Читать книгу Blencarrow - Isabel Mackay - Страница 8

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The wagon loft of his father’s shop, which was the scene of Euan’s conversations with Con concerning the tale of the Brown baby and other debatable topics, was a place admirably suited to the needs of youth. It was both secluded and convenient and in the matter of raw furnishings lent itself to almost any game a boy might turn to. Lumber and spare parts were stored up there. The little, high-up windows were sunny and dusty. Fine sawdust lay golden on the floor and across the beams. There was a goodly smell of fresh shavings, turpentine, paint, and axle grease. The means of entrance from the floor below was narrow and dark, but what matter since the boys seldom used it? They preferred the sloping outside wagonway, a way so steep that it had to be climbed by means of the ladder-like cross-pieces which acted as stays for the wagon-wheels, the smoother part in the middle providing a perfect shoot-the-chute for times of hurried exits.

The three inseparables spent many glorious hours in this loft, and, shortly after the episode of the singing school, their number was sometimes added to in a manner which, had they stopped to think about it, would have surprised them greatly. Just how the little, dark ‘Fenwell girl’ came to receive the freedom of the loft, no one exactly knew. But Garry remembered his first meeting with her there very vividly.

It happened on a day when he had been particularly conscious of a need for understanding. Life, for Garry, was not quite the simple thing which Con and Euan seemed to find it. There were complications. And, as the complications were of a religious nature, they were difficult to talk about. Take the question of Peg, for example. Peg (short for Pegasus) was the Reverend James Dwight’s parochial steed and it was Garry’s duty to comb him. Now, was it, or was it not, right for Garry to transfer this duty to Con? Con liked curry-combing and Garry loathed it (a fact of which Pegasus himself seemed well aware). Still, the shirking of an unpleasant duty may be a sin. Garry did not wish to sin any more than was absolutely necessary. But it was so difficult to know what was what.

There were times when everything seemed straightforward and simple—in church, for instance. The music, the intoning, the old, old warp and woof of beautiful words, worn, like old tapestries, to softer lustre, satisfied some need of which he was becoming growingly conscious. The sight of his uncle absorbed in his priestly duties never failed to have a tranquillizing effect. Some day, if there be anything to human effort, Garry intended to be exactly like his uncle. He hoped that as he grew older his hair would recede in the same places and that his nose would adjust itself. His uncle’s profile, he thought, could scarcely be bettered. It looked as if it should be stamped upon a coin. As he moved tranquilly through the service, there was practically no aspect of him which was not æsthetically satisfying. And what a difference it made! Take Canon Hodge, for example. It wasn’t his fault, but his nose certainly did seem to have a secularizing effect.

Outside of church, one’s behaviour became full of problems. There was Mrs. Binns. Much as he tried to emulate his uncle in a high unconsciousness of Mrs. Binns, Garry found the thing impossible. Mr. Dwight had an innocent way of looking through and beyond Mrs. Binns which both infuriated and subdued that excellent woman. But when Garry tried it, he had been compelled to take two pills at bedtime, on the ground that he was looking ‘queerish about the eyes.’

Often, as Garry, after a lost battle with Mrs. Binns’ ‘feelings,’ sewed on his own button or ate his cold supper, he was led to reflect profoundly upon the ethics of love. Was it, or was it not, necessary to love Mrs. Binns? Not real love, of course, but the ‘love your neighbour’ kind? If his uncle were appealed to in such matters, he refused a ruling on the ground of individual responsibility—‘You are old enough now, Garrison, to learn that personal decision is everything’; neither was it possible to discuss difficulties with Euan or Con. Euan would look blank and shuffle his feet. Con would be resourceful, but not in the right way. In the case of Mrs. Binns, for instance, he had offered the loan of a couple of tame mice to be introduced unostentatiously into that lady’s bedroom. This was magnificent, but not ethics.

On the particular day referred to, Garry had gone up to the loft to think about it and, upon the same day, Kathrine Fenwell had been sent for axle grease. She had, of course, come up the stairs in orthodox fashion and Garry, with his uncle’s unfailing courtesy in mind, had undertaken to transfer the terrible compound from its original container into her small tin pail.

