The Silver Darlings (53 page)

“No,” said Ronnie. “I used to think about her often when I was away.” His tone was clear and frank and
transcended
Finn’s embarrassment. “The autumn is on us,” he said in the same tone, lifting his face. “The rowan berries are red.”

Finn looked at the mountain-ash with its load of berries, blood-red berries over green leaves in the September sun. Their stillness and silence touched him, as if they were waiting or listening.

“We’ll sit in their shadow for a little,” said Ronnie, “for I’m feeling a bit tired.”

The moment had now come, Finn knew, when Ronnie would tell about the death of his father.

As Finn listened to the description of how the line stuck in the bottom and they thought they were in a whale, he could not help laughing, for Ronnie himself was smiling; then the first white fish; and finally, in the dawn, the
herring
. He could understand the excitement, and wanted to prolong the moment, for he knew what was coming. But like fate it came, and when Finn heard how his father had behaved, his heart was bitter and proud, and the emotion that rose in him would not let him speak. He saw it all with a terrible clarity, and fought beside his father as he would beside a great hero.

“We had not much English, and not the kind they spoke anyway, and we did not answer them but remained dumb. That has troubled my mind often since. Perhaps they used it as an excuse not to know or report anything about your father. There was a dumb anger in us—and we paid for it before they broke us. Your father was buried at sea. O God, that was a terrible moment when we realized who it was.
Terrible beyond telling. I was always a peaceable enough man, but murder dwelt in me for many a long day.
However
, it’s no good going over all that. No good at all, Finn boy. Young Torquil—he broke out. They put him in irons. I thought he was going off his head. We were separated in the end. Time will do anything to a man. For we come of a tough enough breed, a breed that has endured a lot. Never mind. It all comes back to the one thing, Finn—brutality. Compel people into a position where they have to use the brute that’s in them in order to live and the brute will waken all right. When the brute is naturally strong in a man—that’s the man who becomes the leader of the
press-gang
. And there you have it. Where all is compulsion and enforcement, it’s the bully that rules.”

Finn sat silent, a dark flush on his face.

“Life is a strange thing, too,” said Ronnie. “At first there is anger and murder in your heart. You feel that you’ll yet get your own back. You’re young. You can endure. You’ll have your revenge. But it does not work out like that. Not in life itself, Finn. Why? Because of this terrible thing—that the years pass. You had thought that you would work through it and get what you wanted yet. You even work out years of service and a pension and a cottage of your own. But all the time the terrible thing that’s happening is—that the years are passing. I have the little pension and the cottage but—the years have passed.”

“But you are secure now,” said Finn, under the shadow of his father’s death.

“Yes,” said Ronnie.

Finn felt uncomfortable.

“All I wanted to say, Finn, was that you are doing fine here. You stick to it, boy. This is a full enough life for any man. You have everything here—and freedom besides. Don’t go hankering after the wastes of the world. They were telling me of your story of adventure into the Western Ocean.”

“That was nothing.”

“It took you to the edge of death—and further than that no adventure can travel in this life.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Finn, feeling restless.

“I know,” said Ronnie. And he added, with a quiet finality in his voice, a summing up of wisdom, “We were driven: you went.”

Silence fell on them now and Ronnie lay back against the slope. “It’s fine here,” he said.

But because of the mood that was on Finn, he felt in Ronnie’s simple words a deep, incommunicable sadness.

Ronnie closed his eyes, Finn and all the brutalities of the world washed from him. Finn glanced at the face and saw it strange and remote, the skin taut over the bones beneath, the scar a shiny red, the whole fixed and set as in death—like a face washed up by the tides of an invisible sea.

Finn began breaking a little stick in his fingers. It was dead and broke readily. He became aware of Ronnie’s eyes but did not like to turn his head and look.

“It’s fine lying here. Man, I enjoy this,” said Ronnie, in a cheerful half-sleepy voice. When at last he got up and gazed at the tree, his whole manner was friendly and bright. “Look, now. What about taking a sprig of these berries home to your mother? I’m sure she would like you to take something to her from her beloved strath.”

“Do you think so?”

“It would show her you remembered her.”

With a slow smile, Finn pulled down a cluster of the red fruit.

