The Weatherhouse

by Nan Shepherd

  But the figure on the lawn moved farther off. Now it was against the sky, and she saw that it was a woman’s. Her eyeballs were stinging. ‘I only want to be happy,’ she cried. The sound of her own voice, breaking unexpectedly upon the silence, affrighted her. But Katie did not stir, and in a moment another voice was borne to her upon the air. She recognised it for Theresa’s. ‘Come in to your bed, Ellen.’ The voice floated from the next window. ‘Walking there like a ghost.’ There was no answer, but the figure in the garden moved back towards the house; and Lindsay heard a stair creak. Cousin Ellen! Why should she walk in the night? Why should anyone walk in the night but the young and the untranquil and the lovers who cannot wait for morning?

  SEVEN

  Why Classroom Doors should be Kept Locked

  Morning changed the temper of the spring. Plainly the lady had no more mind for honeyed promises. Her suave and gracious mood was done, and those who would win her favours must wrestle a fall with the insolent young Amazon. Sleet blattered against the ploughman’s side as he followed the team; or, standing in a blink of sun, he saw the striding showers cross the corner of the field like sheeted ghosts. Never tell me, ghosts took to sheets for the first time in a Deeside ploughman’s story, who, bewildered in an April dusk, saw white showers walk the land, larger than human, driven on the wind.

  ‘Where are my birds today?’ asked Lindsay. ‘And oh, the poor thin petals! Look, Garry, on the whin.’

  But Garry answered, ‘I’m going to take you home.’

  At the Weatherhouse door Mrs Falconer met them, running.

  ‘Come in, come in. You must be wet.’

  She did not pause to question why they were together.

  ‘They never seem to guess,’ Lindsay thought. ‘Old people don’t see.’

  Doors flapped, sleet scurried along the lobby.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Mrs Falconer cried. ‘She will be angry at this mess.’

  She drew them in and, stooping, plucked with her fingers at the melting flakes of sleet, and dabbed at the runnels with a corner of her skirt. ‘There, she’ll be none the wiser.’

  ‘Not a whit,’ Garry said. He had taken out his handkerchief and wiped a smeared wet patch from the hat stand.

  But Theresa was safely in the kitchen, so they sat and talked by the living-room fire, with old Aunt Leeb spider-quiet in her corner, and Paradise in a happy doze. She opened her eyes and smiled at them. ‘I’m dozened,’ she said, and slid away again.

  Garry began to talk of after the war. ‘It will be a very different Britain before we’re done with it.’ He told them all that was to be accomplished to make life worthier. Lindsay glowed. This was the talk she loved to hear. Her young untried enthusiasms delighted in the noble. Above all she wanted her lover to be good. These splendid generalities were like the fulfilment of all her own vague adolescent aspirations.

  Ellen also glowed. ‘Why, what a barren useless life I have lived!’ She felt a smoulder of shame run through her at the thought of the evanescent fancies in which her inner life had passed. ‘But this is real. How I hate these shams and unrealities!’ And, without noticing what she did, she began to form a new fancy. ‘Katie loves him. If they should ever marry—when they marry I trust they will let me live with them.’ How good that would be—to live in daily touch with men’s enterprises, to know what was done and thought in the world. Hearing the young man speak, she would never slide again into these wicked imaginings. And she remembered how he had taken out his handkerchief and wiped away the smear of sleet. ‘But when I live with them, I shan’t need to go in terror of Tris.’ She could open the door then, without fear of what came in, to strength and manhood and new ideas, and even to brave young folly that laughed in the sleet when it might sit warm at home.

  All this she fancied at the very moment that Lindsay, lifting her eyes to smile into her lover’s, was thinking, ‘I thought if he came here there would be all their stupid jokes to face, but not one of them seems to notice.’ Then she saw Miss Annie’s eye upon her. But Miss Annie only said, ‘I think I’m taking a cold. Lindsay, you’ve no clothes on.’

  Lindsay ran behind the old woman’s chair and put her arms round her neck. ‘Girls don’t wear clothes nowadays, Paradise, you dear.’ And she wanted to tell Paradise that Garry was her lover. ‘Because I’m sure you saw,’ she thought. And, after all, it was pleasant that Paradise had seen. ‘It’s the others who would talk. Paradise, your hair’s so soft behind. Paradisal hair.’

