There was no reproach in Mrs. Keith’s greeting, which was mildly sarcastic.
“Dear me!” she remarked, gazing at me out of eyes that still sparkled, though dimly now. “I had almost forgotten what you look like, Sara Monteith. How long is it since I have had the pleasure of seeing you?”
“It must be about two months,” I began. “But—” I was not allowed to finish.
“I suppose it doesn’t occur to you that at my age two months might very easily see me dead and in my grave?”
“But—” I went on firmly, (for it is no use giving in to Mrs. Keith) “you were away at Harrogate for six weeks.”
“I have been back ten days to-morrow,” said she.
I explained about the boys, and she wanted to hear of all their doings at once.
“It always amuses me to hear what boys are up to,” she said.
“It may be amusing to hear about but it is like bedlam to live with,” I said.
But I told her everything I could think of, including Charles Playfair’s nickname, and she laughed a great deal.
“‘Foul play!’” she repeated. “It is just what they would call him, of course. They probably have worse variants which are kept for strictly private use!”
The saga of Charles’s and Atty’s deeds took quite a time, and tea was brought in before I had finished. At last I ran down, and was graciously allowed to drink my tea. Afterwards Mrs. Keith said that if I would lend her my arm, she would like to “daunder” round the garden and look at the Michaelmas daisies.
“Though why they are called Michaelmas daisies when the best of them are in bloom a month before St. Michael’s day defeats me,” she added.
I suggested that they were so handsome that it did not matter very much if they flowered earlier, and one could always call them asters.
“No, Sara, one could not,” said Mrs. Keith, coming to a full stop half-way along the centre path of the garden. “Aster to me will always mean those big China asters, with shaggy red and purple and white heads. And to see Michaelmas daisies in flower is too sharp a reminder that summer is over and autumn here with the long winter on its heels. As for chrysanthemums—look at the things, all out already—” she pointed an accusing finger at a thicket of tall plants covered with bronze and yellow flowers. Their sharp clean smell was like a breath of autumn, and this time I did not make any comment on their beauty. I was sorry I had been thoughtless; I might have remembered how people of Mrs. Keith’s age, even if they are as dauntless as she, dread the winter in case they should not survive its chill and see another spring.
So I said nothing, and we walked slowly on, stopping now and again to look at the plums blushing to ripeness on a mossy-trunked old tree—(“We should plant new ones,” remarked Mrs. Keith. “These will see me out, but one ought always to look ahead in a garden”) or admire the jewel-bright colours displayed in a bed of dahlias.
“I wish,” I said, when I thought we had been silent long enough, “that you would tell me something about Corseburnhead, Mrs. Keith. I saw the place for the first time just the other day, and fell in love with it.”
“Did you, my dear?” Mrs. Keith was smiling. “You are not the first woman who has fallen in love with Corseburnhead. There is a story of one, long ago, who refused to marry any man but the laird of Corseburnhead Tower. She must have been allowed a great deal more of her own way than the average well-born young woman of her time, for the father eventually let her have her will, and she did marry the laird of Corseburnhead.”
“What a very nice story. It just goes with the place,” I said with much satisfaction. “I hope they lived happily in their tower.”
“History doesn’t relate, but I expect they did. She was an heiress, you see, and brought her husband a good tocher,” answered Mrs. Keith placidly.
“Oh, how can you be so mercenary and try to spoil the romance for me?”
“There is nothing to stop you from enjoying the romance, as you call it,” Mrs. Keith pointed out. “After all, my mercenary explanation has no more authority than your romantic ideas.”
“And the tower is still there, with the newer house built onto it,” I murmured.
“There has been a dwelling of some kind on that spot since prehistoric times, I believe,” said Mrs. Keith. “You can see, of course, that it was the strategic site to put a fort or tower, guarding the valley. Most houses built on top of so many older ones would be haunted, but Corseburnhead is a singularly happy, innocent sort of place. It must have been for that reason that your romantic heiress set her heart on living there, for dear knows there can’t have been much to choose between one Border tower and the next. Nasty, dirty, damp quarters, and so small! All the inhabitants must have lived on top of each other.”
