Hungry Hill

by Daphne Du Maurier

  "Don't say old," replied Henry gallantly, "you look as young to me as ever you did.

  How's the sketching?"

  "I've done one or two quite pretty little scenes, which I shall show you both some time. Johnnie, you would not care to go to Slane tomorrow and meet your grandfather? The steamer will not be coming for two or three days, and he has no business to keep him in Slane, apparently, so wishes to come down by road.

  Tim will drive you in the carriage."

  "I don't mind," said Johnnie.

  "I'm sure your grandfather would appreciate it.

  He has not seen you for six months, you know."

  "Doesn't he get very lonely all alone in Saunby?" said Henry, as they went into the hall.

  "I can't think what he does with himself, without the mines to watch that side of the water."

  "He goes into Bronsea twice a week still," replied Eliza, "and over to your old home at Lletharrog now and again. It's such a good thing Mrs.

  Collins is so excellent a housekeeper, and knows how to look after him. With your aunt Barbara an invalid it would be impossible for me to be with him in either place. I seem quite tied here these days."

  "You wait until I get my commission, Aunt Eliza," said Johnnie. "I shall invite you to London, and will spend my leave with you. Would you like me in a red coat?"

  "I should indeed, Johnnie darling. All the young women would be most envious of me. Is dinner ready, Thomas? I am famishing."

  "Mrs. John she says an hour later today, Miss Eliza; she wanted to finish some embroidery."

  "Oh dear, what a nuisance! The hours of the meals are changed every day. Yesterday when I came in from my walk the dishes were cleared away, because she took it into her head to eat earlier. I never know where I am."

  Johnnie peeped in at the library door. The room was bare and spartan, with the cold chill of a room that has not been used for many months. But his grandfather's presence clung about it still. Even the smell was the same: leather, and pens, and paper. There was something forbidding about it, like church. What a contrast, thought Johnnie, as he ran upstairs, to the babel of the drawing-room, where Fanny-Rosa, flushed and heated, was pinning a dress pattern on to her daughter Fanny, and scolding her at the top of her voice for fidgeting, while Edward and Herbert, climbing over the furniture and locked in combat, were watched with delight and appreciation by two barking spaniels.

  The following day Johnnie set out for Slane, in high humour because Tim let him drive the horses-or rather, he had commanded Tim to hand him the reins. Old Casey had been dead for some years, and the one-time groom, now a married man of nearly fifty, sat beside his young master in some trepidation.

  Master Henry could be trusted with the horses. He had a natural way with animals, like his father before him, but Master Johnnie had no patience at all, and would tug at the creatures' mouths and flick his whip so that the gentlest animal became a prey to nerves.

  "Let the horse do the work, Master Johnnie, leave him alone," said Tim, but Johnnie, who found the pace too slow, was for urging the beast onward.

  "Why don't you drive a hearse, Tim? You'd be more suited to it," he said. "Come on, you lazy devils, you're both so fat you can scarcely crawl, like this damned fool who looks after you."

  "And that's no fine way to talk, Master Johnnie, to one who knew you when you were a baby."

  "Ah, you know my bark is worse than my bite, Tim. I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world," said Johnnie, and he felt in his pocket for a piece of silver. "Here, you can drink perdition to me when you get to Slane."

  "I don't like to take it, Master Johnnie."

  "Don't be ridiculous. It isn't every day you drive me to Slane, is it? Make the best of it, while you can."

  It was fun to be all on his own in the city, with the horses and the carriage put up at the hostelry, and his grandfather, on enquiry, closeted with the manager of the bank, and likely to remain with him for two hours at least. He wandered down by the river and watched the shipping, and the sounds and the smells of Slane were good to him, because he felt well, and carefree, and was seventeen, and had money to burn in his pockets.

  He rounded the corner of a street, and ran slap into two of the fellows from Doonhaven. One of them was Jack Donovan, son of Sam Donovan who kept the shop on the quayside, a tall, well-set-up young man, some half-dozen years older than Johnnie, with ginger hair and prominent blue eyes.

