by A. J. Cronin
‘The young rascal.’ He choked. ‘He’s a regular Carroll.’
‘I don’t think it’s at all amusing,’ Mother said frigidly. ‘I’ll talk to you seriously about it in the morning, Laurence. Now you’ll go straight to bed.’
I undressed slowly, sadly. The afternoon, welcomed with such joy, was bitter in my mouth. A weight lay upon my mind, and upon my conscience too. Had I not openly rejected Maggie, dear Maggie, my friend and protector, yes, cut and repudiated her, and all for a cousin who thought no more of me than, well, than a box of Swan vestas? Above all, the mystery involving my parents which Terry had unveiled for me, the isolation in which we were compelled to live, pressed me down. I turned to my pillow and let the willing tears flow.
Chapter Four
Autumn came early that year. The leaves of my favourite tree, fringed with gold and scarlet, had begun to flutter down, weaving a royal carpet at the entrance to the smithy. Morning mists drifted in from the firth leaving dewy crystals on the feathery grasses of Snoddie’s field. The soft air held a sense of change, and of something intangible that made me dream of far places, strange unvisited kingdoms where I still felt I might once have been in other long-forgotten days.
But today was Sunday, an actual day which, whenever I woke up and sniffed the revealing odour of frying bacon and eggs, brought always a more practical consideration. Father, from tradition and belief, was what I must call an affirmative Catholic, contumaciously so in the face of opposition, despite certain unorthodox reservations of his own, but as a performer he could only be classed as indifferent. If the sun shone on the seventh day and the weather promised fine he would hire farmer Snoddie’s pony and trap and drive to St Patrick’s, the nearest Catholic church, in Drinton, nine miles away. Mother, despite her Evangelical upbringing, amicably went with him. Such was her attachment to Father I am convinced she would have willingly accompanied him to a Hindu Temple had he professed that faith. I, of course, was taken along and, like Mother, held my breath at Father’s amateur handling of the reins, a recklessness ill-disguised by a pretence of high expertise that deceived neither of us nor, for that matter, the pony. With a flick of its hooves as Father shaved the corners it would turn round and, craning its neck, stare at him with indignant wonder. A rare motor-car was now being seen on the roads, usually a red Argyle from the Lochbridge motor works, and as one sped past in a cloud of dust, missing us by a miracle, Mother, clutching her wide-brimmed hat, would exclaim chokingly:
‘Oh, dear, these horrible machines.’
‘No, Gracie,’ Father replied coolly, tugging at the shying pony. ‘They are wonderful inventions. Since I mean eventually to have one, don’t run them down.’
‘They may run us down,’ Mother murmured in my ear.
But there were many Sundays when Father felt that God did not require him to expose his family to the hazards of the road, and, reading his face as he inspected the mellow grey sky and sniffed the soft west breeze that hinted rain, I knew this autumn morning to be one of them, that it would be for me another Sunday of high excitement, sharpened to a fine edge by alarm. And indeed, after breakfast, which he took in his dressing-gown, Father turned to Mother.
‘Perhaps, my dear lass, you’d make a few sandwiches for the boy and me.’ Father usually said ‘my dear lass’ when he wanted something done for him.
He went upstairs and presently came down wearing his usual get-up for our expeditions: a thick grey Norfolk knicker-bocker suit, stout boots and knitted stockings, and a mackintosh cape, like a poncho, that fastened at the neck with a metal clasp.
We set off, up the Station Road and through the village, where the bells of the parish kirk had begun to ring. In answer to this summons the natives—as my father insisted on naming them—universally in sober black and armed with their black Bibles, were moving towards the church in a slow, solemn, God-fearing stream.
‘Black beetles!’ came the disgusted ejaculation from beside me.
Father, I am sure, wilfully selected this precise moment so that as an R.C. outsider he could outrage the Scottish Sabbath convention. It was his way of defying the tight-lipped prejudice against us in the village. Nowadays, when an enlightened liberalism seeks to promote unity of the churches, it is difficult to conceive of the bitterness that existed then against Catholics, particularly against Irish Catholics, in the West of Scotland. These descendants of unwanted famine refugees, many of whom had as yet failed to raise themselves above the level of the labouring class, were referred to as ‘the dirty Irish’ and were universally despised and execrated, both on account of their nationality and their religion, which was publicly referred to in such terms as: the Roman harlot, drinker of the cup of abomination, or the whore that sitteth upon the seven hills of sin. I myself had trembled as I spelled out the notice of a sermon to be preached in the village parish church: ‘Rome, the seat of the beast, according to Rev. 18, 19.’
