This Cold Country

by Annabel Davis-Goff

I don’t know how much Philomena meant to you. I gathered from Corisande that she had at one time been a nurserymaid, but she didn’t go into details

  No need to enlarge on that conversation; she had to assume that Patrick knew his sister better than she, Daisy, did. And that he knew Mickey to be a source only of information of his own choosing.

  I am sorry another link to the past has been broken. At the very least she must have been a familiar face. It seems she died in her sleep. The fire had nothing to do with it, and she didn’t suffer. Nor was she alone. Your grandmother is being looked after by the wife of Edmund’s groom. She seems kind and quiet; it is hard to tell how Aunt Maud feels about her, but time will tell.

  Still no one had speculated on the cause of the fire; it seemed to have been accepted as an act of God. But Daisy feared it had come from a spark in the dining-room fire, a fire lit for Andrew Heskith. She had lit it for the benefit of a paying guest, but her conscience made her feel she had burned Dunmaine to warm her lover.

  “STRICTLY SPEAKING, IT’S not necessary for women to go to funerals,” Edmund said, “but, in this instance, I thought we should perhaps show the flag.”

  “Which flag would that be?” Corisande asked sourly.

  “Of course,” Daisy said quickly, her mind already turning toward suitable clothing.

  “A large turnout is going to look more like curiosity than what you call showing the flag—” Corisande added, “although that’s certainly a better choice of phrase than solidarity.”

  Corisande was right, of course. Daisy was pleased that she was going to the funeral, her pleasure that of drama and curiosity, and she was well aware a funeral such as Sir Guy’s could be one of the larger social events of the foreseeable future. And something she could write to Patrick about.

  “You’re right,” Edmund said, his expression and voice pleasant, “of course. As usual, you’re right. You probably shouldn’t go, especially not from this house.”

  Since she had come to stay at Shannig, the spats between Edmund and her sister-in-law had embarrassed Daisy, less by their content than by the implied subtext. Edmund, every time he and Corisande exchanged verbal blows, was silently saying I haven’t married you yet and if you don’t behave, maybe I never will and she, in return, was suggesting that she was holding her punches until after she was his wife, but that then there would be a day of reckoning. Daisy watched, horrified, as Corisande from a position of weakness habitually overplayed her hand. But now Daisy was beginning to realize that, as was so often the case, everyone was doing exactly what he wanted. Not that it made it less embarrassing for those who witnessed these outbursts of malice.

  No one was surprised when Corisande, exquisite in a black coat and skirt with a little gray hat and a long gray chiffon scarf was, uncharacteristically punctual, ready and waiting in the hall when the others assembled for the funeral. Mickey was wearing his usual Sunday tweed suit with the addition of a black tie. Edmund was dressed in his up-from-the-country-for-a-day-in-London dark suit. He, too, wore a black tie. It seemed possible to Daisy that elegance, as well as a love of good clothing, was one of the stronger bonds between Edmund and Corisande.

  Corisande had made the wreath. The day before, the sink and draining board of what was still called the butler’s pantry, had been piled with greenery and clumps of wet moss. Corisande had taken a piece of chicken wire and twisted it into a large circle. Then she had stuffed it tight with moss; Daisy watched, fascinated not only by her sister-in-law’s skill but by the way her beautiful, pale fingers with their immaculate nails plunged into the cold muddy moss and forced it through the wire netting. Then she covered the moss-filled wire with larger, greener pieces of moss, binding them to the base with raffia. Corisande managed to tie the raffia so that it made a pattern and, at the same time, cut deep enough into the wet moss not to show. Next, tendrils of ivy were plaited and entwined, each piece pulled taut enough to remain a tight part of the wreath and for the leaves to appear to be growing from it. Sprigs of rosemary were pulled from their larger branch, the leaves at the base of the stalk stripped off, and the pantry filled with their evocative scent as Corisande threaded the rosemary into the moss and ivy. Once the base looked fat and solid and no longer even a little bare, Corisande added the flowers. She had a loose assortment in a bowl of water, white flowers of different sizes picked from the hedgerows between the fields and japonica from the garden wall. Daisy knew few of their names, though she was sure Corisande knew them all. Corisande, secateurs in hand, trimmed the stem or stalk of each flower and stuck it into the wreath, making sure it was securely placed and deeply enough embedded for it to stay damp. When the whole wreath was evenly, but not profusely covered, Corisande stopped.

