The Weatherhouse

by Nan Shepherd

  Once or twice Louie Morgan came to the garden. Lindsay had heard her story too; how she was betrothed to young David Grey—an unannounced betrothal, to which she had confessed only after his death. One evening, walking away with her from the garden, Louie showed Lindsay a ring, which she wore about her neck.

  ‘Why should I flaunt it for everyone to see?’ she had said; and with her head on one side she gazed at the ring. Her face was all curious little puckers—a study for a Lady in Anguish. She made funny twists with her mouth. But Lindsay was excited. It was her first intimate personal contact with the bereavement of war, and she exalted Louie also to a place in her shrine.

  So the spring wore on. There on the upland one saw leagues of the world and leagues of sea, all milky-blue, hazed like the bloom upon a peach. And how good it was to watch the country changing with the spring!

  ‘Come,’ Paradise would say. ‘Tomorrow the chickens should be out. We’ll sprinkle water on the eggs today.’ Tomorrow came, and the shells broke—small, soft, delectable living things were there.

  ‘Oh, how I love them! I have never seen them so young. Oh, it’s running, it’s running on my hand! But why can’t I feed them?’

  Paradise, taking the broken shells from the coop, told her they were too young for food; but Lindsay was not listening. She had heard somewhere a loud harsh cry.

  ‘Look, look! Oh, there! See them! What can they be?’ And she pointed far overhead, into the height of the blue sky. Birds were flying there, one bird, and others following in two lines that made an open angle upon the blue; but while one arm of the angle was short, the other stretched far out across the sky, undulating, fine and black.

  ‘One, two three—twenty, twenty one—Oh, I have counted ninety birds! My neck is aching.’ She held her hands to her neck, moving her head about to ease its pain. ‘Paradise, tell me what they are.’

  ‘Why, that is the wild geese. Have you never seen them fly before?’

  ‘Never. Wild geese, wild geese! How wonderful the country is!’

  When Cousin Ellen walked with her she assailed her with questions.

  ‘And see, Cousin Ellen, this one. Look at him. Has he a nest there, do you think? Where do you look for nests? What kind is he? What is his name?’

  Ellen shook her head.

  ‘I hardly know their names, Linny.’

  ‘But don’t you love birds?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Ellen paused, gazing at the eager girl. ‘They are a part of myself,’ she wanted to say; but how could one explain that? Where it had to be explained it could not be understood. ‘You are a part of me, too,’ she thought, with her eyes fixed on Lindsay’s where she waited for her answer. Her lips were parted and her eyes shone; and Mrs Falconer longed to tell her of the strange secret of life—how all things were one and there was no estrangement except for those who did not understand. But all that she could find to say was, ‘I know hardly any of their names.’

  The girl’s clear regard confused her, and she dropped her eyes. She felt ashamed. ‘Names don’t matter very much, do they?’ she asked hurriedly.

  ‘Oh, yes. Names—they’re like songs.’ And she chanted in a singing voice, ‘Wild duck, wild duck, kingfisher, curlew. Their names are a part of themselves. Can you tell me where to see a kingfisher, Cousin Ellen?’

  ‘No … I’m afraid not.’

  Ellen had been found wanting, Lindsay felt. To walk with her held no allurement.

  Only once a spontaneous feeling of love for Cousin Ellen welled up in her heart.

  Lindsay had come to the Weatherhouse bringing gifts.

  ‘I’ve brought presents for you all. See, a poor woman made them. She can do nothing for the war, so she makes these lovely things and gives the money.’

  Theresa and Paradise took their boxes, which were of embroidered silk exquisitely fashioned, and put them instantly to use. But Cousin Ellen’s gift lay on the table.

  ‘Don’t you like your gift? I’m sorry you don’t like it.’

  ‘Oh yes, I like it. It is very beautiful. Please don’t think because I don’t use it that I am not grateful for it. I have never cared for many possessions. I have never had many possessions to care for,’ she added, smiling brightly. ‘A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things that he hath.’

  A week later Miss Theresa stamped into the parlour.

  ‘Well, really, Nell! To give Lindsay’s beautiful box away. Something commoner would have done, surely to peace, if you must be throwing things at that Stella Ferguson’s head. A nice appreciation you show, I will say.’

