by Nan Shepherd
‘Is the construction your own?’ Garry asked, watching his man. ‘Or the finding of the Session?’
‘Ach, haud your tongue, Mr Forbes. A bonny lassie in ahin a door—we’re nae the lads to blame you.’
There flashed across Garry’s mind: Compeared before the Session, Louisa Morgan and John Dalgarno Forbes. Apparently, the finding was acquittal. He laughed.
‘You’ve the wrong soo by the lug this time. Mrs Hunter, did you say? I’ll hand over the boots. But as I’ve a matter to lay before the Session, I’ll take it kindly if you’ll step back with me now and hear it.’ He stowed Jonathan’s parcel away in his pocket.
EIGHT
Compeared before the Session
‘Gentlemen,’ said Garry, facing the assembled Session, ‘forgive this interruption, but I see you have not yet begun your business. And I’ve some business of my own—yours too—I want to make it yours.’
He looked earnestly round the men. Some he knew, others were mere faces; one lined and puckered like a chimpanzee’s, one spare and shrewd; one fat, without distinction, one keen and cultured; enormous brows; black beards; an oppression of watching eyes. He felt the impact of them like a mob; but as he talked, he scanned the countenances, swiftly computing how each would answer to his challenge. At his shoulder he was aware of the sardonic semi-grin of Jonathan Bannochie, that haunted him like an echo of all that grinned within himself, his contempt of his own sensitiveness to ridicule, his fear of the humiliation of failure. In front was the long, serious face of Jake Hunter, a crofter on his aunt’s estate, husband to the jolly woman who was his aunt’s old servant and faithful friend. Jake, too, was a faithful soul; a stern fighter against the odds of poverty, sour soil, bad harvests and uncertain prices. His bit of land was seamed with outcrops of rock and heather. He cut laboriously with the scythe, both because the land was too steep and uneven for the reaping machine he did not possess, and also because the scythe cut closer to the ground and no inch of loss on stubble could be afforded. Jake had fought his slow, obscure way upwards, quenching errant enthusiasms. Books had been one such enthusiasm. He was already a man over forty, toughened and worn by exposure and labour from his earliest childhood, when he wedded Barbara Paterson, Miss Bawbie’s servant girl, and her uncle settled them on the meagre croft. Then for the first time Jake hoped to satisfy his craving for knowledge. He bought some books, a miscellaneous lot picked up from a second-hand bookstall, and settled it with Barbara that he would read for an hour each night. Barbara put the book for him and took her shank to sit and watch. But the reading did not thrive. A day’s work is a day’s work, and a man must stretch himself.
‘I’m nae nane swacker o’ anither day’s wark, ’umman,’ he would say; and then he would ficher with the pages awhile and nod a little. By and by it would be up to have a look at the weather.
‘I’ll just rax mysel’ to be mair soople for the book,’ he would tell Barbara, and coming back, dropped to sleep again. Not as you would say a real sleep. Still less of course, a feigned one. A sample, rather—three-four grains between finger and thumb for earnest of the wide fields of slumber that would be his at night. Waking from one of these offhand naps, he would stretch himself largely, move to the door again, and restore the book to the shelf before sitting down.
‘I’ll just be puttin’ it by for the night,’ he would say, smothering a mighty yawn. ‘It’s as you might say a habit, the readin’, it beats you at the start. It’ll come mair natural-like come time.’
Vain expectation. These habits do not grow on one. They have none of your fine Biblical ease in pushing, a man going to sleep and rising night and day while they adjust themselves to the requirements of the universe. Each year that made the rent queerer to come by and the stomachs of his hungry bairns harder to find a bottom to, made Jake swacker neither in the muscles nor in the wits. He stiffened by living. But his fervour for book learning passed to his eldest son Dave, who united the serious humour of his father with the drive of his mother’s vitality. Dave, serving his time as a joiner, read far into the night, and fired by his new experiences at the Front, wrote home, as Mrs Hunter had told Lindsay, that he would put the younger boys through the University. As it happened, Dave, returning from the war with a single arm, went through the University himself on his pension and an ex-service grant, and turned schoolmaster, to his parents’ great content.
