by Mary Stewart
‘Grandfather—’
‘If you should marry Connor, and live at Whitescar, the money becomes yours then, absolutely. Clear?’
‘Y–yes.’
The only really clear thing was the old man’s determination to tie the money to Whitescar; and me, along with it, if he could, to Con. The wrong end of the shotgun, with a vengeance. Dazedly, I tried to assess the probable results of what he had just told me. ‘But . . . two thirds for me, and a third for Julie? What about Con? If I don’t – I mean—’ I floundered, and stopped. It was no use insisting; let him keep his dream.
‘I’ve left him a little, and Lisa, too.’
‘But, Grandfather—’
‘My good girl—’ he was suddenly irritable – ‘anyone would think you were trying to get rid of every penny piece to Connor! Are you mad? If the place comes to him over the heads of you and Julie, he can hardly expect much more! It’ll not be easy for him, with only a small capital to back him, but he’ll have all the liquid assets of the place, and he’ll make out.’
He stopped, breathing rather hard. I noticed all at once how heavily he was leaning on his hand. He pulled a handkerchief, rather fumblingly, from his breast-pocket, and touched it to his mouth. ‘Con’s a good lad, and a clever lad; he’s not afraid of work, and the land’s in good heart. I think it’s fair enough, all round.’
‘Darling, of course it is! More than fair! And now let’s stop thinking about it; it’s done, let’s all forget it, and you forget it, too.’ I grinned at him. ‘You know I can’t stomach these post-mortems.’
He patted my cheek. ‘Dear child,’ he said, and went abruptly out of the room.
What it cost Con in self-command I shall never know, but he did not come in to luncheon. The lawyer left immediately afterwards, and Grandfather retired to rest. I had promised Lisa to go into Bellingham that afternoon to do some shopping. She was already busy with preparations for dinner, but had refused to allow me to help her ‘because,’ she said simply, ‘I enjoy special occasions, and I’m selfish; but you shall do the table if you like.’
I laughed. ‘All right, I’ve no quarrel with that. If I’m to be allowed to eat your cooking without having to work for it, that’s okay by me.’
‘Oh, you can wash up,’ said Lisa placidly, adding, with that spice of malice that was never far away: ‘Julie can help you.’
The shopping did not take long, and I caught the four o’clock bus back from Bellingham, which put me down at the head of the lane. I assembled my rather awkward collection of packages and set off downhill.
When I reached the mouth of the disused quarry where, on the first day, I had left my luggage, I saw a car standing there, an old car with too much chrome winking too brightly in the sun. Donald’s car.
I picked my way in at the rutted entrance of the quarry. Donald was there, pipe in mouth, hands deep in trouser-pockets, his head tilted back, apparently surveying the high wall at the back of the quarry. This was of sand-coloured stone, darkened with weathering, and here and there fissured red with iron. It was a big quarry, deep and narrow, consisting of several sections opening out of one another, partitioned off by jutting walls of rock. The cliff tops were crested with woods, whose crowding trees had sown seedlings broadcast, so that every ledge and tumble of rock was hung with green, and young oaks thrust golden frilled leaves above the brambles and foxgloves that hid the edges of the quarry floor. It must have been decades since any stone had been taken out of here.
Donald turned when he heard my footsteps, took the pipe out of his mouth, and smiled.
‘Why, hullo.’
‘Hullo.’ I added, a little awkwardly, with a gesture of the basket and parcels in my hands: ‘I saw your car, and yielded to temptation. You were coming down to Whitescar, weren’t you?’
‘If I hadn’t been,’ said Donald diplomatically, ‘I should be now.’
I laughed. ‘You could hardly do anything else. I’ve an awful nerve, haven’t I?’ I hoped that my glance at his suit, which was, for once, impeccably formal, had not been too obvious. ‘But surely, you’re coming to dinner?’
I thought he looked uncertain. I added, quickly: ‘Julie said you weren’t quite sure if you could manage it after all, but we’re hoping you will. It’ll be worth it, I promise you. There were rumours about duckling.’