“I won’t listen to another word against Corseburnhead tower,” I said firmly. “Now that I know a good story about it, you can go on and tell me who it belongs to and if anyone lives there.”
“When I first came to Ladymount as a bride, and that is sixty years ago now, it belonged to the old Maxwells; the queer brothers I told you about who lived together at Carmichael and were not on speaking terms. Do you remember?” said Mrs. Keith.
I nodded. “Of course I do. I haven’t forgotten any of the stories you have told me.”
“It is good of you to listen to an old wife’s tales. Let us turn back to the house now, Sara, my dear—and I will tell you as we go. I think I have been out long enough.”
So we turned and went slowly through the garden again, while Mrs. Keith told me the rest of the story.
“It was always a puzzle to everyone to know why they bought Corseburnhead, for they never wanted to live there. Indeed, it stood empty for years, until they allowed some widowed cousin of theirs to live in it at a nominal rent—to let the poor woman have it rent free would never have occurred to them! When they died, it was found that they had left the house to her, but she was not allowed to sell it. Then in due course she died and her son, who had no use for it and was no longer bound to keep it, did his best to sell. For a long time no one so much as looked at it, but I hear that it has been let furnished quite recently with an option to buy later, though to whom I cannot tell you. I believe it was bought by a firm of London solicitors for a client. And that is all. Rather an anti-climax, I am afraid,” she ended, for I must have looked disappointed. “I hope the new owners are pleasant people, for it is a house that deserves and needs to be loved. I have always thought so.”
I agreed with her most heartily, for I could hardly bear to think of anyone, just anyone, living in my delectable house. Since I could not live there myself, I felt that only people like the Drysdales were worthy of it. If Catherine married, I could picture her without envy at Corseburnhead.
“But I can’t think why I am indulging in these profitless imaginings,” I said ruefully, after I had finished and was already regretting that I had said so much, even to Mrs. Keith. “That house has bewitched me.”
“As long as you don’t allow your ‘imaginings’ to obsess you, I do not think they are entirely profitless,” Mrs. Keith said. “It is the penalty, in any case, for being a large-hearted person with not sufficient outlet for your generous impulses. Forgive me for speaking so frankly, my dear. I am apt to trade on my great age.”
“You know I don’t mind what you say to me,” I told her. “But you forget—I have Atty.”
“Oh my dear Sara! Atty isn’t your own. You only have him on loan, so to speak. If the boy’s father suddenly decided that he must go back to him, you could do and say nothing to prevent it.”
And of course she is absolutely right, Hugo. I know it; and I know that when I make myself forget Rex’s claims on Atty, and Atty’s possible wish at some time to rejoin his father, I am simply burying my head in the sand like a peculiarly foolish female ostrich!
I came away from Ladymount feeling distressed and unsettled, and since I do not wish to inflict my troubles on you at any greater length, I will finish my letter here and
now.
CHAPTER XVI
SEPTEMBER, 1952
To-day Pam and I went out armed with a basket, to pick brambles, which I refuse to call blackberries because it is such a dull name. They are supposed to be at their best after a touch of frost, and we had a very untimely one yesterday morning. It may be good for brambles, but had the most disastrous effect on the last of our runner beans. Poor things, they were hanging in wilted masses from the supporting iron trellis, and will just have to be written off as a total loss.
The brambles are early this year, and I got four pounds of beauties, which will make delicious jelly, with just a few apples added for tartness.
The ground was sodden with recent rains, but a pale sun shone fitfully on us, and made the brambles look like tight clusters of jet and dew among their crimsoning leaves. Pam hung about the entrances to several promising burrows on a high grass bank, taking deep sniffs of the delicious rabbity smells which I suppose were wafted to him from the occupants, and always hoping that even one rabbit would be foolish enough to pop out for a breath of air. I picked steadily, trying to avoid the savage thorns, though not very successfully. This was a much more prolific gathering than on an earlier expedition, when Anthony and Atty accompanied me. On that occasion the boys must have eaten at least as many as they put into the basket, and came back with tongues as black as a well-bred Chow dog’s. (I know this because they both insisted on putting the said tongues out to their fullest extent to show me.) Atty was enchanted to discover that Pam also has a taste for brambles, and when I expostulated over so many going down throats instead of where I wanted them, he was a trifle hurt.
