Second Sight

by Neil M. Gunn

  Shame at her own weakness, this vague woman weakness, arising out of nothing—oh, out of nothing.

  Loving her weakness, seduced by it, giving in to it—but aware, behind the forgetfulness of her tears, of the peril and the panic, of the noiseless beat beat, of feet…

  Like a beat out of the heart of the earth. The noiseless beat of feet—coming——

  Her heart leapt within her, and past the near tree trunks came a man’s legs and feet. Alick!

  He saw her, but never paused, as if he had not seen her.

  “Alick!” she said, getting up, half-turned away from him, drying her tears, then turning to him with a confused smile.

  From looking at the ground near his feet, he looked past her, with no expression on his face, waiting.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To see about the morning.”

  “Are you in a hurry?”

  “No, ma’m.”

  “Well—wait a bit,” she said slowly, awkwardly. “I don’t know what came over me. Must be the strain.” Her smile was friendly, softly confused.

  He waited, his eyes touching her for a moment.

  “I suppose I must look a bit of a sight. But—I don’t know. It’s rather lovely here.” She racked her brains for something to say. “I should like, sometime, when you are not on the hill, to have another day’s fishing. Do you think that would be possible?”

  “Oh yes,” he said in his quiet voice. “Though the only place at the moment is Loch-an-eilean.”

  “The loch with the little island! That would be lovely.”

  “It’s getting a bit late in the year. But there are good trout in it.”

  “Well—the next time you are free?”

  “Very good, ma’m.”

  “Ah—as you know—we have had an anxious time. It was marvellous of you finding Mr. Smith. We—tell me, how did you manage it?”

  “Oh well, it just happened.”

  “I wonder! Tell me how. Or do you mind?”

  “There’s nothing to mind,” he said simply. “I just thought he might go the way he went—and found him there.”

  “But——”

  He waited.

  She looked at him directly. He was looking past her, politely. It was difficult to be friendly with this man—unless the relationship was the impersonal, normal one of a fishing expedition. Then he would talk and tell you things and even smile. At the moment he might be anything—inimical, wary of intrusion, suspicious, or bored. There was some queer force in his body, a pent-up force, that would stand at ease like this for an indefinite time. She always felt it, it always excited her, and she slightly feared it, except when it was impersonally friendly, and then it was altogether pleasant and lovable, communicated the sense of freedom, the feeling that it was good to be alive in the open air.

  She gave a small shrug. “I shan’t question you,” she said, with a touch of humour, smiling to him.

  The slight characteristic smile came to his face.

  “The first day, then, that you are free?” she said.

  “Very good. This hill weather won’t keep up for ever,” he volunteered.

  “Let us hope not! Thank you, Alick. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, ma’m.”

  My tears are safe with him! she thought. But within a few paces she wondered, and within another few was uncertain, with spasms of painful doubt.

  For what did she know about him really?

  That force within him; it was strong; it might be brutal—given the occasion. He would never mention anything about her tears to her own people. But to his——?

  Perhaps make a joke about it, an innuendo.

  Hateful to think about. The implication that she had been making advances—conveyed by the mouth in a fleshy twist of sarcasm.

  For—such things did happen—were happening more and more. And she remembered Mrs. Matheson’s story to her mother. The Mathesons had a forest over towards the seaboard. And Mrs. Matheson told of a neighbouring estate where the daughter of the shooting tenant, in her early twenties, selected each year a different gillie for her amorous needs. Quite openly. Everyone knew about it. The best-looking, most virile type, don’t you know.

  And the story about the local dance—told by an English chauffeur who had been present, to a gillie when he came back, who told it to the keeper, who told it to the cook, who told it to the lady’s maid, who told it to her lady. The poor chauffeur had suffered from an embarras de richesses amongst some of the local beauties that could not be experienced, he reckoned, outside certain places in Paris. And so on.

  That suggestion of the beginning of demoralisation, perhaps quite localised, perhaps spreading, but in the air. The possibility of that rotten section of London society finding here for a short while a keener air, a more complete irresponsibility. Odd stories even from the Isles, not so much of intromissions with the native stock, as of promiscuities and perversions amongst themselves.

  And not all rumours. Quite definite facts. Known facts. That sort of thing—that she knew of in London, that accompanied its social life, like a miasma about decay. What socialists called the canker at the decaying root of capitalist civilisation. And the feeling that haunted her more and more that the socialists were right.

  You had to be modern and emancipated and talk about those things in London, of course.…

  Alick was bound to know about that!

  She found herself walking quite quickly.

  Sex accompanied a young woman’s life, sometimes in a rosy cloud, sometimes as a fire, but sometimes shameful and hateful like that. It is her fate! Helen supposed, a flick of angry colour in her cheeks.

  Why so annoyed, why so angry?

  Her own young body was virgin enough. So virgin that it might be glass. Was that it? A consciousness that she was inexperienced, adolescent? Like that recent quoting of poetry and tears! To-day! Like a Victorian girl with the vapours!

