by A. J. Cronin
With a nervous gesture she recollected herself and abruptly lowered her gaze. She had her preparations to complete. She had been brooding too much upon this unpleasant echo of the past. And so, taking a loaf, she cut it into long slices, which she buttered quickly. Upon some of these she spread her home-made apple jelly; on others, rhubarb jam; the remaining slices she used for ham sandwiches, leaving some without mustard to suit Peter’s tender palate. Then she buttered a pile of home-made scones and pancakes, fresh from yesterday’s baking, cut half a cold dumpling into rich, moist slices, took a promising wedge of fruit cake, and a packet of crisp Abernethy biscuits from the tin which always contained them. Her small, slightly moistened hands, that now had a pinkish tint against the smooth whiteness of her arms, moved competently. Despite her haste, nothing was omitted – not even a tiny twisted paper of salt to savour the hard-boiled eggs – and at length the basket was packed, covered with a white napkin. Then, pulling down her sleeves, she hurried – though there was no occasion for this urgency – to the back door and called out:
‘Ready! Ready!’ with a rising and falling two-winged cry.
They looked round, Peter, waving with exaggerated intimation of approval, ran up importantly, exhibiting his tin of writhing worms, expectant of her outward blenching. But it was towards her husband that she looked. When he came up, she slipped her arm around his shoulders and again declared:
‘I’m ready now, Frank.’
‘Right,’ said he, surprised somewhat at her sudden demonstration.
In a few moments they had gathered together their things – Lucy’s last injunction for Netta the impressive reminder that she now was in sole charge of the house and its elegant furnishings.
Peter led the way to Bowie’s yard, the fishing-rod upon his shoulder, the kettle in his hand; and Moore, carrying the picnic-basket, accompanied him. Lucy, holding a smaller empty basket in which to gather the wild raspberries that grew profusely in the wood, came some distance behind with Anna.
Suddenly, at the edge of the beach, Lucy paused.
‘Why,’ she said in a tone of pleasure, ‘it’s Miss Hocking.’
A woman accompanied by a dog was approaching. The dog was a fat fox terrier, panting with its own corpulence, pink and lolling of tongue; the lady – for she was indisputably a lady – was a fine towering creature, massive yet elegant, with the roundly moulded limbs of a Juno and a smooth, statuesque face which suited her age and classic form. Her head was small, her features regular, her nose fine and straight, her brow unruffled, like a white band, her eyes a deep-sea blue, large, limpid under their heavy lids. She wore a well-tailored coat and skirt of grey frieze cloth, which, despite its severity of cut, clung voluptuously to the rich lines of her body. A heavy white silk blouse, with tiny pearl buttons and high collar, elegant buttoned boots and dove-grey kid gloves, a long, tightly-rolled umbrella whose thin handle ended in an ivory tee – this completed her attire. A figure! – yes, a faintly eccentric figure was Miss Hocking; and now, as she drew near, she smiled, looking at Lucy with her large bright eyes, hardly wrinkling her face, that shone smooth and slightly downy beneath the heaped-up lustre of her yellow hair.
‘I hope it is not,’ she exclaimed at once, with a little laugh, ‘going to rain.’ She had a cultured voice, deep despite that tinkling laugh, a manner impressive through its very ease. ‘Your dear little boy!’ she went on, envisaging the distant form. ‘But where is his kilt? Little Highlander. Heather and bracken – so lovely in the autumn – “my foot is on my native heath, my name it is McGregor”! When are you coming to see me again?’ Her remarks were usually a series of parentheses, little squares which fitted one within the other, and in the last of these there might perhaps be found a seed of sentient normality.
‘Soon, I hope,’ said Lucy agreeably; and, turning, she made a murmur of introduction.
‘I adore children,’ said Miss Hocking to Anna. ‘Particularly boys!’ Mysteriously, almost coquettishly, she seemed to imply an interest in male children – not the wistful longing of a lonely and unattached female, but an emotion altogether more intimate and romantic.
‘We’re going for a picnic,’ said Lucy a little awkwardly. She knew that Miss Hocking could be supremely reasonable when she chose.
