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Wilfrid Cumbermede by George MacDonald

G >> George MacDonald >> Wilfrid Cumbermede




'O Lord!' she said, 'I thank thee. I will try to be good now. O Lord, I
have waited, and thou hast heard me. I will believe in thee again!'

From that moment I loved my grannie, and felt I owed her something as
well as my uncle. I had never had this feeling about my aunt.

'Grannie!' I said, trembling from a conflict of emotions; but before I
could utter my complaint, I had burst out crying.

'What have they been doing to you, child?' she asked, almost fiercely,
and sat up straight in her chair. Her voice, although feeble and
quavering, was determined in tone. She pushed me back from her and
sought the face I was ashamed to show. 'What have they done to you, my
boy?' she repeated, ere I could conquer my sobs sufficiently to speak.

'They have taken away the sword that--'

'What sword?' she asked quickly. 'Not the sword that your
great-grandfather wore when he followed Sir Marmaduke?'

'I don't know, grannie.'

'Don't know, boy? The only thing your father took when he--. Not the
sword with the broken sheath? Never! They daren't do it! I will go down
myself. I must see about it at once.'

'Oh, grannie, don't!' I cried in terror, as she rose from her chair.
'They'll not let me ever come near you again, if you do.'

She sat down again. After seeming to ponder for a while in silence, she
said:--

'Well, Willie, my dear, you're more to me than the old sword. But I
wouldn't have had it handled with disrespect for all that the place is
worth. However, I don't suppose they can--. What made them do it,
child? They've not taken it down from the wall?'

'Yes, grannie. I think it was because I was staring at it too much,
grannie. Perhaps they were afraid I would take it down and hurt myself
with it. But I was only going to ask you about it. Tell me a story
about it, grannie.'

All my notion was some story, I did not think whether true or false,
like one of Nannie's stories.

'That I will, my child--all about it--all about it. Let me see.'

Her eyes went wandering a little, and she looked perplexed.

'And they took it from you, did they? Poor child! Poor child!'

'They didn't take it from me, grannie. I never had it in my hands.'

'Wouldn't give it you then? Oh dear! Oh dear!'

I began to feel uncomfortable--grannie looked so strange and lost. The
old feeling that she ought to be buried because she was dead returned
upon me; but I overcame it so far as to be able to say:

'Won't you tell me about it then, grannie? I want so much to hear about
the battle.'

'What battle, child? Oh yes! I'll tell you all about it some day, but
I've forgot now, I've forgot it all now.'

She pressed her hand to her forehead, and sat thus for some time, while
I grew very frightened. I would gladly have left the room and crept
down-stairs, but I stood fascinated, gazing at the withered face
half-hidden by the withered hand. I longed to be anywhere else, but my
will had deserted me, and there I must remain. At length grannie took
her hand from her eyes, and seeing me, started.

'Ah, my dear!' she said,' I had forgotten you. You wanted me to do
something for you: what was it?'

'I wanted you to tell me about the sword, grannie.'

'Oh yes, the sword!' she returned, putting her hand again to her
forehead. 'They took it away from you, did they? Well, never mind. I
will give you something else--though I don't say it's as good as the
sword.'

She rose, and taking an ivory-headed stick which leaned against the
side of the chimney-piece, walked with tottering steps towards the
bureau. There she took from her pocket a small bunch of keys, and
having, with some difficulty from the trembling of her hands, chosen
one and unlocked the sloping cover, she opened a little drawer inside,
and took out a gold watch with a bunch of seals hanging from it. Never
shall I forget the thrill that went through my frame. Did she mean to
let me hold it in my own hand? Might I have it as often as I came to
see her? Imagine my ecstasy when she put it carefully in the two hands
I held up to receive it, and said:

'There, my dear! You must take good care of it, and never give it away
for love or money. Don't you open it--there's a good boy, till you're a
man like your father. He _was_ a man! He gave it to me the day we were
married, for he had nothing else, he said, to offer me. But I would not
take it, my dear. I liked better to see him with it than have it
myself. And when he left me, I kept it for you. But you must take care
of it, you know.'

