“Yes, and to our faces, let me tell you! Yesterday in the office some joker stuck a memo up on the board saying, ‘All swords that are to be returned to Rome must be left in the umbrella stand before Friday.’ ”
“Aw, that’s very small! You must frown ’em down.”
“D’you know who I bet it was? Now, don’t take offence, but you know I’ve never liked him. Father Beaudry! I’ll bet it was his letter put the Bishop on to you!”
“Now Gerry, I can’t listen to that kind of thing.”
“Oh, can’t you? Well, priest though he is, he’s a squealer and a whistle-tricker, and you can bet he’ll never wear violet socks if I can stop it!”
“Now Gerry, you know the Order prescribes ‘Unblemished character’ end that’s all there is to it. No more to be said.—Where’s Blondie?”
“Gone to Montreal.”
“Not the worst girl I’ve known. I hope you gave her something handsome? You’ve ruined her, you know.”
“Aw Mick, don’t talk so soft! She was wise enough when she came to me. I’m the one that’s ruined.”
Besides much of this, Monsignor Devlin had to listen to the wails and beseechings of his benefactress, Mary-Ben.
This was the Dark Night of the Soul for the McRorys, except perhaps for the Senator, who had government business that kept him in Ottawa for several weeks.
FRANCIS KNEW NOTHING of the domestic and public miseries of the O’Gormans, as he was not going to school, and the morose atmosphere in St. Kilda did not greatly affect him. He had a scandal of his own.
He now knew for a certainty that several nights in every week Zadok Hoyle mounted the staircase that was forbidden to himself, because it led to Victoria Cameron’s private domain. What went on up there? What was the relationship between these two important figures in his own life? If there was nothing fishy about it, why did Zadok take off his boots and go upstairs in his socks?
There were noises, too. Laughter, which he could distinguish as belonging to Zadok and Victoria. Singing, in what was plainly Zadok’s voice. Sometimes thumps and bumps and scuffling. Seldom, but often enough to puzzle him, there was a sound that might have been a cat, but louder than a cat. He didn’t like to ask Aunt; it might be squealing. Certainly he couldn’t ask Zadok and Victoria, because if they were up to something they shouldn’t be up to—something to do with the great mystery, perhaps, and related to the dark world half-unveiled by Dr. Upper—they would be angry with him, and his long, philosophical talks with Victoria, and his visits to Devinney’s embalming parlour which were so necessary to his study of drawing, would be at an end. But he must know.
So, one night as Lent began, he crept slowly up the stairs in his pyjamas, feeling his way in the darkness until he became aware that the walls were covered with something soft, which felt like blanketing. On the landing he could see, by moonlight from a window high in the wall, that it was indeed blanketing, and that a heavy curtain of blankets hung directly in front of him. This was odd, for he knew that Victoria’s room was in the other direction, and what lay toward the front of the house, beyond this curtain, was above his grandparents’ large bedroom. An unlucky stumble, though a boy in his bare feet does not make much noise. But suddenly light, as a door opened, and there stood Zadok.
“You see, Miss Cameron, I told you he’d find his way up here one of these days. Come in, me little dear.”
“Are you prepared to take responsibility for this?” said Victoria’s voice. “You know what my orders are.”
“Circumstances alter cases: Shorter pants need longer braces,” said Zadok. “He’s here, and if you turn him away now, you’ll regret it.” And he beckoned Francis into the room, the door of which had been thickened and padded amateurishly but effectively.
The room was large and bare, and suggested a sick-room, for there was a table covered with white oilcloth, on which were a basin and pitcher. The floor was covered with what used to be called battleship linoleum. The light was harsh, from a single large bulb hanging from the ceiling, with a white glass shade that threw the light downward. But what Francis saw first, and what held his eyes for a long time, was the bed.
