China Court Read online

  Minna never succeeds in getting the children to speak a word of German and she is most unhappy. She suffers in the long mild Cornish winter; at night, when she turns her face into her pillow, its stiff white slopes make her think of the mountains round her home where there are hundreds of fir trees hung with frost, and tracks of sleigh runners like railway lines over the snow. ‘We have snow, but it seldom lies,’ says Mrs Quin and she adds, ‘Our winter is beautiful.’

  It is beautiful but, ‘No snow,’ says Minna. Even in December, the garden has scatterings of flowers that worry her, they seem to deny the winter. ‘It is not-so – to see the flowers in winter,’ says Minna. ‘They should not have came,’ but no one understands what she means.

  That makes her feel more than ever a foreigner; but does anyone, she asks silently, even those who have breathed it all their lives, feel at home in this chill, damp, heavy Cornish air? They do not, to Minna, seem at home; they seem each apart, cold, private, even the children. They are so different, these English children, from any Minna has known; they live apart in rooms of their own; they are dressed in colourless clothes; they have very young pink faces and an elderly aloofness and they laugh unfeelingly at her halting English. Everyone laughs at that; even Mrs Quin has a fleeting controlled expression that tells Minna at once that she has said something funny. ‘You will begin your work tomorrow, Minna.’

  ‘Yes, Madame, and I shall give you an extraordinary performance, I can promise you.’

  They all laugh at Minna so kindly, but to live she has to speak and that does not seem to occur to them. There is someone who does not laugh at her, Groundsel, who is the young gardener-handyman.

  ‘Handyman’ is a good description of Groundsel – he is handy and he is a man. He helps with the horses, stokes the boiler, and mends the lawnmower; on his hands there is always dirt or earth or grease, but they are good-looking hands. He is a black Cornishman, very swarthy, with dark and wavy hair. He has never been out of Cornwall in his life and yet he has sympathy with Minna. From the first day that she comes, he looks at her in an especial way ‘and doesn’t laugh,’ says Minna.

  As the light grew and the birds sang, not the larks but the garden birds, the house seemed to wait for its accustomed stir.

  When Cecily first comes, at fourteen, she has to be downstairs before six to light the fire for the morning baths. On Wednesdays she has to black-lead the big range, polishing the steel, and every day, when she has carried in the coals, she goes down on her hands and knees and scrubs the stones around it. ‘Lily-white, they had to be,’ says Cecily often, telling of this. There had been no young kitchen maid to do that for years and yet the stones still showed whiter than the rest.

  Now Cecily slept and nothing stirred. No windows were open, except Mrs Quin’s; the front and back doors were locked; Trill, the kitchen canary, was covered in his cage; Moses, the cat, slept in the kitchen armchair; Bumble was alone in his basket in the hall because Cecily had prevailed on Groundsel to take August home for the night. ‘He’s driving me mad with his panics,’ she said.

  There have always been dogs at China Court: Dreadnought, Eustace’s bulldog, Jared’s gun-dogs, and, in the stables in Lady Patrick’s time, two brisk little Jack Russell terriers, often lent to the hunt – Borowis names them Nuts and May. In summer too, there is often a hound puppy being walked, but August, the big poodle, is like a living nerve in the house. He is called August because he is given to Mrs Quin by the girls in August, just a year ago, ‘So that when Bumble goes there will be another dog with you,’ they say. Bumble is devoted, very much a dog, but August quivers with intelligence and is as clever as any human, with more than human antennae; his coat is black and his eyes are peat brown, the colour of the deep pools in the moor rivers. When he is clipped, his head looks as if it wore a black perruque and he has moustaches, while below the fleecy cowboy chaps of his legs his paws are delicate and smooth with long black nails. At first Mrs Quin looks at him in dismay. ‘But I’m used to spaniels.’

  ‘A poodle is a change,’ say the girls, but, ‘I’m not a change,’ say those poodle eyes. ‘I am forever. I am August.’

  It was Moses who lifted his head when he heard the sound of a car, then the steps on the drive. Bumble was too deaf, too dim and amiable to stir. The steps were so light that they did not wake Cecily, but they were walking certainly. They came up to the front door and there was the sound of a key put in the lock and turned, though slowly, as if it were not accustomed to being used. The door opened and Bumble woke, but, instead of growling, he too lifted his head for a moment, and then his tail thumped as if someone he recognized as belonging to the family had come home.