‘I’m sure it will. Miss Dermott’s a wonderful cook. Well, if you’re sure I haven’t put things out—’
‘Of course you haven’t. We were all hoping you’d manage to get away. Julie’ll be delighted. She’s out just now; she went into Newcastle, after all; but she’ll be back in time for dinner.’
‘Did she? Then she won’t miss the play. I’m glad. Did her cousin take her?’
‘Con? No. Bill Fenwick. D’you know him?’
‘She mentioned him. Would you like to put your parcels in the car?’ He moved to open the door and take them from me.
‘Thanks very much.’ I handed them over with a sigh of relief. ‘There. At least that’s one way of ensuring that you do come to dinner. I only hope I’m not taking you down too early.’
‘No; I wasn’t going straight there, as it happens; I want to go over and see Mr Forrest, so I’ll take you down via Whitescar, and—’ he grinned ‘– it’ll be very nice to have someone to open the gates.’
‘Fair enough. And there’s an extra one now; one of the cattle-grids is damaged, and you have to use the gate.’ I added, curiously, for his eyes had returned to the quarry face: ‘What interests you here? This is a geologist’s sort of thing, not an archaeologist’s, surely?’
‘Oh, sure. But there is something interesting. This is the local sandstone, the building stone you’ll see they’ve used for all the old houses hereabouts, and most of the walls, too. It’s an old quarry. I’ve been asking about it, and I’m told it stopped working in 1910. I’d like to find out when it started, how far back there are any records of it.’
‘I can tell you one thing, though it may be only legend. This is supposed to be the quarry that Whitescar came out of, and I suppose Forrest too, though Whitescar’s older. It’s supposed to have taken its name from the quarry. When this sort of stone is newly blasted, could it be said to look white?’
‘Fairly pale, anyway. Yes, I’d heard of that story. It’s in Bewick’s Northumberland. The first Whitescar was built in the fifteen hundreds, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. And the main part of Forrest in 1760, or something like that. At any rate the first workings here must be at least four hundred years old.’
‘Older than that, by far.’ He smiled. ‘The quarry was here long before Whitescar was built. When you come to think about it, it is more likely that the place got its name from a quarry – a white scar – that was already a well-known landmark, before they took the stone out to build the house.’
‘It could be, I suppose. Is this a guess, or can you tell, somehow?’ I looked vaguely at the overgrown rock around us.
‘I can tell.’ I saw, suddenly, a spark of excitement in the deep hazel eyes. ‘Come and tell me if you see what I see. Over here, and watch your feet. There are bits of old iron and stuff lying around still. The oldest end of the quarry’s along here, and it’s flooded. I’ll go first, shall I?’
We picked our way through the foxgloves, and the buds of ragwort, where loose stones and shards of rusting iron made going dangerous. A rabbit bolted out of a clump of nettles, and dived out of sight down an unlikely-looking crevice.
‘A nice fat one,’ said Donald, watching it.
‘Were you thinking of the cooking-pot, and Lisa’s arts?’
‘I was not. I was thinking about myxomatosis.’
‘Oh. Seeing the rabbits coming back, you mean?’
‘Yes, the destructive little devils. But will you ever forget seeing them hobbling about, dying and in pain, and having to kill them, and not quite knowing how, and being afraid one wouldn’t manage it cleanly the first time? One got sickeningly good at it, in the end. It may be the wrong t
hing to say to a farmer’s daughter, but I’m pleased to see them back, nice and fat and immune, and I hope they eat every blade of grass belonging to the brutes who deliberately gave them the disease . . . But of course you won’t remember it. You weren’t here, I keep forgetting. You seem so much a part of the scene at Whitescar. It’s a lovely place, isn’t it?’
‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘I’m quite aware that that was a non sequitur, but it was also a compliment.’
He looked surprised. ‘Was it?’ He seemed to consider. ‘Yes, I’ve got it. So it was. Well, I didn’t see it, but if I had I would have meant it.’
‘Fair enough,’ I laughed. ‘Except that then you’d never have said it.’
