Quincunx Read online

  I recall the rough feel of the gate as I clasped its top in my hands to hold myself steady for each swing. The metal spikes were hot in the sunlight and the rust and black paint came flaking off in my fingers. With my feet thrust between the uprights of the gate and my frocks pressed against the frame, I pushed off from the jamb-post bending my body one way and then the other so that the gate swung out to its fullest reach and then fell back under its own weight, gathering speed as the ground sped past until it crashed home with a loud clang. I knew I wasn’t supposed to do this, of course, and my mother had already reproved me as she sat on a garden seat at her work a few paces away.

  Backwards and forwards I swung, lulled by the rhythm of the squeaking hinge, with the sun warm on my face, and the soft breeze carrying to me the scent of flowers and the smell of freshly-cut grass. I would close my eyes to listen to the loud buzzing of bees, then open them to gaze upwards at the blue sky and fleecy clouds that circled dizzily over my head as the gate hurtled downwards.

  Suddenly a harsh voice that seemed to be right at my ear said: “Stop it at once, you wicked creatur’. You know that ain’t allowed.”

  Distracted, I let the gate crash against the jamb harder than I intended and was stunned by the blow. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I was really hurt, but whether I was or not, I knew how to appeal for reassurance.

  I was taking a deep breath for that purpose when the voice came again: “Don’t you set to a-bawlin’, now. You’re too old for that.”

  “But I’m hurt,” I cried out.

  “Then you’ve been justly sarved,” Bissett jeered as she seated herself beside my mother.

  “It’s not just,” I cried. “It was your fault for calling out like that.”

  “Don’t answer again, dearest,” my mother said.

  “I hate you, Bissett, you always spoil things.”

  “You wicked child! I can see I s’all have to take my hand to you again.”

  “No you shan’t for Mamma has forbidden you,” I jeered.

  “Why no such thing, you story-teller!”

  Yet I knew it was true for my mother had promised me it was, but before I could say so she laid her hand to her mouth unseen by Bissett and I consented to hold my peace. Bissett, still grumbling about my wickedness, picked up her work: “I’ll have no more of your malpertness. Now stand there in my eye and don’t make no more mischief.”

  Though I was indignant at being ordered to stay, at least Bissett didn’t know that there was nowhere else I wanted to be just then, for the great treat of the day was about to take place.

  “It’s too bad, ma’am, it really is,” Bissett began. “She’s let her work go for nought these last few days hangin’ around Limbrick’s workmen.”

  “Oh, but they’ve just about finished now.”

  “And glad I’ll be to see the back of ’em. For I hate to have men in the house. Nasty noisy creatur’s! And a fearful nuisance they’ve been with their buckets and their hods and their ladders. And that young mawkin and Mrs Belflower — who ought to know better — invitin’ ’em into the kitchen five times a day.”

  “I understand,” put in my mother timidly, “one of them is a cousin of hers.”

  “Cousin,” repeated Bissett darkly. “If you mean that young good-for-nought, Job Greenslade, well, kissing-cousins is what they are, if cousins at all. Out companying at all hours! It may not be my place to say it, but I’m sure there are many well-conducted, natty girls in the village,” Bissett went on, speaking with difficulty through a mouthful of pins, “would sarve a lot better than her, ma’am.”

  “But she’s a good-natured, honest girl for all her faults. And Master Johnnie’s fond of her. And then we should help her in her mother’s recent sorrow.”

  Bissett sniffed expressively. “Sorrer,” she repeated. “It’s a rotted pea as you’ll get of a rotted pod. You’re too soft on the gal, ma’am.”