“But he likes them, Aunt Sara, and of course Tony and me had to show him that they were eatable. Don’t you think it’s very original of him? We do.”
Original or not, I brutally curbed Pam’s fruit-eating propensities to-day, with the resulting good haul. (I may say that Atty, who was so eager to feed Pam on brambles, is equally eager to take as much of the jelly as I will give him, back to school in his tuck-box.)
“Back to school”—those words which I thought I should say with cheerful equanimity three weeks ago while Atty and Charles were filling the house with noise and clutter, sound like a knell since Mrs. Keith reminded me that I must not look on him as a permanent part of my life. He goes back four days from now, and Anthony returns to Winchester on the same day.
“But I shall not feel as bereft as usual in spite of my thankfulness at having seen the last of the darling child for another term,” Elizabeth said when she rang me up this morning. “I have just heard from Catherine. She has been told she has been overworking and is run-down, so she is giving up her job in the hospital at Langtoun and coming to be at home for about six months.”
“I thought she looked tired the last time I saw her,” I said, remembering the rather wan face and lack of sparkle I had noticed in Catherine on the grouse-shooting day. “A rest will be very good for her.”
“Why these young things persist in overdoing it is beyond me,” said Elizabeth. “I am all for Catherine being able to earn her own living, but there is no need for her to work herself to a nervous wreck! She and the rest of her friends seem clever enough to pass exams, and get good jobs, but none of them has any sense.”
“Did we have any at that age?”
“Now, Sara, please don’t be so understanding of the young!” begged Elizabeth. “I have no idea what you were like, but I’m sure I had a foundation of sense—”
“I daresay you had. Judging from the little I have now, I had none at all when I was Catherine’s age,” I said.
“You sound terribly depressed, ducky—surely not because Atty’s going back to school?”
“I’m afraid that’s what it is,” I admitted.
“I’ll lend you Cath if you feel too lonely,” said Elizabeth. “She likes you, Sara, you know—”
“Well, I like her. Yes, do ask her to come and see me whenever she feels like it,” I said.
“Anyhow, by the beginning of next month you’ll be too busy to mope,” Elizabeth said bracingly. “The Women’s Rural Institute will be starting again, and some of us want to get up either a play-reading circle or a dramatic class, and there’s the musical society—you must join them all.”
“No, no, Elizabeth! Elizabeth, I really don’t want to!” I moaned, but she had rung off.
What a perfectly frightful winter I am going to have, either dodging all Elizabeth’s plans for me, or meekly giving in to them!
It is a week since I wrote those last despairing and hopeless words—hopeless because I know that I shall never be able to withstand Elizabeth, and may as well give in first as last. The interval has been spent in the usual mad rush of getting Atty’s things ready for school: washing, mending, sewing those nasty little name-tapes onto new garments, packing—and baking too, for with more loyalty than good taste dear Atty always insists that he prefers a fruit-cake made by me to one of the Ravenskirk baker’s excellent products.
Your letter arrived just at the right moment, Hugo. I found it waiting for me when I came downstairs on the first morning after Atty had gone. I was thinking how strange and dull it was only to have to make coffee and one slice of toast instead of the sort of breakfast he loves: fruit, corn-flakes, and a plate heaped with bacon, fried bread, fried potatoes, fried tomato and scrambled egg, followed by toast and butter and honey! What an amazing capacity for food a fourteen-year-old boy has, and yet Atty is long and thin in spite of it all. When he has just gone I quite miss the assembling of what he always calls his four-course breakfast; and then I slip back into my simplified routine, and by the time he returns for the holidays I am rather inclined to grumble over making this gargantuan morning meal. So much for the contrariness of human nature. All that is by the way, and only put in to show you that your letter was even more welcome than usual. I had a third cup of coffee so that I could sit reading it over again.
