Second Sight (27 page)
Authors: Neil M. Gunn
Chapter Thirteen
“
P
retty dull, isn't it?” said George, half-yawning and looking around the darkening sitting-room.
“Don't make it duller, for goodness sake,” replied Joyce. They were alone.
George got up. “Sunday is such a dull day in the Highlands.”
“It isn't Sunday.”
“Isn't it?”
“No. It just rained again.” Turning over some papers, she picked up the
Tatler
.
“I've seen you read that at least six times,” he remarked.
“Wrong again. We've been here three weeks.”
“I thought it came out every week?”
“It does. I brought this copy with me.”
But George wasn't interested. “Ah well,” he said, “thank God winter's coming.”
“George!”
His voice gathered some enthusiasm, as he began. “Think of the Saint Moritz runââ”
But she shut him up. “Have a heart!”
“All right.” He nodded. “Let's think of the rain. I say, didn't it rain to-day! Sheets of it. And dear cousin Helen thought the white sheets of rainâbeing drawn across the brown and the gold or somethingâwere very exciting. She's a charming child.”
“I don't agree with you. I think she is charming.”
“That's what I said.”
“I thought you said she was a child.”
“Oh, I suppose it's her sort of innocence or something.”
“Innocence,” repeated Joyce.
“You know what I meanâfresh and naïve, so to speak.”
“Quite. Being three years older, I am soiled and tarnished, so to speak.”
“Great Scott, of course! You're only three years older. I sayâwhat a gulf!”
Joyce looked at him. “You can be a nasty piece of work.”
He met her eyes in astonishment, then smiled quickly. “Heavens, I don't meanâI don't meanââ”
“No?”
“I mean the opposite. Quite the opposite. Absolutely.”
“How clear!”
“Now hold on there! You know jolly well what I mean. Anyhow, don't let us quarrel again. It's this rotten day, with nothing to do. We always quarrel when we have nothing to do.”
“I am perfectly content, thank you.”
“There you go! You'll nag at me now.”
Joyce jumped up. “Nag? Who's nagging?”
“Joyce, hang it all, you know I am gone on you. Have a heart for a fellow. You get me into a sweat until I don't know where I am.”
“You said nag.”
“A nag is an old horse, like me. Nag, you know. Nag, nig, nog.” And with a deft movement he kissed her.
“I think you're a perfect ass,” she said, relenting.
“That's better. Ooo! I wish I could hit something. I should have taken my punch-ball with me.”
“Don't worry. There will be more talk to-night.”
“Then I will hit someone.”
“Fine,” said Joyce, sitting down and punching a cushion for her head. “You launch your famous straight left. When Harry and Geoffrey go all over clever.⦔ She shrugged. “I wish you could chip in sometimes and dish 'em.”
“Not my line,” said George. “Besidesââ”
“Yes?”
“Well, for instance, if they said to me: âIt is predetermined that you are going to do so and so,' I should reply âWhat-ho!' and promptly do the opposite. Seems simple enough, doesn't it?”
“Why couldn't you say so?”
“Such a remark is always followed by a gaping void. Have a smoke.”
“Noâwell, all right. Listen.” As she lit her cigarette at his promptly produced mechanical lighter, she asked between puffs, “What would you doâif you met a ghost?”
“Met a what?”
“A ghost.”
“Oh, a ghost.” He lit his own cigarette. “Uhm, a ghost. Hadn't thought of that. Tricky customer, I should say.” He blew out the light thoughtfully. “Difficult to land on, by all accounts. Imagine me going up to him and saying: âGhost, what?' You knowâMr. Livingstone, I presume? He vouchâvouchsafes me no answerâexcept perhaps a jolly old moan. I lead one to the pointâjust to prove he's not celluloidâand then my fist goes right through. It would be pretty upsetting. I mean you'd lose your balance badly.”
“I should say you would.”
“Yes.” With a musing smile on his face George lit the lighter and blew it outâtwice.
