48. Dea ex Machina
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only …
Dylan Thomas Fern Hill
When Lucy woke, the room was already light. The curtains were not drawn and the pane of the open casement reflected a gleam of sun which she could lose and find by moving her head on the pillow. A wood-pigeon was calling in the elms. But it was some other sound, she knew, that had woken her – a sharp sound, a part of the dream which had drained away, as she woke, like water out of a wash-basin. Perhaps the dog had barked. But now everything was quiet and there was only the flash of sun from the window-pane and the sound of the wood-pigeon, like the first strokes of a paint-brush on a big sheet of paper when you were still not sure how the picture was going to go. The morning was fine. Would there be any mushrooms yet? Was it worth getting up now and going down the field to see? It was still too dry and hot – not good mushroom weather. The mushrooms were like the blackberries – both wanted a drop of rain before they’d be any good. Soon there’d be damp mornings and the big spiders would come in the hedges – the ones with a white cross on their backs. Jane Pocock running off to the back of the school ‘bus when she brought one in a matchbox to show Miss Tallant.
Spider, spider on the ‘bus
Soppy Jane that made a fuss,
Spider got th’ eleven-plus.
Now she couldn’t catch the reflection in her eyes any more. The sun had moved. What was going to happen today? Thursday – market day in Newbury. Dad would be going in. Doctor was coming to see Mum. Doctor had funny glasses that pinched on his nose. They’d made a mark each side. If he wasn’t in a hurry he’d talk to her. Doctor was a bit funny-like when you didn’t know him but when you did he was nice.
Suddenly there was another sharp sound. It ripped through the still, early morning like something spilt across a clean floor – a squealing – something frightened, something desperate. Lucy jumped out of bed and ran across to the window. Whatever it was, it was only just outside. She leaned well out, with her feet off the floor and the sill pressing breathlessly across her stomach. Tab was down below, right by the kennel. He’d got something: rat it must be, squealing like that.
‘Tab!’ called Lucy sharply. ‘Tab! Wha’ you got?’
At the sound of her voice the cat looked up for a moment and immediately looked back again at its prey.’ ‘Tweren’t no rat, though; ‘twas rabbit, layin’ on its side by the kennel. It looked proper bad. Kickin’ out an’ all. Then it squealed again.
Lucy ran down the stairs in her night-dress and opened the door. The gravel made her hobble and she left it and went on up the flower-bed. As she reached the kennel the cat looked up and spat at her, keeping one paw pressed down on the rabbit’s neck.
‘Git out, Tab!’ said Lucy. ‘Grool thing! Let’n alone!’
She cuffed the cat, which tried to scratch her, ears laid flat. She raised her hand again and it growled, ran a few feet and stopped, looking back in sulky rage. Lucy picked up the rabbit. It struggled a moment and then held itself tense in her firm grip.
‘ ’Old still!’ said Lucy. ‘I ain’t gon’ ’urtcher!’
She went back to the house, carrying the rabbit.
‘What you bin up to, eh?’ said her father, boots scratch scratch over the tiles. ‘Look at yore feet! En I told you – Wha’ got there then?’
‘Rabbit,’ said Lucy, defensively.
‘In yer night-dress an’ all, catch yore bloomin’ death! Wha’ want with ’im, then?’
‘You ain’t!’
‘Ah, Dad. ’E’s nice.’
‘ ’E won’t be n’ bloomin’ good t’ yer. You put ’im in ‘utch ‘e’ll only die. You can’t keep woild rabbit. ‘N if ‘e gets out ‘e’ll do all manner o’ bloomin’ ‘arm.’
‘But ‘e’s bad, Dad. Cat’s bin at ’im.’
‘Cat was doin’ ‘is job then. Did oughter’ve let ’im finish be roights.’
‘I wanner show ’im to Doctor.’
‘Doctor’s got summin’ better to do than bide about wi’ old rabbit. You jus’ give ’im ’ere now.’
Lucy began to cry. She had not lived all her life on a farm for nothing and she knew very well that everything her father had said was right. But she was upset by the idea of killing the rabbit in cold blood. True, she did not really know what she could do with it in the long run. What she wanted was to show it to Doctor. She knew that Doctor thought of her as a proper farm girl – a country girl. When she showed him things she had found – a goldfinch’s egg, a Painted Lady fluttering in a jam-jar or a fungus that looked exactly like orange peel – he took her seriously and talked to her as he would to a grown-up person. To ask his advice about a damaged rabbit and discuss it with him would be very grown-up. Meanwhile, her father might give way or he might not.
‘I on’y just wanted to show ’im to Doctor, Dad. I won’t let ’im do no ‘arm, honest. On’y it’s nice talking to Doctor.’