  At this moment I heard the cattle approaching from the direction of the High-street and an instant later they came crowding past the gate accompanied by a boy who was something of a hero to me for the nonchalant way in which he wielded his stick as he followed the herd. The dismal lowing and the way they competed for passage through the narrow lane were delightfully frightening, and I knew I was safe because of the sturdy gate that stood between us. But today something unprecedented happened. Suddenly one of them seemed to catch my eye — I can describe it in no other way — and began to make its way across the flow towards the gate, butting its way through the herd with an awful purposefulness. I knew in an instant that it had some terrible and irresistible mission to accomplish that involved me, and yet I could not stir to save myself. As the animal’s huge head came thrusting towards the gate I saw its bulging blood-stained eyes rolling in their black leathery sockets, its huge teeth parting as if to close again upon my cheeks, and its thick, twisting, pointed horns like strange tree-trunks rising from the matted grass-like brown hair. I knew the gate would splinter and give way in an instant if that mighty head should be borne against it, and yet I continued to stand and stare, unable to move.

  Then at last I turned and ran, my heart pounding in my ears while my legs rose and fell without seeming to carry me over the ground. Through my tears two blurred figures were visible a few yards away, rising to their feet and looking towards me in alarm — the one slender and flower-like in a bright gingham dress, the other standing out as a stark white shape against the greenness of the grass.

  “That nasty cow!” I wailed. “Don’t let him hurt me!”

  In a moment I had buried my face in the starched white apron of my nurse and her arms were about my shoulders as she pressed me tightly to her and soothed me with the chiding, almost jeering, tone that she used on such occasions.

  I best remember Bissett at this period as a crisp, slightly astringent aroma of starched apron and gown, a faintly apple-like smell, fresh and a little forbidding. When I close my eyes I can remember looking up at a reddish face fringed by the few strands of grey hair that were visible beneath her lace cap. Her eyes were a pale shade of grey and her mouth was thin — and grew thinner on the rare occasions when she pressed her lips together in such a way that they gave the impression, without compromising themselves, of going up a little at the ends.

  Now surely a few tears were permitted, but Bissett shook me and said: “Come, you ain’t a baby no more. Why, in no time at all, you’ll be a growed man and have to take care on your mother.”

  I looked at her in surprise but at that moment my mother called out: “You’re safe now, my dearest. The cows have gone. Come and kiss me.”

  I tried to, but Bissett held my arm tightly: “Don’t mar him, ma’am,” she said. “And see, you’ve your work that he’ll disarrange.”

  I broke free of her grip and made for my mother’s lap, sending her needles, thread, and embroidery-frame crashing to the ground. I heard Bissett scolding us both but I didn’t care.

  I don’t need to close my eyes to summon up the remembrance of my mother: the cascade of fair curls that flowed over her shoulders and down to her bosom so that when I snuggled up against her now my hands and face were plunged in among the soft scentedness; the sweet face with its gentle mouth; and the wide blue eyes that were bright now with tears for my own grief.

  “Don’t you let him bother you, ma’am,” Bissett objected. “Look at your work, now, fallen all in a tumble on the grass.”

  “It’s of no account, nurse,” my mother said.

  “Why so it is, indeed! Good cloth and thread! Let him go and plague Mr Pimlott.”

  “Yes, Johnnie. Why not find Mr Pimlott and ask him what he is doing. He seems to be making a hole. Do you think he can be burying something?”

  “Why, I know what it is,” my nurse interrupted. “I meant to mind and tell you, ma’am: he’s aiming to make hisself a nice new weskit out of what rightly belongs to you. But it ain’t his property but yourn since it’s on your land and it’s your time as he’s doing it in.”
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  My mother sighed but I heard no more for in an instant I was flying away across the terrace and then down the steps and over the grass-plat whose smooth surface was marred by a small mound of earth.

  “Mr Pimlott! Mr Pimlott!” I cried as I raced towards the edge of the lawn where he was at work. “What are you doing? Can I help you?”

  He was kneeling down and at my approach he raised his sun-darkened face and looked at me with an expression I could not read. I was rather in awe of him, partly because he was that strange creature, a man, and the only one I knew at all well. I wasn’t sure what being a man meant, except that he was large, the skin on his face looked rough, and he smelt of earth and tobacco.

  “Now, little mester,” he said, “don’t ye come a-pestering me with questions. I aren’t paid to abide ’em, like some.”

  “But Bissett told me to come and find you so that you can give me something to do.”

