“Oh dear, she is miserable!” Sue said softly.
“Nobody loves her,” muttered Darnay, painting away industriously.
“But maybe she doesn’t mind.”
“Of course she minds. There you are, Miss Bun. Take it away and never let me see it again. The damned woman has wasted my whole afternoon, and the light’s going.”
* * *
Sue returned to the kitchen with her prize. She stuck it up on the mantelpiece and made up the fire. Then she put the kettle on for tea. Every now and then she paused and glanced at the “White Lady” and smiled. It was her own. He had painted it for her. She would keep it always.
She was so happy over her latest acquisition that when the back doorbell rang, and she found Grace standing on the steps, she welcomed her quite warmly. Sue was in love and charity with everyone today.
“Hullo, Grace!” she said. “I was just going to infuse the tea.”
Grace came in. She was looking very smart in a brown coat with a fur collar and a red hat. It was a new outfit and Sue commented on it in a friendly manner.
“Are ye still liking it, Sue?” Grace asked when the subject of her new garments was exhausted.
“It’s not so bad,” declared Sue. “How’s everybody at home?”
“Everybody’s fine,” replied Grace casually.
She said no more then, and it was not until they were sitting down to tea that she revealed the reason for her visit.
“Will sent me here. Ye’re to come home, Sue,” she said simply.
“I’m to come home, am I?”
“Yes,” said Grace. “Will says it’s not fit for ye to be here, yerself.”
“Supposing I’m not wanting to come home.”
Grace sighed gustily. “Will says yer to come. He says it’s not decent living alone with a man.”
“And how would Mr. Darnay manage without a housekeeper?” inquired Sue with dangerous sweetness. “How would he get his meals and keep the place clean?”
“He can get some other body. He can get an old woman—there’s plenty would be glad of the job.”
Sue laughed. “They’d not be glad long,” she declared roundly. “It’s no job, this, for an old done woman to tackle. I’d like to see what the place looked like when she’d been here a week.”
“Maybe so, but that’s no business of ours.”
“It’s my business, then,” Sue told her, getting heated with the argument despite her efforts to remain calm. “It’s my job, and I like it. I was miserable at home—you know that fine, and fine you know the reason.”
“I know ye were hard to get on with,” Grace said, keeping her temper with difficulty, “but maybe things would be better now, and maybe ye wouldn’t be at home so long either.”
“So that’s it!” cried Sue, her eyes flashing. “It’s not that you’re wanting me home at all. You’re wanting me to marry Ben Grierson—I might have known that was the way of it if I’d had any sense. It’s a pity Ben doesn’t come ask me himself like a man!”
“He would!” cried Grace eagerly. “Ben’s mad for ye, Sue. If I gave him the least wee hint, he’d be out here like a shot.”
“You can keep your hints, for I’m not wanting Ben Grierson nor any other man of your choosing.”
They glared at each other for a moment or two, and then Grace sighed, more deeply than before. The interview was not developing the way she had planned. “I can’t think how we got onto Ben,” she said in a propitiatory tone of voice. “Nobody’s wanting ye to take the man. It was Will sent me here, and ye’ve to come home—he’s yer father, Sue.”
“So I’ve heard,” declared Sue dryly.
“What do ye mean?”
“He’s my father, and I’ve worked for him since I was fourteen years old—and never a kind word out of his head—I’m not owing him much.”
Grace sighed. “He’s a difficult man.”
There was a little silence and then Grace rose. “I’ll need to go,” she said. “Time’s getting on, and I’ve got stewing steak for supper—what will I say to him, Sue?”
“I’ve told you I’m not coming.”
“My, he’ll be awful mad!” said Grace apprehensively.
Sue was somewhat melted at the look on her visitor’s face—she knew only too well that it was not without justification. “I’m sorry, Grace,” she said. “I’m sorry, but it’s no use saying one thing and meaning another. You’re a great deal better off without me in the house.”
Grace did not reply at once. She considered the matter. The fact was they were no better off without Sue. There were not so many open quarrels, of course, but the atmosphere was just as strained and uncomfortable as ever, and Grace still felt an interloper in her husband’s house. If she had been of an imaginative turn of mind it might have occurred to her that the house over the bakery was haunted by Mary’s ghost, but she was far too matter-of-fact to consider such a possibility for a moment. The house was not haunted, of course; it was Will who was haunted by Mary. He had put another woman in her place, but unfortunately she could not fill it. Will never looked at his new wife’s heavy stolid face without seeing Mary’s fair merry one. He never heard her voice without hearing the gentle tones of Mary’s. He could not even take Grace in his arms without experiencing a passion of longing for Mary.
It was no wonder that Grace was unhappy in her new life.
“What are you thinking?” inquired Sue at last.
“Nothing much,” answered Grace. “It’s just—we’re not so much better off. Yer father’s hard to understand—he scarcely opens his mouth, and Sandy’s awful sulky.”
“You should let Sandy do what he wants,” Sue told her. “He’s miserable—that’s what’s the matter with him.”
“Sandy doesn’t know what he wants,” said Grace promptly.