It was a hospital bed with sides that could be slid up and down, so that at need it became a sort of topless cage. In the cage was an odd being, smaller than Francis himself, dressed in crumpled flannelette pyjamas; its head was very small for its body, and the skull ran, not to a point, but to a knob, not very big, on which grew black hair. Because the top of the head was so small, the lower part seemed larger than it was, the nose longer, the jaw broader, and the very small eyes peeped out at the world without much comprehension. They were now fixed on Francis. The child, or the creature, or whatever it was, opened its lips and made the mewing sound that Francis had sometimes heard downstairs.
“Come along, Francis, and shake hands with your older brother,” said Zadok. Then to the figure in the bed, “This is your brother, Franko, come to see you.”
Francis had been taught to obey. He walked toward the cage, his hand out, and the figure sank back on its blankets, whimpering.
“This is Francis the First,” said Zadok. “Be gentle with him; he’s not very well.”
Francis the Second had been ill for some months, and he was still weak. He fainted.
When he came to himself again, he was in his bed, and Victoria was sitting by him, dabbing at his brow with a cold towel.
“Now Frankie, you must promise me on your Bible oath that you will never tell where you’ve been or what you’ve seen. But I expect you want to know what’s going on, and I’ll answer a few questions. But not too many.”
“Victoria, is that really my brother?”
“That is Francis Chegwidden Cornish the first.”
“But he’s in the graveyard. Aunt showed me the stone.”
“Well, as you’ve seen, he’s not in the graveyard. That was just something I can’t explain. Maybe you’ll find out when you’re older.
“But he’s not like a human person.”
“Don’t say that, Frankie. He’s not well and he’ll never be any better, but he’s human right enough.”
“But why is he up there?”
“Because it would be very hard on everybody if he was down here. There are problems. It wouldn’t be nice for your grandparents. Or your parents. He may not live a long time, Frankie. Nobody expected he’d live as long as this.”
“But you and Zadok spend a lot of time with him.”
“Somebody must, and I was asked to do it by your grandfather, and I’m doing it. I’m not much good at cheering him up. Zadok does that. He’s wonderful at it. Your grandfather trusts Zadok. Now you’d better go to sleep.”
“Victoria—”
“Well?”
“Can I go to see him again?”
“I don’t think it would be for the best.”
“Victoria, I get so lonesome. I could be up there with you and Zadok sometimes. Maybe I could cheer him up.”
“Well—I don’t know.”
“Oh, please!”
“Well, we’ll see. Now you go to sleep.”
Grown-ups always think children can go to sleep at will. An hour later, when Victoria looked in again, Francis was still awake, and she had to take the extraordinary step of giving him a glass of hot milk with some of his grandfather’s rum in it to induce sleep.
During that hour his mind had raced over and over the same ground. He had a brother. His brother was very strange. This must be the Looner that Alexander Dagg’s hateful Maw declared that McRorys kept in their attic. A Looner! He could not encompass the idea.
But one thing was uppermost and demandingly powerful in his mind. He wanted to draw the Looner.
The very next night he was there, with his pad and pencil, and Victoria Cameron was angry: did he mean to mock the poor boy, and make a display of his trouble? No, certainly not; nothing more than he had been doing at Devinney’s—just carrying out the advice of Harry Furniss to draw anything and everyth
ing. But in his heart Francis knew that his urge to draw the Looner was more than art-student zeal; drawing was his way of making something his own, and he could not hope to comprehend the Looner, to accept him as something related to himself, if he could not draw him, and draw him again, and capture his likeness in every possible aspect.
How much Victoria understood of that Francis could not tell, but the revelation about Devinney’s made her open her eyes very wide, and breathe heavily through her nostrils, and look fiercely at Zadok. But Zadok showed no discomposure.
“We have to recognize, Miss C., that Francis isn’t just your run-of-the-mill young scallawag, and circumstances alter cases, as I’m always saying. I wouldn’t take just any boy to Devinney’s, but for Francis, it’s part of his education. It’s not that he’s nosy; he’s a watcher, and a noter, and they’re not the commonest people. Francis is deep, and with a deep ’un you have to give ’em something deeper than a teacup to swim in. This here’s a deep situation. Francis the Second downstairs, sharp as a razor; Francis the First up here, and Dr. J.A. giving orders right and left about how to keep him as he ought to be. Aren’t they ever to meet? Haven’t they anything for one another? I put it to you fairly, Miss C., haven’t they?”
