Dance of the Years (6 page)

One day, however, she said something which gave him an idea that she might not always tell him all she knew. He found that terrifying, and it offended him also, for he thought it impudent in her. No one ever realized where James got his pride, for it was not a peculiarity of the Galantry's; yet goodness knows the answer was there plain enough. James got his pride from Dorothy. She fed it to him with his pap, and her love for him, which like any other love, was a creative force, etched it on his character indelibly. So it was not really extraordinary after all; few diseases are necessarily hereditary.

The first clue Dorothy gave him about Shulie was the interesting thing she said about spitting in the house.

“No,” she thundered, “no, no, no! You mayn't never do it, even if your Ma do. Do your Papa spit? Do I spit?”

Her final phrase put James on to the truth, since it removed the possibility that spitting might be one of those things permissible in privileged women alone. Dorothy would not amplify her statement, and he caught the idea then for the first time that there was something radically wrong with Shulie.

There were several peculiar circumstances attending this otherwise trivial incident. In the first place, on receiving the idea, the young James was seized with a premonition. It was one of the first of a long line of them, stretching not only throughout his own lifetime, but persisting to the third and fourth generation.

These impressions of the future, and all the other sensitivenesses which were kin with them, were the cause of so much pride, so much superstition, muddle and fuss generally, on so many different occasions,
that perhaps it would be better to spend a little time on the one manifest on this occasion which was a perfect and simple example.

James merely felt that he suddenly knew something with his head which all the rest of him had known for a very long time. That thing was that there was something dangerous to his comfort and unlucky and inescapable for him in Shulie. It was no vague impression. It clamped down upon him; a sensation of disaster so strange and inexplicable that he began to cry out at the top of his voice that he was frightened. He bellowed with fear, growing crimson in the face as if he were choking. Dorothy caught him in her arms. She hated any suggestion that James was “different,” especially in a psychic or magical fashion. That stressed the gypsy element far too much. Already there were a great many tales about Shulie in this respect; these had been bound to arise for the whole countryside was steeped in superstition concerning the gypsies. The truth, at any rate as far as Shulie was concerned, lay in two facts.

The first was that the actual physical life in her was so powerful that she could pass on a little of it when emotion freed it. No one called it animal magnetism at that time.

The second was simply that certain of her senses were animal sharp, and she was apt to feel a message from any of these so acutely that she was absorbed by it, and had no time to analyse the sensation.

There were times, therefore, when she appeared prophetic, inasmuch as she behaved like the animal who pulls up and refuses to move just before the bridge breaks, or the tree crashes across the path. It was magic of a kind all right, but no more of the devil than many other secrets of the earth. However, at the time there were several mysteries.

When old Squire Green, Galantry's neighbour, who had been away at Wells recuperating from his excesses, came over to see his old friend's new folly, Galantry thought he looked very much better, but Shulie saw grey under his tan, and smelt a very faint and terrifying odour; and she was so overwhelmed by the recollection which it conjured up, of the ritual of a burning pyre of a caravan far back in her childhood, that she flew into a panic, grew pale herself, and began to cry. She would say nothing to Galantry afterwards except that she “smelled death.” This was the literal truth, but as a remark it exasperated him, and when old Philip took ill some days after, and died in a week or so in circumstances Doctor Wild did not altogether understand, since cancer of the upper bowel was not in his experience, there was quite a lot of talk about “Galantry's witch,” and the old man himself looked at her curiously.

There were other incidents, too. She could often smell out things which had been mislaid, and could tell if a stranger had recently been in the house. She could never give any satisfactory explanation of her
powers, and on the occasion on which she suddenly took an aversion to the parlour hearth, and insisted on Galantry leaving it, the great fall of burning soot which smothered half the room some hours later, surprised her as much as it did anybody else. But whereas after it had happened, she merely felt happy and relieved, they were upset and mystified, and knew not whether to blame her for making it happen, or for not warning them that it was about to do so.

All this sort of thing made for a great deal of mystery and uncertainty, and Dorothy disliked it because she felt it was “gypsy,” and she watched James most anxiously for any sign of the streak. She did her best with him; she cut his hair as short as she dared to try to get the curl out, washed him nightly in lemon water in a pathetic attempt to whiten his skin, raved at him unreasonably for the least untidiness, and even taught him to feel that his pleasure in the open air was not quite what was expected of him.

On this occasion she recognized his outburst of weeping as a premonition of the legacy of trouble his mother had bequeathed to him, and was furious and frightened. Her unreasonable behaviour frightened James still more and he fled howling; not only from the house but from the garden also, and out over the fields.

He forgot his troubles in the bright weather. It was early June and the earth was tricked out in lace and coloured ribbons over her green gown. Her breasts were warm and damp, and her breath scented and voluptuous. James began to cavort in the meadow behind Jason's house; he threw his arms up over his head, and snorted and stamped and heaved his top-heavy little body like a bull. Presently he rolled among the clover and the coltsfoot, and rubbed his forehead in the grass.

“I am happy,” he shouted in the earth's soft neck. “I am happy. Happy. Happy.”

He strained his lungs to their utmost, and he felt it was like drinking a great pail of beautiful water, the soft kind, which came from the well at the basketmaker's; not the thinner, harder sort they pumped in the kitchen at home. After a bit he scrambled up and began to walk sedately. A notion had come to him that his happiness was not quite a right thing; it was not a clear thought, but something to do with Dorothy, and his being the third most important person in the world. In this new and dignified mood he decided to go on to the stables. He had been round them several times with his father, and had been charmed by the animals. Also he had been made to feel proud and secure by the atmosphere of deference which had surrounded the two of them as they had walked among the smiling hat-touching fraternity gathered there. James had liked that, and now he had a mind to sample it again.

