And then she remembered and sought out the wedding ring she had bought that day: Ewan, will you put this on for me?
When she woke near morning in the little inn-room he was sleeping beside her, hallowed and clean and made whole again, light faint on the dark face turned to her shoulder; and in tenderness she lay and looked at him and thought Yes, that was fun, Oh Ewan, funny boy!
He woke at her movement—quickly, at once, and knew her, put his right arm under her head, and said sleepily did he tell her last night that Yes, she felt as well as looked like silk? Some funny grain in skin-texture, no doubt: he’d find out some time, unless he first ate her…. And he’d forgotten to kiss her as completely as he’d promised.
But when he’d done that and slept again, Ellen didn’t, holding him in a quiet compassion that he wouldn’t have understood and would never know; and that didn’t matter, she was his forever, in desire or hating, his till they ended or grew old and remembered, far off, the terror and wonder of those first moments that made you suddenly so frightened of God because there must be a God after all.
And Chris stood with gloved hands on the hot May railings and looked down at Duncairn where her marriage was waiting. What a reel of things in a short few months, what an antrin world that waited tomorrow!
Well, that had to be faced, and whatever else it would be (she thought, and smiled to her sulky self trigged out in the glass of the Windmill Steps) it wouldn’t be the tomorrow she expected now. No tomorrow ever was though you planned it with care, locked chance in the stable and buried the key.
Tomorrow.
Ake.
Ewan.
Ellen.
Ewan and his Ellen. What had happened with them? Nothing but the thing that had happened so often as any fool of a woman might know. And now that it had happened— what came next? And she thought Ah well, it’s no matter of mine, though her thoughts strayed a little even as she thought that, half in tenderness, half in anxiety, wondering what they’d said, what they’d done, what their compact was, not caring greatly they’d done ill by old standards though she hoped to God they’d at least been careful. And she minded their faces at breakfast that day and that look they’d exchanged while she sat and watched, Ellen’s open and lovely, unashamed, Ewan’s open as well, but the kind of smile that no lad ever yet kept for his lass. Grey granite and thistledown—how would they mix?
Oh, that unguessable tomorrow would tell!
FOUR
Zircon
THE HILL SLOPES were rustling with silence in the glimmer of the late June gloaming as Chris Ogilvie made her way up the track, litheness put by for a steady gait. On the bending slopes that climbed ahead to the last of the daylight far in the lift the turning grass was dried and sere, a June of drought and swithering heat, the heather bells hung shrunken and small, bees were grumbling going to their homes, great bumbling brutes Chris brushed from her skirts. Halfway up she stopped a minute and rested and looked down with untroubled eyes at the world below, sharp-set and clear each item of it in that brightness before the dark came down, mile on mile of coarse land and park rolling away to the distant horizons that tumbled south to her forty years in the distant Howe.
She looked down at herself with a smile for her gear and then took to the climb of the brae again, following the windings of the half-hidden path, choked with whins and the creep of the heather since the last time men had trauchled up here. Then, greatly cupped and entrenched and stone- shielded, she saw the summit tower above her, so close and high here the play of the gloaming it seemed to her while she stood and breathed if she stretched up her hand she could touch the lift—the bending bowl of colours that hung like a meikle soap-bubble above her head.
Treading through the staying drag of the heather she made her way under the shoggle of the walls to a high, cleared space with stones about, to the mass of stone where once the astronomers had come a hundred years before to take an eclipse of the moon or sun—some fairely or other that had bothered them and set them running and fashing about and peering up at the lift and gowking, and yammering their little supposings, grave: and all long gone and dead and forgotten. But they’d left a great mass of crumbling cement that made a fine seat for a wearied body—a silly old body out on a jaunt instead of staying at home with her work, eident and trig, and seeing to things for the morn—that the morn she might get up and see to more things.