Garry, in the rapid glance by which we can review at times many years’ knowledge of a personality, saw the long, grave anxious face of Jake Hunter as that of a good man, a man upright in all his dealings, but too limited in the reach of his experience to understand the matter on which Garry desired a judgment.
His next door neighbour, John Grey, David’s father, was not in the company. Garry felt freer to speak, but regretted not to meet him for the first time since David’s death among other people.
The minister, who watched the young man curiously, was a latecomer to the district, not very old, pale and shrunken. To him, Garry felt, he was not speaking, but to these elder men who knew both Louie and David and had some pretensions to knowledge of himself.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, addressing the pale young minister, ‘I had a friend, a man you all knew and I believe respected—as you respect his father, Mr John Grey. He’s dead. I lived with him—that tells you what a man is like. Well, I believe in David’s honour with all my soul. I come here and I find—we make honourable images of our dead, don’t we?—I find the image left of him in your memories defaced. By a woman. The woman who came out of that room there just now. I am given to understand you knew that I was in there too. Well, I was. In the dark. Locked in and all the rest of it. And I jumped out of the window, as I gather you also know. Because, gentlemen, I wanted to prove—I have every reason to believe’—he spoke very slowly, measuring his words—‘that her claim to be engaged to David Grey was an impudent forgery. She is a woman whose word is not to be trusted—’
‘Tell her that, and seek a saxpence,’ said Jonathan at his ear.
‘I am convinced there was no engagement. The thing–the thing’s immoral.’ He began to talk wildly, blurring his words. Jonathan’s interpolation angered him. ‘It’s an insult to my friend. Tell me—that’s what I want you to do, once it was the duty of the Session to regulate the morals of the community, it doesn’t seem to be so any longer—tell me what I am to do now.’
The men were embarrassed. The affair at issue was curious. But the man with the keen face, whom Garry did not know, and who was a petty landowner not always resident in the parish, said, ‘There would seem to be the man to answer your question.’ And turning, Garry saw John Grey, who had come quietly in while he was speaking.
It was a number of years since he had seen Mr Grey, and he was aghast at the change he saw. He was now an old man. His shoulders were bent, what was left of his hair had gone white; but the receding of the hair served only to expose still further the noble and lofty forehead and give his figure a serene dignity, a majesty even, that his smallness of stature hardly led one to expect. He had come in late. Weariness was in his bearing. He had lifted shells all day. But as he stood listening to Garry, his face was alert, and a deep still glow burned in his eyes. He came forward now, a pleasant briskness in his spare figure, and taking Garry by the hand, very courteously gave him welcome, neither mentioning what he had overheard nor inquiring the young man’s business among the elders; but the former speaker pressed his point, saying, ‘Mr Forbes has a matter here for your attention.’
‘Let the matter rest.’
There was a stern authority in John Grey’s tone. Without raising his voice, which was habitually soft, he yet conveyed in its intonation a settled finality that caused Garry to tremble. He had heard that note in his voice only once before, when David and he as boys had locked Louie in the tower.
‘I know no more than you do,’ John Grey said, ‘the truth of this engagement. My son never mentioned it to me. The boy is dead. Let there be no more said about it.
’
No more could be said. Garry felt a fool. He got himself out of that room and stood fuming on the road, having distinguished nothing in what was afterwards said to him but Jonathan Bannochie’s whisper, ‘Try her in the Tower, Mr Forbes.’
Inside the schoolroom there was an awkward moment. Most of the men resented vaguely this intrusion into the ordinariness of living. The landowner with the keen face said, ‘A curious affair. Has the young man any grounds for his suspicion?’
Another man answered, ‘Now here’s a funny thing. Just yesterday my lassie had a letter from a friend, a boy in Captain Forbes’s Company. Went queer, they said. Left out in a shell-hole and brought back clean off—raving mad. A corpse bumping at his heels that he insisted was himself. Wouldn’t leave go of it. Touched, I’m afraid.’
‘Is that the way of it? Poor chap! The war has much to answer for. He certainly looked raised.’