Was Victoria convinced? Francis could not tell. But it was plain that she put great trust in the coachman-embalmer.
“I don’t know, Zadok. I know what my orders are, and it wasn’t easy for me to convince His Nibs that you should come up here sometimes—which you’ve extended to nearly every night.”
“Ah, but the Senator trusts me. Would he let me make the journeys to The Portage if he didn’t?”
“Well—I don’t know. But you’re a soldier, and you’ve travelled, and I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I do. Francis the First needs a new face to cheer him up. Shall we sing?”
Zadok struck up “Frère Jacques”, which he sang in French, pretty well. But Victoria sang
Are you sleeping, are you sleeping
Brother John? Brother John?
because she spoke no French—could not “parley-voo the ding-dong” as the English speakers in Blairlogie put it—and would not try. But Francis piped up with the third voice, and they made a reasonable bilingual job of it.
The Looner was enchanted. It would be false to say that his face brightened, but he stood clinging to the raised side of his bed, and turned his little eyes from face to face of the singers.
Then Zadok sang “Yes, let me like a soldier fall”, which was obviously a favourite. Most of it was in an extremely manly vein, but, as he explained to Francis, he always “came the pathetic” on
I only ask of that proud race
Which ends its blaze in me,
To die the last, and not disgrace
Its ancient chivalry!
“That’s the way the Captain went in South Africa,” he said solemnly, but who the Captain was he did not reveal.
This fine operatic piece was the gem of his repertoire, but as several evenings passed, Francis came to know it all. Zadok was a very personal performer. When he sang
There ain’t a lady
Livin’ in the land
As I’d swap for my dear old Dutch …
he looked languishingly at Victoria, who pretended not to notice, but blushed becomingly. There were rowdy music-hall songs of the Boer War period, and “Good-bye, Dolly Gray”. And there were songs that must have been the fag-ends of folksongs of great antiquity, but the words Zadok sang were those he had heard as a child, among the real folk, and not the cleansed and scholarly versions known to the English Folk Song Society.
The cock sat up in the yew-tree,
King Herod come riding by,
If you can’t gimme a penny
Please to gimme a mince-pie.
God send you happy (three times)
A Happy New Year.
And there was a rough version of “The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies-O” that made the Looner hop up and down in his bed. When he did this he was likely to fart loudly, and Victoria would say, almost automatically, “Now then, none o’ that, or I’ll go downstairs.” But Zadok said, “Aw now, Miss Cameron, the boy’s a natural, and you know it.” And, genially, to the Looner, “Better an empty house than a bad tenant, eh, Franko me dear?” Which seemed to comfort the dismayed Looner, who did not know what he had done that was wrong. Did he comprehend anything of the story of the gentle lady who left her noble husband and her goose-feather bed to go with the bright-eyed vagabonds? Nobody could tell how much the Looner understood of anything, but he responded to rhythm, and his favourite, which ended every concert, was a rollicking song to the beat of which Zadok, and Francis, clapped their hands:
Rule Britannia!
God Save The Queen!
Hard times in England
Are very seldom seen!
Hokey-pokey, penny a lump,
A taste before you buy,
Singing O what a happy land is England!
After which Victoria demanded quieter entertainment, or Some Of Us would never get off to sleep.
Sometimes there were impromptu picnics, when Victoria brought up good things from the kitchen, and they all ate, the Looner noisily and merrily, but with an enjoyment that Francis saw as parody of the refined greed of Aunt and Grand’mère. In one caricature in his Harry Furniss manner he drew them all three at table. Yes, Grand’mère, and Aunt, and the Looner, all tucking into a huge pie. Zadok thought it wonderful, but Victoria seized and destroyed it, and gave Francis a scolding for his “badness”.
