It lingered at the back of her mind, dark, like a black cat creeping at the back of a hedge, she saw the fluff of its fur or the peek of its eyes, a wild and sinister thing in the sunlight; but you would not look often or see those eyes, how they glared at you. He was going out there, where the sky was a troubled nightmare and the earth shook night and day, into the lands of the coarse French folk, her Ewan, her lad with his dark, dear face and that quick, blithe blush. And suddenly she was filled with a weeping pity in her heart for him, a pity that brought no tears to her eyes, he must never see her shed tears all the time he was with her, he’d go out to the dark, far land with memories of her and Blawearie that were shining and brave and kind.
So all that forenoon she fled and bustled from room to room, brightening the place, she brought out fresh sheets and pillows for the bed she had found so lonely, she sent out young Ewan to gather roses and honeysuckle to set in a jar on the ledge above the bed. And she hung new curtains there and brought out Ewan’s clothes and brushed them, he’d want to get out of his uniform, they were sick of the khaki the men that came back. Then she made a great baking against his coming, so much that she’d hardly time to make dinner for young Ewan and Brigson, but they didn’t care, they were both excited as herself. She knew the train he would come by, the half-past five, and she swept and dusted the kitchen and set his tea, and punched a great cushion ready for his chair, and dressed herself in the blue he liked and young Ewan in his brave brown cords. John Brigson cried This is hardly the place for me with your man come home, I’ll away to Bervie then for the night.
Off he set, Chris waved to the old, kind childe as he bicycled down Blawearie brae. And then she ran back, ben to the parlour to look at herself in the mirror again, in the long glass her figure seemed blithe and slim even still, she’d be fine to sleep with yet, she supposed—oh, Ewan! Her face hadn’t changed, it was flushed and fair, the eyes maybe older, but shining and bright. And she finished with that looking and went over the close to stand by the side of young Ewan, looking down the hill for his father coming up. The sun flung the long shadows of Blawearie and the beeches far in the east, and across the Den, high in the fields of Upperhill, a lost sheep baaed in the whins.
SHE HAD HARDLY been able to believe it him, lying awake after he slept, he slept with a snoring breath and fuddled mumblings, bulging out against her so that she had but little of the bed and less of the blankets. She closed her eyes and pressed her knuckles against her teeth that the pain might waken her, that she might know Ewan hadn’t come home, was still the same Ewan she’d dreamt of in the silence of the night and her own lonely bed. But he moved, flinging out an arm that struck her across the face, she lay still below it, then it wabbled away. She took her knuckles from her mouth and lay quiet then, no need for her to hurt herself now.
Drunk he had come from the station and more than two hours late. Standing at last in the kitchen in his kilts he’d looked round and sneered Hell, Chris, what a bloody place! as she ran to him. And he’d flung his pack one way and his hat the other and kissed her as though she were a tink, his hands on her as quickly as that, hot and questing and wise as his hands had never been. She saw the hot smoulder fire in his eyes then, but no blush on his face, it was red with other things. But she smothered her horror and laughed, and kissed him and struggled from him, and cried Ewan, who’s this?
Young Ewan held back, shy-like, staring, and just said It’s father. At that the strange, swaying figure in the tartan kilts laughed, coarse-like, Well, we’ll hope so, eh Chris? Any supper left—unless you re too bloody stand-offish even to have that?
She couldn’t believe her own ears. Stand-offish? Oh, Ewan! and ran to him again, but he shook her away, Och, all right, I’m wearied. For Christ’s sake let a man sit down. He staggered to the chair she’d made ready for him, a picture-book of young Ewan’s lay there, he picked the thing up and flung it to the other side of the room, and slumped down into the chair. Hell, what a blasted climb to a blasted place. Here, give us some tea.
