The Echoing Grove

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘What’s happening now?’ called Madeleine with a hint of threat.

  ‘It’s got inside this damned …’ Emotional, indignant, Dinah’s voice broke off.

  Madeleine walked slowly back and joined her; with an effort forced her eyes to focus once more upon the object. It was huddled just inside the railings, watching the dog with absolute concentration. Dinah said in a weak voice:

  ‘It’s been fighting him. He’s done his best. He can’t finish it off. Look at its eyes, just look.’

  ‘We must leave it,’ repeated Madeleine.

  ‘We can’t. It’s all mauled—don’t you see? We cannot. It’s got to be killed.’

  Suddenly the creature reared up on its hind legs behind the bars, teeth bared, jaws wide, and started to screech. Beneath its cursing throat, its midget hands hung pink, useless, as if in supplication: a shock for all. Again the dog plunged. It made a snake’s dart; and he sprang backwards with a yelp, nipped in the lip.

  ‘It isn’t fair!’ cried Dinah, grabbing him by the collar.

  All at once the rat abandoned its point of vantage, turned its back on them. They watched it creep along the side of the tomb; stop; then, obscurely driven, yet as if with the terrible deliberation, the final fatal calculation of a duellist, emerge from between the bars on the farther side, and slither off on a slow track through the soaked grass. It was badly hurt.

  ‘God!’ muttered Madeleine. ‘I can’t stand much more of this. Of all the bloody—beastly—bungling …’ She looked with raging disgust at the incompetent animal, quiet now in Dinah’s grasp. Blood and foam flecked his muzzle: he whimpered and wagged his tail in a bewildered way.

  ‘He’s not a terrier, he’s a sheepdog,’ explained Dinah, deadly gentle. ‘They fought down in that ditch—you didn’t see. It went for him again and again—screeching. He’s hurt. Rat bites can be very poisonous.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Madeleine. ‘Does that rat look to you diseased? It does to me. We’d better hurry back and ring up the vet—though I doubt if we’d get him on a Saturday evening. At least we’d better make for the Jeyes Fluid as soon as possible. Immerse him totally, and then ourselves.’

  ‘I doubt,’ said Dinah, ‘If you’ve incurred any risk worth mentioning. But if you’re anxious, the best thing would be for me to take him straight back to London. What are the trains?’

  Incurring risk to the full, she pulled up a handful of long grass and carefully wiped his muzzle. The branches of the ancient yew under which they stood enlaced them with serpentine malevolence. Turning a nasty colour, the peaceful landscape withdrew itself and left them on an island where any movement might mean electrocution. From this wired stronghold they looked out and beheld the blot, the poison-container, lying dark on the grass, like a broken flask, between two mounds. Then it moved a bit, not much … And still no rescuer came by, no whistling rustic youth or shrewd old labourer expert in, indifferent to slaughter. They were weak women in extremis, abandoned by their natural protectors.

  ‘Isn’t there a man about?’ cried Dinah, suddenly breaking to voice all this. ‘Are there no men in this village? Can’t you fetch your gardener?’

  ‘He’s seventy-three,’ said Madeleine. ‘Besides, he’s gone to the football match. I think everybody has.’

  In silence they walked together to the gate and looked once more up, down, far and near. Not a soul in sight. A sigh came out of the poplars and a few bright discs spun down and settled round their feet.

  ‘Or the Vicar?’ muttered Dinah, scarcely attempting to disguise appeal.

  ‘No use. He’s got lumbago. And even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t.’

  ‘There seems to be a boy down there by the bridge. Should we run for him? He’s a country boy. He’d probably enjoy it.’

  They strained their eyes in the direction of the old toll house, in whose square of garden a small figure could be seen, moving among white fowls.

  ‘Stanley Higgs,’ said Madeleine reflectively. ‘I scarcely think so. He’s only six; and not allowed to play with rough children.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Ah well …’ said Dinah. ‘It may be dead by now.’

  ‘I should think it must be.’

  But they did not expect it ever to be dead.

  ‘I’m going to see,’ said Dinah with sudden resolution. ‘Hold him.’

  She handed the lead to Madeleine and strode towards the church. The dog sat down on his haunches and trembled piteously; and after a moment Madeleine said: ‘There, there,’ and stroked his dishonoured head. She saw Dinah questing with caution within the rat belt; after a while she stopped dead close to the church door and stood with her head poked forward.

  ‘Found it?’ called Madeleine.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dead?’