  ‘Yes, I gave it to Stella. Possessions mean a lot to her.’

  Theresa continued to bluster; but Lindsay jumped from the stool where she had been seated with her book, and cried, ‘Oh, I love you for giving it to Stella, Cousin Ellen.’

  ‘Lindsay’—Miss Theresa changed the subject sharply—‘you’ll spoil your eyes, poring over these great books. You are quite wrinkled.’

  Lindsay turned a flushed and troubled face, pushing the hair from off her brow.

  ‘But I must be ready. The world will need us all. I’m doing nothing now, but I can prepare myself for afterwards. There will be ten years of trouble to live through.’

  She quoted the phrases she had heard from Garry’s lips, and set herself to study the books that he had read. ‘We shall all have our part to play in the reconstruction.’

  Into this life Garry Forbes came in the second week of April. All spring was in that week—its tempestuous disinclinations, its cold withdrawals, its blaze of sun, its flowers, its earthy smell. On all hands was a breaking: earth broken by the ploughshare, buds broken by the leaf. The smooth security of seed and egg was gone. Season most terrible in all the cycle of the year, time of the dread spring deities, Dionysus and Osiris and the risen Christ, gods of growth and of resurrection, whose worship has flowered in tragedy, superb and dark, in Prometheus and Oedipus, massacre and the stake. Life that comes again is hard: a jubilation and an agony.

  Garry was at this time some thirty years of age. Tall, dark-skinned, black stubbs on his chin and cheek that no shaving would remove, with prominent nose and cheek bones and outstanding ears, the two deep furrows that were later so marked a feature of his appearance already ploughing their way from above the nostrils to encircle the mouth, and just now lank and haggard from war and influenza; he came to spend a brief sick leave with his aunt, Miss Barbara Pater son, at Knapperley.

  ‘What do you want with a kitchen lass?’ he said to her. ‘I’ll be your kitchen lass.’

  Miss Barbara sat back in her deep chair and flung yowies from her pockets on to the blazing fire. She, who could spread dung and hold a plough with any man, disliked the petty drubs of housework.

  ‘You’re Donnie Forbes’s grandson,’ she said, watching her nephew as he washed the supper dishes. ‘I’m a Pater son of Knapperley. A Paterson of Knapperley doesna fyle their fingers with dishwater.’

  Benjamin Forbes, Miss Barbara’s half-brother, son of the despised Donnie Forbes whom Mrs Paterson had wedded merely for love, had, like his mother, been timid and incapable in his relations with other people. He lived with his boy in the mean suburb of an inland town. When charwomen cheated and neglected them, it was the boy who found fault, dismissed and interviewed. The fiction was faithfully preserved between father and son that the father habitually did these things, but delegated them upon occasion to the son. Garry put a bold front upon the business, and won the praises of the women in the block for his assured and masterful bearing. They could not know that the child sometimes cried himself to sleep, and he would have perished rather than confess to it. When service was not to be had, Garry waited on his father; and broke the nose of the boy who taunted him with it at school.

  ‘I’ll sweel out the slop-pail if I like,’ he shouted.

  He was a powerful fellow, able easily to wipe out insults, and far too proud to acknowledge his own secret abasement at doing a woman’s jobs.

  Benjamin talk
ed often to the boy of Knapperley. ‘Yon’s the place, laddie,’ he would say. Garry choked as he listened; he felt he must perish of desire for the burns and the rocky coast. But when he begged his father to let him go to Knapperley, Benjamin demurred. He shrank from a second encounter with his half-sister. One day, when Garry was twelve years old, Benjamin came home to find the boy on the next-door roof, mending a broken gutter-pipe, and learned that his son mended for all the women in the row—and took his wages. Shamefaced but voluble, Garry produced his money-box; he had not spent a penny of his earnings; all was saved—to pay his fare to Knapperley. Benjamin swore softly, but wrote to Miss Barbara; and though no answer was received, the boy set off alone as soon as his holidays began. He tramped the eight miles out from Aberdeen with his belongings on his back, and was dismayed at the ease of the journey. It was unbearably tame to walk in to Knapperley and sleep in a bed; and his secret hope (that his aunt would not receive him: a contingency for which he had made elaborate preparations) vanished like smoke when he saw the actual place. He was sure she would take him in and bid him wash his hands.

