he going to do to Ned?
‘The body in itself is evil,’ insisted the minister, ‘until we deliberately consecrate it to God.’
Elizabeth sat back with such violence that she dislodged a Bible from the shelf in front of her and sent it clattering to the floor. She wished she had the courage to rise and contradict the minister on the spot….
Aunt Janet was offering her a peppermint.
‘Don’t you feel well, Elizabeth?’ she whispered.
‘Me a peppermint too,’ whispered Hector, grinning.
Aunt Janet rustled the little paper bag. Elizabeth turned fully round and looked at the clock to see how much of this apalling sermon was still to come.
She would not listen any more. The odour of peppermint and cinnamon, the incense of a Scottish Presbyterian church, floated around her. Sucking her hard peppermint, she stared at one of the windows, combining the little panes of glass into squares and diamonds of colour. Let him stew in his own juice, she thought angrily. Let him take a whip and beat the devil out of Ned if he chooses; it’s none of my business.
The congregation stirred; the sermon was finished; everyone stood up to sing the final hymn. Elizabeth kept her mouth shut. She would never, never go to church again, let the Shands say what they liked. She wasn’t going to have all that theological tapestry hung between her and the universe.
Slowly and sedately they moved out in the throng.
‘Did you feel ill, Elizabeth?’
Aunt Janet was at her ear, solicitous.
‘No, I was only angry.’
‘Angry, my dear?’
‘Angry with all the nonsense Mr Murray was talking.’
‘I thought it was a very good sermon, I’m sure. Didn’t you think so, John?’
‘A very good sermon,’ said John.
‘Well,’ Elizabeth laughed a little, ‘I think it’s awful to have to listen without being able to contradict. I wanted to answer back.’
She turned round, looking for Hector as usual, but was surprised to see him walking off with Mabel. It was extraordinary. He had never done that before.
She could not help watching the two figures in front. Mabel walked very well; she had an elastic step; her very back looked gay. She and Hector were laughing. It was queer, she commented to herself, that the sight of Mabel and Hector exchanging badinage should rouse in her the same feeling of disapproval that had invaded her the other day. She felt grown-up again, relegated to the background with the sober adults, as it were, while the children frolicked along in front. It puzzled her.
John seemed to be amused at something. Whatever it was, he checked himself from putting it into words. But the twinkle in his eye suddenly delighted Elizabeth as she caught it.
‘Your beard twinkles when you smile, John,’ she said, feeling audacious. ‘The point of your nose twinkles, too. Look at it, Aunt Janet, doesn’t it now?’
She had never before suspected that she could venture to chaff John, or that he would like it. Apparently he did like it, and her grown-up feeling vanished when she discovered that John was an excellent victim of teasing. She forgot that for a second or two she had resented being left to his society. Behind a cross-fire of personal remarks she escaped for the moment from her anger with the minister, her forebodings about Ned, and her uneasiness with regard to Mabel and Hector. In spite of his beard, and his size, John was not so very grown-up after all.
‘I was afraid of you at first because of your beard,’ she confessed, ‘but now I see that you are only hiding behind it.’
When Aunt Janet was safely within her own front gate Elizabeth found herself still beside John.
‘You know my sister is coming on Saturday?’ he said suddenly.
‘Oh yes,’ cried Elizabeth. ‘I’m looking forward so much to meeting her.’
‘I think you’ll like each other. I couldn’t help laughing when I saw you fidget so much in church; she used to do exactly the same.’
‘Did she want to answer back too?’
‘She always did,’ said John gleefully.
Elizabeth’s heart leapt. ‘Is she at all like me?’
‘No, not at all. She’s more like Hector, I must admit. But, although you may not care to hear me say so, she’s much better-looking than Hector.’
‘I’ll let you say so as much as you please. When does she arrive on Saturday?’
‘I think she’s to travel overnight from London coming in here about ten o’clock. Hasn’t Mabel invited you and Hector to come to dinner on Saturday night to meet her?’
‘No, not yet —’
‘She’ll probably do it before you go home. We’ll have a jolly evening.’
John actually hummed a little song to himself. That finally broke down the frail wall of Elizabeth’s discretion.
‘Do you know, I think I must have several blind spots,’ she said, ‘I’m only finding out now what you’re really like.’
John smiled half-shyly.
‘I’ve decided that your bark is worse than your bite, John.’
‘How do you know that?’
Elizabeth laughed; her eyes sparkled.
‘I’m learning sense. I used to judge people entirely by what they said; but now I know that it’s the person behind the words that matters. When you like people it doesn’t matter very much what they say.’
‘I thought you liked Murray?’
‘That’s a shrewd hit,’ said Elizabeth, with a rueful grin.
John grinned back. ‘And yet you were nearly jumping out of the pew at him this morning.’
‘I couldn’t help it. But I’m sure it’s because he himself has changed that what he said annoyed me. Something has changed him. I’m afraid of what he might do….’
‘How’s that? I thought myself that he seemed to be coming to his senses. He’s been mooning about for years in a kind of dream, quite off the earth; and this morning I thought he had wakened up.’
‘I liked his dream better…. I don’t want to be brought down with a thump on to solid earth. Besides it wasn’t solid earth, John. It was only logic. It was husks for the prodigal sons and daughters, that’s what it was; and who has a right to say that we are all prodigals and must be fed on husks?’
John did not answer at first. Then, with an appeareance of lightness, he said: ‘Oh, well, after the husks comes the fatted calf, you know. We’ll have that next Sunday.’
Elizabeth
