But Max took her advice, and went with her to St John’s. He repented deeply of his misdemeanours with the pretty little maid in the broom cupboard, and became for some years a pattern for youth; and then, for many years, an example of probity which some of his contemporaries in Edinburgh deeply resented. For his probity was accompanied by a conspicuous success in his profession.
And I owe it all to her, he thought, wiping away a tear as he sat on his high stool in a corner of the bridge. I did as she told me I went to church and took Communion — not too often, but enough for propriety — and now the £60,000 that my father left isn’t far short of a quarter of a million — or wouldn’t be, if those damned Americans could keep their feet on the ground and not let hysteria play mischief with the stock-market. A quarter of a million — and I owe it to her …
At Cambridge he had won his Rugby Blue, and later he had played for Scotland. When he returned to Edinburgh he had given generously of his time to youth clubs, and for ten years had served as an officer in the Boys’ Brigade. He had worked hard, married wisely, and shown a seemly devotion to his own welfare as well as to others’. For a quarter of a century he had lived beyond reproach, and prospered. All due to his mother, to her insistence and her advice.
And what a narrow-minded, self-centered, domestic tyrant she had been, he thought! With what unrelenting egotism she had gone her own way, and compelled others to follow her sanctified example!
Through the broad windows of the bridge he could see the sands and low shore about Gullane and Aberlady — beyond them North Berwick Law and the Bass Rock — and far away, in a sudden gleam of light, the cloudy heights of the Lammermuirs. Beneath him the sea was now more profoundly rolling. The squat and sturdy tug-boat rose and pitched, lay over on her side and lifted again, and Max found the movement exhilarating. The grey scene woke in him a hunger for more and yet more of the world’s richness. Over the Lammermuirs the sun was hidden, but a ragged cloud divided its radiance into shafts of light, and with the change of mood that was common to him, the sentimental memory of his mother gave way to a harder and more realistic view of her intransigence and stubborn temper. He thought more kindly of his father: that mild and gentle man who would never have made £60,000 had he not been driven to it by the fierce persuasion of his wife.
And though I, thought Max, but for her would never have made my quarter of a million — less what the Americans are throwing away — I might have had more time for love in a cupboard and the girls in Leith Row. What did I lose — and what have I got that’s worth more?
The sea, now turbulent, and the land, an alluring haze with sun-dogs dancing on its farthest hills, seemed in his present mood — his mood of revulsion against both sentiment and the sourness of success — to be nature inviting him to live as broadly as the view. But for a quarter of a century he had lived with propriety, with a narrow subservience to convention — and a handsome profit for conformity. But oh, how much had he lost?
Since turning fifty he had increasingly repented of his wasted years — as now they seemed — and done a good deal to wipe out their reproach. He spent less time at his office, and more on pleasure. At home, his voice became assertive, his insistence on comfort explicit. He discovered a taste for wine, and for the last ten years had kept a good cellar; though for most of his life a few bottles in a cupboard — whisky for visitors, champagne for birthdays — had served his simple needs. He found that hearty drinking suited him: his temper grew more expansive, his behaviour a little eccentric. His attendance at church became infrequent, but he travelled more widely and formed the habit of taking holidays abroad. He was especially fond of Copenhagen, a city with which his shipping-firm did business, and he remembered with perfect clarity the very moment in which Denmark had first engaged his heart.
It was ten years ago now. He had celebrated his fiftieth birthday there, on a business trip, and in the gaiety of Tivoli — his Danish hosts were generous — he admitted the inclinations he had long suppressed, and decided to give them a run before it was too late. A day or two later he was sitting outside a small restaurant a few miles south of Helsingör, watching a full-rigged ship come over the Sound from the opposite shore of Sweden. It was a day of warm and brilliant weather, and the ship, with the wind behind her, showed as a tall, diminishing white tower of billowing canvas rising from a bleached bone of surf on the crumpled gentian sea. She came nearer, grew larger, and as she turned to the north her sheets were hauled, the yards swung round, and all her three masts were visible, clothed to their topmost spars with a pattern of tautly filled and palely shining sails.
