Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (47 page)

We go down to tea, arm in arm.

At tea Mrs. Loudon is as gay as a girl; she teases Mrs. Falconer, and crosses swords with Guthrie and me. But I notice that sometimes she looks at Guthrie when his attention is directed elsewhere, and there is a radiance in her face that is wonderful to see. She loves him so dearly. Her dry manner covers a very tender heart.

Guthrie has come back to her, and it is almost as if he had come back to her from the grave.

Dinner is over. We are all comfortably settled in the drawing room, and Guthrie and I have started our usual game of chess. Guthrie is an extremely careful player, and ponders long over every move; he considers me rash to the verge of insanity, but has only managed to beat me once, so far. I will admit to the sacred page of my journal – though never to Guthrie that my dashing moves are more often matters of pure luck than well-thought-out manoeuvres.

‘There's a car coming up the drive,' says Mrs. Loudon suddenly.

‘Can it be Tim?' I cry. It would be just like Tim to arrive before he was expected. Nothing pleases him more than to surprise people like that.

But our visitor is not Tim, it is Tony Morley. He comes in, smiling cheerfully, and is warmly welcomed by Mrs. Loudon. I notice that Mrs. Falconer and Guthrie greet him with perceptibly less warmth he is no favourite with either of them.

‘I wondered if any of you would like to come up to the fair,' says Tony. ‘It's such a lovely mild night. There's a fair over at Inverquill – quite a good fair, with roundabouts and things. I could run you over in the car.'

‘What an extraordinary idea!' remarks Guthrie (moving his queen without having considered the matter with his usual care).

Tony is in no way dashed. ‘I thought Hester might like to see a real Highland fair,' he says persuasively.

‘So I should,' I reply (taking Guthrie's queen with my last remaining knight, who has been lying in wait for her for some time). ‘I should simply love to see a real Highland fair.'

‘There's no real Highland about it,' Guthrie says, pushing the board away crossly. ‘All fairs are exactly the same wherever they are sordid shows with a crowd of dirty people shoving their elbows into your ribs– '

‘Well, there's no need for you to go,' says Mrs. Loudon. ‘Hester can go with Major Morley. I'd go myself if I were ten years younger, but it's not for an old woman like me to go gallivanting off to fairs at this time of night.'

‘Oh, if Hester wants to go, I'll go too,' says Guthrie quickly. ‘I don't suppose she'll enjoy it when she gets there–'

I rush upstairs to change into warm clothes – tweeds will probably be best, and my thick grey coat with the fur collar, and a red tammy. I reflect, as I hastily powder my nose, that the evening will not be without its difficulties. Guthrie will take every opportunity of being rude to Tony (he is already in an unpleasant frame of mind) and Tony will retaliate by making a fool of Guthrie, which seems to give him untold pleasure. Why can't they be friendly and pleasant, as they were that dreadful morning when Betty was lost? How difficult life is! Difficult enough without people going out of their way to make things awkward for themselves and all around them.

For a moment I wish that I had refused to go, and then I look out of the window, and the night calls me. The sun is setting now, and, above the hills, the sky is aflame. It will soon be dark – and darkness is ideal for a fair. The lights flare so gaily in the darkness and throw dancing shadows on the jostling throngs. It will be fun. My spirits rise with a bound, and I feel ready to cope with anything.

Betty calls to me from her room, next door. ‘I can't sleep, Mummie,' she says. ‘The sun's so glowing bright. It's making my room all red.' There is a patter of bare feet, and Betty stands beside me. ‘You'll get cold,' I point out, but only half-heartedly, for it seems impossible that anybody could get cold tonight. ‘No I won't,' says Betty. ‘You can't get cold when it's quite warm.' She kneels up on the window seat, and the setting sun turns her yellow curls to gold. ‘Mummie,' she says thoughtfully. ‘Where is the sun's nest? I think it's just behind Ben Seoch, don't you? I think it's going there now, very slowly, because it's tired. I'd like to peep over Ben Seoch and see the sun settling down all warm and cosy in its nest–'

I pick up my daughter and carry her back to bed. ‘You settle down warm and cosy in
your
nest,' I tell her, as I tuck her in. ‘I'll tell you about the sun tomorrow.'

