Poverty Castle

by John Robin Jenkins

  ANOTHER OF Papa’s precepts was to be valiant in naming one’s rights but not aggressive in seeking them: better to yield a little than cause strife. Like the nations of the earth Effie and Jeanie were not persuaded. On arrival at the village store, when they saw that only one table was vacant in the apple orchard where tea was served, and another family was making for it, they dashed from the car to occupy it, and then, while Jeanie planted the flag, Effie went about hunting for empty chairs. Thanks to their efforts their family was soon accommodated.

  Diana noticed, anxiously, how people at other tables were amused by her sisters and impressed by the whole Sempill family. It would have been difficult for her to explain why she was anxious, for nothing threatened her family then and nothing she could foresee threatened them in the future, except possibly Papa’s fondness for wine, and she felt confident that she and Mama together could keep this under control. Perhaps it was because they were so fortunate, being healthy, happy, clever, handsome and now rich. She did not know yet whether she believed in God. Papa said that they all had to make up their own minds. She sometimes thought that if she was God and had made a family as lucky as the Sempills she would expect them in return to be humble, generous, and grateful; otherwise she might have to teach them a lesson. Often she lay in bed dreading that one of them would die. They were all generous, Papa so much so that he had to be restrained. Perhaps they were not as humble as they should be, especially Effie, but they weren’t conceited either. Her sisters were too young to know about being grateful, but she knew and tried hard to make up for them.

  She seemed to be the only one with these worries and doubts. For instance, at that moment a wasp was buzzing about their heads. She thought they had a right to kill it before it stung one of them, but the others, especially Jeanie, were making excuses for it and crying that it would go away if they didn’t frighten it. Often she wondered why she was so different from her sisters, in appearance as well as nature. Once, when she was seven and Rebecca had just been born, fair-haired like all the rest except her, she had asked her mother if she had been adopted. She had been lovingly assured that she had not, and had been shown a photograph of Granny Ruthven, at the age of eleven. But for the old-fashioned dress she could have been taken for Diana. She had the same dark hair and the same responsible frown, as if everything depended on her.

  At last the wasp gave up and went off to bother people at an adjacent table. Almost immediately it was replaced by more welcome intruders. Two robins darted out of an apple tree on to the table where they helped themselves to crumbs. No one spoke or even breathed: such charming marauders must not be scared away. Jeanie held out her hand, palm uppermost. One of the birds hopped on to it, while the other perched on Rebecca’s shoulder. Both bowed, as if acknowledging applause, like comics on a stage.

  A big rosy-cheeked girl came up to wipe the table and take their order. She wore a tartan overall.

  ‘Cheeky wee things,’ she said, with a Highland lilt. ‘They think they own the place.’

  ‘They’re delightful,’ said Mama. ‘Are all the inhabitants of Kilcalmonell so friendly?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. They’re wee bullies actually. They chase away finches and sparrows. What would you like then?’

  As if huffed by her criticism the robins flew off to another table.

  ‘Tea for two, please,’ said Papa, ‘five lemonades, and lots of buttered scones.’

  ‘Is that your car?’ she asked, staring at the Daimler.

  Diana had noticed before how possession of the big blue rich-looking car had gained them respect they hadn’t really earned.

  ‘Yes, it’s ours,’ said Effie, by no means humbly. ‘It’s got real leather seats.’

  ‘I expect you know the village well,’ said Papa to the waitress.

  ‘I should do. I’ve lived here all my life. In October I’m going to University, thank goodness.’

  ‘Congratulations, which University?’

  ‘Glasgow.’

  ‘We’re from Edinburgh ourselves.’

  ‘I thought that, you talk like Edinburgh folk.’

  They weren’t sure whether that was a compliment or not.

  ‘When we were on the beach,’ said Papa, ‘we saw a very big derelict house.’

  ‘That’d be Poverty Castle. You shouldn’t have been on that beach, you know. It belongs to the estate. It’s private. Didn’t you see the notices?’

  ‘Yes, we saw them. Poverty Castle? Is it a corruption of some Gaelic word?’