  “That ain’t no consarn of mine. Mrs Bissett don’t give me orders, the Lord be praised. Though she sometimes thinks she do.”

  I watched him for a few moments as he worked in silence. He was reaching into a hole that was more like a burrow than a pit and manipulating a long-handled tool with awkward jabbing strokes.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He made no reply but looked up at the sun shielding his eyes from its still bright glare. Then he withdrew the tool so that I saw how very long it was, and began banging it up and down on the grass to dislodge the earth trapped by the head. For its shape was very strange indeed with the blade curved almost into hooks on either side. He laid it down and began to gather up his other tools and place them on the grass beside the great wooden box in which he kept them.

  “What have you been doing today, Mr Pimlott?” I asked in desperation.

  Still without replying he began smearing thick grease like clear honey across the metal parts of the tools before wrapping each one up in a piece of soft-leather and carefully placing it in the box. They had always been objects of fascination to me: the fearsome spikes of the forks, the dibble with its two prongs for extracting thistles, and the spades with their heavy wooden handles polished smooth by use, the iron clamps that held metal and wood together, and above all, the blades that glittered so brightly and so surprisingly where the bare metal was kept shiny by being rammed hard and often into the earth.

  “What’s this one called?” I asked him, indicating the long-handled one with the curiously hooked blade. “Is it a spade or a trowel?”

  “Don’t you touch it,” he said. “It’s very sharp.”

  “And this one?” I asked, and pointed to another that I had never seen him use.

  He glanced at me. “That? Why, that’s my grubbin’-hoe.”

  “What do you use it for?”

  He looked at me for a long moment: “Why, I grubs.”

  Encouraged by this reply, I looked round at the signs of his work: “Why have you dug up that tree?” I demanded, indicating a pear-tree lying on its side with its roots brutally exposed.

  “On account of it has the canker.”

  “The canker,” I repeated. Now here was an interesting new word and I repeated it several times to extract its full flavour. “What is the canker?”

  “It’s a distemper as trees gets. And people, too. It rots ’em both away from inside.”

  At this he opened his mouth suddenly, exposing a few blackened stumps, and made a harsh noise that I took for a laugh.

  “But it looks all right. It seems a shame to kill it.”

  “Why, anythin’ old or ill is to be throwed away or killed. And who has the right to pull up that tree if not I?”

  “Why do you, Mr Pimlott? Surely it’s my mother’s tree?”

  He turned away from me and delivered over his shoulder the longest response I had ever heard from him: “You want to know why? Because I planted it, that’s why. A dozen year or more a-fore your mither even come here, let alone you. What did you think? That it just growed of its own self? Everythin’ in this world has to be planted. And needs tending. Like yourself, with Mrs Bissett a-tendin’ of you. That is, if she done her work instead of leavin’ it to gossip and make trouble and let you come and bother folks as has work to do if she don’t.”

  When he had finished I allowed a minute or two to pass before my curiosity overcame me again: “Are you burying the tree in that hole?” He shook his head. “Are you going to plant another?”

  “No. If you has to be told, I’m setting a trap for Old Mouldiwarp.”

  “You mean ‘mole’, Mr Pimlott. That’s the proper word.”

  “I means what I says.”

  “But why are you trapping him, Mr Pimlott?”

  “On account of he comes in and digs up your mither’s grass-plat as she pays me to keep nice. He don’t reckernise no rights of property, don’t Old Mouldiwarp. And so he must be killed.”

  “But that isn’t right.”

  “Right, Master John?” He turned to me and looked at me keenly: “When he comes straight in and takes however many muck-worms he wants without so much as a by-your-leave?”

  I could see the error in this argument immediately: “But we don’t want the worms.”

  “You don’t want the worms? No, in course you don’t want the worms. But no more don’t you want for no-one else to come boldly in and ketch them worms, being as they’re yourn.”

  I thought about this because I was sure there was a reply, but without waiting for me to find it, the gardener went on: “Well, howsomever, he’s ketched enough worms and now I’ll ketch him, for he has something I want, and if I’m clever enough I’ll get it of him. And that’s the way the world goes: if you don’t eat him, he’ll eat you.”