‘Darling Mummie,' she says sleepily. ‘Daddy's coming soon. How lovely that will be '

My two cavaliers are waiting for me in the hall. They are a handsome enough pair to look at, for both are tall, and Guthrie is broad in proportion, but handsome is as handsome does, and it remains to be seen how they will behave themselves this evening. We climb into the Bentley and are off like the wind; it is a lovely sensation flying through the gloaming. All the light seems to have drained out of the woods, leaving them black as pitch; but, on the road, and over the open moor, there is still a ghostly sort of radiance, and the sky is not yet dark, but darkening fast. The Bentley makes short work of the twenty miles or so which stretch before us to Inverquill, and soon we hear the distant sound of the organ in the roundabout, and see the lights from the booths flaring in the twilight.

First we visit the shooting gallery (in spite of Guthrie's repeated assurances that the coconut shies are infinitely more amusing). It is situated in a wooden shed, full of flaring light and a strange smell of humanity.

‘Three shots a penny,' yells a small man in an ancient khaki jacket which, I feel sure, saw its best days during the war. ‘Three shots a penny; only a penny for three shots, and win a brooch for your young lady, if you get 'em all bulls – come along, gentlemen, three shots a penny and win a brooch –make way there for the gentleman – '

A burly farmer hands his rifle to Tony with a wink. ‘If you would be aiming high left every time you might be getting a bull,' he says confidentially. ‘For my part I'm better with a gun than one of these toys.'

Tony thanks him and takes careful aim. At first his shots go rather wide, but after several pennies' worth, he settles down to it and gets three bulls without apparent difficulty. The khaki man congratulates him warmly upon his achievement, and invites him to take his pick of the brooches on the tray.

‘I hope they are real,' Tony says gravely. This is considered a splendid joke by the khaki man and indeed by all who hear it.

‘Oh, they're real enough,' he says, winking slyly. ‘This is Bond Street, this is. You won't find no sham julry on
my
tray.'

Tony chooses one with two gold hearts transfixed by an arrow, and hands it to me with great solemnity.

By this time Guthrie has had enough of it he has been shooting farther down the gallery he returns to us, and says it is just as he thought, the rifles are all doctored, and the whole thing is an absolute fraud. I conclude that he has not been so successful as Tony in his shooting. He eyes my brooch which I have pinned on to my coat with scorn and disgust (it might be a black beetle from the way he looks at it), and suggests that we should have a go at the coconut shies.

I feel that it is Guthrie's turn for a little consideration now, so we make our way in that direction. Here Guthrie displays tremendous prowess, and sends coconuts flying in all directions, much to the disgust of the coconut man and to the delight of all the onlookers. Tony and I are completely out-classed at this sport, but we share in his reflected glory, and back him up loyally in his argument with the owner of the stall, who tries to do him out of his hardly earned spoils. We leave the place in triumph, Guthrie carrying four large coconuts which are a perfect nuisance to him for the rest of the evening.

So far we have seen nothing the least different from any other fair. In fact most of the people in the booths have undoubtedly come from south of the Tweed. Guthrie points this out to Tony in a somewhat sarcastic tone of voice. Tony replies that we are only just starting, and the night is yet young. He seizes hold of a hurrying man, and asks what that crowd is ‘over there'.

‘If you're quick you'll see Jock Sprott,' replies the man. ‘He's at it now.'

‘And what is he at?' asks Tony in dulcet tones.

The man glares at him indignantly. ‘Have ye never seen Jock Sprott throwing the hammer?' he enquires, and is gone before his rhetorical question can be answered.

‘Come on, we
must
see Jock Sprott,' Tony says, dragging us along at a tremendous pace. ‘Here's your chance to see something really Highland at last.'

I demand breathlessly who he is, and why he throws hammers about.