  ‘It’s got most terrible grey.’

  ‘Silver, you mean. Silver of Paradise. Apples of gold and silver of Paradise.’

  ‘You’re a wheedling thing—what are you wanting now?’

  ‘Only a kiss.’

  She dropped a kiss in the nape of Miss Annie’s neck and danced round the back of Garry’s chair, running her fingers across his shoulders as she passed; but Cousin Ellen she did not touch. Even grand-aunt Leeb she had breathed upon, blowing a kiss so light upon her ancient head that the gossamer of her lace hardly trembled.

  ‘How strange!’ she thought. ‘Last night I was miserable. And now today I’m glad. I don’t know what to make of life.’

  And Mrs Falconer, whom she had not touched, was unaware of the omission. A warm glow suffused her body. She was thinking, ‘This false betrothal, that is something true. To expose the falsehood is something real that I can take my part in.’

  Garry went away. The sleet eased off, but the roads were like mortar and the land looked bleak. An empty land—he remembered his vision of it as taking form from the primordial dark. Some human endeavour there must be: like Lindsay unaccustomed to a country year, he had hardly realised before today how much endeavour, skill and endurance went to the fashioning of food from earth in weathers such as these. His midsummer holidays had not told him of wet seed-times, of furious winds blowing the turnip seed across the moors, of snow blackening the stooks of corn. He saw a man lead home his beasts through mire, fields not yet sown were sodden wet again. He had never thought before of these things. There must be grit and strength in the men who sowed their turnips thrice and ploughed land that ran up into the encroaching heather. A tough race, strong in fibre. Yet since he came how little he had seen of them! Women mostly—Lindsay like whin blossom on the cankered stem of her people; his aunt like an antique pine, one side denuded, with gaunt arms flung along the tempest; Mrs Hunter like a bed of thyme … pleasant fancies, dehumanising the land.

  Across them he felt suddenly as though a teasing tangle had been flung—nets of spider-web, or some dark stinging noxious weed from under ocean. He had thought of Louie Morgan. He disliked the thought—no question as to that. And how this mean affair had tangled across his vision! Wherever he turned he saw it. Three days ago, when they came on Louie at her base devotions and he had heard the story first, it had seemed a simple thing to dispose of it. Now it was less simple. He had recoiled instinctively from the tale as something false, but his instinct was to be taken as no proof by other people. These women with whom he had discussed it insisted, moreover, after the fashion of women, on treating it as a personal matter, a matter of Louie Morgan, not of truth. His aunt, to be sure, had raised the issue to a matter of principle, but not one that helped him much.

  ‘What’s she wanting with a man ava?’ was all he got from Miss Barbara.

  The others saw it purely on the personal plane; and Kate’s assumption that he himself was moved by a personal rancour smote him to wrath. Even Lindsay could not see that truth and justice were beyond a personal hurt—Lindsay, who had looked so sublimely lovely in her pleading that he resisted her hardly. Her eyes had been fixed on him, mournful and limpid. She was lovelier than herself. She had identified herself with Louie. She too, was hurt and was transfigured in her acceptance of another’s suffering.

  He had thought, ‘But you can’t ask other people to pay the price. You can’t ask Lindsay.’ Was truth, after all, more important than the pain you inflict on others for its sake? It was onl
y that long, lean, nice Mrs Falconer who understood that truth and honour were at stake. A curious champion of truth. He remembered her furtive ducking in the lobby to dab the runlets of sleet with her petticoat. Well, he supposed, one could tilt at error even in petticoats and in spite of an abounding fear of one’s sister in her domestic cogencies.

  He had as yet, in these three days, had no man’s opinion upon his problem. Not, for instance, John Grey’s. But to visit John Grey, as he knew he must, David’s father, was of necessity to find some expression for what he felt over David’s death; and he could find none.

  At that moment, through the darkening light, he saw Miss Morgan approach.

  ‘The deil has lang lugs to hear when he’s talked about,’ muttered Garry.

