by Nan Shepherd
‘Friends,’ he shouted, ‘my aunt is obliged to you all. There’s not much harm done, but without your help it would have been much more.’
‘You’ll need to hap up that holie in the roof, lad,’ interrupted one of the men.
‘I’ll do more than hap it up—I’ll mend it. I’ve been talking to Morrison here, the joiner. He can’t take on the job, he’s short of men and too much in hand as it is. But he says I’ll get the wood.’
‘Ay, ay, Mr Forbes, fairly that,’ said Morrison. ‘But for working, na man, I’m promised this gey while ahead.’
‘Well,’ said Garry, ‘my leave will soon be up. I mean to start myself this very day.’
At these words, ‘My leave will soon be up,’ Mrs Falconer felt a queer constriction of the heart. The folk began to move away, but Miss Barbara, thrusting her head in its turn from the blackened hole, cried, ‘Step in-by, the lot o’ you there, and get a nip afore you go.’ Miss Craigmyle and Mrs Falconer, looking round a moment later for their escort Francie, and failing to find him, it was clear that he had been enticed by Miss Barbara’s offer. Had he not drunk the golden fire the previous night? ‘A cappie o’ auld man’s milk,’ Miss Barbara said, pouring the whisky. The two ladies made their way indoors.
‘I’ll just be bidin’, then,’ Francie was saying.
Garry talked to him with earnest and eager gestures.
Francie had offered himself as a labourer in the rebuilding of the fallen portion of roof.
‘You’ll never take him on,’ cried Miss Theresa. ‘The body has no hands. His fingers are all thumbs.’
‘His father, he tells me, helped to build your own house. And his brother was a noted craftsman.’
‘You’ve a bit to go to fetch his brother and his father to your house. The fellow’s never been a mile from a cow’s tail, he’ll never do your work. He’s a timmer knife. I don’t like to hear of you taking him.’
‘You can like it or loup it. I’ve engaged him.’
‘You’re a dour billie to deal wi’,’ said Miss Theresa. ‘There’s no convincing you. But you’ll be cheated. Wait till you see if I’m not right. Your fine fat cash will be gey lean work. But I see you don’t care a craw’s caw for anything I may say.’
Francie’s foolish, happy face remained unmoved throughout her diatribe; but when she added, ‘We’ll go in-by and tell your wife where you are,’ he bounded to his feet, thumping the table till the dishes rang.
‘Na!’ he roared. ‘That’s what you wunna do. She can just sit and cogitate. She can milk the kye there and try how that suits her and muck the byre out an’ a’. Such a behaviour as she’s behaved to me! Past redemption and ower the leaf. Dinna you go near, Miss Craigmyle. She’ll maybe sing sma’ and look peetifu’ yet.’
Mrs Falconer said in a low, hurrying voice to Garry, ‘If there is anything that we could do—’
‘Nonsense, Nell,’ came brusquely from her sister. ‘Keep your senses right side up. What could you do?’
The sisters went away.
At the Weatherhouse Lindsay came disconsolate to breakfast. She hardly heeded the excited talk about the fire. ‘It’s no affair of mine,’ she thought impatiently, and going to the window she gazed into the chilly garden.
‘It’s like winter come back. At this time of year, to have snow.’
‘Hoots, bairn, it’s only April. Did you never hear of the lassie that was smored in June, up by the Cabrach way?’
The sun had not reached the garden. The grass was covered with a carpeting of snow, except for dark circular patches underneath the trees; but the carpet was too meagre to have the intensely bright and vivid look that snow in quantity assumes. Birds had hopped over its surface, which was marked by their claws. The delicate crocus petals were bruised and broken, and early daffodils had been flattened, their blooms discoloured by contact with the claggy earth. Only the scilla and grape hyacinths, blue, cold and virginal, stood up unmoved amid the snow.
And how cold it was! Although the sun shone beyond the garden, melting the foam of snow that edged the waves of spruce, yet the air was bitter, searching its way within doors, turning lips and fingers blue.
‘The milk’s not come,’ said Kate. ‘Oh, that’s the way of it. I always said Francie did the milking. Well, we’ve enough to last us breakfast.’
When breakfast was over, Miss Theresa put on her outdoor things.
