Spring Magic

by D. E. Stevenson

  Mr. MacDonald began to rummage in the drawers of his desk. “The notes are all here,” he said. “They’re in an awful mess. I’m afraid I’ve gone the wrong way about it from the very beginning. I should have dated the notes as I went along and kept them in proper order. They make me feel quite ill,” he added ruefully.

  Frances had no experience of dealing with this sort of thing, but she had come to help him with the notes, and she intended to do the thing properly. It was no use to sit and look at the untidy pile of papers . . . she began to sort them out into heaps and to clip them together in chronological order. The first set of notes related to a man named Sumarlid, or in other words “The Summer Soldier.”

  “He was the progenitor of our clan,” explained Mr. MacDonald. “He lived about the year 1130. Then we come to Donald and Ewin and Ruari, his sons. Donald’s son, Angus, was the first MacDonald—so called because he was the son of Donald—he lived in 1284. Ewin was the progenitor of the MacDugals, and Ruari of the MacRuarys. There’s a good deal about Angus MacDonald; he was small and dark, amiable and cheerful and witty—quite a nice sort of ancestor to have.”

  Frances was listening to Mr. MacDonald and trying to work at the same time. It would have been so much easier if Mr. MacDonald had not been such a talker, if he had stuck to the business in hand instead of trying to talk and work at the same time. It would take years to sort out the papers at this rate.

  “Yes,” she said. “He must have been nice. Here’s something about Angus Oig—is that the same man?”

  “He was the son of Angus. He helped Robert the Bruce, and was afterwards given the MacDugal Estates-—the islands of Mull, Jura, Coll and Tiree—which had belonged to the Lords of Lorn. Then his son, John, was dispossessed, but repossessed by David I.”

  “It says here that John was Lord of the Isles,” said Frances, struggling to follow the story.

  Mr. MacDonald nodded. “John became Lord of the Isles by marrying a sister of Reginald MacRuary. . . . He was the fifth generation from Sumarlid, and he had managed in different ways to collect all Sumarlid’s estates. He had got the MacDugal Estates from the Bruce and the MacRuary Estates through his marriage. He also managed to collect Ross. The Lord of the Isles was a very important man.”

  “He was a king, really, wasn’t he?”

  “He was proud and powerful,” agreed Mr. MacDonald, “and, of course, like all proud and powerful men, he was envied and hated. His son succeeded him—there were four Lords of the Isles—and then in 1493 they lost everything. I’ve got some notes about that—yes—here they are. In 1493 the Lord of the Isles was accused of treachery; he was attainted and died in poverty. His son, Ian, came back to Kintyre and settled there, and it is from him that our family is descended. . . .”

  They worked away for a little, sorting out the notes which related to the people mentioned. Frances clipped them together and numbered the pages.

  When they had been working for some time, Mr. MacDonald looked up at her and smiled. “Order out of chaos,” he said. “You have a neat mind, Miss Field. I couldn’t see how I was going to start clearing up the muddle, but the muddle is clearing rapidly.”

  “Are you going to publish it?” Frances asked.

  “Who would want to read it? No, I was just writing it all out for my own satisfaction, and for the sake of the family. I felt it should be done, and nobody else was interested enough to tackle it. The first part is a little dull, because I couldn’t find out enough of the small details to make it interesting. . . . Now we are getting to the really interesting part.”

  “We’ll call it Part II, shall we?”

  He nodded. “That is an excellent idea. Part II will be the feuds between the clans—the internecine warfare. It lasted for several hundred years. I have bundles of notes about the raids and battles that took place on this very spot between the MacDonalds and the Campbells . . . the two clans were hereditary enemies—”

  “Why were they?” Frances inquired.

