The Equations of Love (20 page)

Lilly, who was matter-of-fact and in whom introspection, poetry, or contemplation had no place, who dusted books but did not read them, would at the end of the day straighten the bed, remove a surplus of toys, undress, go straight to bed, and to sleep. But sometimes even Lilly, looking down on the sleeping Eleanor, would think Can this be my baby? She’s a lady, that’s what she is. She’s not common. She’s better than folks, she’s like she was Mrs. Butler’s kid. I’m not so common neither as I was. I guess I’ve learned a bit. Studying to watch and keep
quiet, that’s what does it. Baby, you’re a sweet lovely kid, and you’re my kid, and I done it. And Lilly never had to act, now. She lived and worked with no occasion to stand and look at her questioner with soft deceit while two round tears gathered and fell. Some people have flat tears. Lilly’s tears were round, dewy and slow, but she never needed them now. Life was nice, full, and steady. She did not have to ask “And what next?” There was enough in the day’s work, though never quite enough time, except the lazy times with the child, on the shore, in the boat, on the sand spit, and sometimes, on wet days, in Lilly’s own precious room. A room of their own they had, her bed in one corner and Baby’s cot in the other, and when the door was shut, and the rain beat on the windows, Lilly rocked and mended, and Baby was busy with her crayons – “Look, Mummy!” Security.

There had been a time when Maurice Butler became aware of Lilly. He saw her for what she was, a girl of no account but possessed by her baby. But because Lilly was young, and moved well and quickly, and because of her creamy skin, and taffy-coloured hair, and brown eyes, and the agreeable snub nose, and her non-observance of him, and some possibility lying waiting in her, his old familiar devil stirred in him. He tested her, to see if she would play. As he stood in the shadow of the passage taking his rod out of its case, Lilly passed and repassed him. He blocked her a little as if by accident, and the girl stood waiting. He looked at her pleasantly as if considering and said quickly in that lazy voice whose quality was so immensely agreeable, “Do you know, young woman, you’re an extremely pretty girl.”

There was no answering expression on Lilly’s face as she said flatly “That what Mr. Hughes always used to say.” That’s done it, she thought, he’ll let me be; once I let him
start anything, Baby and me are out. Well, I’ll be blowed, he thought, is the girl stupid or very clever, and he said heartily, as if continuing, “Yes, a pretty girl and a good cook … did you happen to see my landing net?”

“It’s there,” she said, pointing, and he could not tell whether it was a touch of scorn that he saw on her pale face.

Well, now he had tested her; but the girl was so stupid that he let her alone, irritated with himself that he could be stirred by anything so dull. But Lilly was not dull, and she said to herself The silly fool, what does he take me for? If it had not been for Eleanor she would have accepted his understood invitation, she would have played, she would not have spared Mrs. Butler – human relations were not Lilly’s concern – there would have been Trouble, of course, but when Trouble came Lilly would have moved on. But because of Eleanor and security, she would not play, and Maurice Butler, irritated with himself and with the girl, was glad that she was too stupid to see that he had been, for a moment, such a fool, and now he had not lost face in his own house. And Tess was saved the same trouble all over again and what a damned idiot he had been ready to make of himself. Well – forget it. And it was forgotten, and Maurice Butler came to forget that he had ever reached for Lilly in the dark hall and Lilly who made no sign had nearly forgotten too, and Tess Butler had put aside the suspicion that Maurice seemed to be watching Mrs. Hughes – and were they to go through all that again? No, thank God she was wrong. And life resumed its way, and nothing had happened, and everyone was mistaken, and time passed, and Eleanor grew.

One day Eleanor and her mother and the cat’s kitten came down to the float where Major Butler was untying the rowboat.

“Want to come?” he asked.

“Oh, Mummy, can I?”

“‘May I,’” corrected Lilly, echoing from habit Mrs. Butler although she did not know why, for “Can I” seemed good enough. “Yes if …”

“Well hurry up both of you and get in,” said Major Butler, sitting in the boat and holding on to the float with his hand.

“But I want to take kitty to the sand spit for a treat she’s never seen it,” said Eleanor.

“All right, Hughesy, let her take it, but you be responsible for the kitten.”

“I’ll put it like this … see! … in my little bag,” said Lilly, and she put the kitten in the bag and drew the drawstring so that the kitten’s head and arms were out of the bag and the rest of her remained well pinioned inside.

“Oh look
look
, Major Butler,
look
at kitty!”