  She laughed. ‘It’s because of the state it’s in. It’s been like that for ages, since before I was born.’

  She went off to attend to their order.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to live in a house called Poverty Castle,’ said Effie.

  ‘I’d like the castle bit but not the poverty bit,’ said Jeanie.

  ‘It’s quite a large house,’ said Mama. ‘It must have at least a dozen rooms.’

  ‘Fourteen,’ said Effie. ‘Me and Jeanie counted them.’

  ‘Jeanie and I you should say, my dear.’

  The waitress returned with the tea and scones.

  ‘This house, Poverty Castle, who owns it?’ asked Papa.

  ‘Some old lady who lives in Edinburgh. She’s about ninety, I think. If you’re interested you should speak to my dad. He knows everything about the village. Will I tell him?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  A chaffinch hopped on to the table. It fled as the robins swooped. They did their version of a victory roll.

  ‘Wee bullies is right,’ said Effie.

  ‘Robins are very jealous of their territory,’ said Papa, a little uneasily. He often said that if human beings behaved with the natural decency of animals there would be no wars.

  The waitress now brought through the glasses of lemonade. ‘Dad will be out in a minute. Were you thinking of buying a house in the village?’

  ‘It is a very beautiful part of the world,’ said Papa, warily.

  ‘In weather like this it’s all right. You should be here when it’s been raining for weeks. Ugh!’

  ‘It’s the rain that makes everything so fresh and green,’ said Papa.

  ‘It gives people rheumatism,’ said Jeanie.

  ‘It doesn’t give robins rheumatism,’ observed Rebecca.

  They all laughed. No creatures could be more agile.

  ‘Frost will never be severe here,’ said Papa. ‘Because of the influence of the Gulf Stream.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Effie.

  He was saved the burden of explaining by the arrival of the proprietor, a chubby little man with a shopkeeper’s ready joviality, tempered in his case with his Highland canniness. He too gave the Daimler a very respectful look.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘Shona tells me you’re interested in Poverty Castle. My name’s Campbell, Dugald Campbell. My father had this shop before me.’

  ‘My name’s Sempill, Edward Sempill. From Edinburgh. Yes I am interested. You see, Mr Campbell, I’m an architect and it struck me as a great pity that a house of such character and situated so idyllically should have been allowed to fall into disrepair.’

  ‘Aye, it is a pity, Mr Sempill. I’ve often said to Christine, my wife, that anybody with money to spare and with some knowledge of the building trade, such as an architect like yourself, could make the house fit to live in again, at no exorbitant cost either. I’ve no authority for saying so, mind you, but I wouldn’t wonder if it could be got at a bargain price in the state it is.’

  ‘Shona said it’s owned by an old lady who lives in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Mrs Braidlaw. She died a week or two ago as a matter of fact, in a nursing home, aged over ninety. Her family bought the house from the estate a long time ago. I believe it was built for a dowager lady. Anyway it’s been lying empty for the past thirty years. Don’t ask me why. Some family quarrel among the Braidlaws maybe. I hear Willie McPherson’s cattle are using it as a byre.’

  ‘His sheep too.
’

  ‘No doubt. There used to be a wall. I can mind as a boy stealing gooseberries there. The man to see, Mr Sempill, is Mr Patterson, lawyer in Tarbeg.’

  ‘We’re staying at The Royal Hotel in Tarbeg.’

  ‘Are you now?’ It was four star and its rates were steep. ‘Well, it should be convenient to arrange an appointment with him.’

  ‘What was the house called in the old days?’

  ‘Ardmore, which means the big field. Were you thinking of settling in the neighbourhood, Mr Sempill?’

  ‘It is a possibility.’

  ‘You could do a lot worse and not much better. It’s bonny here, summer and winter. Yet, do you know, our population’s falling. They say that in St Kilda they had to give up when they didn’t have enough able-bodied men to man the boat. Well, our golf club’s in desperate need of members and the country dance club can’t manage three sets any more. Our school’s in danger of losing its second teacher. We need twenty-five on the roll to hold her and at present we’re down to twenty-six. We could do with these five bonny lassies.’

