Towers in the Mist Read online

  For the instinct of escape had already seized Joyeuce and suddenly turning on her heel she had done what she had never presumed to do before: left Great-Aunt without Great-Aunt’s permission so to do. As she stood outside in the passage that divided the old lady’s room from the rooms where Canon Leigh and the boys slept, closing the door softly behind her, Great-Aunt’s indignant shouts were battering at her ears, but she went resolutely on down the passage and down the glorious great carved staircase to the hall below where her father was waiting for her; had been waiting for her, sternly and patiently, his sense of humor well battened under, all the time she said her prayers and interviewed Great-Aunt.

  Canon Leigh found the bringing up of his motherless children an arduous business, for the time given to a parent in which to do it seemed so short. Fourteen being a marriageable age the children must by then be ready to shoulder the pains and burdens of adult life with strong characters and tested courage. The period of training was therefore short and intensive and the worst crime a parent could commit was that of sparing the rod and spoiling the child. But poor Canon Leigh, desperately endeavoring to combine the tenderness of a mother with the sternness of a father, found himself as he grew older attaching more and more importance to the value of gentleness and less and less to that of discipline. . . . He could no longer bring himself to beat his daughters, and did not beat his sons with any real concentration or enthusiasm. . . . He loathed beating them. . . . This weakness in him was a sin, and he knew it and confessed it during the long hours when he prayed for them, but it was a sin that even with the help of God he could not conquer. He tried to make up for it by lashing them with his tongue instead, but the tongues of learned and holy men are always singularly wanting in lash and at the end of a long scolding his children were sometimes unaware that there had been one. . . . All except Joyeuce, as sensitive as her father and with the same capacity for suffering as his. She always knew when he was trying to scold and gave him all the help she could.

  That there must be one now she knew and she went steadily across the hall to the great fireplace before which he stood, and knelt for his blessing.

  He gave it, his hand on her head, and there was then an anxious pause.

  “Yes, Father,” she encouraged gently, getting up and standing before him with bent head. He still said nothing and peeping at him out of the corner of her eye she saw him scratching his bald head in perplexity. . . . She must tell him what to say, as usual.

  “I must not talk to young men out of the window,” she said. “It was indiscreet and a bad example for the younger girls.”

  “Thank you, Joyeuce,” he said with eager gratitude.

  “I entirely forgot myself,” said Joyeuce, looking him straight in the eyes. “I have never done it before and I will never do it again; or anything else of an indiscreet nature.”

  “You are my very good daughter, Joyeuce,” he told her, and kissed her three times, on each of her eyelids, that were always a little shadowed with purple because she had too much to do, and on her pointed chin. “I have not hurt you?” he asked anxiously. “I have not said too much?”

  “Not a word too much, Father,” she comforted him, and she went to fetch the children and Dorothy and Diggory from the kitchen for prayers.

  The kitchen led directly from the hall and looked out on the garden. A huge open fireplace with spits for roasting the meat occupied almost the whole of the wall to the right as one entered, while against the left wall stood an open cupboard holding tankards and pewter pots, with a door beside it leading to the still room, a stone-floored fragrant place where the preserves were kept, and the store of herbs and the presses for the linen. Leading out of the still-room were Dorothy Goatley’s tiny slip of a bedroom, and the pastry and the bolting house, where the bread was baked and the flour sifted. From the latter, stone steps led down to the huge dark cellars so thoughtfully provided by Cardinal Wolsey for the beer, the Xeres sack, the skins of Greek wine and the casks of burgundy, to which he had himself been so attached. . . . Only judging others by himself he expected them to have such a lot of it, for the cellars stretched the length of the house and went down into the bowels of the earth. . . . There was never anything in the Leigh cellars but a very modest supply of the inevitable beer.

  The kitchen, like the hall, was stone-floored, with a large well in the center. During the day this was kept carefully covered, and the kitchen table was placed in position over it, but in the early morning both cover and table were removed so that the day’s supply of water could be drawn up and the children’s faces washed.

  They were kneeling round the well now having their ablutions super­intended by Dorothy Goatley, and watching in a fascinated silence while Diggory Colt let down bucket after bucket into the cool depths of the well and brought them up again filled to the brim with cold, sparkling water. The river ran so near them that there was never any lack of water in the well, and during the rainy winter months there was a further supply of water in the cellars, where it stood two feet deep and gave Canon Leigh the rheumatics.

  Dorothy was a delightful round, rosy, blue-eyed person in the middle twenties. Figure she had none, her person being shaped like a loaf of bread: a smaller bulge above being set upon a larger bulge below, with a region of great tightness between the two. She was always clothed in a gray homespun dress covered by a large white apron, and her hair, if she had any, was completely hidden beneath her white cap. Her life had one great love, for her foster-child, Diccon, and one great hatred, for Great-Aunt; the rest of the world she regarded with tolerant amusement.