  The question was sufficient to start Mr. MacDonald off on his favourite subject; his eyes gleamed, he pushed the papers to one side—some of them fell on the floor—-and proceeded to give Frances a long and detailed account of the two clans, of their rise to power, and of the factors which had made them enemies. Naturally he was prejudiced in favour of his own clan, so his account may not have been strictly impartial. He talked and talked—it was obvious that he preferred talking to writing; perhaps it was because he could find nobody to listen to him that he had started his history. Frances made one or two attempts to stem the tide and to get back to business, but they were somewhat feeble attempts, because she was aware, before she made them, that they had little chance of success. She was forced to abandon the papers and to give all her attention to the speaker. She learned that both clans had prospered by their allegiance to Robert the Bruce, but the Campbells continued to prosper and increase with tremendous rapidity. They increased in numbers more rapidly than the MacDonalds, and became more powerful and required more land. Scotland was torn by factions, and the Campbells were always on the winning side—they had a habit of taking fortune at the flood. After Flodden the internecine warfare was intensified, and the Campbells spread southward into Kintyre and gradually ousted the MacDonalds from their territory. Frances heard of the last struggle of the MacDonalds for their patrimony in 1614, and she heard of the Battle of Dunaverty. It was a sad story. The whole struggle from the very beginning seemed unnecessary and unreasonable—or so Frances thought. A little understanding, a little give and take between the clans, would have saved so much misery and bloodshed. She thought, as she listened, that all history was like that; it was all a muddle and a struggle. Men had always fought for power and for land; they were still engaged on the same miserable business. Would it ever end, or would men continue to fight and kill each other for ever and ever? Would the human race ever learn to live and let live in peace and friendship?

  The booming of the gong for lunch stopped Mr. MacDonald in the middle of a sentence—he gave an exclamation of annoyance and looked at his watch. “I had no idea it was lunch-time,” he said. “I’m afraid I have talked too much, but I wanted to give you an idea—an outline of the story.”

  “It’s been most interesting,” Frances said. She spoke sincerely, for it had been very interesting indeed.

  Mr. MacDonald rose and showed Frances into a bedroom where she could tidy herself. There were silver brushes on the table and clean towels hanging on a rail beside the fixed basin.

  “Don’t hurry,” he said. “My cousin always has the gong rung ten minutes before lunch is ready. It is the only way to prevent me from being ten minutes late.”

  He left her and went away, and Frances tidied her hair and washed her hands. She was drying her hands on the towel when the door opened and Miss Stalker appeared.

  Miss Stalker stood and looked at Frances without speaking (without making any reply to her guest’s conventional greeting), and Frances felt a sudden twinge of dislike for the woman, of something that was almost akin to fear.

  “We’ve done quite a lot this morning,” Frances said, trying to speak cheerfully.

  “Are you coming back?” asked Miss Stalker.

  It was a strange question, and Frances did not know how to answer it. The docketing of the notes was not finished, it was only half done, but somehow or other she was not particularly anxious to come back. She had a feeling that it was a waste of time trying to help Mr. MacDonald; he had lost interest in his history. She had a feeling that even if the notes were put in order the history would never be written. . . . “We haven’t finished the job,” said Frances at last.

  “What were you doing all the morning?” asked Miss Stalker, coming nearer to Frances and gazing into her face. “You weren’t working all the time. He was talking—I heard him when I passed the door. You can’t work and talk at the same time.”

  Frances had finished drying her hands; she turned and hung the towel on the rail. She discovered that she
was really frightened of Miss Stalker now—her hands were trembling as she hung up the towel—there was something horrible about the woman; it was a relief to turn her back on that nose and those aggressive eyebrows.

  “Why didn’t he ask me to help him?” continued Miss Stalker in the same somewhat breathless voice (it was as if she had been running upstairs). “I’ve been here for six years and he’s never asked me to help him with his notes.”

  “Perhaps he thought you were too busy.”

  Miss Stalker hesitated and then she nodded. “I’m very busy,” she said. “It takes a lot of time to run a house like this. . . . Lunch is ready, so we had better go down. It’s only rabbits, of course.”

  “I like rabbits,” said Frances.