  "Why, here's wonders," said Jack Donovan, "young Mr. Brodrick in person. Me and Pat was only saying to one another, it was time you were home from your fine school across the water."

  "How d'y do?" said Johnnie languidly, handing him two fingers. "Where are you fellows going?

  I'm waiting for my grandfather, and have two hours to spare in which to kick my heels."

  "Ah, we'll show you Slane," said Jack Donovan, with a wink. "Sure, it's a grand city when you know your way about. Let's wet our tongues, while we think about it."

  "You'd better not be seen with us in a public-house," said the other boy. "Maybe your grandfather will get to hear of it, and lam into you."

  "I'll do as I damn well please," said Johnnie. "Lead on, you two, I'm as thirsty as a tinker."

  He knew very well that if he was discovered in the company of the two fellows there would be the devil to pay, especially as one of them was a Donovan, because for some reason or other his grandfather disliked the Donovans, and so did both his aunts, and his mother too. Their dislike made him the keener to be friendly.

  Soon the three boys were seated round the bar in one of the numerous "publics" in Slane. The atmosphere was stifling, and the place was crowded. There was a fair somewhere in the town, and many of the country people filled the public-house, old men telling interminable stories, shrill, arguing women, and bright-faced country girls with shawls round their heads.

  "What will you have? Whisky?" asked Jack Donovan.

  "Yes, if you do," said Johnnie boldly.

  At home he drank ale, when he could get it, and sometimes a meagre glass of port when his grandfather had the thought of passing the decanter.

  "That's the way of it," said Jack Donovan in admiration, as Johnnie threw down his measure in one gulp, and tried to appear composed. "Why, you'd like another, I'll be bound. Here, Pat, another whisky for this handsome young gentleman."

  Johnnie took his second dose more slowly.

  God, it was good, though. Damn good. Put life into a fellow. And guts too. He'd be damned if he would go back to Eton next half. Uncle Bob should get him a commission right away.

  "I'm joining the Dragoons in a few months," he said, watching his two companions.

  "That's the life," said Jack Donovan.

  "Ah, you'll look brave, Mr. Johnnie, carrying the King's colours. Why, I declare I've a mind to go with you. Have another whisky?"

  "I don't mind if I do," said Johnnie, "on condition that I pay."

  "Here's your health, then," said his companion, "and the best of luck to the finest young cock it's ever been my chance to meet, and that's God's truth, I'll have you know. Are you twenty-one yet?"

  "Seventeen," said Johnnie.

  "Now you're lying to me. By all the blessed saints in heaven, you are lying to me. Is he not, Pat?"

  "I assure you I am not. I was seventeen in May of this year."

  "And drink whisky the way you do. That's something to be proud of. I'd swear you were twenty-one. See that maid looking at you through the window there? She would swear you were twenty-one too, wouldn't she, Pat?"

  There was much laughter and swaying about on the stools beside the bar, and Johnnie, surprised that he could still sit straight, laughed across at the girl in the shawl, who smiled back and beckoned.

  "Ah, now he's made a conquest, now he's lost to us," lamented Jack Donovan, raising his eyes to heaven. "But maybe if he's only seventeen he'd do best to leave Betty Finnigan alone. She won't take them quite so young."

  "What do you mean?" said Johnnie.

  The fel
low's laugh was suddenly becoming offensive, and he disliked his ginger hair. Perhaps, after all, his grandfather was right not to care about the Donovans. The room was getting damned hot too, and all the people making a hell of a noise.

  "I bet you don't put Betty Finnigan where she should be as quick as you knocked down those two whiskies," said Jack Donovan, thrusting a grinning face far too close to his own.

  "Oh really? What makes you think that?" said Johnnie.

  "Because they don't let you do those things at your fine school across the water," said Jack Donovan.

  "Anyone can slip a glass of whisky down his throat, but it takes a man to have a woman."

  There was another great burst of laughter, and some of the other people in the public-house turned round and stared at Johnnie.

  "Have your fun, boy," said an old fellow, waving his glass. "These young sparks are jealous of you, that's the plain truth of it, isn't it, Betty?"

