by Neil M. Gunn
Before the warmth of the kitchen fire Aunt Phemie’s head drooped, but her eyes were wide open, very wide. Another memory had touched her to-day when she had wept. It now came back like something that explained in some queer fatal way why she had stayed on in the farm.
After convalescence she had returned, intending to wind up all the affairs of the farm and sell out early in the year or by the May term at the latest. It had been a fairly open winter and one January morning—the seventh, for the earliness of the date surprised her—she found that the snowdrops were through, not yet opened but white, folded white on their short green stalks like tiny spears. This had an extraordinary effect on her, piercing sweet, intensifying her loss, her sorrow, even as it pierced through it, and she felt the year opening, the coming of spring, and all the springs of the years ahead.
She had bought numberless bulbs, snowdrop, crocus—yellow and purple, and daffodil, and planted them in the grass, for the house, being built on a slope, had green banks wherever the level ground tumbled over. She was going to have a wonderful show, a transformation, a glory of the spring. And now, behold! the show was beginning, had indeed brought its opening date forward in a press of eagerness as though the given time would be short enough for the full display which the green banks had in mind.
March came in and still she had not made up her mind. She should leave the place but she could not; she was somehow not ready yet. In recent years stock-rearing had been more profitable than crop-growing, and in addition to cattle her husband had a lot of sheep on the ground. The grieve was now completely dependent on her book-keeping.
On a late March afternoon she was busy about a small rockery which she had got Dan to help her to make. Blues were now predominant: grape hyacinth, scillas, and glory of the snow, with aubretia coming along. It was still a marvel to her how fragile these early flowers were. The yellow crocus was a tuning fork out of some sunny underworld, still holding the glow of the note. The snowdrops, full grown, large, in clumps, had but contrived to emphasise their delicate green veining, their bowed heads and nun-like pallor. Marvellous to think that the mature lusty growths of summer would shrivel in weather that gave to snowdrop and crocus a lovelier grace, a deeper colour.
Ah, and here at last some flakes of white—on the cherry tree! Her heart gave a bound. Into the bright cold air of March, the cherry blossom had come! As she gazed at the blown petals, two or three more petals came blowing past them. Snow-petals. Snow! She looked into the depth of the air and saw the flurry of snowflakes, not falling, but swirling darkly in the air. Then they began to shoot past in front of her, all white; to settle on the flowers, her hands, everywhere. A ewe bleated beyond the garden fence; day-old lambs answered in their thin shivering trebles.
In the dark of the night she awoke and heard the fragile voices, crying out in the field. Forlorn they sounded and lost. These particular sheep were Border Leicesters, soft, the shepherd had said, because they were so well bred.
In the darkness the bleating of the lambs was very affecting. And there rose one thin persistent plaint that she knew instinctively to be the crying of a new-born lamb. She thought of the ewes, square market-bred ewes, soft, having their lambs out there in the snow. She wished she could do something for them. A flurry of snow against the window, blind fingers against the glass before the eddy of wind bore them away. Bore them away in a small whining anxious sound into space. Nothing conveyed the idea of space so well as the wind at night. And all the time the lambs kept bleating, and the wind carried away their bleating into the gulfs of space.
To ease this burden, she thought of herself as out in the field, going from ewe to ewe, and saw the lambs with their red birth stains in the driving snow, the mother licking them in the whirling snow, each lick making them stagger. If they weren’t licked dry they might die.
The soft snow-fingers at the window went away, defeated. She hearkened for them with a sense of loss, of guilt. She got up and pulled aside the curtain. The snow shower had passed and the sloping lands lay spectral white under the stars. Something in the whiteness of purity, of virgin austerity, touched her to frightened wonder. She dressed quickly, and in the kitchen went quietly lest she waken the servant girl. Into her long gumboots, her heavy mackintosh, tightening the belt about her waist; then to the back door which she opened carefully.
The snow was surprisingly full of light and this suited her secret purpose, for she could not have taken a lantern. She did not want to be seen. Suddenly it was as if she came alive, as if something which had been holding her had let go, and a bounding invigoration went coursing through her. Some of the beasts, with lifted faces white against their fleeces, which were dark-grey against the snow, looked at her coming and, instead of showing fear, cried to her, taking even a step or two towards her. She was moved to cry back to them.
As the bleating seemed to multiply all across the field, she got into a stir of excitement, and kept speaking brightly, encouragingly. It began to snow again and soon she was wrapped about in the whirling flakes and completely blinded so that she could not see a yard in front of her, and when the wind got into her mouth it roared there and choked her. She stood quite still, her back to the wind, leaning against it. She let her voice cry out on the wind, her spirit lifting away in a wild irrational emotion like joy. Then the wind lifted her bodily along, and she kicked into a ewe giving birth to a lamb.
Ewes should give birth later in the morning as the hill ewes did at her childhood home. But now on her knees she could half see what was happening. She spoke to the beast, sheltered her, encouraged her, eased her with a tender hand, wisely, helping her, using terms of endearment in a practical voice. And as though some of her vitality and encouragement were indeed of practical help, the ewe had an easy delivery.
