It rewarded his observation, and in five minutes he had forgotten his family, the car, their destination, everything whatever except the ebb and flow of color, the strong swing of the sky overhead, the circling of clouds and birds’ wings, the flowing green curve of the meadows, and the deep-welling life within him beating almost painfully against some closed door inside; until the door yielded and he poured himself out, drawing again in exchange the color into his blood, the movement into his muscles, the strength into his bones, and the quality of this spring world into his quality to be a part of him forever. When he got home again he would try to paint what he had seen, or write a poem about it, letting the color and movement and strength flow out of his blood and muscle and bone upon the paper. But he would not show his work to either his father or his mother. . . . He had learned not to. . . . For George, who wanted his eldest son to follow him into the army, would in spite of his astounded admiration for his son’s cleverness rub his ear and look worried, the fear that Ben was not developing according to plan showing only too clearly in his eyes, and Nadine, who had decided on the diplomatic service for Ben, would glance at the painting or poem with the same tolerant, amused inattentiveness that she bestowed upon the twins’ games, and he would feel, as usual, utterly and completely futile.
He had sometimes shown his things to Grandmother, who did not understand art but understood Ben, and was incapable of a word or look that could wound him. And he very often showed them to David, whose intense interest was, he knew, unfeigned. David could not draw a line to save his life, but he knew all about drawing loveliness into your blood and bones and then pouring it out again, and between him and Ben would come that quick leaping up of sympathy that seemed to Ben a much closer brotherhood than the brotherhood of the flesh that linked him to Tommy. He would no more have dreamed of showing anything he had done to Tommy than to a boa constrictor. Though he got on well enough with Tommy. They were at one in their tolerant, amused affection for their father and their adoration of their mother, and for the rest they let each other alone and went their separate ways.
There was no lovelier country in all the world than this, thought Ben, looking across the fields where the gulls were following the plow to the Island, which lay half hidden in rosy mist beyond the blue of the Estuary, its uplands just emerging from the mystery like the mountains in some Japanese color print. Ben thought of the Island as a great brooding demon over the landscape. He always felt aware of the demon even when he could not see him, just as he was always aware, whether he saw it or not, of the old Cistercian abbey whose ruins were beyond the river and the Hard. . . . They had this countryside in their charge, these two patient presences. . . . Speeding past the plowed fields and the green meadows, and the little streams with their floating gardens of flowers, they passed the towering gray walls of a roofless, ruined chapel, and then the old and mighty barns with red-brick walls and golden roofs that had been built where once had been the monks’ ox farm and sheep farm, and that bore still the old names of the Bouvery and the Bargery.
And then they were in the deep woods. The scent of the primroses and wood sorrel drifted to them, and George slowed down the car that they might feast their eyes upon the fresh spring green over their heads, and listen if they could hear a cuckoo calling, and watch for the flash of a jay’s wing or a sight of a squirrel’s cage high in a tall tree. Even Tommy (until his attention was caught by the shell cases) looked and listened, and the twins suddenly forgot the royal blood in their veins and were Rat and Mole in the woods. In London lately they had forgotten about Rat and Mole, but now they remembered the book that Grandmother had read to all her grandchildren in turn and that was now a classic in the Eliot family, and sudden ecstasy seized them. They did not need to tell each other what they were thinking of, they were too much one for that, but as one child they brought their paws up over their snouts and began to make the most extraordinary noises.
“Are those children going to be carsick?” George asked Caroline.
Caroline glanced anxiously back over her shoulder.
“Scrape, scratch, scrabble, and scrooge,” said José.
Caroline’s face cleared. “It’s all right, Daddy. They’re only playing at The Wind in the Willows.”
“Onion sauce! Onion sauce!” said Jerry.
In their games he was Mole and José was Rat because she had “a brown little face, a grave round little face, small neat ears, and thick silky hair.” Tommy was Toad because of his boastful ways, and Ben was Badger because of his kindness to the younger brethren. “Mr. Badger, he’s a kindhearted gentleman, as everyone knows.” Caroline was the jailer’s daughter, “a pleasant wench and goodhearted.”
Ben was watching eagerly now, as Grandmother had bidden him, for the gleam of water. There it was, seen through the trunks of the trees, the lovely lake of Frieswater. In the summer it would hold a shield of red and white water lilies upon its breast, but they would not confront the sun with a greater splendor, Ben thought, than did the glinting surface of wind-rippled light. David had said the light of the sun upon the wind-blown ripples seemed to him sometimes like the light of creative genius. “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” and sometimes at the touch of the mystery there is a flash of reflected light from the soul of a man, and a new life born from the flash, but sometimes the ripple passes lightless as the wind goes on no man knows where, even as no man knows from whence it came. . . . Something like that David had said.
They drove slowly on until Ben cried, “Stop, Father! The turning to the Hard.”
