The Baker’s Daughter (9 page)

It was no wonder that Grace was unhappy in her new life.

“What are you thinking?” inquired Sue at last.

“Nothing much,” answered Grace. “It's just—we're not so much better off. Yer father's hard to understand—he scarcely opens his mouth, and Sandy's awful sulky.”

“You should let Sandy do what he wants,” Sue told her. “He's miserable—that's what's the matter with him.”

“Sandy doesn't know what he wants,” said Grace promptly.

“He wants—”

“He wants one thing on Monday and another thing on Tuesday,” continued Grace. “If he'd speak out and say what he's thinking, there'd be some chance of dealing with him. I declare I'm half crazy between the two of them—I never had to do with dumb folks before.”

“You didn't like me speaking out and you don't like their dumbness—you're hard to please, Grace.”

“Maybe I am,” she replied hopelessly.

In spite of the hard words that had been said, the two felt more friendly to each other at this moment than they had ever felt before. They had spoken with perfect frankness, and the bitter feelings that had been pent up within them for so long were eased away.

“I'm sorry,” said Sue again as they parted on the doorstep.

“Och, well—” said Grace resignedly, and with that she put up her umbrella and disappeared into the darkness of the night.

One morning in December, Sue awoke to find the voice of the river muted to a mere whisper in the gray dark, and rising from her bed she looked out upon an unfamiliar scene. Snow had fallen heavily in the night, blanketing the hills, outlining every branch of every tree, and crusting thickly upon the rocks that lined the riverbed. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was dove gray with the promise of dawn, and the light, instead of falling from above, seemed to rise from below—a strange ghostly light like the winter daylight of the Arctic wastes.

Sue was young enough to love the snow. The mere fact that it threw everything out of gear and dislocated the even tenor of existence was an adventure, not a nuisance, to her. She raced through her work, for she wanted to go out. The country around Tog's Mill was familiar to her now in its bare winter garb, but the snow would make it all different. Sue wanted to see it and smell it; she wanted to walk knee-deep in the crispness of it. Darnay was pleased too and could hardly wait to eat his breakfast before seizing his painting gear and sallying forth to find a subject for his brush.

At eleven o'clock Sue filled a thermos flask with hot coffee and arrayed herself for her walk. She tucked up her skirt and tied a blue woolen scarf over her head. The sun was shining now, but it was low on the horizon, and there was little heat in its rays; the air was like chilled wine, and the snow was crisp as sugar underfoot. The trees were finely etched against the whiteness of their background, their shadows were deep blue, and the little dells and depressions in the covering were dove gray. Over the fields the snow was as smooth as a blanket and the hedges and banks showed only as gentle mounds, and through it all—the only thing that moved in all that wide, still waste—the river ran swiftly, like a dark green snake.

Sue had wondered whether she would be able to find Darnay—for sometimes he painted by the river, and sometimes on the hills—but there was no difficulty at all in finding him, for his footprints were clear and firm, leading her westward along the river path. It was fun tracking him like this, and Sue enjoyed the novelty. She tried to place her own feet in the marks, but his strides were too long to be comfortable for her. Darnay's footprints were the only human ones to mar the whiteness of the snow, but there were dozens of tiny prints made by rabbits and river rats. Their padding feet had run over the snow this way and that as they sought their food so that their light trails crossed and recrossed confusedly. There were bird marks too, and, in one place near the river's edge, a scatter of ruby drops and a tiny heap of feathers showed where an owl or a hawk or some such bird of prey had made its kill.

Sue's eyes were very bright and the cold air made her cheeks tingle. She was so happy that she sang as she went. She sang some of the old Scots songs that she knew and loved: “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” and “Will Ye No' Come Back Again,” and then suddenly she came around a bend in the path beside a great rock with crystal icicles hanging from its crown and found Darnay painting by the river.

He looked up and smiled at her. “Why stop?” he inquired. “It was the prettiest thing in the world to hear your voice coming nearer and nearer and nearer. I didn't know you had such a pretty voice, Miss Bun. Why have you hidden your light under a bushel?”

Sue blushed. “I was singing to myself.”

“So I supposed, but you have no objection to other people enjoying it, I hope. What's that you've got?”

“Coffee,” she replied. “I was thinking you might be a wee bit cold.”