That the reality for all folk’s days, however they clad its grim shape in words, in symbols of cloud and rock, mountain that endured, or shifting sands or changing tint—like those colours that were fading swift far in the east, one by one darkening and robing themselves in their grave-clouts grey, happing their heads and going to the dark…. Change that went on as a hirpling clock, with only benediction to ring at the end—knowledge that the clock would stop some time, that even change might not endure.
She leaned her chin in her hand and rested, the crumbling stone below her, below that the world, without hope or temptation, without hate or love, at last, at long last. Though attaining it she had come a way strewn with thorns and set with pits, like the strayings of a barefoot bairn in the dark—
She’d not failed in her bargain she told herself that night in the house on Windmill Place, been glad for the man with kindness and good heart, given that which he needed and that which he sought, neither shrinking not fearing. And he’d given her a pat Ay, lass, but you’re fine, and thrust her from him, assuaged, content, and slept sound and douce, alien, remote. Her husband, Ake Ogilvie.
She bit her lips till they bled in those hours that followed, seeking not to think, not to know or heed or believe when every cell of her body tingled and moved to a shivering disgust that would not cease—Oh, she was a fool, what had happened to her that wasn’t what she’d known, expected to happen? Idiot and gype to shiver so, she’d to sleep, to get up in the morning and get on with her work, get her man’s meat ready, his boots fresh-polished, sit by his side and eat in a kitchen, watch his slobberings of drink and his mouthings of food while he took no notice of her, read his paper, laced his boots and went showding out to look for a job, a contented childe…. She’d all that waiting for her the morn, all morns: sleep and be still, Oh, sleep and be still!
And at last she lay still with memories and ghosts, Εwan with dark hair and boy’s face, Ewan beside her, Ewan from the dust, who’d thought her the wonder of God in the wild, dear daftness of early love, Ewan whom she’d loved so and hated so, Ewan—oh, little need to come now, she’d paid the debt back that he’d given for her when they murdered him that raining morning in France, paid it to the last ounce, body and flesh. And then in the darkness another came, a face above her, blue-eyed, strong-lined, only a moment as that moment’s madness between them long syne. Not in longing or lust had they known each other, by chance, just a chance compassion and fear, foolish and aimless as living itself. Oh, Long Rob whose place was never with me, not now can you heed or help me at all….
Quiet and quiet, because not that third, not look at him or remember him. And she buried her face in the pillow not to see, and then turned and waited rigid: Robert.
And she saw him for the first time since he’d died Robert completed, who’d had no face in her memory so long, Robert with eyes and face and chin and the steady light of madness in his eyes. Robert not the lover but the fanatic, Robert turning from her coughing red in sleep in that last winter in Segget, Robert with red lips as he sat in the pulpit—she stared at him dreadfully in the close-packed dark, far under her feet the clocks came chiming while she lay and looked and forgot to shiver.
Not Ake alone, but beyond them all, or they beyond her and tormenting her. And she knew in that minute that never again in memory or reality might any man make in gladness unquiet a heart passed beyond lust and love alike—past as a child forgetting its toys, weeping over their poor, shattered shapes no longer, and turning dry-eyed to the lessons of Life.
Ewan tramped Duncairn in search of a job—he knew it would be too
expensive a job to try and fight on the apprentice’s rights which Gowans and Gloag had torn up with his agreement. No chance of winning against them, of course, they could twist any court against a Red. He told that to Chris, cheery and cool; but his coolness was something different now. Cold and controlled he had always been, some lirk in his nature and upbringing that Chris loved, who so hated folk in a fuss. But now that quality she’d likened to grey granite itself, that something she’d seen change in Duncairn from slaty grey to a glow of fire, was transmuting again before her eyes—into something darker and coarser, in essence the same, in tint antrin queer. More like his father he seemed every day, if one could imagine that other Ewan with his angers and hasty resentments mislaid…. She told him that and he laughed and teased her: Only I’m a lot better looking! and she said absently he would never be that, there was over-much bone in his face.—And what job are you thinking of trying to get?
He said he’d no idea, any old job, there’d likely not be much opening for a Red: I’m sorry to have upset your plans, you know, mother.