George obediently stopped and they sat in silence looking at a scene that even Tommy loved intensely. The Hard had once been a flourishing shipbuilding town that had made some of the greatest of England’s ships. Nelson’s Agamemnon had been built there, and many a glorious East Indiaman. Now there was nothing left of it but one enchanted fairy-tale street, a double row of old brick cottages with tumbled weatherworn red roofs facing a steep path bordered with green turf that sloped to the river. Once, this place had hummed with noise: the ring of hammer upon anvil, the rasping of the saws that hewed the oak logs into the great ships’ timbers, the clatter of the hammers and the whistling of the men at work upon a ship in the slips. Now there was silence, no sound but the whisper of the wind and the crying of the gulls that swooped and circled over the water. They could see the river down at the bottom of the little street, a wide tidal river sparkling and glinting in the sun. White swans rested upon it and small ships rocked at anchor. Beyond was a glorious stretch of green and tawny marshes threaded with channels of blue water, and beyond were woods sweeping to the sky line. Not far away, unseen yet present to their thoughts, was the ruined abbey, whose bell in the old days had been heard by sailors far out to sea. The shadows of the clouds passed over this scene like the shadows of great wings and the peace of the place was indescribable.
Tommy came to first, his eyes yearningly upon those small boats rocking at anchor. “Only darn fools live in London,” he said violently.
Ben, who could quote whole chunks of The Wind in the Willows from memory, echoed the thought that he knew was in Tommy’s mind. “ ‘Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing—messing—about in—boats—messing—’ ”
“That’ll do,” said George sharply, for he felt this sort of conversation to be somehow disloyal to Nadine. “Eyes right. Elf, where’s this inn of Grandmother’s we’ve got to take a look at?”
Caroline, he knew, would have had the forethought to ask how to get there. Caroline was the only member of the Eliot family who ever had this kind of forethought.
“You go through a gate between a barn and an oak tree,” said Caroline, “and then straight on along a lane.”
The barn was facing them, and the old storm-twisted oak tree bent over the gate to lay its branches on the roof of the old barn. It was studded with
new green leaves, coral-tipped, and they made a sort of canopy over the gate. Ben was out of the car in a flash and had opened it.
“Always thought this gate led into a farmyard,” said George as he drove forward.
“I didn’t,” said Caroline softly. “I always had a feeling it led somewhere wonderful, but I was afraid to go and see, in case it didn’t.”
— 2 —
Ben had closed the gate again, but he did not get back into the car; he jumped up onto the running board and swung there beside his father, lithe and graceful. His eyes met his father’s, and they were brimming with light. George glanced at Caroline and saw that her cheeks were bright pink with excitement. Behind him Tommy was giving his famous imitation of quacking ducks faced with a lovely mess of really dirty weed, as was his habit in moments of happy anticipation, and the twins had ceased to be Rat and Mole and were giving their equally renowned interpretation of an express train screaming with joy as it rushes headlong into a tunnel. But George, though the noise from behind smote with violence upon the back of his head, forbore to silence them. For really he didn’t blame the kids. His own heart was beating rather faster than usual.
The lane was narrow and winding, only just wide enough to take the car. It must have been of a great age, for it was very deeply sunken in the earth. Upon each side were grassy banks covered with primroses and dog violets, with great ramparts of golden gorse above. Oak trees grew in the unseen field upon their right, and their wind-blown branches stretched right over their heads, turning the lane into that tunnel which had immediately changed the twins into the train. Looking up through the flame-tipped, burning young green leaves and the gray lichened twigs one could see the blue sky. Somewhere overhead a lark was singing madly.
They went on a little farther and the lane turned off downhill to the left. It changed its character now. To their right above the steep bank of primroses was a most enchanting wood.
“The Wild Wood! The Wild Wood!” cried José when she saw it. “The Wild Wood where Mr. Badger lived!”
To the left was an orchard of old gnarled apple trees with a gate leading into it. These trees, too, leaned over the lane and made a tunnel of it. Beyond the gate, in the lovely orchard, a rough track bordered with clumps of daffodils led away downhill. Down at the bottom of the lane, framed by the trees as in a picture frame, was a blaze of sunlight and the river.
Complete silence fell suddenly upon everyone, even the twins. The car slid down the lane, passed out into the sunlight, and stopped. And still no one spoke.