On the way home the following afternoon, Finn was in grand heart. He had thoroughly enjoyed his stay at Dale and felt now as if he had grown larger. Everyone had been extremely kind to him. Ronnie had come some distance with him and before saying good-bye had spoken of the change on the coast. The picture of a people happy again, with the coming of prosperity from the sea. The sea did not belong to any landlord and the use of the press-gang was
dying out. By the new Act of Parliament, a man
press-ganged
could not now be held more than five years. But everything depended on the young men. “It’s for fellows like you to lead, Finn; to build up the ways of our folk once more. Your father and myself started—but we were beaten. You are the new generation. Justify your father, boy,
before
the world. And look after your mother, who suffered more than you’ll ever know.”

It was good fun to think of these words now. Like marching to a tune. And Barbara—they had made Barbara blush. She had snatched her hand away at leave-taking. He laughed, thinking of it. He had a lot of news for his mother. He would lay himself out to tell her about everything! Ronnie—Ronnie … and his mother? His brows gathered over a smile. The idea that anyone like Ronnie should think of marrying his mother!
Holy
Jesus!
as the Englishman had said. Finn felt hot and laughed. Old people had no sense. But, of course, Ronnie never meant—really. He couldn’t. He was too—too wise and fine a fellow, with fun in him besides. Good Lord, no! And, out of a sudden driving exuberance, Finn took to his heels and ran, and freedom ran with him.

He would be home on the edge of the dark.

CHAPTER XXI

CATRINE AND RODDIE

W
hen Finn and Barbara had disappeared,
Catrine
turned and found she had the whole croft to herself. It was suddenly both intimate and vacant, and over her came an urgent impulse to work. Chairs and stools she whisked outside; the beds were
stripped
and armfuls of blankets spread to the, sun;
everything
was shifted or taken down, until the whole household was in an uproar. Then she settled to the attack.

A fine girl, Barbara. Youth was away on the road.

Bran (successor to Oscar who had died from injury) lay at a few yards on the grass considering her now and then with some misgiving, but keeping well clear of this odd frenzy that attacked humans occasionally. The cock was astonished as usual. One or two of the hens croaked in the quiet, reflective way they had at times, speaking to themselves like old women, while two or three young ones indulged in a luxurious bath near the peat-stack, fluffing now and then the fine black dust through their feathers.

Not that she wanted to be with Finn and Barbara. She was well content where she was. Though it would be lovely, too, to see her mother. There was a queer pleasure in having the place to herself. It was like having herself to herself. The byre was empty. The little barn. There was a silence in Finn’s room; and in the guest-room. Kirsty’s wooden trunk looked at her. She got the key, sat down on the floor, pushed back the lid, and forgot all about her labours in the very middle of them.

The past came back with a sweet sorrow. A brooch of Kirsty’s was a love-token from a life beyond her own. All hers; the trunk itself; not Kirsty’s now, but hers. Yet it would never be hers as it had been Kirsty’s. All that was really hers were the little precious things of her very own that she had hidden away here. Green …
cairngorm-yellow
…. At the sight of them, she began to weep; and she wept heavily, like a child, the tears flowing copiously.

She wiped the tears away and smiled, but with little embarrassment, for she was not ashamed of herself. She knew perfectly well that all this was weakness and
sentiment
. But there was no-one in the world to see her. So what business was it of anyone? She could weep if she liked. And enjoy it, too. There were little things that could break the heart; that could make the heart young and break it.

She felt young. Perhaps it was the sight of Barbara and Finn setting off….

Catrine was now thirty-eight, a fully-developed woman, her shoulders rounded and firm, her chest deep, her face more full than it had been in the old days but with the eyes still large and the mouth red. The texture of her fair skin retained much of the smoothness of youth, of girlhood. Life, too, had taken care that the texture of her mind would not grow insensitive or complacent. At times, indeed—now, in a measure, by Kirsty’s old chest—her eyes would quicken as in clairvoyance and her whole body grow alive to a
condition
or emotion remote from her in time or place. The fire could sweep her, not so recklessly as in youth, perhaps, and not so often, but sometimes with a deeper force; for—as Ronnie had said—the years pass….