  “I’m going to leave it upstairs in the nursery bath,” she explained, “with a couple of inches of water. In the morning I’ll add a few last minute flowers and replace any that haven’t lasted. The trick is to remember to take it out of the bath tonight and allow it to drain; otherwise we’ll arrive at the funeral tomorrow with it dripping on our gloves and skirts.”

  Daisy had been the one who had gone upstairs after dinner with a plate rack to take the wreath out of the bath. The water had already drained out, the perished rubber plug another of the small factors and adjustments that Daisy was learning to remember and allow for while performing the simplest task. The bath plug that wasn’t watertight, the doors that didn’t close, the windows with broken sashes, the dripping taps, the smoking fireplaces, the temperamental stoves—and those, she thought ruefully, were only the inanimate objects. If she started to consider the human factors, most of them now relatives of hers—the mute grandmother; the silent but not necessarily mysterious brother-in-law; the untrustworthy, wreath-making sister-in-law; the gun-carrying future brother-in-law; the husband she hardly knew—she would feel like a tired Alice slipped through a dark looking glass.

  Daisy assuming that although the water had drained from the bath that the moss was now sufficiently wet—the alternative to backing her own judgment going to ask Corisande who had delegated the task when she had gone up to bed right after dinner with a headache—set the plate rack in the bath and put the wreath on it to drain.

  The wreath maker of the family, a strange role for Corisande to assume. Daisy imagined that Corisande was not unaccomplished; she was sure that she could dance and, if necessary, play bridge, but wreath making seemed to be her sole domestic skill. Daisy had eaten too many inadequate meals at Dunmaine to imagine that Corisande was qualified to instruct Mrs. Mulcahy, and the unpaid dressmakers bills did not suggest that Corisande spent her spare time running up her own clothes. But somebody, at some stage, had taught her sister-in-law how to make a funeral wreath. Daisy shook her head, once again astonished by her new family, as she went downstairs; she paused before she reached the hall, struck by an uncomfortable thought. She, Daisy, didn’t know how to make a wreath, or strictly speaking—since she had watched Corisande carefully—she did know, in principle, how, but she had never, in practice, made one; so what was her own domestic skill? She, too, was unable to cook or sew or even run a household well enough to delegate such tasks successfully. What was she good at? She could milk cows, kill rabbits, but little more. She hadn’t even succeeded in being a faithful wife. She turned round and went up to her room to write her evening letter to Patrick.

  The following morning, when they gathered in the hall the wreath had been drained and Corisande had made the necessary last-minute additions.

  “Forget-me-nots,” she said, and smiled.

  Now, she waited, in her still, unnerving way, holding a handbag Daisy could not remember having seen before, as the rest of them looked for gloves and prayer books. Mickey, presumably because a drop of muddy water, more or less, wouldn’t make any difference to his suit, had been given the task of carrying the wreath.

  Daisy was, as usual, reminded of her own worn handbag and aware that one of her gloves, not expensive in the first place, was coming apart at a se
am. Her mother had bought them for her during her last winter at school.

  “I’ve a letter for Patrick. I haven’t sealed the envelope yet—” Daisy said, looking about her inquiringly.

  “Send him my love,” Corisande said, but not as though she imagined Daisy would take a fountain pen from her bag and add a postscript.

  Daisy assumed she was not the only member of the family to write to Patrick, but supposed each did so, as with most other activities, in private.

  “How did you learn how to make a wreath?” she asked, breaking a silence of several minutes. They were halfway down the avenue; Edmund held the reins and the pony was trotting briskly, its hooves clattering over the uneven stony surface.

  “My mother taught me,” Corisande said.

