“Now, Kate,” said her brother. “Don’t try to be a lady, for it’s no use.”
“Fishwives to you!” cried Kate indignantly, but she turned from the window and went downstairs.
5
The house through which she made her way to the back premises was shabby, badly in need of paper and paint, lighted by paraffin lamps in the sitting-room and kitchen, by candles in the bedrooms; but the furniture was all good, and some of it very fine. Kate hardly noticed the shabbiness of everything, for it had been like that as long as she could remember. She was so accustomed to being poor that she seldom stopped to think just what it might be like to have enough money for what most people would have considered necessities. Even Grey, who had come home after six years in India to join his father in propping up a rather shaky business, never compared the house with others he had known. It was simply home, a place by itself in his mind. Long ago he and Kate had decided that the family motto ‘Hernes flee heich’ was of no practical use to them in their circumstances, and proceeded to get as much amusement as they could out of everything that came their way. If the thought sometimes occurred to Grey that his sister did not have the same sort of good times as other girls he knew, if he wondered whether she had had a fair chance, living as they did, of meeting men and perhaps getting married, he kept it to himself. Kate seemed happy, perhaps she did not mind growing older without having seen much of life. Besides, he had an infantile faith in his powers of making money, as lovely and impossible as the child’s belief in the hidden pot of fairy gold lying at the foot of the rainbow. One day he’d have enough money to give Kate a decent time. They might set up house together and live happily ever after. . . .
His mind occupied by bright pictures of the parties they would give, the cruises they would go—for if you dream about money you may as well dream about having a great deal of it—Grey operated on his trout with a penknife of insanitary appearance at the sink in the stone-floored scullery. As Kate joined him he said amiably: “Well, funny-face?”
“Grey, I have more than a suspicion that that knife is not surgically clean,” was Kate’s reply.
“Oh, that’s all right. The fish have to be washed anyhow, don’t they?”
“Fortunately, yes. And now, as the minion is going out to a dance in the village, and I am cook to-night, how do you want these little brutes done?”
“Split and fried with lots of oatmeal on ’em,” said her brother, smacking his lips. “Abracabroccoloni says it’s by far the best way to serve trout.”
“Abracabroccoloni is an infernal nuisance,” said Kate laughing. “If he’s going to interfere in the kitchen when I’m cooking there will be no dinner to-night.”
Abracabroccoloni, a mythical Italian chef invented by Grey, was almost a member of the household, but fortunately for the tempers of the Herons mother and daughter, and their trusty cook-general, only paid them flying visits. If any meal was not as Grey liked it, Abracabroccoloni was certain to be quoted. Kate knew his views on various dishes by heart and nervously waited to hear him pronounce on anything new she tried.
“You ought to be glad to have a few tips from old Abra,” said his creator reproachfully.
“Well, I’m not.” Kate piled the wet trout on a plate and carried them to the kitchen. “But you might put some coal on the fire, Grey. I’m sure old Abra would agree with me that a good fire is essential for successful cooking.”
Grey picked up a coal-scuttle, shot a large part of its contents into the red heart of the range with considerable noise, and shouted above the din: “When you go to Soonhope, would you like me to come and keep you company for a week-end? I’m sure my exquisite taste would be of value when you’re arranging the furniture and draping curtains.”
“Grey, that would be lovely. My own taste is quite exquisite enough, and besides, I’ll have Lucy’s directions as to where everything is to go, to the last footstool, but your brawn and muscle might come in handy. Do come. I’ll leave Mrs. Anstruther’s and we can camp out at Soonhope.”
“All right.” Grey wandered out in the passage, then turned to put his head round the door. “Abracabroccoloni says that a teaspoonful of vinegar added to the water when potatoes are being boiled makes them beautifully mealy.”
“Blow Abracabroccoloni! You’re not to bring him to Soonhope, mind!” cried Kate. Then, as she thought of the week-end which would be so much more amusing with Grey as her companion, she added generously: “but I’ll remember the vinegar. This evening all shall be exactly as Abracabroccoloni would wish it.”