“Don't do that,” said Joyce as he lit it a third time.
“Why?”
“I just suddenly don't like it.”
“Blowing out the dear old flame, what?”
“Oh, I think ghosts can be overdone.”
“They generally are cooked a bit.”
But she was attending to her own thought. “Where do you really stand
re
this absurd story about Harry being with Alick when he saw those ghosts? Really stand, I mean?”
“He may have had 'em, you know. I've known fellows who have had 'em.”
“What, ghosts?”
“Oh, the oddest thingsâcomplete with pink eyes and what-nots. And of course nothing there at all really. Very odd.”
“Oh, you mean the d. t.s?”
“That's the technical term, I understand.”
“Don't be funny. Alick wasn't tight.”
“When you're tight you're all right. It's afterwards. They climb up the wall and over the ceiling. Even wag their tails at you. It's anything but a joke to the fellow who has 'em. Nasty.”
“Do you think there's something brewing?”
“God knows. Wonder what's happened to them all?”
“Seems an unnatural silence about, doesn't there?”
“It's certainly getting very dark. Will I ring?”
The door opened and Mairi entered. George followed her with his eyes as she turned to light the lamp by the bookcase. A very noiseless efficient maid.⦠But his thought was interrupted by the entry of Sir John, who saw Joyce's arms extended.
“Not feeling bored are you?” Sir John asked her.
She got to her feet. “In this marvellous place!”
“We get days like these. Can't do anything much. No use for the hill or fishing. Have you anything to read? There should be some detective stories about. Real good ones,” said Sir John.
“I do like a good one,” said Joyce. “I must confess.”
Mairi soon had the standard lamp at its full brilliance and withdrew, leaving them to turn up the other lamp if they wished.
Lady Marway came in as they were hunting for the detective stories: “If Marjory hasn't got them upstairs, they may have gone to the kitchen. But I shouldn't think so. I'll get Marjory.”
“Oh don't bother, please,” said Joyce.
Lady Marway met Marjory at the door.
“Let me think,” said Marjory. “You mean the green⦠yesâI think I know where they are.”
As she turned to go out, Sir John asked her, “Geoffrey all right?”
“Oh yes.” Marjory smiled. “Purely stomachic, I understand. One moment.” She went out.
“Nothing wrong with Geoffrey, is there?” Joyce asked.
“No. Not really,” Lady Marway replied. “I rememberâyou and George had just gone out. He jumped up quickly after tea and then had a moment's giddiness. That was all.”
“Oh, that!” And Joyce recalled a girl who got it without jumping up. “Once or twice she passed clean out. Very alarming at the timeâbut nothing to it really. She had an interesting sequel.”
“Yes?” said Sir John, his smile waiting.
“She got married. For some reason he was quite poor. After that she never got it.”
“Here you are, children,” said Marjory, entering.
“Thanks, grandma,” replied Joyce.
Marjory handed the paper-backed novels to George. “Feel you need a bit of excitement?”
“You have no reason to talk,” Joyce intervened, obviously alluding to the recently strengthened relationship between Geoffrey and Marjory.
“One for you, old girl!” said George.
“Paying me back in your own coin,” said Marjory.
“Rate of exchange par and all that,” said George.
“That's rather a good one.” Marjory indicated one of the books.
“Oh, I know this johnnie,” declared George. “He delivers the body early. I like that. I always like to know where I am with the body. Some of them keep the body too long before murdering it, if you see what I mean.”
“Yes,” agreed Marjory. “I always think that's not fair. They try to work up an atmosphere first.”
“Yes, and that puts you off your stroke,” declared George with some animation. “If you are given the murdered body straight awayâyou know, see it before you on the floor, knife in back, or bullet hole in chest, or gash on head, as case may be, with one leg twisted up under the other thus, and one arm thrown out like that, and the other”âtying himself in a ludicrous knotâ“hereâ¦then”âundoing himselfâ“you know where you are and you proceed quite coolly to work out the doings.”