'Oh, thank you, grannie!' I cried, in an agony of pleasure. 'I _will_
take care of it--indeed I will. Is it a real watch, grannie--as real as
uncle's?'

'It's worth ten of your uncle's, my dear. Don't you show it him,
though. He might take that away too. Your uncle's a very good man, my
dear, but you mustn't mind everything he says to you. He forgets
things. I never forget anything. I have plenty of time to think about
things. I never forget.'

'Will it go, grannie?' I asked, for my uncle was a much less
interesting subject than the watch.

'It won't go without being wound up; but you might break it. Besides,
it may want cleaning. It's several years since it was cleaned last.
Where will you put it now?'

'Oh! I know where to hide it safe enough, grannie,' I exclaimed. 'I'll
take care of it. You needn't be afraid, grannie.'

The old lady turned, and with difficulty tottered to her seat. I
remained where I was, fixed in contemplation of my treasure. She called
me. I went and stood by her knee.

'My child, there is something I want very much to tell you, but you
know old people forget things--'

'But you said just now that you never forgot anything, grannie.'

'No more I do, my dear; only I can't always lay my hands upon a thing
when I want it.'

'It was about the sword, grannie,' I said, thinking to refresh her
memory.

'No, my dear; I don't think it was about the sword exactly--though that
had something to do with it. I shall remember it all by-and-by. It will
come again. And so must you, my dear. Don't leave your old mother so
long alone. It's weary, weary work, waiting.'

'Indeed I won't, grannie,' I said. 'I will come the very first time I
can. Only I mustn't let auntie see me, you know.--You don't want to be
buried now, do you, grannie?' I added; for I had begun to love her, and
the love had cast out the fear, and I did not want her to wish to be
buried.

'I am very, very old; much too old to live, my dear. But I must do you
justice before I can go to my grave. _Now_ I know what I wanted to say.
It's gone again. Oh dear! Oh dear! If I had you in the middle of the
night, when everything comes back as if it had been only yesterday, I
could tell you all about it from beginning to end, with all the ins and
outs of it. But I can't now--I can't now.'

She moaned and rocked herself to and fro.

'Never mind, grannie,' I said cheerfully, for I was happy enough for
all eternity with my gold watch; 'I will come and see you again as soon
as ever I can.' And I kissed her on the white cheek.

'Thank you, my dear. I think you had better go now. They may miss you,
and then I should never see you again--to talk to, I mean.'

'Why won't they let me come, and see you, grannie?' I asked.

'That's what I wanted to tell you, if I could only see a little
better,' she answered, once more putting her hand to her forehead.
'Perhaps I shall be able to tell you next time. Go now, my dear.'

I left the room, nothing loth, for I longed to be alone with my
treasure. I could not get enough of it in grannie's presence even.
Noiseless as a bat I crept down the stair. When I reached the door at
the foot I stood and listened. The kitchen was quite silent. I stepped
out. There was no one there. I scudded across and up the other stair to
my own room, carefully shutting the door behind me. Then I sat down on
the floor on the other side of the bed, so that it was between me and
the door, and I could run into the closet with my treasure before any
one entering should see me.

The watch was a very thick round one. The back of it was crowded with
raised figures in the kind of work called _repoussee_. I pored over
these for a long time, and then turned to the face. It was set all
round with shining stones--diamonds, though I knew nothing of diamonds
then. The enamel was cracked, and I followed every crack as well as
every figure of the hours. Then I began to wonder what I could do with
it next. I was not satisfied. Possession I found was not bliss: it had
not rendered me content. But it was as yet imperfect: I had not seen
the inside. Grannie had told me not to open it: I began to think it
hard that I should be denied thorough possession of what had been given
to me, I believed I should be quite satisfied if I once saw what made
it go. I turned it over and over, thinking I might at least find how it
was opened. I have little doubt if I had discovered the secret of it,
my virtue would have failed me. All I did find, however, was the head
of a curious animal engraved on the handle. This was something. I
examined it as carefully as the rest, and then finding I had for the
time exhausted the pleasures of the watch, I turned to the seals. On
one of them was engraved what looked like letters, but I could not read
them. I did not know that they were turned the wrong way. One of them
was like a W. On the other seal--there were but two and a
curiously-contrived key--I found the same head as was engraved on the
handle--turned the other way of course. Wearied at length, I took the
precious thing into the dark closet, and laid it in a little box which
formed one of my few possessions. I then wandered out into the field,
and went straying about until dinner-time, during which I believe I
never once lifted my eyes to the place where the sword had hung, lest
even that action should betray the watch.

