In the Middle of the Fields

by Mary Lavin

  ‘And the nights are chilly,’ piped Lily.

  Nervously, Vera stood up again.

  Rita stood up too. ‘If I were to take my holidays now, while your father’s condition is fairly stable, I’d be back on the job when you’d really need me.’

  ‘At the end, you mean?’ Vera said quietly.

  ‘Oh the end could be easy enough,’ said Rita airily. ‘But he could go into a coma. You might like to have me here then. All things considered, I really think I ought to go while the going is good. And the great thing is that you won’t need anyone to replace me. I sounded out the old girl, and she said that if you put a stretcher-bed into your father’s room she could easily manage single-handed. It isn’t everyone would do it, mind you. Wasn’t it a godsend it was her we got. She’s as good as two saints rolled into one.’

  So it was all settled. Only her assent had been needed. ‘Wouldn’t we have to consult the doctor?’ Vera asked desperately.

  ‘Oh, doctors are usually considerate enough where private nurses are concerned,’ said Rita lightly.

  ‘You could get round him anyway, Rita,’ cried Lily. ‘You could tell him one of your family was sick.’

  Vera’s heart sank.

  How false had been her feeling of solidarity with them. These girls had their private lives which at all costs they would safeguard from interference.

  Yet, when the day came for Rita to leave, her concern for Vera was genuine. ‘Do you think you’ll be all right without me?’ she asked anxiously for about the twentieth time, as Vera and Lily stood on the steps, waiting to see her off. There was a car calling for her.

  ‘Her fellow,’ Lily whispered to Vera.

  But Rita wasn’t happy. She was restless and uneasy. Suddenly she frowned. ‘The wasps’ nest!’ she cried. ‘We did nothing about it. Oh, perhaps I oughtn’t to go at all. Not that I really think your father will ever stir out of doors again,’ she said quickly, ‘but there’s the old girl to consider. What if she got stung? It wouldn’t take much to finish her off I’d say.’ She wrung her hands.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Vera said placatingly. ‘I’ll attend to it at once. Tomorrow.’

  ‘But how? That’s the whole point. It may not be as easy as you think.’

  ‘What about tar?’ Lily cried. ‘We could pour it into the nest at night when they’re all inside?’

  Rita shook her head. ‘Too hard to handle. You have to heat it and that’s very dangerous.’ She shuddered. ‘But you could set fire to it perhaps, with petrol.’

  ‘Not so near the house!’ Vera cried. ‘The whole place could go up.’

  Rita bit her lip. ‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘Have you a gun? You could fire a shot into it, at close range. But can you handle a gun?’

  ‘I’m sure I could manage,’ Vera said.

  ‘Well then, there’s no more to worry about.’ Leaning forward, Rita strained to see the road through the trees. ‘Here’s my friend,’ she said as she saw a car. ‘I told him I’d meet him at the gate,’ and catching up her bag she gave them both a quick kiss and ran down the steps. ‘Goodbye,’ she called back. ‘Goodbye.’

  Looking after her, Vera felt curiously bereft. She looked at Lily.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ Lily said, as they turned and went back into the house.

  Had the sun gone? Had the birds stopped singing? It was hardly possible that one person’s absence could have made itself felt so immediately. Yet, before the day ended the house was like a tomb. Certainly the kitchen became one. The leaves of the trees had thickened and the shrubs grown dense, and although the upper rooms were above the level of their shade, the lower part of the house was as dark by day as if evening had prematurely fallen. Once about four o’clock when Vera went down to make a pot of tea, it gave her a shock to see two birds that chased each other dash in one window and out the other, as if indeed it were a deserted place.

  But one afternoon while Vera was upstairs mending a sheet, the silence of the house was shattered. Voices? Like a twitter of birds they rang out, only louder and more inconsequential. She thought she recognised Rita’s voice, and then, unmistakably she heard Rita’s laugh. Throwing the sheet aside, Vera ran down the stairs.

  ‘Oh, there you are!’ cried Rita gaily. She ran forward and kissed Vera. ‘I was just telling Lily here that I got bored in Dublin and I came down to stay with cousins of mine who live near here, and today I hopped on the bike and came over to see how you were getting on. Talk of a busman’s holiday! How are you? And how,’ she asked quickly as an afterthought, ‘is your father? I must go up and see him before I leave. Not that I can stay long,’ she said, glancing at her watch. Then she laughed. ‘What I’m dying to know is how you’re getting on with Her Nibs?’

