Are childhood and youth indeed Vanity? When Christian looks back upon
her childhood at Mount Music, it seems to her that the World, and
Life, and Time, could hardly have bettered it for her, however they
might have put their heads together over the job.
All her memories are steeped in sunlight. It was all fun and fights,
and strawberries and dogs, and donkey-riding, and hot evenings on the
big river, with the hum of flies in her ears, and Larry, hailing her
from the farther bank of the Ownashee, across the stepping-stones. And
whenever she thought about the schoolroom, it was always warm and
rather jolly, especially in the Christmas holidays. They used to have
drawing competitions, of which Larry was, of course, the promoter, in
the old schoolroom, during the long winter evenings. Larry always had
a pencil in his hand, and was renowned as an artist of horses and
hounds, and Finn's wolf-dog, Bran, besides wielding a biting pen as a
caricaturist. Christian could only compete in architectural designs
that demanded neatness and exactness, but Georgy, the elder twin, had
some skill in marine subjects, and, since he was going to the
"Britannia," arrogated to himself the position of being an authority
on shipping; so much so, indeed, that general satisfaction was felt
when he was, one evening, worsted by Christian. The subject selected
for competition was "A Haunted Ship."
"Where shall I put the ghost?" Georgy debated, chewing the end of his
pencil, with his head on one side.
"In the shrouds, of course!" said Christian.
"Funny dog!" sneered Georgy, who considered that his artistic efforts
were no fit subject for jesting. "You'd better come and shove in one
of your Midianites for me!"
Then Christian, with the disconcerting swiftness of action, mental and
physical, that was peculiarly hers, snatched, in a flash, the mug of
painted-water from Larry's elbow, and poured its contents over
Georgy's fair bullet-head; with which, and with a triumphing cry
(learnt from a County Cork kitchenmaid, and very fashionable in the
schoolroom) of "A-haadie!" she fled, "lighter-footed than the fox,"
and equally subtle and daring.
Christian was not easily roused to wrath, but when this occurred,
youngest of the party though she was, it was but rarely that victory
did not rest with her. Two subjects were marked dangerous among these
children, during the combative years of "growing-up," and were
therefore specially popular; of these, the one was Christian's reputed
occult power, coupled with gibes based on that hymn to which reference
has been made; the other was Larry's religion.
To the Talbot-Lowry children, their own religion was largely a matter
of fetishes, with fluctuating restrictions as to what might or might
not be done on Sundays, but they found Larry's a more stimulating
subject. It was impossible for them to refrain from speculations as to
what Larry said when he went to confession; equally impossible not to
propose to the prospective penitent an assortment of sins to be avowed
at his next shriving, even though the suggestions seldom failed to
provoke conflict of the intensity usually associated with religious
warfare.
Lady Isabel, confronted with these problems, fell back on the manuals
of her own youth, with their artless pronouncements on the Righteous,
the Wicked, their qualifications, their prospects; and, since the
manuals had an indisputable _flair_ for the subjects most likely
to seize the attention of the young, Lady Isabel was generally able to
divert her offspring's attention from the Errors of Rome, with
digested narratives of "Adamaneve" (pronounced as one word) and the
Serpent, Balaam's Ass, Jonah's Whale, and similar non-controversial
matters.
"Wiser people than you and me, darlings," she would say, with a slight
stagger in grammar, but none in orthodoxy, "have explained it all for
us--"
"Larry's papa and mamma didn't quite think the same as we do, but we
needn't think about that, my pet!"
"But, mother, Evans says that the Pope--" appalling prognostications
as to the future of that dignitary would probably follow.
Unfortunate Lady Isabel! But parents and guardians have, at least, the
power of the closure.
"We needn't talk about it now," says the hard-pressed mother, "when
you're grown up you will understand it all better--"
With Christian, however, this formula was less efficacious than with
her elder brothers and sister. Her questioning, analysing, unwearying
brain ignored the closure, and evaded poor Lady Isabel's evasions. Her
religious life had been singularly vivacious, and the scope and
variety of the petitions that she nightly offered caused considerable
embarrassment to her mother. What was any good Church of England, or
Ireland, mamma to do when an infant of four years implores its Deity:
"Make me to have a good, fat, lively conscience, and even if God
curses me, help me not to mind a bit!"
The scandalised mamma decided that extempore prayer must be
discouraged, and seeking out in one of the manuals a form of prayer of
strictly limited range, repressed all additions and emendations.
Obedient to the traditions of her own youth, Lady Isabel, as her
children successively attained the mature age of six years, bestowed
Bibles upon them, but it was Christian, alone of the family, that
applied herself with any diligence to the study of the Scriptures. She
began with the Book of Esther (in which she found a satisfaction that
in after life remained something of a bewilderment to her), and
thence, but this was a year or two later, for no reason that can be
assigned, she passed lightly to the Book of Revelation. With it, it
may be said, the artistic side of her, that had leaped to sympathy
with Larry's emotion over "Dark Rosaleen" and "The Spirit of the
Nation," awakened, and her artistic life began. That glittering,
prismatic chapter, that tells of the rainbow round about the Throne,
in sight like unto an emerald, and the Sea of glass, like unto
crystal, that was before the Throne, and the thunderings and the
voices, and the Voice as it were a trumpet talking. Christian read the
chapter over and over again, for the sheer glory of the beautiful
words. She, also, knew of Voices, and Music, that other people did not
seem to hear. She could understand, and could tremble to those strange
shouts, and trumpet-blasts, and thunderings.
The Pale Horse that happened after the Fourth Seal was broken!
She would sit as still as if she were frozen, while she thought of the
Pale Horse coming crashing through Dharrig Wood, with Death on his
back, and Hell following with him--she always thought of him in that
black wood of pine trees--
"Wake up, Christian!" Miss Weyman, the governess, would say.
One of the Twins would hiss between his teeth: "Christian, dost thou
see them?"
Christian would feel a spiritual bump, as though she had been flung
off her chair on to the schoolroom floor, and Miss Weyman (always
enviously spoken of by adjacent mammas as "that most sensible little
Englishwoman") would say:
"I wonder how much you heard of what I was reading! I wish I could see
you learning to have a little more concentration!"
Whereas, did the excellent Miss Weyman only know it, a very little
more concentration on Christian's part, and it is possible that she,
and Judith, and the Twins, might all have seen the Pale Horse
thundering past the schoolroom windows. Stranger things have happened.
The Indian rope and basket trick, for instance.
"A most curious child--a perfect passion for animals, and so _dreamy_,
if you know what I mean," Miss Weyman would say to a comrade visitor.
"And the things that she seems to have learnt from the huntsman! But
really a nice little thing, and clever, too, though a _most_ erratic
worker! Now, Judith--" Miss Weyman felt there was some satisfaction
in teaching Judith. _She_ could concentrate, if the comrade visitor
liked! Nothing was a difficulty to her! And her memory! And her
energy--Miss Weyman freely admitted that Judith was three years older
than Christian, but still--
In short, Judith was a credit to any sensible little Englishwoman, but
Christian had a way of knowing nothing (as touching arithmetic, for
example), or too much (as touching Shakespeare and the Book of
Revelation), that implied considerable independence as to the
instructions of Miss Weyman, and no sensible little Englishwoman could
be expected to enjoy that.