  Diggory was an old man, though neither he nor anyone else had the slightest idea how old he was. He looked like a withered apple and might have been any age. He had been groom at Mistress Leigh’s old home, had taught her to ride and had never left her, sharing her fortune or misfortune with complete indifference. When she died he made no comment at all but set himself to serve her husband and children with the same morose devotion with which he had served her. He seldom spoke but should there be any little difference with any of the tradesmen he could hit hard. The children and horses and dogs loved him and it seemed he had but to touch the earth with his horny fingers for flowers to grow.

  The little group of children and animals at the well was now augmented by Will and Thomas, aged nine and eight. Giles, the eldest son, was now fifteen and a man full-grown. He was a scholar of Christ Church, and a brilliant one too, and had his own rooms in College, strolling home now and then to shed the light of his countenance upon his family when he felt it would do them good.

  Will and Thomas were very alike and almost as inseparable as the twins. They were cheerful, untidy children with matted shocks of the Leigh honey-colored hair, wide, inquiring gray eyes and large mouths that required a lot of filling. They were thoroughly naughty in a healthy way but they had none of Diccon’s deliberate wickedness. As far as Canon Leigh could see they had no intelligence at all, and neither had the twins. The brains of the family were in the brilliant Giles, Joyeuce and Grace. It was impossible as yet to form any judgment as to Diccon’s mental equipment. Cunning he had in plenty, and concentration and immense strength of will, but with what ends in view he would choose to exert these gifts no one dared prophesy.

  “Father is here and it is time for prayers,” said Joyeuce.

  Grace, Will, Thomas and the twins hastily jumped up and rubbed their faces dry but Diccon, lying flat on his stomach peering into the depths of the well, had to be lifted up, yelling loudly, and forcibly placed upon his feet. . . . Another of the unfortunate traits in Diccon’s character was that he would never be devout unless forced to it.

  Joyeuce led the procession from the kitchen back to the hall, the children following her in order of age and Dorothy and Diggory and the animals bringing up the rear.

  The children knelt in a row before their father to receive his morning blessing, each little head being bent in turn
as his hand was laid upon it; with the exception of Diccon’s, and Diccon never lowered his head unless it was to bite. He had, on one terrible occasion, bitten his father when his father blessed him, but the punishment meted out to him later by his outraged brothers and sisters had been so severe that he had decided against repeating his performance.

  There was a window on one side of the front door and passers-by in the quadrangle who happened to look in at a quarter to six in the morning always saw a sight they did not forget; they were moved to edification or to mirth according to their several convictions and temperaments but were all alike impressed by the beauty of the picture.

  In front of the fireplace, where nearly all the year round a log fire burned, for the room faced north and was cold, Canon Leigh would be standing, looking like a monk with his bald head and long black belted gown. In front of him in a long row stood his children in gradually decreasing order of age and height, and behind them stood Dorothy and old Diggory. Tinker the cat would be clasped in Diccon’s arms, and the three dogs, Posy and Spot and Pippit, would be sitting very reverently upon their haunches beside Diggory. . . . Canon Leigh loved animals as dearly as his children did and saw no incongruity in the attendance of these quadrupeds at family prayers. . . . The flickering light of the flaming logs would gleam on the dark wood of the paneled walls and the glorious carved staircase, on the long oak dining table where in summer a beau-pot of flowers always stood, on the fair heads of the elder children and the ruddy darkness of Diccon’s mop of curls, on the rich ebony of Tinker’s fur and the soft, mousy velvet of Pippit’s coat. . . . And last but not least the macabre apparition of an old woman in a frilled nightcap looking out of an overhead window, a sinister, black-browed witch of an old woman who laughed a silent, toothless laugh when her mocking bright eyes fell on the group below.

  “Funes ceciderunt mihi in praedaris,” Canon Leigh would say in his deep, amazingly beautiful voice, and the children and servants, who knew the verses by heart, would reply, “Haereditas mihi praedara est mihi.” They would recite turn and turn about until they got to the end, Diggory’s deep bass growl mingling with the children’s piping trebles, and then they would kneel, holding up their clasped hands, and say the Lord’s Prayer; the dogs lying flat with their noses between their paws and Diccon forced to his knees by Dorothy’s vigorous hand dealing him two blows, one behind each little knee. . . . This was the best method yet discovered of making Diccon pray. . . . Though when he had been forced into the correct posture for devotion, and knelt with his green eyes fixed on the ceiling—he always refused to shut them—and his plump hands piously clasping Tinker to his breast, who knew whether the thoughts in his mind were those his well-wishers would have chosen? . . . It was feared not.

  On most mornings the Lord’s Prayer was followed by breakfast but every now and then Canon Leigh, who did not seem to feel the pangs of hunger like other people, and was really more suited by temperament to be one of those Indian mystics who sit out a lifetime praying on the top of a tower with their legs round their necks, than the father of a family, would suddenly be lifted up on the wings of prayer and go on soaring higher and higher, oblivious of the hungry, earth-bound bodies of his wretched family.

