A Scots Quair

  Ewan said, polite, I like it, mother. I think it’s a bloody fine song, don’t you?

  Else saved the situation, as usual. They heard her feet in the hall, Ewan vanished, and the door was snibbed with a sudden click. Miss M’Askill said it was dreadful, dreadful, those spinners corrupting even the children. Didn’t Mrs Colquohoun think the authorities ought to take steps to putting it down?

  Miss Jeannie Grant was sitting by Robert, showing a fine length of leg, nice leg, she said What’s ‘it’? Put a stop to singing the Red Flag, do you mean? And Miss M’Askill said, Yes, that for one thing, there are plenty of others—the ongoings in general of those paid agitators. And Miss Jeannie Grant said, Well, I’m an agitator, but I get no pay. Where do the others get theirs? I’d like to apply! And Miss M’Askill looked at her so awful, ’twas a wonder she didn’t shrivel up there and then. But instead she just winked blithe at Chris, and drank up her sherry and had some more.

  Syne they were all speaking of the scene in the Square, Geddes said bitter that the spinners had behaved as you would expect such cattle to do, neither better nor worse than other Scotch folk. All Scots were the same, the beastliest race ever let loose on the earth. Oh no, he wasn’t bitter, he’d got over that, he’d got over living amongst them, even: their gossip that was fouler than the seepings of a drain, there was hardly a soul in a village like Segget but was a murderer ten times over in word—they hadn’t enough courage to be it in deed. Spinners were no worse than the rest, or not much. As for this business of a Segget League, well, he voted Tory himself every time, and no League could remain non-political long. His advice: Colquohoun leave the lot alone, if there’s anything a hog hates it’s cleaning its sty.

  Robert asked Miss Ferguson what she might think, Miss Ferguson blushed till Chris feared for her vest, her underthings would sure be on fire in a minute, she stammered that she didn’t know, for sure, some of the spinners’ children were cruel, they’d get a girl in the playground and tease her, or worse than that—and Miss Ferguson blushed some more, a torrent, till Chris in pity looked away, and thought herself of her own schooldays and those things that were worse in the reek of the playground, hot and still on a summer day and a crowd of loons round about you, laughing, with bright, hot eyes and their short, fair hair, and cruel, eager fingers … but she hadn’t much minded, she’d been able even then to look after herself, it needed a sudden twist of her mind to think, appalled, that Ewan might do that, might stand by some girl and pry beastly in things—

  She switched to listening to the talk again, Mrs Geddes was having all the say now, the three teachers had no other course, very plain, but listen to the Dominie’s wife with attention. And Mrs Geddes said what was really wrong, with the whole of Segget, not only the spinners, was Refusal to Co-operate in Fellowship. But the w.r.i. was to combat that, and she really didn’t think that this League was needed. The w.r.i. was to organize socials, and teach the mothers all kinds of fresh things—basket work, now, that was very interesting…. And she shone and wobbled like a jelly from a mould, and Geddes’ look of contempt grew deeper. Miss Jeannie Grant put her sherry-glass down. I don’t see anything your League can do. But the Labour Party can here in Segget, if only we make the branch strong enough; and she looked as sweet as an apple as she said it, and young and earnest, and Chris half liked her, as though she stood on a hill and looked down on her own youth only beginning the climb, half-liking its confidence, pitying its blindness. But she thought for that matter, again and again (and more than ever since their coming to Segget) that she was older than most she met, older even than Robert himself—older than all but her own son Ewan!

  Then they heard Else stamping out in the hall, and she rang the bell and they went through to dinner, Mrs Geddes calling it lunch, of course, she was so genteel Chris thought it a wonder she should ever open her mouth for food. But she fair put away a good plateful and more, for the chicken was golden and cooked to a turn, Robert sat and carved when he’d said the grace, the grace that Chris thought so childlike and kind:

  God bless our food,

  And make us good,

  And pardon all our sins,

  For Jesus Christ’s sake.

  Syne Miss M’Askill was asking Chris, sharp, Are you fond of social work, Mrs Colquohoun? and Chris said Not much, if you mean by that going round and visiting the kirk congregation. Miss M’Askill raised up her brows like a chicken considering a something lying on the ground, not sure if it was just a plain empty husk, or an interesting bit of nastiness, like. Mrs Geddes said she was very disappointed, she’d hoped they’d have Mrs Colquohoun to help—with the work of the W.R.I., she meant; and why didn’t Mrs Colquohoun like visiting?

