Magnus Merriman (32 page)

Not till Magnus had actually landed in Orkney did he consider the many difficulties that confronted him. No one expected his arrival, except Rose presumably, and he would have to explain his sudden reappearance to his sister and to Willy at Midhouse, to Peter and his family at the Bu, and to many other people who, while not openly inquisitive about it, would certainly expect to be told the reason, or some reason, for his return. So great was his anxiety to see
Rose and bring her the comfort of his presence that for a minute or two he thought of going straight to the Bu. Then he reluctantly decided that this was impossible, for to appear at the Bu with such sign of haste would inevitably cause suspicion. And he very naturally shrank from facing Peter and his wife in the character of their daughter's seducer: they would discover the truth before long—there was no need to suppose they had learnt it already—but once he was safely married to Rose it would matter little though all the world knew what had gone before. He must combine discretion with haste, and Rose would have to wait another two or three hours for reassurance until he had established himself at Midhouse and invented some explanation for his presence in Orkney.

He hired a car in Kirkwall and was driven into the West Mainland. In the darkness of the car he considered various stories he might tell his sister to account for his return, and for some time played with the idea that he could pretend to have suddenly discovered he was in love with Rose and to have come home hot-foot to marry her. As, in a very short time, he was going to marry her, that would obviate renewed explanations prior to the wedding, but he found it difficult to reconcile such a romantic declaration with Janet's essentially rational and practical understanding. A romantic declaration requires a sympathetic ear, and Janet, though kind as she could be and very hospitable, was not built for romantic confessions whether true or fictitious. To say, ‘I have suddenly been overwhelmed with love for Rose' would ring like a false coin in the sensible shrewd kitchen of Midhouse—and Magnus began to think of a better story to tell.

At the sharp corner by the dykes of Binscarth his car slowed down to let another come past in safety. Magnus looked out and saw that the approaching car was the ambulance from the County Hospital. A moment after it had disappeared a terrifying thought occurred to him. Perhaps it was Rose who lay in it. There might have been an accident. She might have been working too hard, she might have slipped and fallen—when was a woman most likely to suffer miscarriage? Was it late or early? Magnus did
not know, could not remember if he had ever heard, and feverishly tried to remember. Or perhaps it was even worse than that. Perhaps she had despaired of receiving an answer to her letter—it had lain a week in his flat—and in despair had done herself some injury, had found some household poison and swallowed it, had yielded herself to misery and called for death to relieve her. A catalogue of horrors unfolded itself in Magnus's imagination. He was tempted to bid the driver turn round and chase the ambulance back to Kirkwall, but the fear of making a public fool of himself inhibited such decision, and instead he sat still and let fears of every kind prey upon his mind.

He found his sister alone. She had simultaneously been knitting a sock for Willy and reading a book from her father's exiguous library, but when she had heard a motor car stop outside the house she had put down her knitting and her book and gone to the door. She peered into the darkness.

Magnus said, ‘Hullo, Janet! I've come back rather sooner than I expected.'

‘Mansie!' she answered. ‘What's the meaning of this?,

Magnus carried his suit-cases into the kitchen and stooped over the peat-fire to warm himself. ‘It's cold,' he said, ‘but you know how to make yourselves comfortable here.'

‘Were you not comfortable in London, that you couldn't stay longer there?' she asked.

‘I disagreed with the editor of the
Morning Call
about what I should write,' said Magnus, ‘so I resigned. And as there was nothing else to keep me in London I thought I would come home. For Christmas, you know.'

‘It's a while till Christmas,' said Janet. ‘But I'm real glad to see you again, though I didn't expect you to be back so soon.'

‘It was a matter of principle,' said Magnus. ‘I've been attacking McMaster and the National Cartel …'

‘I know. We've been reading the
Morning Call
ever since you began to write for it.'

‘And then they wanted me to turn the cat and support him. And I wouldn't do it.'

‘They'd be paying you a good salary?' said Janet.

‘Yes, fairly good. But I wasn't going to eat my words whatever they paid me.'