‘Oh, he's a Scotch relation of the man who could eat no fat,' replies Tony glibly, ‘and he throws hammers about for a living it's quite different from throwing them into the corner because they have hit you on the thumb when you were trying to knock in a nail.'

We push through the crowd and arrive just in time to see the contest. A huge hammer is lying on the ground it is the sort of hammer that a giant in a fairy tale might be proud to own. It is such an enormous hammer that to me it does not look like a hammer at all.

Jock Sprott now appears from a small tent – Tony whispers that he has been in there, eating beefsteaks to make him strong, but I don't believe all Tony says. He is a huge Highlander in a kilt. He strides up to the hammer, spits on his hands, and takes the shaft in a firm grip – a whisper like the sound of rustling trees goes through the crowd. The moment has come; he lifts the hammer (his muscles bulging beneath his cotton shirt) and twirls round and round, and at every twirl the hammer rises higher and higher in the air. At last, when it is level with his outstretched arms, he lets go of it and away it goes down the field . . .

The throw is evidently a good one, for the crowd applauds loudly, and two solemn-faced umpires appear with tape measures, and discuss its merits. Jock seems to have a number of staunch backers in the crowd, and these push forward and question the umpires' decision, and make themselves disagreeable in various ways.

We watch several other broad and hefty men trying their skill and strength with the hammer, but they have not the same air of confidence as Jock, and have therefore fewer admirers and nobody to tackle the umpires on their behalf. Jock Sprott is proclaimed the victor amidst loud applause.

Guthrie says this is poor sport compared with tossing the caber, but, of course, we shan't see them tossing the caber at a rotten little fair like
this
.

We are pushing our way out of the crowd when suddenly we are confronted by a tall man in Highland dress it is MacArbin. My first instinct is flight, and I believe that Tony feels the same almost overpowering impulse; but Guthrie who, of course, has no reason to avoid him presses forward and shakes him by the hand, and we are involved in talk with the unhappy man. I am quite shocked at the difference in him, which, I suppose, is due to distress over his sister's elopement. He seems years older, and his glossy self-confidence has completely gone.

‘Have you heard from your sister, sir?' asks Guthrie, rushing in where angels might fear to tread.

‘I have no sister,' he replies not dramatically, but just as if he were stating a sad fact. ‘No sister,' he repeats, and, bowing to us with something of his old-time grace, he passes from us and is lost in the crowd.

‘Good Lord!' Guthrie says. ‘I seem to have put my foot in it with the old chap. Who would have thought he would have taken Deirdre's marriage so much to heart? Hector's one of the best fellows going I suppose he's still chewing away at his silly old feud.'

Tony and I say nothing – perhaps he is as shocked as I am at the change in the proud Highlander – at any rate he lets Guthrie's tactlessness pass without comment, which shows that he is not feeling quite his usual self.

The roundabout is encompassed by a crowd of gaping children, the horses prance gaily in their red and gold trappings, and the organ blares forth a potpourri of popular tunes. All around is the darkness of the night and the silent hills, but here there is light and gaiety and noise.

‘In eleven more months and ten more days I'll be out of the calaboose,' shouts Tony, elbowing his way through the crowd. He has suddenly gone quite crazy, and his mood is infectious. I feel on for anything that's going, and squeeze after him through the lane he has made. We have lost Guthrie by this time, but perhaps it is just as well – I have already decided that it is a frightful mistake to come to a fair with two swains in attendance.

We mount two fiery-looking steeds and prance round and round – I have no idea how many turns we have. The flaring lights, the rhythm of the organ, and the hot happy faces of the riders melt into a sort of blur. Just in front of us is a fat woman who screams delightedly and waves to various friends in the crowd of watchers. Behind us a farm boy and his sweetheart hold hands and smile at each other in excited bliss. Tony's eyes are shining with a strange light, he has lost his hat, and his fair hair is standing on end. I can't believe that this is really the reserved and cynical Tony Morley. Surely there is some madness abroad in the June night that has got into his blood!