When the rustling of turning pages died down the congregation began to sit up. The way in which he had said ‘hell fire’ gave them a shock. Mary Watson twisted round to look at the clock, put a cinnamon lozenge into her mouth, and prepared to listen.
Because hell fire was not to be taken literally, said the minister, one dared not assume that it did not exist.
Mary began to nod her head emphatically, and kept on nodding it. This was something like. What had come over Milk-and-water Willie? His een were fair blazing.
‘Cut off from the communion of God and cast into outer darkness,’ said the minister. There was a desperateness in his voice which thrilled his hearers.
It was a pity that Elizabeth and Hector did not hear that sermon; he was never to preach another so good.
Hector and Elizabeth were escaping on bicycles, pedalling along the upland ridges to the north of Calderwick where wide fields sweep down in bare curves to the sea-cliffs and on the other side thick forests of pine run up to the flanks of the mountains. Rain never lingers on these sandy roads and winter takes little from the austere beauty of the landscape. Elizabeth and Hector tinkled their bells merrily as they ran down a slope towards a foaming brown torrent that was carrying its load of rain to the sea. Elizabeth gazed at Hector’s broad shoulders receding in front of her. It pleased her to recognize that he was both stronger and heavier than she was. That helped her to be Mrs Hector Shand.
Next day she was still happy and humble. Her new mood of dedication led her after breakfast to darn Hector’s socks ‘exactly like a wife’, as she said to herself. In the afternoon she avoided Emily Scrymgeour and went down to the sea.
The sand was firm and level; the sand-dunes had been curved by the wind as by a slicing knife into clean, exact curves; the long tawny grass above was matted and tufted like the sodden fell of a weary animal. The land was still and quiet, but the sea had not yet forgotten its rage. There was a deep swell, and the smooth backs of the rollers heaved to an incredible height before toppling and plunging in cataracts of foam. Elizabeth turned her back upon the land and revelled in the recklessness with which the walls of water hurled themselves headlong. Shock after shock of the plunging monsters vibrated through her until she was lashed to an equal excitement and hurled back again the charging passion of the sea. That was the way to live, she cried within herself. Hector and Elizabeth Shand together would transform the world.
Characteristically she did not remember that although she had turned her back on the land it was still there, quiet and unshaken.
After her orgy by the sea Elizabeth felt the need of making a large decisive gesture. She took the longer way home, which led past the manse of St James’s, and pulled the bell loudly at the manse door. Teenie dumbly opened the sitting- room door for her and vanished. There was a figure in the dusk beside the window curtain, and Elizabeth, still panting for immediate action, rushed towards it crying:
‘Oh, Mr Murray, I’ve come to apologize….’
Ned stepped forward, and Elizabeth’s ears burned. At the same time she felt that Ned’s thin white face was pitiful, and her heart nearly died away when he said: ‘So I’m not to be kicked in the gutter like a dog and left lying?’
‘You?’ said Elizabeth. ‘No, never.’
They stared at each other.
‘I saw you get the Dunlop Medal,’ said Elizabeth suddenly, in a breathless voice. ‘A lot of us went in to see the Math. show and I saw you get the Dunlop Medal.’
‘Of course, I remember you,’ said Ned. He waved an arm. ‘Please take a chair. What are you doing here?’ he went on. ‘Got a job?’
‘No, I’m not working.’
This answer seemed to please Ned.
‘So I’m not the only one,’ he said. ‘I’m staying here with my brother; he’s a minister, you know. I might have been a minister too, but they never let me take Hebrew…. There’s always something.’ He bent forward confidentially and tapped on the table. ‘The thing to do is to keep dodging. Keep dodging, for they’re cunning. They’ll get you if they can —’
The door opened, and Ned’s expression changed in a flash. His face, which, as Elizabeth noted with a sinking depression, was essentially handsomer than his brother’s, twisted until it became mean and ugly, he contracted his shoulders as if ready to spring and snarled rather than said: ‘Good God!’
William Murray came in quietly, as if nothing had happened. He greeted Elizabeth almost with coldness, and sat down. Ned was still glaring at his brother, and Elizabeth’s mouth dried up as she looked at him. She could think of nothing to say.
William’s voice said politely: ‘This has been a lovely day, hasn’t it?’
‘Glorious,’ she answered quickly. ‘I’ve been down to the sea. It was – it was glorious.’
Ned rose and stood at the window with his back to them, jerking his head round from time to time with an uneasy twist as if his collar irked him.
‘When the sun began to set,’ Elizabeth babbled on, ‘the foam caught all the colour, first rose and then lavender. And the lip of each wave spilled over the sand was opalescent. And just beneath the top that curls over, you know, the light shone pure green through the water.’
Ned turned swiftly.
‘Do you know what I saw in the paper this morning – this very morning?’
His voice was harsh. He came back and leaned over the table.
‘A butcher found a little stray kitten in his shop and chopped off his front paws and threw it out. A little stray kitten. Chopped its paws off.’
‘Oh no!’ cried Elizabeth.
‘I’ll let you see it in the paper.’
Ned began to shake out a newspaper with exaggerated gestures.
‘Mrs Shand doesn’t want to hear about it,’ said William.
Ned stiffened.
‘Mrs Shand?’ he said. ‘Mrs Shand? That’s not your name.’
‘I’ve married Hector Shand,’ said Elizabeth faintly, because even as she said it she felt that it should not be said.
Ned flung down the paper.
‘Trickery!’ he said. ‘I knew it. The same low cunning! But too obvious, madam, too ob-vi-ous.’
He thrust his face into Elizabeth’s with a sudden sneer, and then as suddenly marched out of the room with his head in the air, slamming the door.
The minister propped his elbows on the large table and covered his face with his hands.
Before Elizabeth could do anything Ned’s head popped in again.
‘The worst of the lot,’ he said, ‘is Hector Shand.’
He slammed the door, and reopened it immediately.
‘He’ll wait for you at a back door,’ he said, ‘and stick a knife into you!’
This time he could be heard tramping away from the door and up the stairs.
William Murray had not moved.
‘Mr Murray!’ said Elizabeth in a low voice sharpened a little with fear. ‘Mr Murray!’
The minister removed his hands.
‘You’re