“You get into the boat now …
care
ful … that’s the girl. You go in the bow, Eleanor, and Hughesy, you and the cat go in the stern … all set?” and they pushed off, Lilly bareheaded with her fair hair blowing, and Eleanor bareheaded with her two little pigtails and a fuzz of brown hair blowing round her brown face, and Major Butler in his old hat, and the kitten who suddenly stopped struggling and looked this way and that out of the bag with great wisdom.

They rowed slowly over to the sand spit. Lilly and the little girl scrambled ashore and the boat was soon moving off in the distance. On this glorious day the sky seemed higher and wider than usual. The vault was blue and of intense clarity. A large tumble of white cumulus lay motionless near the horizon. Always on the sand spit a breeze blew. Sometimes, when skies were grey and the wind was keen and bitter, the sand spit was desolate and the little headstones added to its abandoned loveliness. But on this fair day of summer the
fresh loveliness of the place with a light breeze blowing brought to Lilly one of those perfect moments of time that seem to last forever but do not last forever, and are so fleeting that they make some people afraid.

Lilly lay face downwards on the grass, lifting herself on her elbows and keeping watch on the little girl who ran and stopped among the grasses, gathering sea pinks, and on the kitten who crouched and sprang and played close by – two innocent creatures and Lilly in the wind and the sun. Lilly’s glance playing idly over the grasses was caught by a vigorous small movement. A large robin was pull – pull – pulling at some object on the ground. Lilly raised herself a little so as to see what the robin was doing and at the same moment the kitten saw the bird. The robin had found a small garter snake, thin and quick as a whiplash, and with great industry was trying to pick it up and carry it off. The little snake slid, coiled, lashed out, and the robin gathered it together into folds and tried to rise with it. The folds were too big and the snake uncoiled. The robin tried again. And again. And again. Lilly, sitting up now, watched this small battle on the sand spit. The kitten became transformed to a ruthless hunting cat and flattened its belly to the earth, stretching out paw after predatory paw, moving forward towards the robin.

The robin’s trying to catch the snake, and the kitten’s trying to catch the robin, thought Lilly, and she reached out restraining hands and held the kitten, because she wanted to see what the robin would be able to do. The little garter snake twisted and twisted. It was the only jewelled thing upon the scene. The kitten wriggled free of Lilly and bounded into the grass; it lay there quivering, pointed towards the robin and the snake. Then the kitten resumed its slow predatory crawl, starting and stopping. A dark shadow appeared from the sky. It fell upon Lilly and moved smoothly over the grasses.
Lilly looked up quickly at the eagle that circled low above them. The kitten! It sees the kitten! she thought. She scrambled to her feet. Then, shading her eyes she looked almost into the eye of the sun and saw close and plainly the notched blackish wings and wide white tail of the great bald eagle circling low round and round without motion of wings. Eleanor stood among the grasses, looking up. “Oh, Mummy, it’s a neagle!” Lilly caught up the kitten and ran and drew Eleanor to her.

The kitten did not see the eagle whose shadow had now twice passed over it. The robin did not see the kitten who had lain quivering from nose to tail not five feet away. The eagle did not see two enemies who now assailed him from the rear. From the sky swooped a gull and from the fir trees on the near shore flew a crow; white bird and black bird, inveterate enemies of the eagle, came to beat him away from their homes and children. Lilly held fast the kitten who lashed its angry tail. At this moment the robin, successfully gathering the snake together in two loops, rose heavily and flew low and away, unaware of kitten or eagle, woman or child. The battle now remained between the two birds and the eagle. The hunt of robin for snake, cat for robin, eagle for cat was over. (Everything after something, thought Lilly.) With harsh cries the white and black birds beat about the great and ancient bird’s flanks and tail, manoeuvring quickly. The eagle could not swiftly turn, and continued its majestic soaring at quicker speed. The gull and the crow beat about its tail crying loudly until it seemed to Lilly that the crow was exhausted. It flew to a spindling broken tree while the gull continued the attack. Then the crow returned, followed by more crows from the fir trees, and the seagull flapped away towards the shore, ejaculating from time to time as seagulls do. The crows beat violently about the rear of the eagle who retreated, still circling, and became somewhere
invisible as eagles do. The crows returned, praising themselves loudly, as crows do. The hunt was over and only the small garter snake had perished. Around and about among the grasses a myriad invisible hunts went on. I wisht another grown-up person had been here to see that, Lilly reflected, still looking into the distance, that was the queerest thing I ever did see in all my life. She felt uneasy … seems like everything’s cruel, hunting something.