‘The omens are favourable,’ answered Miss Hocking rather dreamily. ‘ Blue sky – blue sea. You haven’t been to Capri. Very lovely there. They dive in the grotto. Such handsome figures, the condottieri.’ She paused, lifted her head, and seemed to reflect. ‘ I mustn’t keep you. Off! off! Enjoy yourselves. Extraordinary weather for the time of year. But I must go! Something I’m working on. Important.’
The recollection of this pressing matter terminated, apparently, the interview, and, like one moved by a sudden compulsion, she bowed, swept Lucy with her animated smile, not a wrinkle marring her smoothly pleasant face, then, turning, she moved gracefully away.
‘Good Lord!’ said Anna at once. ‘Who is she?’
At the implication in that tone Lucy’s colour rose instantly, the more so as she felt it vaguely justified.
‘She’s a friend of mine,’ she answered stiffly, ‘a great friend. And she’s charming!’
The word fell queerly from her lips, yet somehow it seemed queerly adequate.
‘She looks an odd lot,’ said Anna, as they approached the boat which with Dave’s assistance Moore had selected and run out for their use. ‘I don’t like the looks of her own omens – with her male children! She’d have made a nice match for Herod.’
‘She is an odd lot,’ said Frank, picking up the words as he fitted the rowlocks. ‘Half cracked, she is! And that whelp she’s got – Fairy – looks as if she’d used a bicycle pump to it.’
‘She’s awfully big,’ said Peter, throwing in his word. ‘Big as’ – he looked round for a simile – ‘as a boat.’
Lucy’s lips hardened, and she frowned. She had few friends in Ardfillan, where a refined snobbery was the vogue, and she liked Miss Hocking, whose acquaintance she had quite informally acquired. Their occasional encounters upon the front, where the first fleeting smile directed towards Peter had become in turn a bow to Lucy, a passing word, and a polite exchange of views upon the weather, had resulted in a definite state of friendship between Miss Hocking and herself. They had now a knowledge of each other’s circumstances, and Lucy was aware that at one time Miss Hocking, emerging vaguely from England, had ‘taught’ – music was inferred – at the passionately select girls’ seminary of Redlands. But now Miss Hocking no longer taught. For some years past, and for a reason not openly avowed, the appointment had been terminated. Yet Miss Hocking had not returned to England. Miss Hocking remained in Ardfillan, living alone, devoted, apparently, to her dog, her music, and the pleasant elegancies of life proper to a lady of taste and independent means.
And now, over the issue of her friendship with this charming if eccentric lady, actually Frank was ranging himself with Anna against her. She was distinctly put out, and in a sudden rush all her previous irritation returned with stinging exasperation. They were in the boat now, and her brow furrowed faintly as she observed her husband tugging at the oars with unusual exuberance. He was showing off, she felt, showing off before Anna. And he had shaved with unusual care, put on his newest suit! Was that for Anna too? Moreover, they were talking again, the two of them, in a strain she hated; having relinquished Miss Hocking, they had fallen to discussing once more the visit to Port Doran, making a mock of Edward between them. Yes, she was beginning to see Anna’s character more clearly; and mockery unquestionably lay beneath that outer calm.
‘Anchovy,’ Anna was repeating, with mild, malicious features. ‘Not out of a bottle.’
‘It all runs to Ned’s stomach,’ responded Frank, with much less subtlety. ‘Give him a good feed and a bottle of wine, then he’s all set.’
‘Miss O’Regan’s spine,’ she sighed, trailing her fingers in the water. ‘Almost a miracle. Delicious!’
‘The quarterly collecti
on falls due on the following Sunday. Envelopes may be obtained at the back of the church. L. S. D. – I mean L.D.S.’
‘Interesting occupation though, Frank,’ went on Anna with her pleasant, expressionless face. ‘Little secrets in the confessional. Fair penitent. “And how often, my child, did you –”’
‘Sweet perfume in the darkness,’ he grinned.
‘Jockey Club for Father Moore,’ she returned softly. ‘Lovely man. Gentle, meek, and mild. Friend of Miss MacTara!’ and reclining, with shut eyes she began to hum, ‘The harp that once through Tara’s halls’.
Resting on his oars, Frank burst into a roar of laughter, rocking the boat with his merriment.
