When they were all in bed except Papa, Diana went downstairs to his study. She had not yet had a private conversation with Mama, and now shrank from it.
Papa was drinking brandy, though he had promised Mama not to drink any more that night.
‘Well, have you come to castigate me?’ he asked, gloomily.
She felt ashamed. He would not have said that to any of her sisters. She had always been the one who castigated. Bossyboots had wanted to set them right.
‘No, Papa. I just wanted to talk to you about Mama.’
‘What can a man do if his own body betrays him? Your mother calls it a miracle, not knowing just how miraculous. Look how grateful she is and yet I’ve as good as murdered her.’
Did he, wondered Diana, have the same premonition as herself?
‘Looked at objectively,’ he said, ‘it could be seen as a comedy, an ironical comedy, with myself fate’s buffoon. Like Sir Dugald. Though his role, as a soldier of fortune, was so much more straightforward. What did you want to say to me about your mother?’
‘The twins told me a specialist is coming on Wednesday to see her.’
‘A quack, like the rest of them, in spite of the letters after his name. Doctors today laugh at the ignorance of their colleagues a hundred years ago. Cannot you hear the doctors of a hundred years from now laughing at the ignorance of doctors today? One would not hold it against them if it wasn’t for their arrogant assumption that they know it all when the truth is that they know damned little.’
It was not like him to be so captious.
‘If this was America I could sue for ten million dollars. Except that I daren’t say a word because it would let your mother know that I have been deceiving her for years. Be sure your sins will find you out. Not that she would reproach me. Has she not got at long last what she has always wanted?’
He’s not talking to me, thought Diana, he’s talking to himself, he’s got into a habit of talking to himself, because we’ve all got out of the habit of listening to him. We’ve lavished our love on Mama because we’ve felt that she needed it and he didn’t. We’ve known about his unhappiness and loneliness and sense of failure but we’ve not tried very hard to console him. That’s why he’s drunk so much wine. We’ve been wrong and now it’s too late to remedy it. He’s out of our reach.
‘We’re going into Tarbeg tomorrow morning to do some shopping, Papa.’
Those Saturday morning shopping trips to Tarbeg had always been great fun, for the girls and Mama at any rate. They had not realised that Papa might have felt left out. They had gone merrily in and out of shops, leaving him half the time on the pavement outside. Latterly, when the twins and Diana had learned to drive he had made excuses not to accompany them.
‘We’d like you to come, Papa. Mama’s coming.’
‘Shouldn’t she be staying at home and resting?’
The girls had discussed it. They had decided that the outing would do Mama good. They would see to it that she didn’t over-exert herself. They hadn’t bothered to consult Papa. That was another habit they had got out of.
‘We’ll all crowd into the Daimler. Goodnight, Papa.’
‘Goodnight, Diana.’
She almost asked him to drink no more but managed to restrain herself. From now on she must be more humble.
Five
THOUGH SOMEWHAT red-eyed, Papa not only accompanied the expedition to Tarbeg but rather fussily took charge of it. Eating next to nothing himself he urged them to hurry with their breakfast. If they dilly-dallied all the strawberry tarts, doughnuts, fresh bread, and avocados would be sold out. He handed out money liberally. What they didn’t spend they could give to Oxfam. He was the only one of the family who frequented that shop, where he liked to browse among the miscellany of curios and books (he had once come upon a Bible in Latin) while all around him the poor of the district, including tinkers, bought second-hand clothes and shoes for very low prices. Sometimes the girls sneaked in with contributions. The volunteer ladies, who knew who they were – everybody in Tarbeg did – always assured them that their father was a gentleman, as well mannered towards the smelliest old tinker wife as he would have been to the Queen.
They all crowded into the Daimler as they had done when younger and smaller, though Papa was concerned lest Mama be crushed and jostled. She cried happily that a woman in her condition was under many protections.
Rowena sat in front with Papa and Mama. The other four sat behind, with Rebecca on Effie’s knees. She was to change to Jeanie’s at Seal Rock.
