Second Sight (16 page)
Authors: Neil M. Gunn
“Hmf! I don't know what it is. In many ways he's a decent fellow. Not caring for your feelings and jealous and all thatâbut still, more decent than most of them. I've had army bullies and slave-drivers and bastards of one kind or another who treat you like dirt. Oh I don't know. That fellow will never like me now.”
“I wouldn't say that. When things are going his own way, he'll crow; and when he's sure that you see he's right and you're wrong, he's all right again. Then he laughs. It's a great joke!”
“He'll carry a joke too farâone day.”
There was silence for quite a time. Helen and Harry felt this silence coming out of Alick's quiet voice, like some moody conviction of fatality.
“Ah well, to hell,” said Angus, “it's all over. I was talking to Lachie from Screesval. They're going over to dinner there to-morrow night. So Lachie was saying what about the lads from Screesval and Corbreac and anywhere else meeting at the inn for an evening of it. What about it?”
“I'll see,” said Alick, in a moody tone.
“Oh, come on! Why not? Take your fiddle, too. Damn it, we need something now and then.⦔
But Alick did not answer and their footsteps and Angus's eager voice died away.
Harry and Helen glanced at each other.
“They have him taped,” said Harry.
“What an awful scene that must have been in the corrie!”
“Bit gruesome, what!” Harry's lips twisted. There was a strange light in his eyes as they roved between the treetrunks.
Helen's whole body gave a spasmodic shudder.
“When you think that Alick must have rememberedâhis own vision!” said Harry. “Talk of the possibilities of automatic, hypnotic action! The deadly hatred. And he saved his life!”
“You still believe in that vision?”
“Looks to me as if we're going to be forced to believe in it. It's an extraordinary thing that's taking place. It's something in Geoffrey's spiritâI don't know what it isâsomething that disintegrates. I saw its effect last season on Alick once. His may be the advanced sort of analytic mind that we're not ready for. He disintegratesâwithout integrating. But ordinary human natureâcannot stand much of it. Oh, that may be all rot, but I'll tell you a thing I was reading in that deer-forest book the other night. I had heard of it before. But the other night I saw something in it, saw it suddenly illuminatedâin a way the writer never thought of, I bet!”
“You know the old stuff about how the people were cleared out of their homes all over the Highlands, to make way for sheep that paid the landlords better? Then Scrope and Landseer and Charles St. John and these boys got going and advertised deer-stalking to such an extent that deerforest rentals rose to three times the sheep rentals. So exit sheepâwhich was a good thing for landlords, as the sheep-racket had begun to go bankrupt. In course of time the deer forests began to deteriorate, too.
Nouveaux riches
, annual rentals, shooting of best heads, of young stags not mature, leaving the wasters and the rubbish and so onâwhich is the position to this day. However, some time ago there was great concern about this and a few landlords thought, why not bring back virility to these poor Highland red deer, bring back heavy bodies and good headsâparticularly, good heads, by introducing some English park deer. So they tried, and it was a ghastly failure.”
Helen looked at him. “Why?”
“In the first place, the whole idea was wrong. The Highland red deer has a noble history direct from palaeolithic times. He has fended for himself in the wilds, without artificial feeding or help of any kind from man. He has indeed lived through ages of being hunted by man, adapting himself to every change. Deer are naturally woodland animals. So were the old red deer. They love woods yet. But when the woods that covered all this land were destroyed by man, the red deer took to the open, to the hills. That's the type of the beast. Sensitive, quick, swift like the wind, living by the windâhe'll smell you a mile off; in and out the mist, like an apparition, proud and game to the last gasp when he's cornered. Oh I saw him this morning on the top of Benbeg. He was beautiful, Helen. O God he was! I'm talking too much. Let us sit down.”
They sat down on the bare trunk near the upended root. “Am I talking too much?” he asked, without looking at her, an awkwardness in his voice.
“Please go on,” she said quietly.
“We had come up out of the mistâall that horror of the night's mistâright into the sunlight, pure sunlight under a blue sky. It was the most beautiful emergence into lightâthat I have ever known. And I have this strange sort of feeling about it, too, that I'll yet see it still betterâI somehow even feel it more at this minute than I did.⦠I'm getting muddled. Forgive me. We lay down to rest there. Angus touched me with his hand. I turned my head and there was King Brudeâstanding just clear of the mist, in the sun. Stags on each side of him on the edge of the mist, and headsâheadsâback into the mist, staring out of it like ghosts. An extraordinary sight. I'll never forget it.”
“This morning?”
“Yes. But it was King Brude thatâthat gave the whole thingâI don't know what. Distinction, nobilityâin the wild native state. Impossible to explain. It's not so much his size or weight. He's certainly not twenty stone. But the throw forward of his power from his haunches to his breast and neck and head; the magnificent poise of his head, andâcrowning allâthe antlers. I have seen, I should think, pretty nearly all sorts of headsâroyals and imperials of every formation. But I have never before seen a head that gave me so direct a thrill. In my royal, one of the second or bay tines is missing. Authorities say that the loss of the bay tines shows decline from perfect form. Perhaps they're right. And bay tines are far more often missing than not, in the Highlands nowadays. I'm coming to that. But King Brude has both bay tines. The balance of the head is superb, the black colour, the sheer arching loveliness of the spanâthe most thrilling example I have ever seen, in any collection or book, of what is called “wind-blown”. For when you come to the last fork in each antler, and the last two tines reach over to the other two and yet upâlong delicate points âblown', as it were, by the windâLord, it puts the heart across you. It's pure creation of the mountains and the hill windsâor am I talking balderdash or what?”