  ‘Oh, she’s been very good and kind,’ Vera said sincerely.

  ‘Not a bad sort at all,’ said Lily, but she giggled. ‘She’s a howl really,’ she said. ‘I never stopped laughing since you left.’

  Vera looked at her with astonishment. When had all this hilarity taken place?

  ‘Oh, I didn’t let on to you,’ said Lily, turning to her. ‘She was going to leave several times only I got around her to stay. There was one time and she’d her bags all packed and ready for off! She thought she was in a madhouse. There was the jam for one thing.’ She turned to Vera. ‘You remember just after Rita left there was a cold spell and one evening we thought we’d light a fire, but the kindling wood was wet and I was down on my knees puffing and blowing at it when—’

  Suddenly Rita gave a screech. ‘Oh, Lily. Don’t tell me. I know what happened.’

  But Lily put her hand over Rita’s mouth.

  ‘Let me tell it,’ she begged. ‘I’ve been dying to tell someone.’

  She turned back to Vera. ‘You came in. “Did you try putting jam in it, Lily,” says you. You should have seen the poor old thing’s face. But that wasn’t the worst. That afternoon she was having a cup of tea when you walked in with the master’s gun in your hand and—’

  ‘Oh, Lily!’ Rita knew what was coming this time too.

  ‘Wait! please, please,’ pleaded Lily. ‘Let me tell it.’ She turned back to Vera. ‘The poor old thing looked up. “I thought it was the closed season,” she said. “Oh,” said you, “I’m only going out in the garden to shoot a few wasps.”’

  ‘Oh no.’ It was too much for Rita.

  Screaming with laughter, the two girls sank down on the kitchen chairs, their feet sprawled out in front of them.

  ‘To think I never noticed a thing!’ said Vera so sadly Rita was sobered.

  ‘Ah, you were too anxious about your father,’ she said kindly. ‘You didn’t tell me how he is? Ought I go up and see him, or do you think it might only disturb him?’

  A week earlier there would have been no question of her not seeing him, but now Vera had misgivings. ‘Would you like me to tell him you’re here,’ she said after a minute, ‘and see what he says?’ And without waiting for an answer she slipped upstairs.

  In the sick-room the windows were thrown up, and the whole room was filled with a myriad of small sweet sounds, the hum of insects, and the songs of birds. And when Vera went softly in there was a whir of wings as the swallows under the eaves swooped back and forth from their nests. The old nurse and her patient were both awake, but although they were not speaking Vera felt as if she was intruding. It was as if they were communicating in some way beyond her understanding. These unspoken messages were deep and meaningful. How could she ever have been so mistaken as to think that life had ebbed from this room. Dying too was a part of life. For a minute she stood unobserved in the doorway. Then she heard Rita’s footsteps on the stairs and she stepped back quickly, closing the door.

  But Rita had seen into the room. ‘Oh, what a change there is in him,’ she whispered. ‘And in such a few short days.’ Gently she put he
r hand on Vera’s arm. ‘It looks to me as if he’s near the end,’ she said. But, seeing Vera’s start, she spoke sternly. ‘You’re lucky, you know. The end is going to be very easy.’ Then drawing Vera towards the stairs she went down a few steps. ‘It’s funny the way things work out, isn’t it? We only thought of that old woman as a stop-gap and now it looks as if it was God who sent her to you. I don’t think you’ll need me back at all,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Oh, Rita,’ Vera cried. ‘We couldn’t do without you.’

  Rita shook her head. ‘It’s not my business, I know,’ she said, ‘but think of the saving. I don’t know how you’re fixed with regard to money, but there’s no sense in throwing it away.’

  ‘The money doesn’t matter,’ said Vera in a flat voice.

  Rita shook her head. ‘You’d be surprised what a financial drain it can be, a death in the family, I mean, specially coming after a long illness.’ She threw up her hands. ‘When all is over there’s an avalanche of bills. I’ve seen people crushed by them. Yes, crushed!’

  ‘Oh, Rita,’ Vera cried, putting out her hands, ‘I can’t bear to think of the house without you. And what will Lily do?’

  ‘Oh, a pity about Lily!’ Rita said. ‘She’ll be getting married one of these days. She can live on the thought of that. As for you, won’t you be going to Australia?’