From that day my head, and as much of my heart as might be, were filled
with the watch. And, alas! I soon found that my bookmending had grown
distasteful to me, and for the satisfaction of employment, possession
was a poor substitute. As often as I made the attempt to resume it, I
got weary, and wandered almost involuntarily to the closet to feel for
my treasure in the dark, handle it once more, and bring it out into the
light. Already I began to dree the doom of riches, in the vain attempt
to live by that which was not bread. Nor was this all. A certain weight
began to gather over my spirit--a sense almost of wrong. For although
the watch had been given me by my grandmother, and I never doubted
either her right to dispose of it or my right to possess it, I could
not look my uncle in the face, partly from a vague fear lest he should
read my secret in my eyes, partly from a sense of something out of
joint between him and me. I began to fancy, and I believe I was right,
that he looked at me sometimes with a wistfulness I had never seen in
his face before. This made me so uncomfortable that I began to avoid
his presence as much as possible. And although I tried to please him
with my lessons, I could not learn them as hitherto.

One day he asked me to bring him the book I had been repairing.

'It's not finished yet, uncle,' I said.

'Will you bring it me just as it is. I want to look for something in
it.'

I went and brought it with shame. He took it, and having found the
passage he wanted, turned the volume once over in his hands, and gave
it me back without a word.

Next day I restored it to him finished and tidy. He thanked me, looked
it over again, and put it in its place. But I fairly encountered an
inquiring and somewhat anxious gaze. I believe he had a talk with my
aunt about me that night.

The next morning, I was seated by the bedside, with my secret in my
hand, when I thought I heard the sound of the door-handle, and glided
at once into the closet. When I came out in a flutter of anxiety, there
was no one there. But I had been too much startled to return to what I
had grown to feel almost a guilty pleasure.

The next morning after breakfast, I crept into the closet, put my hand
unerringly into the one corner of the box, found no watch, and after an
unavailing search, sat down in the dark on a bundle of rags, with the
sensations of a ruined man. My world was withered up and gone. How the
day passed, I cannot tell. How I got through my meals, I cannot even
imagine. When I look back and attempt to recall the time, I see but a
cloudy waste of misery crossed by the lightning-streaks of a sense of
injury. All that was left me now was a cat-like watching for the chance
of going to my grandmother. Into her ear I would pour the tale of my
wrong. She who had been as a haunting discomfort to me, had grown to be
my one consolation.

My lessons went on as usual. A certain pride enabled me to learn them
tolerably for a day or two; but when that faded, my whole being began
to flag. For some time my existence was a kind of life in death. At
length one evening my uncle said to me, as we finished my lessons far
from satisfactorily--

'Willie, your aunt and I think it better you should go to school. We
shall be very sorry to part with you, but it will be better. You will
then have companions of your own age. You have not enough to amuse you
at home.'

He did not allude by a single word to the affair of the watch. Could my
aunt have taken it, and never told him? It was not likely.

I was delighted at the idea of any change, for my life had grown
irksome to me.

'Oh, thank you, uncle!' I cried, with genuine expression.

I think he looked a little sad; but he uttered no reproach.

My aunt and he had already arranged everything. The next day but one, I
saw, for the first time, a carriage drive up to the door of the house.
I was waiting for it impatiently. My new clothes had all been packed in
a little box. I had not put in a single toy: I cared for nothing I had
now. The box was put up beside the driver. My aunt came to the door
where I was waiting for my uncle.

'Mayn't I go and say good-bye to grannie?' I asked.