“He wants—”
“He wants one thing on Monday and another thing on Tuesday,” continued Grace. “If he’d speak out and say what he’s thinking, there’d be some chance of dealing with him. I declare I’m half crazy between the two of them—I never had to do with dumb folks before.”
“You didn’t like me speaking out and you don’t like their dumbness—you’re hard to please, Grace.”
“Maybe I am,” she replied hopelessly.
In spite of the hard words that had been said, the two felt more friendly to each other at this moment than they had ever felt before. They had spoken with perfect frankness, and the bitter feelings that had been pent up within them for so long were eased away.
“I’m sorry,” said Sue again as they parted on the doorstep.
“Och, well—” said Grace resignedly, and with that she put up her umbrella and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
Chapter Thirteen
One morning in December, Sue awoke to find the voice of the river muted to a mere whisper in the gray dark, and rising from her bed she looked out upon an unfamiliar scene. Snow had fallen heavily in the night, blanketing the hills, outlining every branch of every tree, and crusting thickly upon the rocks that lined the riverbed. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was dove gray with the promise of dawn, and the light, instead of falling from above, seemed to rise from below—a strange ghostly light like the winter daylight of the Arctic wastes.
Sue was young enough to love the snow. The mere fact that it threw everything out of gear and dislocated the even tenor of existence was an adventure, not a nuisance, to her. She raced through her work, for she wanted to go out. The country around Tog’s Mill was familiar to her now in its bare winter garb, but the snow would make it all different. Sue wanted to see it and smell it; she wanted to walk knee-deep in the crispness of it. Darnay was pleased too and could hardly wait to eat his breakfast before seizing his painting gear and sallying forth to find a subject for his brush.
At eleven o’clock Sue f
illed a thermos flask with hot coffee and arrayed herself for her walk. She tucked up her skirt and tied a blue woolen scarf over her head. The sun was shining now, but it was low on the horizon, and there was little heat in its rays; the air was like chilled wine, and the snow was crisp as sugar underfoot. The trees were finely etched against the whiteness of their background, their shadows were deep blue, and the little dells and depressions in the covering were dove gray. Over the fields the snow was as smooth as a blanket and the hedges and banks showed only as gentle mounds, and through it all—the only thing that moved in all that wide, still waste—the river ran swiftly, like a dark green snake.
Sue had wondered whether she would be able to find Darnay—for sometimes he painted by the river, and sometimes on the hills—but there was no difficulty at all in finding him, for his footprints were clear and firm, leading her westward along the river path. It was fun tracking him like this, and Sue enjoyed the novelty. She tried to place her own feet in the marks, but his strides were too long to be comfortable for her. Darnay’s footprints were the only human ones to mar the whiteness of the snow, but there were dozens of tiny prints made by rabbits and river rats. Their padding feet had run over the snow this way and that as they sought their food so that their light trails crossed and recrossed confusedly. There were bird marks too, and, in one place near the river’s edge, a scatter of ruby drops and a tiny heap of feathers showed where an owl or a hawk or some such bird of prey had made its kill.
Sue’s eyes were very bright and the cold air made her cheeks tingle. She was so happy that she sang as she went. She sang some of the old Scots songs that she knew and loved: “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” and “Will Ye No’ Come Back Again,” and then suddenly she came around a bend in the path beside a great rock with crystal icicles hanging from its crown and found Darnay painting by the river.
He looked up and smiled at her. “Why stop?” he inquired. “It was the prettiest thing in the world to hear your voice coming nearer and nearer and nearer. I didn’t know you had such a pretty voice, Miss Bun. Why have you hidden your light under a bushel?”
Sue blushed. “I was singing to myself.”
“So I supposed, but you have no objection to other people enjoying it, I hope. What’s that you’ve got?”
“Coffee,” she replied. “I was thinking you might be a wee bit cold.”
“You were wrong,” he told her, and he laughed when he saw how her face fell. “You were entirely wrong in thinking I might be a wee bit cold—I’m almost frozen to death. What a wonderful person you are!” he continued as he took the cup and warmed his hands upon it and sipped the coffee with relish. “You really are the perfect housekeeper. How did you find me?”
Sue chuckled. “How do you think I would find you?” she inquired.
He thought for a moment, crinkling up his eyes, and then he exclaimed, “Of course! You tracked my footsteps in the snow. How clever of you!”
“Savages are often good at tracking—so I’ve heard,” declared Sue, dryly.
Darnay roared with laughter. “So you haven’t forgotten that insult! Come look at the picture, Miss Bun.”
She went to look at it, and this time she was careful to look at it from a distance so that her eye would not be confused by the whorls of crude paint.
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully.
“You like it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” she declared with absolute honesty. “It’s too queer for me to like it, and I can’t see all those colors in the snow. Snow looks white to me.”
“Only because you have a preconceived idea that snow is white,” said Darnay seriously. “It is your brain that tells you snow is white—not your eyes.”
* * *
Darnay crossed the river at the weir above the mill and set off up the snowy slopes of the opposite bank. He was going to see Loch Beil, which Miss Bun had told him lay on the north side of the tree-clad hill. The loch would be frozen—perhaps it would be covered with snow—and Darnay thought he could find a subject there. He carried, besides his painting gear, a knapsack containing his lunch, for he intended to be out all day, but despite the load, he strode up the hill with long easy strides. He felt fit and strong and happy, for he knew that he was doing good work—the “new medium” was going to be a success.