But Father’s nature, unlike mine, was combative and it amused him to evoke shocked looks and pursed lips and to ignore contemptuously the general dour air of reprobation created by our appearance. Now, as always, he traversed the village with a springy, almost jaunty step, head in the air, manner aloof, a scornful smile curving his lips, which from time to time he rounded in an affected whistle. For me, trotting at his side and dreading disaster, the ordeal was racking, only slightly relieved by the hidden envious glances from other boys for whom Sunday was a penance, banefully filled by a two-hour sermon, a day of excruciating tedium, wherein the forgetful raising of the voice was a desecration, laughter a crime, and the passage of the one slow train known as the ‘Sunday-breaker’ which defiled the sanctity of the day, an instance, publicly proclaimed, of the evil that was bringing the world to perdition.
I began to breathe more freely as we reached the last village landmark, Macintyre’s sawmill, and came out to open country. Here, presently, we passed the entrance to the Meikle estate, a noble gateway with tall pillars each bearing a green bronze eagle flanked by twin lodges of cut stone built in the Scots baronial style. The avenue wound upwards between massed rhododendrons through the park, apparently to infinity. The sight of this privileged magnificence had already caused me a preliminary tremor which was intensified when Father, some two hundred paces further down the country road, took a cautious look round and, motioning me to follow, plunged through a break in the hedgerow. We were now in the wooded, rigorously forbidden policies of Lady Whalebone. I quivered at the thought. Father, however, quite unperturbed, steered a familiar course under the beech trees—the beech nuts crackling much too loudly under our boots—and brought us out to a bracken-covered glen. He then circled a plantation of young larch and entered a thicker wood, bushed with undergrowth and echoing with the sound of running water. This was the Gielston River, strictly preserved, and noted for its run of sea trout.
Arrived at the river-bank, immediately below the falls, Father’s next move was to remove a two-foot canvas case from beneath his cape and to assemble therefrom the short sections of a green-heart rod. The reel was fitted, the line threaded and presently he had begun to cast into the creamy spume at the head of the pool. As a boy, living near the shores of Loch Lomond, he had passionately, fished every burn that fed the loch and now, as I watched intently, allowed at intervals to take the rod, that same ardour was communicated to me.
I wish I might boast of Father as one of the elect, a dry-fly purist, or even simply a fly-fisher. He was not. He fished with brandling worms dug for us at the farm by Maggie, and which I disentangled, wriggling and rank, from the Van Houten’s cocoa tin I carried in my pocket. Father’s object was to catch fish and he held to the method that served him well in his youth. Today, however, it seemed as if we should have no luck.
‘Not even a nibble.’ Father was annoyed, he did not like to be beaten. ‘ Yet the sea trout should be up. We’ll leave our line in the water and eat our lunch.’
Mother’s sandwiches were always good, especially the tomato ones. We sat down in
a little clearing under a silver-birch tree that diffused a soft silver-green light. The river splashed and twinkled through the tall grasses and reeds. The hum of the woods set a fearful privacy upon the place. The sudden chatter of a jay made me start. Now, as on all our expeditions, I was dreadfully scared that we should be caught by the gamekeeper or, worse, by the owner, that redoubtable little woman who had scorned me on my first day at school and whom, in my mind, I had come to designate concisely and with odium as her. This was the terror that salted my delight. Father, meanly, or perhaps to harden me, would pretend sometimes to give the alarm: ‘ Hist! There she is!’ causing me to turn pale while he shook his head disparagingly.
When our picnic was over Father lay back, hands behind his head, hat tilted over his eyes. He had that slightly drugged look which suggested to me that he was about to take a nap, a suspicion confirmed when he murmured drowsily:
‘Go and pick yourself some rasps.’