  The bright-eyed girl in the shawl nodded, and smiled again at Johnnie.

  He rose slowly to his feet, and looked down at Jack Donovan.

  "Thank you for your company, Jack," he said.

  "One of these days we'll drink together again.

  Meanwhile, I have another appointment." He slammed down some silver on the bar, and put his hat on the side of his head. "Am I going your way, or are you going mine 8? he said to Betty Finnigan…

  It was five o'clock by the time Johnnie stood once more outside the bank. It was closed and barred, and the shutters drawn. His grandfather must have left fully an hour ago. Perhaps he would be waiting for him at the hostelry. Well, let the old bastard wait. It would not hurt him. Strange, thought Johnnie, how he did not feel nervous of him any more. His grandfather might look upon him with those grim, cold eyes of his, he might summon him to the bleak, cheerless study, and still he would not care. What had given him this feeling of cool confidence he could not say. Maybe it was the whisky he had taken, maybe it was the feel of the girl in his arms, maybe it was just the fact that he was seventeen, that he was Johnnie Brodrick of Clonmere, and if anyone dared to contradict him he would knock his back-teeth down his jaw, that made it impossible ever to be afraid again of an old man of seventy-five who should have been in his grave years ago.

  When Johnnie came to the hostelry he found the carriage drawn up outside, and Tim standing by the horses' heads.

  His grandfather was by the open door of the carriage, his watch in his hand.

  "Good afternoon, sir," said Johnnie. "Have I kept you waiting?"

  It was queer. He wondered if he had grown much during the last months, because he was now taller than his grandfather. Or was it possible that the old man had shrunk? Surely he leant more on that stick of his than he used to do? Copper John looked at his grandson, and replaced his watch in his waistcoat pocket.

  "I was just about to leave Slane without you," he said shortly, climbing into the carriage and seating himself in the far corner. "Well," he said, after a moment, "what have you been doing with yourself?"

  Johnnie took his handkerchief out of his pocket with a flourish, and blew his nose. It would be delicious, he reflected, to throw caution to the winds and tell the truth, and then watch the expression on his grandfather's face. He fought down inside himself a wild desire to laugh.

  "I spent the afternoon, sir," he said, "appreciating the beauties of Slane."

  His grandfather grunted.

  "You were in the city shortly after two o'clock," he said. "You must have walked three times round the place, and seen all there was to see by four. Open the window your side, my boy; the air is very close in here."

  He smells the whisky in my breath, thought Johnnie; now there'll be the devil to pay. I shall have to tell him I felt faint, and was obliged to go into a public-house and lie down. Once more the outrageous laughter rose in his throat. His grandfather said no more, however. He seemed thoughtful, preoccupied, and rather unlike his usual self. Perhaps his interview with the manager of the bank had not been a happy one. It was hardly possible, though, with the copper mines bringing in twenty thousand a year. But his mother was always prone to exaggeration. Possibly the tale was completely untrue, and things were going badly.

  Anyway, it was not his affair, thought Johnnie, and yawning, he closed his eyes and leant back against the cushions of the carriage, one hand on the window-strap for balance. He felt delightfully sleepy, incredibly content, and if that was the result of whisky and Betty Finnigan, what the devil would he be feeling like in a few years' time, after he had seen service in the Dragoons? The world was not such a bad place, after all. In a very few minutes he was fast asleep, his face flushed, his black hair tumbled, and looking, if the truth be told, considerably less than his seventeen years.

  He did not wake until the carriage rattled down into Doonhaven itself, when he came to with a start, recollecting the presence of his grandfather beside him, and was much relieved, and not a little surprised, to find that his grandfather had also slept, and therefore could not upbraid him for being an idle dog and a dull companion. It was a great temptation to tell Henry how he had spent his afternoon in Slane, but something prevented him: a faint suspicion that his younger brother, instead of shouting approval and patting him on the back, might draw away from him, puzzled, rather put off, and perhaps think less of him than he had done before. The family had dined, of course, and his grandfather had done so in Slane, so Johnnie, feeling that he could eat the house, fell upon the cold supper laid aside for him in the dining-room, and made non-committal replies to Henry's eager questions about the afternoon.