In front of them the lane merged gradually into a beautiful fan-shaped little beach of smooth pebbles upon which the river lapped in gleaming ripples. To right and left of this beach a stout stone wall had been built, and it swept away to each side, taking the curve of the riverbank. A little rowing boat rocked upon the ripples, tied to a ring in the left-hand wall. Small stout ferns grew in the crevices of these walls and festoons of brambles hung over from above. To right and left flights of worn stone steps were built against the wall. The steps to the right led up to a small gate, painted green, that led into the wood, those to the left to another small gate, painted blue, leading into the garden of the inn. This garden, merging gradually into the orchard upon the landward side, had old-fashioned box-bordered flower beds that were a tangled mass of scented red wallflowers growing round rosebushes, gooseberry bushes, rosemary bushes, and currant bushes, all incongruously but gloriously mixed together upon either side of the stone-paved path that led to the inn door. The inn itself was a fair-sized old house with bulging whitewashed, buttressed walls and a steep uneven roof of amber tiles patched with golden lichen. Windows looked out of the white walls and the wavy roof at the most odd, unexpected levels. There did not seem to be a straight line anywhere, and yet the old place gave no impression of decay. On the contrary, it looked immensely strong, as strong as a fortress, glowing and safe, friendly and warm and most deeply alive. The front door was of very old oak, and looked as though it had once been a ship’s door. Over it a painted sign was fastened to the wall of the house. It was dim and weatherworn and from where they sat in the car they could not see anything of it except a soft blur of blue and green. Yet they none of them seemed able to move. The beauty of this place had laid a spell upon them. It seemed too good to be true. They were afraid that if they moved it would all vanish.
Tommy, as ever, recovered first. “I believe there’s a boathouse round there to the right,” he said. “I can see a bit of it. One would get to it through the wood.”
“There doesn’t seem to be anybody about,” said Ben.
“Let’s go and knock on the door,” said Caroline.
Then they all tumbled out of the car and ran up the steps to the blue gate, and through it into the garden. They walked up the paved path to the old ship’s door, George coming last, holding Jerry and José firmly by the hand. Yet the twins were still astonishingly quiet. Accustomed as they were to being in fairy tales of their own concoction, they found this fairy tale that had suddenly encompassed them without any volition of their own slightly bewildering. They couldn’t imagine what was going to happen next and awaited it in breathless silence.
The whole family stood in a group looking up at the signboard. It had upon it a delicate design of blue flowers and narrow green leaves. Above the flowers were the words “Herb of Grace o’ Sundays,” and down below, where the roots of the flowers were shown stretching down into the earth, in much smaller letters, “Maison Dieu.”
“Gosh, but it’s old!” ejaculated Ben. “Why, it’s a pilgrim inn!”
His relatives looked at him expectantly. It was always to Ben that the Eliots turned for enlightenment about odd, unexpected things. Tommy could always tell you all you wanted to know about internal combustion engines and the working of your own digestive organs, or how to put in a new fuse or mend a puncture, but Ben had the kind of mind that stored up odds and ends of information about the habits of birds and the derivation of names and the sources of legend. In London he spent a lot of time browsing in secondhand bookshops or among the books in David’s flat, for David had that kind of mind too.
“H’m?” inquired George.
“There were always hostels for pilgrims near the great abbeys and cathedrals,” said Ben. “They were called maisons-dieu. They’re the very oldest inns of all. Very few of them left now.”
“And Herb of Grace o’ Sundays?” asked Caroline.
“It’s the narrow-leaved rue,” said Ben. “The country people used to grow it over the graves in the churchyards.”
“Why?” asked Tommy.
But for once Ben was stumped, and chuckling at having caught him out, Tommy knocked loudly upon the door. A light step sounded inside and it swung open, revealing Jill standing on the threshold dressed in green overalls with a pattern of blue flowers, her eyes soft and bright with welcome. Without a moment’s hesitation Caroline flew into her arms. She had never forgotten Jill. It was Jill’s and Grandmother’s unfailing tenderness that had given to her rather insecure childhood a stability it would not have had without them.
“Miss Caroline! How you’ve grown, dear, and Master Ben and Master Tommy, too,” said Jill, holding Caroline to her with her left arm and holding out her right hand to Ben. He gripped it warmly. He hadn’t forgotten her, either, or how the simplicity of her remarks had always comforted him, drawing attention as they always did to the eternal verities, like growth and the weather. Tommy grinned at her, remembering how she had never given him away when he ladled his porridge into the marmalade pot.
“Good afternoon, sir,” said Jill to George. “It’s a lovely fine day, isn’t it? Warm for the time of year.”
“Good afternoon, Jill,” said George, and the immense relief he felt at the sight of her made him suddenly look ten years younger. “Here you are,” he added, and swung the twins forward, and Jill received them, a hand held out to each, as a fresh runner re
ceives from a spent one a couple of valuable but fatiguingly heavy packages that must be carried along to the end of the way though the heavens fall. She braced her shoulders as she looked at the twins, and then smiled as though she felt herself equal to it.
“Jerry and José,” she said softly, smiling at them. “And I’m Jill. Three J’s. We’ll be happy.”
And the twins, still most extraordinarily well behaved, smiled back at her. They liked the firm clasp of her hands, her even voice, her steady eyes. They knew instinctively that she would always be the same, not hugging them one moment and scolding them the next, and neither for any apparent reason, but reasonable and even-tempered and to be relied upon like the ground beneath their feet.