The Shadow (11 page)

“Mr. Surrey is a particular friend of Nan's,” she explained.

“Is that so?” acknowledged the doctor politely, glancing again at Ranald.

“How is she this morning?” Aunt Phemie's tone was quiet and searching.

“Well——” The doctor's reddish brows puckered. “There's no temperature, but there's a distinct exhaustion, depression. You'll have to watch her pretty carefully. I feel fairly sure now there is nothing—physiologically wrong.”

“That's good, that's so much.” Aunt Phemie nodded in a businesslike way. There was a pause. “Do you think Mr. Surrey might help to—help her?”

“Well——” The doctor straightened himself, glanced away, looked at Ranald, and then at his own hand as it pulled his waistcoat down. He was distinctly well dressed. “I was going to warn you again against any form of excitement. Too sudden or strong an excitement might be definitely dangerous; would be. I had hoped you would be able to keep her quiet, rest her thoroughly, for at least a couple of days. By the way, you'll have to get them to stop that dog howling.”

“What dog?” Asked Aunt Phemie.

The doctor looked at her. “I gather a dog was howling over at the cottages during the night.”

“Was there?” Aunt Phemie appeared to think a moment. “I'll talk to the grieve about it.”

“It might be as well,” agreed the doctor. “I rather fancy,” he added cheerfully, “that it was a real dog.” He looked at Ranald. “You have travelled all night?”

“Yes.”

“I think a rest might do you good, too. Frankly, I would rather she was not unduly excited, not anyway until we see how she is to-morrow. You understand this is a difficult case, and all I am quite sure of is that she needs rest and quiet.”

“I understand,” said Ranald. “Did she have a high temperature?”

“Yes, it ran dangerously high.”

“With no apparent cause?”

“You knew her in London?”

“Yes.”

“Did anything of the kind occur there?”

“It did. The doctor put it down to an all-night exposure. It disappeared, without leaving any traces—except that she was shattered a bit.”

The doctor nodded thoughtfully, as though inwardly now more confident. “Well, I'll have a look in to-morrow. Otherwise,” and he smiled to Aunt Phemie, “keep on as you are doing.” He drove off.

“We'll go in the back way,” said Aunt Phemie. At the side gate she paused, her hand on the latch. “We'll go quietly into the kitchen, if you don't mind. Perhaps, on the whole, we might follow the doctor's advice. What do you think?”

“All right,” agreed Ranald in his casual way. “Not that I think they know a great deal about it.”

“Who—the doctor?”

“Well, he is obviously fumbling, hoping for the best.”

“What else can any of us do?”

Her sharpened tone brought the smile to his face. “I am not blaming him.”

He closed the gate and followed her by the foot of the vegetable garden into the kitchen. “I'll make you a cup of tea,” she said quietly. “Then we'll have lunch in about an hour. Would that be all right?” The kitchen faced north and in its faint gloom the pallor of his face was very distinct.

“Absolutely,” he said, “and please don't trouble about me. I'll make myself a cup if you want to see Nan. Actually I don't feel hungry.”

“You didn't sleep last night?” She shoved the murmuring kettle over the fire in the range.

“The carriage was packed, including an ailing child. The proletariat travelled.” His tone was light and easy.

She moved quickly and soon had tea, with bread and scones, on the kitchen table. “Help yourself—and I'll go up to relieve Mrs. Fraser. Your train was very late.” She went out, closing the door noiselessly behind her.

When he had drunk all the tea in the pot, he sat in the basket chair by the fire. His head drooped before the warmth and his eyes closed. There were whispering voices by the back door, then Aunt Phemie came in. He looked up.

“Would you like to rest?” she asked.

“I am feeling a bit drowsy,” he admitted.

“Your bed is all ready. Would you come now?” She looked at his feet. “Have you slippers?”

“No, but that doesn't matter. I'll take off my shoes here.”

She thought for a moment. “Wait.” She went out, drew aside a curtain from a wall shelf by the pantry, and, from a heap of old footwear, fished out a pair of brown leather slippers. Her dead husband's. She stood with them in her hand, looking out of the side window at an old apple tree between the vegetable garden and the drying green. The apples were small but red, and suddenly she saw them very distinctly. In the kitchen she said, “Try these.” They fitted him well enough. “We'll go quietly.” She led the way, indicated the bathroom with a gesture, and introduced him to his room. He nodded his thanks as she silently closed the door.