  It was a long time since Alan’s name had been mentioned. Vera had begun to think Rita and Lily both suspected that there was something wrong.

  But Rita’s face was guileless. ‘It’s a pity you can’t be there for the Australian summer,’ she said. ‘Not, God forgive me, that I grudge your father his last days, but it’s a shame to lose the chance. Ah well, it’s only one summer.’

  Vera looked at her. She was so strong and young. One summer more or less would indeed matter little to her. Unable to bear her secret any longer, she blurted it out. ‘I may not be going out at all.’

  But Rita missed her meaning. ‘Oh, is he coming back?’ she asked ‘I can well believe it. I know lots of people who didn’t like it out there. Still, it’s a pity you didn’t have the trip. Ah well! Maybe you didn’t miss much. You might have ended up with two winters in the one year.’ Uncontrollably she yawned. ‘Oh, I’m jaded,’ she said. ‘I was at a dance last night. Late hours flatten me.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’d better be off.’

  In the days that followed it became clear to Vera that her father was dying at last. His world was shrinking smaller and smaller. In the beginning of his illness, when there was a noise downstairs, or in the yard, he’d sometimes ask them not to slam doors, or let things fall, but after a time when there was a noise he’d only look startled, and his eyes would dilate as if with fear. Soon sudden sounds in the sick-room gave him a violent start. His world had narrowed down to the bed on which he lay and his face seemed to wear an habitual look of surprise. At first Vera thought it was that he could not believe the pass to which he had been brought, but slowly she came to realise that it was the old life of health and normality in which he could not believe. When a light went on he was surprised. When Lily brought his tray he was surprised, and he was surprised again when she came to take it away. And once when Vera herself went into his room he seemed to find her presence so startling she had to protest.

  ‘Where did you think I was, Father?’ she cried. Was it possible that deep down in his heart he did not trust in the finality of her break with Alan? Did he think she had deserted him after all? In that moment she made up her mind to tell him the truth. And so one day while the old nurse was taking a nap she sat down on the side of his bed. ‘There is something I never told you, Father,’ she said quietly. ‘Alan has gone out of my life for good.’

  Weak as he was, he was able to hide his reaction. ‘What matter,’ he said dully.

  Stung by the apparently indifferent words, she was about to move away when she was struck by the depths of pity in his eyes. It was not a rage of pity, like long ago, it was a pity that embraced them both. And he did not need to explain it. She knew he was asking himself what anything mattered when all came to this in the end.

  Then he took her hand. ‘What does your mother’s loss matter now to me?’ he said sadly. ‘Some day it will be the same with you.’ It seemed a strange and unreal analogy, this analogy between her and her dead mother. And yet it was valid she supposed. A silence fell as they pondered their separate aspects of the same thought. Then he spoke again. ‘Vera, do you think there’s a meeting in the next life?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘I don’t know, Father,’ she said, confused. Not for years had she given the matter thought.

  ‘Because I don’t,’ he said vehemently. ‘When they dig the black hole and put you down in it that’s the end of you.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Vera’s heart cried out against the thought of facing into that nothingness, that nowhere. ‘Of course there is a hereafter,’ she cried. ‘Otherwise what would be the meaning of love?’

  Weak tears came into his eyes. ‘Do you really believe that, Vera?’ he said.

  Partly lying and, like himself, partly wanting to believe it, she nodded.

  He closed his eyes. ‘It would make up for everything,’ he added, almost under his breath. Then he opened his eyes wide. ‘Just to see her. Just to see her again is all I’d ask.’

  Vera’s own eyes widened. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Your mother,’ he said, and he looked surprised. ‘Who else?’

  The Mock Auction

  The bloom of summer was on Miss Lomas. She was as plump as a goose. She had put on weight in her years at Brook Farm and took a large fitting now in skirts and blouses. Gone, long was the time she could struggle into the costume she had worn on the day she accepted the invitation of the Garret brothers to preside over the fine old house which would otherwise have been a liability to them. They had bought the property solely for the sake of the land. To have allowed the large beautifully proportioned house to go to rack and ruin just because the farm was to be an out-farm, would have been outrageous.

  It was a matter of luck for all concerned that Miss Lomas had been on hand to run it in a befitting manner.