  And suddenly Chris understood her and hated her—she minded the type, oh, well, well enough! So she smiled sweet at her and said Oh, you see, I wasn’t always a minister’s wife. I was brought up on a croft and married on one, and I mind what a nuisance we thought some folk, visiting and prying and blithering about socials, doing everything to help us, or so they would think—except to get out and get on with the work!

  Robert’s face went queer, a half-laugh, a half-scowl, but Miss Jeannie Grant was delighted, she said And get off your backs, you could surely have added! You’re a socialist the same as I am, you know. Chris shook her head, she knew nothing about it, sorry already she had spoken like that, Mrs Geddes had gone quite white for a minute, Chris knew she had made an enemy in Segget. The Dominie stared at his plate with a sneer; Miss M’Askill looked at Robert, brows up; Miss Ferguson looked at her plate and blushed; only Ewan ate on, as calm as ever, except when he said, Can I go now, please?

  Chris caught Miss M’Askill’s eye when he’d gone, it said, plain as plain, A very spoilt child. And you supposed that it really was true, the truth as she’d see it, who never had a child, who didn’t know the things that bound you to Ewan, as though his birth-cord still bound you together, he tugged at your body, your heart, at your womb, in some moments of pity it was sheer, sick pain that tore at you as you comforted him. But that you could never explain to a woman who’d never had a bairn, had never, you supposed, yet lain with a man, known all the shame and all the red splendour and all the dull ache and resentment of marriage that led to the agony and wonder of looking on the face, sweet and blind as the eyes of love, of a child new-born from your body’s harbour…. And Chris roused herself, Mr Geddes—pudding?

  Robert was trying to keep the talk going, but some thing had spoiled the talk at the table—herself, Chris supposed, with telling the truth. And she thought They’re just servant-queans, after all, with a little more education and a little less sense—these, the folk Robert had thought could save Segget! It was hardly likely he thought so now: what would he do with his League and his plans? Still wait for young Stephen Mowat to come home?

  Suddenly in the midst and mid of them all—the words she now used, the thoughts she thought, the clothes she wore and the things she ate—Chris would see her father’s face from long syne, the jutting beard and the curling lip—Come out of that, quean, with your dirt of gentry! And because she knew in a way it was true, the gentry that or but little more, sometimes she’d stop in the middle of a talk, in the middle of a walk, in the middle of a meal, and stare for so long that Robert would say, We’ve lost her again! Εwan, bring back your mother!

  That feeling came over her later that day, when it brought Stephen Mowat to tea at the Manse. Though none of them guessed the fact at the time, it had been his car that passed the service at eleven o’clock in Segget Square: but ere well the car had reached Segget House the news had spread all around the toun, young Stephen Mowat had come home at last, from wandering about in foreign parts after leaving his English university. And his shover told as they passed the Square young Mowat had looked and seen the angel, and had groaned aloud, Oh Christ, even here—another bitch in a flannel shift! The shover said they’d seen birns of the statues as they motored up from England that week, lasses in bronze and marble and granite,
dancing about on pedestal tops, he’d thought them bonny, Mr Stephen hadn’t, he said that Britain had gone harlot-mad, and stuck up those effigies all over the place, in memory no doubt of the Red Lamps of France.

  And the shover said he should know about queans, young Mowat, considering the number he’d had since he’d left the college a six months back. No doubt he’d soon have them at Segget House, he intended to bide there and fee a big staff, and bring back the good old days to the toun. He was going to look after the mills for himself, the estate as well, and the Lord knows what.

  Chris heard all this when the school-folk had gone, from Else, when she went to the kitchen to help. But Else needed no help, she’d a visitor there, Dalziel of Meiklebogs it was. He smiled shy and rose when he saw Chris come in, and she told him to sit, and Else poured out the news. Chris didn’t feel excited, but she thought Robert might. Well, that’ll be fine, no doubt, for Segget. Oh, have we made any cakes for tea?