  Poetry, old poetry; love, that follows on a woman through the fire! How certain girls she knew would laugh—so sure of themselves, so experienced, so expert in the realities!

  A school miss, smiling through her tears at her father’s gillie! These girls with their knowing eyes, their conspiracies, their intimacies, their fingers of bright gossip tap-tapping against her breast—with an odd one drawling out a wearied oath or two. Little regard for the men except as puppets in the game, necessary to the game, and therefore to be intrigued about or quarrelled over. And the men…

  If the men were real men the women wouldn’t…

  Stop it! she cried inwardly to herself. Oh, stop it!

  For she knew the nature of this attack. She had had it before. It was not that she minded about morality and virtue, she believed. It is not that one should be correct and proper, she passionately alleged to herself. For the appalling thing was that the cry came out of her the more wildly the more it was smothered: I want poetry, love, fire!

  She had been in a mood when she could investigate an attack of this kind, turn over its mess with the fingers of her mind, pry into it, and even know a doubtful fascination. Then move out of it, alert a little, but whole and stronger.

  Now, however, she felt dispirited, unclean, and could not become her normal self. The inner cry was quite silent.

  As she climbed from the river path to a track on the brow of the declivity, she began to feel tired, too, in her body—reaction from the tiredness in her mind. She went in over the grassy bank and lay down, for she had sometimes found that by lying on her back and looking up between leafy branches at the sky her troubles would lift away in forgetfulness. She went, however, reluctantly, for she did not want her misery to be lifted. Her misery was the truth of living, the reality.

  The truth is, said a voice far within her, your pride is hurt! She squirmed, under the leaves, shutting her eyes to the sun, to the airy communion of leaves and sun…and heard again the beat, beat in the earth. She peered through the fringe of grass and bracken. Angus was coming alon
g the path, with every sense alert, stealthily. At the bend in the path, opposite to her, he paused, to see round it, then with a quick backward glance went on. She saw that what he was trying to hide was a rifle.

  On hands and knees, she crawled a yard or two to the right. He was making for the Lodge.

  She found her heart beating painfully, her tiredness gone. Before she knew what she was doing she was following through the trees as swiftly and quietly as she could, until she had to stop or emerge into the open. While she hesitated, Alick came round the larder towards the garage. The two men met, spoke for a few moments, then looked around them with elaborate carelessness, and—there was no one about—went up the stone stairs to the loft, closing the red door behind them.

  At once Helen left the trees and went towards the Lodge. This had to be told at once to someone, and the only one was Harry. Otherwise there would be talk, alarm, heaven knew what—as if the whole Lodge were waiting for just some such happening.

  She assumed a casual air as she entered at the front door. She went into the sitting-room. Only her mother and father and Marjory were there. Humming, and with a smile for Marjory, she picked up a book and went out—and upstairs. On the landing, she paused. Could Harry be in his bedroom? Listening all ears, she heard nothing, and went along to her own room. She must find Harry and find him alone. She did not care to go to his bedroom, not of course that it mattered a hoot, for she must find him. She looked through her window and listened.

  Her heart was beating too strongly. If she went to his bedroom, she might not be able to speak. Besides, she would have to knock.…

  A door! She went tip-toe out at her own and saw Harry as he reached the landing. She beckoned him. He stood for a moment, then came towards her. Without a word, she ushered him into her bedroom, and closed the door with such care that it took her a few seconds.

  As she turned round, he gazed at her hot, confused expression.

  “I—I have something to tell you I don’t want the others——” She listened. Then she told him what she had seen.

  He whistled softly, looking past her, for he had seen the beat in her throat.

  “There’s nothing in it, is there?” she whispered.

  “No. I shouldn’t think so. No.” He was trying to collect his wits. It couldn’t be that they were secreting a rifle to poach? Obviously not in the daylight. Besides, these fellows never poached—no point in it—and would not from such a centre anyhow. Nothing like that. No.

  Helen caught his wrist. The steps came softly along the carpet and into Marjory’s room. They smiled to each other in a strained way, then listened without breathing. Marjory’s door closed again, and, outside their own door, Marjory paused and said, “Helen?” Helen’s grip tightened in the tense silence. Marjory went away.

  Helen dropped his wrist, and filled her lungs slowly, and wet her lips. She looked pale, a trifle giddy.

  “I didn’t want her to know,” she said. “She’s—I think she’s very fond of Geoffrey.”

  Harry looked at her, his own lungs swelling up.

  “Is she?” he muttered.

  She nodded, not looking at him. “Now you can go,” she said and, opening the door, held on to the knob.

  “But—Helen——”

  “Go now,” she said. “Please.”

  He breathed heavily, and shrugged, “Oh, all right,” and went, forgetting to tread discreetly.

  She threw herself on her bed, feeling quite exhausted, and slightly sick.