She sat beside him to serve him, she knew her face had gone white. But she poured the tea and spread the fine supper she’d been proud to make, it might hardly have been there for the notice he paid it, drinking cup after cup of the tea like a beast at a trough. She saw him clearer then, the coarse hair that sprang like short bristles all over his head, the neck with its red and angry circle about the collar of the khaki jacket, a great half-healed scar across the back of his hand glinted pu- trescent blue. Suddenly his eyes came on her, Well, damn’t, is that all you’ve to say to me now I’ve come home? I’d have done better to spend the night with a tart in the town.
She didn’t say anything, she couldn’t, the tears were choking in her throat and smarting and biting at her eyelids, pressing to come, the tears that she’d sworn she’d never shed all the time he was home on leave. And she didn’t dare look at him lest he should see, but he saw and pushed back his chair and got up in a rage, God Almighty, what are you snivelling about now? You always were snivelling, I mind. And out he went, young Εwan ran to her side and flung his arms round her, Mother, don't cry, I don't like him, he's a tink, that soldier! She'd pressed back the tears then, Whist, Εwan, never say that again; and got up and cleared off the supper things and went out to the close and cried gently Εwan!
He cried back All right, all right! still angrily; and at that some anger kindled within herself, she didn't wait for him to come back but turned and took young Ewan in her arms and climbed the stairs and put him to bed, he was vexed and troubled about her, kissing her as he lay there. Sleep with me to-night, mother. She laughed at him, she was sleeping with his father to-night, he must be good and sleep himself, quick and quick, there’d be such fun with father the morn. He said I'll try, and closed his eyes and she went down the stairs, it was dark there, getting on for eight. She thought Ewan was still outside but as she made for the lamp something stirred in the chair, she thought it a cat, it was Ewan. He caught her and pulled her on to his knees and said Be stand-offish now if you can, what the devil do you think I've come home for?
It had been like struggling with someone deep in a nightmare, when the blankets are over your head and you can barely breathe, awful she should come to think that of Ewan. But it wasn't Ewan, her Ewan, someone coarse and strange and strong had come back in his body to torment her. He laughed as he fought her there in the chair and held her tight and began to tell stories—oh, he was drunk and didn't know what he said, terrible and sickening things, he'd had women when he pleased in Lanark, he said. And he whispered of them to her, his breath was hot on her face, she saw the gleam of his teeth, he told her how he'd lain with them and the things he'd done. Sickened and shamed she had felt and then worse than that, stopping from struggling, a shameful, searing desire come on her. And he knew, he knew at once, he said Well, now that you know you can get!
She had picked herself up from the floor and in a dream went out to milk the kye, leaving him there. When she came back he had gone from the kitchen, she was slow to finish sieving and skimming the milk and go up to the room she’d made ready that morning, singing she had made it ready. And up there he waited her, lying in the bed, he’d carried up a lamp from the kitchen, they who’d always gone to bed in the darkness and thought it fine to lie in each other’s arms in the night-glimmer from the window. But now he grumbled For God’s sake hurry up! and when she made to put out the light— I’ll do that, come on! And she lay beside him and he took her.
She remembered that now, lying in the darkness the while he slept, why he had left the lamp alight; and at memory of that foulness something cold and vile turned and turned like a wheeling mirror inside her brain. For it had been other things than his beast-like mauling that had made her whisper in agony, Oh Εwan, put out the light! The horror of his eyes upon her she would never forget, they burned and danced on that mirror that wheeled and wheeled in her brain.
SO THAT WAS Ewan’s homecoming on leave and the days that went by were the same as
that first night foreshadowed. He had gone away Ewan Tavendale, he came back a man so coarse and cruel that in place of love hate came singing in the heart of Chris—hate that never found speech, that but slowly found lodgement secure and unshaken. For often it seemed to her that a tortured, tormented thing looked out from Ewan’s eyes while he told them his foulest tale, ill-used old Brigson and jeered at him, came drunken back to Blawearie night after night—that tortured thing that was the lost lad she had married. But the fancy wilted and vanished as the days went by. He stayed five days, had his breakfast in bed, and never got up till dinner-time; he never looked at the parks or stock or took notice of young Ewan; he dressed in his khaki and kilts alone, and to Chris’s suggestion that he wear a suit—What, me dress up like a bloody conchy? I’ll leave that to your friend, Rob Duncan.
