by Neil M. Gunn
“Yes.”
“I think a rest might do you good, too. Frankly, I would rather she was not unduly excited, not anyway until we see how she is to-morrow. You understand this is a difficult case, and all I am quite sure of is that she needs rest and quiet.”
“I understand,” said Ranald. “Did she have a high temperature?”
“Yes, it ran dangerously high.”
“With no apparent cause?”
“You knew her in London?”
“Yes.”
“Did anything of the kind occur there?”
“It did. The doctor put it down to an all-night exposure. It disappeared, without leaving any traces—except that she was shattered a bit.”
The doctor nodded thoughtfully, as though inwardly now more confident. “Well, I’ll have a look in to-morrow. Otherwise,” and he smiled to Aunt Phemie, “keep on as you are doing.” He drove off.
“We’ll go in the back way,” said Aunt Phemie. At the side gate she paused, her hand on the latch. “We’ll go quietly into the kitchen, if you don’t mind. Perhaps, on the whole, we might follow the doctor’s advice. What do you think?”
“All right,” agreed Ranald in his casual way. “Not that I think they know a great deal about it.”
“Who—the doctor?”
“Well, he is obviously fumbling, hoping for the best.”
“What else can any of us do?”
Her sharpened tone brought the smile to his face. “I am not blaming him.”
He closed the gate and followed her by the foot of the vegetable garden into the kitchen. “I’ll make you a cup of tea,” she said quietly. “Then we’ll have lunch in about an hour. Would that be all right?” The kitchen faced north and in its faint gloom the pallor of his face was very distinct.
“Absolutely,” he said, “and please don’t trouble about me. I’ll make myself a cup if you want to see Nan. Actually I don’t feel hungry.”
“You didn’t sleep last night?” She shoved the murmuring kettle over the fire in the range.
“The carriage was packed, including an ailing child. The proletariat travelled.” His tone was light and easy.
She moved quickly and soon had tea, with bread and scones, on the kitchen table. “Help yourself—and I’ll go up to relieve Mrs. Fraser. Your train was very late.” She went out, closing the door noiselessly behind her.
When he had drunk all the tea in the pot, he sat in the basket chair by the fire. His head drooped before the warmth and his eyes closed. There were whispering voices by the back door, then Aunt Phemie came in. He looked up.
“Would you like to rest?” she asked.
“I am feeling a bit drowsy,” he admitted.
“Your bed is all ready. Would you come now?” She looked at his feet. “Have you slippers?”
“No, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll take off my shoes here.”
She thought for a moment. “Wait.” She went out, drew aside a curtain from a wall shelf by the pantry, and, from a heap of old footwear, fished out a pair of brown leather slippers. Her dead husband’s. She stood with them in her hand, looking out of the side window at an old apple tree between the vegetable garden and the drying green. The apples were small but red, and suddenly she saw them very distinctly. In the kitchen she said, “Try these.” They fitted him well enough. “We’ll go quietly.” She led the way, indicated the bathroom with a gesture, and introduced him to his room. He nodded his thanks as she silently closed the door.
Before Nan’s room, which was three doors away, she listened, then went softly down the stairs and into the kitchen, closing the door behind her as in an act of privacy. Then she breathed.
She walked slowly to the window, staring through it. Infantile regression! she thought. As cool as that! His cool attitude seemed so incredible now that she stood by the sink staring blindly across the field of grain at the elms in the shallow ravine. She felt lost, wandered. She had expected him to be anxious, full of concern, of warmth. The lover; someone she would have to deal with, restrain, but use for Nan’s surprise and happiness.
She could not believe it, did not know what to do, felt queerly helpless. Turning from the window, she saw his cup and plate on the table, brought them to the sink and turned the hot tap on them. The teapot she swilled out more than once, then stood with it cupped in her hands. It was still warm. Carrying it slowly towards the fire, she placed it on the hot metal, slid the kettle over the burning coal and continued to lean on its handle, waiting for the water to come to the boil, in a dumb patience.