She had been sorry for Ronnie. Oh, desperately! He would never know how profoundly she had understood him. She had come nearer to an understanding of life, of that ultimate something final and tragic in it, than ever she had before. Sorrow had not burdened the mind and blinded the eyes, but had been seen clear in its pattern, beyond chance
or mood, distant and fixed as an outline of the Kildonan hills.

Ronnie could not expect her to understand this. Yet in his way, he had understood, too, and that somehow had been the hardest part to bear. She had seen it coming from the first moment she had met his eyes. “Catrine!” “
Ronnie
!” And there it was. How confused she had been! The past calling to her, rising in a wave. She had turned away to look at her son in Roddie’s boat, leaving her for the West. That was excuse enough for any emotion. And when the boat had disappeared beyond the Head, she found herself all in a moment delighted to speak to Ronnie, anxious to speak to him, with the terror of what he would have to tell her about Tormad—and then about himself—making her eyes brilliant and her body bloom. There had been early moments when she had been almost overcome with
excitement
, with intolerable suspense.

But Ronnie had been so wise and practical that her
gladness
at seeing him increased. Barbara was there, too, and that was good for restraint; so he could stay for a day or two, as he had intended, quite well. Of course he could. She would hear of nothing else.

The first night Ronnie had told her of the manner of Tormad’s death. He had told it so simply and
straightforwardly
, that death was given a dignity, a heroic air. “We are no longer children, Catrine. These are the chances that come to life. They are bitter, but we learn to face them. It took me a long time, for I slept with murder many a night.”

When she wept, he offered no sympathy. His voice
remained
quiet-toned, distant from her a little, but gentle with understanding. That delicacy—afterwards, in the sleepless hours of the night—had a curious steadying effect, for it was as if she remembered it without having noticed it at the time.

The following day he was interested in the croft, and she showed him everything. He was a fine companion now, full
of life and little jokes, delighting in the land, staring at the tender corn with a smile, hearkening to the birds, talking of nests with a half-amused, half-adventurous expression, clapping the cows when she milked them—as though he could not get quite used to the old wonder of it all. His sailor’s eye saw things crying out to be fixed up, or
battened
down. She saw life taking root in him and growing before her eyes, life and hope. This excited her deeply. She laughed too readily and too much. Her anxiety now was to keep him off, and yet by the very way she set about it, by the gaiety that was meant to avoid the serious, she drew him powerfully, and knew she did but could not help it.

On the third night, with Barbara up at Shiela’s, he spoke to her, again with one of his simple questions, without
intruding
, in the quietness of the kitchen, their minds alive as the tongues of fire: “You would not think of getting married again, Catrine?” Not looking at him, she had answered, “No.”

“Why not? If you care for me at all?” His voice had shaken. “I have always cared for you. Never anyone else. Couldn’t—couldn’t you think of it?”

She had shaken her head.

The dumb gesture had encouraged him. He had drawn nearer, close to her. “Catrine, why not, my white heart?” An arm went round her shoulders. “Our lives are before us. I could make you happy. Listen to me, Catrine. Many a long night did I think of you. Catrine, together we could make up——”

“Oh, no, no, Ronnie!” and she turned to him blindly and buried her face against his breast in a storm of emotion.

He had clasped her now in both his arms, and kissed her hair, and murmured words into it. But she had drawn away from him, and in a moment felt tragically calm.

“I’m sorry, Ronnie—to behave like this—but it cannot be. It couldn’t.”

He did not give in easily. This had come too quickly upon her. But in time—perhaps in time—give time a chance.

She did not answer him.

“Do you not care for me?”

“It’s not that.” Her voice and manner were fatally calm.

“What is it, then?”

“I don’t know.” But she knew, oh, she knew now. She would never get away from the past with Ronnie. He was its ghost. The strath, the outline of the hills, Tormad, the red berries—with the life that ran through them, the flame of youth, quickening, terrible, enchanting. Ronnie would lead her back there, remind her. It could not be borne. And because of this revulsion, knowing now how he had suffered, seeing his mind and hope with a dreadful clarity, seeing both of them caught like this in the ways of fate, of a past inexorable fate, wanderers akin in spirit and in
circumstance
, she almost loved him. But they could not wander in that place. It could not be borne.