“You were wrong,” he told her, and he laughed when he saw how her face fell. “You were entirely wrong in thinking I might be a wee bit cold—I'm almost frozen to death. What a wonderful person you are!” he continued as he took the cup and warmed his hands upon it and sipped the coffee with relish. “You really are the perfect housekeeper. How did you find me?”

Sue chuckled. “How do you think I would find you?” she inquired.

He thought for a moment, crinkling up his eyes, and then he exclaimed, “Of course! You tracked my footsteps in the snow. How clever of you!”

“Savages are often good at tracking—so I've heard,” declared Sue, dryly.

Darnay roared with laughter. “So you haven't forgotten that insult! Come look at the picture, Miss Bun.”

She went to look at it, and this time she was careful to look at it from a distance so that her eye would not be confused by the whorls of crude paint.

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully.

“You like it?”

“Well, I wouldn't say that,” she declared with absolute honesty. “It's too queer for me to like it, and I can't see all those colors in the snow. Snow looks white to me.”

“Only because you have a preconceived idea that snow is white,” said Darnay seriously. “It is your brain that tells you snow is white—not your eyes.”

* * *

Darnay crossed the river at the weir above the mill and set off up the snowy slopes of the opposite bank. He was going to see Loch Beil, which Miss Bun had told him lay on the north side of the tree-clad hill. The loch would be frozen—perhaps it would be covered with snow—and Darnay thought he could find a subject there. He carried, besides his painting gear, a knapsack containing his lunch, for he intended to be out all day, but despite the load, he strode up the hill with long easy strides. He felt fit and strong and happy, for he knew that he was doing good work—the “new medium” was going to be a success.

There was a fine view from the top of the hill and Darnay paused to admire it. The town of Beilford lay eastward, a cluster of gray houses half hidden by a haze of smoke. All around were hills: small hills, rounded and glistening white in the winter sunshine, and big hills faintly opalescent, their more rugged contours outlined against the pale blue sky. Below him lay the loch, a smooth white sheet, surrounded by pine trees, tall and stiff as sentinels. Darnay noticed that, at one end of the loch, a patch of gray ice had been swept clear, and this patch was occupied by a group of dark figures that moved backward and forward in an apparently meaningless way.

Darnay watched the small figures for a few moments, crinkling up his eyes in the white glare, and suddenly he realized that there was a curling match in progress. He had seen curling in Switzerland, and it had not appealed to him in the least (it was foolish—so Darnay thought—to spend your days rolling stones upon a rectangular patch of ice when you could climb the mountains and rush down them on skis with the wind whistling through your hair), but here it was quite a different matter, for these people were curling upon a real loch in natural surroundings, and the game was their own game—indigenous to their soil.

Darnay stacked his painting things behind a rock and went down to see the game. He would watch them for a little and see where the fascination lay. As he drew nearer, he heard cries and shouts and a strange rumbling sound as the stones slid over the ice. It was an elemental sound, exciting as thunder, and was echoed back (as thunder is echoed) from the high cliffs to northward of the loch.

As Darnay reached the bank it seemed that a game had ended, for the players were standing in a little group, talking and laughing together. They were all men, he noticed, and they were dressed in the queerest assortment of clothes—old torn jackets and knickerbockers that looked as though they had come out of the Ark. (Bulloch was the only one that Darnay knew—an outstanding figure with his tall, spare frame and silver hair.) He was sorry that the game was over, for he had wanted to watch them and to hear that gorgeous roar at close quarters.

Suddenly Bulloch looked around and saw Darnay. He said something to one of his companions and came over to the bank.

“Would ye care to join us, Mr. Darnay?” he inquired. “We're a man short, ye see. The fact is the doctor was called away.”

“I don't know the first thing about curling,” said Darnay, laughing.

Bulloch smiled. “It's high time ye made a start, then,” he declared. “Come away now. We'll soon put ye in the way of it.”

“I shouldn't be the least use.”

“You'd wonder,” Bulloch said. “Maybe ye've played bowls now and then?”

Darnay had played bowls.

“Well then, ye'll soon get into the way of it—come away, Mr. Darnay.”

Darnay was led over to the rink, protesting feebly, and was received by the other players with unceremonious friendliness.

“Ye'll soon get into it,” they told him.

“Never too old to learn.”

“We'll make a curler of ye yet.”

They showed him how to stand—“Stand right, foot fair, look even”—and how to grip the handle of the stone and swing it slowly backward and upward, and they impressed him with the importance of soling the stone, letting it gently off his hand at exactly the right moment.

