by Neil M. Gunn
Aunt Phemie said nothing, for the inspector had contrived a considerable condensation of venom and satisfaction in his last sentence. Clearly he was pleased with Ranald.
“There was a time,” he went on, moved further to speech, “when we thought we might have had to question you all at Greenbank. But as we knew exactly when Mr. Surrey had arrived, it was clear that there could be no possible bearing on the Farquhar case. Actually there never was much doubt, I may say, particularly after the body of Gordon MacMaster had been examined—and the clothing and boots.”
“He—did do it?”
“We think there can be no doubt about it. The evidence he left at the cottage was very clear. As it happened it had been raining the night before and there’s a lot of mud about the cottage. The story was written in the gutters, the mud. And he left behind one or two personal things, including his bonnet. Then we knew his history. When he got crossed he was very excitable. There was something a little weak—here.” The inspector almost touched his forehead. “Occasionally he got a craving for drink. It was a sad case; a legacy of the last war.”
“Dreadful,” murmured Aunt Phemie.
“Yes. Gordon MacMaster was old Farquhar’s special friend. He spent an occasional night there. But the old man was a bit tight with money.”
“Did you find the money?”
“We found the deposit receipt, as you may know. But no notes. Our theory now is that when Gordie came properly to himself, he would throw the money from him or stuff it in a hole. He was not a bad fellow. He must have crossed the burn above the falls; that would be on his direct way to the mountains. When he realised what he had done, he would be making off, away from every living place. The deposit receipt was dropped or thrown in the burn, carried down, and cast up on the stones, where it got caught. Actually we don’t know if there was any more paper money. We think it likely, but we don’t know. Farquhar may have had a hidey-hole for it. We have searched his cottage upside down. But when old men go like that about money—they’re queer.”
There was silence for a little while. The inspector had accepted Mrs. Robertson as a responsible citizen, and now she got an entirely different impression of him. The dull blue of his eyes, though still without any lively expression, had yet a certain weariness, almost sadness, as if he did not sleep well or had trouble at home. She also got the impression that though his movements were slow, he would arrive there, like fate.
“It affected us all very much,” said Aunt Phemie. “My niece felt that a shadow—the death and destruction she had come through—had followed her. You can understand that. And it seemed terrible in our quiet countryside.”
He smiled a trifle sardonically. “If you knew the number of cases of stolen goods—motor cars and bicycles and housebreakings—that we have on hand, you might be surprised. Not to mention violence and fire-raising. If we have another war, it’s not the police we’ll be needing next time but a Gestapo.”
“You think so?”
“I know.”
Aunt Phemie could not speak for a moment. “It’s very terrible.”
“Ay, it’s a bad look-out for the world. Men lie now as naturally as they drink. It’s a case of: Can I get off with it?”
“Not all men surely?”
“Perhaps not. But enough.” Then he added, “What did you think of Adam McAlpine?” as though this question underlay all his talk.
“Well,” replied Aunt Phemie, gathering her wits, “I thought he was peculiar, abrupt, but I must say I thought he was honest. He did not strike me as the sort of man who would scheme out anything.”
“You think not?”
“I should say definitely not. He might get carried away, on the spur of the moment, but I think—I think—that deep in him there is—is something—I rather like.” Her eyes gleamed as with an unexpected discovery. “Of course I’m only talking from a single impression.”
“I’m afraid he certainly did not like us.”
“No,” said Aunt Phemie. “I suppose he wouldn’t.”
“Why do you suppose so?” The cool question came rather quickly.
“Because,” answered Aunt Phemie, “I think he is the kind who will have a hatred of any authority. It may have something to do with his upbringing. I simply don’t know.”
“Well,” said Inspector Geddes, “he’ll have to learn to understand and obey authority or one of these days it is going to be the worse for him. I have the notion that he knew more about Gordon MacMaster’s movements on the fatal day than he cared to let on.”
“Not really?” Her eyes were on the inspector’s face.