  ‘Who is the laird, Mr Campbell? Some member of your clan, I suppose?’

  ‘Used to be, Mr Sempill, used to be. About twenty years ago old Sir Lochiel was forced to sell, to a Greek, I believe, whom we never saw. Since then it’s changed hands twice. The present laird bought it just three years ago. A rich Englishman. Family made its fortune in pharmaceuticals. Sir Edwin Campton, a baronet. Wife’s a daughter of Lord Marsley. We haven’t seen much of them either. They come up for the shooting and fishing and sometimes not even then. To be candid, Mr Sempill, they have not so far anyway been much benefit to the village.’

  His daughter called him from the shop. ‘Dad, you’re wanted to slice ham.’

  ‘It would be a pleasure, Mr Sempill, and you Mrs Sempill, and all of you Misses Sempill, to have you members of our community.’

  He did not touch his forelock as he left but he stroked his apron.

  ‘He wants more people to buy things in his shop,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Are you going to see the lawyer, Papa?’ asked Diana.

  ‘Do you think I should, my dear?’

  ‘Yes, but just to ask. Mr Chambers said that before you decide anything you should always sleep on it.’

  ‘Jeanie and me want to come with you, Papa,’ said Effie.

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ said Jeanie. ‘You always let Diana go with you but not us.’

  ‘You’re too young, my dear.’

  ‘We’re nearly ten and she’s not twelve yet. Hands up those who think we should all go?’ She made faces at Rowena and Rebecca, letting them know she wanted their votes.

  She herself, Effie, Rowena, and Rebecca put up their hands.

  ‘Four to three,’ cried Effie. ‘We all go. That’s democracy. Isn’t it, Papa?’

  ‘Mr Patterson might not welcome such an invasion of his office,’ said Mama.

  ‘You’ve said so yourself, Papa,’ said Jeanie, ‘that we give good advice.’

  ‘Sometimes you do, my dear.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s very silly,’ said Diana.

  Effie put out her tongue at her.

  Three

  AFTER DINNER when the girls were in bed Mr and Mrs Sempill sat in a corner of the luxurious residents’ lounge, he drinking large brandies and she small crème de menthes. Of the two she, who had drunk so much less, was the more tipsy and also, for this was the way alcohol affected her, the more uxorious. She was wearing a long green dress with dangling earrings of jade. As usual she had put on too much too red lipstick, so that her big soft mouth looked still bigger and softer. She kept squeezing Edward’s thigh.

  He wore a black blazer with gold-coloured buttons, a pink silk cravat, and fawn slacks. Hair and moustache were artfully brushed and expensively perfumed. His pale-blue eyes were moist and benign as he acknowledged her amorous homage.

  She seldom disagreed with him, preferring to use wiles to bring his opinion closer to hers. Most of the time she succeeded but if she did not she gave up without sulking. She adored him, body and soul. In the children’s presence – they were all little prudes – she had to damp down her adoration but when she was alone with him, even in such a public place as now, she let it blaze. That he accepted it with sultanic benevolence was, she thought, as it should be.

  She was not sure that it would be such a good idea buying the derelict house in Kilcalmonell.

  ‘We saw it today in warm sunshine, darling, but what will it be like in bleak December?’

  ‘As I said to the girls, Meg, this is the West Coast, under the influence of the Gulf Stream. You saw the palm trees in the gardens. Winters are mild here.’

  ‘But very wet, alas. I am worried about your chest, darling.’

  ‘And I about your pinkie, dear.’

  Her left pinkie ached in damp weather but it did not keep her off her sleep as much as Edward’s wheezings did.

  According to his mother he had been at death’s door, with pneumonia, when he was only eight: it had left him with a weak chest. According to Mama’s own mother, Granny Ruthven, a sterner and franker lady, Edward was the kind ‘that would hoast and splutter to a ripe old age.’

  He wheezed a little now. ‘You’d really like us to go back to Edinburgh, wouldn’t you, Meg? God, when I think of the icy winds whistling down those precipitous streets! Small wonder R.L.S. took himself off to Samoa.’

  Where nonetheless he had died when 44, only four years older than Edward was now.