It was a picture of rare and moving beauty — and then, for Max’s private view, a figure of smaller, commoner grace came into the foreground. Her coming was heralded by the staccato tap of her high-heeled shoes, and announced by a cry of anger. She had been leading a clipped white poodle, but opposite the restaurant the dog broke loose and ran towards Max’s table. She followed, then halted with a pretty show of embarrassment. She wore only a white bathing-suit — and her high-heeled shoes — and her arms and her long legs were darkly sun-burnt. The sun had bleached her hair, and sun-glasses hid her eyes. Slender and briefly clad in white, she stood against the background of the white and leaning ship, and when Max had caught the poodle she thanked him — in English. Her voice was a little hoarse, her accent a little guttural; but she had a ready command of the language. Presently she sat down to drink a glass of beer. For the day was uncommonly warm …
The tug-boat rolled heavily, and recovered so quickly that Max, on his high stool, had to reach forward and grasp an oaken rail to keep his balance. They were, by now, north-west of the Bass Rock, and beyond shelter of the land. The movement of the sea was considerable, and the wind cried angrily above the waves. Perhaps, he thought, they had gone far enough — and as remembrance came back of his task and responsibility, of his duty to poor Jessie and the ashes of her late husband, he remembered also the matter of her rich legacy. And what had happened to it? Where was it? Twice he had telephoned to Hector Macrae, to ask if he had completed his enquiries and established the authenticity of the pages in manuscript, and what Hector had said in reply was far from satisfactory. He had said that Max must be patient for a few days. Scientific tests were necessary — chemical analysis of the paper and ink — and when Max asked him who was doing the analysis, and where, he had answered, with nervous resentment, that he was employing an old friend, who could be trusted. He had refused to give his name, or the address of his laboratory, and while Max was still talking, he had rung off.
It was worrying. No, not truly worrying — for he had entire trust in Hector — but a pin-prick on the edge of worry. Hector should have been more explicit. He should have explained frankly what he had been doing …
The captain came towards him, and said, ‘I think we’ve gone far enough, Mr Arbuthnot. You told me to go out beyond the Isle of May, but the weather won’t get any better, and some of our passengers are not looking very well.’
Indeed, the tug was now lurching steeply, and Max, as he stood up, had again to grasp the oaken rail. He looked to the south and east, and saw grey seas rearing to ragged crests. It was nothing like gale weather — the wind was no more than fresh — but the sea was turbulent, and away to the north-east the Isle of May was hidden by a plume of white feathers as the waves broke over it. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll have the service here. Can you get the parson out? And tell someone to warn the others?’
‘In just a moment,’ said the captain, and telling the man at the wheel to turn her head to the wind, rang the engine-room telegraph for half-speed, then less than that, and quickly had his ship pointing to the south-east and almost stationary in the wild flux of the sea: stationary, that is, except for a violent and irregular vertical motion.
She was a large, ocean-going tug, originally chartered by Max’s firm to bring home a ship that had gone ashore in the Oslo Fjord, and held for a week more, with another of the same sort, to tow a
floating-dock from Grangemouth to the Clyde. She had a small well-deck between the bridge and the fo’c’sle-head, and it was there that the service was to be held. The captain, in his wisdom, had had life-lines made fast across it, and when the mourners emerged from shelter — half of them the colour of wet dish-cloths or winter-shrivelled cabbage leaves — many clung to the ropes with convulsive effort and a pathetic gratitude. Of the original twenty-two who had gathered for luncheon in Max’s house on Corstorphine Hill, no fewer than seventeen came on deck; and none who had seen their condition could blame the remainder for staying below.
The mourners, however, even the sturdiest, presented a less dignified appearance than they had worn ashore. Most of the men had been so thoughtful as to bring tweed caps, as well as their top hats, and now, with their caps pulled fiercely down, they looked coarsely proletarian or aggressively sporting; while the women, hooded closely in scarves or mufflers, were like weather-beaten, dissipated gipsies.