“I’m not saying it had anything to do with the murder itself. I don’t think it had. But we know he was up there painting—at the falls—very early in the morning. He saw someone. He said afterwards it was the shepherd. But it seemed queer to me that he should on that occasion have been there so early.”
Aunt Phemie had turned her face to the window. She knew the inspector was waiting, but the words that formed in her mind, of their own accord and with a staggering effect of irony, were: Perhaps he wanted to see the early light of the world being sucked under! She actually said, “All I know about painters is that they are interested in light at all times of the day.”
“Are they?”
His laconic tone drew her eyes. “I understand so.”
“My information is to the effect that if an artist was painting in an afternoon light, he would not also be wanting to paint onto the same picture in a morning light.”
She nodded thoughtfully. She just could not begin to explain that an artist might want to get the intimate feel of his subject in all lights. For one rather cold and terrible moment she glimpsed what seemed an eternal antithesis between Authority and the Artist.
“And then when he reported that he had found the body. … However,” and the inspector squared his shoulders, “the shepherd had seen your niece in his company and that made a difference. If it hadn’t been that he was more amenable with the Fiscal, he mightn’t be in London yet.”
“Is he gone then?”
“Yes.”
Aunt Phemie broke the silence. “It’s been very good of you, Inspector, to have helped me like this. I hesitated coming but—I should not hesitate again.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Robertson. Perhaps you have helped to clear my mind, too.”
They shook hands and Aunt Phemie left. As she drove home, she was satisfied she could now write Ranald and invite him up again and include in her letter some innocuous statement about having met Adam McAlpine. That would be bound to ease his mind. Surely it would? she asked of herself far inwardly, with a sharp recurrence of the old hopeless distress.
7
Rain comes; but the weather glass goes down so quickly that it will start going up again very soon. Thunder in the warm September air; heavy clouds. It clears by midday and here’s a drying wind. On the lower fields the grain was stacked, but now as Aunt Phemie and Nan wandered up by the top field which Nan had helped to cut, the stooks, having bowed their heads just perceptibly under the rain, had forgotten to lift them. “They are dead ripe,” said Aunt Phemie, pausing to straighten a couple of drunken sheaves.
Nan regarded the whole field, the long rows of stooks wandering up and over those swelling breasts of land where she had driven the tractor. “I feel they are largely mine,” she said.
“You think you own them now?” suggested Aunt Phemie with a speculative smile.
“No,” replied Nan. “I feel I know them. There is something between us.”
Aunt Phemie laughed lightly as she lifted the small canvas satchel containing their picnic tea. It was Sunday and the fields were quiet.
“I have a real grievance,” Nan continued. “I should have been at the leading of this field, and now to-morrow I’m off. There’s something all wrong about that.”
“Despite your blisters?”
“Despite my blisters,” replied Nan involuntarily looking at her hands for she ha
d kept forking sheaves to the floats with an undefeatable persistence. She continued on her way, with a glance for the Dark Wood over on the right. Aunt Phemie followed, her eyes for a moment holding a detached appreciation of the carriage of Nan’s head and the easy movement of her body. Whatever else might come to that body, health had for the time being come to dwell there anyway. Aunt Phemie could reasonably take some satisfaction to herself for that. They were all under heaven, under rain and storm and sun, but the stooks did contrive to appear. One could have hope.
“Where now?” asked Aunt Phemie, as Nan bore slightly to the left.
Nan turned her head over her shoulder. “You would never guess my secret intention.” She contemplated Aunt Phemie with a veiled amusement then strode on with a laugh.
“Nan Gordon, if you think you are going to drag me——”
“No preaching, please. Besides, where do you think I am going to drag you?” She stopped.
Aunt Phemie looked at her steadily. “Well, where?”
Nan suddenly took the satchel from her. “It’s my turn.” In the slight confusion, she said, “I want to put a circle sunwise round the shadow. That will keep you quite safe till I come back.”
“You’re quite daft,” said Aunt Phemie, “completely daft.”