“You make me see it,” she said softly. “Please go on.”
“Where was I?” He smiled. “I was going to make a point or somethingâbut the antlers seem to have knocked it out of my head. What was I talking about?”
“You were talking about deer forests and their deterioration andââ”
“Yes. I remember. OnlyâI don't know that I want to make it now. It seems so damned priggish.”
“Please do. I think I'll understand.”
“Well, it was this deterioration. Introduction of English park deer. Had to be hand-fed in the winter. Then hand-feeding of native stock to keep the numbers of rubbish up. Stalking and shooting hand-fed beasts. And so the rot went onâand goes on. And suddenly my mind switched over and applied all this to the native human stockâto a fellow like Alick who is, spiritually, the king of his kind. Now I know we English are capable of the most appalling complacency. For heaven's sake, don't misunderstand me. There is a social life in London that you and I know is rotten beyond all redemption. Some of its elements come here and spread the plague about. And there are always the well-entrenched slave-drivers, the pukka bullies, for whom killing as a sport is everything all the time. I'm not referring to all that, nor to degenerate Cockneys or Highlanders. It's to something far less obvious than that, something infinitely more subtle. It's awful when a thought is biting you and you can't grip it. I'm talking an awful lot. But what I'm trying to say is thatâthat in a fellow like Alickâoh, I know he's moody and could be brutal and dangerousâbut still there is in him, in his spirit, a quality, a delicacy, a vision, that is the counterpart of the wind-blown antlers on King Brude. Not many of them have it, let us say. There are not many King Brudes. Dying out. The bay tines are going. And in the endâKing Brude will go into the mist for ever, and Alick will be driven forth.”
Harry shut his mouth, for the last words had come from him in a way that stopped any self-excusing addition of talking “awful rot”. His face was serious, with something of sadness and irony and intolerance, as Helen glanced at itâand glanced away at once. Out of the silence she said simply:
“I'm glad you spoke like that, Harry. I'm very glad.”
“Oh, wellâperhaps it's this place. I don't know. But sometimesâI feel it sort of getting me. Dashed if I can understand it. Do you think it's the place?”
“I think so,” she said slowly. “I think it must be.”
“Sort of puts one on edge somehow. I'm not given to analysis and that, normally. I mean I detest the morbid. Heaven save me from anything of the kind. I should loatheââ”
“Naturally. But you're not fair there.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you know quite well it's not morbid. You know it's the very opposite of morbid. You said, for example, that your mind was illumined. You talked about emerging into the light. It's light. Lightâin which you see things.”
“I say, that's pretty clever, Helen! Reallyâpretty clever. Uhm.” Eyes in front, he nodded, a trifle excited. “You know, when you're stalking, this business of light is quite remarkable. You're spying out a corrie that's in shadowâglassing the whole place with the greatest careânot a living thing. Then the shadow passes, and the light comes, and there are stags and hinds, amongst the boulders, the clumps of heather, with the light on their brown coats turning them reddish, all alive. You would hardly credit it unless you had actually done it.”
“I wonder,” she said, after a moment.
“What?”
“Is it my turn for getting light? I suddenly have the idea that perhaps all this Celtic businessâyou knowâthe Celtic mindâis an affair of the atmosphere over this land: light and shadow, swift transitions, mist and rain, tones, such soft lovely tones, and flowing lines.”
“Not Gaelic or Celtic so much, you mean, as a property of the atmosphere over this land? Like the atmosphere over the peat-bogs of Ireland or the Connemara hills? It's so like the thing, that I doubt it. Butâit's exciting! There's something there!”
“I do feel excited,” said Helen.
“Do you? So do I.”
“It's this
seeing
⦔
“Uhm. Sort of second sight all on its own!”
“Yes.”
He turned his head and looked at her. But she did not meet his look. Her eyes were so brilliant that the points of her lashes seemed dark and wet. Her skin was very vivid.
A surge came into his throat that stopped him speaking. The sound of his swallow was quite audible. She jumped to her feet, “Come along,” and walked away.
He could not move. From a little distance, she turned half-round. He got up, but she did not wait for him till she was out of the wood.
“I wouldn't say that. When things are going his own way, he'll crow; and when he's sure that you see he's right and you're wrong, he's all right again. Then he laughs. It's a great joke!”
“He'll carry a joke too farâone day.”
There was silence for quite a time. Helen and Harry felt this silence coming out of Alick's quiet voice, like some moody conviction of fatality.
“Ah well, to hell,” said Angus, “it's all over. I was talking to Lachie from Screesval. They're going over to dinner there to-morrow night. So Lachie was saying what about the lads from Screesval and Corbreac and anywhere else meeting at the inn for an evening of it. What about it?”
“I'll see,” said Alick, in a moody tone.
“Oh, come on! Why not? Take your fiddle, too. Damn it, we need something now and then.⦔
But Alick did not answer and their footsteps and Angus's eager voice died away.
Harry and Helen glanced at each other.