Every day he went swaggering down the road and was off to Drumlithie or Stonehaven or Fordoun, drinking there. Before he went he’d ask for money, Chris gave him all that he asked, not saying a word, but he’d fancy a reluctance and sneer at her. Wasn’t he entitled to what was his own? Did she think him still the young fool he had been, content to slave and slave at Blawearie—without as much as a dram to savour the soss, or a quean or so at night to waken your blood—nothing but a wife you hardly dared touch in case you put her in the family way, eh Chris?
He would say this at dinner-time, sneering and boasting, old Brigson would colour and look down at his plate and young Ewan stare and stare at his father till Ewan would say God, what a damned glower! Eyes like your mother and a nature the same; and he’d swear at the bairn, it was shameful to hear that. He’d made friends with Mutch, him that once he could hardly abide, and with him he went driving each night on their drunken sprees. As he went to bed John Brigson would look at Chris with trouble in his kind old eyes, but she didn’t dare say a thing to him, he’d go stamping slow up above her head the while she sat down to await Ewan’s return and have the hirpling note of the clock stamp each second in her heart, hating him home, wanting him home.
For after that first night he had ceased to touch her, she would lie beside him, quivering and waiting. And he’d lie quiet, she knew him awake and knew that he knew what she waited; and it was as though he were a cat that played with a mouse, he would laugh out after a while and then go to sleep, she herself to lie tortured in the hours thereafter. The last night she refused the torment, she got up near three o’clock and kindled a fire and made herself tea and watched the morning come down the hill passes—a fine summer morning, yellow and grey and lovely with its chirping of birds in the beeches. And suddenly then, as always these changes took her, she was calm and secure, putting Ewan from her heart, locking it up that he never could vex her again, she was finished with him, either loving or hating. And at that release she rose and went slow about her work, a great load had gone from her then, John Brigson coming down in the morning heard her sing and was cheery himself, cheery with relief, but she sang her release.
At nine o’clock Ewan cried down from his room When the hell are you bringing some breakfast? She took no notice of that, but she sent young Ewan out to play and then went on with her work. And at last she heard a clatter on the stairs, and there he stood at the kitchen entrance, glaring at her Have you gone clean deaf? She answered him then, raising her head and looking at him, If you’re in need of a breakfast—get it.
He said You bitch! and he made to strike her. But she caught up a knife from the table, she had it waiting there near by, he swore and drew back. She nodded and smiled at that, calm, and put the knife down and went on with her work.
So he made his own tea, grumbling and swearing, a fine send-off this for a man that was going to France to do his bit. And Chris listened to the catch-phrase, contempt in her heart, she looked at him with a curling lip, and he saw her look and swore at her, but was frightened for all that, always now she knew she had known him the frightened one. And a queer, cold curiosity came on her then that so she should have slaved to tend him and love him and give him the best, body and mind and soul she had given, for a gift to the body of a drunken lout from the plough-stilts.
And now that body she saw with a cold repulsion him wash and shave and dress, she could hardly bear to look at him and went out and worked in the close, cleaning pots there in the shining weather, young Ewan played douce and content with his toys, it was hay-time all down the Howe and the hens came pecking around her. She heard Ewan stamp about in the kitchen, he wanted that she should look, go running and fetch him his things. And she smiled again, cold and secure and serene, and heard him come out and bang the door; and without raising her head she saw him then. He was all in his gear, the Glengarry on his head, his pack on his shoulder, his kilts a-swing, and he went past her jauntily, but she knew he expected her to stop him, to run after him and throw her arms about him: she saw in his eyes as he went by the fear that she’d pay no heed.
And none she paid, she did not speak, she did not unbend, young Ewan stopped from his playing and looked after his father incuriously, as at a strange alien that went from the place. At the gate of the close, as he banged it behind him, Ewan stooped to sort up his garters, red in the face, not looking at her still. And she paid him no heed.