The raspberries grew wild everywhere in the wood. No need to go far, there was a great patch of them quite near. Once I was amongst the tall stiff canes, safely concealed, the spirit of adventure pricked my scalp. Transformed in a flash, no longer Terry’s poor little caper, I became the hero of Father’s evening stones. Picking the honey-sweet berries, staining my face and hands with the crimson juice, I sustained myself on desert islands, staved off hunger in untrodden jungles, quenched a burning thirst at desert oases whither I had been borne on the backs of camels.
Suddenly, a series of earsplitting splashes sent me running back to Father. He was standing on the bank, rigid with effort, his rod, gripped in both hands, curved in an incredible arc while a big fish tore madly about the pool, twisting and plunging, leaping into the air and restriking the surface with thunderous detonations.
For interminable minutes the struggle continued, while the pool boiled and I quivered in an anguish of suspense lest the prize should escape us. At last, slowly, the lovely fish came in, all spent and defeated, its silver made golden by the peaty water, and Father, with a quick but gentle pull, slid it on to the pebbled sloping bank.
‘Oh, what a beauty!’ I shouted.
‘A fresh-run sea trout.’ Father, too, was breathing with difficulty. ‘At least five pounds.’
When we were calmer and had admired our trophy from every aspect, Father decided we had done enough for the day, since the sun had now broken through strongly. Really, he was dying to show the fish to Mother, who was often openly diverted by the size of our catch. He bent down, passed a stout cord through the trout’s gills, then lifting the fish till it was suspended at waist level tied the cord securely round his middle.
‘What the eye doesn’t see, the heart won’t grieve for,’ he observed jocularly, putting on his cape. ‘Let’s be off, boy. No, not that way …’
Father, enchanted by his success, was clearly in his most exalted mood. Cordoned by the heavy fish beneath the hampering but necessary cape, I saw that he had decided against the long detour through the woods. Ignoring my alarmed protests, he declared that we would take the short cut through the fields after crossing the main avenue below the big house. I could only follow.
‘Sunday afternoon.’ He calmed me as we approached the shrubbery bordering the drive. ‘There won’t be a soul about.’
‘But look!’ I pointed to the lion standard above the house. ‘The flag’s up. She’s there!’
‘Probably having an after-dinner snooze.’
He had barely spoken when, emerging from behind a clump of rhododendrons, we almost collided with a short, plump figure in a light muslin dress who, from the shade of her lace-edged parasol, stared at us in shocked surprise. I almost fainted. It was her. I wanted to bolt, but my legs refused their function. Father, on the other hand, apart from an involuntary start and a momentary loss of his natural colour, was managing to conceal his discomposure. He removed his hat and bowed.
‘Your ladyship.’ He paused and gave a slight cough. I knew he was racking his brains as to how he could get us out of this frightful disaster. ‘I trust you won’t regard this as an intrusion. If I may explain …’
‘Ye may,’ came the reply in the broadest Scots, mingling suspicion with extreme displeasure. ‘Whit’s your wull in ma policies?’
‘Gladly,’ Father exclaimed, rather pointlessly, and coughed again. Then, by some sleight of hand and without disturbing the folds of his cape, he produced one of his business cards from his inside breast pocket. ‘Madam, if I may introduce myself,’ he said, politely yet winningly, pressing the card on the little woman. She took no notice of it whatsoever. ‘ The fact is that my partner, Mynheer Hagemann of Rotterdam … you see his name on my card … is by way of being something of a horticulturist. A Dutchman, you understand they are all gardeners there. When in conversation the other day I chanced to mention your famous collection of orchids he asked, indeed begged me, to seek an appointment for him. He expects to be in Winton some time next month. And so, if you could be so gracious …’ He broke off.
Silence. Lady Whalebone’s gaze, passing from one to the other, had come to rest on me and in her eyes I saw a fateful recognition. Finally she put on her pince-nez, suspended from her neck by a fine gold chain, and studied the card.
‘Hagemann’s Royal Dutch Yeast.’ Her eyes again sought mine. ‘A close relation of the staff of life.’