CHAPTER TWO
1
Kate, as the small train puffed on its leisurely way towards Haystoun from the junction, sat with the windows of her third-class compartment opened to their widest extent. Smuts flew in and settled freely on her face and ungloved hands, but she cared nothing for that as she gazed out at the country she loved. Part of its charm lay in the fact that to people who demanded a more obvious beauty of scenery it was hardly worth a second glance, and this made it peculiarly her own, a treasure shared only with the discerning few. Not to those who knew it as a county of excellent golf-courses by the coast, invaded in summer by smart society, was the secret of its glamour revealed. They plodded over the links after their little white balls, hardly noticing the sea except as a hazard to be avoided, and if they did lift up their eyes to the hills it was almost without seeing them, unless they threatened rain which might spoil the afternoon’s round.
Kate Heron lifted up her eyes to them, and felt her heart lift in sympathy. The Lammermuirs, her own hills, looking far away and hazy in the heat, lay, a long dim blue rampart against the summer sky. Kindly, rounded hills they looked, after the peaks of the north and west, but Kate knew how bleak they could be, how desolate and windswept, how terrible in snow and mist. She had heard them described as tame, these miles of lonely moorland, those hidden glens and cairn-topped heights. The very names—Bleak Law, Lammer Law, Nine Stane Rig, Crib Cleuch—rang wild in her ears as a Border ballad.
The train was crawling peacefully through the wide shallow valley, where the ripening corn grew golden brown and strong, where haycocks stood in neat rows anions the green second crop. Tiny wild strawberries flourished on the railway embankments, and Kate could still see a few. She longed to jump out and pick them, staining hands and lips with the wild fruit which had a flavour, she remembered, not to be equalled in her childish estimation by the finest in the garden at Soonhope. There was a tangle of blue and yellow vetch in the hedgerows, purple crane’s-bill and honeysuckle, and a few late scarlet poppies waving like flags. The tower of the Parish Church came into view, welcoming her back to Haystoun, and all in a minute the train gathered speed, dashed under a bridge, and presently thundered into the station, to stand panting and puffing as if its short row of carriages and its two cattle-trucks had been an overflowing bank-holiday excursion from London at the very least.
Kate, after making a rather unsuccessful attempt to remove the grime of her journey, groaned and sprang out on to the almost empty platform. ‘It’s a great pity,’ she thought ruefully, ‘that I am such an untidy traveller. In books there’s always a tiresome heroine whose most salient feature is her band-box smartness even after a trip across the Sahara. I wonder how those fragile young women do it? I know what I’d look like if I had crossed even a small desert. A dilapidated sand-bag!’
The station-master, a friend of her childhood, came bustling up as she gave her ticket to the shock-headed boy who was meandering along beside the train bawling unnecessarily “Hays-toun! Hays-toun!” in his slow country voice.
“Well, Miss Heron, I’m verra glad to see ye back. No, you’ll not need to order a taxi. Mrs. Anstruther’s sent to meet ye.”
“Oh, has she? That’s very kind of her,” said Kate. “And how are you, Mr. Callander?”
“Oh, I canna complain, I canna complain at all, though I’m getting no younger, Miss Heron. But that’s a disease we all have to suffer from. Ay. Away you out to the car, and I’ll sen
d Peter with the luggage.”
Kate obediently started down the long echoing flight of covered steps leading to the station yard, smiling a little wryly at Mr. Callander’s obvious tact in refraining from any mention of the Lockharts. In the old days it had been: “Well, ye’ll find them all in the best o’ health at Soonhope, and Mr. Lockhart’s waiting on ye outside.” But she had come prepared for change, and no doubt others would not be so careful of the family pride as the station-master. She emerged, blinking a little, into the strong sunshine, and a broad-shouldered figure, black against the light, blocked her way. A man’s voice said: “Are you Miss Heron? I’m Robin Anstruther. My aunt sent me to meet you.”
With a final blink Kate cleared her eyes and saw him plainly. So this was Mrs. Anstruther’s nephew, the retired naval officer turned farmer, this square-built solid block of a man, black-haired, harsh-featured, with two parallel lines so deeply scored across his forehead that they looked like scars. “Or tram-lines,” thought Kate, unfortunately aloud, for he said: “What did you say?” sharply.