'She's not very well to-day,' said my aunt. 'I think you had better
not. You will be back at Christmas, you know.'

I was not so much grieved as I ought to have been. The loss of my watch
had made the thought of grannie painful again.

'Your uncle will meet you at the road,' continued my aunt, seeing me
still hesitate. 'Good-bye.'

I received her cold embrace without emotion, clambered into the chaise,
and looking out as the driver shut the door, wondered what my aunt was
holding her apron to her eyes for, as she turned away into the house.
My uncle met us and got in, and away the chaise rattled, bearing me
towards an utterly new experience; for hardly could the strangest
region in foreign lands be more unknown to the wandering mariner than
the faces and ways of even my own kind were to me. I had never played
for one half-hour with boy or girl. I knew nothing of their play-things
or their games. I hardly knew what boys were like, except, outwardly,
from the dim reflex of myself in the broken mirror in my bed-room,
whose lustre was more of the ice than the pool, and, inwardly, from the
partly exceptional experiences of my own nature, with which even I was
poorly enough acquainted.




CHAPTER VIII.


I GO TO SCHOOL, AND GRANNIE LEAVES IT.

It is an evil thing to break up a family before the natural period of
its dissolution. In the course of things, marriage, the necessities of
maintenance, or the energies of labour guiding 'to fresh woods and
pastures new,' are the ordered causes of separation.

Where the home is happy, much injury is done the children in sending
them to school, except it be a day-school, whither they go in the
morning as to the labours of the world, but whence they return at night
as to the heaven of repose. Conflict through the day, rest at night, is
the ideal. A day-school will suffice for the cultivation of the
necessary public or national spirit, without which the love of the
family may degenerate into a merely extended selfishness, but which is
itself founded upon those family affections. At the same time, it must
be confessed that boarding-schools are, in many cases, an antidote to
some of the evil conditions which exist at home.

To children whose home is a happy one, the exile to a school must be
bitter. Mine, however, was an unusual experience. Leaving aside the
specially troubled state in which I was when thus carried to the
village of Aldwick, I had few of the finer elements of the ideal home
in mine. The love of my childish heart had never been drawn out. My
grandmother had begun to do so, but her influence had been speedily
arrested. I was, as they say of cats, more attached to the place than
the people, and no regrets whatever interfered to quell the excitement
of expectation, wonder, and curiosity which filled me on the journey.
The motion of the vehicle, the sound of the horses' hoofs, the
travellers we passed on the road--all seemed to partake of the
exuberant life which swelled and overflowed in me. Everything was as
happy, as excited, as I was.

When we entered the village, behold it was a region of glad tumult!
Were there not three dogs, two carts, a maid carrying pails of water,
and several groups of frolicking children in the street--not to mention
live ducks, and a glimpse of grazing geese on the common? There were
also two mothers at their cottage-doors, each with a baby in her arms.
I knew they were babies, although I had never seen a baby before. And
when we drove through the big wooden gate, and stopped at the door of
what had been the manor-house but was now Mr Elder's school, the aspect
of the building, half-covered with ivy, bore to me a most friendly
look. Still more friendly was the face of the master's wife, who
received us in a low dark parlour, with a thick soft carpet and rich
red curtains. It was a perfect paradise to my imagination. Nor did the
appearance of Mr Elder at all jar with the vision of coming happiness.
His round, rosy, spectacled face bore in it no premonitory suggestion
of birch or rod, and although I continued at his school for six years,
I never saw him use either. If a boy required that kind of treatment,
he sent him home. When my uncle left me, it was in more than
contentment with my lot. Nor did anything occur to alter my feeling
with regard to it. I soon became much attached to Mrs Elder. She was
just the woman for a schoolmaster's wife--as full of maternity as she
could hold, but childless. By the end of the first day I thought I
loved her far more than my aunt. My aunt had done her duty towards me;
but how was a child to weigh that? She had taken no trouble to make me
love her; she had shown me none of the signs of affection, and I could
not appreciate the proofs of it yet.