Papa said he would take it easy, particularly where the road was bumpy. After all, on a bright May morning like this, with the hills and loch at their most splendid, who wanted to dash? When they did get going he drove so slowly that there was soon a honking procession behind, on the single-track road. Mama had to ask him to drive a bit faster.
‘What did Mama mean by saying she was under many protections?’ whispered Rebecca into Effie’s ear.
Effie, the prospective doctor, whispered her reply: ‘Well, you see, Rebecca, nature’s chief concern is the continuation of the species. Therefore she makes sure foetuses are not easy to get rid of.’
Diana shook her head, deploring this conversation.
‘Women who wish they weren’t pregnant,’ went on Effie, ‘jump up and down, fall off ladders, take all sorts of things, make themselves as sick as dogs, all in vain. Babies have been born alive though their mothers were dead.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Effie,’ murmured Diana.
‘Yes, talk about something more cheerful,’ said Jeanie.
‘Shall we stop at Old Kirstie’s?’ cried Papa.
‘Yes, Papa,’ said Effie. ‘Did you know she’s ninety-three next week?’
The Daimler stopped outside the small white cottage. Papa was a favourite of Old Kirstie’s. When they were younger the girls had often been impatient with him for spending so much time talking to the half-blind, half-deaf old woman. Five minutes would have been long enough, they had thought. Sometimes he had stayed for half an hour. Since then, they had learned better the nature of kindness.
The girls last night had held a quick conference to decide whether or not Mama’s pregnancy should be kept a family secret for a little while longer, at least until after the specialist’s visit. They decided it should. Papa, they were sure, would talk about it to no one. Mama, though, might tell everyone she met in Tarbeg, whether she knew them well or not. So she had to be told about their decision and begged to agree with it. None of them, however, had volunteered. The twins had said Diana should do it because she was the oldest, but when they had seen how unhappy she was about it they had not pressed her. Rowena suggested they should all go together and speak to Mama, but this was rejected since it would look too much like a deputation. In the end Mama had not been told.
So, as they trooped into Old Kirstie’s cottage the girls waited, with trepidation, for Mama to shriek the announcement. She would have to shriek it, at least twice, if Kirstie was to hear it.
The old woman was seated on a chair in front of the fire, with a tartan hap over her knees and a black shawl across her shoulders. With her hairy shrivelled face and hands spotted like toadstools she had once reminded the girls of a witch in a picture-book they had, although they had never really been afraid that she would turn them into puddocks. They had been more afraid of her big black cat with its yellow eyes.
Her daughter, red-cheeked and white-haired, was pleased at the fuss these gentry made of her mother, even though they did drop in at inconvenient times.
They stayed for ten minutes, which was quite a long time really, for Old Kirstie’s deafness was very bad and everything had to be shouted, to the annoyance of her cat.
When they were on their way again Papa proposed that they buy the old woman a birthday present. He asked for suggestions.
‘Tobacco,’ said Rowena, for they had once surprised Kirstie smoking a pipe.
‘Slippers,’ said Effie, for she had noticed t
hat Kirstie had been wearing what Granny Ruthven would have called ‘bauchles’, meaning decrepit and shapeless footwear.
‘Sweets,’ said Jeanie, for she had seen sweetie-papers at Kirstie’s feet.
‘A plant,’ said Rebecca, for the cottage had been like a garden with flowering plants.
‘A shawl,’ said Diana, for she had noticed that the one Kirstie was wearing had a hole in it, ‘a really good shawl.’
‘A shawl is a very good idea,’ said Papa.
‘What do you think yourself, Papa?’ asked Effie.
‘Earrings.’
They were all taken aback. ‘Earrings?’ They could not remember seeing Old Kirstie wear any jewellery, except a cameo brooch which had once belonged to her mother she had said, which was easy enough to believe, and showed the face of Burns’ Highland Mary, which wasn’t.
