A Dinner Of Herbs (87 page)

from the dining-room, and the open drawing-room door showed Ben standing stiff and

straight staring

towards his son.

Kate said no word to the boy, but, going to him, she put her hand on his shoulder and

steered him

towards his father, while at the same time turning her head to Willy saying, “Come along in, Willy.”

“Oh, I’ll be on my way, Mrs. Hamilton.”

“Please.” The word was a plea, and so, cap in hand, he followed her and the boy, and as Ben drew

himself back to allow them to pass he said to Willy in a voice that was almost a growl,

“Where did you

find him?”

“I didn’t. He found me,” said Willy, and in a lower tone added, “He’s all right. Tired, I think. He slept

out all night. He wasn’t with the drovers.”

They both now moved up the long room to where the boy was slumped into a big leather

chair, and

Willy was surprised but enlightened at what next took place, for Ben, confronting his son, demanded,

“Get on your feet. You’ve been told before about sitting when your mother is standing.”

The boy

hesitated for a moment, staring up into the thin white face above him until Kate, her hand again on his

shoulder, pressed him back into the seat, and she herself sat down next to him, saying,

“It’s all right. It’s

all right. It isn’t the time for courtesies.”

“Every time is a time for courtesies. What is schooling for?”

“Yes, Father, what is schooling for?” The boy was sitting straight in the chair now, his dark features

showing a look of venom as he cried, “It’s for cropping your head. Giving you dirty

razors.” He dug his

finger into his chin.

“Stripping you naked, then putting you into your suit and thrusting you into a dead cold room for

twenty-four hours.

But you’ve got your suit on, so if a visitor should happen to see you being taken in or out, you’re

dressed. And it’s also for a piece of leather with slit end which catches you across the back of the

knees.

Oh, you’re protected by trousers, but it still makes you jump. It’s for. “

“That’s enough. You must have deserved it.”

“I didn’t deserve it, no more than the other fellows there. And for your information.

Father, I’m not the

only one that has run away. Two have done it this month, but 602 their parents came and told the

headmaster what they thought of him.

But have my parents gone to see a headmaster, no matter what I’ve said? This is the third place you’ve

put me in and each one worse than the other. Anything to get rid of me. “

“Oh, Fraser, Fraser, don’t say that. You know it isn’t true.”

He turned his furious gaze on his mother now, saying, “Tis true. From I can first

remember anything I

remember that, being got rid of, left behind, time you went jaunting to France ...

Switzerland.”

“That was necessary for your father’s health, Fraser, and you know it.”

“I don’t know it. I only know I saw more of Mrs. Proctor and the maids than I ever did of you.”

“It was necessary.” Her voice was low now, patient sounding.

“I

couldn’t have taken you with me. “

“No, no.” He sprang to his feet.

“You couldn’t have taken me with you, but you took Rose, didn’t you?”

“She was a girl and delicate. The air did her good.”

“And dear Harry?” He was now looking at his father and he repeated, “Dear Harry who,

as you said.

Father, has never given you a day’s worry since he was born, was he delicate too? He’s as strong as a

bull. He was four when you first took him abroad and there was no sign of any disease on him then,

or....”

“Be quiet, boy!” The word disease seemed to have prodded Ben into life, for now he took two quick

steps towards his son, crying, “Another word and I’ll take the horsewhip to you myself.”

“Ben! Ben!” Kate was standing between them.

“Look, don’t get excited, please, please.” She turned her back on her son and gripped her husband by

the arms, pressing him away and into a chair, where he was seized with a bout of

coughing that racked

his whole body.

When Kate ran to a side-table and picked up a small silver tray on which was a bottle and a spoon, the

boy got to his feet. His expression hadn’t altered; the paroxysm of his father’s coughing hadn’t touched

him at all. He looked towards Willy, and Willy with a slight motion of his head upwards indicated that he

should leave the room. And this he did, but not quietly, for as the door banged behind him Kate,

replacing the spoon on the tray, turned sharply and looked towards it. Then sighing, she let her gaze rest

on Willy.

“I’m sorry, Willy. Sit down, will you, and have some thing to drink before you go?”

“If you don’t mind, Mrs. Hamilton, I’ll be on me way.”

She cast a glance at Ben who was now leaning back in his chair, his breath coming in

short painful jerks.

Then turning back to Willy, she said, “Do they know at home that he’s back?”

“No, but I’ll tell them.”

He turned and made for the door. And she walked with him. In the hall he stopped and,

looking at her,

said, “He’s had a pretty rough time at that school, I should say, Mrs. Hamilton, from the bits he’s let

drop.

It wasn’t so much education that was pushed into them there, but fear.

If I may speak, I wouldn’t think about forcing him back, or to any other school. I . I think he wants to

work. He’s ready for it. “

“Yes, yes, you’re right, Willy, you’re right. But Kate clasped her hands tightly now

between her large

breasts, and she looked towards the staircase as she said, “ His father wanted to see him get on in the

world, go to a university, take up science or law, he . he had great ideas for him. “ Then bringing her

gaze back on Willy, she ended, “ It was unfortunate we had to leave him when he was

young, but you

see, he he was so boisterous. From he was a tiny baby he was so boisterous. He took up all one’s time,

and. and I hadn’t that time to give him. “

When Willy made no reply, and simply stared at her, she made an apologetic sound in her throat, then

said, Thank you, Willy, for seeing to him. “

“That’s all right. He’s ... he’s not a bad boy, you know.”

“No?” There seemed to be a question in the syllable;

then more firmly she added, “No, of course he isn’t, but he’s got the sort of wanderlust on him. He

doesn’t take after either his father or me. I don’t know whom he takes after.” She smiled wanly, and he

turned from her, saying, “Good night, Mrs. Hamilton,” and she answered, “Goodnight,

Willy, and thank

you again.”