‘Now really, Tris, where are you off to? Haven’t you had enough of gallivanting for one morning?’
‘To see about the milk,’ said Theresa, who was agog to discover how Bell was taking her husband’s mild desertion.
‘Well—I’ll come too.’
Mrs Falconer hardly knew why she wished to go any more than she had known why she rose from her bed to see the fire. She seemed to be driven by a force outside herself.
‘These things are real life,’ she thought. ‘That must be it. I ought to pay more heed to what other people are doing, not wrap myself up in my wicked fancies.’
The sisters made their way along the soft, wet cart-road. The first member of the family they came upon was the young boy Sid, who hodged along the road, hands in his pockets, spitting wide, in perfect imitation of Francie’s gait and manner.
‘Poor brutes, I don’t believe they’re ever milked,’ Theresa said.
Bell greeted them with fine disdain. When Francie had first courted her, twenty years before, she must have had a bold and dashing beauty. Even yet she was handsome, in a generous style, and her black eyes had lost nothing of their boldness. Until Francie had wedded her, after the death of his brother Weelum, she had had a rude appetite for life but no technique in living. The spectacle, however, of her faithful and humble lover, claiming her in steadfast kindness after his long frustration, gave Bell a rich amusement. For the first time she ceased to follow her momentary appetites, and studied in a pretty insolence how best to take her entertainment from her marriage. She was therefore furious at Francie’s disappearance.
‘You can whistle for your milk,’ she said. ‘I wasna brought up to touch your kye, dirty greasy swine. Guttin’ fish is a treat till’t. The greasy feel o’ a coo’s skin fair scunners me.’
‘Stellicky’s milkin’ the kye,’ interrupted the little boy, who was keeking at the visitors round the edge of the door.
‘Haud yer wisht, ye randy. Wait you or your da comes back.’
‘But where is he?’ gravely inquired Theresa.
‘Whaur would he be? On the face o’ the earth, whaur the wifie sowed her corn. Up and awa and left me and his innocent weans in the deid o’ night, that’s whaur he is. America, he’s been sayin’ gey often, I’ll awa to America. I’ll let him see America whan he wins back. I’ll gar him stand yont. If he’s to America, I’ll to America an’ a’.’
It was evident that she had received no hint of Francie’s whereabouts, and the absence of the devoted drudge had wrought upon her finely. She was purple with wrath. The sisters went to the byre, where the small Stella, clad in an enormous apron, with a brilliant red kerchief knotted over her black hair, was milking the two cows. Stella saw the ladies, but paid not the slightest attention to their advent, and continued to milk with an important air, manoeuvring her little body, slapping the cows and addressing them in a loud and authoritative voice. Stella was in her glory.
‘When you’re done, we’ll take our pailful,’ said Miss Theresa sharply.
The girl looked round in an overdone amazement, kicked her stool from under her, swayed her little hips beneath the trailing apron and shoved the nearest cow aside. ‘Haud back, ye—’ she commanded, using a word that made the Weatherhouse ladies draw in their breath.
‘You can bring that milk as fleet’s you like,’ said Miss Theresa. ‘I’ll give you your so-much if I hear you speak like that again.’
Stella tilted her chin and jigged her foot. In the darkness of the byre, clad in the old apron and the turkey-red kerchief, she glowed with an insolent beauty. Miss Theresa returned to the
house, but Mrs Falconer remained at the byre door, watching the girl. Stella finished her milking, but instead of carrying the pails to the milk-house and giving the waiting customers their milk, she thrust the cows about, flung her stool at the head of one that refused to budge, and began with frantic haste to clean the byre. Mrs Falconer made no remonstrance. There was something in the impudent assurance of this nine year old child that frightened her and saddened her. When she heard the same wicked word tossed boldly from the childish lips, she thought, ‘Well, this is reality, indeed. Why did I never think before of all that this implies?’ and she began to talk to the child.
Stella was ready for an audience.
‘And do you often milk?’ Mrs Falconer had inquired.