The hot tea revived her, lifted her head. There was colour in her face, a brightness in her eyes, a tilt to her chin, as though something had happened to her in a foreign country where she was travelling alone. She would have to deal with the situation. She listened as it were to the sound of it.
Nan wasn’t strong enough to cope with him, she thought. You need intelligence to cope with a man like that. His intelligence is so colossal that he breathes its air, naturally. She had felt like a flustered Victorian hen. Twenty-eight! My God! thought Aunt Phemie, who had ceased thinking in such terms for a long time.
This is the new world, she decided. Suddenly his face came before her again, paler than it had been, strangely pale, distinguished, slightly frightening, like something created in the dusk.
I’ll be going neurotic next! she thought with a touch of spirited humour and recklessly drank her too hot tea. It brought tears to her eyes, and as she wiped them away with her bare hand she thought of Nan.
He would never cure Nan, never! Nan might cling to him, trying to shake what she hungrily needed out of him. Might as well shake a tree at midday and expect the dew to fall. Honestly! declared Aunt Phemie, aware she was going all emotional but not caring. And giving him Dan’s slippers too!
She felt much better after she had wept. So many years had come and gone since she had wept—that last forsaken night in bed at the time of the lambing—that she felt a new woman, emptied and lightened. She got up briskly, put her cup and saucer in the sink, turned the tap on, swilled the teapot, and began washing the dishes. As she dried his cup, her lips twisted in humour, as though she were at last getting the measure of him. Positively ancient in his calm understanding, she mocked. With a woman of her own age—she was forty-seven—she could have enjoyed herself. One would almost think, she could have said, that he had been married to her for twenty-eight years!
Her hands stopped drying, the cup remained poised before her breast, the dish-cloth hanging down, while she stared across the almost ripe grain. Her mouth opened slightly, her features gathered. They have lived together, she thought with an extreme almost paralysing enlightenment. Her breathing stopped.
As she moved quietly about the kitchen, putting things away, wiping the sink, she paused frequently. Then she sat down. This was a new and very important fact. It put everything in a different light. It so altered Nan’s problem, so reflected upon the nature of her illness, that she could not—she could not—get a hold of it. The air now, the air around them, in the house, outside, was still with this enlightenment. And everything was caught in the stillness as in an appalling inevitability.
Could she be making a mistake? Nan showed so much of the élan of the lover, the naïve freshness, the youthful impatience, that Aunt Phemie had genuinely felt that the very unfulfilment of her love, the dreadful happenings which had stopped its natural flowering, was part of her actual trouble. Get these things removed, the horrible fears dissipated, and love would bloom naturally and healingly. The neurotic problem would be solved. Deep in her mind she had been certain of this—and any old Freudian could say what he liked!
It was a different and tougher problem now.
She came to herself with a sense of shock and a quick glance at the clock. The soup pot was quietly simmering. She had got everything ready before going to the station. Perhaps she had better go up and make sure Nan was not awake and “deserted”. After the doctor’s visit Nan had felt drowsy, profoundl
y indifferent, and wanted to sleep. But she had a habit of waking out of sleep, not knowing where she was, terrified. She should have had her switched egg. Aunt Phemie glanced at the clock again, then went out and quietly upstairs. On the landing she listened to the two bedrooms, aware of the distance between them as empty and unnatural. She would let Ranald sleep on. She wouldn’t go near him. Then she heard Nan’s bed creak faintly. She stood absolutely still, not wanting to go in. At last, however, she tiptoed to the door, pushed it slowly open, and shoved her head in.
“Hallo, had a sleep?” she asked in soft tones.
There was no answer.
“Just a minute and I’ll bring you up your switched egg.” She pulled the door almost shut and went quickly and quietly down the stairs, her heart beating strongly.
