Autumn found the twins beginning lessons. Nothing elaborate, mainly handcrafts. With five children to teach, Miss Crosby had her hands full. After Christmas Catherine went for another holiday abroad. David hated her going. But this year he merely asked:
“Must you go, dear?”
Catherine stroked his cheek.
“Yes, darling, I’m afraid I must.”
She spoke to Miss Crosby about it.
“I suppose it’s dreadful of me. It’s the spring coming, I think. I feel I’ll do something desperate if I don’t get away from everything for a bit. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“Don’t you sometimes just ache for your holiday? To know you’ll be free of the children, all of us, for three weeks?”
“No. It’s different for me. You see, I have one job, and I love it. You have a never-finished, indefinite job. Your husband, your children, your house, the parish. Your time is never your own. All the same, I wonder that you go away without worrying what I am teaching.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you don’t know what I’m teaching, do you?”
“How serious you are. I know you aren’t teaching anything I shouldn’t like. You would ask me first. Look at the way you came and told me you hated the children fasting in Lent, and you thought their Sundays would turn them into heathen, and wanted to tell them so.”
“I haven’t altered my views.”
“No, but you did what I asked: left everything to do with religion to their father.”
“Very weak-minded of me.” Miss Crosby paused. “Do you realise how strongly I feel on the woman question?”
“What, women’s suffrage!” Catherine laughed. “Don’t let my husband know. He is entirely of the ‘hand that rocks the cradle’ persuasion.”
“But you.” Miss Crosby’s eyes glowed. “You are an intelligent woman. Don’t you feel it’s a bitter wrong that your sex should have no say in governing the country?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, you know,” said Catherine apologetically. “You see, it doesn’t really concern us married women. And if it did it wouldn’t make any difference; we’d always vote the same way as our husbands; we do hate arguments in bed.”
Miss Crosby blushed.
“But your girls. Don’t you care what they think?”
“Not a bit, bless them. They are only babies.”
“Well, as long as you know.”
That summer Esther had measles. Sirach and Susanna caught it from her. To everyone’s surprise, Judith, Baruch, and the babies avoided the complaint. The end of July found Esther up, but still spotty, Sirach and Susanna in bed, the rest of the family out of quarantine, and Esdras and Tobit due back from school. Catherine was at her wits’ end what to do with them all. In the end she and Minnie took the four healthy members of the family to Hastings, where Esdras and Tobit could join them, leaving Miss Crosby and Nannie in charge of the invalids.
Esdras wrote:
“Dear Mummy please do not worry that I mind not coming home I do not most of our chaps know the sea and say it is well worth a visit can we take a boat over to France Jones says they go tell Esther Sirach and Susanna that I am sorry they are lying sick of a fever but anyway they are not at a gate full of sores salute the brethren from me Esdras.”
Judith, reading the letter, said sadly to her mother:
“Doesn’t get better of the Bible, does he, spite of school?”
Tobit wrote, protesting:
“Dear Mummy please do not worry about measles I would much rather catch them and come home than go to the sea and not have it this is becos I have a lot to do in my garden and its no erthy god saying you can do it at the end of the holidays I want more time than that so please expect me home as usual love Tobit.”
“Can he come, Mummy?” asked Judith.
“No, I’m afraid not, poor man. He must just do what he can to his garden when we get home in September.”
The twins were not warned of their coming separation, though no real trouble was anticipated. The first morning, when Susanna had not appeared, Baruch had asked where she was.
“Got the measles, dear,” Nannie had explained.
“Where?”
“She’s in the spare room with Esther. But you’re not to go in. Understand now?”
Baruch nodded. After breakfast he had gone to the landing outside the spare room, and after a time he had heard her cry. Every morning he had gone to her door and waited till he heard some sound from her. Then, contentedly, he would trot out into the garden. All the grown-ups, knowing nothing of his vigil at the spare room door, were amazed at the calm way he took their separation. “He’s too little to care,” they said. On the day they left for Hastings, Catherine walked with him to the station, and only popped him into the carriage just as the train was starting. He turned very red.
“Where we goin’?”
“To the sea, darling. Esther, Sirach and Susanna are coming later on.”
“Want to go home.”
“But you’ll love the sea. You shall bathe and paddle, and there’ll be miles of lovely sand for you to dig in. And Daddy is coming down for a fortnight, and perhaps he’ll take you out in a boat—”
Her voice tailed away. Baruch’s face was scarlet. He looked scared.