Before Nan's room, which was three doors away, she listened, then went softly down the stairs and into the kitchen, closing the door behind her as in an act of privacy. Then she breathed.

She walked slowly to the window, staring through it. Infantile regression! she thought. As cool as that! His cool attitude seemed so incredible now that she stood by the sink staring blindly across the field of grain at the elms in the shallow ravine. She felt lost, wandered. She had expected him to be anxious, full of concern, of warmth. The lover; someone she would have to deal with, restrain, but use for Nan's surprise and happiness.

She could not believe it, did not know what to do, felt queerly helpless. Turning from the window, she saw his cup and plate on the table, brought them to the sink and turned the hot tap on them. The teapot she swilled out more than once, then stood with it cupped in her hands. It was still warm. Carrying it slowly towards the fire, she placed it on the hot metal, slid the kettle over the burning coal and continued to lean on its handle, waiting for the water to come to the boil, in a dumb patience.

The hot tea revived her, lifted her head. There was colour in her face, a brightness in her eyes, a tilt to her chin, as though something had happened to her in a foreign country where she was travelling alone. She would have to deal with the situation. She listened as it were to the sound of it.

Nan wasn't strong enough to cope with him, she thought. You need intelligence to cope with a man like that. His intelligence is so colossal that he breathes its air, naturally. She had felt like a flustered Victorian hen. Twenty-eight! My God! thought Aunt Phemie, who had ceased thinking in such terms for a long time.

This is the new world, she decided. Suddenly his face came before her again, paler than it had been, strangely pale, distinguished, slightly frightening, like something created in the dusk.

I'll be going neurotic next! she thought with a touch of spirited humour and recklessly drank her too hot tea. It brought tears to her eyes, and as she wiped them away with her bare hand she thought of Nan.

He would never cure Nan, never! Nan might cling to him, trying to shake what she hungrily needed out of him. Might as well shake a tree at midday and expect the dew to fall. Honestly! declared Aunt Phemie, aware she was going all emotional but not caring. And giving him Dan's slippers too!

She felt much better after she had wept. So many years had come and gone since she had wept—that last forsaken night in bed at the time of the lambing—that she felt a new woman, emptied and lightened. She got up briskly, put her cup and saucer in the sink, turned the tap on, swilled the teapot, and began washing the dishes. As she dried his cup, her lips twisted in humour, as though she were at last getting the measure of him. Positively ancient in his calm understanding, she mocked. With a woman of her own age—she was forty-seven—she could have enjoyed herself. One would almost think, she could have said, that he had been
married
to her for twenty-eight years!

Her hands stopped drying, the cup remained poised before her breast, the dish-cloth hanging down, while she stared across the almost ripe grain. Her mouth opened slightly, her features gathered.
They have lived together,
she thought with an extreme almost paralysing enlightenment. Her breathing stopped.

As she moved quietly about the kitchen, putting things away, wiping the sink, she paused frequently. Then she sat down. This was a new and very important fact. It put everything in a different light. It so altered Nan's problem, so reflected upon the nature of her illness, that she could not—she could not—get a hold of it. The air now, the air around them, in the house, outside, was still with this enlightenment. And everything was caught in the stillness as in an appalling inevitability.

Could she be making a mistake? Nan showed so much of the élan of the lover, the naïve freshness, the youthful impatience, that Aunt Phemie had genuinely felt that the very unfulfilment of her love, the dreadful happenings which had stopped its natural flowering, was part of her actual trouble. Get these things removed, the horrible fears dissipated, and love would bloom naturally and healingly. The neurotic problem would be solved. Deep in her mind she had been certain of this—and any old Freudian could say what he liked!

It was a different and tougher problem now.

