The Wax Fruit Trilogy

by Guy McCrone

  At a distance he could see that luncheon guests were beginning to arrive: Mungo’s relatives from Glasgow, probably. This was annoying. Was it that time already? He had meant to go round and say good morning to his grandson, and ask his daughter Margaret how she did. But now these Moorhouse women would be gibbering and swarming all over the place, and making a fuss over a baby who meant nothing much to them. There they were, all silks and feathers and parasols, emptying themselves out of the wagonette and chattering like magpies. His wife and his son-in-law were dealing with them. Well, let them. He would see them all at lunch. Sir Charles stalked round a rhododendron bush in full bloom, hurried down a path in the shrubbery and entered the house by a side door.

  He found his butler in the pantry, and told him to bring a glass of madeira to his dressing-room, the only place where, today, his privacy was secure against invasion. He sat down in an easy chair before the empty fireplace, sipping his wine and resting. He felt a little tired. After all, a man couldn’t stay young for ever. But this wine was doing him good. Giving him heart, making him feel that life had treated him well. There had been Charlie’s death, of course. But on this radiant day that belonged to his grandson, he mustn’t feel bitter, even about Charlie. He rose, went to a drawer in his desk, took out a little daguerreo-type photograph of his son, and sat down again to examine it. Charlie. … Margaret, good girl, had just been doing everything that could be done to staunch that wound.

  He still had half his wine to finish. It was comfortable and pleasant here. The warm scents of June were coming in through the open window; perhaps, if he closed his eyes for a little …

  Lunch was announced, and after some waiting, Lady Ruanthorpe came to look for him. She found him sleeping in his chair.

  “Charles! Wake up! We had no idea where you had got to.”

  He opened his eyes slowly.

  “What’s that on the floor?” She saw that a little gilt square was lying at his feet, half hidden in the bearskin rug. She bent down, picked up the picture of her son, fumbled for her glasses and examined it silently for a time; then put it back in its drawer.

  “Hurry, Charles,” was all she said. “You’re keeping everybody waiting.”

  III

  On the whole, it was a highly uncomfortable day for Mungo. At any time this bashful countryman loathed pedestals, and here he was on this hot afternoon set up, as he felt, for everyone’s approval or derision. He, a farmer-tenant like the rest, had dared to marry the laird’s daughter. And here were all the other tenants with their womenfolk to nudge and criticise and wonder. He was proud of his son, but before these strapping countrymen and their wives, some of whom were younger than himself, yet already had eight or nine stocky children to their credit, one single baby seemed no very great exhibition of the virility of a man of forty-four. And inevitably, because of Sir Charles’s age, the management of the celebrations must fall on Mungo’s shoulders. He was acutely conscious of eyes following him as he moved about gravely greeting friends, directing helpers, and receiving congratulations.

  No. His wife was not out yet. But she was doing well, he was glad to say. Sir Charles had pushed on with the celebrations so as not to interfere with the hay-making in July. How were they all “up bye”? And how were the young beasts coming on this year? Yes. There was the baby being carried across the park by the old Duntrafford nurse, Mrs. Crawford. His sister Sophia was with them. They must go and speak to her. They could cut across after the sack race had finished. What was that they were saying? Yes, it was difficult to hear, with the brass band making all that noise. Yes, and there was Mary too. No, no. He had to admit that his sisters Sophia and Mary were not as thin as they had been when they left the Laigh Farm to go to Glasgow. But, then, that was years ago, wasn’t it? And they weren’t so young, either. Besides, dear me, they were the mothers of growing families now.

  In answer to a distant sign, Mungo gave his farmer friends apologetic, friendly nods and moved off in the direction of a great beech-tree beside the lawn. Beneath its shade, seated in cushioned basket-chairs, and with their old spaniels snapping flies at their feet, Sir Charles and Lady Ruanthorpe were holding court. Most of their communication was dumb show, for the brass band, stationed near them, was playing indefatigably with a loudness that made speech inaudible.

  Mungo made a detour round the sack race, which was being energetically refereed by his sister Phœbe; pushed his way through another dozen or so of farm children squealing with excitement as they prepared to run the next race, balancing potatoes on spoons; looked into the marquee, where stout countrywomen were sitting gossiping together out of the sun, drinking tea, or feeding their smaller children, before the older and more boisterous ones should rush in after the children’s part of the sports was over, and snatch the little ones’ share. Seeing that some county people from another great house were bending over his parents-in-law in greeting, Mungo hung back in the shelter of the crowd until they had passed on. Now he was standing beside them, as, suddenly, the band stopped. It had been so loud that for a moment the party beneath the tree found itself unable to speak in the sudden vacuum of silence.

  “Mungo,” Lady Ruanthorpe said at last, “I don’t think it’s good for Baby to be taking him about among the crowd in this hot sunshine.”

  “They want to see him,” Sir Charles said, searching for his grandson through a pair of old, race-meeting field-glasses.

  “Don’t interfere, Charles,” Lady Ruanthorpe snapped. “There he is over there. Tell Mrs. Crawford to bring him here, where it’s cool.”