“Want to go home,” he whispered. He began to cry, softly at first, then loud, hysterical sobs. “Wan’a go home. Wan’a go home.”
Neither Catherine nor Minnie could pacify him. They showed him cows and sheep out of the window. They offered him chocolate. It was no good. He cried the whole way to London. In the cab crossing to Victoria, Catherine showed him the Horse Guards riding by. Usually such a sight would have enchanted him: he loved soldiers. But today it was no good. He shrank into a corner of the cab, sobbing:
“Wan’a go home. Wan’a go home.”
Without ceasing he howled for the two hours it took to reach Hastings, and arrived such a white, sodden little object that although it was barely teatime, Catherine told Minnie to put him to bed. He refused to eat anything, and while they had their tea they heard his heart-breaking sobs and hiccups going on upstairs. Unable to bear it any longer, Catherine took Judith for a walk. Judith was a tonic.
“My goodness me! What a silly fuss he does make, Mummy.”
Catherine smiled. She had been feeling in despair. But now she wondered if it was merely a baby’s naughty fit of temper. She was silly to let it weigh on her. He’d be as right as rain in the morning.
Minnie took a different view.
“Ssh!” she whispered, when they got back. “He’s just fallen asleep. He was terribly sick first, poor little chap. He’s worn himself out.”
“I expect he’ll be all right in the morning, Minnie,” said Catherine consolingly.
“I wish I thought so, ‘um.”
Judith in bed, Catherine tried to bury herself in a book. She couldn’t. She kept straining to hear if Baruch was crying. She had just given up in despair, and picked up her sewing, when the doorbell rang, and Miss Crosby came in. Catherine turned white.
“What is it?”
“Don’t worry. Nothing serious. I’ve come for Baruch.”
Susanna, who had lain contentedly in her bed all the while Baruch was in the house, knew he was gone the moment the train started. She had screamed. For some time neither Miss Crosby nor Nannie could get a word out of her, but at last she said, “Baruch gone. Want Baruch.” She screamed for nearly two hours. Nobody could do anything with her. Then, as her temperature was rising rapidly, they sent for the doctor. He gave her something to quiet her, and insisted that Baruch must be brought back at once.
“I couldn’t find the Vicar,” Miss Crosby explained. “There was a train going, so I thought I’d come for him myself.”
“But Susanna? Is she going on all right now? Does she know you’ve gone to fetch Baruch?”
“Yes. The doctor told her. But she was crying so, and she’s so tiny, I thought she might not have understood. So I packed my bag, put on my travelling things, and came in to her ready for the journey. ‘Where you going?’ she asked me. She was already quieter, the drug was taking effect. ‘To fetch Baruch,’ I said. ‘When he be back?’ she wanted to know. ‘Very soon after you wake up,’ I told her. Then I talked to her very seriously. ‘You are a big girl now, Susanna, almost five. Quite big enough to know that I always tell you the truth. I am starting to fetch Baruch this minute. I shall bring him back just as quickly as I can. But if I do this for you, I want you to eat everything Nannie gives you, and to go to sleep now like a good girl.’ She was almost asleep before I left. I am sure she will be all right; she quite understood.”
There was no train back to London till the next morning. Catherine and Miss Crosby went for a walk. Miss Crosby had heard of the trouble they had had with Baruch. The two women walked in silence for some time. Then Catherine burst out:
“I don’t like it. It’s uncanny. Nobody told Susanna Baruch was going away. How did she know?”
“They are in exceptionally close sympathy with each other.”
“Will they always be like this? What’s to happen when he goes to school? He must some day.”
“That won’t be for another three years.”
“Will they have outgrown this—” Catherine fumbled for a word—“this queerness by then?”
“I hope so. I must get them used to the idea.”
Susanna’s two days of temperature retarded her recovery. Esther, Sirach and Nannie left for Hastings, leaving Miss Crosby with the twins. The children had not been allowed to see each other, but every morning Baruch stood outside the spare-room door, shouting:
“Sukey! Sukey!”
Till back came Susanna’s:
“Baruch!”
They never asked to be allowed to say any more. They seemed utterly contented to know they were under the same roof. Two days before they left for Hastings the doctor pronounced Susanna quite well, and free from infection.
“There,” said Miss Crosby, kissing her as she buttoned her coat. “Run into the garden and find Baruch.”
The twins met in the middle of the lawn. They looked at each other, but said nothing. Then Baruch held out his hand.
“I’ve made a little house. Come an’ see.”