It was out of a silence that he had said the words which desolated her and haunted her for many days, the simple words, but awful and final for him, “I see it is too late.”

For at that moment she knew he was thinking not of her but of himself, of his past life, the bitterness of the defeated years.

And fate had singled her out to tell him of his defeat, to show him the bitterness.

Catrine closed the lid of the chest.

But she could not get up, all power of volition being drained from her body. The stillness that had come upon the kitchen, with Ronnie sitting motionless, came now upon her mind, and she saw their two figures as in a quiet but terrible dream. Ronnie had got up and said he would go out for a little walk, had stood for a moment staring at the grey light in the window, and then had gone.

Catrine leaned over the chest and her head dropped heavily between her arms, thought draining away from her, as it had done when, Ronnie gone, she had crouched in the empty kitchen.

Presently she sat upright again, listening to the sounds
about the croft. She knew them all and at first they were strange, but in a moment like little living things they came running into her heart, and she got up, went outside, looked around the croft, at her beasts, at the fields, found she had the whole place to herself, and set about her
cleaning
with a renewed strength in body and arms. She was scouring a tin milk-pail outside, when suddenly there came upon her from nowhere a feeling of extraordinary
happiness
. Such an access might have at the core of it a sadness, but not so now. It ran through her flesh, her blood, in promptings of laughter. Must be the sun! she thought, and began to hum away to herself as she worked with force. Her body was full of strength, delighted in its strength, could have scoured the bottom right out of the pail! “What are you looking at, you old fool?” she called to Bran. He got up and came towards her doubtfully, with an uncertain wag of his tail. “Off you go!” she cried. And back he went with resignation. “Poor Bran,” she said. “Come here and I’ll give you something.”

In the late afternoon, as she was making up the beds, Shiela looked in, and when Catrine told her how she had spent the day, they both began to laugh. “Look, I scoured a small hole in the bottom of the pail!” But Shiela could not hold up the pail against the light for laughing. And when Catrine began to chew a little oatmeal with which to plug the hole, Shiela got a stitch in her side and Catrine spluttered.

Shiela loved laughing and often had tremendous bouts of it. Her mind was quick and intelligent, and her eyes a lively bright brown. From laughing she could pass to solemnity or a tender look in a moment. Her house was never very tidy but it was always warm. She could make life itself glow almost at any time. “We’ll hurry up and do your milking. And then you’ll come up with me and spend the night.”

They were like children again, Catrine quick on her feet and Shiela with a story about Lexy the witch that she let
out in explosive bits. All the affairs of men and women, in sex and at market, were given by Shiela a consuming humour, particularly if they were outrageous.

About nine o’clock Roddie dropped in. Shiela had seven children and the youngest of them welcomed their uncle with delight. “Yes, you’re coming on,” said Roddie to little Art, feeling the right bicep. “Another year or two and you should about do. In fact, I think you could almost hoist a sail yourself now.”

“Oh, dear, that bairn!” exclaimed Shiela. “It’s nothing but boats with him from morning to night. Sure as death, I never get out of the bit with this swarm.”

They all seemed to do as they liked. There was continual turmoil and often, to be heard, a grown-up had to shout. When there was a fight on, Shiela would give one of them a clout. But Mairi, aged four, was a solemn child and would stand by Catrine or sit on her knee, saying nothing
indefinitely
. “Now, Mairi, what would you like?” “I would like a little song.” “What about you singing me a little song? Come!” And Catrine started humming and
prompting
. When Mairi was at last persuaded into a few notes, a mocking laughter stopped her, and her lips began to tremble. Then Shiela set about the Philistines.

“How thankful you ought to be that you’re not burdened like this!” cried Shiela, her voice breaking in laughter.

About ten o’clock, Roddie saw Catrine home. It was dark, with a slight ground mist after the heat of the day. Roddie was friendly, and they talked amusïngly about the children. Once or twice Roddie took her arm to steady her on the uneven path, for they could not see the ground, and her heart was glad and relieved when he naturally
withdrew
it. But the stones over the burn were a more difficult matter and he had to take her hand and then almost lift her up the yard of bank.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s not lighter I’m getting!”