The Weeping Ash (66 page)

“But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw,

So far surpassing nature's law,

The singer's voice would sink away,

And the string of his harp would cease to play.”

“You have that very look, sometimes, Fanny—of a person who has been away, and come back with reluctance, and still retains memories and secrets from another world.”

“Perhaps you have been there too, Cousin? A poet must visit many different words.”

“Perhaps I have! I think some unseen bond unites us—do you feel it too?”

“Oh, pray do not—” she exclaimed in a kind of terror, turning to look up at him, huddling the shawl about her as if for protection against him.

“I love you, Fanny. I think you must know that. Do not be alarmed!” he said, smiling faintly at her stricken look. “I am not about to importune you in any way—I do not wish the wrath of Thomas to descend upon you! I have a notion that wrath is visited on you too often as it is, and most undeservedly. I would be the last person in the world to wish to add to that burden. But when I am back at sea I shall miss you sorely—” She made an involuntary sound of protest at that thought, but he continued, “I cannot stay here forever, after all. Firstly it would drive Thomas into a frenzy. Secondly I might—who knows?—give way to temptation, be overcome by the longing to make love to you. So I am going, the very minute I can manage this wooden pin.”

“But must you go to sea?”

“It is a good life, Fanny. My friend Howard is hoping to get command of a sloop, and if he does so he has promised me a berth as senior lieutenant. I shall have no time to think of you; or not too much.”

With his finger he gently outlined the curve of her lip.

“But can you go—like
that
? Will—will they take you?”

“In time of war—yes, I think I have a good chance. Fanny: I have not asked—I dared not—what—if ever you think of me?”

She looked up at him slowly. The lip that he had touched was quivering; she drew a long breath.

“I should not have asked.” His tone was full of remorse. “Forgive me! Consider the question unasked. You are cold; we should return to the house.”

He took her arm; they moved up the slope in the direction of the weeping ash.

“I have planted a mass of snowdrops under it,” Fanny said shakily. “I wonder if you will be here long enough to see them come up.”

“Not if I can help it,” Cal said.

Scylla came out to them through the garden door. She was holding a paper.

“Cal! There you are.” Her expression, studying them, suggested she felt her interruption had come not a moment too soon. “Only think! I have had a letter from our guardian.”

“From Miss Musson? Famous! Did she reach Boston in safety?”

“Oh, I am so glad for you!” Fanny exclaimed. “I know how anxious you have been about her. I will leave you to read it together.”

She hurried away to fetch little Thomas from his crib and try to persuade him to take a few reluctant steps. Thomas was now so furious at the baby's lack of progress that Fanny feared he might begin to punish the child for what he called “infernally stupid laziness.” Thomas had commenced to study other children, when he encountered them, and was beginning to understand just how far behind the normal state of development his own son had fallen; he was in a state of constant, simmering rage about it, unsure where to lay the blame; consequently Fanny spent hours with the baby each day, endeavoring to stimulate him into
some
activity or response.

Cal saw that there were tears in Scylla's eyes.

“What is it, love? She does not send bad news?”

“Oh, Cal, she has gone blind! That was why—that must have been why—she was often so silent toward the end of our journey. Do you not remember?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “I thought it was because she wished to remain and become a female anchorite along with the Holy Pir. Did she find her brother?”

“Yes—but he is dying—well, read the letter.”

He took the several sheets, crossed and recrossed. The letter had been started by Miss Musson, but her writing became more and more disjointed and shaky and the final sheet was in a different hand.

“
Poor
Miss Musson,” said Scylla in a choked voice. “She, of all people! So independent, so active—”

“Hush, I am reading.” But Cal, sitting by her in the window seat, slipped his arm around her waist. When he had finished he looked up, remained silent for a moment, and then said, “Famous! Selling that great ruby, using the proceeds to found a Friends' Home for poor old people—herself as warden, and her brother, while he is still alive—what could be more suited to her talents and disposition? Do not be a goosecap, Scylla! Shed a tear or two for me, if you like, but do not waste sorrow on our guardian. She will always arrange her life in the best possible manner for herself and everybody about her.” He looked down at the letter again. “What is this postscript she mentions: ‘I wrote the postscript first, in case my sight failed before I came to the end.' Where is this postscript? I do not see it.”

