But it was, he said, chewing the crisp toast and the soft, sweet honey, a case of chicken and egg. There was no money to increase production, and there was no produce to earn more money. And pottery kilns, which he had always thought of as stable, down-to-earth, solid no-nonsense means to art-works, turned out to be both violent and temperamental, like Fludd himself. You could lose months of designing and throwing, and decorating, in one flare of fire, or gas, or explosion of a blister of water in an ill-made vessel. He thought that now Philip was there, Fludd might be induced to make some saleable small pots—or tiles perhaps—which could help to feed the family. Seraphita and her daughters had their looms of course, but they worked slowly and stiffly, and their work depended on Fludd being in the mood, and having the energy, to design patterns for them. They didn’t do too well, left to their own devices. There was a conversation the two friends always had, at this point, going over the same ground, making the same baffled, owlish points, as though they were newly perceived discoveries, about the curious lifelessness and inhibition of the three female members of the Purchase House family. Dobbin, since the Todefright party, was able to bring new observations to this discussion—he had observed the three at both Todefright and Nutcracker Cottage, half-hoping that out of sight and smell of Benedict Fludd they might relax or chatter. But they had not. “It is as though they have sleeping sickness, or are under a spell,” said Dobbin, as he often said. He added that Geraint had got on very well with the other young people, the Wellwood boys, Charles and Tom, young Julian Cain, and his sister, Florence. He felt happy to be offering all these new persons to Frank, to be solemnly discussed. Frank knew, or should have known, Geraint, of course. He gave him lessons in classics and history and nature study, which were most of the education Geraint had received. Geraint was good at maths, and Frank was not. He tried to teach Geraint, and Geraint laughed at his mistakes. Geraint did not confide in Frank, though Frank had initially hoped he would. He was bored and bitter, Frank was sure of it, and had a basically agreeable and outgoing nature, Frank was also sure, though he could not quite say why. Unlike his sisters Geraint had made friends with local youths, and went out as crew in fishing-boats, or helped to pick apples and harvest onions. He ran wild on the marshes, chatting to poachers and gamekeepers, and listening to the tales of smuggling, which everyone told. Frank and Dobbin discussed all this, too, and tried to think what would become of Geraint, without coming to any clear vision or prospect. They were not very good planners, that was why they were where they were.
Frank Mallett, however, knew more than a little more about Benedict Fludd than he ever disclosed in his pleasant coil of discussion with Dobbin. He had once been asked—urgently, desperately beseeched—to hear Benedict Fludd’s confession. This would be two years past, now, when Frank had been more Anglo-Catholic than he now was, had had moments when he yearned for the mysteries and solidities of sacraments and the presence of saints and angels who might answer his need for the larger life, and make his spirit less lonely and meagre. His church, like most Marsh churches, had been despoiled at the Reformation. The Virgin had been smashed, and the stone angels bashed and beheaded, though the ghosts of a fresco in which they played on trumpet and psaltery at the Creation, still stained the east wall, under the oval text-boards which had replaced them with Puritan admonitions. “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” And Solomon’s saying “Sand and gravel are very heavy things, yet the anger of a fool is much heavier.” And Job: “As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” Marsh Puritans were obsessed