‘Oh, he learned me, but he never lets me. I did it all myself,’ she added, with a gleaming toss of the head. ‘She said’—she jerked her elbow towards the house—‘she said, “Let the lousy brutes be.” And she padlocked the door and wouldna let me in. But I waited till she went out to the yard, and I after her and up with a fine big thumper of a stick. “Give’s that key,” says I. But losh ye, I had a bonny chase or I got it out of her. Round and round, it was better’n tackie any day. “Deil tak ye, bairn,” she said, “you fleggit me out o’ a year o’ my growth.” “If it comes off you broadways,” I says, “you needna worry.”’
Mrs Falconer did not ask for the milk. She continued to watch the bouncing child.
Stella made the most of her audience. She talked large.
‘Ken whaur I got my head-dress?’ she asked, flaunting the Turkey cotton. ‘I got it frae my Sunday School teacher. I’m in a play. I’ve got to speak five times. Ay, gospel truth, I hae! Molly Mackie has only four times. Gospel.’
She struck attitudes, strutting about the byre and mouthing her words.
‘Ken this, I have that handky on my head in the play. Ay have I. Teacher she says, “Now, girls, fold them all up and we’ll put them in this box.”’ (Whose voice was she mimicking, thought Mrs Falconer. The little brat had put an intonation into it that was curiously familiar.)
‘But Stella, how have you the handkerchief here?’
The girl burst into noisy laughter and went through a rapid but effective dumb show. Mrs Falconer gathered that she had brought the handkerchief away thrust into the neck of her frock.
‘But Stella, that was naughty. Your teacher will be disappointed.’
‘She hides things herself,’ said Stella carelessly. ‘Ay does she. Gospel.’ When she said Gospel Stella breathed noisily and crossed her breath with her forefinger. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she rattled on eagerly. ‘Teacher has a ring she keeps hine awa’ down her neck. She’s another ring that she keeps on her finger, just its marra. Twins!’ The girl giggled with delight at recounting her story. ‘Ken how I found that out? She aye bides ahin whan we’re learnin’ the play, a’ by hersel. So one night I thought I’d see why, and I leaves my paperie with the words in ahin a desk and then goes marchin’ back to look for it. So I sees her standin’ there and one ring danglin’ on a ribbon kind of thing, and the t’other ring aye on her finger. And she stuffs the ring intil her bosom, and my, but she got red. She’s right bonny whan she blushes.’
The girl grasped her little nose with her fist and squinted, laughing, over the top of it to Mrs Falconer, who said severely, ‘You are a naughty girl, Stella. You should never spy on people.’
‘Tra la la, la la la la,’ sang Stella hopping about the byre. ‘I wunna tell you any more.’ But she could not keep it in. Immediately she began again.
‘Ken what it is she does whan she stays ahin? My! She’s play-actin’. Just like us in the play. I think she’ll be to say her piece at the concert an’ a’. It’s awful nice. It’s just rare. I’ve found the way to climb up and see in at the window, and I’ve seen her ilka night, and naebody else has had a keek. They’ll get a rare astonisher at the concert the morn, ay will they. Well, she pu’s off the ring that’s aye on her finger and dirds it down on the floor. “You hateful thing,” she cries. Syne she jerks the other one up out of her bosom, louses the string, and puts the ring on her finger. This way.’ The child was an astonishing little mimic. Her pantomime was lifelike. She began now to kiss the imaginary ring, holding her head to the side and rubbing the third finger of her left hand to and fro against her lips.
‘Syne,’ continued Stella, ‘she turns the ring round, so that the stone’s inside. And then she makes on to shake hands with somebody, and she says, “Do you take this woman to be your wedded wife?” “I do.” Whiles after that she starts to greet and whiles to sing. I dinna ken which it really is, but we’ll see the morn. I hope she’ll be dressed up. She kens it rare. It’s auld John Grey’s ring,’ she added carelessly.
‘Whose?’
‘Auld John Grey’s, him that’s head o’ the Sunday School.’
‘Surely, Stella, you call him Mr Grey.’
‘What for? He’s just auld John Grey. He’s a rare mannie. You can scran anything off him. If you go in about whan he’s delvin’ he gives you sweeties and newses awa’ to you. Ae day I was newsing awa’ and the rain cam on. Loshty goshty guide’s, it wasna rain, it was hale water. The rain didna take time to come down. So he took me in to his hoosie and the body that makes his drop tea spread a piece to me. And syne he gied me a pencil that goes roun’ an’ roun’ in a cappie kind o’ thing. It was in a drawer with preens and pencils and orra bits o’ things—some pictur’s that he let me see and bits o’ stone wi’ sheepy silver. And away at the back o’ the drawer there was a boxie wi’ a window for a lid, and yon ring was in there. I kent it fine whan I saw it again. She had scranned it off him, same’s I did a preen wi’ a pink top.’