‘It seems a pity,' said Janet, and there was a short silence. ‘You'll not have had your tea?' she asked, and began to make preparations for a meal.

Magnus's thoughts recurred to the ambulance. ‘Are you all well?' he asked.

‘Well enough,' she answered. ‘Willy's away to Dounby, but he'll be back before long.'

‘And all the folk at the Bu?'

‘They were all fine the last I heard of them. Peter's bought a new quey at some price that's just fair ridiculous, they say.'

‘We passed the ambulance on the road,' said Magnus tentatively.

‘It'll have been to Northbigging,' said Janet. ‘There's one of the bairns there got scarlet fever. The whole family's had it now.'

Magnus was comforted by this news, and took his tea with a good appetite. He told Janet a great deal about his work in London, and after a decent interval said he thought he would go for a walk.

‘There's no use going to the Bu,' said Janet, ‘for Peter and Mary are away to Birsay to see her sister, and they won't be back till late. You'd better stay here and rest you.'

‘No,' said Magnus. ‘I want to go out. I won't be able to sleep unless I get some exercise first.'

‘London's done you no good if you feel like that,' she said, and began to clear the table.

Magnus found the ploughman's bicycle and rode swiftly to the Bu.

He left his bicycle by the peat-stack and walked round to the back of the house. As he passed the kitchen window he heard the sound of angry voices, a girl shouting, and somebody laughing. The blind was drawn and he could not see in. Then he went to the backdoor and entered quietly. He stood in the darkness of a short passage, and listened awhile. But the voices were confused. Two people were speaking at once and his ear could not disentangle their words. He opened the kitchen-door, and the quarrel
died into silence as the participants turned to see who was coming in.

Rose and Peggy stood with the table between them, and from the way in which Peggy held on to it she seemed to be using it as a barrier and defence against her sister. Rose was bright with anger and Peggy was red with more than that, for one cheek was coloured by a blow, and tears swam out of her eyes and trickled down. Alec, their brother, sat in a chair laughing, and the two younger children were together on the sofa, a little frightened, but not too frightened to enjoy the squabble.

‘Hullo!' said Magnus, ‘what's the matter?'

He came forward half expecting that Rose would run to him, throw her arms about his neck, weep, and beg him for comfort and protection. He was prepared to be strong, compassionate, and wise. But Rose gave no sign that she wanted the comfort of his bosom. She was too angry even to show her surprise at seeing him, and when she looked at him her expression still wore the indignation it had assumed for Peggy.

She turned to Peggy again, and in a voice still wrathful, said, ‘Let that be a lesson to you, and don't come thieving my things again.'

Then abruptly she left the kitchen by the other door and slammed it behind her.

Alec got out of the armchair and offered it to Magnus. ‘You've got back?' he said genially.

‘Yes,' said Magnus. ‘What's the matter with Rose?'

‘There's nothing wrong with Rose,' said Alec. ‘It's Peggy that's not feeling very well.' He chuckled over his joke.

Peggy picked a heavy wooden spoon off the floor. ‘She hit me with this,' she said, sniffing her tears, ‘just because I borrowed a pair of stockings without telling her.'

‘She'll hit anyone within reach of her when she loses her temper,' said Alec appreciatively.

Magnus, though surprised by this revelation of Rose's character, was not long in finding an explanation for it. Clearly, he thought, she was in a very excitable condition. Her nerves were strung taut by anxiety. Her state of health would easily account for a certain amount of irritability.
Pregnant women, he knew, were often the prey of irrational desires and strange antipathies: they craved exotic fruit, they turned from their husbands in disgust, they were quarrelsome, unpredictable, and exigent. Obviously he must treat Rose with even greater tenderness, more patient care, than he had meant to, and he grew almost as indignant as she had been to think that her brothers and sisters should behave so heartlessly towards her, quarrel with her, and laugh at her.

‘I think I'll go and speak to Rose,' he said. ‘She's probably feeling very sorry about it all now.'

‘Not she,' said Alec.