At first Darnay found it difficult. He had a straight eye, but the length bothered him, and his stones either failed to reach “the hog” or went careering through “the house” and fetched up in the bank of snow that surrounded the rink. But after a little practice and tuition he was absurdly delighted to find that he really was beginning to get the hang of it. He would have liked to practice longer, but the others were eager to start and declared that Darnay was quite fit to take his place in the match.

By this time, Darnay had managed to sort out his companions and to distinguish them by their names—or at least the names used by their fellow curlers. His own side interested him most: first was himself (for beginners usually play lead); second was “Hickie,” a solid pleasant man of about twenty-eight years of age; third was “Bill,” an old man in a green shooting jacket, very much the worse for wear; fourth was “Hornie,” who was rather short and thickset and walked with a nautical roll. Darnay put him down as a retired seafaring man, possibly a mate in the mercantile marine. He was the “skip” of Darnay's side and took his duties seriously.

At first Darnay was a little contemptuous of the excitement of his companions, but quite soon the game gripped him and he was shouting as loudly as anybody and “sooping” as though his life depended upon it. Time passed quickly, and he was quite surprised when it was decided to knock off for lunch. They were very friendly now, tossing jokes backward and forward as they ate their sandwiches—it was “Darnay this” and “Darnay that,” and Darnay entered into the spirit of the thing and called his companions by the names he had learned.

“I'm thinking we'll have to hold a court this year,” Bulloch said. “It's three years and more since we had one, and there's several folks to initiate.”

“Darnay for one,” suggested Bill.

“Aye, Darnay, of course,” agreed Hornie. “We'll make a fine curler of Darnay if only the frost lasts.”

“What's all this?” inquired Darnay laughing.

“It's the mysteries.”

“Aye, we canna tell ye.”

“Wait an' see what's coming to ye!”

“High jinks, eh?”

They all laughed then but refused to be more explicit, saying that it was a secret and that only the initiated were allowed to know what “the mysteries” consisted of.

“Is it a kind of club?” Darnay asked.

“Aye, it's a club.”

“The best club in the world.”

In the afternoon they curled again, and Darnay improved considerably. Bulloch was far and away the best player—it was sheer joy to watch the effortless ease with which he sent up his stone—but Bill and Hornie were no mean performers, and the sides were so evenly matched that when they had played eight ends, they were even.

“We're peal thirteen,” Hornie said and added for Darnay's benefit, “That's thirteen all, and only one more end to play. Try to sole your stone well, Darnay, and let it gently off your hand—you're doing fine.”

Hornie had changed the order of play in the afternoon, putting Hickie lead, Darnay second, himself third, and Bill fourth. Darnay had grasped the principles of the game by this time and was aware that his duty was to put a guard on Hickie's well-placed stones. His first stone was too weak (he had tilted it slightly as it left his hand, and it failed to reach “the hog”), but his second stone was better.

“Soop for yer lives, men,” Hornie cried. “Soop, soop, soop!”

Bill and Hickie seized their birch brooms and sooped industriously, and the stone came to rest in its appointed place.

“It's a grand shot, that,” cried Hornie, capering with excitement. “Man, it's the very thing I wanted!”

The stones were well grouped in “the house” when Bulloch, who played last for his side, took up his stand on the crampit. There was a faint smile on his lips, and he weighed the stone carefully in his hand before sending it down. The stone started so slowly that the others prepared to “soop,” but Bulloch shouted the command, “Brooms up, lads!” The stone was wide, but, as it lost momentum, it curled inward—curled and curled until Darnay could hardly believe his eyes and, finally, it slid in between the other stones and lay right upon “the pot lid.”

Great was the excitement of Bulloch's men. They hopped about from foot to foot and waved their brooms in the air.

“A good shot, man!”

“Losh, it's bonnie!”

“You, for a curler—gie's a shake o' your hand.”

It was a bad lookout for Darnay's side now, but Bill still had one more stone to play. He and Hornie discussed the situation somewhat ruefully—it might have been of European importance from the gravity of their expressions.

“It will need to be a thunderbolt, Hornie,” declared Bill with a gleam in his bright blue eyes.

Hornie agreed reluctantly—he preferred the wily, canny game of slipping between your opponents' guards to the forceful methods of scattering them—but alas, Bulloch's stone was surrounded on every side. The situation was desperate, and desperate situations require desperate measures.