‘She has a photograph of herself when she was young,’ said Papa. ‘In it she’s wearing earrings, rings, and bangles. She often admires your mother’s jewellery. Doesn’t she, darling?’
‘I don’t know about admiring it,’ said Mama. ‘She certainly likes to finger it.’
‘She’s got fingers like hens’ claws,’ said Rowena.
At Seal Rock the road came close to the loch. A seal was basking on the rock. They were delighted to see it. It was often there. They regarded it as a friend. It stood for all that was normal and sane and decent. When they were old women, wherever they were, they would remember it.
But they were young this morning, savouring the experiences that would be remembered in old age. Every fresh green leaf, every bird on the shore, and every sparkle on the loch, like the seal called on them to enjoy the present and leave the future to trust.
Six
MOST OF the streets in Tarbeg ran steeply downhill to Harbour Street, which had shops on one side and fishing boats on the other. Especially when the sun shone, there was an invigorating smell of fish, seaweed, and gulls’ droppings. These last were everywhere. There was a saying that just as there were more deer than sheep on Jura so there were more gulls than folk in Tarbeg.
It was never easy to find a parking space. This morning the Sempills were lucky in that there was a space in front of the Royal Hotel. According to a notice it was reserved for hotel guests but Papa said that since they would be having coffee in the hotel later they were really guests. In any case, as Rowena said, anybody seeing the Daimler would think that its owners were staying at the hotel.
It was always hard for the Sempills, when they were all together, to stroll along Harbour Street, recipients of many glances of respect and admiration, to pretend that these were not deserved. Seven of them, six fair-haired, all tall, for Rebecca too was going to be above average height, good-looking, healthy, casually but expensively dressed, affable, ready to exchange greetings even with people who did not know them well, they were a credit and an adornment to the town. Tarbeg knew it. They knew it themselves, they could not help knowing it as they looked at one another. They were properly modest but forgivably pleased.
The townspeople had seen Rowena in school plays and had gasped at her talent and beauty. It was known that Effie was to be a doctor, Jeanie a vet. As for Diana, she was famous: she had been dux girl of her year and captain of the hockey team. She was now at Glasgow University where she was doing very well, but her greatest triumph was in becoming engaged to the son of Sir Edwin Campton, present laird of Kilcalmonell.
Whatever shop the Sempills went into they would be welcomed, for they were not only prodigal but cheerful spenders. Other customers listening to them were encouraged themselves to go for the best and dearest.
Diana saw she was the only one showing anxiety. All the others, including Papa, seemed to have convinced themselves that Mama’s pregnancy would turn out all right, she would have the boy that she had wanted so long, and the family would be knit closer together. As a consequence they were happy and jolly. Seeing them and listening to them, in the busy street, with friends greeting one another all around her, and on one of the boats a fisherman singing as he mended his net, she tried to banish last night’s premonition, but could not. Whenever she looked at Mama she saw, on that dear face, in between the bright smiles, visitations of pain and fear.
Suddenly too Diana had a feeling that there were not seven of them but eight. The additional one was not remote little Roderick, but Peggy Gilchrist, in their midst, saying nothing but noticing everything.
‘What’s the matter, Di?’ asked Effie.
‘Nothing.’
First they shopped for things to eat, in the baker’s, the green-grocer’s, the butcher’s, and the delicatessen, all of them together except in the butcher’s, which Jeanie, the vegetarian, refused to enter. They carried the packages to the car and stowed them in the boot.
The twins had bought some rolls for the swans, but when they threw the pieces the expert Tarbeg gulls swooped and caught them in their beaks in mid-air. The swans looked cross. ‘We feed wild swans while millions of human beings are hungry,’ said Diana, ostensibly to Rowena but really to Peggy Gilchrist.
‘Don’t be silly, Di,’ said Rowena.
Peggy wore one of her baffling smiles.
They went off then to buy things for themselves. They were to meet outside the hotel in forty minutes.
