“I know I did, and I was right. It’s the child that’s wrong. It has no business to be going on living, the way it is. Five years! It’s utterly unscientific.”

“And of course there’s nothing in the world to be done about it.”

The Doctor paused: “I’m not so sure of that.”

“Joe—you don’t suggest—?”

“No, I don’t. I’m a Catholic like yourself, Hamish, and a pillar of the Church, even if I’m an external pillar. A life is sacred, whatever its quality may be. But if that Swiss man had had any sense he wouldn’t have been such a busybody when it was born. The first five minutes, you know—you don’t invite death, but you let nature make its choice. I’ve done it myself scores of times, and never a twinge of conscience. Some of these fellows, you know, are too anxious to show their skill to have any discretion or humanity. But I tell you plump and plain, I wish that boy were out of the way. He’s bad for Mary-Jim, and he’s bad for all of you!”

“Well, but what did you mean, Joe, when you said you weren’t sure. What weren’t you sure of?”

“The child isn’t what it was a few months ago. We may be quit of it yet—and the sooner the better.”

Apparently Dr. Jerome’s suspicions were well founded, for a few days later, after a blazing row with the Major, Marie-Louise summoned Father Devlin in a hurry, and the sick child was baptized for the second time, as a Catholic. And it was only a day or two later that one of the top workmen at the Senator’s planing-mill made a small coffin—made it beautifully. And at night a little procession of two carriages took its way to the Catholic cemetery—a bleak, wind-swept, treeless place and in March dreadfully cold. It was as private as such an affair can be. Old Billy had dug the little grave with pick and shovel breaking the frost-bound soil, and he it was who stood in the background as the Senator and Marie-Louise, Aunt Mary-Ben, and Major Cornish heard Father Devlin read the burial service. The Senator and the Major carried coal-oil lamps to light the scene. There were no tears as the Senator’s first grandchild was buried in the otherwise empty McRory plot.

When the spring came, it was Aunt Mary-Ben who saw to the placing of a little white marble marker—it was only a foot wide, and lifted itself above the earth no more than three inches—on which raised letters said FRANCIS.

Mary-Jim’s pregnancy went splendidly after that, and on September 12 the subject of Simon Darcourt’s biography was born, and christened, in the Anglican Church, Francis Chegwidden Cornish.

It was in a garden that Francis Cornish first became truly aware of himself as a creature observing a world apart from himself. He was almost three years old, and he was looking deep into a splendid red peony. He was greatly alive to himself (though he had not yet learned to think of himself as Francis) and the peony, in its fashion, was also greatly alive to itself, and the two looked at each other from their very different egotisms with solemn self-confidence. The little boy nodded at the peony and the peony seemed to nod back. The little boy was neat, clean, and pretty. The peony was unchaste, dishevelled as peonies must be, and at the height of its beauty. It was a significant moment, for it was Francis’s first conscious encounter with beauty—beauty that was to be the delight, the torment, and the bitterness of his life—but except for Francis himself, and perhaps the peony, nobody knew of it, or would have heeded if they had known. Every hour is filled with such moments, big with significance for someone.

It was his mother’s garden, but it would be foolish to pretend that it was Mary-Jim’s creation. She cared little for gardens, and had one only because it was the sort of thing a young matron in her position was expected to possess. Her husband would have protested if she had not had a garden, for he had determined ideas about what women liked. Women liked flowers; on certain occasions one gave them flowers; on certain occasions one told them they were like flowers—though it would not have done to tell a woman she looked like a peony, a beautiful but whorish flower. The garden was the work of Mr. Maidment, and it reflected the dull, geometrical character of Mr. Maidment’s mind.

It was uncommon for Francis to be in the garden unattended. Mr. Maidment did not like boys, whom he knew to be plant-tramplers and bloom-snatchers, but at this magical moment Bella-Mae had left him to himself because she had to go indoors for a moment. Francis knew she had gone to pee, which she did frequently, having inherited the weak bladder of her family, the Elphinstones. Bella-Mae did not know that Francis knew, because one of her jobs was to protect Francis from bruising contacts with reality, and in her confused and grubby mind, little boys ought not to know that adults had such creatural needs. But Francis did know, even though he was not fully aware who Francis was, and he felt a minute guilt at his knowledge. He was not yet such a close reasoner as to suspect that if Bella-Mae were thus burdened with the common needs of life, his parents might also share them. The life of his parents was god-like and remote. Their clothes did not come off, obviously, though they changed several times a day; but he had seen Bella-Mae take off her clothes, or at least shrug and struggle them off under her nightdress, because she slept in the nursery with him. She also brushed her coarse rusty hair a hundred times every night, for he had heard her counting, and was usually fast asleep before she had reached the century stroke.