With a certain hesitation Scylla produced a scrap of paper.

“It is about Cameron,” she said in a low voice.

“Cameron? What—?” He read it.

Priscilla, my child: this for you,

At various points along our journey I talked with Rob about you. I hope you may understand by this time that he loves you very sincerely. He has, I know, lived a somewhat roving and disreputable life and, I don't doubt, entered into various short-lived and discreditable relationships.

“Humph!” Cal broke off. “Cannot you just hear our guardian sniff there!” He laughed. “Poor Rob!”

But now I believe that his affections are sincerely engaged; he has spoken of you many times, with such understanding and devotion that I believe, if you accept him, you will have ensured for yourself a truly suitable and lasting partnership.

Cal broke off again. “But, Scylla—I thought you said—”

“Go on!” Her voice was strangled. She clenched her hands together.

He asked whether I considered it proper for him to offer marriage to you; in fact he had suggested this several times in a very diffident manner, due to the disparity of age and his wandering way of life. At first, indeed, I could not agree to such a union; and indeed he did not feel himself a suitable partner for you. He looks upon you and Cal as such rarefied beings—far above him! Also he felt it unfair to your youth and inexperience that he should attempt to engage your affections before you had a chance to see the world and encounter other applicants.

“Other applicants!” Scylla broke in bitterly. “He should have seen Captain Phillimore! He should see—but go on.”

As he put it: “The lass ought to have a chance to go to Almack's, since that appears to be the crown of her ambition. If I snapped her up before she had done that, I fear she might always hold it against me.” Upon our parting at Acre, however, being by that time quite convinced of the sincerity of his feelings, I urged that he should make you an offer before you, too, embarked. I strongly hope that he did so, my dear child, and that you accepted him; nothing could make me happier. If he did not summon up the courage, I take the opportunity to tell you now of the depth, true strength, and disinterested attachment of his feeling for you; it may hinder you from contracting in England any shallow or fleeting connections which you might later come to regret.

Yr affc. Guardian,

Amanda Musson

“Shallow or fleeting connections!” Scylla gave a kind of wretched laugh.

“But you said that he
did
make you an offer?” Cal looked at her in perplexity.

“So he did! And I did not believe he meant it! I sent him away!” She hid her face in her hands. “I sent him away—in the curtest—most repulsive—manner, and why in the world should he ever come back?”

“Well, you could write to him,” Cal said reasonably. “To that address he gave you in Baghdad.”

“Write? I could never do such a thing! Are you mad?”

“Women!” said Cal in exasperation. “Why were they ever made? Oh, Lord, here comes Bet back from her harp lesson. I'm off to the stable!”

He snatched up his crutch and limped away, leaving his sister to the depressing company of Bet and her own thoughts.

* * *

Bitter weather during the following week kept the household mostly within doors. Cal chafed miserably at the enforced inactivity. Whether it was the proximity of Fanny or the atmosphere of the Hermitage, he did not know, but neither in the house nor anywhere near it could he manage to write poetry; his muse remained implacably silent. Indoors, he found it particularly hard to concentrate; the winter wind, which blew so constantly, raised an eerie banshee-like wail somewhere in the house, hideously distracting, for he found himself listening tensely, waiting for it to happen; while wherever he was, in house, barn, or stable, he found himself strangely, exasperatingly beset by the notion that, if he looked up from his writing, he would see a small child, little Chet perhaps, squatting in the doorway, or crouching at his feet, or about to scramble toward him across the floor.