  There was no reply. Madeleine walked forward and stood at a little distance, near enough to see the shape at Dinah’s foot.

  ‘Nearly dead,’ said Dinah slowly. ‘I think its back’s broken. Give me your stick.’

  Madeleine handed her a crook-handled Alpenstock carved with edelweiss, saying: ‘You’ll never do it with that.’

  ‘Keep Gwilym away. Don’t look. On your life, don’t look.’

  Madeleine shut her eyes, gripped Gwilym, turned her back; and after a few moments heard a sick thread of voice remark: ‘I cannot do it. I can’t take life.’

  Come here and hold your dog,’ said Madeleine, still with her back turned. ‘I’ll do it.’

  At once Dinah obeyed, saying shakily: ‘It looked at me.’

  ‘Oh Christ …!’

  ‘Madeleine, you can’t. Or can you? You know you can’t.’

  ‘I can. I can and I will.’ She examined the stick and let it drop. ‘This is the wrong shape. And much too light. Wait, I must hunt.’

  She walked away, disappearing behind the tower, and presently returned with a large garden spade. ‘The sexton’s, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Propped against the vestry door. Careless. I think his grandson uses it to dig up worms with at week-ends.’

  ‘Worms?’

  ‘For bait.’

  ‘In the cemetery?’

  ‘A lot happens in this cemetery. Now keep back, for God’s sake.’

  She forced herself to get close enough to the rat to examine its potentialities. Stained, chewed, defeated—a piece of monstrous garbage thrown away. Not moving any more, but visibly breathing. Then suddenly it moved. On the uttermost fighting verge of life it turned its head sideways and looked at her, measured her, with brilliant fixity … No, no, no, no, no, no … Strike on the back of its head, don’t waver. ‘This is gross, this is gross,’ she said aloud. Now. Death and death to it. She lifted the spade, aimed, brought the flat of it crashing down. The rat reared up full stretch in a supreme convulsion, as if about to spring. But it was done for. It rolled over, twitching. Immediately its open eyes began to film.

  Dragging her gaze away, she turned to see Dinah by the gate, her back averted, busy securing the dog’s lead to the post.

  ‘It’s dead,’ she called; and at once, with automatic briskness, Dinah turned and advanced to stand beside her.

  ‘I suppose the twitching is just reflex action.’ Dinah’s tone was clinical. Then, appreciatively: ‘Good for you. I never thought you’d be able to.’

  ‘I do a lot of things now I couldn’t have done once.’

  ‘My God, it was brave,’ said Dinah, extending the scope of decent tribute.

  ‘It certainly had reserves,’ said Madeleine. ‘The worst came last. It didn’t turn to best.’

  She fished for her handkerchief and wiped her mouth and forehead; and after a glance at her, Dinah seized the spade, saying:

  ‘Here, give me that.’

  Looking away, Madeleine said sharply:

  ‘What are you going to do?’

&n
bsp; ‘Bury it.’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘No.’ Her gaze travelled round, irresolute.

  ‘Best thing,’ said Madeleine, still looking into the distance, ‘would be to take it down to the river and throw it in.’

  ‘Far the best. Perhaps if you feel up to it, you wouldn’t mind waiting here and holding Gwilym. Or rather, start walking on home—I should.’

  ‘Well, I’ll go on and make tea. We need it.’

  Leading the dejected animal, Madeleine went slowly down the path, through the gate, and started up the road. Presently she stopped, looked back. The hampered figure of Dinah could be seen emerging from the gate and veering in the opposite direction. She held the spade straight out in front of her: an effort. From it the tail hung down, swinging. Like one moving in a barbaric rite of dedication towards some altar she stepped onward, onward, and disappeared below the brow of the slope. Tractable, but grief-stricken, the dog began to cry.

  ‘All right,’ said Madeleine kindly. She strolled back on her tracks and stood leaning against the churchyard wall. She turned and let her eyes travel over the mounds and memorials; to the spot; then upwards along the tower’s spare grey pure-shafted column, to its light-washed crown; to its arched upper window deep-set beneath crenellations, its one round turret, its weather-cock and flag-pole all supernaturally designed in the last sun’s last symbol-making glow. Keep watching it, she told herself. Be empty. Rest in peace.

  Dusk had perceptibly deepened before Dinah was seen to be marching briskly up the slope again, the bier across her shoulder. From some distance she waved and nodded, calling greeting and encouragement to Gwilym.