  “It’s just because you want him here,” Sir Charles remarked, without lowering the glasses.

  “Well, there’s nothing very monstrous in that, is there?”

  They were settling down comfortably to one of their customary bickering bouts, when a fashionably dressed, fair woman came forward, elegantly closing her parasol, as she moved into the shade.

  IV

  “Now, you’re Mrs. Arthur Moorhouse, aren’t you, my dear? Come and sit beside me,” Lady Ruanthorpe said. “I don’t know how you manage to look so cool,” she added, surveying Bel’s stylish garden-party hat, her frills and her ribbons, and deciding that she was much too carefully dressed.

  Bel, feeling like an actress who has endured a harassing day, but who, in despite, is somehow managing to wring a good performance from her frayed nerves, took an empty chair and looked about her graciously. She explained that she had been to see Margaret, and opined that Margaret had been most wise not to make an effort to appear today.

  Old Sir Charles was giving her broad smiles of approval. He liked pretty women.

  “Now, let me see, how many children have you got, my dear? And how many are with you today? I should know. I must have seen them at lunch. But I’m a silly old woman.”

  Bel was preparing to shout a detailed description of her family to her host and hostess, but the band started up again, and there was nothing to do but make a graceful gesture of impotence, sit back, and endure the din. On the whole it was better so. She would, at any rate, have a headache when she got home tonight; but there was no need to add a strained throat to it. At least it was cool here and pleasanter than milling hotly about in the crowd, aristocratic and bucolic, in the park beyond.

  Now she could see Mungo coming towards them, pushing his way through, and followed by a stiff old woman in the uniform of a children’s nurse; the white streamers of her starched cap floating majestically behind her, as she had in her arms the heir to the Duntrafford estates and all that they stood for. Really, what a fuss these people made about everything! But Bel was impressed. And she was annoyed with herself for being impressed. Charles Mungo Ruanthorpe-Moorhouse was settled between his grandparents amid smiles and signs of admiration, the shattering noise of the band still precluding talk—and Bel was free to look about her once more from her point of distinguished vantage.

  Over on the other side of the lawn she could see her husband Arthur deep in talk with an elderly farm
er. With him was a sturdy country girl—the old man’s daughter, presumably. The girl’s looks reminded Bel of someone, for the moment she could not think of whom.

  And now here were David and Grace. Their recent marriage had, in consideration of the bride’s loss, been a very private ceremony; not even all the family. Although Arthur and herself had been there. David was much as usual, really. Becoming a little more important from being a married man, perhaps; and from the sudden weight of great possessions; showing less tendency, perhaps, to make his old frivolous comment on everything that went on around him; losing his sense of humour a little; becoming stiffer—more of a person; yielding, in other words, to the relentless dictates of the dignified prosperity he had chosen for himself.

  Grace, adoring as she appeared to be of the husband on whose arm she was now hanging, seemed tired and a little dispirited, Bel thought. She was glad to see that Lady Ruanthorpe had motioned to Grace to come into the shade and rest. Perhaps there were happy reasons for her fatigue. “And his name will be Robert Dermott-Moorhouse,” Bel said to herself tartly, reflecting the while how much more sensible it was that her own sons—at the moment, no doubt, inflating themselves shamelessly with lemonade in the marquee—were plain Arthur and plain Tom Moorhouse.

  The music stopped abruptly once more, leaving its vacuum of silence, just as Arthur joined them. He had been renewing an old acquaintance. He smiled a deferential greeting to the laird as he came up.

  “Who were you talking to, Arthur?” Bel asked.

  “That was old Tom Rennie with his other girl. Ye mind Lucy Rennie, that sang in the house at the New Year? Her father.”

  Bel started up. “Oh, I would like to meet them.” She looked at Grace and David and settled back. “No. It’s too hot. Never mind. Funny. You would never think Lucy Rennie would have a man like that for her father. Did he say anything about her?”

  “She was back at Greenhead,” Arthur told them. “She had been ill, or something, and came home for a rest. She just went away back to London yesterday. They wanted her to wait and come here today, but she didna.”

  Bel’s eyes met David’s. Both looked away hastily. Now she was glad that the ear-splitting music had started up again. It made talk impossible. Grace, her straw hat in her lap, was lying back fanning herself. Arthur, Mungo and David stood behind them propped against the silver-grey trunk of the beech-tree. Bel was not surprised to see David presently wander off by himself. It was a good thing Lucy Rennie had not come today. David had never told Bel the end of that story, and she felt she could not press him for it. But she thought she had guessed most of the rest. And perhaps someday, if a confidential moment presented itself, she would ask him. She wondered how much Grace knew. Not much, probably.

  At all events David had made the right, honourable and profitable marriage that common sense and the family expected of him, and all was well. That benign Providence that watches over the affairs of the respectable had cracked the whip at the right moment, and he, who had threatened to stray, had been safely headed back into the heart of the prosperous flock. And now, as Bel well knew, David was much too tame, much too conventional, to do anything but stay in the fold.