Scylla, too, during this period was unusually quiet and gloomy. Several times, indeed, she was so short with Thomas, upon his attempting to engage her in conversation, that she materially contributed to
his
bad temper.

Thomas was in a particularly sullen and intractable humor, Patty was peevish because the new cousins took little notice of her, finding her a detestable child; and Bet was in a sulk because Thomas had refused to allow her to attend a Twelfth Night party at Petworth House, where she had hoped to wear the gown Scylla had given her.

With tempers in the Hermitage mostly at such an inflammable point, it was to be expected that sooner or later there would be an explosion. This finally occurred one afternoon in mid-January when Cal, driven indoors by cold and frustration, had come into the parlor to find Fanny and Scylla vainly endeavoring to interest little Thomas in the notion of crawling across the hearthrug, by dangling in front of—him a charming coral and bells that Scylla had brought him from London. He would merely gaze at it vaguely, extend a languid fist, then lose interest and, as it seemed, withdraw into himself again.

“
I
was able to crawl at that age, was I not?” demanded Patty. “Was I not, Stepmama?”

“I did not know you at that age,” said Fanny patiently. “Come, baby!”

“How different he is from little Chet,” Cal murmured involuntarily to his sister, remembering the Indian baby's lively brown smiling countenance and his alert movements; little Thomas was pale, vacant, and seemed half asleep all the time.

“How different from Fanny,” Scylla murmured in reply. “He is like a changeling.”

“That is it—No, he is like one of those children who have had their spirits stolen away by the trolls. I have it—the child in my poem!” And, his mind on nothing but pursuing his idea to its source, Cal picked up a sheaf of papers which he had been irritably rereading, in the hope of pushing himself to a new point of inspiration, and read aloud:

“For he has dwelt within the enchanted mound

By Urdar spring, where time is naught but dream.

What tidings can he bring? No human sound

Disturbs the silence there, no wandering gleam

Pierces the dark, nor fins divide that stream.

No single element in that domain

Has here its image; that immortal scheme

Contains creations his untutored brain

May neither grasp nor guess, remember nor explain.”

“Hush, Cal! You will distress Fanny.”

“No, but do listen! Does not this exactly describe little Thomas:

“Poor child! The birds will sing for him in vain.

For him, what matter that the rose is red?

He cannot love the sun, nor rue the rain.

Winds, unregarded, lave his heedless head.

Deaf, blind, and speechless, all perceptions fled,

Save one, the sense of loss, he gropes his way,

And will, until his final hours are sped;

An orphaned, witless wanderer, far astray.

His stolen soul estranged, mislaid in yesterday!

“Does not that exactly describe the child? ‘Mislaid in yesterday,'” Cal repeated, with the writer's sense of satisfaction at his own successful phrase.

And then stopped short, aghast at the sight of Thomas, outraged, stiff with icy dislike, close beside him.

“
So! So, sir
!
” All the suppressed dislike of two months' enforced propinquity came hissing out like concentrated poison in Thomas's exclamation. “So that is what you think of my son! Deaf and speechless! You—miserable—conceited—young
pupp
y
! How
dare
you? How dare you come here, you confounded—misbegotten interloper—eat my food—make use of my house—and insult me so?”

“Thomas, Thomas!” implored Fanny. “Remember that Cousin Cal is our guest!”

“I am not likely to forget it!”

“Cousin Juliana's guest, rather,” said Cal, white about the nostrils. “Also I might remind you that my sister and I make a substantial contribution to the housekeeping! And I might further mention that we are
not
misbegotten—our parents were, I understand, married by a perfectly legal process known as chadar dalna—”

“Oh, hush, Cal! What does it matter? You are only exasperating him further,” interpolated Scylla. “Do, for heaven's sake, apologize!”

“He certainly
will
apologize!” said Thomas, ominously flushed. “Or leave my house directly!”

“Apologize? What for? For pointing out what everybody else has observed long ago—that your wretched child is slow in his wits, if not actually feeble-minded?”