  “Stewed rabbits,” said Miss Stalker. “We can’t get meat every day.”

  “No, of course not,” said Frances.

  They went downstairs together and, as they went, Miss Stalker continued to complain about the rationing and to bemoan the fact that her guest would have to eat rabbits for lunch, and Frances, who was somewhat trembly about the knees, continued to assure her that it didn’t matter.

  Mr. MacDonald was waiting for them in the hall, and they went in to lunch. He was in very good spirits, assuring Frances that she had been of the greatest assistance to him and that he was beginning to see daylight through the muddle of his notes. As they sat down he took up the story of the clans at the exact point where he had been interrupted, and continued to talk without ceasing while they ate their soup. Frances was glad of the monologue, for she was upset by her extraordinary interview with Miss Stalker, and would have found it difficult to take part in a conversation—as it was, she said “yes” and “no” at the proper places and did her best to eat the food which was offered to her.

  “I’m afraid you don’t like rabbits,” said Miss Stalker, interrupting Mr. MacDonald in an account of a particularly daring foray by the MacDonald clan. “I did my best to get veal, or mutton cutlets, but the butcher wouldn’t give me any meat. He said we had had our week’s ration already. He’s very annoying sometimes. I really think we ought to try another butcher.”

  “It isn’t his fault,” Mr. MacDonald said.

  Miss Stalker shook her head. “I don’t know about that,” she replied. “There seemed to be plenty of meat in the shop, so why couldn’t he stretch a point and let me have a few cutlets?”

  “It would have been against the law.”

  “We’ve always been very good customers—big bills every month.”

  “Every one must share alike,” replied Mr. MacDonald testily. “That’s why meat coupons have been introduced. I’ve explained the whole thing to you before—not once but several times.”

  Frances had recovered a little; she had recovered sufficiently to be amused at the by-play. Mr. MacDonald did not like being interrupted and brought to a standstill when he was astride his hobby-horse.

  “You might have caught a salmon,” said Miss Stalker, returning to the subject of lunch.

  “The river was too low,” replied Mr. MacDonald shortly.

  “You might have tried.”

  “The river was too low,” he repeated, accentuating every word. “No salmon in its senses would come up a river unless there was sufficient water—”

  “Perhaps Miss Field doesn’t like salmon either,” said Miss Stalker in sorrowful tones. “Quite a lot of people don’t like salmon—cutlets would have been best, because every one likes cutlets.”

  “The discussion seems very unprofitable,” declared Mr. MacDonald with a frown. “The fact remains that you couldn’t get cutlets and I couldn’t get salmon, so Miss Field is forced to eat rabbits. One imagines that she might enjoy her lunch better if she were allowed to eat it in peace.”

  “I hope she likes peaches,” said Miss Stalker, who seemed impervious to snubs. “They’re tinned, of course. If I could have got cream we might have had pêche melba . . . We always used to have cream.”

  *“I like rabbits and I like peaches,” began Frances; she had been trying to find an opening ever since the discussion began. “I like anything, really. I’m not at all particular about food.”

  “We used to have such nice food,” said Miss Stalker reminiscently. She was a person who liked to have the last word.

  Frances could not help wondering what Mr. MacDonald and his cousin talked about when they were alone—they were an ill-assorted couple and seemed to have nothing in common—perhaps they did not converse with each other at all, but just dwelt beneath the same roof and went their own ways. She wondered what Mrs. MacDonald had been like, and decided to ask Alec (he was her stand-by for any information about the people and the district). Had Mrs. MacDonald been interested in internecine warfare? Had she been interested enough in the subject not to be bored at having it served to her at every meal? Frances had been very interested in it—and still was—but she had begun to think that one could have too much history . . . she was approaching the moment when she would have had too much Mr. MacDonald. She realised this quite clearly.

  “When will you come back?” asked Mr. MacDonald as he saw her off at the door. “What morning would suit you best—or would you rather come in the afternoon?”