“Feeling it a bit cold now!” she said to the lamb. “Don’t get excited, you old fool!” she said to the ewe. She would shelter them until the shower passed, and she looked over her shoulder to see if it was clearing. Coming upon her was a smother of yellow light, swinging, growing … at hand. She rose up.
The light stopped and there was a harsh exclamation. Rising snow-white like a ghost above the crying of a newborn lamb in the whirling ebb of the shower, she might have startled a mind less sensitive than the shepherd’s. “It’s all right, Colin,” she cried, giving him time. “It was foolish of me to have come out without a light.”
He came forward and said, “I wondered what you were.” He muttered it, as though suspicious of her. She realised that probably he was suspicious, was thinking in his own mind: What brought her out here?
And she could hardly explain! So she talked in an easy friendly way, evolving the half-lie that she had thought a ewe was in difficulties, the cries had wakened her and she had come out to see if she could help.
He muttered something about having been called away somewhere, but soon, under her natural friendliness, he thawed completely. He came from the north of Sutherland and Dan had had complete confidence in him. Of all the men about the place, she liked him best, liked his independence and a certain loneliness that went with him. He reminded her, too, of the son of a crofter from Western Ross whom she had known at college. His native gift for flattery had been disturbing for a while.
“There’s a ewe over there I’m worried about,” he said when they had at last got to the top corner of the field. She was now all glowing with warmth. The shower gone, what had been halffrightening in the still, white landscape was no longer so.
“We have been lucky,” he said. “But we can hardly expect it to hold.” So that when they came to the ewe that he had been worrying about she was prepared for death. He did everything he could with a strange concentration. When he spoke to her he was really speaking to himself. She realised his deep instinctive skill. The lamb was born but the ewe died under his hands. On his knees in the snow, he looked at the humped body, his hands hanging. He got up and said quietly, “I’ll take the lamb to the bothy. We may have a mother for it soon enough
.” He was unmarried and about her own age.
“Come along to the kitchen,” she said. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.” The kitchen, with its hot water, was often of service in the ailments of beasts.
“Don’t you bother, mem,” he answered. “I have the fire on and can get milk for the lamb in no time.”
“Come,” she said calmly. “I should like to give you a cup of tea.” And she moved on.
She did not want to lose him now, did not want to lose the life that had come into her, did not want to lose sight of the lamb. He began tugging at the stiff iron catch of a cross-barred gate with one hand. “Give me the lamb,” she said and took it from under his arm. He opened the gate and let her through.
As they came into the deep shadow of the house, she looked back. “Do you think it is going to be much?”
“No,” he answered. “There is life in the air. But I’ll see about shelter when the daylight comes in.”
“The wireless forecast snow-showers and outlook unchanged.”
“Did it?” he said politely, cleaning his hands with snow.
“Come in.”
He scraped his boots clean. “I’ll make such a mess of your floor.”
Inside, the bleating of the lamb sounded startlingly loud. As he struck a match, cupping it with his hands, she saw the glow of the light on his brown skin and the glitter of it in his dark attractive eyes. He needed a haircut. Then his face cleared and opened as he tilted it up, looking for the lamp. “Here’s the lamp,” she said softly as if she might waken the house. Then she sent him out to the shed next the dairy where there were empty boxes and straw. “Hsh!” she crooned to the lamb, cupping its head in her hand, her fingertips at its mouth. The fragile body butted, the little bones slithering under the thin skin. She saw the discoloured skin and her own hands and wrists. He came in with the box and put it on the, floor by the kitchen range. “It’s a feed he wants,” he said.
She nodded. “I’ll wash my hands and then put on the fire.” She was no longer excited by the crying of the lamb and watched the way he took the sticks Jean had drying over the range and set about raking the embers which were still red under the ashes. He put a wisp of straw over the red, the dry sticks carefully on top, and blew. Up came the flames.
“You haven’t a feeding bottle?” he asked.
She hadn’t.
“I’ll be back in a minute with one,” he said.
By the time he came back she had the milk blood-warm and the kettle over the fire with no more water in it than would make tea for two.
They spoke in quiet tones as she spread a tea-cloth over a corner of the kitchen table and set two cups on it, bread and biscuits, bright plates, butter and knives. “Leave him now and wash your hands,” she said.
She was lifting the teapot to fill his cup when a noise arrested her. The noise drew nearer. She knew it was Jean, but could not say a word, could not move the hand with the lifted teapot. They both stared at the door. It opened—and, her face half-petulant and flushed from sleep, there stood Jean, the servant girl. Her eyes widened as she gazed at Colin and then right down her neck, as she turned her face away, went a deep blush. Dark, wellbuilt, with a clear skin, she was inclined to moods occasionally but was a capital worker. At this moment, in her twenty-fifth year, she looked disturbingly attractive.
“Come in, Jean,” said her mistress quietly. She glanced at Colin. He was looking at his plate.
The emotion between them, whether it had ever been declared or not, was so obvious to their mistress that her hand shook slightly as she poured Colin’s tea. “You’re up very early.”
“I heard the lamb and I wondered,” Jean replied, her back to them, attending to the fire.