‘But when was that, Stella?’
‘Oh, a while sin’. I dinna ken. Afore the New Year.’
‘Was it before his son died, do you think?’
‘The chiel that made the guns? Na, na. A long while after that.’
‘And who is your Sunday School teacher?’ asked Mrs Falconer.
‘Miss Morgan, of course,’ Stella answered, with a contemptuous stare for her visitor’s ignorance.
The long lean woman positively shook where she stood.
‘Stella, my dear,’ she said, swallowing hard, ‘you know you shouldn’t take away Miss Morgan’s handkerchief. What will she say when she doesn’t find it in the box?’
Stella gave a loud and scornful laugh.
‘Bless your bonnet, she’ll find it there all right. I’ll have it back afore she sees. Though, of course, after the play’s done—’ She broke off laughing, and leaping about in fantastic figures through the byre, she sang, ‘It’s half-past hangin’-time, steal whan you like.’
‘So young, so shameless and so smart,’ thought Mrs Falconer sadly. The warm byre oppressed her and she stepped to the door, opening her collar to the chilly air; but seeing Theresa at the same time step from the door of the house, she went back to the byre and lifted the two pails of milk.
‘Is that milk not ready yet?’ cried Theresa, appearing in front of the byre.
‘Just ready,’ Mrs Falconer answered, and balancing her body between the pails she carried the milk to the milk-house.
Miss Theresa had had a good fat gossip.
‘It seems Francie’s hinting at leaving them,’ she told her sister. ‘All talk, I fancy. If he goes to America, the wife says, I go too.’ Miss Theresa laughed. ‘They’ll need a good strong boat and a steady sea before they take that carcase across the ocean. She had made the ground dirl, chasing round like that and the lassie after her. I’m glad to hear somebody can keep her in her neuk.’
Mrs Falconer walked home in troubled soliloquy. Reality had pressed too close. Her thoughts swirled and sounded in the narrow channel of her life, crashing in from distant ocean. Lindsay’s betrothal, the fire, the young man’s imminent return to the war, Francie’s revolt, the pitiful spectacle of the child Stella in her vigorous vulgar assault upon life, the mystery of Louie Morgan’s play-acting w
ith the rings, her own shame, her mother’s cruelty—smote her like thunder. From the hurly-burly of her mind one thought in time detached itself, insisted on attention. What had Louie done? What did the strange story of the rings imply? If the ring that had been David’s mother’s was indeed lying in the box in John Grey’s drawer some time later than David’s death, how came Louie to possess it? She turned the theme about in her head, puzzled and afraid. If it was true, as Garry maintained, that Louie had never been betrothed to David Grey, could she have given colour to her story by clandestine appropriation of the ring—in short, by stealing it? Mrs Falconer felt like a country child alone for the first time in the traffic of a city. What am I to do? she thought, what am I to do?
In the afternoon Mrs Falconer went to call on John Grey’s housekeeper. This elderly woman, deaf and cankered, had few intimates and knew little of what went on beyond her doors. Gossip passed her by. ‘And as for the master himself,’ she would say to Mrs Hunter, ‘he says neither echie nor ochie. I’ve seen me sit a whole long winter night and him never open his mouth.’ She had therefore heard nothing of the interrupted Session meeting, nor of the speculation that Mr Garry Forbes had set going with regard to Miss Morgan.
Mrs Falconer bundled some wool beneath her arm. ‘I can give her a supply for socks,’ she thought. It made an excuse for her call. But the mere need to summon excuse put Mrs Falconer to the blush. How mean a thing it was to lurk and spy, in hope of proving ill against one’s neighbour! Truth must be served, but if this were her service, surely it was ignoble. She sighed and rang the door bell; rang again; then knocked loudly on the panels. At last a step shuffled to the door.
‘I’m that dull,’ the old woman said. ‘Folk could walk in-by and help themselves or ever I knew they were about.’