Garry, indeed, hollow-eyed, taut with the terrible earnestness of his purpose, breaking upon the Session to propound his riddle, looked hardly sane.
The pallid young minister wiped the sweat from his brow. A bookworm, he liked life plain. The promise of confusion among his people smote him to a sort of panic. Now, wiping his brow, he breathed deep in his relief. The threatened confusion to his peace was no worse than this, the meanderings of a poor fellow not quite responsible for what he said. He had never before seen Garry, but was ready to believe in any mental aberration in a nephew of Miss Barbara Paterson. John Grey interrupted his thoughts.
In his quiet, courteous fashion Mr Grey asked leave, if nothing demanded his presence in the meeting, to follow Garry.
‘Yes do, do go,’ the minister said. Sweat broke again upon his brow. He had come to this country parish to escape the impact of life, but there were moments when he recognised himself a coward. The sweat breaking on his brow bore witness to such a moment.
‘Do go, Mr Grey,’ he said.
Garry was still standing on the puddled road. All his boyhood’s discomfort in the face of ridicule was working in him. At first he could hardly speak with civil tongue to Mr Grey; but the old man’s quiet refusal to note that anything was wrong, as they walked and talked, in time restored him to a sense of deeper hurt than that to his own vanity; and he felt better. He went home with Mr Grey. Garry was unfed, and his host called for food. The room was shabby but gracious. All it contained, if old and worn, was good: engravings after the Masters, some photographs of hills and of machinery, a Harvest Home, hung in oak frames of Mr Grey’s own making. The bookcases, also of his making, were filled with books, like the furniture, good and worn. While Garry ate, the old man, seated by the fire, fell asleep; and awoke in a little to say, ‘I’m getting to be a done old chap.’ He stooped forward and picked a child’s doll from the fender. Garry had observed it there, with china face and blue eyes that stared towards the fire.
‘The eyes came out,’ said John Grey, as he lifted the toy and examined it with care, ‘and her little mistress brought her to me. She believes I can mend everything that breaks, but this was as hard a task as I have tried. I had to work the eyes back into place and fill the head up with cement to keep them fixed. See, it has set.
Garry took the doll and examined the workmanship.
‘Jolly neat. I saw a youngster, two evenings ago, as I went past, following you around while you were weeding. Slip of a girl. Her arms were round your neck as you knelt. Once I declare I saw her ride on you, bare leg across your shoulder, and you paying no attention.’
‘That is the child.’
‘Confident little sparrow, wasn’t she just!’
‘She was not in my way,’ said the old man smiling.
Garry thrust plate and cup from him and buried his head in his hands.
‘Perhaps I am not in your way either,’ he said at last; and without waiting for an answer he began to talk, pouring out to David’s father his bitter distaste at David’s betrayal. ‘You can’t think that ever he meant to marry that woman.’
John Grey talked in his turn; but with reticence. It was plain, however, to Garry that Louie Morgan as a daughter was not a welcome thought. Yet he defended her, even, as it seemed to Garry, to the detriment of his son. He slowly gathered that the old man was unsure of what the brilliant boy, who escaped beyond his father’s experience at many points, might not have done. Besides, David and Miss Morgan had certainly met, many times, not long before his death. She had been staying in the south, with friends, very near his lodgings. David’s own letters had referred to her presence, even to her quality. ‘There’s more in her than ever I thought.’ They had had long and intimate talks. No, David had never hinted at love, certainly never a betrothal.
‘But this confession she was making to me,’ stammered Garry. Death was in his heart. To find Mr Grey believing that the thing was possible made Garry face it for the first time, and the thought that David might indeed have kissed that vapid mouth weighed on him like death.
‘Think nothing of the confession. Never mind it. She was overwrought. Leave the matter as it is. Let there be no more said.’
Of what was he afraid, pondered Garry. Surely of something. He could not leave the theme, returning to his own contempt of the woman. But the old man silenced his complaint. Garry felt uncomfortably that in his presence one could disparage no human being; not even a woman for whom he had confessed that he did not care.
‘You are too good for this world,’ thought Garry. ‘Or too simple.’