  V

  The little path that David followed through the shrubbery was pleasant and cool. The green mosses, the pale, half-curled fronds of fern, the wild garlic and the sprouting grass beneath the rhododendrons, all still damp from yesterday’s rain, gave out their woodland perfume.

  It was pleasant here among the bushes and under the great trees. The tumult and the noise had become mere rumours. Only the more persistent trumpet notes of the band came to him like far-off echoes. A man could walk at peace here; sense the sharp fragrance of the cool damp air about him; and quiet the smouldering discontents of his heart.

  Had she left Greenhead quickly because she had suddenly realised that she must come with her relatives to the Duntrafford celebrations, where she would be certain to meet him? And had she really been ill? And what had made her so? David would have given much to know these things. But he knew he never would. And perhaps it was better not.

  His path suddenly brought him to the viewpoint where Grace and he had stood at New Year time watching the River Ayr boiling down there, far beneath them in the moonlight. But, looking down, David’s thoughts were on earlier times, when the water was flowing placidly in the bright sunlight, as it was flowing now; taking its leisured ways among those warm, white-baked stones of the river-bed. There would be minnows to catch down there in the warm shallows, and trout snapping at flies in that dark, dangerous pool that was deep, and beyond the depth of two adventurous farm children.

  He remembered how Lucy, on one forbidden expedition, had dared him to swim in that pool; how he had been afraid; and how she had sat down indignantly on the bank, stripped herself naked, plunged in, and swum about triumphantly by herself; how he had been shamed into following her. They must both have been about ten then.

  But he had not followed her all the way. He had not been wild, like Lucy. It would not always have been cool and easy to plunge after Lucy Rennie, and swim safely in the dangerous waters she had chosen.

  Last evening Grace had hinted that they might both, in the natural course, be the parents of a child. The thought had filled his mind with pleasure all this morning.

  What, then, had taken him, that he had stolen away from her now to look down on the sunlit river of his childhood? Seeking with regret for the dreams he would not clothe with reality, even if he could?

  There was holiday laughter from the bushes behind him. A young ploughman and his lass came forward hand in hand to look over at the view. As they caught sight of the fine young gentleman who looked so like the more homely Mr. Moorhouse they well knew by sight, they dropped their hands and stood respectfully to one side.

  David smiled, bade them a good day, and went to see if his wife was still sitting under the beech-tree.

  THE PURITANS

  Chapter One

  “WHAT do ye mean, Hayburn?”

  There was no reply.

  Had Henry Hayburn understood people as well as he understood machines, he would now have realised that his employer was very angry.

  Not that the chairman showed it. He took his time. He straightened the large pad of fresh blotting-paper that lay in front of him. He set his pen-tray exactly symmetrical with it. He took up the holders to see that fresh pen-nibs had been put into them this morning. He flicked open the lid of his inkwell to make sure that there was the proper amount of ink. He pushed his letter-basket away from him as though to give himself space. Having done these things, he rested his elbows on either arm of his revolving office chair, brought the tips of his fingers together, looked for a moment through the window at a yard labourer who was wheeling a barrowful of smoking, burnt-out ash to the slag-heap; then, turning his eyes again to the young man on the other side of his desk, watched him without speaking.

  The older hands in the office would have understood the signs. When the chairman did these things, something was coming. It was a long-earnt trick of his, this arranging of everything around him. Thus only could he master himself; avoid saying what was rash or ill-advised. He looked at young Henry Hayburn steadily. That was a trick, too. The chairman knew that his personality was strong; that his gaze could be disconcerting.

  The young man stood, ungainly and confused, his hands behind his back, looking, in spite of his beard, like an unrepentant schoolboy. A dark, untidy strand of hair fell on his brow, and his snub, sulky face was crimson. But there was no sign of yielding in the moody eyes that returned the domineering, practised stare of his employer.

  The old man had had enough. Hayburn was refusing to take orders. At last the chairman spoke.

  “Ye mean to tell me that ye’re not going to do what ye’re told in this office?” His voice was quietly controlled.

  “Not when I know it’s wrong, sir.”

  “How do ye know it’s wrong, Hayburn?”

  “I worked it out f
or myself last night.”

  The chairman parted his hands and trifled once more with the things on the desk in front of him. “How old are ye, Hayburn?”

  “Twenty-four, sir.”

  “Well, I’m nearer seventy-four. And I don’t need to be told what’s right and what’s wrong by boys. It’s cocksureness that’s your trouble. How long have ye been here?”

  “About six months, sir.”

  “I’ve been here nearly sixty years.”

  Again there was silence, and again, after a time, the chairman broke it.

  “Well? Are ye going on with that job, Hayburn?”

  “No.”

  The old man jumped up. It was a long time since his authority had been flouted like this. “Get your money from the cashier and get out of here!” He spoke through shut teeth. He turned away from Henry, striking his hands together behind his back, striding to the window, and gazing out fixedly.

  Henry went. Presently, the chairman was surprised to find himself trembling.

  At his age it wasn’t good to allow himself to get so angry. He came back to his chair and sat down heavily.