“If all our problems could be solved so easily!” said Andrew as he pushed back his chair. “Well, I’m going to the farm, Kate. Take my advice and keep out of harm’s way in your room until luncheon.”
Kate, feeling that though he was probably right, the prospect of a whole morning spent moping in her room was not enlivening, wandered into the hall. Here, with considerable bustle, the luggage belonging to Cousin Charlotte and Great-Uncle Henry was being dumped by Phemie. Anne, like her namesake, leant against the rounded wall of one of the embrasured windows, gazing dismally out at the dripping trees and sodden grass and steady rain.
“What a foul day!” she observed dispassionately as Kate came to stand beside her, “Nothing to do, nowhere to go, and Mother liable to catch me any minute and find some useful job about the house for me!”
Kate was sorry for her. She had neither a dog nor fishing-tackle to absorb her, and as she said, Lucy might quite possibly tell her to do a dull household task which would last the whole morning.
“It’s the sort of day for making toffee and playing charades,” she said. “Or reading a nice sloppy old-fashioned novel while eating the toffee after it’s made. Only it is really too early to start that kind of thing yet.”
“I’d like to make toffee after lunch,” Anne said dreamily. “Lots of toffee, the stick-jaw sort. But as you say, we can’t do it at ten in the morning.”
“I shall go out,” said Kate, suddenly coming to a decision. “Rain outside is far better than sitting in the house watching it fall. You come too, Anne.”
“Ugh, no, thank you,” said Anne with a shudder. “I’m not ambidextrous like a frog or something. I’d rather stay in and keep dry.”
“You’ll be caught and have to do something,” Kate warned her.
“I’m pretty wily. I’ll pretend I’m helping with the Aged Relatives’ goods and shackles,” said Anne.
“Too late, I’m afraid,” murmured Kate, as Lucy came quickly downstairs.
“Did I hear you say you were going out, Kate?”
“Yes. I thought I’d have a tramp in the rain—unless I can do anything for you?” said Kate, remembering that she owed a duty of politeness to her hostess.
“As a matter of fact, the only thing you can do for me is take a message to the farm, it you really mean to go out in this downpour,” said Lucy, turning her disapproving glance at the weather.
“Of course I will, with pleasure. “What is it?”
“I’ve written it down, so that there can be no mistake. All you have to do is give it to the grieve’s wife,” said Lucy, producing a neat little note. “Oh, Anne!”
“Yes, Mother.” Anne, who had started to creep quietly away, turned round.
“I’ve got something I want you to do, dear. Those new pillow-slips that came yesterday from Robinson and Cleaver, the embroidered ones, linen, all need to have names sewn on them; that will fill up your morning nicely.”
“Like hell it will!” muttered Anne rebelliously. Kate, thankful that her job did not involve a needle, in the use of which she was deplorably lazy, went to put on her thickest shoes and a waterproof. As she came down to the hall again, she had a glimpse of Anne, laden with snowy linen, going towards the billiard-room, her work-bag swinging from her arm, and laughed unfeelingly.
“You brute! There’s two dozen of them!” hissed Anne, but Kate only laughed again as she opened the door and went out into a flurry of raindrops and soft air.