But Lucy felt the beating of her heart suffuse her throat. She was no zealot, her regard for her religion swayed mainly by sentiment; but this – so utterly flippant – before the boy too! And Edward: let him be pompous; had she not eaten his bread?
‘Stop that!’ she exclaimed sharply. ‘ I won’t have it. Understand that once and for all!’
Anna slowly opened her eyes and smiled across at Lucy.
‘Just a bit of fun,’ she said amiably.
‘It’s a kind of fun I don’t like,’ said Lucy, a spot of colour high on her cheek.
Moore made a peevish gesture with his shoulders. There was an, awkward pause, then he resumed his rowing in silence. She was silent too. It hurt her to see that look in Frank’s face; it made her realise how much she loved him. She was glad when they reached the Point and relieved to feel the tension broken as, noisily, they beached the boat upon the shingle. Then, entering the woods, they followed the path which cut across towards the Ardmore burn. Here, after the hot sunshine of the open sea, it was cool and shaded. The oak leaves were already veined with ochre, the olive of the sycamore wrought with scarlet, but still the trees bore full foliage, beneath which tall bracken, still verdant, rose high enough, to switch Peter’s ears as he pushed through. For him the expedition wore no complexity, but simply the aspect of a high adventure; his eyes shone; the fishing-rod, constructed on principles of a sordid economy and retailed profitably by Mr Gow at elevenpence three-farthings, was pointed spearlike, with a tilt that made the scrub primeval.
Up the burn they worked. After rain, the stream would rush from the upper moorland in a peat-stained, roaring turbulence, but today it trickled crystal clear over its channelled slate-blue bed. Moist mosses clung to the steep banks, and long, pale ribbons of fern hung out, each like a hart’s tongue, thirsting towards the singing water. The dank smell of humid growing grasses was seasoned with the sweetish scent of sun-baked clay.
At last they came upon the pool. And, at a distance – his muffled tones frustrating the straining ears of any trout – Peter prepared the hickory rod, threaded the line, which had no reel, covered adequately the shining hook with a long and most reluctant worm drawn from the entanglement in the tin, then, crouching, he made the cast.
Observing her son and his intentness, Lucy’s mood altered further; suddenly relaxed. She felt calm, reassured, comforted. All her stupid incoherent reaction was nothing – a silly fancy! Turning deliberately to Anna, she smiled and said:
‘Are you fishing or picking?’
‘I’ll wait,’ answered Anna, ‘and see what happens.’
‘Yes,’ said Moore, ‘we’ll land a whale for you.’
‘Stop here till we catch just one, mother,’ said Peter.
‘I think,’ suggested Lucy, ‘that it would be nice for you to surprise me when I come back. You might have caught two or three by then.’ She nodded her head persuasively, picked up her basket, and added: ‘ I’ll try to find you some ambers.’ This was the name they gave to the sweet loganberries that grew sparsely amongst the wild raspberries.
‘Oh, well,’ said Peter – he was fond of ambers – ‘all right.’
She moved off, turned and waved, then went on again, making for the upper reaches of the wood.
Beside a low stone wall she struck the raspberry patch. Now she was picking them. Drooping upon their thinly pendent stalks, caught by the invading sunlight, they glowed like clustered garnets, a pattern of crimson points stippled upon a tapestry of green.
Her hands, thrusting amongst the shoots, twisted the silvered leaves. Mostly the velvet pads slipped smoothly from their etiolated cores, but sometimes a riper berry would melt beneath her clasping fingers and spurt its scarlet juice upon them.
Her basket, swinging from her crooked elbow, became more weighty. Around her lay the cloistered silence of the wood. This silence, furtive from its undercurrent of tiny pricking sounds – the movement of a leaf, the crisping of a twig beneath her foot, the murmur of a wood-pigeon from a high beech – sank into her. She became aware gradually of her solitude – a great hand of solitude hovering upon her – and, darting little side-glances, she hastened her picking. She desired suddenly to return to the warm companionship of the others, and, with a frowning smile at her own foolishness, she turned at last and ran almost from the bushes.
Near to the pool she slackened her pace and called out a greeting.
But no answer came. Emerging suddenly from the bushes, she saw that only Peter was there, and abruptly she stopped, the smile dying upon her face.