He bowed before the applause. “No flowers by request.”
Sir John rather agreed with him on the need for a cool procedure.
“That's really what I mean,” replied George, encouraged. “Murdered body: proceed coolly. But some writing johnnies clutter it up with stuff like emotion. I once read oneâyou won't believe this I knowâbut it's fact.
The detective wept!
⦠I knew you wouldn't believe me. Incredible.”
“I remember,” said Joyce, amid the mirth. “It was quite true. He had some sort of crush or other on the murdered body. Frightful bad taste.”
“I agree,” said Sir John. “It shouldn't be allowed.”
“That's what I said at the time,” declared Joyce, with no little enthusiasm. “What is a censor forâif he passes a thing like that?⦠You may laugh, but it is more tiresome than any silly old bedroom scene.”
“I must say there is always something original in your point of view, Joyce.” Sir John smiled to her.
“Thank you very much.” Joyce bowed. “I have often wondered at the fuss over bedroom scenes. I mean, after you have been places.”
Sir John laughed.
“What places?” asked Marjory.
“Oh,
you
know you don't need to go to a nudist colony. The other season we were atâwhat's its nameâalong from Monteâyou know? Frightfully stimulating.”
“What was?” asked Lady Marway.
“The sun,” replied Joyce with natural innocence.
Harry came into the fun, and Marjory explained to him: “George has been expounding the whole construction and esthetic of the detective novel. You've missed yourself!”
“Now now!” said George modestly. “Draw it mild.”
“If ever”, declared Marjory, “you want to know what to do with the murdered bodyâask George.”
“Uhm,” said Harry, nodding with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Very interesting. What's your line of campaign?”
“Oh rot!” said George.
“Go on, George,” Joyce encouraged him. “Tell the gentleman.”
George laughed with the others.
“He deprecates”, Sir John explained, “the introduction of emotion.”
“Exactly,” said George. “The whole thing in a nutshell. You are given the body: after that the clues. That's what I say. Any fussâI mean emotional stuffâand it goes sticky and the real clue is oozed over. You must keep a cool headâand carry on. There's the dead body. Quite O.K. It may have a gash: it may not. Though, personally, I think it should have a gash. In fairness, if you see what I mean?”
“What about poison?” Marjory asked.
“There's poison of course.” George shrugged. “Though with poison, it's usually some mysterious kind of poison with effects you were never properly told about. No, I must say I like the corpse with a jolly old gash right on the first page.”
“How gruesome!” Helen got up.
“What's gruesome about it?” demanded Joyce, proud of the lead George had established in the conversation.
“The corpseâwith the gash,” replied Helen. “I have tried to get used to corpsesâbut I can't. The dead body still impresses me.”
Joyce held up her palms, the case being hopeless. “Well, of course.⦔
“I can't see how people can really enjoy reading about murdered bodies and police andâand ugly motives thatââ”
“Ah, but then,” said Sir John, “you have never been a Cabinet Minister, or a scientist, or on the Stock Exchangeââ”
“Do
you
read them?” Helen interrupted him.
“I have read a good few and enjoyed them very much. As a means of relaxation, of taking your mind off its more important worriesâin short, as an anodyneâit has its points.”
“A dead bodyâas an anodyne!” Helen's eyes widened on her father.
“No one
worries
about a dead body,” observed Joyce. “That's morbid.”
Harry smiled to Helen. “It's a game, like crosswords.”
“But why play it with a dead body and a murderer? What makes them play it with those terribleâterribleââ”
“Possibly, my dear,” Sir John explained gently, “because death, violent death, is the most terrible thing we know.”
“So there is something in what Helen says,” Harry suggested. “If it is the most terrible thing, then the curiosity underlying the detective story must be morbid.”
“To a certain degree, perhaps,” Sir John admitted. “But the motive is really one of human cleverness directed towards the ends of justice.”
“The ends of abstract qualities do not usually provide a thrill, do they?” Harry asked.
