was not for the lunch, but the tea Mrs Stratton liked to give for the Old Men (although the Squire looked after them anyway and Mrs Stratton had no business to give away what she could not afford). She needed the big table to make the scones, but Theophilus had the table so she tried to make do in the pantry, using the back of the wooden breakfast tray. She balanced it on the top of a stool and had to kneel to roll the dough across it. But the tray slipped and the dough fell. She said nothing out loud. She scraped the dough off the floor and carried it to the little window to examine it. She was a thin, nervous woman with dark sunken eyes and brisk movements, but she was, while she examined the dough, very still. She was thinking, weighing up, knowing the fuss that would be made if they found her dough in the bucket for the hens. She pushed the dough together and sat it on the tray. Then she went to the doorway where she surveyed the mournful man. He did not see her. As she watched, he sighed.

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Oscar and Lucinda

She was too cross to be sympathetic. She could see the shadow of Mrs Stratton as it moved across the other side of the little kitchen window. The glass was of a rather poor quality, opaque and filled with bubbles, but Mrs Millar knew Mrs Stratton was waiting for her scones. She sprinkled the dough with flour, kneaded it, and soon the cinders from the floor were hidden. But still she did not like to make her scones from it. She left it to stand, in limbo. She took the leg of lamb from the meat-safe. It had turned a little green, but she had seen worse meat in this household. She took her best Sheffield, a lovely knife she had brought with her to the job-and just as well, too-and sharpened it. She set the dough aside and washed the tray and, once again, balanced it on the stool. Then she took the leg of lamb and rested it on the tray. She did not approve of using the tray for cutting meat, but she had no choice. She knelt and began cutting. It was such a lovely knife, and very sharp. She laid open the leg to the bone, taking pleasure in her skill, and the noise, in which she could hear the faintest tearing, even though the cut was razor sharp.

It was then that she heard the Evangelical groaning, the sort of noise a sick man might make in his sleep, but not, please God, when he was awake, at her table. She listened for a minute or two, her head on one side, like one of the Rhode Island Reds which would not-she had definitely decided-eat the scone dough. Then she laid the leg of lamb down, placed the knife carefully beside it, stood, and went to look.

She had seen him before, of course, but she had never-odd as this may seem, given that he lived so close and that they both used the same lane every day-ever seen him so close. He was a queer one all right, as you might expect of someone who did not hold with dancing. He was hard and wiry with ebony eyes. He sat bolt upright, his eyes clenched shut so tight it made his top lip twist up beneath his nose. He was rubbing his hands together as if they were fighting each other, as if the right hand wished to snap the wrist of the left. His lips, as she watched, began to move. The lips did not belong with all this rigidity. They were thick and red and passionate. It embarrassed her to look at them.

She made a noise, quite loud enough to hear. It indicated her disgust. If he heard it, she did not notice. She turned her back, and, having considered her scone dough again, went back to work on the lamb. It was so unfair. She could hardly bear the unfairness of it, that she must kneel here, with her knees hurting while he had all that table to himself. He thought himself humble for doing so. She had heard his big important voice. 'The kitchen will do well enough." 50

The Vicarage Kitchen

She resumed her work on the lamb. Then, because she was angry and the light was poor, and because she had to balance the lamb without putting pressure on the tray, she cut deeply into the cuticle of her index finger. There was a quick blooming of Turkish Red, a perfect circle which quickly ran to seed. It left great hot splashes across the tray and on her apron.

"Damn God," she said loudly, spitefully.

The noise in the other room stopped, and when she went in there to find a bandage, she noted that he was watching her with interest.

"So," he said. It was a deep voice, the thing people normally mentioned about him first. But she had heard the voice already and was not surprised by it. It was the note it struck that shocked herbright, triumphant, quite out of keeping with the anguished hands.

"So, Cook, you have cut yourself."

She did not understand this triumph, because she did not share his belief, i.e., if you were sick or injured, if you broke a leg, for instance, it was to punish you for sin. He had heard the Damn God and seen the cut, but he had the order of events quite wrong and thought the cause was the effect and vice versa.

She tore some strips of linen to make a bandage. She did this on the table and although she did not apologize for doing so, her heart beat very fast indeed. She could hear Mrs Stratton fussing with the umbrella stand in the passage, straightening up the sticks and umbrellas for no reason other than that she was waiting for her scones.

Mrs Millar brought the leg of lamb to the big table. She was bright with defiance. She placed it at the other end of the table from Theophilus but she did not look at him. She worked with her head bowed, standing up. She was occupied in this when the son arrived. She had seen him before last night, quite often, from her window. He was not like any other boy in Hennacombe. She thought him like a girl with the manner of a grown man. She had often heard him in the lane way singing hymns and she had no great opinion of his voice.

Mrs Stratton came bursting in straight afterwards. She had been interfering with the poultry. She was carrying a bowl of eggs and probably had the one from the broody hen. She would be better off building a proper roost and providing shelter from the wind-driven rain. Mrs Stratton put the eggs on the table and winked at Mrs Millar who, whilst pleased enough by the wink and even more pleased not to be sent into the pantry, suffered another wave of irritation. She sighed, and closed her eyes. She could not put off the scones any more.

"Papa,"
she heard the boy say. The voice swept from tenor to alto. 51

Oscar and Lucinda

He was at that age. She sprinkled flour across the table and began to roll dough. She was well aware that the flour was sprinkled on what could be regarded as her guest's territory. She felt specks of cmders in the dough, felt them through the wooden roller. She wondered what such peculiar people would say to one another.

16

Job and Judas

Everything about his papa was so familiar and sweet that he briefly forgot the circumstances that brought him there, only that he
was
there. His strongest desire was to rush and embrace him, to push his face against the rough blue serge which could contain the faintest odour of formaldehyde or, if decorum would not permit this, then at least hold those two strong hands which were always marked with some scab or cut from his work with rocks and sea. He felt he had been mad, infatuated with something not quite wholesome. He wanted to be somewhere good and dry and in that moment, at the kitchen door, the two qualities seemed synonymous.