‘Old Rory downstairs ought to have done this for you,’ said he indignantly. ‘It’s a funny shop when a customer has to get his own grease.’

Kathrine had turned suddenly red. But she saw that the boy’s slip had been unintentional. How was he to know that the Fenwells were hardly on the level of ‘customers’ in old Rory’s estimation? Neither could he be expected to guess that she had waited around for a full half-hour hoping that Andrew Cameron would come in. Andrew Cameron never seemed to remember that her father owed him anything. Old Rory never forgot it.

‘Look out!’ she warned Garry suddenly. ‘You’re getting some grease on your sleeve—oh, now you’ve got it on your chin! let me—’ With a soft curl of shaving she removed the smear, disdaining with a gesture his offer of a clean handkerchief. ‘Grease is simply awful to wash out,’ she explained. They smiled shyly into each other’s eyes and Garry had an instant and pleasing conviction that he was being understood. Here, at last, was some one who might appreciate a man’s struggle with his lower nature. Impetuously he spoke:

‘You don’t like coming here for grease, do you?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Kathrine.

‘Would you’—he stammered a little—‘w-would you think it all right to let some one else come for you, if they offered to?’

Kathrine reflected.

‘They wouldn’t,’ she decided.

‘But if they did?’

‘Of course I should,’ in surprise. ‘Why not?’

This gave the inquirer the opening he needed. ‘Well, you see, if people don’t do anything they don’t like—I mean if they let other people—I mean it may be bad for us to let other people.’ This was the best he could do. But his new hearer did not blush like Euan, nor laugh like Con.

‘Yes—it might,’ said the girl. Her dark, winglike brows drew together. ‘But I’d take the risk,’ she added with a sharp little nod.

‘Oh, would you?’ Here was a way out that had not occurred to Garry. One could, of course, take a risk. But:

‘It would be nicer, to be sure,’ he said.

Kathrine’s narrow, fringed eyes opened a little more widely.

She took a long look at this boy so different from herself. Perhaps it was in that moment that her child’s imagination began to concern itself with his personality. She had thought that all boys were provokingly sure of themselves and of everything else.

‘I shouldn’t bother,’ said she. There was unconscious strength in the small, work-worn hand which took the pail from his nervous one. Her eyes were dark and kind ...

‘Hello!’ exclaimed an explosive voice. Euan, who had just arrived by the wagon chute, made no secret of his amazement at finding Garry and Kathrine in conversation.

‘Hello!’ answered Kathrine placidly. ‘How did you get in? Did you come up that outside place? Can I go down that way? Old Rory’s down in the shop.’

The desire to avoid old Rory seemed eminently reasonable to Euan. Nevertheless, her request was embarrassing.

‘Well—er—you see, this way’s just for boys. You’d have to slide.’ His disparaging glance at the skirts which were her handicap made Kathrine’s fringed eyes snap. She walked to the door and looked down. ‘Oh, is that all?’ she said, and without further argument she tucked her skirts about her thin legs and slid. Looking back, she smiled as victors may.

‘You’ve forgotten your grease,’ said Euan stolidly. It rather discounted the victory. Kathrine looked annoyed.

‘Here! I’ll sling it to you on a string,’ offered Garry.

Euan watched him do it without comment.

‘You’ve got a big smudge on your cuff,’ he remarked as Garry drew in the released string. Then, with a relieved sigh, ‘It’s lucky Kathy’s got some sense. If it had been Phemie Ellis, she’d have stayed all day.’

‘Why shouldn’t she have stayed?’ asked Garry aggressively.

Euan’s amazement expressed itself by a mouth too widely opened for the formation of words. Yet under the protection of a scornful silence he was conscious of a pleasing possibility. After all, why shouldn’t she?

And after that she sometimes did.

Childhood distills itself in episodes. A scene here, a picture there, stands out from a background of unremembered days as if some lightning flash had fixed its memory forever. The reasons for these persistencies are seldom clear, but sometimes, in looking back, a special significance emerges. Life has paused a moment leaving her footprint plain.

Often, in after life, Kathrine Fenwell was to think of that meeting in the dusty, sunny loft and to know it for a beginning. But Euan’s memory stressed it not at all. For him, the day that lingered came later, slipped upon him unaware when Kathy’s comradeship was already so accepted a thing that he had ceased to think about it.