As the Looner could not talk, Zadok and Victoria talked, with now and then a nod to include the quiet, attentive figure in the bed. Zadok would wave his pipe-stem at him, and interject “Isn’t that right, old son?” as if the Looner were silent by choice, and reflecting deeply. Francis rarely spoke, but drew and drew and drew, until he had books full of pictures of the scene—the two adults, not fashionable or stylish figures but people who might have belonged to any of five preceding centuries, Victoria knitting or mending, and Zadok leaning forward with his hands on his knees. Zadok sat in the old countryman’s fashion: his back never touched the back of the chair. And, of course, there were countless quick studies of Francis the First, which were grotesque to begin, but with time became perceptive, and touched with an understanding and pity not to be expected in so young an artist.
“Is he really so bad, Victoria? Couldn’t he come downstairs now and again?”
“No, Frank, he couldn’t. Not ever. You haven’t seen all of him. He’s shameful.”
“He’s strange, right enough, but why shameful?”
Victoria shook her head. “You’d know if you had to watch over him every day. He has a festering mind.”
A festering mind? Was it rotten brains, as charged by Alexander Dagg’s Maw?
It was a few weeks before the explanation came. One night, at the beginning of Easter Week, the Looner was more than ordinarily stirred by Zadok’s rendering of a seasonable hymn, “Who is this in gory garments?”. The Looner began to puff and blow, and claw at the crotch of his pyjamas.
“Easy, Franko. Easy old man,” said Zadok.
But Victoria was harsh. “Frank, you cut that right out, do you hear? Do you want me to get your belt? Eh? Do you?”
But the Looner paid no heed. He was now masturbating, gobbling and snorting. A sight to strike shame into Francis the Second.
Quickly Zadok rose and restrained him. Victoria brought from the chest of drawers a strange affair of wire and tapes, and as Zadok pulled down the Looner’s pyjama pants she fastened it around his waist, slipped a wire cage over his bobbing genitals, pulled a tape between his legs, and fastened the whole at the back with a little padlock.
The Looner fell to his mattress, whimpering in his catlike voice, and continued to whine.
“You shouldn’t have seen that, me dear,” said Zadok. “That’s the trouble, you see. He can’t leave himself alone, and in the daytime, when Miss Cameron is neede
d downstairs, we have to keep that on him, or nobody knows what might come of it. Sad, and that cage is a hateful thing, but Dr. J.A. says that’s how it has to be. Now you and me had better go downstairs, and leave Miss Cameron to settle him for the night.”
So that was it! This was plain evidence of the truth of what Dr. Upper had said. Self-abuse and the festering mind, and the shameful secret of the Looner, were all part of a notion of life which began to haunt Francis again, just as he had thought he was breaking free from that torment.
He dreamed terrible dreams, and thought fearful thoughts, as he lay looking without seeing it at the picture of Love Locked Out. Sometimes he wept, though tears were a shameful thing in a boy of his age. But what was he to make of this terrible house where the pious refinement of Aunt was under the same roof as the animal lust of the Looner, and the sweet music that Aunt played in the drawing-room was set against Zadok’s singing in the attic, singing which was so vigorous, so full of gusto, that there seemed to be a hint of danger—something Dr. Upper would not have approved—about it. This house where there was so much deep concern for his welfare, but nothing of the love he needed except for the two servants, who did not precisely love him so much as accept him as a fellow-being. This house where he, the cherished Francis, was aware that in a sort of hospital-prison there was another Francis whom nobody ever mentioned, and, so far as he could find out, nobody ever visited, except the Presbyterian cook-nurse, whose opinions on the matter he sometimes heard, when she reluctantly spoke of the matter.
“We’re not to judge, Frank, but something like what’s upstairs doesn’t happen just by chance. Nothing comes by chance. Everything’s written down somewhere, you know, and we have to live the lives that are foreseen for us long before the world began. So you mustn’t look on your brother as a judgement on anyone. But I won’t say he isn’t a warning—a rebuke to pride, maybe.
What's Bred in the Bone Page 15