“They have him taped,” said Harry.
“What an awful scene that must have been in the corrie!”
“Bit gruesome, what!” Harry's lips twisted. There was a strange light in his eyes as they roved between the treetrunks.
Helen's whole body gave a spasmodic shudder.
“When you think that Alick must have rememberedâhis own vision!” said Harry. “Talk of the possibilities of automatic, hypnotic action! The deadly hatred. And he saved his life!”
“You still believe in that vision?”
“Looks to me as if we're going to be forced to believe in it. It's an extraordinary thing that's taking place. It's something in Geoffrey's spiritâI don't know what it isâsomething that disintegrates. I saw its effect last season on Alick once. His may be the advanced sort of analytic mind that we're not ready for. He disintegratesâwithout integrating. But ordinary human natureâcannot stand much of it. Oh, that may be all rot, but I'll tell you a thing I was reading in that deer-forest book the other night. I had heard of it before. But the other night I saw something in it, saw it suddenly illuminatedâin a way the writer never thought of, I bet!”
“You know the old stuff about how the people were cleared out of their homes all over the Highlands, to make way for sheep that paid the landlords better? Then Scrope and Landseer and Charles St. John and these boys got going and advertised deer-stalking to such an extent that deerforest rentals rose to three times the sheep rentals. So exit sheepâwhich was a good thing for landlords, as the sheep-racket had begun to go bankrupt. In course of time the deer forests began to deteriorate, too.
Nouveaux riches
, annual rentals, shooting of best heads, of young stags not mature, leaving the wasters and the rubbish and so onâwhich is the position to this day. However, some time ago there was great concern about this and a few landlords thought, why not bring back virility to these poor Highland red deer, bring back heavy bodies and good headsâparticularly, good heads, by introducing some English park deer. So they tried, and it was a ghastly failure.”
Helen looked at him. “Why?”
“In the first place, the whole idea was wrong. The Highland red deer has a noble history direct from palaeolithic times. He has fended for himself in the wilds, without artificial feeding or help of any kind from man. He has indeed lived through ages of being hunted by man, adapting himself to every change. Deer are naturally woodland animals. So were the old red deer. They love woods yet. But when the woods that covered all this land were destroyed by man, the red deer took to the open, to the hills. That's the type of the beast. Sensitive, quick, swift like the wind, living by the windâhe'll smell you a mile off; in and out the mist, like an apparition, proud and game to the last gasp when he's cornered. Oh I saw him this morning on the top of Benbeg. He was beautiful, Helen. O God he was! I'm talking too much. Let us sit down.”
They sat down on the bare trunk near the upended root. “Am I talking too much?” he asked, without looking at her, an awkwardness in his voice.
“Please go on,” she said quietly.
“We had come up out of the mistâall that horror of the night's mistâright into the sunlight, pure sunlight under a blue sky. It was the most beautiful emergence into lightâthat I have ever known. And I have this strange sort of feeling about it, too, that I'll yet see it still betterâI somehow even feel it more at this minute than I did.⦠I'm getting muddled. Forgive me. We lay down to rest there. Angus touched me with his hand. I turned my head and there was King Brudeâstanding just clear of the mist, in the sun. Stags on each side of him on the edge of the mist, and headsâheadsâback into the mist, staring out of it like ghosts. An extraordinary sight. I'll never forget it.”
“This morning?”
“Yes. But it was King Brude thatâthat gave the whole thingâI don't know what. Distinction, nobilityâin the wild native state. Impossible to explain. It's not so much his size or weight. He's certainly not twenty stone. But the throw forward of his power from his haunches to his breast and neck and head; the magnificent poise of his head, andâcrowning allâthe antlers. I have seen, I should think, pretty nearly all sorts of headsâroyals and imperials of every formation. But I have never before seen a head that gave me so direct a thrill. In my royal, one of the second or bay tines is missing. Authorities say that the loss of the bay tines shows decline from perfect form. Perhaps they're right. And bay tines are far more often missing than not, in the Highlands nowadays. I'm coming to that. But King Brude has both bay tines. The balance of the head is superb, the black colour, the sheer arching loveliness of the spanâthe most thrilling example I have ever seen, in any collection or book, of what is called “wind-blown”. For when you come to the last fork in each antler, and the last two tines reach over to the other two and yet upâlong delicate points âblown', as it were, by the windâLord, it puts the heart across you. It's pure creation of the mountains and the hill windsâor am I talking balderdash or what?”
“You make me see it,” she said softly. “Please go on.”
“Where was I?” He smiled. “I was going to make a point or somethingâbut the antlers seem to have knocked it out of my head. What was I talking about?”
“You were talking about deer forests and their deterioration andââ”
“Yes. I remember. OnlyâI don't know that I want to make it now. It seems so damned priggish.”
“Please do. I think I'll understand.”