  Come home: when one of Mcleod the Second’s famille rose bowls or vases is rung it gives off a sound, clear, like a chime, the ring of true porcelain; so China Court gives off the ring of a house, a true home. That ring is in sight; the first sight of any house that has smoke going up from the chimneys or clothes alive in the wind on the line; in Adza’s day the laundry maids come from the village, and sheets, pillowcases, towels, and huge white tablecloths are hung out as well as pinafores in dwindling sizes, dresses, shirts, nightgowns, frilly drawers, and socks. It is a long time till Alice slips Tracy’s dungarees and shirts on the line and then when Mrs Quin’s nightgown, stockings, and vest, and Cecily’s, wave there alone.

  Home, too, is in the sight of curtains opened every morning, drawn at evening; in the light through windowpanes; light on polished doorknobs, on the letter box and knocker; it is in cuttings and seed-plots in the garden, and in cats. The China Court cats inherit, one after the other, the sunny windowsill outside the morning room. In spring, the bed below it is planted with wallflowers; the cats lie there half drugged by the heavy sweetness.

  Home is very much in the smell of a house; at China Court the smell is always of smoke, peat and wood-smoke; of flowers, polish, wine, and lavender; of wet wool from the outdoor coats, the drab smell of gumboots and galoshes, and earlier, of dubbin rubbed into gaiters; and of gun oil and of paraffin for the lamps. On Mondays the prevailing smell is of soap and water, boiling and steam; on Wednesdays of baking. That is perhaps the best smell; when the bread-oven door is opened, the scent of hot loaves fills all the house. ‘But I like hot cherry pie best,’ says Borowis, for the ring of home is in taste as well. John Henry likes steak and onions. To Ripsie, in the emptiness of her inside, the smell of all food is so entrancing that she cannot choose. On Tuesdays the smell is of hot linen, sometimes of singeing from ironing, while always there are smaller special smells: the smell of the tortoiseshell tea caddy; of a bowl of dried rose leaves; of whitening from the hearthstones. Sometimes there is a slight smell of cat, for one of them, the black sprite called Cuckoo, prefers not to go outside when it is cold and she uses the basin in the servants’ cloakroom.

  Home is, too, in touch: feeling the fine grain of wood and the roughness of stone; the smoothness of starched linen and, to Damaris, youngest of the Brood, the horrible feel of the flannelette strips that have to be knitted into squares on thick wooden needles for the hospitals. What do the hospitals use them for? She is never told, but she knits, while her sisters, Mary, Eliza, and Anne, more patient and more capable than she, make samplers. Eliza’s, as usual, is the best sampler, and one worked by her still hangs in Mrs Quin’s bedroom:

  Give me O Lord thy early grace

  Nor let my soul complain

  That the young morning of my days

  Has all been spent in vain.

  Eliza is five years old then and very pious.

  The ring of home is, too, in the feel of paper, of firelight warm on fingers, of ivory piano keys and cold housekeys, in the softness of a cat’s fur stroked, a child’s hair brushed, in kisses, but most of all, home is in sound.

  The sound of bells pealed, of clocks all over the house, from the clock in the hall, a grandfather in a mahogany case, to the French clock with its painted cupid under the glass dome in the drawing room. The clocks tick and taps
run; there is a sound of a twig broom, a besom, sweeping the paths; of a chopper as wood is split for kindling; of the lawnmower on sleepy afternoons and the rhythmic slap-slap-slap of a horse being groomed. There are dog barks and cat purrs; the sound of rooks and Cecily’s guinea fowls – ‘horrid noisy pests,’ Bella calls them – and always there is the sound of footsteps, running up and down stairs, pacing the terrace, high heels tapping on polished floors or flagstones; the scuffling steps of boys kicking out their boots and children’s steps and maids’; and there are voices, from the garden, the dining room, the kitchen, nursery, and stairs, so that it is difficult to tell who is speaking.

  ‘It would be nice at Christmas … velvet … the bridesmaids could have small muffs.’

  ‘Twelve pounds of tapioca. Twelve pounds! It’s impossible.’

  ‘A Baptist missionary, not even C.M.S.’

  ‘You walked straight into the lion’s den, you little fool.’

  ‘Ach, yes! Ach, yes! I love.’

  ‘He is a professional charmer.’

  ‘That’s a rare book. Touch it carefully.’

  ‘No more idea than a babe unborn.’