  She did not want to live in Spain but if it benefited Edward’s health she would go anywhere.

  ‘I was thinking, Meg, why not spend the winters in Spain and the rest of the year in Kilcalmonell?’

  ‘Could we afford that?’

  ‘Bless you, of course we could afford it.’

  ‘What about the girls’ education?’

  ‘As long as they can read and write they will educate themselves. They are very bright.’

  She smiled proudly. ‘Yes, they are very bright, thank God.’

  ‘Thank me, Meg. Thank yourself.’ He looked wistfully at his empty glass. He had promised it would be the last for tonight. ‘My books, Meg, when will I ever produce them?’

  They were already written in his mind: the difficulty was in getting them out. Could it be, he had asked, that he was too happy a person to be a writer? Perhaps writers had to be bitter and discontented. Encouraging him to persist, Meg had pointed out that the world had more than enough of gloom, violence, and hate: it longed for his gentle and optimistic philosophies. Really she agreed with her mother: Edward just did not have the necessary sticking power.

  ‘If this fellow Campton is failing in his duty as benefactor to the village why shouldn’t I take his place?’

  Edward, she knew, yearned to be a philanthropist. To the horror of his lawyer Mr Chambers he had given ten thousand pounds of his legacy to charities. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Mr Sempill, such gestures are not the way to tackle the problem of the poor and deprived. If the rich make themselves poor no one prospers.’

  He had even talked about giving it all away. ‘Whatever Chambers might say, Meg, it would astound the world.’

  But, he had added, sadly, he did not have the moral greatness such an act would require.

  Meg had been much relieved.

  ‘They would look up to me as the laird, Meg, not to this Campton fellow. He’s an interloper, after all.’

  ‘So we would be interlopers, my dear.’

  ‘Not at all. We’re Scots. This is our native heath. Do you think I should have another, as a nightcap?’

  ‘No, Edward. What do you say to a stroll along the harbour?’

  ‘You’re forgetting the midges, Meg. You know how they go for me.’

  ‘It’s too late in the day for midges. I believe it’s a lovely mild night.’

  So, a few minutes later, they were at the harbour, hand-in-hand, looking at the fishing boats. There was a strong smell of fish. This, along with
the crème de menthes and the misty moonlight, produced in Mrs Sempill an excess of love and desire: so much so that she dragged him into a nook among fish crates and kissed him ardently.

  The result was not what she had hoped for. He philosophised, somewhat morosely.

  ‘I sometimes wonder, Meg,’ he mumbled, for her lips obstructed his, ‘if I lack the iron to succeed in anything.’

  ‘You have succeeded in making your wife the happiest woman on earth.’

  ‘Am I a man of my time, Meg?’

  ‘If you are not, my love, it is to your credit. You lack the vices of our age, envy and greed and violence.’

  ‘Your mother laughs at me.’

  So she did, but then Granny Ruthven often boasted that it was one of her clan who struck the first blow in the assassination of Rizzio, Mary Queen of Scots’ effeminate secretary. It amazed and vexed her that her feeble son-in-law had managed to sire five beautiful children. She could not very well say that their being all girls was evidence of his feebleness, for she was formidably female herself.

  ‘My mother laughs at everyone.’

  It was then that he realised Meg had been over-sanguine in thinking it was too late in the day for midges. Some night brigades were about. Meg was not yet aware of them, though from the nature of her dress she should have been more accessible. Suddenly he was itching all over.

  They hurried back to the hotel.

  Meg went off to see the children were safely asleep. She found Diana still awake.

  They whispered.

  ‘Mama, is Papa going to buy that old house?’

  ‘He hasn’t decided yet. He has to see Mr Patterson the lawyer first.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it. I think he should.’

  ‘Do you, my pet?’

  ‘Yes. The twins and Rowena think we should go to Spain because they’ve been learning Spanish, but I think we would be safer in that house.’

  ‘Safer? What is going to harm us?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t believe what Papa said about the rowan tree protecting the house – well, I don’t think I believe it – but I did feel safe there, even if I was afraid all the time that the floor was going to collapse under us. Does that sound stupid?’