  ‘It’s after you!’ called Madeleine.

  She checked a glance behind her, brandished the spade.

  ‘I won’t ask for details,’ said Madeleine when she reached her side.

  ‘No.’ She shuddered.

  ‘Well, that’s that.’

  ‘We shan’t recover all at once.’ Dinah lit a cigarette in the manner of one taking calm stock of past catastrophe.

  ‘There’s nothing like a dog for ruining a pleasant walk,’ said Madeleine, bending to remove the lead. ‘Don’t let him lick your hand for God’s sake.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve got disinfectants.’ Dinah patted his ribs, adding: ‘He did his best. Brave boy, you did your best. Your very, very best.’

  ‘We all did,’ said Madeleine. ‘Our very, very best.’

  They looked behind them at the now tenebrous graveyard spreading yet one more fold of everlasting night upon its shadow people. Dinah took a breath, as if to speak; said nothing; and Madeleine continued:

  ‘The great thing was to get it out of here. I couldn’t have done that. I admire you.’

  ‘The great thing was to kill it. I couldn’t. I’m sorry.’

  We’re sorry. We did our best. Stopped it going on dying, shovelled it into limbo. There’s nothing more to be done, we’ll go away. Darkness, close up this fissure; dust under roots and stones, consume our virulent contagion; silence, annul a mortal consternation. We must all recover.

  But still the stones seemed rocked, the unsterile mounds, reimpregnated, exhaled dust’s fever; a breath, impure, of earthbound anguish.

  Morning

  Sleepless in the small hours, Dinah switched on her lamp and looked through the pile of books upon the bedside table. A brand-new novel—Book Society Choice; an anthology of modern poetry; two thrillers; a recent collection of delicious Continental recipes; Keats’s Letters; Green Mansions; a worn copy of The Phoenix and the Carpet with her name, Dinah Dorothea Burkett, pencilled inside in her own sprawling nine-year-old hand; last, a small volume in a honeycombed Victorian binding, dark blue stamped with gold; Tuppy the Donkey. She opened this, and an aroma of sour paper and dead nurseries came out of it. She read on the title page: John Vandeleur Burkett, on his sixth birthday, from his affectionate Mother, May 14th 1878; a time-browned script, swimming and delicate as a dragonfly. Somebody, years and years ago—John Vandeleur perhaps, her father—had crudely chalked in the illustrations. The ghost of a qualm twisted in her bowels—residue of some obscure long overlaid association with childish fear and sickness; some intimation of mortality breathed out from the engravings—boys with improbably celestial faces, sailor-hats haloing cherubic curls, short jackets and long trousers—old-fashioned boys at play, an old-fashioned donkey. Push them out of sight, bury them deep at the back of the shelf: they won’t come back alive, and Tuppy’s a nasty name to give a donkey.

  Everything for the spare room had been remembered, just as in former days. Cloisonné jar filled with ginger biscuits, box filled with cigarettes, ash tray beside it. She took a biscuit and started to break and eat it with stealthy movements and glances towards the armchair where, upon an old rug of Madeleine’s, Gwilym lay curled. But even this, his favourite noise, the breaking of a biscuit, failed to penetrate his total anaesthesia. Tilting the lampshade, she craned forward to peer at him. Normal respiration, no sign of swelling in the lip: thank God, he seemed all right. Surely, she told herself, lying back on the pillows, I can begin to relax. Forget the omen. I can’t face anything more … Omens are nonsense anyway. If he’s O.K. tomorrow—and he will be—it will be a good omen. The rat will be gone for good to the bottom of the river, the swans will float together in light and peace. This enterprise we’re on, whatever it is, whoever accompanies us—myself, herself, Rickie, our parents—who besides?—or awaits us still unknown along the road—this enterprise will bring us somehow to an extension of freedom; not end, as it still seems it might (is she thinking like thoughts, is she asleep next door?) in a place of distorting mirrors and trap doors.

  The room she lay in must have been Rickie’s dressing-room. She looked round it in a cautious way, but nothing made a leap out of neutrality: not the pastel portrait of him as a pretty child—fair waving hair, rose cheeks, periwinkle eyes, white blouse—above the fine mahogany chest of drawers; not the set of good sporting prints on the walls, nor the cream and green floral chintz curtains that Madeleine had drawn after tea, saying you remember these old spare room ones from home, Mother produced them about a year ago, she’d packed them away, the linings have had it, as you see, but still, these days … Frowning, dissatisfied, twitching the folds.