“Well, it was this deterioration. Introduction of English park deer. Had to be hand-fed in the winter. Then hand-feeding of native stock to keep the numbers of rubbish up. Stalking and shooting hand-fed beasts. And so the rot went onâand goes on. And suddenly my mind switched over and applied all this to the native human stockâto a fellow like Alick who is, spiritually, the king of his kind. Now I know we English are capable of the most appalling complacency. For heaven's sake, don't misunderstand me. There is a social life in London that you and I know is rotten beyond all redemption. Some of its elements come here and spread the plague about. And there are always the well-entrenched slave-drivers, the pukka bullies, for whom killing as a sport is everything all the time. I'm not referring to all that, nor to degenerate Cockneys or Highlanders. It's to something far less obvious than that, something infinitely more subtle. It's awful when a thought is biting you and you can't grip it. I'm talking an awful lot. But what I'm trying to say is thatâthat in a fellow like Alickâoh, I know he's moody and could be brutal and dangerousâbut still there is in him, in his spirit, a quality, a delicacy, a vision, that is the counterpart of the wind-blown antlers on King Brude. Not many of them have it, let us say. There are not many King Brudes. Dying out. The bay tines are going. And in the endâKing Brude will go into the mist for ever, and Alick will be driven forth.”
Harry shut his mouth, for the last words had come from him in a way that stopped any self-excusing addition of talking “awful rot”. His face was serious, with something of sadness and irony and intolerance, as Helen glanced at itâand glanced away at once. Out of the silence she said simply:
“I'm glad you spoke like that, Harry. I'm very glad.”
“Oh, wellâperhaps it's this place. I don't know. But sometimesâI feel it sort of getting me. Dashed if I can understand it. Do you think it's the place?”
“I think so,” she said slowly. “I think it must be.”
“Sort of puts one on edge somehow. I'm not given to analysis and that, normally. I mean I detest the morbid. Heaven save me from anything of the kind. I should loatheââ”
“Naturally. But you're not fair there.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you know quite well it's not morbid. You know it's the very opposite of morbid. You said, for example, that your mind was illumined. You talked about emerging into the light. It's light. Lightâin which you see things.”
“I say, that's pretty clever, Helen! Reallyâpretty clever. Uhm.” Eyes in front, he nodded, a trifle excited. “You know, when you're stalking, this business of light is quite remarkable. You're spying out a corrie that's in shadowâglassing the whole place with the greatest careânot a living thing. Then the shadow passes, and the light comes, and there are stags and hinds, amongst the boulders, the clumps of heather, with the light on their brown coats turning them reddish, all alive. You would hardly credit it unless you had actually done it.”
“I wonder,” she said, after a moment.
“What?”
“Is it my turn for getting light? I suddenly have the idea that perhaps all this Celtic businessâyou knowâthe Celtic mindâis an affair of the atmosphere over this land: light and shadow, swift transitions, mist and rain, tones, such soft lovely tones, and flowing lines.”
“Not Gaelic or Celtic so much, you mean, as a property of the atmosphere over this land? Like the atmosphere over the peat-bogs of Ireland or the Connemara hills? It's so like the thing, that I doubt it. Butâit's exciting! There's something there!”
“I do feel excited,” said Helen.
“Do you? So do I.”
“It's this
seeing
⦔
“Uhm. Sort of second sight all on its own!”
“Yes.”
He turned his head and looked at her. But she did not meet his look. Her eyes were so brilliant that the points of her lashes seemed dark and wet. Her skin was very vivid.
A surge came into his throat that stopped him speaking. The sound of his swallow was quite audible. She jumped to her feet, “Come along,” and walked away.
He could not move. From a little distance, she turned half-round. He got up, but she did not wait for him till she was out of the wood.
Chapter Eight
“
M
r. Smith has just rung, ma'm. He begs to be excused for not coming down to dinner.”
“Oh. All right, Mairi. You will see that his dinner is properly served in his room.”
As Mairi withdrew, Lady Marway turned to her husband. “I think you had better go up and see him. Ask if there is anything in particular he needs.”
In a very short time, Sir John was back.
“Says he is feeling very tired. Didn't sound as if he wanted to talk much.”
“Anything really wrong with him?”
“He assured me there is not. Said he fell on his right side and hurt it a bit. Purely muscular.”
“A bit moody, is he?”
“WellâI don't know. He's just in the mood not to be bothered. Natural enough.”
Lady Marway sat thoughtfully silent.
Sir John gave her a side glance, and then looked at the old cannibal trout in its glass case.
“Nothing worrying you, is there?” he asked.
“No, not exactly. What makes you think so?”
“Nothing. Only I suppose it is natural enough that we should have been worried over Geoffrey. He's all right now, however. Feeling a trifle sorry for himself, perhaps.”
“I know. Geoffrey is like the boy who must harry a thing to deathâor at least break it up to prove to you that what is inside is not what you imagined. In that respect he has never quite grown up. What date is it?”
“It's the nineteenth, I think. Yes.”
She sat quite still. “He goes at the end of the month. Then Ernest and Betty come up. I like Geoffrey, but this time I shall be rather relieved when he goes.”
“I hope you haven't been really upset.”
“Not really. It'sârather vague. But I just feel that way.”
“You are not”, he said in an expressionless voice, “getting tired of this place?”
“No.”
“You're quite sure?”
“Yes.” There was silence for a time. Then she said. “It was my idea as much as yoursâmore than yours, perhaps. All that happened to us happened in India. All that was exciting in our livesâin my life certainly. When we got back to London, I thoughtânow life at last can be secure. Then I began to miss India, especially the nights, and particularlyâhow strange human nature is!âthe nights in which I had been terrified. Those nights up country are a very vivid memory. That night, with the cries in the forest and the servants prowling about outside. I was very frightened that night.”