Although he never said so, her father was proud of the way Lucy got on with Doctor. She was proper bright kid – very likely goin’ to grammar school an’ all, so they told him. Doctor had said once or twice she was real sensible with these things she picked up what she showed him. Comin’ to somethin’, though, bloody rabbits. All same, would’n’ ‘urt, long’s she didn’ let ‘un go on the place.
‘Why don’ you do somethin’ sensible,’ he said, ‘ ’stead o’ bidin’ there‘ollerin’ and carryin’ on like you was skimmish? You wants go’n get some cloze on, then you c’n go’n put ’im in that old cage what’s in shed. One what you ‘ad for they budgies.’
Lucy stopped crying and went upstairs, still carrying the rabbit. She shut it in a drawer, got dressed and went out to get the cage. On the way back she stopped for some straw from behind the kennel. Her father came across from the long barn.
‘Did y’seeBob?’
‘Never,’ said Lucy. ‘Where’s ‘e gone then?’
‘Bust ‘is rope an’ off. I know’d that old rope were gett’n on like, but I didn’t reckon ‘e could bust ’im. Anyways, I go’ go in to Newbury s’mornin’. ‘F’e turns up agen you’d best tie ’im up proper.’
‘I’ll look out fer ’im, Dad,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ll ge’ bi’ o’ breakfast up to Mum now.’
‘Ah, that’s good girl. I reckon she’ll be right’s a trivet to-morrer.’
Doctor Adams arrived soon after ten. Lucy, who was making her bed and tidying her room later than she should have been, heard him stop his car under the elms at the top of the lane and went out to meet him, wondering why he had not driven up to the house as usual. He had got out of the car and was standing with his hands behind his back, looking down the lane, but he caught sight of her and called in the rather shy, abrupt way she was used to.
‘Er-Lucy.’
She ran up. He took off his pince-nez and put them in his waistcoat pocket.
‘Is that your dog?’
The Labrador was coming up the lane, looking decidedly tired and trailing its broken rope. Lucy laid hold of it.
‘ ’E’s bin off, Doctor. ‘Bin ever so worried ‘bout ’im.’
The Labrador began to sniff at Doctor Adams’ shoes.
‘Something’s been fighting with him, I think,’ said Doctor Adams. ‘His nose is scratched quite badly, and that looks like some kind of a bite on his leg.’
‘What d’you reckon ‘twas then, Doctor?’
‘Well, it might have been a big rat, I suppose, or perhaps a stoat. Something he went for, that put up a fight.’
‘I got a rabbit s’mornin’, Doctor. Woild one. ‘E’s aloive. I took ‘un off o’ the cat. On’y I reckon ‘e’s ‘urt. Joo like see ’im?’
‘Well, I’d better go and see Mrs Cane first, I think.’ (Not ‘Your mother,’ thought Lucy.) ‘And then if I’ve got time I’ll have a look at the chap.’
Twenty minutes later Lucy was holding the rabbit as quiet as she could, while Doctor Adams pressed it gently here and there with the balls of two fingers.
‘Well, there doesn’t seem to be much the matter with him, as far as I can see,’ he said at last. ‘Nothing’s broken. There’s something funny about this hind leg, but that’s been done some time and it’s more or less healed – or as much as it ever will. The cat’s scratched him across here, you see, but that’s nothing much. I should think he’ll be all right for a bit.’
‘No good to keep ’im, though, Doctor, would it? In ‘utch, I-mean.’
‘Oh no, he wouldn’t live shut up in a box. If he couldn’t get out he’d soon die. No, I should let the poor chap go – unless you want to eat him.’
Lucy laughed. ‘Dad’d be ever s’woild, though, if I was to let’im go anywheres round ’ere. ‘E always says one rabbit means ‘undred an’ one.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what,’ said Doctor Adams, taking his thin fob watch on the fingers of one hand and looking down at it as he held it at arm’s length – for he was long-sighted –’ I’ve got to go a few miles up the road to see an old lady at Cole Henley. If you like to come along in the car, you can let him go on the down and I’ll bring you back before dinner.’
Lucy skipped. ‘I’ll just go’n ask Mum.’
On the ridge between Hare Warren Down and Watership Down, Doctor Adams stopped the car.
‘I should think this would be as good as anywhere,’ he said. ‘There’s not a lot of harm he can do here, if you come to think about it.’
They walked a short distance eastwards from the road and Lucy set the rabbit down. It sat stupefied for nearly half a minute and then suddenly dashed away over the grass.
‘Yes, he has got something the matter with that leg, you see,’ said Doctor Adams, pointing. ‘But he could perfectly well live for years, as far as that goes. Born and bred in a briar patch, Brer Fox.’