  Madeleine’s household goods had always been expensive and well chosen, suggesting an advised taste, the aesthetic tact of the interior decorator, rather than any personal preference. These charming rooms, decorated out of what was suitable and small enough from Montagu Square (after Rickie’s death she’d sold so much, thought now she’d been a fool) revealed no alteration in her formulae. Only that long room in the attic, Clarissa’s room, struck with determination a note of discord. A junk shop, said Madeleine, looking round on what had been superimposed upon a basic conception of girlish simplicity, pink-painted. Did you ever see? … but she would have it so. Shelves crammed with animals in glass and china, with snapshots in composite frames—Nannie and former cooks and housemaids, girl friends, dogs, kittens, ponies; one table reserved for studio portraits: her father and her brothers all three in uniform; also her mother. The window seat carried her radio, her gramophone, two record cases, several albums, a pile of old sporting and country magazines, a pot of Stickphast and a pair of cutting-out scissors. ‘A year at least they’ve been there,’ said Madeleine. ‘I’m not to throw them away. She’ll deal with them in her own good time—I ask you! She’s making scrapbooks for Colin, so she says. Look at her desk …’ She flung open one drawer, then another; stuffed with old letters, theatre programmes, regimental badges, note-books, balls of knitting wool, old purses, broken wrist-watches. ‘Every letter she’s ever had. And things the boys had …’ She picked up an old diary, glanced inside it, put it down again, rummaged uncertainly, closed the drawer. ‘Nothing is to be touched, I’ve had to swear. It’s always the same answer—she’ll go through everything in her own good ti
me. Where does she get this magpie streak from? Can she be maladjusted? … But Mother hoarded, didn’t she? She’s like Mother in some ways. The same obstinacy too …’

  In one corner stood a cabinet containing Rickie’s boyhood collection of birds’ eggs; in another Anthony’s old fretsaw; behind it, propped against the wall, a pair of skis once his. Colin had made the rather good models of sailing ships on top of the bookcase. The library bore witness to a decade of voracious hugger-mugger reading, ranging from Shakespeare, the Brontës and Jane Austen, E. Nesbit and Beatrix Potter, to madcap-of-the-school fiction and equestrian books, technical and romantic, by the dozen. On the wall hung a guitar adorned with many-coloured streamers; a straw boater bound with maroon gold-lettered ribbon and a wreath of faded pink roses: Rickie’s, a trophy from his Eton boating days; also a couple of Van Gogh colour prints and several unframed water-colours on rough paper, casually attached by insufficient drawing pins: her own work these. Yes, conceded Madeleine, she had talent; she seemed to be able to do everything rather well. They were bold, naïve, formal—scenes of drama and violence; a shipwreck, a resurrection of the dead from tombs in a moonlit cemetery, a street of houses on fire, ladders, black figures jumping, flinging up arms of lamentation, running through lurid flames.

  Opening one of the albums, they found it to be Anthony’s, its stiff cardboard leaves pasted with athletic groups, the names printed neatly out below. Raking the lines of schoolboy puppets with folded arms and bare knees spread, they detected, without comment, the lost one’s face, bright, blank, pre-adolescent. Another, similar, album belonged to Colin’s past.

  The person inhabiting this space reflected her own ego, fluid and tenacious, in all its dispositions; scaled down an immeasurable bereavement in this pious setting up of emblems: a fervent matter-of-fact heart had been at work here, intent on consolidating all its history; a girl who missed her father and her brothers. ‘Not a permanent inhabitant,’ Madeleine had said, describing with half-sympathetic irony the spiritual awakening which Clarissa was now undergoing as the result of recent confirmation at her school. On the one hand beckoned the dedicated life; on the other the life of selfish pleasure. But dedicated to what? Clarissa asked herself; impossible to discover; whereas pleasure presented no such problems: she wished to study tap-dancing, and to broaden the mind by riding alone through Europe on her pony. To make matters worse her two best friends had already discovered their vocations. ‘They all three deplore my lack of faith. Fidelia is sorry for me and writes me helpful letters.’ And turning to leave the room, Madeleine repeated: ‘No, I can’t tell myself I must make a home for her all that much longer …’ Yet this area staked out beneath the family roof seemed the almost clamorous assertion of an attached child. I was the same, thought Dinah, at her age; my room like hers, stuffed with nursery relics and the boys’ discarded things. Yet I knew I was half-packed already.