‘Where are the others?’ she exclaimed in a voice whose brusqueness hid a sudden disquiet. Immersed in his fishing, the boy shook his head without removing his eyes from a thin shadow of brown wavering against the darker shade cast by the overhanging bank.
‘Somewhere about, I suppose,’ he answered vaguely. She stood for a moment motionless, then with an effort she stirred, put down her basket. Her face was entirely without animation as slowly she gathered some dry sticks, lit the fire, and set the kettle to boil.
At the foot of the pool, taking soft wet sand as soap, she began with the same preoccupation to wash her hands. The sand had a fine, clean grittiness, polished by the pouring current. The quick ripple was cold, and frothed round her wrists like milk. Then suddenly, as she stood there, she was startled by a quick shout. They had returned, laughing, breaking out of the bracken together, as unconcerned as if she had not asked them to accompany her – unconcerned indeed as if she had not existed. Her possessive instinct flared. Though she made no sign – her face still as cold as the rippling water – a violent exasperation rose up in her. Out of the blue a vague, intangible emotion struck her: nothing she could formulate, neither jealousy nor suspicion; each was equally absurd. It was not that she suspected Frank’s conduct – that clearly was too ridiculous – but somehow it was the hint, the strong suggestion, of understanding between these two which at once outraged and baffled her.
And now, for the first time, she dissembled. Straightening, she forced a smile and said with factitious tranquillity:
‘Where on earth have you been?’
‘I wanted to show Anna the view,’ he retorted easily, ‘ from the other side.’
She stared at them. The view – it had the sound of the traditional excuse.
‘We could have seen it afterwards,’ she declared almost vehemently.
He raised his eyebrows.
‘But surely, Lucy –’ he began.
She cut him short, her slight figure vibrant, her eyes suddenly intense.
‘Leaving me to gather the sticks and light the fire after I’d picked the rasps. Not very thoughtful of you.’ She paused, swallowing hard upon her resentment, whilst he looked at her sheepishly.
‘Anyway, I’m all ready for you now,’ she concluded making herself smile once more. ‘Come along.’
They sat down.
The sandwiches had a moist succulence; the egg yolk crumbled seductively; the tea was hot, with a rich tang from the stream water. Bluish-white flakes lifted lightly from the charred wood; a curling wisp of smoke nipped their nostrils with a piquant relish. But for her there was no savour in the food; she was not enjoying herself; all the time she was telling herself that tonight she would have a word with Frank – just a quiet word. Meanwhile, in a sudde
n reaction of her mood she kept pressing him to eat, helping him to the choicest pieces.
‘You’re not eating anything,’ she said suddenly, looking towards him in some concern. ‘What’s happened to your appetite?’
He moved rather restively.
‘It’s all right,’ said he. ‘Give Anna some of that cake. I’ve finished.’
‘But you usually eat so well,’ she expostulated, ‘when we come over here.’
In answer, he drank the last of his tea, got upon his feet, and went over to the rod. They had caught nothing, and now, pulling in the line, he examined the inanimate worm on the hook.
‘Dead! And never called me mother!’ he muttered glumly.
Anna, who also had risen, laughed shortly at the atrocious flippancy – one of her rare laughs – which rasped instantly on Lucy’s nerves.
‘I’m sorry I took the trouble to pack the basket,’ she declared crossly. ‘Nobody seems to want anything I’ve brought.’
‘You’ve eaten the least yourself,’ said Moore dryly, without turning round.
‘That’s true, mother,’ laughed Peter, wiping his fingers on the grass with an air of complete conviction. ‘I ate most, father second, Anna third, and you last.’
‘Use your handkerchief, boy,’ she said, looking at him rather sharply. ‘And remember your manners.’
With curious abruptness this terminated the meal; the dishes, washed by Lucy in the running water, and dried, apologetically, by Frank, were packed in the basket; they set out down the stream to follow its course towards the sea.
The afternoon was now steeped in a warm languor; the scent of the gathered raspberries, crushed by their own weight, ascended like a rare ether; and as she walked amidst the hum of insects she felt sweep over her that old nostalgia, that almost painful longing which so often took her, a yearning for something which she must seize and grasp with all her strength.