3
In the afternoon, with Mrs. Fraser in Nan’s room, Aunt Phemie went out about the steading and found the grieve and Will in the machine shed overhauling the binder. Harvesting lay ahead and the very sight of the slim wooden arms (“flyers” the men called them) that, revolving, would thrash down the grain over the cutting blades, touched her in an airy way so that at once she felt in another world.
“Did you see Sandy about?” she asked.
Will looked at her and then at the grieve who took a few seconds to finish what he was doing before lifting his head. “Sandy?” he repeated. “No. Did you see him?” and he looked at Will.
“I think he’s gone up to the top park with the stirks,” said Will. “I saw him heading up that way whatever.”
“Oh it doesn’t matter,” she said lightly.
There was silence for a little. The grieve would not question her, not at once. Sandy was the cattleman.
“That young collie of his,” she went on, looking about the shed; “was he howling last night?”
“Howling? No. I can’t say I heard him.”
She realised that they would never hear anything so natural as a dog howling in the night; they slept too hard. She looked at Will.
“No, I can’t say he’s a howler,” said Will slowly. “And it’s hardly likely, because he sleeps in the stick shed with the ould dog.”
“It’s nothing; only my niece was a bit disturbed last night and the doctor insists she needs all the rest she can get.”
“He may have howled of course,” said the grieve. “I’ll talk to Sandy if you like.”
“Well, you could mention it to him—just to make sure. How is the binder doing?” She went forward a step or two.
“Not bad,” said the grieve. “We’re just going to look over it. How is Miss Gordon today?”
“Coming along, thanks. She only needs attention.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said the grieve. Then, after waiting a moment, he added, “I was going to see you last night about one or two things, but I didn’t want to disturb the house.” He left the binder and they slowly went outside.
There had been rain during the night and all morning the sky had been overcast, but now the sun was out and everything was washed and fresh. She saw the bright colours of a cock chaffinch on a willow growing out of the green bank. He was declaring himself confidently as he hopped about the twigs.
She listened to the grieve’s talk of repairs, the blacksmith, the recurrent trouble over the tractor’s magneto and what they said in the garage. He spoke confidently for he had arranged everything, but the accounts would come to her. When he related how he had dealt with others his manner and tone always gathered a consequential air. He was a middle-sized stocky man, who said little by way of reprimand to those under him until he could no longer keep it in, when he said too much. But he was fair, and, in illness, extraordinarily considerate. She always, at the end of their year, gave him a bonus, worked out privately by herself as a percentage. In recent years it had been quite a tidy sum. The farm was as well run as any in the district. Perhaps one hidden factor more than any other kept him now her devoted ally and that was his secret consciousness of lack of schooling. His respect for the way she filled in forms and ran the farm’s accountancy was very deep. She listened to him with her businesslike air and watched the cock chaffinch. A wren came out from the roots of the willow. The physical health and strength of the world had something lovely and sure about it. She said, “That’s fine!” nodding. He said, “Just let me know what he charges.” “I will.” “Some of them are worth the watching,” he added. Then he began talking about one of the horses and she went with him to the stables. The brute was crippled on the near hind leg. He clapped a haunch strongly and cried, “Get over there!” “But isn’t that swollen!” “Ay,” he answered calmly, “there’s a swelling there.” “Have you sent for the vet?” she asked with sharp concern. “Ay,” he answered casually, “I put word to him this morning.” “What do you think it is?” “Who knows, for he can hardly have strained himself. He was aye a lazy brute. It may be a touch of the rheumatics. We’ll see.” He was now treating lightly her concern for animals. She knew this. But he had sent for the vet.
When she parted from the grieve she did not want to go back to the house so walked round to the cartshed and examined a front tyre on her car which had a mysterious slow leak. This morning it had been almost flat, but now it was hard as any of the other tyres. It certainly was an odd business, she decided, pleased, however, that the tyre was holding up. There was no one about and she went and had a look first into the small byre where the four milch cows were kept. But all cattle were out at grass; stalls and cribs were empty; yet the warm thick smell was everywhere, a healthy smell that did her good. This was the main part of the steading and its emptiness was felt, asking for a cry and an echo, but with the pleasant thought back in her mind that the beasts were in the fields. Sandy, returning from the top field, would take the four milch cows with him for the evening supply to the farm house and the cottages. No milk was sold.
