Inside was a clammy darkness and steps that seemed to go down to the bowels of the earth. They went down hand in hand, feeling their way and slipping on the slimy steps, till they came to the water welling up under a low stone arch. They were both a little breathless when they reached the bottom; partly from awe, partly because the slimy steps and the spiders’ webs that tickled their groping fingers made them giggle; Grace hiccuped, which she felt she should not do in so holy a place. Faithful knelt down and scooping the water up in his cupped hands he bathed his face three times. The water looked black as ink as it lay under the archway but as he lifted it up the light from the open door turned it to trickling silver, and when he splashed it against his face it was cold as ice. “Three times only?” he asked Grace, and Grace nodded. That was the mystic number; Father, Son and Spirit; father, mother and child; birth and life and death.
They climbed the steps again and came out into a glory of sunlight that shone full upon Faithful’s wet face, so that Grace turning eagerly towards him saw it shining brilliantly like the face of an angel.
“Faithful!” she cried. “You look like Saint Stephen.”
“But are the pock-marks gone?” he asked anxiously, for the Bible gives no information as to whether Saint Stephen was pock-marked or not.
“They’re gone!” cried Grace. “I can’t see them any more!” and she flung her arms round Faithful’s neck and kissed him. A glorious feeling of liberation fell upon Faithful, with its accompanying sense of the inrush of new life. His ugliness had been the rusty bars of a prison but now they had fallen, and the prisoner that came running out from behind them was his love for Grace.
“Will you marry me one day?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she said.
Their wedding was as easily arranged as that of two birds. The caution and calculation that come with age did not worry them at all. There were no past disappointments to embitter their love, no sins to soil it. They clung together in the perfection of ecstasy, their wet cheeks pressed together and the holy water like diamond drops on their lips. The action and place were symbolic, for their first kiss in a graveyard was cool and fresh as the love that lasted them till death.
For ever after it was the firm conviction of Faithful and Grace that his pock-marks were not noticeable; other people did not share their conviction, but then other people were unbelievers.
3.
Grace withdrew herself from her lover’s arms to shut and lock the door behind them. She was her usual self again, practical and informative.
“Once the streams ran all round Binsey,” she said, “and made an island of it. Binsey means ‘island of prayer’ in Saxon.”
“Then we had better pray,” said Faithful, and led the way up the moss-grown path to the dark, musty little church. They knelt very upright on the hard stone floor, facing the altar and the stained glass figure of Saint Frideswide above it, their backs as straight as boards and their hands placed palms together under their chins. They knelt as still as two be-ruffed figures on a tomb, so still that a little mouse crept out and sniffed at the soles of their shoes to see what they were made of.
But it was only Faithful’s outside that was pressed into this cold statuesque mold of godliness; inside he was a burning fire of devotion and love and gratitude. He had no need to pray in words. His whole consciousness, mental and physical, seemed gradually to be absorbed in a great act of praise that lifted him up as on wings so that he lost all sense both of the place where he was and of himself as a person. Something that came from outside, something divine, touched him, and at the touch everything about him and in him had clicked into harmony so that there were no parts but only a whole, no time but only eternity. He was never to know a moment quite like this again. The emotion of human love that had swept over him at the well, an emotion as rarefied in its purity as any human emotion could be, had left him so sensitively aware that he could feel what he would never feel again. . . . Only long for with a longing so acute that the rest of his life would be a pilgrimage.
But such moments were not for Grace, for she belonged to that noble army of Marthas who cook the dinners that the Marys gobble up to keep them going between their visions and their dreams. Grace was the best kind of Martha. She would never mind how long the dinner took to cook and would take it quite for granted if there was not much left for her by the time Mary’s hunger was satisfied. Yet if Grace could not know ecstasy she could perform the duties of religion very credibly. She knelt now very correctly, finger tip to finger tip and eyes glued tight shut, and she repeated all the prayers she knew in an inward voice so perfect in grammar and pronunciation that there was no excuse for the deity not hearing. . . . But when she came to the end of them she was floored. . . . She didn’t know any more and she couldn’t pray extempore. The cold paving stones penetrated through her dress and made themselves known to her knees. She had a crick in her neck from kneeling so straight and a touch of indigestion inside. She opened one eye and looked at Faithful. He was in his Saint Stephen mood again; oblivious of her, oblivious of everything; his inward eye gazing upon the opened heavens. For how much longer was he going on praying? She shifted her weight from one aching knee to the other and experienced a slight sinking of the heart, for it might be that married life with Faithful would be a strain at times. Then a wave of shame went over her and her rapturous love bubbled up afresh in her heart, so that shutting her eyes she too saw visions; of a spotless larder full of jellies and preserves made by herself without any interference from Dorothy, a well-filled linen cupboard with lavender bags between each sheet made by herself without any criticism from Joyeuce, and, best of all, a neat row of compact little babies picked up by herself and Faithful from under the gooseberry bushes to which they had fallen straight from God.