“You were quite certain I was not coming back!”
“I was. And it was that night I realised.⦠I could never quite tell you. A young wife is naturally enough in love, I suppose. And we have our emotions for expression. But it was more than that. It was a rather terrifying experience, inside me. The terror gripped meâgripped my bonesâand it gripped me
with your fingers
. I can give you no idea of it. I do not know yet how I managed to control myself. For what I wanted to do was to catch up a spear and go away and find you andâand kill anyone who.⦠In a way I was madâquite beside myself.”
“Thank God, you didn't do that, anyway. And I had begged you not to come up on that trip.”
“I suppose I was in love with you then. Or thought I wasâuntil that night.”
“You were very lovely, Eve. And you can have no ideaâwhat a responsibility!”
Then he turned quietly to her, stooped, caught her right hand and kissed it, and, without a word, resumed his original position.
“The awful thing about you, Jack, isâthat you could alwaysâdo a thing like that.” She smiled, but her lips were pressed together and her eyes were bright.
“Fortunately for me, your fears were groundless.”
“That is not quite fair. You know perfectly well there was deadly danger that night. You got through it because of your characterâthe image of you in the native mind. You may not understand that. I do. However, all that only came into my mind because of what you said about being up here. Far from being tired of this place, I love it. London, I'm afraid, would drag without the autumn hereâsomehow it is the true autumn to our summer. And it has, in a way, the same sort of strange foreignness.”
“How well you do contrive to put a thing! You were always clever at that.”
“About GeoffreyâI do not want to be unfairâbut I wish sometimes he could contrive to leave a slightly different image in the native mind. That's all.”
“ButâI sayâthat's⦔ Sir John smiled. “I am just a little afraid that you are allowing your imagination, over a certain matter, to get the better of youâvery slightly, of course.”
“Possibly. And imagination, as Geoffrey might say, isn't a scientific entity.”
“That's better!”
“You do me a lot of good, my dear, frequentlyâor at least, occasionally.”
“I'm glad to be of service at any time.”
“You can have no ideaâno man ever hasâthe amount of good a little talk does a woman.” She picked up her tapestry frame and regarded it critically. “I think now I can risk a slightly brighter shade of red.”
“Don't plunge too rashly.”
“Because you never plunged rashly, you mustn't come to conclusions on the matter.”
“Agreed. My failing, but I never could plunge rashly.”
“No. You just calmly plunged.” She added quietly, “I like this break, too, for Helen.”
“She does seem to enjoy it.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I suppose you see what's going on.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned the frame over and pulled the thread through, “With Harry,” and tightened it.
“Ohâwith Harry!” That was an old story. His concern eased, for he was very fond of his daughter.
“I would rather this backgroundâif it's got to beâthan London. Young women nowadaysâthey're very modern. Cocktails and midnight parties and so on. Quite different from our time. They are emancipated. Like Joyce.”
“I like Joyce,” he said. “I must say I do. I like her bright modern ways.”
“So do I like Joyce. The open frank manner is a healthy advance. That's obvious enough. I still happen to think that too much drink and too many late nights aren't good for anyone, particularly for young girls. But it's not quite that that I mean. After all, no age ever has a monopoly of social looseness. There are decadent periodsâalways have been. Take Indiaâaway back nearly thirty years ago, when you and I knew it firstâwell, you know what went on. You knew one of the reasons why I wanted to be with you, if it was humanly possible. You knew all about it, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“Our experience of human nature has been too wide to leave us narrow-minded, at least I hope so. We had our own terrors and troublesâand tragedyâtoo.”
“That's so.”
It was friendly, talking like this. Such talk always happened quite naturally and at unpredictable times. Sir John experienced a curious sensation of the suspension of time while it went on, and his wife's speech flowed quietly and naturally, as if out of some wide, still lake of reminiscence. Woman's talk, a form of remembering; and, listening to it, he felt lapped about.
“Well,” said Lady Marway, “I don't know, but I should like to think that Helenâwho must know far more about life than you imagineâI should like to think that Helen got some feeling about what matters, what really matters and what remains, when social fashions have come and gone, in the way I did. A little like that. Something she will be able to hang on to, when things begin sliding round about her, as they will, something that will keep her steady. Do you know a little thing that made an extraordinary impression on me? Remember your little pocket compass that you had fixed to the other end of your watch chain?”
“I remember how you laughed that first timeâand how very even and white your teeth were.”
“It seemed so incredible a toy. No matter how you turned it, the pointer always remained true to the north. It seemed pure magic. And to tell the truth, I still don't really understand how it does it, though you've explained more than once.”
“But, my dear, it is so simple. The earth, you see, is a magnet. Now if youââ”
The door opened and Helen and Marjory came in, ready for dinner, and listened to Sir John finishing his elementary explanation of the working of a compass.
“Perhaps so. But I still find it difficult imagining the earth as a magnet.”
“But why bother imagining it?” asked Sir John. “It simply is so.”
“I suppose so,” said Lady Marway.
They all laughed. Harry came in, followed by George, and, a minute later, by Joyce.
The discussion on the compass became animated and exploded now and then in bursts of laughter.
Dinner was a pleasant affair, and afterwards the party were in such good spirits that, when the newspapers had been dealt with and comments on the international situation exchanged, Joyce suggested they should have a game.