  Else said they hadn’t, but they damned soon would. Out of the way, there, Meiklebogs, now! and pushed him into a chair, he sat canny, his cap in his hands, and watched while she baked. Chris went back to Robert and told him the news.

  He said Mowat home? It’s an answer to prayer. And just as I heard the black dog come barking! Let’s celebrate! And he caught Chris, daft, and twirled about the room in a dance. So they didn’t hear the knocking at the door, Else did, and went and brought Stephen Mowat in. They came to the door of the sitting-room and watched, till Chris saw them and stopped, and Robert did the same. And Else said, Mr Mowat, Mem, and vanished.

  He’d a face that minded her of a frog’s, he was younger than herself by a good few years, with horn-rimmed spectacles astride a broad nose, and eyes that twinkled, and a way of speaking that in a few days was to stagger Segget. His brow went back to a cluster of curls, he was charming, you supposed, as a prince should be, and very likely damn seldom is; and he said he was pleased to be back in Segget, looking at Chris as though she were the reason, Chris had never met in with his like before, and stood and looked at him, cool, in surprise, taller than he was, he was to say later he felt he was stared at by Scotland herself. And once, when drunk, he was to say to the Provost that she couldn’t get over her blood and breed, she was proud as all the damned clodhoppers were, still thought in her heart they were the earth’s salt, and thought the descendant of a long line of lairds on the level with the descendants of a long line of lice. And he said by God, had it been a four hundred years back, he’d have tamed that look quick enough in his bed, maybe she lost something of her sulkiness there. And Provost Hogg boasted and said Not a doubt; and started to tell of his ancestor, Burns. And Mowat said, Who? Oh, Robbie Burns? A hell of a pity he couldn’t write poetry, and the Provost was vexed, but then, ’twas the laird, just joking-like; and he was the laird.

  Chris heard of that later, she’d have needed second-sight to know of the gossip that would be in the future: she said she was glad to see him, she wasn’t, neither glad nor sad, a funny little thing, was this what Robert depended upon? Funny that the like of him for so long had lived on the rent of folk like hers. Syne she went to the kitchen to see how the cakes came, they were brown and steaming, set on the table, and Meiklebogs, shy, like a big, sly steer, was sitting and eating one by the sink. And because she just couldn’t thole him at all, he made her want to go change her vest, Chris smiled at him and was extra polite, and hoped that he’d stay to tea with Else; and helped Else pile the things on a tray; and they carried it through and found Robert and the laird already deep in the talk that was planned by Robert himself when he first saw Segget.

  Mr Mowat’s English bray sounded so funny that Else gave a giggle and near dropped the tray. Is the creature foreign? and Chris said No; and Else said no more, but went solemnly in, and took only a keek or so at the creature, a little bit thing in baggy plus-fours. And he said Oh, thenks! and I say! and How Jahly! Else nearly giggled again, but she didn’t, till she got to the kitchen and there was Meiklebogs, and she gave him a poke, I say, how Jahly! You old devil, I’ve a good mind to make up to the laird. What would you do then, eh, would you say?

  Meiklebogs smiled canny and said he would manage, and Else stared at him and wondered again why she’d ever allowed the old brute to come near her since she’d wept in his bed that night of the Show; she supposed she was still in a kind of a daze at finding the old brute as coarse as they’d said.

  Chris sat in the sitting-room and listened to Mowat, and handed him tea, he said he’d come back to look after the mills and Segget in general, the curse of the age was its absentee landlords, not social conditions or unrest or suchlike. He was Jahly well sure he could buck up the village—didn’t Mrs Colquohoun approve of that, now? he’d want her approval ever so much. And he flashed her a long, bright, toothy smile, he’d fine teeth and knew it; and Chris said, I don’t know. I’ll wait and see what the bucking consists of. My father was a crofter and he used to say you should trust a laird just as far as you can throw him.