So vivid was this last vision that she could actually hear the compact little babies disliking the gooseberry prickles and crying to be fetched out; and then she realized that somewhere quite near a child actually was crying. She opened her eyes and listened intently, all the mother in her wide awake. Then she prodded Faithful.
“What?” said Faithful, returning from heaven with difficulty and some slight irritation.
“Listen,” said Grace.
Faithful got to his feet with a sigh and rubbed his knees. The persistent voice of the world, crying outside in its woe, was not for the first time disturbing a saint in his visions and dragging him out of the house of devotion into the world of action. They made their way out of the shadows of the church into the porch, full of the streaming sunset light, and there, curled up in the corner, was Diccon sobbing his heart out.
Grace had never had much affection for Diccon; privately she had always thought him rather a nasty little boy, quite unworthy of the devotion lavished upon him by Joyeuce and her father; but his woe was desperately genuine and gathering him up in her arms she kissed him and crooned over him as though he were all the compact little babies rolled into one.
It was impossible to make out what was the matter with him, where he had been or what he had done or how in the world he had got where he was. When they questioned him he only shook his curly head, sobbed heartbrokenly and demanded to be taken home.
They took him home, carrying him pickaback by turns, the journey turned into a painful pilgrimage by his bulk. He was a dead weight on their backs, his curly head lolling heavily as though the sorrow of the world bowed it down and his body shaken periodically with heartbreaking hiccups. The whole sky was a sheet of gold and under it the green earth lay in a strange stillness, the river like glass and the trees unstirring, as though the whole world listened to the echo of a footfall; the feet of the day that departed and the feet of the night that came. And through the green and the gold the three children moved silently, listening too. The day had brought them new terrors and joys; love and ecstasy, freedom, cruelty and pain. Much that had been theirs had gone from them forever; the old childish care
lessness and ignorance and happy self-sufficiency; and moving towards them were new things, half-seen shapes drawing nearer with glowing eyes that promised rapture and mercilessly pacing feet that promised pain.
But from the shadowy terrors there was a shelter. Built upon the green floor of the world, piled against the golden curve of the sky, were the towers of a city. Bastioned walls were strong against earthly danger, steepled churches held the powers of evil at bay, and flower-filled gardens and green arbors were a refuge to a man from the sorrow of his own thoughts.
“There is Oxford!” cried Grace. “There is home at last!”
Faithful, whose turn it was to carry Diccon, lifted his bowed head and wiped the sweat from his forehead, and Diccon opened his tear-swollen lids and gazed and gazed.
Chapter 11: Dark December
Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
And from which earth, and grave, and dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
WALTER RALEIGH.
1.
THE autumn and the returning scholars arrived at Oxford together. With the first gale of wind and rain from the southwest, a gale that tore the last petals from the drenched rose trees and sent the clouds hurrying like flocks of frightened sheep across the sky, there came a clamor at the gates, a joyous shouting and singing of songs, the clatter of horses’ hoofs on cobbles and the pealing of the bells with which the city welcomed her children home.
For though Oxford had been very glad to see the scholars go she was even more glad to see them come back. The blessed peace of their absence had turned into boredom as the hot summer weeks went by. After the long years of their occupation the life of the city had come to center around them, and if they were absent too long the life seemed drained of its purpose. . . . To see the cavalcades coming winding in from north, south, east and west, filling the quiet streets with their clamor, was like seeing sap flow again through the branches of a dead tree.
With her children once more stowed safely within her walls, Philip Sidney writing poetry at Broadgates Hall, Nicolas playing the viol in his room by the Fair Gate and Walter Raleigh flashing like a meteor in and out of the gates of Oriel, the city put on a fresh beauty. She had become a little tired and dusty, drained of her strength and color by the hot weeks of harvest time, but now, swept of her dust by the life-giving gales and washed clean by the showers of silver rain that went by on the wind, beauty bloomed again. There were new flowers in the gardens, crimson dahlias and the white starry daisies of Saint Michael, and the lawns put on a fresh bright green that was like an echo of the vanished spring. Every gray wall wore a cloak of scarlet creeper and the elm trees in the Christ Church Meadows stood like tall knights arrayed from head to foot in golden armor. Sandwiched between days of rain there were sunshiny days of loveliness when the silence was so deep that wanderers in fields and gardens were almost startled to hear the tiny tap of a falling leaf or the twitter of a robin in the bushes. . . . On these days one felt drenched in a melancholy quietude that was almost as enjoyable as happiness.
Even Joyeuce, when on fine mornings she drew back the curtains on a world whose fragile beauty made her think of a rainbow or a soap bubble, felt a rare tranquillity. Fine autumn days bred philosophy in one, she thought, for the earth itself in autumn was so philosophic; faced with the storms of winter, that would root up its trees and stamp its flowers into the ground, it seemed to turn itself backward to remember past glories with such a passion of delight that on day after day it was almost young again, so young that on some mornings you would have said that memory had merged into hope and next spring was here already.