“Put some more water in the kettle, because there’s hardly enough tea here for you.” Then she began telling Jean about the experiences in the snow. When she had drunk her cup, she got up. “What’s the time? Nearly five! I think I’ll have an hour or two in bed. There’s no need for you to hurry, Colin.”
She left them and went up to her room.
She was feeling tired now, but when she had undressed and stretched between the sheets, still faintly warm, she experienced a sensation of ease, as though her body floated. A crush of snow, softer than the lamb’s mouth, smothered itself against the window. And all at once she thought of the ewe—that she had quite forgotten—with the head thrown out and back, the neck stretched as to an invisible knife. The snow would be drifting about the body, covering it up … .
Aunt Phemie was startled out of her reverie by the opening of the door behind her. Her heart leapt as she turned with a wild scared expression. Ranald stood there, smiling, his slippers in his hand.
4
“You gave me such a start!” explained Aunt Phemie, as she got to her feet.
“I came as quietly as I could.” He had closed the door and now put on his slippers.
To have come on his socks was somehow unexpectedly thoughtful of him. “You had a good sleep?”
“Like a log.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you. You must be famished.” She turned to the fire, got a fork and tried the potatoes. She glanced at the clock, “Dear me!” she said, then hurried to pour out what water was left in the potato pan and set the table for their meal. “Sit down. You didn’t hear any sounds upstairs?”
“No. It was very quiet.” He stretched himself in the chair and yawned. “That was a good sleep.” The slow characteristic smile spread over his face; she turned her eyes away as though its self-assurance was still something she could not quite bear.
She had soup, a salad, cold boiled chicken, and potatoes. He got up from the chair and stood with his back to the fire, watching her arrange the table and fill his soup plate.
“You begin,” she said, “and I’ll go and see if Nan is ready for her tray.” She closed the door quietly behind her.
When he had finished his soup, he waited for a time, then got up and began carving the chicken. Before sitting down, he went to the door, opened it and listened, closed it and went on with his meal. He ate a lot of salad with a chicken leg. The lettuce was crisp and his white teeth crunched it audibly. When at last he had finished he lit a cigarette and looked about him, leaning back.
Presently Aunt Phemie entered. She appeared agitated, scared, and, with care, did not quite close the door.
“She heard you,” she whispered.
“Did she?”
She nodded and rattled the plates.
“What did she say?”
“Hsh! her door is open.” She spoke no more, and in a moment went out with soup and bread on a tray. He sucked the cigarette smoke deep and blew it out slowly, his eyelids flickering in thought. When she came back she closed the door. He got up and looked at her. But beyond asking if he had had enough, she paid no attention to him.
“This can’t go on,” she said when she had dished herself some soup. Her tone was level but low.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“She’s so highly sensitised she hears things acutely. I said she couldn’t have heard anyone, unless it was Mrs. Fraser going back for something she had dropped. She said it was someone coming out of Ranald’s room. To prove to her it was no-one I went into your room and back.”
“Did she believe you?”
She supped her soup. “That’s not the difficulty.”
“I see.”
She looked at him. “Do you?”
“Well, if she can’t believe her own senses—where is she?”
She took a couple of spoonfuls and broke some bread on her plate. “What do you think should be done?”
“I think I should go and see her.”
She crumpled the bread, looking out the window. “I wish I knew,” she said, with controlled distress. “She was shaking, trembling, and did not want me to touch her. She turned away, tears in her eyes, but she was not sobbing. She looked pale and alien. I was suddenly frightened.”
“Alien?” he repeate
d.
“Yes, withdrawn into herself, into some world where I don’t know—where she is alone. Away from us. I got the feeling she knew at last she was going there.”
“I see,” he said, almost coldly. His lids lowered. “Why don’t you think I should see her?” he asked.
“Because of the effect you might have on her. I just don’t know.”
“But something must be done?”
“Are you sure of yourself and your effect?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not,” said Aunt Phemie. “Not yet.”
“You have to consider whether you are possibly being too emotional about it—and whether that helps.”
“I assure you I have considered it. There is also the effect of an absence of emotion.”
“I agree,” he said reasonably, as if suddenly pleased with her capacity for direct argument.
She looked straight at him and asked, “Do you know anything about her fear of leprosy?”
His features firmed to a sustained stare as his vision travelled through her. Then he turned and after sucking a last mouthful of smoke dropped the stub of his cigarette in the fire. “So that phantasy has come back?”
“So you know about it?”
“I think I do. But—well—it was merely a fantastic exaggeration of a—of a happening.”
“Don’t you think I should know about it?”
“Certainly. It might take a little time to explain.”
“Do you know anything about Kronos?”
“Kronos?” His brows gathered as he looked at her. “No. Money, is it?”
“I don’t know—but I hardly think so.”
“Who was Kronos again?”
“Kronos was the father who devoured his own sons.” She got up and began separating the thin slices of chicken breast which he had cut.
“Has she some delusion about it?”
“It’s hard to tell. It’s a Greek myth—like the one about Oedipus.”
He gave a dry appreciative smile, then asked, “How did she use it?”