He smiled slightly. ‘Probably not. The curse of Scotland, the padlocked tongue.’ But his eyes weren’t amused.
I said, before I thought: ‘Maybe. But is it any worse than the curse of Ireland; the tongue without a latch, even, let alone a lock?’
He grinned then, spontaneously, and I knew he was thinking as I was, too late, about Con. But all he said was: ‘Or the curse of England; the double tongue?’
I laughed. ‘We had to have that crack, didn’t we? The old, old war. What a mercy that neither side means it . . . Do you like living in the South?’
‘Very much. I’ve good rooms in London, and my work takes me out as much as anyone could want.’
‘Do you think you’d want to settle permanently in London?’
We had clambered over a ridge of fallen stones, jammed by time into a bank of solid clay. Below us, round in another angle of the quarry, I could see water.
He stopped. He still had his pipe in his hand. It had gone out. He examined it carefully, but absently, as if he was not quite sure what it was. Then he stuffed it into his pocket. ‘You mean if I married Julie?’
I hadn’t been ready for quite such direct dealing. ‘Yes. Yes, I did mean that. Perhaps I shouldn’t have—’
‘If I married Julie, I should still have to go where my work was,’ said Donald bluntly, ‘and it won’t always be at West Woodburn.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you trying to tell me that she’ll want to come and live here?’
‘No.’
‘Ah. Well, I didn’t altogether get the impression that she was wedded to the place.’
‘She’s not.’ I hesitated, then added, equally bluntly: ‘Nor likely to be.’
He looked at me sharply. Beside me a tuft of silvery hair-grass had fluffed into a lace of pale seeds. I ran my fingers through them, and then regarded the handful of tiny particles. I took a breath and plunged on. ‘You know, I wouldn’t dream of saying this sort of thing to you, if it weren’t important. You may think I’m speaking out of turn, and if so, I hope you’ll forgive me.’
He made the slight, indescribable sound that, in the North, manages to express assent, deprecation, interest, dissent, apology – anything at all that the listener cares to read into it. It sounds like ‘Mphm’, and you can conduct whole (and perfectly intelligible) conversation with that one sound, anywhere north of the Tyne. As a contribution from Donald, it was unhelpful.
I opened my hand and let the seeds drift down on to the clay. ‘Have you said anything to Julie yet?’
He said quite simply: ‘No. It’s been – so quick, you see . . . eight weeks since we met, that’s all. I don’t mean that I’m any the less sure, but I don’t know if she . . . well, she’s so young.’
‘She’s nineteen. Nowadays girls know their own minds at nineteen.’
‘Do they?’ I caught a slight hesitation in his manner then, and wondered if he had been suddenly reminded of another nineteen year old, eight years ago at Whitescar. He said: ‘I rather thought Julie had given every indication of not knowing.’
‘Bill Fenwick? He’s a nice boy, I think, but I assure you, you needn’t worry about him.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about Bill Fenwick.’
‘What do you mean, then?’
‘Connor.’
‘Con?’ I stared for a moment, then said flatly: ‘If you’d asked me, I’d have said she didn’t even like him.’
He had taken out his pipe, and was filling it again, more, I thought, for something to fidget with than because he wanted to smoke. He glanced up across it, and I thought his look sharpened. ‘I should have thought he was the very sort of chap a girl would be bound to fall for.’
‘Oh, lord, lord, he’s attractive,’ I said impatiently. ‘You might say devastating. But Julie’s never shown any signs of falling for him, and she’s had plenty chance to . . . Goodness knows, if she wasn’t susceptible to sheer blazing good looks like Con’s at fifteen or sixteen, then she probably never will be. You forget, she was brought up here; she probably thinks of him like a brother . . . and not a particularly favourite one.’
‘You think so? I’m not very knowledgeable about these things. It just seemed to be so likely, and so . . . suitable.’
‘Suitable? I doubt it! Anyway, Julie’s not a nitwit, and she’s had plenty of time to fall for Con if she was ever going to, instead of which . . .’ I paused, and brushed a finger idly over a tight purple thistle-top. ‘Things are a little – difficult – just now at Whitescar. I can’t quite describe why . . . it’s a sort of emotional climate . . .’
