Oscar and Lucinda

properties of glass, not its wont to go yellow when there were chrome salts in the sand, but its tendency to shatter, to make shards which lie upon a carpet in the shape of crescent moons, scimitars, stilettos, daggers, pig stickers, a jigsaw armoury waiting to be released from its captive sheet and nothing more needed by way of a key than a pebble, a coin, a lump of coal. 'Please,' said Oscar, clapping his hands and rubbing them. 'Please

do come in.'

Lucinda removed her hat and held the pin behind her back. Oscar stepped back and both Judds, the second one with great difficultyshe was not only portly but impeded by skirts-stepped from the veranda, across the sill, and into the sitting room.

Oscar watched all this with almost as much astonishment as Lucinda. He had hardly been aware, so nervous was he, of what he had been saying. And although it is true that he invited the Judds in and that,

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Oscar and Lucinda

when he made the invitation, he was standing on one side of an open window and they on the other, he had not intended that they treat his window as their door. And yet-and he admitted this to himself later when he sat, groaning and punching his left hand with his right, in judgement on himself-it was he who had stepped backwards, and the stepping back was, in a sense, like moving a magnet back from a nail in that you must, if you know anything about the natural sciences, expect the nail to follow and it is no good-his father would have told him as muchprotesting your innocence when you know it is a law, a law without a name, but a law of physics none the less: when you have such a concentration of energy with all its vectors angled at you, and if you say 'come in' and step back at the same time, the object of your attention will-it is like water on an inclined planefollow the line of least resistance and come right in. Now Mr Judd was unaware that he was obeying a law of physics. He knew nothing about physics at all. He knew about jute and hessian, about chaff and oats, about yokes, bows, bullock chains, the length of grass on the roadside between Sydney and Yass, but he was ignorant of the forces that propelled him. When he found himself standing on the vicar's Quality Bradford First Wool carpet, he was mortified. He looked down at his boots and saw the right one not properly laced and the left one with leaf-mould clinging to it and then he looked and saw his wife-God help me-trying to follow him. That was so like her. It was so exactly like her. Why could she not be aware of the picture she made? She was all backside and bosom and her poor little legs were too plump and short to get up to the sill, but there was no retreating now-he had to help her in. Mr Judd was angry with his wife, but he would not show it in public and he offered her extreme solicitude and did his best to help effect a dignified crossing. When she was, at last, standing inside he made sure her dress was properly rearranged before he thought about anything else. Thus he found himself, a manly man, fussing at her skirts like a dressmaker. For a moment he was at a loss, to see the figure he cut. Then the habits of a lifetime reasserted themselves and he did what he always did when caught at a disadvantage-he attacked.

'I'd not be the sort of fellow comes climbing through a window,' he said. 'And you should know that of me by now. But I'll tell you this, sir-we will not have it! We will not. All we want is our Handel. It is nothing but the glory of God, you don't see that. But 'Be not drunk with wine/ ' he had not meant to quote, but the words came to him.

Serious Damage

He could see no wine. It was not wine he was quoting. ' 'Be not drunk with wine/ ' he looked at the cards. They were in full view, and money too. ' 'Wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.' '

This produced a silence. They all stood with red faces and tried to understand their situation. Oscar thought 'handle.' There was a cold draught from the open window.

'You gambled,' Mr Judd said, and he shook a surprisingly dainty finger at the clergyman.

'It is true, Mr Judd,' said Oscar. He hugged his thin chest and then rubbed his hands. 'I have gambled. I am sorry if it has caused offence.'

'It's no good denying it.'

'I'm not denying it.'

'Don't you think the Almighty has an ear? Don't you imagine he'd like our hymns of praise?' 'Oh yes, indeed, Mr Judd. Indeed.'

'Then you should not be gambling, sir. It is a folly and a sin.' Lucinda was unsure of what was happening. She no longer thought these people murderers, but she thought the situation to be most unstable. The man looked violent, and the woman seemed to think it her wifely duty to transmit, silently, an equal level of anger towards her. She glowered and moved her feet beneath her skirts, just like a cow bailed up for milking. Lucinda stood up.

'It does seem to me,' Oscar was saying, 'that we have the threads of quite different concerns involved in this upset.'

Lucinda said nothing. She thought his conciliatory tone quite inappropriate.? i,

'Upset?' said Mr Judd. 'I am not upset.' <. s-TS,',''•••

'She is slipping out,' said Mrs Judd.

'On the one hand, you have the issue of my gambling. On the other you have, it would seem, a love of music.' '.

'Of sacred music. Sacred music.'

'She is putting on her hat.' ••'..'••:..:.?•»:

'She is my guest, Mrs Judd.'

'A pretty name for it.';;?

'Mrs Judd,' warned Mr Judd.

'Ill not be stopped,' said Mrs Judd. 'I have never heard of such a hypocrite. Yes, a hypocrite. We made him lovely vestments. You will not wear them, isn't that true? You think God would rather see you looking like a crow.'.•••.-

Oscar and Lucinda

'I wear-' said Oscar, but was stopped from saying more.

'You dress like a scarecrow,' said Mr Judd.

'I will not be stopped. He dresses like a scarecrow,' she agreed, 'and throws out our Messiah, and here he is with cards and women in the temple, and-' she looked backwards to the open window, and stopped a moment. 'And here we are,' she said at last. These last three words seemed to signify that she had, against the current of her natural good manners, been induced-it was witchcraft, perhaps-to climb through her employer's window and stand on expensive carpet in muddy shoes.

Lucinda had retreated from the draught and was warming herself against the fire. It is true that she had put on her hat, but not because she wished to leave, but because she was returning her hatpin to its proper place. She would not need that type of weapon.

'You are a rude woman,' she said, 'and you are a rude man.' Mrs Judd opened her mouth. Mr Judd stood on his wife's foot. Mrs Judd's mouth stayed open and her head jerked sharply sideways as she tried to read her husband's face.

' You imagine,' Lucinda pulled her skirt tight against her legs until she felt them burning, 'that you are civilized, but you are like savages with toppers and tails. You are not civilized at all, and if gambling is a sin it is less of a sin than the one you have just committed. You should pray to God to forgive you for your rudeness.'

Oscar was aghast to hear such patrician arrogance from a women he had seen, half an hour before, light a cigarette and draw the blue smoke up into her flaring nostrils (an action he found sensual in the extreme). He would have apologized to the Judds but he did not have the opportunity.

'You may leave,' said Lucinda.

And the Judds, indeed, made uncertainly towards the door.

'Through the window,' said Lucinda.

And the Judds left through the window. Lucinda had them shut it after them. She watched themit was not quite light-walk down the long mustard-yellow driveway. She could see them both talking at once.

She began laughing then. It was not a simple laugh, and was occasioned as much by her surprise at herself (how angry she must be at Sydney) as by delight in her own mischievousness. And her face, laughing, was lovely.