“To-day you are in my hands,” said Nan, “blisters an’ all. You promised.”
Aunt Phemie sighed. Nan took her arm for a pace or two and shook her. “The stooks have gone to my head,” she whispered, “but don’t tell anyone.” She broke away and walked on.
They crossed the moor slowly because Nan, in the exuberance of her health, found an insatiable interest in everything that grew or ran or flew. By the time they reached the burn, panting, she mimicked old Will’s voice: “I’m fair sweatin’.” She blew on her jumper at the neck and shook it, sending air currents down her breast, and fanned herself with her arms, and then finding that she was really waving her arms, she shouted “Hurrah!”
Aunt Phemie sat down. “I’m fair longing for my tea.”
Nan swooped on her and snatched the satchel away; as quickly she sat by Aunt Phemie, her hands decorously in her lap. “I’m going to tell you a story. Do you see that pool there, just there, with the bubbles coming in behind the boulder in a jingaring.” She nodded to the bubbles and looked sideways at Aunt Phemie.
“I observe them,” remarked Aunt Phemie.
“Thank you,” said Nan. “Observe them closely, and on dark days and in diverse places they will perform for you, sometimes with the grace of a minuet, sometimes with the whirl and breakaway of an eightsome reel. I have come to the conclusion after much thought—and not inconsiderable experience—that they represent the treasure we lay up for ourselves on earth.”
“And heaven?”
“I don’t know about heaven,” replied Nan in the same courteous manner, “but with this treasure in my hands I am prepared, in the vulgar parlance of our day, to take a chance on God.”
“You would present Him with his own creation?”
“From my heart,” concluded Nan. “Now I was about to tell you a story. Once upon a time I was bathing in that pool and some of the bubbles sailed away laughing, for the pool and myself made a great commotion, shouting and splashing together. Then I climbed out and sunned myself dry on the rock. Then I dressed and sat me down, and in the same moment a man appeared before me. As he had not been visible anywhere on the moor, I was forced to conclude that he had been lying just over there watching me in the pool.”
“You did not tell me this?”
“No,” answered Nan. “I was disturbed at that time. The man was Adam. He is no more to me now than the first Adam. But then he disturbed me. There was something in him that I knew. I know it still. But I could never go with him on his road. I cannot tell you why. Perhaps I am afraid of going too far; something warns me. I think the thing that warns me is life, but I am not sure. A woman’s life and the stooks and the harvest. But I am not sure, Aunt Phemie.”
“You just feel you know?”
“Yes, I feel I know.”
“Was he unpleasant?” asked Aunt Phemie.
“Oh no.” And then Nan told how they went up as far as the little falls and parted on that day. Her tone became simpler as she described how they met again and set out for the peat hags and black lochans in the lost boggy place between one mountain and another, but now there was an inflection of strangeness as in the voice of one telling a disturbing dream. The personal nature of this was warm in her cheeks and visible in her lashes, for sometimes her eyes regarded her fingers as they tilted up the starry purple florets on a stalk of heather before lifting swiftly and glistening-bright to the mountains again.
“Why did he want to go there?” asked Aunt Phemie following the slow barren curve of the strath.
“He said he wanted to take me to the source. Not only the source of the burn. I don’t know,” replied Nan. After a little she went on, “He had a peculiar kind of humour. I can see the expression in his eyes when he said, ‘I’ll show you what we come out of.’ But it was not nasty. It was exciting, yet I didn’t want it. Yet I was curious. I thought: This once, just this once, in order to see.”
Aunt Phemie nodded.
“So I went.” Nan paused. “But there was also something else. But I am not too sure about it now, because I find it difficult to know what actually happened or what I dreamed afterwards. Talk about primeval creatures of the slime!” She smiled wanly. “Horrible, oh horrible!” She shook her head. “Isn’t it awful that the mind can be like that? That it can make things like that, give eyes to peat-hags and lift gaping jaws and slither and roll over? And not only that, but the something behind it, that does it. I can’t explain. It’s worse than the horrors we know now, the unthinkable war horrors that men can commit. They daze us. We get sort of glutted. But you have to be nearly mad—perhaps quite mad for long moments—to know what—what does it.”