Joyce, who saw George's leadership slipping away, intervened confidently. “What do you say, George?”
“
P
retty dull, isn't it?” said George, half-yawning and looking around the darkening sitting-room.
“Don't make it duller, for goodness sake,” replied Joyce. They were alone.
George got up. “Sunday is such a dull day in the Highlands.”
“It isn't Sunday.”
“Isn't it?”
“No. It just rained again.” Turning over some papers, she picked up the
Tatler
.
“I've seen you read that at least six times,” he remarked.
“Wrong again. We've been here three weeks.”
“I thought it came out every week?”
“It does. I brought this copy with me.”
But George wasn't interested. “Ah well,” he said, “thank God winter's coming.”
“George!”
His voice gathered some enthusiasm, as he began. “Think of the Saint Moritz runââ”
But she shut him up. “Have a heart!”
“All right.” He nodded. “Let's think of the rain. I say, didn't it rain to-day! Sheets of it. And dear cousin Helen thought the white sheets of rainâbeing drawn across the brown and the gold or somethingâwere very exciting. She's a charming child.”
“I don't agree with you. I think she is charming.”
“That's what I said.”
“I thought you said she was a child.”
“Oh, I suppose it's her sort of innocence or something.”
“Innocence,” repeated Joyce.
“You know what I meanâfresh and naïve, so to speak.”
“Quite. Being three years older, I am soiled and tarnished, so to speak.”
“Great Scott, of course! You're only three years older. I sayâwhat a gulf!”
Joyce looked at him. “You can be a nasty piece of work.”
He met her eyes in astonishment, then smiled quickly. “Heavens, I don't meanâI don't meanââ”
“No?”
“I mean the opposite. Quite the opposite. Absolutely.”
“How clear!”
“Now hold on there! You know jolly well what I mean. Anyhow, don't let us quarrel again. It's this rotten day, with nothing to do. We always quarrel when we have nothing to do.”
“I am perfectly content, thank you.”
“There you go! You'll nag at me now.”
Joyce jumped up. “Nag? Who's nagging?”
“Joyce, hang it all, you know I am gone on you. Have a heart for a fellow. You get me into a sweat until I don't know where I am.”
“You said nag.”
“A nag is an old horse, like me. Nag, you know. Nag, nig, nog.” And with a deft movement he kissed her.
“I think you're a perfect ass,” she said, relenting.
“That's better. Ooo! I wish I could hit something. I should have taken my punch-ball with me.”
“Don't worry. There will be more talk to-night.”
“Then I will hit someone.”
“Fine,” said Joyce, sitting down and punching a cushion for her head. “You launch your famous straight left. When Harry and Geoffrey go all over clever.⦔ She shrugged. “I wish you could chip in sometimes and dish 'em.”
“Not my line,” said George. “Besidesââ”
“Yes?”
“Well, for instance, if they said to me: âIt is predetermined that you are going to do so and so,' I should reply âWhat-ho!' and promptly do the opposite. Seems simple enough, doesn't it?”
“Why couldn't you say so?”
“Such a remark is always followed by a gaping void. Have a smoke.”
“Noâwell, all right. Listen.” As she lit her cigarette at his promptly produced mechanical lighter, she asked between puffs, “What would you doâif you met a ghost?”
“Met a what?”
“A ghost.”
“Oh, a ghost.” He lit his own cigarette. “Uhm, a ghost. Hadn't thought of that. Tricky customer, I should say.” He blew out the light thoughtfully. “Difficult to land on, by all accounts. Imagine me going up to him and saying: âGhost, what?' You knowâMr. Livingstone, I presume? He vouchâvouchsafes me no answerâexcept perhaps a jolly old moan. I lead one to the pointâjust to prove he's not celluloidâand then my fist goes right through. It would be pretty upsetting. I mean you'd lose your balance badly.”
“I should say you would.”
“Yes.” With a musing smile on his face George lit the lighter and blew it outâtwice.
“Don't do that,” said Joyce as he lit it a third time.