He had to get through the hedge to reach the track, and because he could not straddle the ditch on the other side, he dropped into it, and walked along it for a bit, watching the clear water play round the soles of his sturdy, buckled shoes.

When he reached the place where the bank was lowest, he came out and his dark head rose up from among the cow parsley like a foal. Jason himself was on the track talking to Larch. The old man was very shaky in these days, but he could still get about and give advice. Both men turned as the little boy appeared so suddenly, and then seeing he was alone, they began to laugh together. It was shrill, east coast laughter; not altogether kind and very informed. James felt uncomfortable, and for a moment he stood looking at them. Then he went forward steadily. Their faces did not harden as he approached; rather, he thought, there was a sort of knowing welcome in their eyes as though they had been expecting him for a long time. But they did not touch their hats, and the third most important person in the world noticed the omission at once.

All the men working for Jason bore the names of common English trees, except one, and he was called Eucalyptus. This apparently incredible circumstance had a reasonable explanation. Jason's grandfather had not been able to read, so the Galantry of the period who had wished to make him his overseer had invented a system whereby the man could keep a record of the labour done by each worker on the estate in spite of the disability; and the system entailed, among other things, the re-naming of all concerned.

As a method of book-keeping it was wildly complicated, and much mental effort would have been spared the Jason family had they scrapped it and attempted straight scholarship. But this they preferred not to do, seeing, since they were free men, no reason why they should be reasonable. So when Jason “did his books” he took seven small flower pots for the seven days of the week and set them in order on a shelf. Every week into each pot he put as many bits of stick as he had men employed. He used a different wood for each man, and cut each twig square so that it had four level sides. For one whole day's work he cut a corner notch in the wood; for a quarter day's
work he slashed one side; for half a day's, two sides; for three-quarter's, three sides; and for a full day and a quarter's overtime, he cut only one side and a notch as well. At the end of the week he counted all the notches and slashes and paid out by the reckoning. Since the arrangement was apt to become confusing and had led in the past to many arguments, each man on entering Jason's service was re-christened by the name of the wood of his tally stick as soon as he was hired, and was never called by any other name. As time went on all the commoner trees had their man, and so when the latest lad came to work at the stables, Jason begged a branch of the foreign tree from the Hall glasshouse, and called his new hand Eucalyptus.

When the young James went down to the stables that day, these were the people who eyed him. They were not stupid people, not serfs, but shrewd, practical folk of great determination.

After a brief greeting which was friendly, but not respectful, Jason and Larch walked slowly into the stable yard talking together, and James followed them, realizing he was forgotten. At first he was half a mind to go off in a rage and stamp in the field again, but a certain dogged control asserted itself in him. Galantry would just have recognized it, but it was not strong in him.

James dropped into step behind the two men. He was biding his time. As the third most important person in the world he intended to assert his position as soon as a convenient opportunity should appear. He felt very strong physically, his shoulders and chest felt strong; all his life he kept that awareness of the strength of his body. Other people he found out afterwards were seldom conscious of their bodies at all, unless there was something wrong with them. He was not like this, he knew the whole time. His strength made him laugh sometimes; a little snort of secret pleasure. Even when he grew old he used to snort in the same way at the same thing; but by that time, naturally, his mind was so full that it had no leisure to remark what it was that pleased him.

Just now, of course, he was at his green best. Adolescence was still far away, and he was fighting fit to tackle the elementary. His senses were beautifully clean and sharp, his emotional nature fearless; and his nice, simple brain new and sweet running. He felt a little god, not proud, just god-like.

The yard they entered seemed so long that it made him think of the High Street in the town he had once visited, and he was gratified to think he had a third share in owning it. There was a square archway under a loft at the far end, and there the cobbles rose to make a little hill, so that he could only see a strip of green beyond. It looked like a very dull picture in a wooden frame.

The air reeked of horses; a smell so very strong to his super-sensitive
nose that it made his eyes water. But he found it exciting as well as unpleasant. There were horse sounds about, too; these were lumberings, the vicious noise of iron on stone, and vasty breathings and sighings, all horribly lovely. This nice nasty element which was new to his direct mind puzzled him a little. He hoped there was nothing wicked in it, and his next thought was that even so, it was worth it.

At first he thought the place was deserted by people, but presently he heard voices coming through the archway. These were followed by a terrible sound. He had heard a stallion trumpeting before; no one living near Jason's yard could have avoided it, but this time it was much nearer and the triumph in it was uppermost. God Almighty, what a sound! His face and head tingled in a sudden network of pain as his nerves jangled, and he squealed aloud.

Larch turned round very slowly, as old men must.

“Frightened?” he enquired.

“No,” gasped James, and squealed again.

Larch began to laugh. “You like it, don't ye,” he asked roughly, “don't ye? Blood's coming out. That will. Nothing won't never stop it. He likes horses, don't ye, boy, don't ye? You little old smith. You little old traveller.”

The epithets were incomprehensible to James, but he realized they were not exactly unkind, and yet not complimentary. At any rate, they were insultingly familiar coming from this old person.

Jason saw the child's expression and let his eyes wander.

“Best be quiet along of that together,” he said briefly.

“No. No. I'm old,” said Larch, a triumphant quack breaking his voice. “I'm old. No need for me to be quiet. I've always got me grave to goo to now. By the time you could harm me, little 'un, I'll be in it, see. He likes the old entire, don't 'ee, boy? I'll tell yon somewhat; so do I. I love 'un. Give me your hand, you little old smith. You stand here with I. Now you watch. Loveliest sight in all the world. Loveliest sight between here and Chelmsford town.”

James submitted to having his hand held. He found he could feel the excitement better that way. He felt more secure; less likely to be burst in pieces by the delicious goings on in his chest and stomach.