  ‘That Knapperley?’ he asked a man who was lounging against a gate.

  ‘Who was ye seekin’?’

  ‘Oh, nobody much. I just wanted to know.’

  He walked away.

  ‘Ay is’t,’ the man shouted after him

  Garry did not turn.

  He came in a little to the moor and saw the sea. That night was full moon. The boy wandered all night like a daft thing. He had drunk magic. At dawn he fell asleep, and the sun was well up when he awoke, furiously hungry, and made for Knapperley. He had no intention of telling where he had spent the night.

  But the first person he saw was the fellow who had spoken to him by the gate. Miss Barbara was standing on a cart, forking straw from the cart into a great bundle beside the stable door.

  ‘Ay, ay,’ said the man. ‘Ye’ve gotten your way. I tell’t her ye was in-by the streen.’

  ‘Let’s see you with the graip,’ said Miss Barbara, descending from the cart and handing the fork to her nephew.

  Garry threw his knapsack from his shoulders and clambered on to the cart. He would not be outdone by anybody; but the horse moved and set the cart in motion; he lost his balance, plunged violently and swung his graip high in the air.

  Miss Barbara and the man roared with laughter. A dozen dogs, as it seemed, arrived from nowhere and barked.

  ‘I’ll show you how to laugh at me!’ cried Garry, recovering his footing. He was mortified to the soul, and began to handle the straw with all the skill and vigour he could command. Miss Barbara folded her arms and watched. Rabbie Mutch could be heard recounting the affair to the kitchen lass, and there followed a guffaw of laughter from them both.

  ‘You’ll be ready for your porridge, I’se warren,’ said Miss Barbara in a little; and she led the way to the kitchen, where breakfast was ready for herself, her man and her kitchen girl. ‘Where spent you the night?’

  ‘Up beside a tower kind of place.’

  ‘You never got in?’

  ‘Oh no, just outside.’

  ‘Gweed sakes!’ roared Rabbie. ‘Like the—nowt.’

  ‘Dinna you do that,’ said the kitchen lass earnestly. ‘The moon’ll get you. You’ll dwine an’ dee.’

  Far from bidding him wash his hands, Miss Barbara let her nephew come to table with his clothes sullied from the moor. The rough free life she led suited the spirited lad. His manners grew ruder. Rabbie Mutch kept up on him the joke about his sprawling from the cart. He would say at dinner-time, ‘O ay, ye can haud the forkie better’n the graip. Yon was a gey like way to haud a graip. Forkin’ the lift, was ye?’

  The sensitive boy was too proud to show his resentment. He retaliated in kind. Rabbie and he made rude jokes at each other’s expense and became fast friends.

  For his aunt, the boy admired her wholeheartedly. She knew so much that he had never heard. The country became a new possession. He was free, too, from the indignity that harassed him at home; the endless squabbling with washerwomen. Miss Barbara found fault often enough, but in a coarse and hearty manner, that was followed by guffaws of laughter from all concerned. Garry developed a poor opinion of his own and his father’s assertion of authority, and determined to try Miss Barbara’s methods on the next woman who offended.

  He would secretly have preferred to leave these offenders unchallenged, but, being plagued with a passion for the ideal, could not let ill alone.

  When, at the age of twenty nine, on leave at the Lorimer’s house with the young Frank, he met and loved Lindsay, this passion had not abated. ‘Well, I’ve done it now,’ he thought. He rushed about the house, forgot his manners, played absurd practical jokes, swore himself to secrecy over his love, and blurted it out immediately to Lindsay. To his consternation she flung her arms around his neck.

  ‘I’ve loved you for ever and ever so long,’ she cried. ‘You should hear how Frank talks of you.’

  Her girl friends called him the Gargoyle.

  ‘One could forgive the ears,’ her mother declared, ‘if he knew how to conduct himself.’

  Garry’s lapses from a Mrs Andrew Lorimer standard were not always due to ignorance. He resented those refinements that suggested privilege. This shy lover of the ideal, this poet who clowned away the suspicion of poetry from himself, burned in his heart with no less a fire than love for all mankind. A simple fool, not very fit for Mrs Andrew Lorimer’s drawing-room, where such an enormous appetite was found ill-bred. The well-bred love with discrimination.