It happened at the Sunday-School Harvest-Home picnic, a day so golden in its dawning that Euan pranced like a young colt with the joy of it.

Kathrine, being Presbyterian, belonged to the picnic by right, while Garry and Con had been especially invited—and Euan had a new pink shirt. No day could have been more perfect and doubtless it would have gone its way to forgetfulness as all perfection must, except for the incident of the wounded meadow-lark. Kathrine had found it with a trailing wing in a corner of the pasture fence, and at her pitying ‘Oh!’ the boys came running.

‘It’s hurt!’ said Kathrine breathlessly. ‘It can’t fly, and there are cats at the barn. Whatever shall we do?’ Her eyes, wide and darkened, questioned them.

‘Give it here,’ said Con, with cool mercy. ‘It’s probably a goner. I know a way to kill it so it won’t feel a thing.’

‘So do the cats!’ Kathy’s eyes discarded him and moved pleadingly to Garry, who had dropped on his knees beside the fluttering bird. Euan saw, without surprise, that his face was pale, and wondered that Kathy didn’t see it, too. Surely she realized by this time that Garry could never be counted upon when anything was hurt? A hand that shakes from pity is still a shaking hand and, as such, of small use in an emergency. Didn’t Kathy know that he, Euan, was the only one who could mend up birds properly?

‘Shucks, it’s nothing, Kathy,’ he declared. ‘I can fix it fine with a splint.’ Looking up, he anticipated her approving smile—and found that she wasn’t looking at him at all. Her eyes, wide open and showing all their pansy blue, were fixed on Garry and not with surprise or disappointment or scorn, but in a long, understanding look. It was as if an invisible world had closed around them, shutting Euan out. He was conscious of an instant’s sense of amazed loneliness and then Con’s voice:

‘It will only die, Silly. Give it here!’

‘I won’t!’ said Euan.

‘It will never fly, anyway,’ said Con.

‘It will,’ said Euan. Dazed as he was by the swift passing of something he had not understood, he held the bird firmly. Kathrine’s eyes had come back to his and in them was the expected smile. But its savour, for Euan, was gone. The day, the wonderful picnic day, had turned suddenly flat and stale.

‘You’ll let me help, Euan?’ Kathy’s voice was eager.

‘No,’ said Euan. ‘I don’t want a girl fussing about.’ He pushed her aside rudely. After all she was only a girl. Strange that he should remember it now. He hadn’t thought of it for ages! And there was a hot feeling in his throat. Glowering fiercely, he strode away with the wounded bird.

The three stared after him, and then Con laughed. ‘Euan’s got the glumps,’ he said, and burst into the derisive chant,

‘Scottie’s mad and I am glad,

And I know what will please him—’

Any other day Euan would have fought him for that. To-day he did not even look back.

After this, of what account had been lemonade and raspberry vinegar and supper in the big barn? Or the ride home in the warm dusk with fresh hay in the wagon boxes and apples in jacket pockets, and small sweet pears? There was singing, too. But Euan sat silent, unable even yet to shake himself free of the unwonted disturbance within him. Had any one told him that he was jealous, jealous of Garry, his hero and special friend, he would have denied the libel even to the point of battle. But something had undoubtedly happened to his golden day and the joy of it was gone. Behind the singing and the happy, creaking wagons and the goodly smell of the little brown pears, a vague dissatisfaction lay, heavy and obscure. It was like nothing Euan had ever known. It blurred the outlines of his definite, childish world like the mist-wreaths blurred the outlines of the roadside trees. Remotely it seemed to have to do with Kathy and Garry sitting together in the back of the hayrack with dangling feet, their blended voices rising clearly through the strains of ‘In the Sweet By-and-By.’ But Kathy and Garry often sat and sang like that. Usually Euan sat beside them. But to-night he held apart. Often in the restless dreams of his ‘growing up,’ that night came back to him, sweet with its smell of warm hay and perfumed mist; and always, in the dream, he sat apart, silent, feeling the stirring of the rescued bird beneath his coat. And wondering—