  Daisy nodded, and the silence resumed. Corisande had revealed more information in that sentence than Daisy sometimes gathered in a week. It was the first time she had heard either Corisande or Mickey refer to their mother. Patrick had, slipping it between two other pieces of information, so that it need not be acknowledged or commented on, told her that his mother was dead. Corisande and her mother, the passing on of family skills and secrets. Wreath making could not be the only one. Daisy, now also silent, wondered what the others might be and if she would ever know; and what, if anything, had his mother taught Mickey? His love of history and plants? Or had he been too young? When had she died? If Corisande was three years older than Mickey and she had learned to make a wreath, then Mickey should have been old enough—or did his adult preoccupations owe more to the loss of his mother than to her influence while she was alive?

  It started to rain soon after they reached the end of the avenue. Corisande pulled a mackintosh cape from under the seat, put it over her shoulders, and pulled the capacious hood loosely over her head, pushing her hair into place as she did so. Edmund, the reins in one hand, pulled another waterproof from under his seat and, after a barely perceptible pause, handed it to Daisy. After a longer, slightly awkward pause, Daisy, fully aware that it was Edmund’s own waterproof she was taking, accepted it. It had a large, stiff collar that pulled up to protect the back of her head, but no hood. The rain was not heavy, but even with the partial protection of the mackintosh, Daisy could feel her hair becoming damp and curly. She pulled the heavy material gratefully over her knees and tucked her feet under the seat.

  The funeral, despite the weather—gusts of wind were battering the rooks’ nests in the churchyard elms and shunting loosely shaped clouds across a paler gray sky—was well attended. Edmund effortlessly attracted the attention of a ragged ten-year-old boy, whose only protection from the elements was a too large flat cap, and handed him the reins.

  Although the war had now entered its third year, Daisy had never before been to a funeral and her experience of Church of Ireland services was limited to morning prayer, either at the small church in Cappoquin, or as part of the congregation at the smaller and even less well attended church where Edmund sat in the front pew and read the lesson. The Church of Ireland seemed to Daisy close to the Church of England, the differences minimal and limited, in practice, to the omission of the prayer for the king (few parishes having the means to replace their prayer books, his name still appeared on the flimsy printed page) and, from fear of finding themselves swept into the outstretched arms of Rome, a rigid determination not to indulge in any ceremony or tradition even slightly High Church.

  The church was full, as always more crowded at the rear. Daisy, accustomed to making for the front, and seeing a half-empty pew, started up the aisle; Corisande nudged her and indicated a not quite large enough space in the back row. Daisy, slightly embarrassed, followed Corisande past a damp, muddy-shoed farming family to the end of the pew. Corisande had taken her mackintosh off as soon as they had reached the shelter of the church porch; she now looked pretty, neat, and elegant as she knelt in prayer, eyes closed, her perfect hands pointing upward, showing her engagement ring to advantage and obscuring part of her smooth and flawless face. Daisy was aware that her own hair, damp and curly, did not sit neatly around her hat and suspected that her nose was pink and shiny and her lipstick worn. Reminding herself that such worldly thoughts were not only out of place but unconstructive—she could hardly take out her powder compact—she composed herself for concentrated prayer. She had been taught as a child by her father that prayer should be confined to praise, thanks, penitence, and a desire for knowledge of God’s will, but she knew, as did her father, that in wartime, prayer became more specific. Prayer rose like steam from grieving and frightened congregations all over England.

  Daisy prayed for Patrick’s safety, for the well-being of her family, for strength. She prayed, as she did nightly on her knees by her bed. She did not pray for forgiveness for her adulterous night with Heskith, for her breaking of a commandment, because, although she understood the gravity of her sin, she knew that were the opportunity again to present itself, she would not hesitate to take it. That such an opportunity would not again occur could make no difference to the imperfection of her repentance.