“Why?”
“I just suddenly don't like it.”
“Blowing out the dear old flame, what?”
“Oh, I think ghosts can be overdone.”
“They generally are cooked a bit.”
But she was attending to her own thought. “Where do you really stand
re
this absurd story about Harry being with Alick when he saw those ghosts? Really stand, I mean?”
“He may have had 'em, you know. I've known fellows who have had 'em.”
“What, ghosts?”
“Oh, the oddest thingsâcomplete with pink eyes and what-nots. And of course nothing there at all really. Very odd.”
“Oh, you mean the d. t.s?”
“That's the technical term, I understand.”
“Don't be funny. Alick wasn't tight.”
“When you're tight you're all right. It's afterwards. They climb up the wall and over the ceiling. Even wag their tails at you. It's anything but a joke to the fellow who has 'em. Nasty.”
“Do you think there's something brewing?”
“God knows. Wonder what's happened to them all?”
“Seems an unnatural silence about, doesn't there?”
“It's certainly getting very dark. Will I ring?”
The door opened and Mairi entered. George followed her with his eyes as she turned to light the lamp by the bookcase. A very noiseless efficient maid.⦠But his thought was interrupted by the entry of Sir John, who saw Joyce's arms extended.
“Not feeling bored are you?” Sir John asked her.
She got to her feet. “In this marvellous place!”
“We get days like these. Can't do anything much. No use for the hill or fishing. Have you anything to read? There should be some detective stories about. Real good ones,” said Sir John.
“I do like a good one,” said Joyce. “I must confess.”
Mairi soon had the standard lamp at its full brilliance and withdrew, leaving them to turn up the other lamp if they wished.
Lady Marway came in as they were hunting for the detective stories: “If Marjory hasn't got them upstairs, they may have gone to the kitchen. But I shouldn't think so. I'll get Marjory.”
“Oh don't bother, please,” said Joyce.
Lady Marway met Marjory at the door.
“Let me think,” said Marjory. “You mean the green⦠yesâI think I know where they are.”
As she turned to go out, Sir John asked her, “Geoffrey all right?”
“Oh yes.” Marjory smiled. “Purely stomachic, I understand. One moment.” She went out.
“Nothing wrong with Geoffrey, is there?” Joyce asked.
“No. Not really,” Lady Marway replied. “I rememberâyou and George had just gone out. He jumped up quickly after tea and then had a moment's giddiness. That was all.”
“Oh, that!” And Joyce recalled a girl who got it without jumping up. “Once or twice she passed clean out. Very alarming at the timeâbut nothing to it really. She had an interesting sequel.”
“Yes?” said Sir John, his smile waiting.
“She got married. For some reason he was quite poor. After that she never got it.”
“Here you are, children,” said Marjory, entering.
“Thanks, grandma,” replied Joyce.
Marjory handed the paper-backed novels to George. “Feel you need a bit of excitement?”
“You have no reason to talk,” Joyce intervened, obviously alluding to the recently strengthened relationship between Geoffrey and Marjory.
“One for you, old girl!” said George.
“Paying me back in your own coin,” said Marjory.
“Rate of exchange par and all that,” said George.
“That's rather a good one.” Marjory indicated one of the books.
“Oh, I know this johnnie,” declared George. “He delivers the body early. I like that. I always like to know where I am with the body. Some of them keep the body too long before murdering it, if you see what I mean.”
“Yes,” agreed Marjory. “I always think that's not fair. They try to work up an atmosphere first.”
“Yes, and that puts you off your stroke,” declared George with some animation. “If you are given the murdered body straight awayâyou know, see it before you on the floor, knife in back, or bullet hole in chest, or gash on head, as case may be, with one leg twisted up under the other thus, and one arm thrown out like that, and the other”âtying himself in a ludicrous knotâ“hereâ¦then”âundoing himselfâ“you know where you are and you proceed quite coolly to work out the doings.”
He bowed before the applause. “No flowers by request.”