  ‘Such waste of furrow,’ said Mrs Robert Lorimer. ‘Those architectural effects of feature. In a gentleman, how distinguished! A man of race and breeding could arrive where he liked with a face of that quality.’

  Garry’s race being that of the despised Donnie Forbes and his breeding of the back street, his ugliness was pronounced not distinguished, but common.

  ‘You’ve got a rarity there, Miss Lindsay,’ mocked her aunt Mrs Robert.

  ‘I know he is rare,’ the girl answered steadily. She and Frank alone appreciated the rareness. Both listened vehemently to his interminable plans for reconstructing the universe. They talked far into the night, until Mrs Andrew despatched her husband from his bed to round them up.

  ‘Leave them alone,’ he grumbled. ‘There’s a war on. Those boys’ll be in the trenches again soon enough, God knows.’ But he obeyed the mandate.

  ‘Your mother thinks it’s time you were in bed, Linny.’

  He blinked in the glare of light. Standing there in his pyjamas and dressing-gown, an unimaginative man, he felt nevertheless the tense elation in the room.

  ‘So courting’s done in threes nowadays—eh?’

  Lindsay flung back her head. ‘O daddy, nights like this don’t come again.’

  She met her mother’s morning eye with a clear regard.

  ‘Europe is in the melting-pot, mother—is a slight alteration in one’s bedtime of importance?’

  ‘Ler her keep her phrase,’ said Mr Lorimer. ‘She’ll outgrow that.’

  Inflamed by Garry’s letters, she continued to keep her phrase.

  The letters ceased when Garry took influenza, after a day and a night’s exposure in a shell hole, where, up to the thighs in filthy water, he had tried to suck the poison from another man’s festering arm. The other fellow died where he stood, slithered through his fingers and doubled over into the filth, and Garry was violently sick. He stared at the horror beside him, and now he saw that blood had coagulated in the pit between the man’s knees and his abdomen. Poor beggar, he must have had another wound … He must get out of sight of that, but his feet were stuck, they would never pull free again. He stooped, plunging his arm in the slimy water. Branches came up, dripping long strings of ooze. Now he had detached the other man’s feet; the body canted over, a shapeless rigid mass, and he saw the glaring eyes, the open mouth out of which slime was oozing. He pushed with all his might, thrust the thing under; barricade
d himself with branches against its presence. Rain fell, sullen single drops, that burrowed into the surface of the slime and sent oily purplish bubbles floating among the ends of branch that were not submerged. Clots of blood appeared, washed out from the body.

  ‘A wound I didn’t know of,’ he thought. ‘A wound you couldn’t see.’ Perhaps his own abdomen was like that—black with blood. Squandered blood. Perhaps he too was wounded and did not know it. ‘I put him there—I thrust him in.’

  Delirium came on him. A wind roared hideously. He knew it was an advancing shell, but shouted aloud as he used to do when a boy in the hurricanes that swept the woods at Knapperley. Again the rushing mighty wind. Night came at last. He knew he must escape. ‘Can’t leave you here, old man.’ In some queer way he was identified with this other fellow, whom he had never seen before, whose body he had thrust with so little ceremony under the slime. ‘Tra la la la la,’ he sang, tugging at the corpse. ‘Come out, you there. Myself. That’s me. That’s me. I thrust him in—I am rescuing myself.’

  He was found towards morning in a raging fever, dragging a grotesque bundle at his heels—a corpse doubled over, with bits of branch that protruded from the clothing, plastered with slime. They had to bring him in by force.

  ‘Don’t take him from me, you chaps. It’s myself. I have been wounded—here, in the abdomen. Here,’ he shouted. And he put his arms round the shapeless horror he had dragged bumping from its hole.

  He never knew what came of the body, nor whose it was. When he regained his senses he was in hospital, too weak to think or speak, but sure he had been wounded. ‘Queer business that,’ he said later, ‘about my wound. I was convinced I had a wound. I saw myself. Oh, not a pretty sight. Obstinate old bag of guts. I had to haul myself out. I hauled for hours. And I knew it was myself and the other man too. I thrust him in, you see, and I had to haul myself out. Queer, isn’t it, about oneself? Losing oneself like that, I mean, and being someone else.’