  Corisande and Edmund prayed only briefly; Edmund leaning forward, one hand covering his face; Corisande’s more devout posture, Daisy suspected, a reflection of her grace than the depth of her belief. Mickey was still praying when Daisy sat back and picked up her prayer book. He remained on his knees until the service began. It had been apparent, from the first time she had attended church with the Nugents, that Mickey had a deep and possibly morbid religious streak. She would not be surprised if, when he grew older and if he remained unmarried, he affiliated himself with some not too extreme religious order.

  The service began; Mickey straightened himself up and opened his prayer book. Daisy was immediately moved by the beauty of the language; it seemed to her possible that the Church of Ireland, perhaps even more than the Church of England, was better designed to comfort the bereaved than to celebrate the betrothed. A culture a little embarrassed by joy and the celebration of life was more comfortable—and hence more effective, comforting, and uplifting—when dealing with loss and restrained grief.

  Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, Daisy thought, not of Sir Guy, but of James. James dead; Patrick a prisoner and wounded. Patrick’s letters had been, in the main, unsatisfactory; with all but the first and last one addressed to her—the one she had edited before reading aloud to the rest of the family—Daisy had been well aware the letters were written by a Nugent to other Nugents. Not quite evasive but lacking in detail; not quite secretive but reticent. Even months in a prisoner-of-war camp, part of it—how long not specified—in a hospital, either in that camp or elsewhere, had apparently not tempted him to take a more intimate tone in his letters. A wound, according to Patrick not serious, and now completely healed, would leave him with a slight limp. It was only in the letter that he had written on receiving the news of James’s death that he sounded to Daisy like the man she had married.

  Despite the censor’s pen, by putting together details and allusions from all his letters, his family thought Patrick had been taken prisoner in North Africa.

  I was so jealous of him and so angry with you. It was those feelings that made me see that I couldn’t behave in my usual guarded way, that I had to move quickly and fight for you. Not only the war but James forced me to show my hand in a most uncharacteristic way. I suppose that out of a lifetime—I don’t know if you even know that we were at prep school together— of memories of happier times it is the feeling of relief and triumph I felt when I knew that it was me you would love, that I will first think of when I remember him.

  Daisy closed her eyes briefly, shutting out the people and sounds around her, hearing Patrick’s letter with the rhythm and intonations of his voice. She was overwhelmed with emotion, some of it love but most of it guilt.

  Outside, a gust of wind slapped a sheet of hard rain against the stained glass window; the vicar, without pausing, flicked a glance toward the sound. What had been a light rain on the drive to
the church was now heavy; there would be intermittent showers and heavy gray clouds blown in from the Atlantic for the rest of the day. Daisy’s feet were wet and the church was cold—and damp. To the side of the window, bubbles had formed under the pale yellow paint and the uneven patch was fringed with a white growth that looked like frost.

  The first Lesson. Then a hymn. “Abide with Me.” As with the rest of the service, when the flat, emotionless tone of the vicar served to underscore the strength of the words, the hymn, not particularly well sung, and the organ taking it a little slowly, only emphasized the beauty and despairing sadness of the words.

  “Abide with Me.” A hymn that had been sung countless times since the war began. And, perhaps, even more often during the Great War. Those who had survived that war once again sang it, once again prayed. And those who had not, like Patrick’s father, were commemorated on plaques in these small, cold, damp churches, with carved crests of regiments that were now, but hadn’t been then, part of the army of another country. And the others who had neither perished nor survived? Maud, who didn’t get out of bed, let alone go to church and, Daisy suspected, no longer put much faith in prayer. And why, Daisy thought, with a shiver, would she?

  The second Lesson. The Collect. God be in my head... and... in my understanding—and then, quite quickly, it was over. The whole service had taken twenty-five minutes and had incorporated, as Daisy had known it would since the rattle of rain on the stained glass, some of the service that would usually have been read at the graveside.

  The service over, there was a moment of shuffling, pews creaked as the congregation stood, someone sneezed, and then, tactfully orchestrated by the undertaker’s assistants and the vicar, the coffin was brought down the aisle followed by Lady Wilcox, Hugh Power holding her arm. Fernanda Power was part of a small group that followed them, a discreet step or two behind.