  He did this today. He began praying for the suffering, the homeless, the destitute and the sick, above all for the hungry children who had not where to lay their heads. He went on and on. His family were only too pleased to pray for hungry children, provided they were given their own breakfast first, but while they were still themselves among the afflicted they found it difficult. Dorothy, who had left the milk on the hob, cast agonized glances at Diggory, the younger children stirred restlessly and Great-Aunt began to beat an impatient tattoo upon her windowpane. But Canon Leigh, passing on from the general to the particular, began to pray for a certain destitute boy whom he had that morning encountered. . . . That he might be found. . . . Comforted. . . . Fed.

  Great-Aunt could stand it no longer. She flung open her window and leaned out. “Gervas,” she shouted, “hold your tongue!”

  Canon Leigh started and looked up; taken by surprise, bewildered and uncertain of himself, he got to his feet without knowing what he was doing, while Dorothy fled to the kitchen and the children ran to seat themselves round the table before he could change his mind and begin again.

  Seated in his big carved chair at the head of the table Canon Leigh again looked up at his aunt and marveled at the power she had over them all. She was a wicked destructive old lady who had worried his wife into her grave, ruined his home, and now, so it seemed to him, spent her time seizing hold of all the fair flowers of piety and love that might blossom in his house and pulling them up by the roots. . . . And yet, with her burning vitality, her iron will, her good humor when she got her own way, and bearing still in face and figure the remnants of great beauty, she was attractive, and he could not but smile at her as she nodded and waved from her window.

  She was in fine fettle now that Dorothy had brought her a good brimming tankard of ale and a plate of cold roast beef minced up very finely, and looked down benignly upon the children and their father below, with their mugs of milk and manchets of coarse bread. A wishy-washy diet, she considered, and responsible for their wishy-washy characters. She had the lowest opinion of all of them, except Diccon, and interfered with good-humored contempt in their talk of the boy whom Canon Leigh had so unfortunately lost. . . . The children were sorry about the poor boy now that they had had something to eat.

  “I wish you hadn’t lost him, Father,” mourned Joyeuce.

  “Perhaps we’ll find him again,” said Grace hopefully.

  “Heaven forbid,” said Great-Aunt, and chewed a spoonful of minced beef with enjoyment.

  “Dame,” said Canon Leigh gravely, “I desire that you will not turn aside the thoughts of my children from the love of charity.”

  “Bugs,” said Great-Aunt. “That’s what charity is: the bringing in of bugs to the house,” and she took a draught of ale.

  “You will be so good,” said her nephew sternly, “as to shut your window.”

  “Tilly-vally! Tilly-vally!” exclaimed Great-Aunt, but having had enough of them she banged the window shut and gave her whole attention to her food.

  Canon Leigh, though he had apparently won a victory that should have compensated him for his previous defeat, felt no sense of satisfaction in it. . . . He knew that Great-Aunt’s rare retirements from the field of battle were the result not of defeat but of boredom. . . . He drooped in his chair, worrying about that boy; wishing for the hundredth time that there were still monasteries in England, and that they opened their doors to married men.

  The twins, observing his depression of spirits, slid solidly to the floor, trundled across to him and climbed each upon a knee. “Never mind, Father,” they cooed, “we’ll find that little boy,” and laying their fat cheeks against his they squeaked engagingly.

  They had a habit of squeaking, like mice, that was peculiar to themselves and was used with much effect to express affection, surprise, condolence, happiness, or any other emotion which might seem called for at the moment; though it was the happiness squeak that was used most often and was the most attractive, in spite of a tendency to end in hiccups. For it was the happiness of the twins that made them so adorable. They were as happy as the first buttercup lifting its face to the sun, or as a blackbird singing at sunset, or as the streams when they “make sweet music with the enameled stones.” They would always be happy, their father thought, being of that radiant company whose business in life it seems to be simply to be joyous, their joy a vindication of the eternal rightness of the foundations of this life. . . . With a twin in each arm he suddenly ceased to feel the attraction of the cloister.

  But time was going on. There was a constant patter of feet on the path under the window, and a succession of flying figures crossing the quadrangle, for work began at six and scholars were hurrying to their l
ectures. Great Tom boomed out the hour from the Cathedral tower and Canon Leigh set the twins hastily upon the floor and hurried into the study to fetch the hooks he needed for his six o’clock lecture.

  Sighing, and wiping their mouths with the backs of their hands, Will and Thomas slid to the floor and got their school books from the chest under the window, just as Dorothy entered from the kitchen with their dinners in little leather bags. They attended the grammar school at Queen’s College, where they went every morning at six o’clock, returning at five-thirty in the evening. Of this eleven hours’ working day two hours, eleven to one, were free for eating the dinners of cold meat and bread that they brought with them, and for shooting at the butts, but the rest of the time was devoted to grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy.