Hungry Hill

by Daphne Du Maurier

  She laughed, and got up from the breakfast table. "Poor dear! what it is to be a parent," she said. "At least I spare you most of it. I'm taking Lizette to the masseuse this morning, and fetching Kitty from the dancing-class this afternoon. If I were you I should write to Hal and congratulate him on his capacity for strong ale."

  She swept out of the room for her morning sa^cance with the cook.

  Henry did not answer. He collected his letters and went into the smoking-room. Hal like Johnnie…

  . No one had ever seen a likeness between them. Or had they? And refrained from saying so because they had regard for his feelings? Adeline was so often right in her judgement, shrewd and clear-sighted. That sort of thing was hereditary. Johnnie, and old Grandfather Simon Flower. '

  "My dear Hal, I am sorry I shan't be able to get down for the fourth, but we have a luncheon arranged here for that day. I shall ask your uncle Edward to go down instead, and no doubt Molly and Kitty will wish to accompany him. '?

  Hal shrugged his shoulders when he read the letter, and tearing it across, threw it in his waste-paper basket.

  The woman had prevented him, of course; he knew how it would be. All right, what the hell? If his father did not want to see him row there was an end to it.

  Rowing happened to be the one thing he could do decently, and he had hoped, secretly, that his father would be proud of the fact. Apparently not. It did not interest him.

  His last half at Eton, and his father had come down to see him once in four years. The same thing would happen at Oxford. An occasional letter, a fat cheque, and nothing else. Well, he was used to it by now. It did not matter any more.

  It was during Hal's second year at Oxford that Molly, on a visit to the Eyres across the water, met and became engaged to Robert O'Brien Spencer, J. p., a friend of her uncle Bill's.

  "He is such a dear," she wrote to Hal, "and loves every inch of the country, just as I do. And don't think I am doing this to get away from Adeline, because it isn't true, whatever she may say to father. I am really fond of Robert. But the glorious thing is this, we shall live only thirty or forty miles away from Clonmere, and Robert is going to write and ask father if we may go there for Christmas, home I mean, and give the darling place an airing. Of course you must join us, and Kitty, and Lizette."

  Home, after ten years. And dear old Molly going and getting herself engaged, to one of her own countrymen into the bargain. It was the greatest excitement since he had been up at Oxford-even better than rowing against Cambridge last spring. He must hold a celebration, give a dinner-party to all his friends and get gloriously tight. His allowance was running through his hands like water through a sieve, but it did not matter a damn. The old mines could stand the racket And he would paint Molly's portrait and present it to the happy bridegroom with compliments. Home for Christmas…

  Molly was married in November, and there was a glorious gathering of the clans that even Adeline could not squash. She arranged the ceremony, of course, and did her best to damp the proceedings by insisting that the house in Lancaster Gate was too small for the reception, and it must be held in a hotel, that was big and dreary and lacked all personality. But she could not take away the radiant look on Molly's face as she stood receiving her guests in the centre of the room, and she could not stop the whispered admiration for Kitty, the chief bridesmaid, who at seventeen had lost her coltish look and was strikingly lovely, like her mother before her. And though she did all she could to prevent it, she could not drag Henry away before the stalwart bridegroom had persuaded him to allow his family the occupation of Clonmere for Christmas.

  "We've won," said Hal gleefully, rubbing his hands, "we've trounced her at last. Don't look so scared, Lizette, she can't hear me. And I don't care if she does. Kitty and I are going to take you back home, over the water."

  They set forth on the sixteenth of December, crossing to Slane and going down by train to Mundy, where they found that the little paddle-steamer was still running in spite of the lateness of the season, and it took them across the twenty miles of bay to Doonhaven itself.

  The ten-year-old Lizette stood by the rail, between her sister and brother, looking upon it all for the first time, her pinched face losing its haunted expression, and the colour coming into her cheeks. The breeze was soft, from the south-west, the sky was full of little fleecy clouds, and the hills were green under the sun.

  "There's Andriff Castle, where Grannie was born," said Hal, pointing to the far distance. "We have cousins there, I expect Molly will ask them over.

  They must be grown up by now, and you see that church, standing in shadow, down by the water's edge-that's Ardmore, where we used to go every Sunday. Mamma is buried there."

  How tiny it looked. How windswept and alone.

  Had she lain there all these ten years, with no one belonging to her? Did anyone put flowers on her grave? Hal felt his throat tighten. The past seemed so remote, so long ago.

  There was Hungry Hill, lifting his old granite head to the sky, and the mine-workings at the base, the chimney-stacks, the sheds, the tracks, and as the steamer rounded the point the humped back of Doon Island lay before them, the long line of garrison buildings, and the village of Doonhaven, nestling in the shadow of the hills.

  "Look there, at the head of the creek across the harbour-that's Clonmere," said Hal.

  They stared in silence, at the home they had deserted as little children. The sun shone in the windows and upon the grey walls. The new wing had mellowed with the years and had become part of it all, but it was still empty, untouched since the builders had left it in 1871. A flag was flying from the old tower. Boats were anchored in the creek.

  The tears were running down Kitty's cheeks.

  "I know it's idiotic, but I can't help it," she said, smiling at Hal. "I thought somehow it would be different, but it's not. It's just the same."

  "There's a fellow in one of the boats," said Hal. "I wonder if it's a Sullivan or a Baird? He's probably been after killigs."

  "The herons still live in the trees below the park," said Kitty. "Look, Lizette, by the other creek, you can see their big, untidy nests…

  There's the harbour wall. It's low tide, the harbour is dry. We shall have to anchor outside and pull ashore."

  "I see Molly and Robert on the quay," said Lizette, "and other people with them. The man is dressed as a clergyman. He has a long grey beard."

  "It's Uncle Tom," shouted Hal. "He used to be father's best friend. And look, there's Aunt Harriet; she's waving a handkerchief."

  "That must be Jinny with them," said Kitty. "Good heavens, she was six when we left. And now I suppose she's sixteen."

  The paddle-steamer thrashed the water and went astern.

  The anchor plunged from the bows. And across the dancing water the little boats pulled. Everyone was smiling, and kissing, and shaking hands. Uncle Tom had one hand on Hal's shoulder and the other on Kitty's.

  Aunt Harriet had picked Lizette up in her arms and was holding her tight. Jinny looked from one to the other with warm brown eyes.

  "God bless you all," said Uncle Tom, in his deep voice. "We are so very glad to welcome you home, so thankful and so happy."

  The familiar cobbled stones, the shingle beach, the boats drawn up above the tide. Old Murphy's shop, the chandler's at the corner, the public-house across the square. It was market-day, and the stalls were being put away. A cowman was driving the cattle up the hill. Men stood about the square with straws in their mouths, staring and doing nothing, as they had always done. A woman was scolding a neighbour from her doorway, and a little slatternly child ran out with his finger in his mouth. The priest stood on the step of Murphy's shop, with a cabbage under his arm. Some half-dozen miners, in their working clothes, came singing down the road from Hungry Hill.

  "Why did we ever leave?" said Hal. "Why did father make us go away?" Uncle Tom smiled, and took his arm.

  "Never mind about that," he said. "You're home once more." How good it was to see Uncle
Tom again, and kiss Aunt Harriet's plump cheek; smell the familiar Rectory smell, of leather chairs, and ferns, and dogs; sit down to an enormous tea, and a fruit cake of Aunt Harriet's own baking.

  And memories, happy ones, tumbling over each other.

  "Do you still churn the butter, Aunt Harriet, and skim the cream off with a scallop shell?"

  "Does Uncle Tom still ride out to Ardmore on Sundays?"

  "Do you remember how we played charades after tea, and mamma pretended she could not guess the word, and knew all the time?"

  "Have you forgotten the picnic on Kileen moors, and Kitty falling into the bog?"

  "And the expedition to the Bule Rock?"

  "And the party the garrison gave on Doon Island?" The years in London were as though they had never been. Eton and Oxford existed no longer. Adeline and Lancaster Gate were an evil dream.

  Molly had remembered his wish for the tower room, and Hal looked around it that first evening home, his heart too full to speak. The Boles had never used the room, and a damp, unlived-in smell still clung about the walls. The pictures were faded, and some of them green with mould. On the top of an old cupboard was a case of birds' eggs, thick with dust. He had forgotten whom they belonged to. Was it his grandfather, who had won the silver cup for greyhounds? He took them down and cleared away the dust. There were bits and pieces of an old fishing-rod too. Too broken to be of any use.

  He was glad the Boles had done nothing with this room. It was intimate, personal, belonging only to the family. Home was the same, unchanged, but a little shabbier, a little more worn. Some of the carpets were threadbare. The curtains in the dining-room were falling to bits. The servants that Molly had brought with her from Robert's home said that the kitchen range was almost useless, and the pump in the stable-yard was broken.

  "But what does it matter?" said Molly at dinner. "We're home again, and if the turkey has to be roasted in front of the dining-room fire on Christmas Day it will taste all the better for it."

  Once more the lapping of water in the creek.

  Once more the full moon over Hungry Hill.

  There was so much to see, so much to do, and all in a little space of time. It was queer to see none of the old horses in the stables, and the coach-house was empty because the carriage had been sent away to London many years before. Old Tim was dead. The groom that Robert had brought with him lived in Tim's old quarters over the stables. Some of the windows were broken, there was grass growing between the cobbles.

  "And it used to be kept so beautifully," sighed Molly to her husband. "I remember the boy washing down the yard every morning, before the horses were groomed, and then Tim bringing the carriage round to the front door, if mamma wanted to go down into Doon-haven. Even if the Boles did not bother about the upkeep, you would think the agent would have seen everything was in order."

  "Always the same story when the owner goes away," said Robert. "You can't really blame the agent, or anyone. They feel no interest is taken. What's the use, they think, in looking after a place when the man it belongs to doesn't come near it for ten years?

  Never mind, Molly, we'll try to get it into-some sort of shape while we are here."

  Hal and his sister went up to visit the cottages at Oakmount, and they came away silent and disheartened, because after the first flood of conversation they felt tongue-tied and out of place.

  "Ah, you're the image of your mother," said Tim's widow to Kitty. "The same sweet eyes, God rest her soul." She ran on in this way for several minutes, making them feel welcomed and remembered, but then she started to bewail the times, the hardness of living, her only son and daughter both gone to America, her eyes fixed all the while on Hal.

  He gave her all the loose change in his pocket, which she seized greedily, and when they had said goodbye Hal looked over his shoulder and saw her muttering to herself, her face wrinkled, different, and he knew that she had forgotten them already, his mother's memory was a trick to please them; all that mattered to Tim's widow was the loose change in her hands.

  They went down to the Rectory, where Uncle Tom and Aunt Harriet soon restored them to cheerfulness.

  "Ten years is a long time," said Uncle Tom, "but you must not worry about it. You've come back, and you are going to stay. What do you intend to do with yourself, Hal, when you leave Oxford?"

  "Nothing," smiled Hal, "except enjoy myself and paint pictures for my friends."

  Aunt Harriet shook her head.

  "You've been learning bad ways, I can see that," she said. "Too much money and too little leadership. Come and help me churn the butter.

  Jinny will show you how to do it."

  The white-scrubbed dairy, and Aunt Harriet bustling with the pots and pans.

  "Come and work for your living," she said, "instead of lounging there on the table, drinking buttermilk.

  Jinny has twice your energy, for all your size."

  "Women shall work, and men shall play," teased Hal, pulling Jinny's hair. "Do you remember when I tipped you out of a wheelbarrow, Jinny, and made you cry?"

  "Yes, but you kissed her afterwards and said you were sorry," said Aunt Harriet.

  Hal dug his finger in the bowl of yellow cream, and looked slyly at Jinny, who, with sleeves rolled up and hair pinned on top of her head, was working the handle of the churn.

  "I suppose you're too old to kiss now, Jinny," he said.

  "Much too old," said Jinny gravely.

  "And too sensible to fall out of a wheelbarrow?"

  "It depends who was wheeling it."

  "Would you like me to take you round the garden and see?"

  "I would not."

  "Then we'll go fishing in the creek instead, if you'll be good enough to trust yourself to me."

  "I won't promise anything," said Jinny, "until you take your fingers out of the cream."

  Hal laughed, and slipping off the table, he took his place beside her and worked the handle of the churn.

  "Oh, Jinny," he said, "you've never been away, so you don't know what it is to be home again."

  It was no use getting depressed because the years had come between them and the people of Clonmere. The place had not changed. And every moment must be enjoyed. It was a truly happy Christmas. The kitchen range was coaxed into cooking the turkey, and Hal, as master of the house, was persuaded to carve it, which he did in such generous fashion that nothing remained at the end for himself but the carcase. It was a great party, with the Brodricks, the Spencers, the Callaghans, and the Flower cousins from Andriff, Simon and Judith and Frank, and after the Christmas dinner had been eaten they all played hide-and-seek in the new wing, the empty rooms echoing with running feet, and calls, and laughter. Tom Callaghan stood with his wife in the passage leading to the new wing from the old house, listening to the thumps, and bangs, and shouts of triumph.

  "What a tragedy!" he said softly. "And it might have been thus all these years. The rooms furnished, instead of bare. The girls and that boy growing up where they belonged. And Henry his old dear, generous self."

  "Will he ever come back, do you think?" asked Harriet.

  The Rector shook his head.

  "You've seen his letters," he said, "you can understand what has happened to him. He's a different man."

  "Hal's so like him," said his wife, "the same charm, the same smile, and yet something lacking, not the enthusiasm, not the drive that Henry had. And he sometimes talks so bitterly for a boy not twenty-one."

  "Ten years' neglect, and all his mother's teaching thrown away," said Tom. "If Henry would break down the barrier that has grown up between them… but even then, I wonder. The foundations have been knocked away."

  Kitty ran down the stairs of the great hall, pursued by her cousin Simon Flower. Lizette, her thin face flushed for once, tip-toed into the drawing-room that had never been used. Laughter came from the gallery above, where Robert had caught Molly, and the two waltzed to the head of the stairs.

  In the little boudoir above the barred front door H
al struggled with the windows to the balcony. They were rusted and damp, and would not open.

  "This was to have been my mother's room," he said.

  "Father planned it for her, next to the bedroom. Do you like it?"

  Jinny nodded.

  "I've often looked at it from outside," she said. "I used to trespass here, you know, when the Boles were away. It's just as I imagined. In the corner there your mother would have had her writing-table, close to the fire. And there would have been a chair here, and another there."

  She smiled at Hal, her eyes warm with understanding.

  "Do you remember her?" he said.

  Jinny shook her head.

  "Only just that there was someone with a very soft voice and dark hair, who used to kiss me when I came to tea," she said.

  Hal stared in front of him, his hands in his pockets.

  "I know," he said. "The terrible thing is that I can't remember more than that either. And yet she was the person I loved best in the world." Once again he struggled with the windows, but the damp had too great a hold on them. "I can't open them," he said, "they're shut for ever." He turned away, shrugging his shoulders. "Let them stay, then," he said. "No one will ever live in this part of the house now."

  She followed him along the gallery to the stairs.

  The hide-and-seekers had taken themselves off to the old house. The great hall was deserted.

  "It's queer," said Hal, "but as a rule you hear of the haunting of old buildings, never new. And yet I feel this wing is full of ghosts."

  Jinny put out her hand to him.

  "You would not mind if it was your mother, would you, Hal?" she said.

  She looked young, and brave, and very confident. She was not too shy to hold his hand there, alone, in the silence.

  Hal shook his head.

  "It's not my mother who's the ghost," he said, "that's what makes it so queer. It's the ghost of my father still alive, hiding here in the shadows." He looked over his shoulder at the black, gaping doors. "Come away, Jinny," he said. "I don't want to think about him, I want to think about ourselves. It's Christmas, and we've got to be happy, we've got to be gay…?