  Miss Morgan picked her way towards him along the puddled road, and her face was as puddled as the road itself. She was weeping. She stood with downcast eyes in front of the astonished young man and said, ‘Oh, Captain Forbes, what shall I do? I’ve been a wicked woman. Help me, Garry—I may call you Garry? We are such old friends, we used to play together.’

  A man stumped past and regarded them with curiosity.

  ‘Well, we can’t talk here,’ Garry said.

  ‘No, no. The school. I was going there. I have the key.’ And she led the way, looking back at him over her shoulder with eyes that languished and saying, ‘The concert, you know. For those comforts. Garry, I understand what you meant about comforts. We think our responsibility is over, and it isn’t. Our responsibility is never over. We are our brother’s keeper all the time. You must be my keeper.’

  She unlocked the school door. ‘I have a key. I am in charge, you see. A little sketch they are doing—there are so few hereabouts that understand these things.’

  The school was a two-roomed building, built close upon the church. The church having no hall, and a vestry like a cupboard, the adjoining school was used for many parochial purposes. Miss Morgan went in. ‘I have to measure something—curtains, you know.’

  Garry followed in spite of a remarkable distaste. To chatter of curtains amid tears of contrition argued, to him, a blameworthy lightness. But were the tears of contrition? He waited.

  ‘No, I think in here,’ Louie was saying. She led him to the inner room, and with some ostentation locked the door. She had an indescribable air of enjoying the situation.

  Then she came swiftly at him.

  ‘Help me, help me. What am I to do? I’ve done such dreadful things. I’ve lied and I’ve stolen. I am a miserable sinner, and my transgression is ever before me.’

  He stopped her torrent of words with a cold: ‘It is easy to bring such general accusations, Miss Morgan. We are all sinners. If I understood what you referred to—’

  She darted him a glance of hatred.

  ‘Of course you understand. But you will make it as hard for me as you are able. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? People must never know what I have done. Promise me that—they mustn’t know. Promise me.’

  ‘When I know myself—’

  ‘Yes, yes, make it as hard for me as you can. It’s right, it’s just. I want to confess to the uttermost. Abjectly. I will tell you—I want to tell you everything. You. But no one else. Oh, do not make it public! My name, my mother, afterwards.—Yes, yes, I will tell you all.’

  Garry stood in the dark schoolroom and marvelled. He had never seen an emotional abandonment so extreme, and it seemed to him as ignoble as her perfidious clutch on his friend. He would not have helped her out in the confession, determined that she should taste its dregs by telling all; but disgust drove him to shorten the affair.

  ‘You mean that there was no engagement.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not like that.’

  ‘You made it up.’

  ‘No, no, I did not make it up.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. Yes, yes, I made it up. Oh, how wicked I have been! Quite, quite wrong. Evil. I see that now.’

  Suddenly she raised her head, listening.

  ‘Yes, there’s someone there,’ said Garry.

  He had heard before she did a sound of voices outside and of feet. Now the outer door of the school was pushed open and men came in. They heard their tramp and the noise of speech.

  Louie’s whole expression altered. She snatched her companion by the arm and whispered, ‘Caught. It’s a session meeting. I had forgotten it was tonight. What shall we do?’

  He shook her off. ‘There’s nothing to make a fuss about. You have the right to be here, I suppose, since you have the key.’

  At that moment someone tried the door of the inner room. The voices rose.

  ‘But you,’ said Louie, weeping. ‘And alone here. And it’s dark. Oh, what shall I do?’

  ‘Do what you please. I should imagine you could invent a sufficient story.’ He flung the window up and leaped out on to the ground. ‘Better shut that window again,’ he called back. Then he strode off.

  Louie wiped her eyes and opened the door.

  An oil lamp, new-lit and smoky, hung in the outer room. Louie blinked. Her eyes, bleared and tender, smarted in the smoky atmosphere; she stood shaking, thus ruthlessly thrust back from her attempt at truth to the service of appearances. To these men she was still Miss Morgan, daughter of their late minister. She put her head to the side and apologised, and in a minute speech came freely to her and with it relief: she had escaped from the terror of her attempted encounter with her naked self.

  ‘I really didn’t remember—that concert, you know. I was measuring. I didn’t remember your meeting. But I’ll go— Well, if you don’t mind. I could get on with those curtains.’ Aided by one of the elders, she took her measurements, which were in the outer room, and went.