As the farm had not originally belonged to Soonhope, but had been bought by an enterprising Lockhart during the Napoleonic wars when corn prices had soared to an astonishing height, the steading lay unusually far from the house, a fact on which Lucy, who heartily disliked farms and everything about them, always congratulated herself. Naturally, this arrangement did not please Andrew so well, but Kate, whose object was to walk, did not mind having to go along the Loaning and then turn to her right up half a mile of very muddy farm road. As she had said to Anne, wet weather was never so bad once you were out in it, and she walked fast, the first falling leaves pattering to the ground with the rain pale yellow elm and lime, which were brought down by a wind and did not wait until the shrewish nip of frost detached them from their twigs. Ahead of her, nestled in under the side of a gently sloping hill, were the farm buildings, roofed in old red pantiles which the rain had washed to a deeper tint than usual. On either side of the road the cut corn stood in stooks, waiting to be carried to the stackyard as soon as the rain stopped and a west wind rose to dry it. To-day the extra hands taken on for the harvest would be sitting idle in the barn or bothy, sleeping, eating, and playing cards. Only the shepherd would have to be out and about as usual, and of course the cattleman, wearing an old sack over his shoulders to keep off the wet. Kate suddenly began to laugh at the thought of the cattleman, for she remembered the story, passed on to her quite recently by Grey, of Lucy’s first visit to the farm-steading. Andrew had been talking to the cattleman when the town-bred Lucy, hearing a dismal lowing, and thinking of bereft mothers robbed of their calves, had exclaimed: “That poor cow! What can be wrong with it?” And before Andrew could offer some more refined explanation the old cattleman, brutally direct, had answered. “Och, she’ll juist be wantin’ the bull!” The incident had set the final seal of Lucy’s disgust on all things pertaining to agriculture, and she never again went near the farm if she could possibly avoid it.
‘I must be very coarse,’ thought Kate, but not nearly regretfully enough, and her lips were still twitching when she turned the last corner and saw Andrew coming towards her.
“Hullo!” he said. “I see you aren’t frightened of the rain. And you look as if the day was turning out better than we expected.”
“Nothing’s ever so bad out-of-doors,” answered Kate, blinking the raindrops from her lashes. “I know my nose is the colour of a ripe cherry, and my feet are soaking, but what boots it?”
“What indeed? And your nose is merely an artistic shade of sunset pink. It’s your cheeks that are cherry coloured, and that’s the right way round. But—I didn’t know that you had discovered that things are always more bearable when you’re not under a roof,” he said. “I didn’t think you had many cares, Kate. I hope not.”
“Oh, we all have our troubles,” said Kate both lightly and tritely. She had no intention of burdening Andrew, or for that matter, anyone else, with hers. Better that concealment should prey on her damask cheek, though even that she hoped to avoid. For one’s family is often apt to make solicitous inquiries about headache or indigestion, and however much kindness and anxiety prompts these questions, they are hard to parry without irritation. So she laughed and went on quickly: “It’s lovely once you’ve made up your mind to be really damp, isn’t it? And you can squelch freely through mud and wet grass. I’m going to the farm with a message from Lucy.”
“As you’re out anyhow, and wet already, would you like to take a turn across the fields after you’ve delivered your message?” said Andrew. “I’d be very glad of your company.”
So, having put the note into the hand of the grieve’s wife, wet and red with the scouring of what already seemed a spotless stone floor, Kate felt that she had done her errand properly and was free to go with Andrew. They waded through long wet grass up to their knees, and saw the bullocks brought from Pennymuir standing disconsolately in the shelter of a high hawthorn hedge, their tails to the wind and driving rain; they crossed fields of sodden stubble, where the lines of stooks were darkening with wet, and fallen sheaves had to be set up again here and there. Kate plunged recklessly into a burn too swollen to jump, and laughed at the chill of the water and the bubbles squeezed out of her shoes.
“You are a baby, Kate,” said Andrew. “Fancy anyone so childish in her ways—except one,” he added as an afterthought.
“You mean—Mrs. Fardell, of course.”
“Yes.”
“Am I so like her? Robin has told me so too,” Kate.
“I suppose you are, now I come to
think of it. That’s perhaps why we both like being with you.”
Kate rebelled at this. “Of all the tactless things to say!” she said angrily, frowning at him resentfully from under the hair which had been sprayed by the wind over her forehead. “I wish I didn’t remind you of her. I’d rather be liked for myself. It isn’t much of a compliment to know that people want to be with you just because you’re like someone else.”
“It’s not just because of that,” Andrew said, unravelling her involved and ungrammatical sentences without difficulty. “But you must see, my dear, that in my case at least it’s an—an added attraction.”
“Well, I don’t like it at all. From now on I’m going to be quire different, sensible and competent and—well, just sensible,” insisted Kate, walking at a great rate up the steep meadow into which they had come by way of a gap in the hedge. “I don’t believe it’s good for you to be reminded of her.”