“My dear,” murmured Aunt Phemie.
“Let me get it over,” said Nan. “I had the awful feeling that he knew something more. He said it was the sort of place that a murderer would make for; not the businesslike murderer that we know to-day, but the one who would waken to a feeling of guilt. The old-fashioned murderer. It was an elaborate kind of joke for Adam, but there was something in it that—that worked me up. Though of course I showed nothing. I tried not to anyway. And then we sat down. He began to look at me and make love with his looks and his words. And then he put his hands on me, not—not roughly—but—but I went mad, screaming and tearing away… I don’t blame him. I asked for it. He could not know that I was trying to—to conquer the shadow! He caught me and held me. We staggered and I believe I would have gone in. The hump in the water. He pulled, and the face came up, sideways first …” Nan’s head bowed, her eyes shut, and her hands closed into two tight fists.
Aunt Phemie sat staring at the mountains in a deep anguish. Presently she looked at Nan to find her smiling.
“Merely a small twinge,” said Nan.
But Aunt Phemie could not match her change of mood and looked about for the tea satchel.
Nan shook her head. “No,” she said. “This is my day. And first of all we’re going to bathe. I’m going into that pool there, and you’re going into the one below. We need one each for freedom——”
“Me!”
“Now, listen. Please, Aunt Phemie. Do it. The pool will take it away. Then we’ll be washed and cleansed and in our right skins. I’m not asking you lightly. Please.”
“But we have nothing to dry ourselves with even.”
“My dear, look!” And Nan exhibited with a gesture the sky and the sun. “Oh, Aunt Phemie, Aunt Phemie!” and she brought her open hands against her breasts, and smiled, and jumped up.
When they had bathed and drunk their tea and were going down the burnside, Aunt Phemie admitted that a certain lightness had come upon her, for she saw at the same time that not only a lightness but a strength had come upon Nan, and inwardly she m
arvelled at a something of wisdom which that blithe body out of its terrors had contrived to distil, and again she was aware, as in the cornfield, of hope stirring in the mysterious essence of the world.
Nan told about the hawk, quite naturally now, freed from any stress or mannerism, and they inspected the falls pool in the gorge; but Aunt Phemie said nothing of what had happened there. They left the pool and came back until Nan paused by a path going up slantwise through the birches. It was hardly more than a sheep track. “I have wondered where that goes,” she said.
“You’ll have to go on wondering,” replied Aunt Phemie.
“I have the feeling it goes up towards Farquhar’s cottage.”
As Aunt Phemie had had the same feeling, she said lightly, “In that case it’s too steep for me.”
“You know it’s not,” said Nan. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Nan Gordon——”
“It’s my day. And you know it’s not morbid. I want to go.”
“Now look——”
“Please, Aunt Phemie. Come with me. Come on. Do.”
It was a long climb and once when they rested Nan said, “I’ll tell you a queer thing. You know when I was talking about these horrors. The odd bit is that it’s yourself, the thing you know as yourself that’s horrified. You hate these things and want to escape from them. They are not you, not the real you. Yet I suppose they must be, for if you imagine them where can they come from but yourself?”
“I have always found that difficult,” answered Aunt Phemie, “and no amount of dividing up the mind into ids and superegos and censors ever quite convinced me. So I gave it up!”
“I don’t care what they say. It’s not just developing a conscience. The horror is beyond that, and the I that escapes it is the—is the whole being or soul. It’s so easy to have theories about it. But the experience itself has an absoluteness about it … I don’t know.” Nan looked about her and saw that autumn had touched the birches since she had been in the gorge last. “I suppose theories are necessary,” she said.
Aunt Phemie laughed as she glanced at Nan and saw her eyes on the yellow streaks painted here and there upon the green leaves. The gorge in the September stillness of the afternoon hung in a tranced beauty.