Groans were immediately produced, but of such exaggerated a nature that Joyce took the floor. Lady Marway looked at her in slight apprehension, for Joyce, with her bodily exuberance and forthrightness, could be almost alarmingly inept. She was quite capable without a thought of suggesting the latest fashionable form of the murder game.
But that night they did not learn the nature of the game, for as Joyce was about to explain, the door opened and Geoffrey appeared in a blue silk dressing-gown.
The hearty nature of the welcome he received clearly took him by surprise. His face, though newly shaved, looked pale and haggard. He smiled in that strained, slightly embarrassed way that goggled his eyes, and made his excuses to Lady Marway for his dressing-gown, as, with the aid of his stick, he came forward and let himself into a comfortable chair. “I thought I'd try this side of mine by coming downstairs,” he explained to Sir John. “But, I'm afraid, it's no use for to-morrow.”
“That's bad luck. You must have got rather a nastyone?”
“Yes, it wasn't too good. I fell sheerâI don't know how many feet. However, it's nothing really. Merely bruised a bit.”
“You're quite sure of that, Geoffrey?” Lady Marway asked, looking closely at him. “Now you'll have a drink,” she said, and at once got up and poured him a stiff whisky.
“Thank you very much,” said Geoffrey. “Though it's soon enough after food, what?”
“All the food you ate won't make much difference.”
“I say!” Geoffrey protested.
“Merely an efficient staff. I was informed that you had eaten hardly anything.”
Geoffrey gave an echo of his old laugh.
The other faces sat around, with an unconscious smile, looking at Geoffrey, who would now tell his story.
And he started in an off-hand manner, as if it hadn't much importance, apart from one or two idiotic things that were done. “What Angus wanted to stay away an hour for, I don't know. I naturally thought he had fallen into a hole. I became concerned about him, and set off.”
“Didn't he shout or anything?” George asked.
“I don't know if he shouted. But I did hear a whistle. I shouted back. No answer. Then I set off in the direction of the whistle. He might have been in difficulties or anything. The staff was very helpful, for you could see just absolutely nothing when it got dark. Then I heard the whistle againâbut farther away than ever. It really did annoy me. I struggled on. I struck a stream. I thought it might be the upper reach of that tributary of the Corr where it swings in round towards Benuain. The going was painfully slow, of course. But you develop a way of poking your staff in front of you. You hear the water trickling. I was getting very tiredâand careless, I suppose. Anyway, my staff poked into nothing and I went after it before I could stop myself. The fall badly shook me, and I decided to stick where I was until morning. I got frightfully cold. I was sure I knew where I was now because of the falls below me. There are no falls on the Corr. The weird sounds of the water came swirling up. I got desperately cold, and I reasoned that it would be better to move anywhere than sit until I got pneumonia. So I climbed backâa very ticklish job.” Geoffrey paused and took a mouthful of whisky.
“Jove, you were plucky!” said George.
“In time I struck another burn. This troubled me. However, it was going in the right direction. But I had no staff now. I had lost it in the fall. You scramble about. The mind naturally gets strung up. My side was painful. And then, when I was feeling absolutely all in, a voice quite close spoke my name.” Geoffrey eased himself in his chair.
“Alick?” said Sir John.
Geoffrey nodded, and looked at Sir John with a hard glittering eye. “Would you have believed, in my position, that it could have beenâthat fellow, of all people? And if only the idiot had given me warning, anything! Instead, a hand came down on me! There was a bit of a struggle⦠However, it appears it was all right. So I decided to wait until the dawn came before going any farther. I was warm enough now.” He gave a wry smile and finished his drink.
“Did you question him?” asked Sir John.
“A bit,” said Geoffrey. “He said that if I had gone on another fifty yards I should have gone over a cliff or something like that. It was very kind of him, even if I had made up my mind not to go over any more cliffs.”
“Wait a bit,” said Sir John, and he went into the gun-room followed by all except Lady Marway and Geoffrey. Yes, the map made it clear. Geoffrey had gone round the slow slope and into Coirecheathaich. There was a cliff at the lower end of it, with boulders at its foot.
“But how could he possibly have known that Geoffrey would take that route?” Joyce asked as they left the map. “I meanâthe thing is weird!”
“
M
r. Smith has just rung, ma'm. He begs to be excused for not coming down to dinner.”
“Oh. All right, Mairi. You will see that his dinner is properly served in his room.”
As Mairi withdrew, Lady Marway turned to her husband. “I think you had better go up and see him. Ask if there is anything in particular he needs.”
In a very short time, Sir John was back.
“Says he is feeling very tired. Didn't sound as if he wanted to talk much.”
“Anything really wrong with him?”
“He assured me there is not. Said he fell on his right side and hurt it a bit. Purely muscular.”
“A bit moody, is he?”
“WellâI don't know. He's just in the mood not to be bothered. Natural enough.”
Lady Marway sat thoughtfully silent.
Sir John gave her a side glance, and then looked at the old cannibal trout in its glass case.
“Nothing worrying you, is there?” he asked.
“No, not exactly. What makes you think so?”
“Nothing. Only I suppose it is natural enough that we should have been worried over Geoffrey. He's all right now, however. Feeling a trifle sorry for himself, perhaps.”