That was what she would do, thought Joyeuce. . . . Remember. . . . Behind her were the happy days of childhood when her mother had been with her and living had been like wings that carried one from one joy to another, not a pack upon the back that made the shoulders ache; she would remember those days and grow the stronger for reliving their joy and freedom. And she must remember that evening of ecstasy when she had thought that Nicolas loved her and had felt herself to be born again; till her dying day she must remember that because surely never again would she reach such a peak of joy. She realized that one could not live always on such a peak; if one did nerves and body would break under the strain; but from every experience of bliss as it passed away one could keep back a modicum to add to interior treasure. Surely these moments were foretastes of something to come, some freedom of spirit so heavenly that it would be cheaply purchased by all the garnered wealth of a lifetime. . . . After one of these early morning meditations Joyeuce would be so sweet-tempered that the children would bask in her smiles like kittens in the sun. . . . But when the day was over and she was in bed at night, with a little wind whispering round the windows and darkness lying over the world like a pall, Joyeuce would forget to be a philosopher and her tears would soak right through the linen of the pillowcase and drench the goose-breast feathers underneath.
Grace did not need to bask in another’s warmth for she had more than enough of her own. She was so happy that three inches were added to her waist measurement and two to her height, while her hair broke into such a paroxysm of curl that each separate hair seemed alive and dancing with a life of its own. After serious consultation she and Faithful had come to the conclusion that matrimony had better not be mentioned to the family just yet. They were quite old enough to be married, of course, thirteen and fourteen being well on in years of discretion, but though they realized their seniority they doubted if the family did. . . . There was still a regrettable tendency to treat them as children. . . . They feared an outburst of protest and thought it better to keep their secret a little longer; until Grace was taller still and Faithful had made the whole College see his brilliant future in as rosy colors as he did himself.
And it was such a nice secret to keep; Grace was inclined to think it was sweeter to keep it than to tell it. Solemn and gentle kisses given and received behind the apple trees in the garden, whispered conversations under the stairs, quick darting glances exchanged in a crowded room, that had the queer effect of making the crowd dissolve into thin air, so that they two were left quite alone in a world that had been made for them only. To tell about these things at this stage would have been to spoil them. They would have to tell about them in the end, of course, but by that time they would be like children who are tired of playing at make-believe in secret and want to be the real thing in the eyes of the whole world.
But in her own eyes Grace was a wife already and behaved with a bustling importance that Joyeuce found quite insufferable. She took to wearing two extra petticoats to further increase her bulk, and finding some old keys at the bottom of a chest she hung them round her waist instead of the infantile hornbook which she now contemptuously discarded, and went jingling and rustling about the house with a dignity that would have been overwhelming in a matron of sixty.
“What’s the use of wearing keys that don’t unlock anything?” asked Joyeuce with some irritation.
“They are a symbol,” Grace assured her solemnly. “They increase my authority with the younger children.”
“But you have no authority over the children,” objected Joyeuce. “It’s my business to manage the children.”
“You’re not very good at it,” said Grace. “It would be much better if you left it to me.”
As the days went by the phrase “leave it to me” was constantly upon Grace’s lips. Entering the kitchen suddenly she would find Joyeuce immersed in the hated business of candle making, with the rushes mislaid and the melted fat fast congealing again while she looked for them. “What is the use of starting to melt the fat when you have not got the rushes handy??
?? she would ask. “Don’t fuss, Joyeuce. Leave it to me.”
Or again, when Joyeuce in her spinning made knots in her yarn, she would say benignly, “You don’t keep the thread taut, dear. Better leave it to me.”
Even the twins, though they loved Joyeuce far more dearly than they loved Grace, began to form the habit of running to Grace rather than to Joyeuce when they had run a thorn into a finger or torn a frock. . . . Being quite incommoded by the fear of hurting them Grace’s probings of the finger were far less painful than those of the sensitive Joyeuce; and her darning in its beauty was like that of the archangels in heaven.
Joyeuce was frequently infuriated to the point of tears. Was she to he humiliated and flouted at every turn, she who had so heroically sacrificed her own personal happiness—or would have, had Nicolas given her the chance—for these ungrateful children? She had constantly to remind herself that the children did not know she had sacrificed herself—or would have sacrificed herself had Nicolas had the grace to propose to her—and so could hardly be expected to be grateful. . . . But yet it hurt that they were not. . . . In her heartache she turned to Diccon; he had always been her very own little baby, her little poppet to whom all through his short life she had been all the world.
But Diccon was not very responsive. He had been exceedingly peculiar ever since the day when he had been to Saint Giles’ Fair. He was able to give no account of his adventures on that day; he had just got lost, he said; but that there had been adventures no one doubted, for Diccon was not the same little boy he had been before.
When he had first been restored to the bosom of his family he had made a most unusual demonstration of affection. He had embraced them all round and bitten nobody. Upon his father in particular he had lavished such a quantity of moist kisses and bear hugs that Canon Leigh had become quite embarrassed. He was not used to expressions of appreciation from his youngest son.