that had elapsed since Luke’s departure, she had been living for the moment of reunion. ‘I need him,’ she cried desperately to the night. ‘I must have him. I’m only really alive when I’m with him. If I can’t see him now I’ll die. I’ll never go through another year without him. Without seeing him. Being revitalized by him. It’s by his life I live.’ And in daylight, taking the ashes from the grate, ‘Good God,’ she thought, ‘am I such a slave as that?’ She wanted to kick out at the whole world to prove how free she was.
‘Fatever ails her?’ said Emmeline, as she swung herself away from the family conclave. ‘I hinna seen sic a tantrum sin’ she was a bairn.’
‘She’s richt eneuch aboot the loonie,’ Geordie said. ‘If you werena weel again it wad be a gey trauchle for her.’
‘O weel,’ said Emmeline, ‘I wunna bring him.’
In spite of aching muscles after a long day’s work among the hay, Geordie walked to Crannochie that night to tell his daughter that the child was not to come.
‘O, I’m not caring,’ said Martha peevishly.
What did anything matter if she was not to see Luke?
But the next time she came home Emmeline was seated by the fire with a bundle cradled in her arms.
Martha’s rage had fallen. She was toneless, apathetic. Three weeks of her vacation had gone.
‘So you brought him after all, mother,’ was all she said.
Emmeline had been in secret a little afraid of what Martha might say. She blurted, apologetically,
‘Ye sud ’a’ seen the girl’s face whan I said I cudna tak him, Matty. … Besides, I’m rale fond o’ the craiturs. I’ve been used to them a’ ma days an’ it’s rale lanesome-like wi’ you and Madge an’ yer father awa’ a’ day lang an’ me used to a hooseful. I like a bairn aboot to get the clawin’s o’ the pots.’
Martha said nothing. Encouraged by the silence, Emmeline drew aside the shawl that wrapped the child.
‘Did ye ever see sic an imitation?’ she said, displaying the baby. ‘Ye cud haud him i’ the lee o’ yer hand. But he hadna a chance − the lassie was that sair grippit in.’
Martha glanced incuriously at the child.
‘Sax months an’ mair,’ said Emmeline. ‘An’ ye wadna think he was three.’
Six months and more, Martha was thinking. Six months and more till she would see Luke. Half her holiday was gone. Aunt Jean had visited Aunt Josephine the day before and Martha, desperate, had gulped that she was invited to Liverpool. Aunt Jean had not seemed to realize that Martha could not go to Liverpool unless someone else stayed at Crannochie. She had not made the slightest motion towards help. She had said, ‘Oh. Fa’s there?’ ‘I’ve friends,’ Martha had said. In Aunt Jean’s presence it had seemed an utterly senseless proceeding to have friends of her own outside the family cognisance. But perhaps later Aunt Jean would realize the position, and write.
At the end of another week Aunt Jean had not written. Martha wrote. She wrote to Liverpool and told them that she would never be able now to get away.
Three days later Peter Mennie, calling out cheerfully from the garden so that they might know he was coming, strode into the kitchen and struggled with something in the letter bag.
‘Is’t a parcel?’ asked Miss Josephine, all agog with interest.
‘There ye go!’ he said triumphantly, dragging out from the bag first one and then another huge potato. ‘A makin’ o’ ma new potatoes to you. Arena they thumpers?’ And while Miss Josephine exclaimed upon their beauty, he held a letter out to Martha.
‘O ay, they’re a terrible crop the year,’ he said, striding to the door again; and stepping out cried over his shoulder to Martha:
‘Ye’ll be awa’ to Liverpool ane o’ these days.’
The postmark of her letter was Liverpool: doubtless Peter had taken a shrewd glance at it before he gave it up. Clemmie had trained him well in such habits of observation: especially in regard to the letters that were delivered before he came to Drochety.
Obeying a sudden impulse, Martha blurted out her bitterness of spirit to Peter.
Twenty minutes later Drochety’s Clem burst open the door. ‘Foo’s a’ wi’ ye the day?’ she shouted to Miss Josephine, and, lugging Martha outside the door:
‘Dinna you fret, lassie,’ she said, ‘awa’ wi’ ye an’ hae yer holiday. I’ll come in-by an’ sleep aside Miss Josephine an’ dae her bits o’ things. There’s nae need to hae onybody in.’
Martha looked at her coldly.
She resented Clemmie’s interference in her affairs. She had almost instantly regretted her impulse of confession to Peter and was furious that he had gone straight and told Clem. She might have known! − He told Clem everything. Every day as eleven o’clock approached, she watched for his coming and had his cup of cocoa ready when he arrived; and while he sat in the big armchair in Drochety kitchen and drank it, Clemmie relieved him of the bundle of letters he was holding. … Hence her unique mastery of the affairs of the neighbourhood.
‘But she doesn’t need to know mine,’ thought Martha angrily: and she was short with Clem; refusing her offer in brief politeness. It was only when Clemmie insisted − ‘Ye’re lucky fond, lattin’ them a’ ride ower ye that gait,’ she said. ‘Yer play’ll be up or they tak ony notice o’ ye. O, I ken yon Mrs. Corbett. It tak’s her a’ her time an’ a lot mair to see that her cap’s set straught. An’ Mrs. − the little ane − the Leebie ane − she’s aye that sair made wi’ hersel, ye wadna think ony ither body had an ill ava.’ She wad be a sicht waur gin onything ailed her. Jist you tak yer ways awa’ an’ never heed them. Miss Josephine’ll dae grand wantin’ ye’ − it was only then that Martha had the grace to tell the truth.
‘It’s awfully good of you, Clem,’ she said, with an effort upon herself, ‘but it’s too late now. My friends are going off to Spain this week.’
Dussie had written, in the very letter that Peter had handed to her that morning, ‘We’re frightfully sorry you can’t come, but since you can’t we’re to take our holiday at once. It suits Luke better. We’re going to Spain.’
A couple of hours later Clem came running back with a plateful of scones. Clem was the most generous of mortals, with Drochety’s goods. Since Drochety’s ailing wife had died, a twelve-month after Clem had taken over the rule of the place, she had slowly and very securely gathered the power into her own hands. All the countryside knew that Peter had speired her more than once, but Clemmie had always an off-putting answer. She had been putting him off for fourteen years now. And meanwhile with a lavish hand she distributed Drochety’s belongings.
Martha ought to have been grateful for the scones. Clemmie’s scones were a wonder and a treat. They melted in the mouth. But at sight of them Martha’s flared. anger flared. ‘How dare she pity me?’ she thought; and she pushed the plate savagely away.
She persuaded herself that she did not care. Her mind seemed to have gone dead, as her fingers went on winter mornings.