“Formidable!” thought Kate, and murmured: “How d’you do?”
Peter hove in sight, trundling her two suit-cases and the round hat-box on a barrow so large that it mocked their puny insignificance.
“The car’s over there,” said Robin Anstruther, and stalked beside her in silence towards a car so shiny and splendid that she could not restrain a faint squeak of astonished admiration.
“Anything wrong?” he demanded.
“Good gracious! That’s not a farmer’s car!” said Kate.
He uttered a short, deep-toned shout of laughter which stopped as abruptly as it had begun. “Huh! No, it isn’t. It’s a piece of unjustifiable extravagance. Here, Peter, stow that gear carefully, will you? That’s right. Now”—to Kate—“in you get. I’ll settle with the boy.”
Kate protested. “Why should you?”
“Don’t argue,” he said coolly. “This is my show. I came to meet you, didn’t I?”
“It was very kind of you,” said Kate sedately as he got in beside her.
“Oh, I was in Haystoun, anyway. It’s market-day and I always have tea with the old lady when I’m in—she won’t come up to my place, hates my housekeeper. So meeting you wasn’t much bother,” he told her. “You quite comfortable?”
“Perfectly, thank you. . . .” (‘If Grey were here, he’d love to see me being a lady,’ thought Kate. ‘I wonder what the next remark ought to be? It’s his turn now—’)
The next remark when it came was so entirely unexpected that it left her gasping. “So you’ve come to help to pick up the bits and put ’em together again?”
“The bits?”
“The Lockharts’ affairs, of course. I suppose you’ll be on Lucy’s side, all for Law and Order?”
Kate remembered that this man was a friend of her cousin Andrew. His tone said quite plainly that he was not on Lucy’s side; but then, men always stuck to each other.
“I’m not on any side,” she said with truth. ‘ It is none of my business.”
“Very prudent of you,” said Robin Anstruther. “Hullo, here we are, and I can see Aunt Jean peering through the fernery.”
Kate quickly got out of the car, and without waiting for him, walked up the path to the door. She was furious with him. For some reason it is always maddening to be accused of prudence, and she began to think that she probably was on ‘Lucy’s side,’ after all, if he was on the other.
At tea a brisk conversation was carried on between Kate and her hostess, who liked her. Robin Anstruther hardly opened his mouth—except to put bites of scone and mouthfuls of tea into it, thought Kate spitefully. But her sense of humour, which seldom failed her, returned before the meal was ended. It was really rather funny, when you came to think of it, that she, whom her family considered far too rash and inclined to leap without looking, should have been called prudent. And his opinion mattered so little. She was long past the agonizingly sensitive age of girlhood, when to be misunderstood was pure misery. Let him think what he liked of her, and be damned to him!
Mrs. Anstruther had fallen into a reminiscent mood and was reminding her nephew of old days at Soonhope, “when this girl here was only a baby. You and Andrew and Gavin Barlas used to play with them all on the lawn at children’s parties, Robin.”
Now it was Kate’s turn to sit and smile, amused and, she hoped, aloof, while he roused himself to talk. “So we did, Aunt Jean. Which was the child who always asked to see my dragon? The one who called me ‘Sailor’?”
Suddenly across Kate’s mind flashed an early memory, disjointed but vivid, of someone who used to roll up his right sleeve obligingly to show her ‘the dear wee dragon.’ She could see the brown sinewy arm, startlingly white above the elbow, and the blue-and-red dragon boldly tattooed on it. Before she could stop herself, she had exclaimed incredulously: “But you—you can’t be ‘Sailor’?”
“Are you Kitty?” he countered as incredulously. “I don’t believe it.”
Kitty . . . she had not been called Kitty since she grew up, when, recognizing how utterly unsuitable it was, she had insisted that the whole family should adopt Kate, her father’s favourite name for her, instead.
“I was Kitty, certainly,” she said. “But I am always called Kate now.”
Then, as he still looked doubtful, she remembered something else, and, “Look,” she said, holding out her right hand, with the thumb bent, towards him. “I cut myself with your knife once. You can still see the mark.”