“Probably not. But don’t change too quickly, Kate. I like you very much as you are.”
“I dare say you do, but it’s bad for you.”
“It’s about the only thing that helps me to carry on,” he said.
“And what will happen when I go home?” she asked.
“God knows,” said Andrew. “For I don’t,” and his tone was so recklessly miserable that she was frightened.
They had come to the top of the meadow, and now stood, looking down the southward slope to the red roofs of the farm, and farther off beyond the wet slates of Soonhope glimmering like water among the trees, the clustered houses, the noble tower of the Abbey Church, the gardens and streets which, all bound within the links of Alewater, made up the ancient royal burgh of Haystoun. For once Kate did not really see the scene at which she was staring blankly, she was even blind to the dark mass of the Lammermuirs, over which the heavy clouds were rolling like waves. It seemed to her very hard that she should have to be the one to deal with Andrew and his difficulties, she, who did not know, except as an onlooker, what made marriage a success or failure, whose sympathies were entirely with the man while her reason and sense of justice told her that the wife had right on her side. But there was no one else, and she knew that her conscience would never cease to plague her if she did nothing, and at last with a sigh she turned to the man standing gloomily beside her.
“Andrew,” she said firmly. “You can’t go on like this, and you showed me yourself why you had to come back. Now you’re here you’ve got to go through with it. Just coming back wasn’t enough, for you are still thinking of Miss Fardell, and that’s hopeless. Would she like to know that you’re thinking of giving up?”
“For God’s sake, Kate—” muttered Andrew. “Don’t make it any worse than it is. It’s easy enough for you to talk, but you know that if Lucy would only lend a hand I’d manage all right, but she doesn’t—”
“You can’t alter Lucy,” said Kate.
“I can’t alter myself, either!”
“No, I know. But you married her, you know what she’s like by this time, surely? There’s so much more in your favour than in Lucy’s that you ought to do more—you will have to make all the effort, don’t you see?” argued Kate not very hopefully. “And it’s not as if you stood alone, Andrew.”
“Don’t I?” he said with an ugly laugh.
“No. Everyone likes you. You make friends of nine of ten people you meet. And—the children are all with you now. You must have seen that, surely? The four of you are a pretty strong combine. No, it’s Lucy who is alone! Poor Lucy, she’s the one to be pitied, really, Andrew, and all the more because she’ll never know why. Oh, dear, I oughtn’t to be talking like this to you about your wife,” said Kate in dismay. “But it’s true.”
He did not answer, and she could think of nothing more to say. Whether she had done more harm than good, Kate didn’t know. She stared at the broad valley, and now she saw it suddenly glorified, for while they talked the rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and every blade of grass was hung with diamonds, changing to all the colours of the prism as the sun caught them: and arched above the dark sky was a brilliant rainbow.
“Forgive me, Andrew,” she said. “I had no right to preach to you at all.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said absently, as if in a dream, “We’d better be going home. It must be almost lunch time.”
Silently they went down the hill, across one field after another, along the Loaning where ruts full of water were blue as the sky they reflected. Only when they reached the garden, Andrew stopped inside the door and took her hand.
“Thank you, Kate, my dear,” he said. “You’ve been a great help. And you needn’t try to be competent and sensible—for my sake, anyhow. I’m going to be sensible myself, whatever happens.”
“Well, Andrew!” said Lucy’s voice sharply, and Lucy herself came round the sweet-pea hedge post in time to see him drop Kate’s hand. “I had no idea that you and Kate were out together. The telephone has rung for you several times. Of course I had to say that you were out and I didn’t know in the least when you would be in.”
“That was quite true, and if it was anything important they can ring up again,” said Andrew serenely. “Have the aged relatives gone?”
“Yes. Kate, aren’t you wet through? You ought to change, after being out so long,” said Lucy, with a glance which brought to Kate’s mind the hateful remark of the man in the Berwickshire hotel the night before. Her cheeks burned. Surely, surely, Lucy couldn’t be so dreadfully silly and small-minded as to be suspicious of her? But Lucy’s eyes were more than suspicious, and Kate’s blush grew hotter than ever, though she held her head up and proudly returned the look, her own eyes full of the anger and shame of innocence accused.