  But the relief of being alone was sweet, oh it was sweet and precious. She felt she could easily go to sleep. But then she had had very little sleep last night. Few of them had had sleep. The whole place was getting a little overwrought. For a few seconds, perhaps minutes, she did lose hold of everything, but very soon she was on her feet again, looking out of the window, fixing her hair, powdering her nose, feeling obscurely happy.

  If she met Marjory going downstairs, she could say she had been in the bathroom? A faint humour came into her eyes, as she took the stairs with a cautious carelessness. Out by the front door, and to the right, so as not to pass the sittingroom window. And now it was Harry’s turn to beckon—from the fir plantation.

  She went with such outward appearance of aimlessness that Harry’s smile to her as she arrived was a pleasant tribute. He was quite cool now and friendly. She smiled back, widening her eyes frankly in the inquiring expression of younger days.

  “Come here!”

  She came quite close to him.

  “When I left you,” he began, in an amused whisper, “I went down and into the gun-room. An idea had struck me. I looked along the rack for Geoffrey’s rifle. It wasn’t there.”

  Her expression opened uncertainly. “You mean—it’s Geoffrey’s rifle?”

  He nodded. “Must have been left on the hill. When Angus didn’t come back with George’s party, I thought it was because he was frightened of what Geoffrey might say to him. Angus never mentioned the rifle to me—or to anyone. But all the time he knew! So you must have seen him coming back—right from the head of the forest.”

  “I say!”

  He nodded. “That was all that was in it.”

  “Oh!” Colour came to her face.

  He chuckled softly.

  “But how was I to know? It looked—so desperate——”

  “Quite.” He was teasing her in the old way and she felt like giving him a punch in the ribs, but couldn’t.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She looked away, with that brilliant glancing expression in her eyes—and put out a hand. He followed her eyes and saw Alick coming down the stone stairs from the loft alone. At the corner of the garage he stood still, and then Angus came down the stairs and walked past him in the direction of the gun-room. They could see only in snatches between the tree trunks, but Angus became clearer as he approached the house, and they observed that the rifle was upright against his off side. Alick began to walk towards the fir wood as Angus disappeared—and reappeared in half a minute without the rifle.

  Harry lifted his forefinger, a glimmer of humour in his eyes. “Hsh!” Angus came towards the wood, following Alick. Harry looked about him, caught Helen by the elbow, sidestepped very softly behind an up-rooted pine, and drew her close.

  “Shouldn’t like Alick to think we had seen them.”

  She nodded, full of the conspiracy. He kept hold of her elbow, the better to make them both listen.

  “That’s that!” came Angus’s voice, clear in its relief. “Man, wasn’t I lucky to find it!” He laughed.

  Alick said something they didn’t quite catch. But the voices were approaching, and Harry’s expression showed apprehension. The two men came to a standstill, secure in the shelter of the plantation, less than a dozen yards away.

  Angus was full of the merriment of relief…“the cover was on the rifle, so I laid it against the peat bank behind us and said to him quite distinctly, ‘I’ll leave the rifle here.’ There just is no doubt he knew it was there.… But what’s the good of talking? He’s that damned thrawn and cocksure. If I had lost the rifle, it was the boot without the option!” He laughed and presently was asking Alick how on earth he had found Mr. Smith.

  “I began thinking the thing out. When you lost him, I suppose you whistled?”

  “Yes,” said Angus.

  “After you whistled, you listened. And when you heard nothing, you went on again.”

  “Yes.”

  “Supposing he heard your whistle—well, he couldn’t whistle back. He doesn’t know how to put his fingers in his mouth and whistle. All he could do was shout. And in his rage, he would have shouted so hard the first once or twice that he would have hurt his throat without making much in the way of a carrying sound. After that—it would have been little more than a croak—that fifty yards of mist would have smothered.”

  “I—see. But——”

  “You would have been a peewit, crying in the mist, leading him on—until even your whistle faded out, wi
th no direction in it, or the wrong direction. Leading him on, almost certainly to his death.”

  “You mean I should have stood?”

  “Yes. Whistling from the one spot—until time made you certain he was not hearing. And if you had done that at once——”

  “What a fool I was! Lord alive, what a fool! Of course! I see it now!”…

  They could hear Angus’s feet trampling the pine needles.

  “To give him his due, you gave him little chance,” said Alick.

  “I know.” Angus groaned and laughed and swore at himself. “Go on! For heaven’s sake, go on and let me forget it!”

  “So I saw him setting out after your whistle—the whistle that always went away from him. Would he be angry? Would he follow on blindly, cursing you? But—your whistle would have given him a certain direction. That was something. I tried to see the thing happening. I followed him in my mind.… Our forest is simple enough in its lay-out. You started off from here and came so—and so—until you left the burn that drops into the main glen there, then climbed up to the shoulder here…” Alick was obviously plotting the route. “Very good. He starts off after your whistle. He at last gets a grip of this burn. He is certain that it is going to take him into one of the home glens. He follows it—until he comes here. Then he falls over.”