  The younger boys and his sister had already retired to bed, and when Johnnie and his brother went upstairs to the drawing-room to say goodnight, he found his grandfather standing before the mantelpiece, with a curious, rather embarrassed, expression on his face. His mother was seated in the chair by the window, and his aunt Eliza opposite her, and they had both put aside their work and were listening to the head of the house. Good Lord, thought Johnnie, he has found out about me this afternoon and is telling them…

  "Wait a moment," said his grandfather. "Both you boys had better hear what I am about to inform your mother and your aunt. Sit down, will you?"

  His grandsons obeyed. Copper John coughed, and clasped his hands behind his back.

  "I don't want to make a long story," he said, "but will acquaint you in a few words with what has happened. I only propose to make a short visit this time, in order to see the mines and discuss the business there, and shall then return to the other side of the water. I shall, in the future, continue to reside there rather more frequently than I have done in the past, making, with your permission, Fanny-Rosa, my headquarters at Lletharrog. Eliza can use the house at Saunby, when she feels at liberty to do so. This house, of course, will be kept open for the entire family, and my grandchildren will continue to make it their home."

  He paused, and coughed again. Eliza seemed puzzled, and glanced across at her sister-in-law.

  "What will you do, father," she said, "all alone at Lletharrog? It is rather far for you to keep going backwards and forwards to Bronsea. That is why you moved to Saunby in the first place."

  "I shall not be alone, my dear," said her father, "that is what I wish to tell you. Mrs. Collins consented to become my wife three weeks ago. We were married in Bronsea, and moved out to Lletharrog afterwards. She is a dear, good, faithful woman, and devoted to me. I am very glad indeed to call her Mrs. Brodrick, and I hope you will do the same."

  For a moment there was a great and dreadful silence.

  Then Fanny-Rosa said, "Good God!", and Eliza burst into a torrent of weeping.

  "Oh, father," she said, "how could you! Mrs.

  Collins, your cook, how shaming, how disgraceful, after all these years! What will people say, all our friends in Saunby? They will never speak to any of us again."

  "One thing is certain," said Fanny-Rosa: "the news of this will kill Barbara. We shall have to keep it from her somehow."
<
br />   "Barbara knows already," said Copper John quietly. "I told her this evening when I went to her room. She appeared fully to understand."

  "If she had not become an invalid this would never have happened," wept Eliza. "It is because she lay here, with me looking after her, that you became so dependent on '

  And once again she was choked by tears.

  "Of course," said Fanny-Rosa, "your father is entitled to do as he pleases. It is not as though Mrs. Collins is a young woman, who might.

  What I mean to say is, this new arrangement cannot affect Johnnie in any way, I suppose?"

  "I assure you," said her father-in-law, "that Johnnie's interest will be affected in no way whatsoever, nor yours, Fanny-Rosa, nor yours, Eliza, nor those of any member of my family.

  I am seventy-five years of age. My wife is fifty. I shall, very naturally, make provision for her in my will, but nothing that I leave to her will be taken from any of you.

  As to our friends in Saunby and elsewhere, Eliza, you need not worry on that account. We shall live very quietly in Lletharrog, and Mrs. Brodrick will never move anywhere else. It is not even necessary for people to know that I have married again, if you do not wish to tell them. I do hope and trust that none of my family will feel ill-will towards the woman who has so kindly consented to become the one companion of these last years of mine."

  No one answered. He looked from one to the other, and then across at his two grandsons. Thomas came in to draw the curtains. As he drew them with a click across the window there was something of finality about the sound, thought Henry, like the end of an epoch. Nothing would ever be quite the same again. Clonmere would continue, he and Johnnie and the boys would come there to spend their holidays, but their grandfather would not be with them. The library would be empty, the hall table bare of the nobbled stick and the shovel hat, and in the little farm-house at Lletharrog across the water his grandfather would be sitting opposite his cook, that large-faced, cheerful woman with the red hands, who made such excellent scones, and had that awful sing-song Bronsea accent. '