Sir John rather agreed with him on the need for a cool procedure.
“That's really what I mean,” replied George, encouraged. “Murdered body: proceed coolly. But some writing johnnies clutter it up with stuff like emotion. I once read oneâyou won't believe this I knowâbut it's fact.
The detective wept!
⦠I knew you wouldn't believe me. Incredible.”
“I remember,” said Joyce, amid the mirth. “It was quite true. He had some sort of crush or other on the murdered body. Frightful bad taste.”
“I agree,” said Sir John. “It shouldn't be allowed.”
“That's what I said at the time,” declared Joyce, with no little enthusiasm. “What is a censor forâif he passes a thing like that?⦠You may laugh, but it is more tiresome than any silly old bedroom scene.”
“I must say there is always something original in your point of view, Joyce.” Sir John smiled to her.
“Thank you very much.” Joyce bowed. “I have often wondered at the fuss over bedroom scenes. I mean, after you have been places.”
Sir John laughed.
“What places?” asked Marjory.
“Oh,
you
know you don't need to go to a nudist colony. The other season we were atâwhat's its nameâalong from Monteâyou know? Frightfully stimulating.”
“What was?” asked Lady Marway.
“The sun,” replied Joyce with natural innocence.
Harry came into the fun, and Marjory explained to him: “George has been expounding the whole construction and esthetic of the detective novel. You've missed yourself!”
“Now now!” said George modestly. “Draw it mild.”
“If ever”, declared Marjory, “you want to know what to do with the murdered bodyâask George.”
“Uhm,” said Harry, nodding with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Very interesting. What's your line of campaign?”
“Oh rot!” said George.
“Go on, George,” Joyce encouraged him. “Tell the gentleman.”
George laughed with the others.
“He deprecates”, Sir John explained, “the introduction of emotion.”
“Exactly,” said George. “The whole thing in a nutshell. You are given the body: after that the clues. That's what I say. Any fussâI mean emotional stuffâand it goes sticky and the real clue is oozed over. You must keep a cool headâand carry on. There's the dead body. Quite O.K. It may have a gash: it may not. Though, personally, I think it should have a gash. In fairness, if you see what I mean?”
“What about poison?” Marjory asked.
“There's poison of course.” George shrugged. “Though with poison, it's usually some mysterious kind of poison with effects you were never properly told about. No, I must say I like the corpse with a jolly old gash right on the first page.”
“How gruesome!” Helen got up.
“What's gruesome about it?” demanded Joyce, proud of the lead George had established in the conversation.
“The corpseâwith the gash,” replied Helen. “I have tried to get used to corpsesâbut I can't. The dead body still impresses me.”
Joyce held up her palms, the case being hopeless. “Well, of course.⦔
“I can't see how people can really enjoy reading about murdered bodies and police andâand ugly motives thatââ”
“Ah, but then,” said Sir John, “you have never been a Cabinet Minister, or a scientist, or on the Stock Exchangeââ”
“Do
you
read them?” Helen interrupted him.
“I have read a good few and enjoyed them very much. As a means of relaxation, of taking your mind off its more important worriesâin short, as an anodyneâit has its points.”
“A dead bodyâas an anodyne!” Helen's eyes widened on her father.
“No one
worries
about a dead body,” observed Joyce. “That's morbid.”
Harry smiled to Helen. “It's a game, like crosswords.”
“But why play it with a dead body and a murderer? What makes them play it with those terribleâterribleââ”
“Possibly, my dear,” Sir John explained gently, “because death, violent death, is the most terrible thing we know.”
“So there is something in what Helen says,” Harry suggested. “If it is the most terrible thing, then the curiosity underlying the detective story must be morbid.”
“To a certain degree, perhaps,” Sir John admitted. “But the motive is really one of human cleverness directed towards the ends of justice.”
“The ends of abstract qualities do not usually provide a thrill, do they?” Harry asked.
Joyce, who saw George's leadership slipping away, intervened confidently. “What do you say, George?”
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