  Outside Garry stood in the gloom. It was lighter here than in the school. It was lighter than he had expected. Forms of men passed him and entered at the school door: elders of the kirk, on their way to deliberate. An odd idea seized him—to walk in upon their deliberations and state his problem. He remembered the old kirk session records: Compeared before the Session, John Smith and Mary Taylor—the public accusation and punishment. If he were to go now: Compeared before the Session, David Grey and Louisa Morgan. She was still there. Why should she not answer for her guilt, her moral delinquency? But to drag the dead man there—

  He put the idea from him and walked on; but, considering that he had better have the interrupted matter out with Miss Morgan, returned towards the school.

  Jonathan Bannochie the cobbler came from the school door as he hesitated.

  ‘The birdie’s flown, ma lad,’ said Jonathan. ‘Ay, she’s awa’.’

  Garry stared, but turned and walked on.

  Jonathan kept step beside him. ‘I’m for the same way mysel’. I’ve a pair o’ boots for Jake Hunter’s missus. They can just cogitate awa’ wantin’ me or I win back. Yon was a gey grand jump you took out at the windock. The laddies wouldna need to ken yon, or the missy’ll hae her ain adae to haud them in. Ye’re nae takin’ us on? Man, it was a grand notion to get the door locked on the pair o’ you. Ye’re nae takin’s on, I’m sayin’. Well, well, and what was the door locked for, my lad?’

  ‘On a point of honour.’

  ‘Eh? What’s that? O ay, it’s a gey honorable business, a kiss.’ And he bellowed:

  Some say kissin’s a sin

  But I say it’s nane ava.

  ‘Is the construction your own?’ said Garry, stopping short. ‘Or the finding of the Session?’

  In the grey half-light he eyed his man. Jonathan Bannochie was a power to reckon with in Fetter-Rothnie. That the man had character was very evident: his mouth was gripped, a sardonic and destructive light glimmered in his eye. The man was baleful, yet not in action, but in speech. To have one’s reputation on the souter’s tongue did not make for comfort. If the souter’s thumb was broad, in accordance with the rhyme:

  The hecher grows the plum-tree

  The sweeter grows the plums,
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  And the harder that the souter works

  The broader grows his thumbs—

  (and Jonathan was a smart and capable workman), the souter’s tongue was sharp as the thumb was broad. He could destroy in a phrase, spread ruin with a jest. It was he who, in a few days’ time, with a twist of mockery, was to make the name of Garry Forbes the common possession of Fetter-Rothnie speech.

  Of this Garry could have no foreknowledge; but he saw in front of him a man of parts whose life’s achievement had narrowed itself to a point of tongue. Undoubted that Jonathan had made his shoemaking a success, and Garry’s philosophy set high the man whose common labour was achieved with skill and honesty; but that Jonathan’s gifts would have been adequate to more than the cobbling of country boots he was very sure. The man had been dissipated, though by no overt system of dissipation. He did not even drink: in Mrs Hunter’s eyes a downward step. ‘I dinna ken what’s come over him,’ she said, ‘he doesna even drink now. And a kinder man you needna have wished to meet when he had a dram in him.’ His domestic life had come to grief. The wife whom Mrs Hunter could never understand his having chosen (‘I dinna ken what gar’t him tak her. A woman with a mouth like yon. The teeth that sair gone that the very jaws was rottin’. And nae even a tongue in it to haud her ain wi’.’) moved early from the scene, and left him two daughters, both spiced with their father’s temper. Both decamped. A few years later the elder girl, choosing her time with a knowledge of her father’s habits, descended on the homestead, ‘and up and awa’ wi’ the dresser under one arm and the best bed under the other.’ Jonathan found the house stripped. In compensation a puny child was left on the kitchen bed. But Kitty did not prove another Eppie. She grew up scared and neglected, the butt of her grandfather’s scorn, with rotting teeth like those of her grandmother, and her grandmother’s lack of tongue.

  In addition Jonathan Bannochie was an elder of the kirk, feared but hardly respected, a shrewd and efficient critic of other men’s business and bosoms.