“I know. Geoffrey is like the boy who must harry a thing to deathâor at least break it up to prove to you that what is inside is not what you imagined. In that respect he has never quite grown up. What date is it?”
“It's the nineteenth, I think. Yes.”
She sat quite still. “He goes at the end of the month. Then Ernest and Betty come up. I like Geoffrey, but this time I shall be rather relieved when he goes.”
“I hope you haven't been really upset.”
“Not really. It'sârather vague. But I just feel that way.”
“You are not”, he said in an expressionless voice, “getting tired of this place?”
“No.”
“You're quite sure?”
“Yes.” There was silence for a time. Then she said. “It was my idea as much as yoursâmore than yours, perhaps. All that happened to us happened in India. All that was exciting in our livesâin my life certainly. When we got back to London, I thoughtânow life at last can be secure. Then I began to miss India, especially the nights, and particularlyâhow strange human nature is!âthe nights in which I had been terrified. Those nights up country are a very vivid memory. That night, with the cries in the forest and the servants prowling about outside. I was very frightened that night.”
“You were quite certain I was not coming back!”
“I was. And it was that night I realised.⦠I could never quite tell you. A young wife is naturally enough in love, I suppose. And we have our emotions for expression. But it was more than that. It was a rather terrifying experience, inside me. The terror gripped meâgripped my bonesâand it gripped me
with your fingers
. I can give you no idea of it. I do not know yet how I managed to control myself. For what I wanted to do was to catch up a spear and go away and find you andâand kill anyone who.⦠In a way I was madâquite beside myself.”
“Thank God, you didn't do that, anyway. And I had begged you not to come up on that trip.”
“I suppose I was in love with you then. Or thought I wasâuntil that night.”
“You were very lovely, Eve. And you can have no ideaâwhat a responsibility!”
Then he turned quietly to her, stooped, caught her right hand and kissed it, and, without a word, resumed his original position.
“The awful thing about you, Jack, isâthat you could alwaysâdo a thing like that.” She smiled, but her lips were pressed together and her eyes were bright.
“Fortunately for me, your fears were groundless.”
“That is not quite fair. You know perfectly well there was deadly danger that night. You got through it because of your characterâthe image of you in the native mind. You may not understand that. I do. However, all that only came into my mind because of what you said about being up here. Far from being tired of this place, I love it. London, I'm afraid, would drag without the autumn hereâsomehow it is the true autumn to our summer. And it has, in a way, the same sort of strange foreignness.”
“How well you do contrive to put a thing! You were always clever at that.”
“About GeoffreyâI do not want to be unfairâbut I wish sometimes he could contrive to leave a slightly different image in the native mind. That's all.”
“ButâI sayâthat's⦔ Sir John smiled. “I am just a little afraid that you are allowing your imagination, over a certain matter, to get the better of youâvery slightly, of course.”
“Possibly. And imagination, as Geoffrey might say, isn't a scientific entity.”
“That's better!”
“You do me a lot of good, my dear, frequentlyâor at least, occasionally.”
“I'm glad to be of service at any time.”
“You can have no ideaâno man ever hasâthe amount of good a little talk does a woman.” She picked up her tapestry frame and regarded it critically. “I think now I can risk a slightly brighter shade of red.”
“Don't plunge too rashly.”
“Because you never plunged rashly, you mustn't come to conclusions on the matter.”
“Agreed. My failing, but I never could plunge rashly.”
“No. You just calmly plunged.” She added quietly, “I like this break, too, for Helen.”
“She does seem to enjoy it.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I suppose you see what's going on.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned the frame over and pulled the thread through, “With Harry,” and tightened it.
“Ohâwith Harry!” That was an old story. His concern eased, for he was very fond of his daughter.
“I would rather this backgroundâif it's got to beâthan London. Young women nowadaysâthey're very modern. Cocktails and midnight parties and so on. Quite different from our time. They are emancipated. Like Joyce.”
“I like Joyce,” he said. “I must say I do. I like her bright modern ways.”
“So do I like Joyce. The open frank manner is a healthy advance. That's obvious enough. I still happen to think that too much drink and too many late nights aren't good for anyone, particularly for young girls. But it's not quite that that I mean. After all, no age ever has a monopoly of social looseness. There are decadent periodsâalways have been. Take Indiaâaway back nearly thirty years ago, when you and I knew it firstâwell, you know what went on. You knew one of the reasons why I wanted to be with you, if it was humanly possible. You knew all about it, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“Our experience of human nature has been too wide to leave us narrow-minded, at least I hope so. We had our own terrors and troublesâand tragedyâtoo.”
“That's so.”
It was friendly, talking like this. Such talk always happened quite naturally and at unpredictable times. Sir John experienced a curious sensation of the suspension of time while it went on, and his wife's speech flowed quietly and naturally, as if out of some wide, still lake of reminiscence. Woman's talk, a form of remembering; and, listening to it, he felt lapped about.
“Well,” said Lady Marway, “I don't know, but I should like to think that Helenâwho must know far more about life than you imagineâI should like to think that Helen got some feeling about what matters, what really matters and what remains, when social fashions have come and gone, in the way I did. A little like that. Something she will be able to hang on to, when things begin sliding round about her, as they will, something that will keep her steady. Do you know a little thing that made an extraordinary impression on me? Remember your little pocket compass that you had fixed to the other end of your watch chain?”