She came to herself with a sense of shock and a quick glance at the clock. The soup pot was quietly simmering. She had got everything ready before going to the station. Perhaps she had better go up and make sure Nan was not awake and “deserted”. After the doctor's visit Nan had felt drowsy, profoundly indifferent, and wanted to sleep. But she had a habit of waking out of sleep, not knowing where she was, terrified. She should have had her switched egg. Aunt Phemie glanced at the clock again, then went out and quietly upstairs. On the landing she listened to the two bedrooms, aware of the distance between them as empty and unnatural. She would let Ranald sleep on. She wouldn't go near him. Then she heard Nan's bed creak faintly. She stood absolutely still, not wanting to go in. At last, however, she tiptoed to the door, pushed it slowly open, and shoved her head in.

“Hallo, had a sleep?” she asked in soft tones.

There was no answer.

“Just a minute and I'll bring you up your switched egg.” She pulled the door almost shut and went quickly and quietly down the stairs, her heart beating strongly.

In the afternoon, with Mrs. Fraser in Nan's room, Aunt Phemie went out about the steading and found the grieve and Will in the machine shed overhauling the binder. Harvesting lay ahead and the very sight of the slim wooden arms (“flyers” the men called them) that, revolving, would thrash down the grain over the cutting blades, touched her in an airy way so that at once she felt in another world.

“Did you see Sandy about?” she asked.

Will looked at her and then at the grieve who took a few seconds to finish what he was doing before lifting his head. “Sandy?” he repeated. “No. Did you see him?” and he looked at Will.

“I think he's gone up to the top park with the stirks,” said Will. “I saw him heading up that way whatever.”

“Oh it doesn't matter,” she said lightly.

There was silence for a little. The grieve would not question her, not at once. Sandy was the cattleman.

“That young collie of his,” she went on, looking about the shed; “was he howling last night?”

“Howling? No. I can't say I heard him.”

She realised that they would never hear anything so natural as a dog howling in the night; they slept too hard. She looked at Will.

“No, I can't say he's a howler,” said Will slowly. “And it's hardly likely, because he sleeps in the stick shed with the ould dog.”

“It's nothing; only my niece was a bit disturbed last night and the doctor insists she needs all the rest she can get.”

“He may have howled of course,” said the grieve. “I'll talk to Sandy if you like.”

“Well, you could mention it to him—just to make sure. How is the binder doing?” She went forward a step or two.

“Not bad,” said the grieve. “We're just going to look over it. How is Miss Gordon today?”

“Coming along, thanks. She only needs attention.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” said the grieve. Then, after waiting a moment, he added, “I was going to see you last night about one or two things, but I didn't want to disturb the house.” He left the binder and they slowly went outside.

There had been rain during the night and all morning the sky had been overcast, but now the sun was out and everything was washed and fresh. She saw the bright colours of a cock chaffinch on a willow growing out of the green bank. He was declaring himself confidently as he hopped about the twigs.

She listened to the grieve's talk of repairs, the blacksmith, the recurrent trouble over the tractor's magneto and what they said in the garage. He spoke confidently for he had arranged everything, but the accounts would come to her. When he related how he had dealt with others his manner and tone always gathered a consequential air. He was a middle-sized stocky man, who said little by way of reprimand to those under him until he could no longer keep it in, when he said too much. But he was fair, and, in illness, extraordinarily considerate. She always, at the end of their year, gave him a bonus, worked out privately by herself as a percentage. In recent years it had been quite a tidy sum. The farm was as well run as any in the district. Perhaps one hidden factor more than any other kept him now her devoted ally and that was his secret consciousness of lack of schooling. His respect for the way she filled in forms and ran the farm's accountancy was very deep. She listened to him with her businesslike air and watched the cock chaffinch. A wren came out from the roots of the willow. The physical health and strength of the world had something lovely and sure about it. She said, “That's fine!” nodding. He said, “Just let me know what he charges.” “I will.” “Some of them are worth the watching,” he added. Then he began talking about one of the horses and she went with him to the stables. The brute was crippled on the near hind leg. He clapped a haunch strongly and cried, “Get over there!” “But isn't that swollen!” “Ay,” he answered calmly, “there's a swelling there.” “Have you sent for the vet?” she asked with sharp concern. “Ay,” he answered casually, “I put word to him this morning.” “What do you think it is?” “Who knows, for he can hardly have strained himself. He was aye a lazy brute. It may be a touch of the rheumatics. We'll see.” He was now treating lightly her concern for animals. She knew this. But he had sent for the vet.