She saw the girl sway and hobbled forward, hoping to catch her, but she was too late. There Damask lay, rigid and white on the floor, surrounded by the spilt flour and the bits of broken crockery.
In the airless room where Julie had stitched away her girlhood fainting fits had been a commonplace; she knew all the simple ready-to-hand remedies and she applied them, convinced though she was from the first that this was no mere faint. Nor was it a convulsive fit, so horrible to see with its writhings and frothings. The girl lay there as rigid and cold and still as a twelve-hour corpse and only a noisy, battling breath drawn at long intervals showed that she still lived.
When Julie had tried all she knew and the hot little kitchen reeked of burnt feathers, of hartshorn, of sliced onion, of vinegar and pepper recklessly scattered in the hope of provoking a sneeze, Julie thought of the one thing she had not yet tried—brandy. There was, naturally, none in the house, but more likely than not Matt Ashpole would have some. She shrank from the idea of going to their house again—they would guess at and triumph over the cause of Damask’s fit—but she couldn’t let Damask die for such a nicety. Hobbling as fast as she could, she went
across to the Ashpoles’ and was fortunate enough to find Matt alone in the yard, half-heartedly at work gathering his plums.
‘Aye.’ he said, when she had gasped out her request and the reason for it, ‘Hot enough to fell a bullock, ain’t it? Let’s see now … I might hev—and again I might not.’ He came down from the ladder, picked up his old jacket, took the hunting-flask from the pocket and gave it a shake.
‘Ah,’ he said in a satisfied voice, ‘here’s a drop o’ the best. That’ll do the trick.’ He handed over the flask and then said, ‘Want me to come and give you a hand?”
‘Oh no, thank you,’ Julie said hurriedly. ‘Thank you very much. I’ll bring this back soon.’
‘No hurry.’ Matt said. He looked at the laden plum tree with ungrateful distaste and, diving into his pocket again, produced his clay pipe and a screw of tobacco. He’d known all along that it was too hot for working.
Julie hurried back and arrived panting. Damask, still as white as death, was on her feet, once more assembling the pudding materials, her movements so abrupt and jerky that Julie was reminded of an unskilfully handled puppet.
‘Are you all right?’ she gasped out.
‘Quite all right. I’m sorry about the bowl. It was the heat; and I’d hurried.’
‘You set down, my dear, and I’ll make a cup of tea. Never mind about the pudding today. We’ll hang the meat down the well and I’ll deal with it on Monday.’
‘I’m dealing with it now. What’s that you have in your hand?’
‘A little drop of brandy I borrowed.’ She felt the need to excuse such an action. ‘I couldn’t bring you round, you see. I got frightened. I don’t really see the harm … not in illness.’
‘I’m all right. I’d like a cup of tea, though.’
‘You still look queer.’ Julie said, pulling the kettle
from the hob to the centre of the fire. Damask went on
with the pudding, the jerky puppet movements oddly
efficient, her face completely composed. Save for the jerkiness and the ghastly pallor there was nothing to show that she had been shocked into an unconsciousness which must have lasted a full hour; certainly there was no real reason why Julie should feel as though her daughter had died there on the floor and that this was a stranger, something queer and rather frightening, just pretending to be Damask Greenway making the usual pudding. But that was how she did feel.
Julie lifted off the kettle and made the tea, and Damask slipped the pudding-saucepan into the kettle’s place.
‘Now you set down and hev a nice cup of tea.’ Julie said. She felt that over the tea they might talk and Damask might cry and she might comfort her and this feeling of strangeness would pass. Tears, anger, protests—anything would seem more natural.
Damask drank half a cup of tea, then she reached out and picked up Matt’s flask from the corner of the table where Julie had laid it. She unscrewed the cap, poured brandy into Julie’s cup and then into her own.
‘Try that.’ she said. ‘It’s good.’ Julie just stared, unbelieving. ‘The cook at Muchanger always laces her tea if Mr Hook, the butler, has managed to refill their bottle.’
‘And hev you ever .. .’
‘No.’ A slight smile, not in the least like any smile Julie had ever seen on her daughter’s face before, flitted across Damask’s lips. Unaccountably frightened again, she said, sturdily:
‘Well, it’ll do you good. It’ll do us both good. I had a fright too.’
She could feel it doing her good. Every rare cup of tea she ever tasted did her good, made her feel more cheerful, and loosened something tight and knotted which crippled her spirit as the rheumatism crippled her limbs, and now the tea laced with brandy did her twice the good, acted twice as fast. She’d hardly swallowed three mouthfuls before she found the courage and spirit to say, ‘You know, my dear, there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out.’
The stranger across the table jerked its arm up and drank and set the cup down and said, ‘If you don’t mind,
we won’t talk about it.’
‘Oh, of course not,’ Julie agreed hurriedly. ‘I shan’t say a word. We must put a good face on it. Even that time when I told you I went across to ask I did it casual like, and I said “I congratulate you, I’m sure” as natural as natural, though I did feel as though I’d been…’
‘Didn’t I say not to talk about it?’
‘But, my dear, that ain’t natural! Believe me, I know. Living with your father all these years, having to keep everything bottled up. Things turn sour in you. I know. I often think loose tongues and easy tears was what God gave women to help them bear their burdens….’
‘I’d like another cup of tea,’ Damask said. When she had drunk it she went, despite all Julie’s protests, and tidied the workroom.
The rest of the afternoon and evening—except for the fact that Julie did no sewing—passed as usual. At dusk— and now, in August’s third week, the days were beginning to draw in—Amos came home from his foundation-digging and resumed his monologue about the chapel-building. The pudding was dished up and eaten. It was just like an ordinary day, yet Julie’s anxiety and feeling of disaster persisted. When it was time for Damask to go she went with her to the door and, holding her by the arm, said timidly :
‘You will be all right, won’t you?’
Tm all right,’ Damask said.
‘You’re a right brave girl and I’m sure it’ll all turn out for the best.’ She gave Damask one of her rare kisses.
Back in the kitchen, knowing well what reception the remark would receive, she could not refrain from saying:
‘She bore up well, but it was a cruel shock to her.’
‘What was?’ She told him.
‘Oh, that. I told you it was nowt to her. All that fuss!’
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Some control, long strained, gave way; Julie’s voice became sharp and shrill. ‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t like the way she went into a faint that lasted an hour and then got up looking and acting like
think her heart’s broke.’
CHAPTER SIX
Outside the house, in the dark just before moonrise, she stood still and listened to all the voices that were making confusion in her mind. Julie’s voice saying with the steady monotony of a pulse, ‘He’s going to marry Sally Ashpole; marry Sally Ashpole—Ashpole—Ashpole; he’s going to marry …’; Amos’s voice, so certain, so unaware, so righteous, ‘See you in chapel Sunday week; see you in chapel—chapel …’; and that other voice, effortlessly bearing down the others, saying, ‘There you are, that’s the reward of virtue! You’ve got the reward of virtue, Damask Greenway. Sally Ashpole has the wages of sin.’ There the voice went off into peals of satirical laughter, in which, at last, now that she was alone in the dark, she could join. She stood by the bed where the marigolds were dying and let the laughter shake her like the wind, and all the time the tears poured from her eyes, unnoticed. When the hysteria had exhausted itself she could think again, and the thought was like yet another voice within her head—‘I’ve really known all along,’ it said with great calm. ‘Look at Jesus, He never did a sin at all; and how was He treated? God deserted Him at the end too.’