  Stephen Mowat said he thought Mrs Colquohoun’s father Jahly, and glinted charming, and Chris gave him up, and cleared off the tea things and came back and listened. By then, so it seemed, Robert had told of his plans, and was sitting now harkening to Mowat’s reply. And the reply was: The thing that was needed everywhere was Discipline, hwaw? and order, and what not. The hand of the master—all the Jahly old things. He had been down in Italy the last few months and had seen things there, Rahly amazing, the country awakening, regaining its soul, its old leaders back—with a new one or so. Discipline, order, hierarchy—all that. And why only Italy; why not Scotland? He’d met other men, down from ’varsity of late, who were doing as he did, going back to their estates. Scotland a nation—that was the goal, with its old-time civilization and culture. Hwaw? Didn’t Mr Colquohoun agree?

  But Chris had been listening, and now she must speak, she’d been trying to think as well as to listen, it was hard enough, but words suddenly came: they both turned round with a start as she spoke. And what’s going to happen when you and your kind rule us again, as of old, Mr Mowat? Was there ever the kind of Scotland you preach?—Happy, at ease, the folk on the land well-fed, the folk in the pulpits well-feared, the gentry doing great deeds? It’s just a gab and a tale, no more, I haven’t read history since I was at school, but I mind well enough what that Scotland was. I’ve been to Dunnottar Castle and seen there the ways that the gentry once liked to keep order. If it came to the push between you and the spinners I think I would give the spinners my vote.

  Mowat said Rahly? staring at Chris, Robert stared as well at her down-bent face—suddenly she’d seen so much she didn’t say, all the pageant of history since history began up here in the windy Mearns Howe: the ancient rites of blood and atonement where the Standing Stones stood up as dead kings; the clownings and cruelties of leaders and chiefs; and the folk—her folk—who kept such alive—dying frozen at night in their eirdes, earth-houses, chaving from the blink of day for a meal, serfs and land-workers whom the Mowats rode down, whom the armies harried and the kings spat on, the folk who rose in the Covenant times and were tortured and broken by the gentry’s men, the rule and the way of life that had left them the pitiful gossiping clowns that they were, an obscene humour engraffed on their fears, the kindly souls of them twisted awry and veiled from men with a dirty jest; and this snippet of a fop with an English voice would bring back worse, and ask her to help!

  And then that went by, she was suddenly cool. It was only a speak, a daft blether of words, whatever else happened to Segget, to Scotland—and there were strange things waiting to happen—there would never come back that old darkness again to torment the simple folk of her blood. Robert was speaking, he knocked out his pipe.

  I’m afraid my wife and I think the same—as all folk worth their salt in Scotland must think. There are changes coming—they are imminent on us—and I once thought the folk of some teaching would help. Well, it seems they won’t—the middle class folk and the up
per class folk, and all the poor devils that hang by their tails: they think we can last as we are—or go back—and they know all the while they are thinking a lie. But God doesn’t wait, or His instruments; and if these in Segget are the folk of the mills, then, whatever their creed, I’m on their side.

  CHRIS STARTED AND moved, she nearly had frozen, leaning up here while the night went on, she ought to be down in her bed, she supposed. The rain had cleared and the stars had come out, frost was coming—there, bright down in Segget, was a mantling of grey where, the hoar was set, sprinkled like salt on the cant of the roofs. Beyond them there rose a red, quiet lowe, from the furnaces stacked for the night in the mills.

  She stamped her feet and drew up her collar, watching that coming of the frost below. This impulse to seek the dark by herself! She had left Robert up in his study at work, Ewan in bed, young Mowat gone, and herself gone out for a walk through the rain that was closing in the end of Remembrance Day, wet and dank, as she’d seen it come. And it might be an age ere she came here again, too busied with living to stand looking at life, with Ewan at school and the campaign of Robert to conquer Segget for God and his dream.

  A pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

  She raised her eyes and looked where the frost lay bright in the west, where the evening star wheeled down to midnight to lead her feet home.

  THREE

  Stratus

  IT WAS funny to think, this forenoon in June, how long it had been since she climbed the Kaimes, here rose the walls, in their mantle of heather, a blackbird was whistling up in the yews, as she turned around slow she saw the light flow up and down the hill as though it were liquid, Segget below lying buried in a sea, as once all the Howe had lain, Ewan said. Still weak, Chris halted and sat on the wall, her hands below her, and looked at Segget, and drew out her hands and looked at those, so thin that almost she could see through them, so thin her face when she put up her hand that the cheekbones that once curved smooth under flesh now felt like twin jagged crags of rock—a long time ere she’d look comely again!