At last she left the steading and, going up into the vegetable garden, pulled a plump lettuce, two or three carrots, nipped off some chives, decided she would get a knife and cut a cabbage, laid down what she had already gathered in order to pull up a strong growth of groundsel and weeded for nearly an hour. There was nothing she liked better than working in the earth with her bare hands.
By the time she had made her salad, Mrs. Fraser quietly appeared. She was a small stoutish capable woman, naturally kind and good-natured, and was now going home to prepare her husband’s evening meal. The men knocked off work at halfpast five and her two children would be home from school, though Teenie, at eleven, was nearly as good as a woman in the house. However, they talked for over ten minutes before Mrs. Fraser went. “You should have had a lie down to yourself,” were her last words, uttered in a softly reproving voice.
Before closing the kitchen door, Aunt Phemie listened to the quietness in the house, then—for her night’s sleep had been very broken—she felt not tired so much as the need to sit down. The steading was still about her, the earth, a rough shagginess of strength, and she did not want to lose its comfort. She thought of her husband; as she often did.
This strength, this thickness of living, this comfort and depth of body and hands, had kept her from going back to school teaching when her husband had been killed. Her teaching life in retrospect had seemed thin and washed and pale. Not only marriage but the working of the farm itself had been a new experience, and when Dan began to tell her how he stood with the bank, his desire for a tractor, his difficulties at a time when farming was not doing well, the amount of the mortgage on the farm (he had bought it outright), his plans, the possible switch over to a dairy farm, and all the hundred and one things and personalities involved, she had not only grasped the situation but almost at once had begun to help him. This had been something he had never foreseen, and it astonished him without end. He would look at a page of her writing and figures in her new red -bound account book with a serious air but actually for the secret delight of looking at it. No row of perfectly thatched stacks had ever given him so intimate a p
leasure. When he was setting off for market, she would sometimes call him back and fix his tie, fix him up properly and he would kiss her behind the kitchen door. Once, after such a happening, he had met the grieve and demanded, “What the hell are you doing that for?” “Because the damn thing is rotten,” replied the grieve, instantly flaring up. Dan gave the thing a kick. “By God, you’re right!” he said and went off laughing, leaving the grieve to stare after him in utter astonishment. Then his birthday drew near and Phemie decided—she had saved a bit before she married—to present him with a tractor. He had really grown serious at that and said, “Listen to me, Phemie. That’s your money and I’m never going to touch a penny piece of it. You keep it by you, lass. Then he added, for he had been deeply moved, “Who knows but you may need it yet!” “Thank goodness,” she had replied, “tyrant as you are, you cannot stop me doing what I like with my own.” “Can’t I?” “No.” “We’ll see about that,” he said and went off with a man’s laugh. But what he actually did see, on the afternoon of his birthday as he came down from the hayfield in answer to her summons, was the tractor ticking over in front of the cartshed. Phemie herself was in the driver’s seat and the delivery man was explaining to her how it worked. Once out of sight of the hayfield, he had started to run, for he had feared something had happened to her, and he was now breathless. She waved to him gaily, excited as a bairn with a new toy.
He had been killed that autumn by the visiting threshing mill. The driver of the steam-engine had been trying to manipulate the mill through a gate when it got jammed and was in danger of tearing the gate-post and corner of the stone wall away. Dan had shouted to him to back. He had backed but the ground was very soft. Dan decided to go forward and speak to him at the same moment as the driver, on his own impulse, went ahead again. The mill slid, caught Dan against the gate post, and crushed him. The sight of his body had killed the child in her and an ambulance had taken her to hospital.