“I remember how you laughed that first timeâand how very even and white your teeth were.”
“It seemed so incredible a toy. No matter how you turned it, the pointer always remained true to the north. It seemed pure magic. And to tell the truth, I still don't really understand how it does it, though you've explained more than once.”
“But, my dear, it is so simple. The earth, you see, is a magnet. Now if youââ”
The door opened and Helen and Marjory came in, ready for dinner, and listened to Sir John finishing his elementary explanation of the working of a compass.
“Perhaps so. But I still find it difficult imagining the earth as a magnet.”
“But why bother imagining it?” asked Sir John. “It simply is so.”
“I suppose so,” said Lady Marway.
They all laughed. Harry came in, followed by George, and, a minute later, by Joyce.
The discussion on the compass became animated and exploded now and then in bursts of laughter.
Dinner was a pleasant affair, and afterwards the party were in such good spirits that, when the newspapers had been dealt with and comments on the international situation exchanged, Joyce suggested they should have a game.
Groans were immediately produced, but of such exaggerated a nature that Joyce took the floor. Lady Marway looked at her in slight apprehension, for Joyce, with her bodily exuberance and forthrightness, could be almost alarmingly inept. She was quite capable without a thought of suggesting the latest fashionable form of the murder game.
But that night they did not learn the nature of the game, for as Joyce was about to explain, the door opened and Geoffrey appeared in a blue silk dressing-gown.
The hearty nature of the welcome he received clearly took him by surprise. His face, though newly shaved, looked pale and haggard. He smiled in that strained, slightly embarrassed way that goggled his eyes, and made his excuses to Lady Marway for his dressing-gown, as, with the aid of his stick, he came forward and let himself into a comfortable chair. “I thought I'd try this side of mine by coming downstairs,” he explained to Sir John. “But, I'm afraid, it's no use for to-morrow.”
“That's bad luck. You must have got rather a nastyone?”
“Yes, it wasn't too good. I fell sheerâI don't know how many feet. However, it's nothing really. Merely bruised a bit.”
“You're quite sure of that, Geoffrey?” Lady Marway asked, looking closely at him. “Now you'll have a drink,” she said, and at once got up and poured him a stiff whisky.
“Thank you very much,” said Geoffrey. “Though it's soon enough after food, what?”
“All the food you ate won't make much difference.”
“I say!” Geoffrey protested.
“Merely an efficient staff. I was informed that you had eaten hardly anything.”
Geoffrey gave an echo of his old laugh.
The other faces sat around, with an unconscious smile, looking at Geoffrey, who would now tell his story.
And he started in an off-hand manner, as if it hadn't much importance, apart from one or two idiotic things that were done. “What Angus wanted to stay away an hour for, I don't know. I naturally thought he had fallen into a hole. I became concerned about him, and set off.”
“Didn't he shout or anything?” George asked.
“I don't know if he shouted. But I did hear a whistle. I shouted back. No answer. Then I set off in the direction of the whistle. He might have been in difficulties or anything. The staff was very helpful, for you could see just absolutely nothing when it got dark. Then I heard the whistle againâbut farther away than ever. It really did annoy me. I struggled on. I struck a stream. I thought it might be the upper reach of that tributary of the Corr where it swings in round towards Benuain. The going was painfully slow, of course. But you develop a way of poking your staff in front of you. You hear the water trickling. I was getting very tiredâand careless, I suppose. Anyway, my staff poked into nothing and I went after it before I could stop myself. The fall badly shook me, and I decided to stick where I was until morning. I got frightfully cold. I was sure I knew where I was now because of the falls below me. There are no falls on the Corr. The weird sounds of the water came swirling up. I got desperately cold, and I reasoned that it would be better to move anywhere than sit until I got pneumonia. So I climbed backâa very ticklish job.” Geoffrey paused and took a mouthful of whisky.
“Jove, you were plucky!” said George.
“In time I struck another burn. This troubled me. However, it was going in the right direction. But I had no staff now. I had lost it in the fall. You scramble about. The mind naturally gets strung up. My side was painful. And then, when I was feeling absolutely all in, a voice quite close spoke my name.” Geoffrey eased himself in his chair.
“Alick?” said Sir John.
Geoffrey nodded, and looked at Sir John with a hard glittering eye. “Would you have believed, in my position, that it could have beenâthat fellow, of all people? And if only the idiot had given me warning, anything! Instead, a hand came down on me! There was a bit of a struggle⦠However, it appears it was all right. So I decided to wait until the dawn came before going any farther. I was warm enough now.” He gave a wry smile and finished his drink.
“Did you question him?” asked Sir John.
“A bit,” said Geoffrey. “He said that if I had gone on another fifty yards I should have gone over a cliff or something like that. It was very kind of him, even if I had made up my mind not to go over any more cliffs.”
“Wait a bit,” said Sir John, and he went into the gun-room followed by all except Lady Marway and Geoffrey. Yes, the map made it clear. Geoffrey had gone round the slow slope and into Coirecheathaich. There was a cliff at the lower end of it, with boulders at its foot.
“But how could he possibly have known that Geoffrey would take that route?” Joyce asked as they left the map. “I meanâthe thing is weird!”
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