Chris asked What plans? and he asked with a grin hadn’t she wanted him to be respectable, genteel, with no silly notions and a nice office suit? Chris didn’t laugh, just said she hadn’t known she’d mothered a gowk: if he knew as little of the beliefs that had made him a Red as he knew of her— faith, it would be long before he and Mr Trease ruled in Duncairn.
He sat and listened to that with a smile: Faith, it’ll be long anyway, I’m afraid. And as for what you call my beliefs, they’re just plain hell—but then—they are real. And you ought to like them, you’re so much alike!
She asked what he meant, and he said Why, you’re both real, and stood up and cuddled her, laughing down at her, Ewan who’d once had no sense of humour, had he found that in torment in a prison cell? Didn’t you know you were real, Chris, realer than ever? And stepfather Ake’s pretty real as well.
Real? She watched through the days that followed, manner and act, gesture and gley, with a kind, quiet curiosity. Like Ewan he was tramping Duncairn for a job, she’d listen to his feet on the stairs as he went, and the stride never altered, an unhastening swing. And at evening they’d sit long hours in the kitchen, Chris sewing, him reading, hardly speaking a word, Chris because she had nothing to say, Ake because he’d no mind for claik. Then he’d drink his cocoa and look at the clock, and say Lass, it’s time we went off to bed, and off he’d go, in his socks, no slippers or shoes, she’d follow and find him winding his watch, feet apart, independent, green- eyed, curled mousered, taking a bit glance at the night-time sky. And even while they undressed he’d say no word, getting cannily into the bed and lying down. Then he’d swing over on his pillow and off to sleep without a good night or a single remark: would a man be as daft as say good night to his own wife?
And Chris as those nights went by, padding at the heels of unchanging days, slept well enough now without fears at all on that matter that had set her shivering at first, she shivered no longer, he came to her rarely, eidently, coolly; and with a kind honesty, unhurtable now, she awaited him, paying her share of the price of things, another function for the woman-body who did the cooking and attended the house while he still kept up his hunt for a job.
Kisses there were none, or caresses even, except a rare pat as she leaned over to set a plate in front of him. They said bare things one to the other: Ay, it’s clearing…. Rain in the lift…. Eggs up in price…. That’ll be Ewan….
She was finding ease who had known little.
The Reverend MacShilluck had never heard the like, he’d advertised for a gardening body and the morning the advertisement appeared in the Runner, the first to come in search of the job—now, who do you think the young thug was?
The housekeeper simpered and said she didn’t know: could it be the young man was an ill-doer, like?
The Reverend MacShilluck said Not only that, far worse than that, ahhhhhhhhhhhh, far worse. And the housekeeper said Well, God be here. Was the smokie to your taste? for she wanted away back to the kitchen to add up the grocer’s account for the week and see how much she could nick on the sly and save up against the day that would come when she’d be able to clear out completely and leave the clorty cuddy forever…. But he was fairly in full swing by then and went on to tell that the young man who’d come was no other than that thug Ewan Tavendale who’d led the strikers at Gowans and Gloag’s and been sacked for it, he’d been in the jail and yet had the impertinence to come looking for a job about a Manse. So the Reverend had refused him, sharp and plain, he’d seen the young brute was a typical Red, born lazy, living off doles and never seeking an honest day’s work—
The housekeeper said God be here, like that? Then he couldn’t have been seeking the job at all? And the Reverend MacShilluck gave a bit cough and said he would never trust a Red, not him; had he ever told her the tale of the way at the General Assembly he’d once choked off a Socialist, Colquohoun—shame on him, and him a minister, too! …