  The costume Miss Lomas had worn the day she first went up the graceful flight of steps to the hall-door of Brook Lodge was still as good as new, stowed away in the hinterland of her clothes closet along with other costumes and coats of that bygone time. She kept plenty of moth balls in the pockets of those once modish garments but the garments themselves only saw the light of day once a year when she took them out, gave them a shake and hung them by an open window for an airing. Occasionally the garments at the back like a crowd at a football match, had pushed forward those in front, and it was difficult to shut the closet door. Miss Lomas had to bump it shut with her ample bottom.

  Ought she to have given those old clothes away to someone needy, someone less fortunate than herself? This question sometimes crossed her mind. But to whom would she give them? In order to preserve the sort of privacy proper to a place like Brook Farm she had from the start kept the neighbours resolutely at arm’s length. And in the succession of young servant girls the brothers were always hiring to give her a hand, there had not been one who would have appreciated the quality of such clothes, neither the superior fabric nor the elegant cut. Anyway the bulging closet was in tune with all else at Brook Farm, where plenty was the order of the day. Indeed what might appear plenty to some men would have been frugality to the Garret brothers. Jokingly Miss Lomas used to say there was as much left on their plates after they had eaten their fill than would have satisfied other men to have set before them when they took up their knives and forks to attack a meal. As for herself, she wasn’t slow in acquiring the same breadth and scope as her patrons. She regarded herself as one of the family and daily thanked her lucky stars that she had not let herself be persuaded by so-called wellwishers that her financial arrangeme
nt with the brothers was too free and easy. She knew what she was doing. She was more than content with her position. No salary however generous would have allowed for her spending so lavishly on herself as she was at liberty to do if she wished every Saturday night, when, in the Garretstown trap, she went to town to pay the week’s bills and order supplies for the week ahead. In town after she had settled the Brook Farm bills, taking out the fat wad of notes that Joss Garret, the older brother, had stuffed into her hand before she set out, she paid each bill, painstakingly and slowly peeling off note after note as if it was hard to get it to come away from the wad as the rind from a thin skinned lemon. There would have been lashings over to pay for a box of face powder or a bar of perfumed soap or some such little fal-de-la. She did not feel such purchases could be strictly regarded as household expenditure, although the cost would have been a drop in the ocean of the considerably large amount of change she attempted to hand back to Joss the following Monday morning at the beginning of her first full week in her new employment. But Joss, who was the most generous of men, awkwardly pushed the proffered money back into her hand. He was downright embarrassed. ‘Keep it, Miss Lomas! Keep it!’ He muttered. ‘You might need it during the week. One never knows what expenses may crop up unexpectedly and I sincerely hope you did not deny yourself anything you needed.’ Although a bachelor, (due no doubt to the frailty of his sister, Joss had an ornate understanding of women) so with a delicacy equal to his own, Miss Lomas did not press the point, or upset him by ever raising it again.

  Of course when she got to know the brothers better, she saw the common sense behind the words of Joss. For, what with replacements of crockery, cooking utensils and household linen, to say nothing of replenishments of food and cleaning materials for the huge store cupboards there was always good use to which the money could be put. Every single bit of that money was ploughed back into Brook Farm, even taking full account of the trifling odds and ends she began to buy herself when the brothers had made it abundantly clear that this was part and parcel of her deal with them. She soon saw for herself that it would not have been in the best interests of the property that she herself look less than her best. Was it not because of how she graced the top of the dining room table as well as being answerable for the provender upon it that she had been invited to reside in the dear old house in the first place? The truth of this was brought home to her when remarkably soon after she had become established there an unexpected development took place. She was exceedingly gratified by it and she saw at once it would be both gainful and pleasurable to all concerned. She was quite struck by how quickly the brothers saw that Brook Farm would be an eminently suitable place to fulfil their occasional obligations to entertain the big cattle men and jobbers, with whom they did business, without putting undue strain, as hitherto, upon the household at Garretstown House, which although it was presided over efficiently and elegantly by Miss Garret put a costly price on that poor lady’s health and nerves since she was virtually a semi-invalid. The new plan was put into action at once. In no time at all Miss Lomas had made Brook Farm a homelier and happier place than Garretstown House had ever been, a smaller, but, in her opinion a nicer house. The modest garden that lay between it and the road was full of trouble-free secluded bowers, and far prettier, she thought, than the large formal grounds that surrounded the larger property. Taking all with all Brook Farm was an ideal place to bring warm-hearted cattlemen back for a meal at the end of a long tiring fair day.