He swung the pack on his shoulders then and went slow down the road to the turnpike bend, she saw that from the kitchen window, knew he believed she would cry to him at the last. And she smiled, cold and sure, that she knew him so, every action and thought, and why he stood there at last, not trying to look back. He fumbled for matches and lighted his pipe as she watched; and a cloud came over the sun and went on with Ewan, the two of them went down the turnpike then together, out of her sight in the shadow and flame of the bright sun weather, it was strange and impossibly strange. She stood long staring down at that point where he’d vanished, sharp under her breast, tearing her body, her heart was breaking, and she did not care! She was outside and away from its travail and agony, he had done all to her that he ever could now, he who had tramped down the road in that shadow that fled from the sun.
And then it was she found no salvation at all may endure forever, or beyond the pitch that the heart may bear it, she was weeping and weeping, her arms flung over the kitchen table, weeping for that Ewan who had never come back, for the shamed, tormented boy with the swagger airs she had let go from Blawearie without a kiss or a parting word. Εwan, Ewan! her heart cried then, breaking and breaking, Oh Ewan, I didn’t mean it! Ewan—he was hers, hers still in spite of all he had done and said, he had lived more close in her body than the heart that broke now, young Ewan was his, Oh God, she had never let him go like that! And in her desolation of weeping she began to pray, she had known it useless, but she prayed and prayed for him to come back, to kiss her and hold her in kindness just once before he went down that road. She ran wild-eyed and weeping to the close and there was John Brigson, he stared dumbfounded as she cried Oh, don’t let him go, run after him, John!
And syne he said he didn’t understand, if she meant her man, it was more than an hour since Εwan had gone down the road, he’d heard long syne the whistle of his train out across the hills.
IT WAS A MONTH before she heard from him, and then only a scrape and a score on a thing they called a field postcard, written somewhere in France; and it said no more than that he was well. No more than a whisper out of the dark cave of days into which he had gone, it yet salved her mind from the searing agony that tormented the early weeks. They would never be the same again, but some day he would come back to her, their madness forgotten, back to her and young Ewan and Blawearie when the War was done, they’d forget and forget, busy themselves in new hours and seasons, there would never be fire and gladness between them again but still undying the labour of the fields in which she now buried her days.
For she sank herself in that, the way to forget, she was hardly indoors from dawn to dusk in all the range of the harvest weather, running down the bouts behind the binder that John Brigson drove, little Ewan running and la
ughing beside her. He thought it a fun and a play she made, stooking and stooking so quickly then, her hands became as machines, tireless and quick and ceaseless through the long hours, she stooked so quickly that with an extra hour each evening, old Brigson helping her, she was close to the uncut rigs again. Corn and the shining hollow stalks of the straw, they wove a pattern about her life, her nights and days, she would creep to bed and dream of the endless rigs and her hands in the night would waken her, all pins and needles they would be. Once she went ben to the parlour to look in the glass and saw then why pity came often in old Brigson’s eyes, she was thinner than ever she’d been, her face was thin, it seemed to her some gloss had gone from her hair, her eyes grown dull and patient and pupil-less; like the eyes of a cow.
So, hurt and dazed, she turned to the land, close to it and the smell of it, kind and kind it was, it didn’t rise up and torment your heart, you could keep at peace with the land if you gave it your heart and hands, tended it and slaved for it, it was wild and a tyrant, but it was not cruel. And often, in the night-stooking with old John Brigson near, a ghost of gladness would come to her then, working under the coming of the moon before the evening dew came pringling over Kinraddie, night-birds whistling over the fields, so quiet, so quiet, stilling away the pain in her body, the pain in her heart that this reaping and harvesting had brought.
And then Long Rob of the Mill came up to Blawearie. He came one morning as they started the yavil, he came through the close and into the kitchen, long and as rangy as ever he was, his face filled out and his eyes the same, and he cried How’s Chris? Bonny as ever! And he caught young Ewan up on his shoulder and Ewan looked down at him, dark and grave, and smiled, and thought him fine.
A Scots Quair Page 26