Jessie, supported by Max and the captain, retained her dignity with no apparent effort; but the Rev. Mr Myrtle, whom the mate and the engineer held upright, was white as bog-cotton and limp as grass. He was a young man of resolute temper, however, and with a truly heroical contempt for physical weakness he began to recite in a loud voice the psalm Domine, refugium. He had got as far as the verse, ‘In the morning it is green, and groweth up; but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered’ — when he was aware of an interruption.
Annie, whose attention had been wandering, had just seen a great wave break in wild white plumage over the distant Isle of May. She stood on the port side of the well-deck, in the shelter of the fo’c’sle-head, and nearby were Tom Murdoch and Hugh Burnett, the banker and the doctor from Peebles. — Another wave broke, and rose in a prodigious high fountain above the drenched island.
‘Oh, look!’ she cried. ‘What’s that? What is it called?’
‘The Isle of May,’ she was told.
‘The Isle of May? I never heard of it! Has it always been there?’
‘Always.’
‘And I never knew! Well, isn’t that funny. What a lot you learn by going to sea.’
Mr Myrtle’s attention wandered, his resolution faltered, and Domine, refugium came untimely to an end. A fan of spray opened above the blunt bow of the tug, and closing as it fell, revived Mr Myrtle’s failing spirit with a cold salt douche. Bravely he began to read, and now in a stronger voice, ‘There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory.’
Against the clamour of the wind the Corinthian mystery was very nobly stated; but again Mr Myrtle felt his strength ebbing, and when he declared ‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery,’ it was impossible to doubt either the truth of what he said or his own conviction of it.
The captain gave an order that brought the bow of the ship from south-east to east, and Jessie, cautiously holding the urn and carefully guided by Max, took a hesitant step towards the port side, which was now the lee side. The men took off their caps, and the wind made their hair look like ludicrous wigs.
‘We therefore,’ said Mr Myrtle, ‘commit his ashes to the deep’ — and at that moment Jessie, very foolishly, took the lid off the urn to pour the remnants of old Charlie over the side. But the wind got at them first.
The wind still blew from the south-east, but about the tug there were innumerable draughts and eddies, there were counter-winds and wilful airs, and one such vagrant breeze or opposing gust scooped out the ashes, blew them about like a lunatic storm of hail, and then, in a momentary calm, let them settle, for the most part, on the wet heads and shoulders of the dispirited mourners.
Jessie herself was unaware of the mishap — her eyes were closed, her thoughts far off — and neither Max nor Mr Myrtle, by word or movement, let her know that anything had gone wrong.
‘Lord, have mercy upon us,’ said Mr Myrtle, and it was with exceptional fervency that several of the mourners made the response, ‘Christ, have mercy upon us.’
The service came to an end, and quickly Max took his sister back to the captain’s cabin. Then he went on deck again, and in a very bad temper began to pick fragments of old Charlie from his wet coat.
On the well-deck the other mourners were all similarly engaged. They helped each other — ‘Do my back and I’ll do yours’ — and gradually the morsels of incinerated bone were gathered together and carefully thrown overboard. Old Charlie, or the greater part of him, was eventually given the burial he had desired, but his ashes were scattered over an uncommonly wide area; for now the tug-boat was heading for home again, and making good speed.
Though deeply regretted by all there, the unfortunate conclusion of what should have been a dignified ceremony had a happy effect on those who had suffered most from the roughness of the sea: they were given something to talk about, something so unusual in its impact that it made them forget their physical unhappiness, and this, together with the comforting knowledge that they were homeward bound, let them recover their customary poise and normal spirits. The tug rolled boisterously, sending out great hissing surges from its lee side, but their voices grew louder and more confident, and long before they reached Leith they were walking the deck with the assurance of old salts, and talking of other days when all but they, and a few of the ship’s officers, had succumbed to the anger of the Channel, or the Pentland Firth, or the Bay of Biscay. Even the worst of the invalids, the poor quintet that had failed to attend the service, were revived by hearing of what had happened, and now ventured on deck to look hopefully for any scraps that might yet remain as visible evidence of the fiasco. They were encouraged in their search by Annie, who assured them that she, for one, had not been at all surprised by what had happened.