“I am going to change,” was all she said, and walked away, sore at heart.
Andrew, being a man, had noticed nothing. He only wished that Lucy had not such a forbidding manner, especially with Kate.
4
“Stop prowling about the room like a hen on a hot girdle, you make me feel nervous,” said Mrs. Anstruther, her black eyes snapping. She looked anything but nervous, bolt upright in her big arm-chair, and Kate could not help laughing a little at the mere idea. “That’s better,” said Mrs. Anstruther. “It you look in that old tea-caddy, the tortoiseshell one on the chest-of-drawers, you’ll find some peculiarly strong Turkish cigarettes. Smoke one, it will probably make you feel rather sick, and that will take your mind off whatever is bothering you.”
“Counter-irritation?” suggested Kate, meekly taking one of the cigarettes and lighting it. Almost at once she began to cough.
“Something like that. Now sit down and tell me what the matter is,” said Mrs. Anstruther.
Kate was neither frightened not disconcerted by her abruptness. In some queer way it seemed to steady her—or perhaps that was the effect of the powerful cigarette?
“It’s all rather difficult, and you’ll think I’m silly,” she began hesitatingly.
“Very likely. The young are frequently intensely silly,” said Mrs. Anstruther promptly. “I suppose Lucy has started being jealous, eh?”
Kate dropped the cigarette on the carpet in her astonishment.
“Pick that horrible thing up and put it in the fire. You’ve smoked quite enough of it,” commanded Mrs. Anstruther. “So that’s the trouble. I thought as much.” She sounded rather pleased.
“How—how did you know?”
“For one thing, I know Lucy. She has spent most of her married life being jealous unnecessarily. For another,” said Mrs. Anstruther dryly, “I’ve had it hinted to me by several people, among them Flora Milligan. It was bound to come.”
“I never really believed before that Haystoun was such a vile place for gossip!” burst out Kate furiously.
“Living here has its drawbacks. Of course you didn’t believe it until it touched yourself. Who does? To comfort you, I believe that there is also a good deal of gossip about you and Robin.”
“Don’t you care? Don�
�t you see how horrible it is?” asked Kate incredulously.
“I would, if it weren’t that during the many years I’ve lived here I have come to realize that the only people who have an unblemished reputation in Haystoun are those whose feelings are always subject to soulless conventionality,” said Mrs. Anstruther. “Bless you, Kate, your grandmother and I suffered in our day too, and were made acutely miserable at the time, and as you see, we have weathered it and are none the worse.”
“I can’t stay at Soonhope with Lucy thinking that about me,” Kate said wretchedly. “I came to ask it you’d take me in for a day or two. The house is full at home. Mother has a cousin from New Zealand and his wife staying until the end of the end of the week, or I’d have gone before.”
“If you go home so suddenly, or come here, you’ll give a handle to all the gossips—and Lucy will think the worst at once. No, Kate, you will have to face it out.”
“I have, for ten days. It’s ten days since I knew what Lucy was thinking about—about me.”
“Then you can manage another week, till the boys go back to school,” said Mrs. Anstruther briskly. “Then, in the bustle of their departure, yours won’t be noticed. Besides, Andrew will miss you. He’s doing his best, but he needs all the help he can get. The strong have to go to the wall, Kate, for the sake of the weak. The meek shall inherit the earth, and the strong win their inheritance for them and hand it over. You’re strong, my dear, and you must pay the penalty of it. And what would Robin say,” she added in a different tone, “if you fled away without warning like this?”
“Robin? It won’t make any difference to him. I’m sure you must know, as you know so much, that he and Andrew like me because they think I’m like Mrs. Fardell!” cried Kate.
Mrs. Anstruther looked at her in silence, seeing everything which Kate imagined she had kept hidden. When she spoke it was only to say indulgently: “Men have such silly fancies. Well, leaving Robin out of it, Kate, will you be a good girl and stay at Soonhope? For your grandmother’s sake if for nothing else.”
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