I soon perceived a great difference between my uncle's way of teaching
and that of Mr Elder. My uncle always appeared aware of something
behind which pressed upon, perhaps hurried, the fact he was making me
understand. He made me feel, perhaps too much, that it was a mere step
towards something beyond. Mr Elder, on the other hand, placed every
point in such a strong light that it seemed in itself of primary
consequence. Both were, if my judgment after so many years be correct,
admirable teachers--my uncle the greater, my school-master the more
immediately efficient. As I was a manageable boy to the very verge of
weakness, the relations between us were entirely pleasant.

There were only six more pupils, all of them sufficiently older than
myself to be ready to pet and indulge me. No one who saw me mounted on
the back of the eldest, a lad of fifteen, and driving four of them in
hand, while the sixth ran alongside as an outrider--could have wondered
that I should find school better than home. Before the first day was
over, the sorrows of the lost watch and sword had vanished utterly. For
what was possession to being possessed? What was a watch, even had it
been going, to the movements of life? To peep from the wicket in the
great gate out upon the village street, with the well in the middle of
it, and a girl in the sunshine winding up the green dripping bucket
from the unknown depths of coolness, was more than a thousand watches.
But this was by no means the extent of my new survey of things. One of
the causes of Mr Elder's keeping no boy who required chastisement was
his own love of freedom, and his consequent desire to give the boys as
much liberty out of school hours as possible. He believed in freedom.
'The great end of training,' he said to me many years after, when he
was quite an old man, 'is liberty; and the sooner you can get a boy to
be a law to himself, the sooner you make a man of him. This end is
impossible without freedom. Let those who have no choice, or who have
not the same end in view, do the best they can with such boys as they
find: I chose only such as could bear liberty. I never set up as a
reformer--only as an educator. For that kind of work others were more
fit than I. It was not my calling.' Hence Mr Elder no more allowed
labour to intrude upon play, than play to intrude upon labour. As soon
as lessons were over, we were free to go where we would and do what we
would, under certain general restrictions, which had more to do with
social proprieties than with school regulations. We roamed the country
from tea-time till sun-down; sometimes in the Summer long after that.
Sometimes also on moonlit nights in Winter, occasionally even when the
stars and the snow gave the only light, we were allowed the same
liberty until nearly bedtime. Before Christmas came, variety, exercise,
and social blessedness had wrought upon me so that when I returned
home, my uncle and aunt were astonished at the change in me. I had
grown half a head, and the paleness, which they had considered a
peculiar accident of my appearance, had given place to a rosy glow. My
flitting step too had vanished: I soon became aware that I made more
noise than my aunt liked, for in the old house silence was in its very
temple. My uncle, however, would only smile and say--

'Don't bring the place about our ears, Willie, my boy. I should like it
to last my time.'

'I'm afraid,' my aunt would interpose, 'Mr Elder doesn't keep very good
order in his school.'

Then I would fire up in defence of the master, and my uncle would sit
and listen, looking both pleased and amused.

I had not been many moments in the house before I said--

'Mayn't I run up and see grannie, uncle?'

'I will go and see how she is,' my aunt said, rising.

She went, and presently returning, said

'Grannie seems a little better. You may come. She wants to see you.'

I followed her. When I entered the room and looked expectantly towards
her usual place, I found her chair empty. I turned to the bed. There
she was, and I thought she looked much the same; but when I came
nearer, I perceived a change in her countenance. She welcomed me
feebly, stroked my hair and my cheeks, smiled sweetly, and closed her
eyes. My aunt led me away.