‘I know,’ he said, surprisingly. ‘Everyone seems a little too much aware of what other people are doing.’
‘You’ve felt it? Then you know what I mean. It’s partly to do with my coming back, and Grandfather’s stroke, and his making a new Will . . . oh, and everything. But it’s rather horrid, and definitely unsettling. I know Julie’s feeling it, and I’m so afraid she’ll do something just plain silly. If it weren’t for that, I’d be quite happy to settle back, and depend on her good sense and good taste, but just at present . . .’ My voice trailed off, awkwardly.
‘Do you know,’ said Donald, ‘whether you meant it or not, that was a compliment?’
I glanced at him. He looked amused, relaxed, confident, calmly pressing the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe. I suddenly realised that I had been tempering the wind to a fully grown and completely self-possessed lamb. I had underrated Donald, and so (I thought with amused relief) had Julie.
I took a little breath of relief. Then I grinned maliciously. ‘Think nothing of it. That was my double tongue. How do you know I meant you?’
His eyes twinkled. ‘It never occurred to me that you could mean anyone else. That’s one of the blessings of being a Scot, a profound and unshakable conviction of your own worth.’
‘Then hang on to that, and forget about Con,’ I said. ‘Heavens above, what’s got into me? Donald, don’t ask me why, and blame me for an interfering so-and-so if you like, but I wish to goodness that you’d simply ask the girl!’
He sent me that sudden, transforming grin. ‘It’ll be a pleasure. Now, come along, and be careful down this slope, there may be loose bits. Here, take my hand. That’s it.’
‘Goodness, that water’s deep, isn’t it?’
‘It is that. Round here now. It’s all right, you can walk on the edge, the rock’s safe.’
The water lay still and billiard-green in the shadow of the ledge where we stood. The edges of the pool were as sharply quarried as those of a swimming bath. On two sides the water was held in by a right angle of the high cliff; at the side where we stood, the quarry was floored with flat, bare rock, as smooth as concrete, which dropped squarely away in front of us to the water level some four feet below.
Here the water was in shadow, oil-green, slightly opaque, and somehow dangerous looking, but where the sunlight struck it, it was lucid with grass-green colour streaked with weed, and beneath the surface the planes of quarried rock showed clearly, coloured according to their depth, green-gold and gold-jade, like peaches drowned in chartreuse.
I said: ‘Why is it that even the most awe-inspiring things in nature, like volcanoes and ice-cliffs, and deserts and things, look kind and innocent compared with places where men have worked and built things
, and then abandoned them? This is sinister.’
He laughed. ‘Professionally speaking, I’d say it all depends if they were abandoned long enough ago. If a thing’s old enough, it’s purged, I suppose, of all the nastier wreckage – like the rusty iron, and that old boot there; and can you tell me where in the world that pram can have come from? – like finding a nice clean skeleton, instead of a decaying body.’
‘For goodness’ sake! You give me the creeps. Did you bring me here to show me a body?’
‘No.’ He pointed down through the water towards one of the slanting slabs of stone that showed like a buttress shoring up the side of the pool. ‘Do you see that bit of rock?’
‘The one that’s lying on a slant? Yes. It looks as if it had been shaped, doesn’t it? Such a nice, regular oblong.’
‘It has been shaped.’ Something in his voice made me look at him. He said: ‘Look at it again. Don’t you see the marks?’
I peered down: ‘I . . . think so. I can’t be sure. Do you mean what looks like a sort of rough scoring, diagonally across the block? That’s not artificial, surely?’
‘I think it was. Those marks would be sharply scored originally; chisel marks. That block’s been under water a long time, and even still water will smooth out a stone surface, given time.’
I stood up and looked at him. ‘Given time?’
‘I don’t know how long, because I don’t know when this part of the quarry was flooded. But those stones down there were quarried about two thousand years ago.’
‘Two thou—’ I stopped short and said, rather blankly: ‘You mean the Romans?’