There was a fine view from the top of the hill and Darnay paused to admire it. The town of Beilford lay eastward, a cluster of gray houses half hidden by a haze of smoke. All around were hills: small hills, rounded and glistening white in the winter sunshine, and big hills faintly opalescent, their more rugged contours outlined against the pale blue sky. Below him lay the loch, a smooth white sheet, surrounded by pine trees, tall and stiff as sentinels. Darnay noticed that, at one end of the loch, a patch of gray ice had been swept clear, and this patch was occupied by a group of dark figures that moved backward and forward in an apparently meaningless way.
Darnay watched the small figures for a few moments, crinkling up his eyes in the white glare, and suddenly he realized that there was a curling match in progress. He had seen curling in Switzerland, and it had not appealed to him in the least (it was foolish—so Darnay thought—to spend your days rolling stones upon a rectangular patch of ice when you could climb the mountains and rush down them on skis with the wind whistling through your hair), but here it was quite a different matter, for these people were curling upon a real loch in natural surroundings, and the game was their own game—indigenous to their soil.
Darnay stacked his painting things behind a rock and went down to see the game. He would watch them for a little and see where the fascination lay. As he drew nearer, he heard cries and shouts and a strange rumbling sound as the stones slid over the ice. It was an elemental sound, exciting as thunder, and was echoed back (as thunder is echoed) from the high cliffs to northward of the loch.
As Darnay reached the bank it seemed that a game had ended, for the players were standing in a little group, talking and laughing together. They were all men, he noticed, and they were dressed in the queerest assortment of clothes—old torn jackets and knickerbockers that looked as though they had come out of the Ark. (Bulloch was the only one that Darnay knew—an outstanding figure with his tall, spare frame and silver hair.) He was sorry that the game was over, for he had wanted to watch them and to hear that gorgeous roar at close quarters.
Suddenly Bulloch looked around and saw Darnay. He said something to one of his companions and came over to the bank.
“Would ye care to join us, Mr. Darnay?” he inquired. “We’re a man short, ye see. The fact is the doctor was called away.”
“I don’t know the first thing about curling,” said Darnay, laughing.
Bulloch smiled. “It’s high time ye made a start, then,” he declared. “Come away now. We’ll soon put ye in the way of it.”
“I shouldn’t be the least use.”
“You’d wonder,” Bulloch said. “Maybe ye’ve played bowls now and then?”
Darnay had played bowls.
“Well then, ye’ll soon get into the way of it—come away, Mr. Darnay.”
Darnay was led over to the rink, protesting feebly, and was received by the other players with unceremonious friendliness.
“Ye’ll soon get into it,” they told him.
“Never too old to learn.”
“We’ll make a curler of ye yet.”
They showed him how to stand—“Stand right, foot fair, look even”—and how to grip the handle of the stone and swing it slowly backward and upward, and they impressed him with the importance of soling the stone, letting it gently off his hand at exactly the right moment.
At first Darnay found it difficult. He had a straight eye, but the length bothered him, and his stones either failed to reach “the hog” or went careering through “the house” and fetched up in the bank of snow that surrounded the rink. But after a litt
le practice and tuition he was absurdly delighted to find that he really was beginning to get the hang of it. He would have liked to practice longer, but the others were eager to start and declared that Darnay was quite fit to take his place in the match.
By this time, Darnay had managed to sort out his companions and to distinguish them by their names—or at least the names used by their fellow curlers. His own side interested him most: first was himself (for beginners usually play lead); second was “Hickie,” a solid pleasant man of about twenty-eight years of age; third was “Bill,” an old man in a green shooting jacket, very much the worse for wear; fourth was “Hornie,” who was rather short and thickset and walked with a nautical roll. Darnay put him down as a retired seafaring man, possibly a mate in the mercantile marine. He was the “skip” of Darnay’s side and took his duties seriously.
At first Darnay was a little contemptuous of the excitement of his companions, but quite soon the game gripped him and he was shouting as loudly as anybody and “sooping” as though his life depended upon it. Time passed quickly, and he was quite surprised when it was decided to knock off for lunch. They were very friendly now, tossing jokes backward and forward as they ate their sandwiches—it was “Darnay this” and “Darnay that,” and Darnay entered into the spirit of the thing and called his companions by the names he had learned.
“I’m thinking we’ll have to hold a court this year,” Bulloch said. “It’s three years and more since we had one, and there’s several folks to initiate.”
“Darnay for one,” suggested Bill.
“Aye, Darnay, of course,” agreed Hornie. “We’ll make a fine curler of Darnay if only the frost lasts.”
“What’s all this?” inquired Darnay laughing.
“It’s the mysteries.”
“Aye, we canna tell ye.”
“Wait an’ see what’s coming to ye!”
“High jinks, eh?”
They all laughed then but refused to be more explicit, saying that it was a secret and that only the initiated were allowed to know what “the mysteries” consisted of.
The Baker’s Daughter Page 9