  “So are you digging a hole for him to fall into and be caught?”

  Mr Pimlott grimaced: “Not him. He’s a deal too ’cute for that. He lives underground, don’t he? So holes is what he knows about just the way I knows about plants and Mrs Bissett knows about other folks’ business. Oh no, you have to be clever to ketch Old Mouldiwarp asleep.”

  “Then how will you do it, Mr Pimlott?”

  “The only way is, you have to make him ketch himself.” He indicated the excavation. “This is one of his own burrers, see, so he won’t be a-feared of no trap. So I digs out a deep hole inside of it — which is what that there molin’-spade is for — and at the bottom I s’all place a gin with a spring and then cover it over with all leaves and earth. And if I’ve been canny enough, then Old Mouldiwarp’ll come looking for muck-worms and he’ll spring it and get ketched by his leg or mebbe his snout. And then I’ll make him turn tailor and fashion me a new coat.”

  For a moment I imagined a captured mole holding a needle and thread in its delicate little paws and stitching away, and I laughed in disbelief. Seeing that I didn’t understand Mr Pimlott touched his waistcoat which I had often noticed because it was so shiny and darkly glossy.

  “But that’s horrid!” I whispered in delight. I looked at the moleskin and it seemed strange to me that something so beautiful should come from the damp earth.

  “That’s why I aren’t using a trap. I want his coat unsp’iled.”

  “How cruel!” I cried and thought of the mole struggling and dying in the darkness. Mr Pimlott laughed shortly. Now I remembered something and exclaimed: “But Bissett said the mouldiwarp isn’t yours to make use of.”

  “Oh did she?” Mr Pimlott said, turning away.

  “How many do you need for a waistcoat?”

  Now, however, he appeared not to be listening as he fastened his box, picked it up, shouldered the long-handled tools, and began to make his way to the top of the garden. I watched him touch his forehead to my mother and nod briefly at Bissett before he went out through the gate into the lane and turned towards the High-street and his neat little cottage nearby.

  Now that I suddenly found myself alone at the bottom of the garden, a daring and wicked thought came to me. I looked to see that Bissett and my mother w
ere not observing me, and made my way through the apple-orchard, where I was truly out of sight, and into the Wilderness that lay beyond it. I passed quite easily through the tall grass, overgrown shrubs, and tangled bushes at the edge, but beyond that were ancient, stocky trees that spread their twisted branches into phantastic shapes as if pleading for more light, and here the darkness began to close about me and the sinister branches seemed to be reaching out to me like the long fingers of huge hands. Although I was only a few yards from the garden with its murmur of bees and rustling of trees in the gentle wind, it was as if I had passed through a door into another world for here there was no sound at all.

  Something fluttered against my face, and as I brushed it away, suddenly there was a shape in front of me: a face with sightless eyes like the marble sculls I knew from the monuments on the walls of the village church. The features were worn away — cankered, it occurred to me — and the surface of the stone was like a skin that was deeply pitted. Terrified, I stepped back but to my horror found myself held in a firm grip. I pulled again but to no avail. My heart pounded, and I felt a panic beginning to rise inside me. Desperately I wriggled again and at last came free. As I began to back away I heard a cry that seemed to come from a very long way away. It came again and I recognised the voice of my nurse.

  Almost grateful for the summons, I fought my way back through the tangled undergrowth into the bright sunlight of the garden.

  “Master Johnnie!” Bissett was calling from out of sight at the top of the garden. “Where are you?”

  Was it my imagination or was there a note of fear in her tone? I hastened up the steps and when I gained the upper terrace I found her turned to her right and I followed her gaze.

  My mother was standing at the gate with an individual whom I had never seen before. He stood in the lane talking to her with passionate intensity, his eyes fixed on her face and his hands (one holding a stick) gesticulating, while she listened with her eyes cast down, nodding her head occasionally. My first thought was that he might be a pedlar, for they were the only strangers who came to the house and he seemed to be trying to sell my mother something. But then I saw that he was not dressed like one and carried no pack.