Miss Murgatroyd said Eh me, it was Awful, but had Mrs Colquohoun—oh, sorry, she meant Mrs Ogilvie—heard of the Dreadful Occurrence at Gawpus’s shop? And Chris said she hadn’t and Miss Murgatroyd said she didn’t know how to speak, she was sure Mrs Ogilvie would understand her point of view and that she didn’t really believe that young Mr Ewan had behaved like that. And Chris asked what was this about Ewan? and Miss Murgatroyd told her the dreadful story, just as she’d got it from that dear Mrs Gawpus that afternoon at the Unionist Ladies. It seemed that Mr Ewan had got employment in the basement of Bailie Gawpus’s shop, and oh me, it was awful to tell the rest. He’d been there only a day or so when the other workmen in the basement had started raising a din because there wasn’t a proper, you know, wc there, the Bailie had thought it would be just pampering keelies, wasn’t there the yard outside? The Bailie had gone down to see what was wrong, and then he’d set eyes on Mr Ewan, so unfortunate, for the Bailie remembered him—he had seen him when he was arrested for taking a part in that dreadful strike. Bailie Gawpus hadn’t known that Mr Ewan was one of his employees, a foreman had engaged him—such a nice man, the Bailie, but awful strict, a little stout, she was sure it was his heart—
Well, he became Such Indignant at seeing Mr Ewan, and sure that he was causing the bother, that he ordered him out of the basement at once, he was so against the Communists and the dreadful things they had done to the Common People in Russia. He told Mr Ewan he was dismissed on the spot, Such a Pity, Bailie Gawpus perhaps not as nice as he might have been—in fact, Mrs Gawpus admitted that her husband perhaps exceeded his powers, he laid hands on Mr Ewan to push him out. And then—it was dreadful, dreadful, a man old enough to be his father—Mr Ewan seized Bailie Gawpus by the collar of his coat and ran him out to the yard at the back, the Bailie almost dying of rage and heart-failure, and showed him—you know, the place that those awful basement people Used. And he asked how the Bailie would like to use it? And before the Dear Bailie could say anything at all he was down on his hands and knees and his face being Rubbed in It—feuch, wasn’t that awful? Worse still, the rest of the dreadful keelies came out from the basement and cheered and laughed and when Bailie Gawpus got up to his feet and threatened to send for a policeman Mr Ewan said there was no need to do that, he was off to get one himself and report the sanitary conditions of the place. So dreadful for the Bailie. He’d to pay up a week’s wages to Mr Ewan and promise to have a proper wc constructed; and the Bailie was just Boiling with Rage….
Almost every night after that weekend in Drumtochty Ellen would slip through her doorway, sly pussy-cat, and trip along to Ewan’s room, scratch on the door and be letten in, and taken and kissed and looked at and shaken, because they were mad and the day had seemed—Oh, so horribly long! And Ellen would forget the vexatious Scotch brats whom she tried to drum up the steep cliffs of learning, sour looks and old women and the stench from the drains of the Ecclesgriegs Middle, the sourly hysterical glares of Ena Lyon —everything every time in that blessed min
ute when inside Ewan’s door she was inside his arms, tight, arms hard and yet soft with their dark down fringe, Ewan’s face bent down to hers to that breathless moment when she thought she would die if he didn’t, in one second—oh, kiss her quick!
And he did, and her arms went up round his neck, fun, thrilly: you’d often wondered what men’s necks were for. And the two of you would stand still, so cuddled, not kissing, not moving, just in blessed content to touch, to hear the beating of each other’s hearts, each other’s breathing, know each other’s being, content and lovely, without shelter or shyness one from the other, blessed minute that was hardly equalled in all else, not even the minutes that followed it later.
But first she made tea on Ewan’s gas-ring with the kettle and teapot they’d bought together in a Saturday evening scrimmage at Woolies, China tea, Ellen kneeling to make it, having made Εwan sit and be quiet and not fuss, tired out with haunting the streets for a job. And he’d say But I’m not, and she’d say then he ought to be—Sit still and read and don’t argue. Εwan would laugh and drag down a book, silence in the room but for the gas-hiss, Ellen drowsy as she watched the bubbling gas-flame and the kettle begin to simmer and stir. Housekeeping comfy and fun, alone in a room with Εwan: though the house wasn’t theirs, nor the room, nor the furniture, nothing but a sixpenny kettle and teapot and cups and saucers at a penny a piece!
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