Out on the open road he repeated to himself, “I don’t know who he takes after.” That was a damn silly

thing to say, because, if he’d heard it once since he had been connected with this family, he must have

heard it a couple of dozen times from outsiders every time the boy went missing: “He’s a true Bannaman,

that one, following in his great-grandfather’s footsteps.” And the story of Clan Bannaman and his

daughter, and the little fellow who hanged himself, which had become folklore around

these parts, would

once again be related.

Aye, it was silly for her to wonder who her son took after when his father was part

Bannaman.

Mary Ellen stared at the man and the girl sitting opposite to her.

After an hour and a half in their company she was still finding it difficult to say anything.

She had been

surprised at the change in her childhood playmate when he had last come upon the scene seventeen years

ago. But that change was nothing to what the intervening years had wrought on him. He

was a little

younger than Hal, just under two years, yet he could have been ten or twenty years older.

His flesh at all

points seemed to be pressing against his well cut clothes. His face was ruddy, the jowls heavy. There

was no hair on the front of his head and the fringe covering the back and sides was pure white. In her

mind, even till as late as this morning, she had seen a tall man, broad shoulders and

straight. The breadth

was still there, but the height was cut by the stoop of his shoulders.

Then this girl, this child, or whatever she was, who was his daughter, he said, she had never seen anyone

like her, never in her life before.

She was like someone you would see in a picture book. At a guess, she was a little over five feet, with

form so slight as to be non-existent. Her fashionable dull red velvet coat and skirt did not suggest it was

covering a body, however slight. And then the face . yes, it was the face that was the most amazing.

The eyes were large and grey, and they had, she was discovering the habit of staring at you without

blinking while her expression changed from one moment to the next. When John had said

one sentence

in French, the only one he remembered from his schooldays, the light in her eyes had

been impish as she

had answered him. And when the girl herself spoke in her mixed up English, the light

would turn to

merriment and would be accompanied by her laughter, which was more like a gurgle. It

was only when

she looked at her father that the light changed to a sober hue. And she noticed that when he spoke she

gave him all her attention. But it was the girl’s face as a whole that was startling: like her body, it was

small; the skin, she could only liken to a piece of alabaster. And then the hair. What colour was her

hair? Lemon coloured, pale lemon—coloured, and it wasn’t dressed like that of a

fashionable young

lady, which she evidently was, it was hanging loose, held only by a ribbon which was

tied in a bow.

She was speaking now to Maggie who, like herself, had up till now seemed to be tongue-

tied.

“Your cows make butter? I mean, you make... I mean you milk.... Oh Papa She swung

round at her

father and spoke in rapid French, and he, looking at Maggie and smiling, said, “ What

Yvonne is trying to

say is, do you milk the cows and make the butter yourself? “ And Maggie, also laughing now, said softly,

“ Yes, I make the butter and milk the cows, at least some of them. John here’—she

indicated John with

her outspread hand ‘he too helps with the milking. “

“I have not yet been on a form.”

Again there was laughter from Maggie and John; and now, her father, looking at her,

said, “Farm not

form ... and I haven’t before been on a farm, or, this is my first time on a farm.

Comprends-tu?

“Oui.” There was more laughter. Then Hal, who all the while had been sitting to the side of Mary Ellen

and, like her, had had little to say, spoke to John, saying, “Why don’t you take the miss round the farm.

And you, Maggie, show her how you make butter.”

There was a slight pause before John and Maggie rose to their feet.

They both realized they were being told to go and the reason why. Up till now the time had been taken

up with the eating of light refreshments and small talk. But whatever the reason for this man’s visit, it

wasn’t to indulge in small talk. And apparently their father, as usual, was anxious to get to the bottom of

something he didn’t understand. And, from the snatches of conversation at the breakfast table this

morning, he certainly didn’t understand the reason for his one-time friend’s visit at this late stage in their

lives.

When John tentatively held out his hand as he would do to a child, the girl sprang up and caught it.

Then, her strange face alight, she turned and looked up at her father, saying, “Like Marie Antoinette, I go

to learn milk.”

“To be a milkmaid.”

“Ah, oui.” She nodded towards him, then allowed John to lead her from the room

laughing.

Left to themselves now, Roddy Greenbank looked first at Mary Ellen, then at Hal, and his body

slumped further into the big armchair before he said, “I know you are wondering what all this is about,

and why the hell he’s got to put in an appearance after all these years of apparent neglect, not even

having any interest in his own daughter.

Oh, I know what you’re both thinking. Well, my answer is simple. I haven’t long to go, a week, a

month, three at the most. “ He made a sound like a mirthless laugh now as he added, “

Perhaps one of

old Kate’s potions might have helped, I’ve thought about her a lot of late. “

In the pause that followed, Mary Ellen and Hal glanced at each other, then looked at him again as he

said, “My purpose in coming is to ask a great favour of you. And Hal, I know what your response will

be immediately. Of all the bloody nerve! you’ll say. And I can understand that perfectly.

As for you,

Mary Ellen, your reaction could be the same as Hal’s, only put in a different way. It could be:

You’re got a nerve, Roddy Greenbank. By God! you have. Well, I don’t know about a

nerve, but a

man does things out of desperation. I’ve searched my mind, going over all the so-called friends I’ve

made in the past years. The only couple I could have trusted, besides yourselves, died last year within a

month of each other. Well, I’ll come to the point. Will you take her under your care when I’m gone? “

He watched their faces. Simultaneously their jaws dropped and their eyes widened. He

watched Hal’s

tongue move within the gap as if it was coiling round a word, suppressing it. He watched Mary Ellen put