I washed up and made my bed quite cheerfully, thanks to you, and Catherine Drysdale, arriving later in the morning, having been sent by Elizabeth to keep me from feeling blue, gave me one look and remarked that she thought I was a fraud.
“I expected to find you sitting in sackcloth and ashes,” she said severely. “According to mother you were terribly depressed at the thought of Atty’s going back to school.”
“So I am,” I answered, stung. “Only I am putting a good face on it. I wonder what you would have done if you had found me sitting in sackcloth and ashes?”
“Run for my life,” she said frankly. “I’m really very glad you aren’t. You don’t need me at all, do you?”
“I don’t absolutely need you, but I am very glad of your company, so please don’t go, Cath,” I said. “Stay and have lunch with me and we can go for a walk afterwards.”
We retired to the kitchen to start making preparations for a meal, when the sound of voices and Pam’s yelps of delighted greeting brought us to the door. From this vantage-point we beheld, with considerable surprise, a large number of persons converging on the gate.
“What in the world are all these people coming here for?” I said to Catherine—“Look, there’s Sylvia Currie, and the Whitburns and that Colonel of theirs, and Madge Marchbanks, I mean Lewis, and Miss Bonaly—”
“I warned mother that it was a mistake to go about telling people how much you would miss Atty and need to be cheered up!” said Catherine. “This is her fault!”
I groaned. “Surely your mother wouldn’t tell Miss Bonaly!”
“No, I expect that’s just sheer bad luck,” said Catherine. “Oh, here comes Mrs. Kilmartin as well, and I see a boy on a bicycle—”
“I suppose it is very kind of them all, and I would like to kill Elizabeth,” I said. “We’d better give them coffee. Luckily there is far too much milk, because it takes two or three days for the dairy-farm to understand that when the order drops to one pint a day after Atty is away I really mean one pint. Run, Cath, like an angel, and make the coffee and I’ll
deal with the mob.”
They would need to be dealt with, and quickly, I could see. Already Miss Bonaly was eyeing Madge as though she had found a caterpillar in the cauliflower on her plate, and Madge, conscious of her secure position as a respectable married woman, was returning the look with interest. The youth on the bicycle, lurking in the background with a bloodstained paper parcel clasped to him, I recognised as the butcher’s boy. At least he could be relieved of his offering, which was probably a rabbit destined for Pam, and sent away. I went out and greeted the gathering with more cordiality than I felt.
“How nice to see you all,” I said, not very truthfully, for it is never nice to see Miss Bonaly. “Won’t you come in and have some coffee?”
Everybody then began to speak at once. Joan Whitburn murmured that there was rather a crowd of them. Sylvia Currie cried that she didn’t know I had invited people or she would never have come gate-crashing on the party. Miss Bonaly’s booming tones could be heard above all the rest repeating that she had just happened to be passing and thought she would look in. Lawrence Whitburn and Colonel Greenhill said nothing, but from their expressions it was plain that they wished themselves somewhere else. The butcher’s boy, pushing his way to the front, thrust his horrible package into my hands and fled on his bicycle. Madge stood a little apart holding a basket, and looking suddenly rather lost and shy.
“Excuse me for just a minute,” I said to the others, and went over to her.
“Och, Miss Monteith, I’d never have come bothering you if I’d known all these folk would be here,” she said unhappily. “I just thought maybe you’d fancy these mushrooms. Wee Helen got them early this morning before she went to the school—”
“Well, Madge, that is extremely kind of you, and I shall have a mushroom omelette for supper,” I told her. “And I didn’t know any more than you that all these people had decided to visit me this morning.”
“D’ye tell me!” exclaimed Madge, her speech, as always when she was moved or excited, reverting to the broadest of country accents. “And you offering coffee to a’ that crowd! They should think shame o’ themselves landing on you like this, an’ Atty just awa’, too.”
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