  ‘Mother says it’s twaddle.’

  ‘He can’t sell that. It was Mcleod’s.’

  ‘Who said you could play here?’

  Now the new light steps ceased, as if somebody stood in the hall and listened; there was a long pause, then lightly they ran up the stairs, crossed the landing, and knocked at Mrs Quin’s door.

  That soft knock woke Cecily. Half asleep she mumbled, ‘Come in,’ then, like a dog on guard, in a flash she was wide awake. There is no one in the house, no one! Cecily remembered and all Mrs Abel’s tales woke in her mind. No one could get in. No one had the key. Her legs were suddenly cold, and her hands cold too as they gripped the chair; her hair felt as if it crept on her scalp.

  The soft knock came again, but Cecily’s throat was dry and she could not speak. She could only give a small choked croak. The handle turned and, slowly, the door opened.

  There was another pause. Then startled, frightened young eyes met hers. They looked and Cecily half rose from her chair. ‘So that was who …’ began Cecily. ‘So that … It is … It is, isn’t it?’ She was still not certain. ‘Isn’t it?’ Then, ‘It is,’ more positively, and ‘Tracy!’ cried Cecily. ‘Tracy!’

  Tierce

  Flammescat igne caritas accendat ardor proximos …

  MAY THE FIRE OF LOVE BURN EVER BRIGHT, ENKINDLING OTHERS WITH ITS FLAME.

  HYMN FOR TIERCE FROM MRS QUIN’S Day Hours

  The Angel and the Shepherds The scene is set in a field in winter. The angel stretches out his hands to comfort the frightened shepherds, who are kneeling with their hats doffed. His presence seems to warm the bleak landscape. A few sheep are straying about.

  Full border of conventional flowers, poppies, cornflowers, sheaves of wheat, and ivy leaves, painted in colours and heightened with gold. Grotesque of a bearded man’s head without a body, but with arms and legs growing from it.

  MINIATURE FACING THE OPENING OF TIERCE IN THE HORAE BEATAE VIRGINIS MARIAE, FROM THE HOURS OF ROBERT BONNEFOY

  Peter brought up the milk. He was still swollen-eyed and lightheaded with tiredness and want of sleep, but he had bathed, shaved, and put on clean clothes. ‘I want to pay my respects,’ he might have said, ‘my very profound respects.’ On top of the milk can was a bunch of clover. He had picked it because the cow, Clover, had calved in the night. Night! Two o’clock this morning, thought Peter. Though he could not help feeling happiness and relief about the calf, in his heart was the same unbearable ache of loneliness.

  As he and Mrs Quin had hoped, it was a heifer calf. There would be seven in the herd now – And this one looks a beauty, thought Peter. That was not all – the threshing yesterday had yielded an average of one and a half tons of wheat for every acre. ‘Not bad,’ said Peter. He would have to sell his wheat, as he had no room to store it, but he would keep the straw. Yesterday at this time there was only promise; today this augmentation. I must be more than two hundred pounds richer, thought Peter, and again it was not only that: the corn and the calf were proof of his work and planning – And I was quite wise, thought Peter, surprised – the planning and the work of every day.

  In spite of his sadness, of knowing what must happen, those two words every day seemed that morning to Peter the most beautiful in the world, heartlessly beautiful when he thought that for Mrs Quin these were not every days but the last. Tomorrow, or the next day perhaps, they will bury her, thought Peter. He could not believe it. The marigolds along the kitchen-garden path brushed dew on his gaiters – he, as she did, liked boots and gaiters better than gumboots – the sun shone on the dew, drawing out sparkles, throwing long shadows; he had never seen the garden look more alive, heartlessly alive, thought Peter. It should have been grey, shrouded for this last day. That was written now in capitals in his mind: LAST DAY, but smoke was going up from one of the chimneys; the kitchen fire was lit. It was like a calm message from the house; last days too are every day, said the message.

  Anyone walking up from the China Court kitchen garden to the house in high summer must come upon the sweet peas behind the low wall, a thick hedge of them making a confusion of colours: whites and creams, limpid pinks and mauves, queer hot-looking purples, magenta with white threads, salmon pink, deep-smelling wine. It is Mrs Quin’s habit to pick them in the evening when it is cool, and every night long, in August, a bunch sits in a pail on the path to catch the dew.

  Now Peter stopped bewildered; the pail was in front of him. But – they have been picked, he thought.

