So on this particular day, very cold he noticed as he climbed down from the sheltered place where the sheep were, he had gone home. And he had had a very miserable visit.
He blamed himself. Something like hostility had long existed between his wife and himself. She had, very sensibly, mended her life and unconsciously blamed him for not mending his, and read into his not-mending a criticism of her for having made almost a perfect job of hers. She was wrong there, he was glad to see her happy; but he could never bring himself to say so. The children, awed perhaps by his face which grief and the constant thinking had scored deeply, or perhaps warned by their mother, were always too well behaved in his presence. He was the stranger; the father who came and went; came—they must sense it—without joy, and left without regret. And for him the small, comfortable house was haunted by Nathan’s invisible presence. On the door-jamb were the marks which Josodad had scored with his knife, measuring Nathan’s height from time to time. He had said, “Yes, you shall sit up with me through a lambing, when you are so high!” And he’d marked the height, against which the boy would measure himself, standing on his toes, stretching his neck. And hanging on a hook in the wall there had always been, until this day, Nathan’s pipe. There were other reminders too; but this cold day, entering by the door he had looked at the notches and then towards the pipe. He always did, he always would. But on this day the hook was empty.
He greeted his wife, and his elder daughter, named for her mother, who were in the room; the girl her mother’s very image, even to the way she stirred a savoury-smelling pot on the hearth. Then he said, “Where’s Nathan’s pipe?”
His wife said, “Oh, the pipe, Lazarus has it. Mary went along with him to Ebenezer; he is going to teach him to play.”
“Teach him!” Josodad said.
“Nathan taught himself to play. What is more he made that pipe himself. If Lazarus wanted a pipe he should have made his own!” And
then, all at once,knowing that nothing but disharmony could result, but feeling something beyond his power to control, a mental scab which itched, and must be scratched, he said, “And Mary must go along, to guard a boy of seven. Two hundred yards along a village street. What did he think would get him? Wolves?”
The elder Martha said to the younger, “Go and see if the little brown hen has laid yet. She’s our only hope today. If she hasn’t and is on her nest, stand by her.”
“You must watch, this pot, then,” the young Martha said, ‘its bottom is wearing thin and unless you stir the beans stick.”
“That’s my good sensible girl,” Martha said; and she took the long spoon her daughter had been using, but did not employ it. Instead she pulled the pot to the side of the hearth and squared herself, facing Josodad. She said: “You are my husband; but I have had enough of this!”
“Enough of what?”
“Many things,” she said.
“The constant criticism of Lazarus for one. So, he is seven years old, and at that age, we all know, Nathan was a shepherd with short legs and a short crook and he wasn’t afraid of anything. I know, I’m tired of hearing it said, by word or by look. Oh, you may think I cannot read your looks, but I can. And every time I think—One family could not expect to breed two such wonders. One we had, and we lost him—through his own folly. Now we have one ordinary little boy who happens to be timid. Remember, to get to Ebenezer’s he must pass the inn, and that Ephorus is always drunk. Nathan thought him funny, but Lazarus is scared of him; and I for one see nothing wrong with that. Nor with his taking the pipe. Nathan made it; but since there it is, made already, why should Lazarus risk cutting his fingers making another? Tell me that!” And then, before Josodad could frame an answer, if there was one, she ran on:
“There’s another thing, too. And that is why I sent Martha out of the room….” The mention of the good sensible girl reminded her of her duty to the cooking and she turned, gave the savoury mess a perfunctory stir, and went on, her words hitting Josodad like little hailstones.
“You may not have noticed,” she said, ‘but the girls are growing up. Martha is fifteen, and if she isn’t betrothed soon she never will be; Mary is almost fourteen. Have you ever asked yourself what will become of them? In the old days men came to the house, asking your advice, wishing to buy your sheep; anyone with a flock which he wished to improve might very well have taken one of your daughters and a few choice sheep as dowry. But it is very different now.. ..”
He said harshly, “I know that!” He’d realised on his return from Jerusalem that it had been a mistake to sell the whole of his flock outright; he should have sold them and then raised money on the rear, bear, shear and share basis by which he would have been able to claim one lamb out of two, and half the price of the fleeces; but he’d thought of nothing except laying hands on the money and getting away to Jerusalem as quickly as possible. And this woman, fluffing herself out like a hen defending chicks from a hawk, was right to reproach him. He had sacrificed three to one. And uselessly.
“So,” Martha’s voice was relentless, ‘you know. That at least is something. What I am asking is, what do you propose to do about it?”
“What can I do? You know my wage. You know what it costs to live.”
“Who better? So there will be the girls without dowry and they’ll die unwed; Martha, my true daughter, who would make an excellent wife, and Mary, less good in the house, but sweet and gentle. And then,” she said, her voice sharpening, ‘you blame me for treating Lazarus as I do!”
There must be some connection—Martha, even in anger, did not talk incoherently—but he could not see it, and was obliged to say:
“What do you mean by that?”
That I want him to stay alive; to recognise danger, and be careful.” Then she added, “You reared Nathan!”
In the three final words he recognised a twenty-year-old jealousy. Justified, in a way; from the time that he could toddle the boy had always wanted to be with his father, had been as Martha said, ‘a
shepherd with short legs’. And that would havemattered less if another child had been born, or on the way. There was a gap until young Martha was born.
Alongside the jealousy there was blame. He had reared Nathan to be hardy, to minimise risks .. . and so indirectly he was responsible for what had happened. A dreadful accusation, and one he could not accept, but the idea added one more twist to his misery.
Young Martha returned, cradling an egg in her hand. He viewed her from the aspect to which her mother had drawn attention. It was true; somewhere, imperceptibly, she had passed the borderline between childhood and womanhood; and what was going to happen to her?
“Good,” his wife said, seeing the egg.
“Put on the pan and begin to cook it when your brother comes in.”
“Is the boy sick?” Josodad asked, knowing that the question was a return to a sore subject, and yet unable to hold it back.
His daughter answered, saying gravely, “He isn’t sick, but he would be if he ate that,” she indicated the bubbling pot.
“I think the grease upsets him.” She took the long spoon and stirred.
“He has a delicate stomach,” she said.
Then Lazarus and Mary came in and Josodad eyed them as though he were seeing them for the first time. Mary, only a year and a few months younger than Martha, was still a child, thin and angular with beautiful, dreamy, almost sleepy eyes. The boy was tall for his seven years, taller than Nathan had been at that age, but fragile-looking; and, at the moment, wearing a sulky look.
Josodad roused himself and made an effort.
“Well,” he said, ‘and how did the lesson go? Can you play the pipe, Lazarus?”
“No. Ebenezer was horrid to me. He said I had no ear.”
Why that report should please him Josodad could not have said, but it did; and the fact that it did proved that there was something very wrong with him.
“I tried,” Mary said.
“When Lazarus had done,” she glanced at her mother as she made this explanation.
“And I have an ear. Ebenezer said so. And he said it was a pity because pipe-playing is not for girls.”