‘Yes, madam,’ Father acknowledged with the modesty and assurance of one who has made his case good. Standing easily, almost playfully, he was quite unconscious of the mysterious yet steady drip, drip of water which was already forming a sizeable pool exactly between his feet. My heart sank. Had she seen it? And what in heaven’s name would she make of it?
‘So your partner is interested in orchids.’ She meditated. ‘I thocht the Dutch grew only tulips.’
‘Certainly, tulips, m’am. Fields of them. But orchids also.’
The ghost of a smile playing around Lady Meikle’s lips gave me hope. Alas, it was illusory.
‘Come awa’ then.’ She spoke with decision. ‘I’ll show ye my collection and ye can tell your fancy Mynheer all about it.’
‘But m’am, I only hoped for an appointment,’ Father protested. ‘We could not think of deranging you on a Sunday.’
‘The better the day, my dear sir, the better the deed. Indeed, I insist. I’m rather interested to jalouse how both of the two of ye will react to my orchids.’
Father, for the first time, looked thoroughly taken aback, at a loss for words. But there was no escape. We were led by our cicerone up the avenue, along the terrace that fronted the imposing mansion and into the conservatory, a great high Victorian erection of glass and ornate white-painted ironwork that adjoined the far wing of the house. We entered this crystal palace through double glass doors that were closed carefully behind us and, greeted by a waft of humid air, were immediately in the tropics. Towering palms rose to the high roof mingling with giant ferns spreading enormous fronds far above my head, banana trees with bunched fingers of miniature fruits, strange twining creepers, spiky yuccas, great lily pads the size of tea-trays floating on a pool, masses of luscious greenery of which I could not even guess the names, and amongst all this, coloured wickedly, gleaming like brilliant jungle birds, the orchids.
In my normal state how ravished I would have been by this gorgeous materialization of so many of my dreams. Even now my anxiety was half forgotten. I gazed in wonder, dreamily following our guide as, in a manner which had turned discursive, even pleasant, she demonstrated her specimens to Father. It was hot, extremely hot. Already I was beginning to sweat. Deep banks of pipes ran everywhere, emitting a rising steamy vapour, and was it my overstrained fancy that wherever the access of calefaction became most intense Father was made to stop, examine, and listen? Looking at him directly for the first time since we entered I saw that he was suffering. Yes, suffering acutely, in his heavy woollen clothing. Great drops of perspiration were running down his face which, while not as yet matching the colour of the tomatoes in Mot
her’s sandwiches, had taken on the hue of stewed rhubarb.
‘Ye find it a trifle close, maybe. Will ye not remove your cape?’
‘Thank you, m’am, thank you, no,’ Father said hurriedly. ‘I am not at all inconvenienced. I rather enjoy a warm air.’
‘Then take a look at this verra special cattleya. There … ye’ll get closer if ye bend forward over the pipes.’
Unlike the other orchids, which hitherto had been unremarkable for their odour, this cattleya seemed to emit a most distinctive smell. It smelled, in a word, as Father leaned over, of fish.
A fresh horror struck at me. Our trout, habituated to the chilly waters of the ocean, was not taking kindly to this equatorial pyrexia.
‘Beautiful … extremely beautiful …’ Father now scarcely knew what he was saying as, surreptitiously, he sluiced his drenched brow with a back-handed flick.
‘My dear sir,’ broke in our tormentor solicitously, ‘ ye’re positively sweltering. I insist on ye taking off that heavy cape.’
‘No,’ Father gasped in a hollow tone. ‘ The fact is … we are really grateful but … an important engagement … already late … time getting on … we must be going …’
‘Nonsense! I’ll not bear o’t. Ye havena’ seen but the half of my treasures.’
And while our temperatures mounted and the torrid emanations increased, this terrible little woman made us complete the slow suffocating circuit, of the conservatory, forced us even, while she stood below, to climb the white-painted iron stair that spiralled to the roof where, intensified by its ascent, the killing heat produced a mirage in which the prospect we had been enjoined to view assumed the appearance of a deep green swelling sea with cool enticing waves in which Father, at least, would willingly have plunged.
At last she opened the double glassed doors. Then, as we stood weakly in the blessed fresh air she bestowed, first on me, then on Father, a grim yet somehow amiable smile.