  ‘Haven’t they always been picked?’ He could almost hear Mrs Quin saying it, but who had picked them? Cecily? Cecily would scarcely have had time but, It must have been Cecily, thought Peter reasonably.

  He smelled them, going down on one knee; then he brushed the grains of granite dust from his breeches and went on up to the house and around to the kitchen, treading on the grass so as not to disturb the quiet, then stopped short in the doorway.

  ‘If he had seen me at any other time, he would never have liked me,’ said Tracy afterward. ‘He wouldn’t have let himself like me,’ and it was true that he would not have spoken to her if he had seen her as she had first appeared to Cecily that early morning; in her travelling suit and matching coat she would have been like any of the girls in the world he had run away from – St Omerland he called it now – and instinctively, he would have run away from her too, but now she had tied one of Cecily’s aprons around herself and was getting breakfast – ‘helping Cecily,’ as she would have said twelve years before. As he saw her now she was standing at the table slicing bread, too absorbed to see him. Behind her the range was well alight, making the gentle rushing sound of a fire drawing well up the chimney; the front was open and the glow filled the room. There was a smell of breakfast, and Peter felt almost faint remembering the mug of coffee, half warmed and full of grits, that he had snatched before milking; the mixture, that seemed nauseating now though he did not remember tasting it, of a slab of bread gone stale and oily sardine. When he brought up the milk he often stayed for a gossip with Cecily, ‘and to get a cup of good hot tea inside him,’ said Cecily, but the smell that assailed him now was of coffee, fresh and hot, of milk simmering, of bacon and fresh toast, of warmed china. ‘It wasn’t fair,’ said Peter afterward.

  To Bella, China Court’s kitchen has no charm at all; it is simply old-fashioned, muddled, and deplorably cumbersome. ‘And there is the big pantry, and all those silver cupboards and linen presses, the cellars and storeroom down in the basement, the knife room and that enormous scullery, with wooden sinks!’ cries Bella.

  ‘A wooden sink never breaks or chips anything,’ says Mrs Quin, but even she has to admit she would like some of the kitchen furniture a little smaller.

  The Eagle range has an array of plates, a spit, and has two vast ovens, the second used for warming china and drying kindling; Cuckoo, the
little cat, always tries to have her kittens there.

  The dresser is on the same scale and holds sizes of dolphin-handled dish covers, copper moulds, japanned trays, and china, while its drawers are always bursting with mysterious odds and ends, and there is an untidy pile of recipe books on its bottom shelf. The table, ‘big enough for three kitchens,’ says Bella, is scrubbed white and has a coffee-grinder fixed to one end. The kitchen chairs are wooden and there is a rocking chair with a blue cushion. The floor is flagstone with a rag rug on the hearth and there are always plants on the windowsills, geraniums now, but in winter, white chrysanthemums, and early bulbs in spring. On the sills too, the gardeners put their pasties to be warmed for their lunches; there is a great deal of warming, of cloths and bowls, of cream, of yeast and, usually, of a cat on the hearth rug or armchair. Altogether it is a warm, comfortable, spice-smelling place and now to Peter it seemed to emphasize his emptiness and loneliness – and the dirty little kitchen scullery at Penbarrow; he watched almost yearningly as Tracy put the fresh-cut bread ready for more toast and turned the bacon. Who is she? wondered Peter. Someone I don’t know from the village? But she did not look like a village girl. A friend of one of the younger Quins come down? But then, stepping away from him she went to the dresser, opened a drawer and quite certainly took out a tablecloth – As if she belongs here? thought Peter.

  She must have sensed that somebody was there and thought it was Cecily because she said, over her shoulder, ‘Shall we have breakfast here in the kitchen?’ and before Peter had time to think, ‘Please,’ he had said, ‘Yes, please,’ and Tracy jumped and turned round.

  Always, afterward, she remembered that first glimpse of Peter, a young man gazing at her with such warm approval that it warmed her too. He was smiling at her, but, as she smiled back, the gaze was abruptly withdrawn and, ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said stiffly. ‘Of course you were not speaking to me.’

  From the village! This unknown girl was looking at him with eyes that were completely familiar, that he had loved, the unmistakable grey-green eyes that were Mrs Quin’s, but looking at him now from a girl’s face, young and wan as if it were tired – and shocked, thought Peter – dark-shadowed under the eyes and streaked with tearstains. The village! This girl was a Quin.