He stooped to study the white crescent-shaped scar round the thumb knuckle. “Yes, of course. You bled like a pig and gave me a rare fright—and never shed a tear. I remember. And you were half-left-handed, too. I called you—what was it? ‘Kar-handit Kitty.’”
Kate laughed. “I always thought it was unfair of you, when you’re kar-handit yourself.”
“So he is,” said Mrs. Anstruther. “And always has been.” She smiled kindly at him and at Kate. “It was clever of you to remember that.”
“Not so very clever,” said Kate. “After all, I could see him at tea, with his cup on the wrong side of his plate.”
A smile broke over Robin Anstruther’s harsh face. “And still you didn’t remember me. Not so clever of you, that, I don’t suppose I can have changed as much as you have in more than twenty years.”
“Twenty-seven,” said Kate soberly. “Doesn’t it sound an awfully long time? More than a quarter of a century—”
He rose to go. “Well, we’ll have to do what we can to bridge the gap,” he said, shaking hands.
Kate, watching from the window the big car’s almost silent departure, thought that quite a promising start had been made in gap-bridging in spite of his horrid remark about her being prudent.
‘Prudent!’ she thought again, resentfully. ‘Such a mean virtue, if it is a virtue. Prudent! Ugh!’
2
“I can smell thunder,” said Mrs. Anstruther, when Kate came into her room next morning to see her before starting for Soonhope. “There is going to be a storm.”
“Darling, you sound exactly like a witch-doctor,” protested Kate, who was not in the least afraid of her. “I wish you wouldn’t be so bogy.”
“Well, rake an umbrella in case it rains, but don’t open it if there’s any lightning, and don’t shelter under trees or near a fence or wall—”
“And don’t go near anything wet, or look in a mirror or approach an open window,” chanted Kate, ticking off the items on her fingers. “And don’t touch anything steel. I think I’ll have to hide in a dark corner with my eyes shut.”
“You are an impudent hussy,” said Mrs. Anstruther. “My great-Aunt Isabella was killed by lightning, and my mother always used to sit in the wine-cellar with her fingers in her ears and a thick grey woollen shawl over her head all through a thunderstorm.”
Kate was delighted by this picture of Mrs. Anstruther’s mother, whom she knew only as a faded daguerreotype which failed to disguise the Roman se
verity of the features under a stately cap. Still laughing, and with a last promise to hide in the cupboard below the stairs at Soonhope if there was any lightning of the forked variety, she set out.
There was no doubt that thunder was in the air. The sky was darkening to a sullen lead colour with lurid copper lights between heavy banks of cloud, the hills loomed menacingly near. As Kate went up the winding avenue a sudden wind stirred eerily in the high tops of the beeches. It was almost dark in the avenue, a strange deep green twilight, with the smooth grey trunks of the great trees rising into the thick root of leaves which met overhead. Here and there a stray shaft of light struck fitfully against one of these pillar-like boles so that it gleamed as if under water. Kate felt oppressed yet strung-up as she always did before a storm, every nerve on edge, every hair of her head tingling to the electricity in the air. She walked quickly, eager to be indoors with some occupation to distract her mind.
The avenue ran out from the sheltering trees, curled round a lawn badly in need of mowing, and widened before the doorway into a sweep of gravel which had been laid when more than one carriage and pair had to be turned there. Kate, leaving the blankly staring uncurtained windows and shut door of the from, went to the right and across a flagged yard to the back door. This stood open, and from within she could hear a comforting sound of homely labour: the loud scrape of a scrubbing-brush followed by the slap-slap of a wet cloth on a stone floor.
Mrs. Pow from the lodge must be somewhere about, and presently, in answer to Kate’s call, she appeared, a drugget apron tied round her waist over her print dress, her hand wet, bringing with her a smell of warm dirty water and strong yellow soap.
“Ay, the penter’s here,” she said, after suitable greetings had been exchanged. “A slow, potterin’ body. He’s dab-dabbin’ awa’ up in the big spare-room the noo. It’s a maircy there’s no’ that muckle needin’ dune, or dear kens when Mistress Lockhart wad get intil the hoose. An’ hoo’s yersel’, Miss Kate? Ye’re lookin’ brawly.”
Yoked with a Lamb Page 4