In the luxurious lounge the waitress who attended them was a girl who had been at school with Diana though never in the same class. Cissie had not been a successful scholar. As she put their coffee and cream cakes in front of them she chatted with Diana about some of their contemporaries.
‘Do you ever hear from Fiona?’ she asked.
Fiona McTaggart had gone to Aberdeen where her father had bought a lucrative practice.
‘Not very often.’
Cissie giggled. ‘She’ll think you’re too high above her in the world now. She was always shy, wasn’t she? Not like me. Did you hear about Mary Buchanan? You mind Mary? Daft about dancing. Would you believe it, she’s married a shepherd up Knapdale way, at the back of beyond. Lives in a cottage with outside toilet. Nice speaking to you, Diana. Have to go. Old Sourpuss is watching.’
The manageress was certainly frowning, for she did not approve of her underlings being familiar with guests, but the Sempills were regular freely-spending customers whose peculiarities had to be humoured. Well-to-do themselves, living in a house called a castle, they talked, as if to equals, to people like Cissie McLean whose father was a dustman and who lived in a council house. It cost them nothing, gave them the name of being friendly, and emphasised their superiority.
There were two shops in Tarbeg that sold best quality highly priced Scottish woollens. In choosing a shawl for Old Kirstie, Papa said, expense was to be no object. He took part himself in the quest. The one finally chosen was of soft Shetland wool, hand-knitted in a Fair Isle pattern. Since its price was thirty-two pounds the shopkeeper was more than willing to wrap it in gift paper and put it in a box. A card was slipped in, inscribed: ‘From the Sempills of Poverty Castle, to a grand old lady on her ninety-third birthday.’
‘Now for the earrings,’ said Papa.
‘Isn’t the shawl enough?’ said Effie.
‘We promised earrings, so earrings it must be.’
‘We didn’t really promise Kirstie anything,’ said Jeanie.
No one else said anything.
Papa led the way to the jeweller’s.
Only Rowena helped him and Mama to choose the earrings. The others stood by, refusing to give their opinion. Papa and Mama didn’t notice. Rowena did, but just shrugged her shoulders. The pair selected, out of dozens looked at, had cairngorms set in silver. They were made in Scotland and cost eight pounds more than the shawl.
Rowena was aware that seventy-two pounds was too much to spend on birthday presents for an old woman who after all was just an acquaintance, but it didn’t bother her. It did her sisters, especially Effie.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Rowena, as they walked to the car.
‘It’s
far too much,’ said Effie.
‘We can afford it.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Yes it is. If we couldn’t afford it it would be far too much.’
‘They’ll give Kirstie a lot of pleasure,’ said Jeanie, doubtfully.
‘They’ll embarrass her daughter,’ said Effie, ‘or even humiliate her.’
‘Can you humiliate people by giving them expensive presents?’ asked Rowena, laughing.
‘Yes, you can. It’s not like Papa to make a mistake like that.’
‘You’re talking rot, Effie. Isn’t she, Diana?’
Diana smiled. She thought Effie was right but for the wrong reason. What would Peggy Gilchrist’s judgement have been?
At the car Papa proposed that for a treat they should go and have lunch at Heatherfield Castle, once a nobleman’s home and now a very exclusive hotel, about two miles out of town.
Mama was keen but Effie said dourly that they could go if they liked, she would have sausages and chips in Mac’s. Her sisters knew what was the matter with her. She was ashamed of being well-off, though she enjoyed its consequences as much as any of them. Usually she could keep her shame under control but sometimes it made her sulky and rebellious. Effie’s was an attitude that Jeanie sympathised with but did not feel compelled to share, that Rowena and Rebecca did not understand and in the former’s case did not want to, and Diana herself had little patience with. She had often pointed out to Effie that by spending their money the Sempills gave employment to people, and she had asked did Effie want a revolution in which many people might be killed and which could well result in universal poverty and misery. Being lucky was a burden that she would just have to bear. When she became a doctor she could go and practise in Ethiopia and be as poor as she liked.
Poverty Castle Page 16