‘It was just what I expected,’ she said. ‘Poor Charlie, he was always so clumsy.’
All but the Arbuthnots were in good spirits when they went ashore in Leith, and physically in better shape than anyone could have anticipated who had seen them an hour or two before. But none of the Arbuthnots was happy. Mrs Arbuthnot was indignant about what she saw as an insult to poor Jessie, and though she was in doubt about whom to blame for it, she felt — obscurely, but with the acquired instinct of a woman who had been married for more than thirty years — that her husband must be culpable; while Max and Jane were both deeply upset by an affront to their dignity.
Jane showed her displeasure by snubbing Hugh Burnett when he asked her to have a drink with him, later that evening, at the Gargoyle; and Max refused to talk to his sister Jessie when she said, as they went down the gangway and walked towards the waiting motor-cars, ‘And now that poor Charlie is buried as he wished to be — and how well you have managed everything! I am deeply grateful to you, Max. You have arranged everything in the most dignified way. — But now we must talk about the book. That book, you know, which may be worth so much
‘I have no time to talk about it now,’ said Max. ‘I have spent the better part of a day looking after your affairs, and what’s left of it I’m going to devote to my own. I’m sorry, but I’m not a man of leisure, like Charlie. I have to work for my living. And work damned hard! But I’ll see you later — perhaps. Anyway, there’s nothing to worry about. You’ve buried Charlie, so now go home and have a good rest.’
Mrs Arbuthnot took charge of Jessie, and Max, having curtly said good-bye to the mourners, got into his car and was driven by Thomson to his office in Hill Street. He had, in fact, no excuse for leaving the party so abruptly except his disgust with what had happened, and his unwillingness to stay longer with the people who had witnessed it. The whole voyage, the orderly embarkation and the concluding ceremony, ought to have been distinguished by flawless solemnity — heaven knows it had cost him plenty to take an ocean-going tug to sea! — but instead of that there had been farcical calamity and a grotesque mishandling of what should have been the impressive climax. Jessie was an old
fool, of course — she always had been — but he blamed Charlie even more than her. Charlie had never known how to live, and even the scorched remnant of his bones had been so maladroit as to refuse a decent burial. At this very moment, he thought, Tom and Mona Murdoch, and Hugh Burnett, would be laughing loudly, laughing coarsely, over the tale they would tell, with ornament and addition, to a dozen dinner-tables within the next month. The whole thing had been a mistake, and he should never have listened to Jessie and her nonsense.
Thomson drove slowly past the National Portrait Gallery, turned into St David Street — David Hume the atheist, he thought. He was the St David it commemorated — and from there into Thistle Street and Hill Street. Max had no reason for returning to his office so late in the afternoon — it was after five — but he was thankful for the shelter it offered from a memory of humiliation.
It was not an impressive building that he entered. There was no dignity in its appearance, nothing of distinction in the neighbouring architecture — it was, indeed, a rather mean-looking street, a utilitarian, servile thoroughfare — but within its secret walls he and his fellow-lawyers managed great estates, handled or mis-handled large fortunes, and made for themselves a very comfortable living as they shook the tremulous branches of the Stock Exchange with their buying and selling.
His clerk met him as he went in, and said, ‘There’s a lady waiting for you, Mr Arbuthnot. She’s been here for half an hour or more. I told her I didn’t know if you’d be coming back, but she said she would take the chance of seeing you, for it’s urgent, she says … ’
‘Who is she?’
‘Mrs Moberley.’
‘God Almighty, what does she want? I told her not to come here … ’
‘I asked if she had an appointment… ‘
‘Well, she hadn’t. And another time, if she comes again … ’
‘Shall I tell, her you’re engaged?’
‘Oh, never mind, never mind. I’ll deal with her. — All right, Hoyle, I’ll let you know if there’s anything I want.’
The Merry Muse Page 12