Mr Grey put the theme aside with decision.
‘We’ll just leave it where it is, lad.’
Garry was profoundly dissatisfied, but drew his chair to the fire and smoked; and they talked for over an hour. Garry would have enjoyed the talk (for he had a deep respect for John Grey, and they had many tastes in common) had his secret uneasiness not kept growing. At last its torment worked through even his interest in shells and fuses, and he rose to go.
The night had cleared. Spring had danced her caper, and sat now dreaming and demure. Under the wide dim sky, where single stars hung soft, the man walked out his torment. He had to face the issue he had evaded: someone he must despise if his convictions were to go unchanged. Was it John Grey, who could believe of a splendid son that he would sully his honour? Or David himself, who had sullied it? Had David loved—no, David could not have loved this woman, but had he perhaps, incredibly, become infatuated with her? Had the ancient madness worked, the old invincible gods snuffed up their reek of sacrifice? David’s face rose before him, brooding, strong, ironic as in life, and at the thought that he had lost not only the face but what it meant to him, desolation fell so strongly upon his spirit that David died a second time. His mouth was filled with ashes, loathing took his soul. So it was the Cyprian John Grey had feared, and, prudent man, stayed his eyes from looking lest the goddess smite. It is not well for man to pry into the doings of the gods. But as he paced in his bitter misery the thought returned: what was this incomplete confession that Mr Grey desired him to ignore? It must have had some meaning, and he must know its end.
He had reached the gate of Knapperley when his hand came against the bulge that Mrs Hunter’s boots made in his pocket. Jonathan Bannochie had told him they were promised for tonight. He turned, then turned again and took another road that came to Craggie by way of the house inhabited by Mrs Morgan and her daughter.
The house, standing back from the road, was dark, but against the shadowy trees a pale figure moved. Garry leaped the wall and strode across the lawn.
Miss Morgan was as restless as himself. Her mother and the maid had gone to bed, but she had come seeking into the starlight—and found Garry.
‘Let’s finish that talk we were having,’ he said.
She cried indignantly, ‘What do you mean, breaking into my garden like this, so late? You are as rude and wild as when you were a boy. Haven’t you done me harm enough today already, locked in with me like that?’
‘Don’t be a fool. Who’s to know I’m here?—Li
sten, Miss Morgan’—he gripped himself and spoke less roughly—‘you began tonight to tell me something. Will you finish it?’
He saw, however, that he was dealing with another Louie. Instead of tears he found defiance. Louie’s attempted excursion into truth had been too hard. But he was determined this time to hold her fast.
‘Yes or no—were you engaged to marry David Grey?’
Louie twisted her hands together.
‘What is it all about? Won’t you tell me what you meant this evening? Why are you a sinner? You said—’
‘Yes, yes, I said! I said! Do you suppose words ever mean the right thing? I said. And I suppose I meant it then. But you are to blame for what I said. You, by your suspicions and your accusations. I am too sensitive, that’s what it is. I see other people’s point of view too quickly. I said dreadful things about myself, and they all seemed true then. Because you had moved me and I was seeing with your eyes. Don’t you understand? One can accuse oneself of any enormity under the stress of an emotion. You tell me how my conduct looks to you, and I see it. Yes, I see it. I acknowledge my sin and my transgression is before me. But that vision isn’t me. When the emotion is over, I recover myself. I realise to what an enormity I have confessed.’
‘But you haven’t confessed to anything,’ said Garry wearily.
‘You think I made the story up—that David didn’t love me. I will tell you what I meant, what I was trying to confess. But all those tears were quite wrong. I was too humble. It’s nothing so very bad, after all. We were not actually engaged—no formal engagement, I mean. I could never bring myself to that—I wouldn’t do as David wanted. Because, you see, I was not sure that he was saved. I couldn’t say yes until his soul was safe.’
Garry was staring in the chill of horror.
‘You think you knew David—you didn’t know my David. You think I wasn’t good enough for him. Perhaps I was too good. There was a side to him you didn’t know. I developed it. I created him. My own part of him. And you can’t take it from me. You didn’t know how much we were to each other in those last months before he died.’