‘There's a poker in the ben-room,' said Peggy. ‘Take care she doesn't hit you too.'

Magnus went through to the other end of the house and found Rose sitting in dim lamplight, her hands folded in her lap, a frown on her forehead, and her lips closed firmly in a sulky line.

‘Rose!' he said. ‘Are you feeling better now?'

‘
Me
feeling better? There's nothing the matter with me!'

‘I know, I know,' he said soothingly, and stroked her arm.

She jerked away from him. ‘It was a good pair that I'd newly washed,' she said. ‘And I'd told her before what would happen if I caught her wearing my stockings again.'

‘You're feeling tired,' said Magnus. ‘Why don't you go to bed?'

‘Bed?' exclaimed Rose. ‘What would I want to be going to bed before nine o'clock for?'

‘I thought you might be tired.'

‘Stoop!' [a very rude expletive] said Rose.

After a brief silence Magnus said, ‘I came as soon as I possibly could. I was out of London when your letter arrived, but immediately I found it I packed up and left.

Rose moved restlessly in her chair.

‘Does anybody know yet?' asked Magnus.

‘Know what?'

Magnus lowered his voice: ‘That you're going to have a baby.'

‘Who should know that? Do you think I've been fool enough to tell folk?'

‘No, but I thought someone might have suspected something, and asked you. Your mother, for instance.'

Rose made an angry noise and pulled her dress straight. ‘Then you're wrong,' she said.

‘Well, soon it won't matter though everybody knows,' said Magnus. ‘We'll get married as quickly as possible.'

He paused, expecting that Rose would melt at this, and come to his arms in a fervour of gratitude.

But Rose only said, ‘We can't be married till I get my clothes.'

Magnus, though somewhat surprised that she should want to delay the ceremony for so trivial a reason, remembered that he must humour her, and agreed that it would be advisable to wait till then.

‘And where are we going to live?' asked Rose.

‘I don't know,' said Magnus. ‘I haven't had time to think about that yet.'

‘You'll need to hurry then. I'm not going to live in a tent like a tinker.'

He assured her that he meant to find an abode more comfortable than that, and a little later, still solicitous about Rose's health, and fearing to overtire her, he rose to go.

‘I'll come and break the news to your father tomorrow,' he said.

‘You'll need to be careful what you say then, for I'm not wanting anybody to know about the bairn yet.'

‘I'll be very careful,' said Magnus, and patted her head. Rose showed no desire of a stronger demonstration of affection, and he left feeling a little disappointed. He talked for a few minutes with Alec and Peggy, and then went back to Midhouse.

The interview had been very different from what he had expected, and the feeling of anti-climax was unpleasant. He had anticipated returning from the Bu in a spirit exalted by his own nobility and touched by Rose's gratitude. He had imagined the relief of her anxiety and his own relief as two rivers that, joining together, should spread their generous flood and lave them both in healing waters. He had behaved in a manly, honourable, and selfless fashion, and he had hoped for some reward for his virtue. But Rose
had treated his return, his promise to marry her, in the most off-hand way, as though she had expected nothing else. It was disappointing, to say the least of it.

But presently Magnus decided that her off-handedness, her certainty of his return, were merely proof, if more proof were needed, of her innocence and simple faith in him. And how dear a thing is innocence! His heart was touched again, and he thought tenderly even of her rudeness. She had looked very lovely, sitting in the lamplight, and very young. It was his fault that her temper was irritable, her nerves dangerously taut, and he determined to be long-suffering with her though she should demand apricots in January and turn him out of doors in March.

Willy was at home when Magnus came back to Midhouse, and the tale of the disagreement with the editor of the
Morning Call
was told again. Willy also thought it was a pity that Magnus should have resigned simply because he had wanted to say one thing and Barney Wardle wanted him to say another. Surely it didn't matter very much what was written in a newspaper? But Magnus maintained that it mattered a great deal, and Willy, seeing that he was in earnest, pretended to agree with him.

Magnus said nothing about his affairs at the Bu that night.