When bedtime came, I went to my own room, and was soon fast asleep.
What roused me I do not know, but I awoke in the midst of the darkness,
and the next moment I heard a groan. It thrilled me with horror. I sat
up in bed and listened, but heard no more. As I sat listening, heedless
of the cold, the explanation dawned upon me, for my powers of
reflection and combination had been developed by my enlarged experience
of life. In our many wanderings, I had learned to choose between roads
and to make conjectures from the _lie_ of the country. I had likewise
lived in a far larger house than my home. Hence it now dawned upon me,
for the first time, that grannie's room must be next to mine, although
approached from the other side, and that the groan must have been hers.
She might be in need of help. I remembered at the same time how she had
wished to have me by her in the middle of the night, that she might be
able to tell me what she could not recall in the day. I got up at once,
dressed myself, and stole down the one stair, across the kitchen, and
up the other. I gently opened grannie's door and peeped in. A fire was
burning in the room. I entered and approached the bed. I wondered how I
had the courage; but children more than grown people are moved by
unlikely impulses. Grannie lay breathing heavily. I stood for a moment.
The faint light flickered over her white face. It was the middle of the
night, and the tide of fear inseparable from the night began to rise.
My old fear of her began to return with it. But she lifted her lids,
and the terror ebbed away. She looked at me, but did not seem to know
me. I went nearer.

'Grannie,' I said, close to her ear, and speaking low; 'you wanted to
see me at night--that was before I went to school. I'm here, grannie.'

The sheet was folded back so smooth that she could hardly have turned
over since it had been arranged for the night. Her hand was lying upon
it. She lifted it feebly and stroked my cheek once more. Her lips
murmured something which I could not hear, and then came a deep sigh,
almost a groan. The terror returned when I found she could not speak to
me.

Scottish book of the year goes to Kieron Smith, Boy by James Kelman

The barrister Constance Briscoe has won the libel case brought against her by her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, over her bestselling misery memoir Ugly, in which she accused Briscoe-Mitchell of childhood cruelty and neglect.

Briscoe-Mitchell claimed the allegations were "a piece of fiction", and sued Briscoe and her publishers Hodder & Stoughton for libel.

A 10-day hearing at the high court in London concluded earlier today with a unanimous verdict from the jury after more than a day's deliberation. Speaking outside the court, Briscoe, a part-time judge, said she was "very happy" with the verdict.

"It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me. Now I just want to get on with my career," she said. "I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial, but whilst child abuse may be committed behind closed doors, it should never be swept under the carpet."

The hearing saw Briscoe tell Mr Justice Tugendhat and a jury how her mother beat her with a stick for wetting the bed, called her a "dirty little whore" and drove her to attempt suicide by drinking bleach.

Briscoe's account of her upbringing was published in 2006 and has sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK.

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Would you have your ashes scattered in Jane Austen's garden?
American film producer to publish version of the Bible in which God says it is better to be gay than straight

The royal family doesn't need a poet

The power of Jane Austen never ceases to amaze: the myriad film and TV adaptations, the biopics, the spin-off self-help books, the novels about Austen book clubs and Austen obsessives and even, next spring, the publication of a book about "how Jane Austen conquered the world" (Jane's Fame, by Clare Harman). And now comes the just-too-weird story that deceased fans of Jane Austen have been banned from having their ashes scattered in her garden. In a letter to the Jane Austen Society, Louise West, the collections manager of Jane Austen's House Museum, wrote: "While we understand many admirers of Jane Austen would love to have ashes laid here, it is something we do not allow. It is distressing for visitors to see mounds of human ash, particularly so for our gardener. Also, it is of no benefit to the garden!" (Or is it? Surely a small quantity of fresh ashes judiciously placed beneath a hydrangea bush is just the ticket?)

Anyway, leaving aside the Gardeners' Question Time minutiae, what on earth is going on here? I like an Austen novel as much as the next person – I probably reread my way through the complete works every couple of years – but I am baffled as to why one would want to be laid to rest among the flowerbeds of Chawton. The only explanation is the currently unstoppable power of the Austen cult, fuelled by Colin Firth in a wet blouse, by Andrew Davies's adaptations, and by Hollywood. I'm all for enjoying books, but the cult of Austen has reached ridiculous proportions. In a post-feminist world that should know better, she seems to be adored as the comforting provider of romantic, happy-endings nonsense instead of the sharp and acerbic social satirist she deserves to be seen as.

(Does anyone actually believe her, by the way, when she foretells a happy marriage for Darcey and Elizabeth? I fear a woman as interesting as Elizabeth would be sorely disappointed with this standard-issue British Repressed Public-school Man - hopeless emotionally, and probably hopeless in bed.)

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