Since the cycle which she had just been watching created little philosophical stir in Lilly beyond this faint uneasiness, she lay down again upon the pleasant softness and scratch of the green and dried grasses and began to think. This is a lovely afternoon, just too good to last, but I do wish to goodness he’d come; we gotta go up to the store, and that roast’ll take a good hour and a half and She’s gotta have her supper and She’ll be wondering. (The first “She” was Eleanor and the second “She” was Mrs. Butler.)

Eleanor now had taken the kitten to the grave of Nigger the best cat. She talked to the kitten who did not listen but continued to play her own little games with something or nothing. It was very strange that Lilly to whom the world of the invisible senses was closed should have given birth to this daughter who, when her day should come, would experience love and friendship and beauty, joy, sorrow and the poetry of experience. On such a day as this and in such a place Eleanor would – some day and days – be aware of the incorporeal presence in air, and light, and dark, and earth, and sea, and sky, and in herself, of something unexpressed and inexpressible, that transcends and heightens ordinary life, and is its complement. Without it, life is uninformed, and life in Lilly was uninformed, without poetry or ecstasy or anguish, with little divination in human relations, yet fortified by her child, and well fortified.

Round a headland came the boat with the oars tranquilly dipping. The boat slowly crossed the bright glistening path of the sun, and beached on the sand. They rowed to the village wharf and went up the wharf to the store, and there Lilly and the child waited while Major Butler talked to the storekeeper. There were strangers there today, visitors, and Mr. Meeker was there, talking, enquiring, and informing them with great pleasure as was his custom. They looked towards Eleanor.

“No,” said Mr. Meeker, glad to oblige, “she’s not Butlers’ child … yes, she does, don’t she … well, I guess Mrs. Butler gets all them cute little dresses from England, she’s awful good to her, gives her everything … no, she’s the maid’s child … no, she don’t look it … sure, that’s the maid, Butlers’ maid, a good one to work … I nev-er thought …” and Mr. Meeker went on expounding what he never thought, and then Major Butler finished what he was saying and turned to Lilly and the child who joined him, and they left the store. “We’ll leave the boat for Bill,” he said, “and walk home.”

While Mr. Meeker gave detailed information to the strangers in a voice that carried very well, Lilly’s face had remained the impassive face of one who does not hear. But she heard. Something was set violently in motion in her mind, and on the way home it became for the first time blindingly clear that Eleanor was to be always and in all places, “the maid’s child.” Sure, I’m a maid, what of it, she said to herself defiantly; she was Mrs. Hughes, the Butlers’ maid. All right, I’m Butlers’ maid. But I’m Eleanor’s mother. And Mr. Meeker’s words opened Lilly’s eyes wide. Everything had been very well, very well indeed, but Eleanor was growing to be a big girl now, and soon she would be forever just “the maid’s child,” and never a home of her own, and never a life of her own. And with easy ruthlessness Lilly decided instantly. We’re going. We’ll pack up.
However much she’ll try to keep us, we’re going. I’ll find somewhere, and I won’t tell her till I know where. I’ll read in the papers, and when I see what I want, we’ll go. I’ll give my fortnight else she won’t pay me, and then we’ll go. Besides (and she beat up some anger in herself) they act like she was their child sometimes and I won’t stand for it. And Lilly, who had left the house that afternoon with her usual equability, and had lain half awake half asleep upon the sunny grass with never a care in the world, and had thought that life was perfect, and had watched the hunt of bird and beast and reptile, came back to the house alert, alarmed, hunted, and committed to a plan from which she would not turn aside.

Six years of living with the Butlers. Six – no, nearly seven years of seeing how pleasant life could be for the Butlers and for their kind of people. Seven years of Lilly learning. Seven years of Eleanor growing into that life. Seven years of Eleanor becoming a lady and like folks, and now a revelation that Eleanor’s life would be phony, she thought, not real. It’s a good start for her though, she reflected, and now goodbye, we’re going. I know a lot more’n I did, and if I’m not a lady, my girl is, and she’s going to be, and I’ll have done it. For me, I’ve just got to watch and study to be quiet so she’ll never be ashamed. Little girls of six aren’t ashamed of their mothers, she reflected with practical wisdom, but little girls of twelve can be, and big girls of eighteen can be too. She mustn’t never have any call to be ashamed of me. We’re going. I won’t speak now, she thought. I’ll get a hold of yesterday’s paper and see what offers, and every night I’ll get a hold of the paper before I put it away and then I’ll kinda know where I’m at. And so it was the same placid equable Lilly whom Mrs. Butler, standing, watching for them, saw come quickly ahead of Major Butler and the child, carrying parcels.