  “I’ll let you know—may I?” Frances replied. “Perhaps one day next week. You aren’t in any hurry, are you?”

  “No,” he said. “No, of course not,” but his face fell and Frances felt a brute.

  “You could go on with it yourself now,” she pointed out. “We finished the first part, didn’t we?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it has been very good of you to help. . . . I had hoped . . . but of course you have other things to do.”

  Frances shook hands with him and came away. She saw, now, that Guy had been right and that she ought not to have gone at all.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Guy had said that Ned Crabbe was one of the best fellows you could meet in a day’s march, and now that Frances saw him more frequently she realised that it was true. He did not talk much but what he said was always worth listening to. There was something staunch and dependable about him, he was absolutely sincere. Frances began to see why Elise was so devoted to her husband—it had always been easy to see why he was devoted to Elise. One evening when Major Crabbe came over he found Frances and Elise listening to the nine-o’clock news. He signalled to them not to speak and sat down beside Elise on the sofa. The news was bad. Our forces were being evacuated from the Greek ports, they were being bombed from the air and there were not enough British planes to protect the transports. There was trouble brewing in Iraq. The Germans were saying that we intended to invade Spain. Tobruk’s outer defences had been penetrated by an enemy force of tanks and infantry.

  Everything seemed to be going wrong at once, and when the news was over Frances looked at Major Crabbe and asked him what he thought about it.

  “We’re going through a bad patch,” he said. “It was unfortunate that we couldn’t send more help to Greece—very unfortunate—but we must hang on to Egypt. We daren’t risk losing Egypt and the Suez Canal. It must have been damned hard for Wavell to decide how many troops he could spare.”

  “It seems terrible to have to leave them to their fate—the Greeks, I mean.”

  “It is terrible,” agreed Major Crabbe, “but we’ve got to beat the Bosche. When we’ve beaten him the Greeks will be all right and they know that. The Greek business is a bad show but it’s only a side-show, really. It may have lengthened the war, but it won’t make any difference in the end. Hitler knows that better than any one. The only way Hitler can win is by a direct attack upon the British Isles—or by preventing American help from reaching us. America has realised this and will take care that it doesn’t happen.”

  “Then you aren’t—you aren’t worrying?” Frances said.

  He smiled. “I left off worrying about the ultimate conclusion of the war when Roosevelt signed the Lease and Lend Bill,” replied Major Crabbe. “The actual help that’s coming
to us from America is tremendously important, but there’s something more important still. Roosevelt knows we’re going to win. . . . Look at it like this,” said Major Crabbe, leaning forward and speaking very earnestly. “Roosevelt is an onlooker. He sees the whole situation from afar—sees it in perspective. His policy is the result of the careful weighing up of all the factors in the case—that’s why I hang my hat on what Roosevelt thinks. Of course America has always hoped that we would win, but last year after the French collapse she was very much afraid that we were going to be beaten. Now she sees we can win and she’s going to help us up to the limit of her resources. She’s making us magnificent tools—I was talking to an R.A.F. fellow and he was tremendously enthusiastic about those ‘Havocs’ they’re sending over: ‘perfectly marvellous’ were the words he used—and if I know anything about the Americans, they’ll make sure we get those tools safely. What would be the sense of spending millions of dollars on munitions and letting them go to the bottom of the sea?”

  “Not much, really.”

  “Not much,” agreed Major Crabbe. “The Americans are too—too practical to do the thing by halves. If they’re going to do a thing at all, they’ll take care to do it thoroughly.”

  There was silence for a few moments and then Major Crabbe continued: “I came across rather an interesting idea the other day. It was a suggestion by an American—I can’t remember who it was—that America and ourselves should make a pact—the same sort of agreement we offered to the French. I’m no politician, so I’m a bit hazy about the details, but it seems to me that it would be a stupendous advantage to the two great democracies if they could link up with each other and pool their interests. They would be partners—not only for the war but for the peace—partners for all time. They would be partners in building up that new world we hear so much about.”