The Weatherhouse. Nan Shepherd

But she married Donnie Forbes for love and Knapperley for a downsit. And she thought, poor soul, that she had nae mair a-do than bid him say the word and Knapperley would be her laddie’s. But she aye put off the speirin’. And syne whan she kent she wouldna rise again, she bids Knapperie in to her bedside. “What’s that you’re sayin’?” says he. “Say’t again, for I’m surely nae hearin’.” So she says it again. “And him a Forbes,” she says, “a family of great antiquity.” “O ay, like the shore porters o’ Aberdeen, that discharged the cargo from Noah’s Ark.” “You’re mockin’ me,” she says. “I’ll grant you this,” he says, “there was never a murder in this parish or the next but there was a Forbes in it. There was Forbes of Portlendie and Forbes of Bannochie, and a Forbes over at Cairns that flung his lassie’s corp ahin a dyke. But there’s been nae murder done at Knapperley and nae Forbes at Knapperley—” “But there wasna aye a Paterson at Knapperley, and some that kens,” she says, meanin’-like, “says the first that ocht the place didna rightly owe the name.” “It’s a scant kin,” he says, “that has neither thief nor bastard in it, and for my part I’d rather have the bastard than the thief. The lassie’ll mak as good a laird as the laddie. The place is hers, and you needna set any landless lads on thievin’ here. I’ll keep my ain fish-guts for my ain sea-maws.” She didna daur say mair, but aye whan he gaed by her door there cam the t’ither great sigh. “You can just sigh awa’ there,” he would say. And whiles he said, “Jamie Fleeman kent he was the Laird o’ Udny’s feel.” Well, well, he was a Tartar, auld Knapperie. But he’s awa’ whaur he’ll have to tak a back seat. He dee’d in an awfu’ hurry.’

      ‘And Mr Benjamin has never come back since.’

      ‘O ay. O fie ay. He cam’ back. But just the once. “This is a great disappointment to me, Barbara. Bawbie’s getting near. You see the weather it is, and you could hold all the fire in the lee of your hand. There’s the two of us, one on either side, and greatcoats on to keep us warm. And nothing but a scrap end of candle to light you to your bed.” “You may thank your stars, Mr Benjamin, she didna stand and crack spunks or you were in ower.” So he never cam again. But he let his laddie come.’

      ‘She’ll be making him her heir,’ said Miss Annie.

      ‘I wouldna wonder. They’re chief, Miss Barbara and Mr Garry.’

      ‘A halarackit lump,’ Theresa said.

      ‘O, a gey rough loon. Mair like auld Knapperie’s son than Mr Benjamin’s. But a terrible fine laddie. Me and Mr Garry’s great billies. “Will you dance at my wedding, Mrs Hunter? I’ll give you a new pair of shoes.” “I will do that, laddie. But wha is the bonny birdie?”’

      ‘Yes, who?’ thought Mrs Falconer. She made a running excursion into the past. Once she had fancied that Kate was not indifferent to Garry Forbes. At one time they had been much together, when he came on holiday to Fetter-Rothnie. But Theresa’s tongue had been so hard on the boy—the intimacy ceased. Mrs Falconer remembered her own impotent fury against her sister. And, after all, Kate had given no sign. ‘Another dream of mine, I suppose,’ thought Mrs Falconer. And she sighed. It was not easy to include Kate in any dream. ‘And she’s all I have to love,’ thought her mother wistfully.

      Mrs Hunter ran on. ‘ “O, that’s to see,” he says. “I’ve never found a lassie yet that I love like your ain bonny self.” “You flatterer,” I says. “Unless it would be my aunt.” And we both to the laughin’. But he’s fair fond of her, mind you. There’s nae put-on yonder.’

      ‘He would be,’ said Theresa. ‘Sic mannie sic horsie. She’s a Hielan’ yowe yon.’

      Mrs Hunter bridled. ‘She’s a good woman, Miss Craigmyle. There’s worse things than being queer. There’s being bad. There’s lots that’s nae quite at themsels and nae ill in them, and some that’s all there and all the worse for that. There’s Louie Morgan, now—queer you must allow she is, but bad she couldna be.’

      Whether because the affront put on her by Miss Barbara’s rash incursion was still rankling, or whether by reason of the naturally combative quality of her mind, Miss Theresa stormed on the suggestion.

      ‘Louie!’ she said. ‘Hantle o’ whistlin’ and little red land yonder. And you don’t call it bad to bedizen herself with honours and her never got them?’

      ‘Meaning’ what, Miss Craigmyle?’

      ‘This tale of her engagement,’ said Theresa with scorn.

      ‘Poor craitur! That was a sore heart to her. Losin’ young Mr Grey that road, and them new promised. It’ll be a while or she ca’ ower’t.’

      ‘She never had him.’

      ‘Havers, Miss Theresa, she has the ring.’

      ‘Think of that, now.’

      ‘She let me see the ring.’

      ‘She bought it.’

      ‘She didna that, Miss Theresa. It’s his mother’s ain ring, that she showed me lang syne, and said her laddie’s bride would wear whan she was i’ the mools.’

      Miss Theresa took the check badly. To be found in the wrong was a tax she could not meet. She had grown up with a hidden angry conviction that she was in the wrong by being born. As third daughter, she had defrauded her father of a son. It was after Theresa’s birth that James Craigmyle set himself to turn Annie into as good a farmer as himself. He never reproached Tris to her face, but the sharp child guessed her offence. When he was dead, and she in the Weatherhouse had power and authority for the first time in her life, she developed an astounding genius for being in the right. To prove Theresa wrong was to jeopardise the household peace.

      She was therefore dead set in her own opinion by Mrs Hunter’s apparent proof of her mistake. The matter, to be sure, was hardly worth an argument. Louie Morgan was a weak, palavering thing, always playing for effect. The Craigmyle ladies knew better than to be taken in with her airs and her graces, that deceived the lesser intellects; but they had, like everyone else, accepted the story of her betrothal to David Grey, a young engineer brought up in the district, although David Grey was already dead before the betrothal was announced. Even Theresa had not openly questioned the story before. Irritation made her do it now, and the crossing of her theory drove her to conviction.

      ‘It’s as plain as a hole in a laddie’s breeks,’ she said. ‘There was no word of an engagement when the young man was alive, was there?’

      The whole company, however, was against her. The supposition was monstrous, and in view of Mrs Hunter’s evidence upon the ring, untenable.

      ‘And look at the times she’s with auld Mr Grey,’ said Mrs Hunter, ‘that bides across the dyke from us, and him setting a seat for her that kindly like and cutting his braw chrysanthemums to give her.’

      ‘She had sought them,’ said Theresa.

      ‘Oh, I wouldna say. She’s fit for it, poor craiturie. But she wouldna tell a lee.’ Mrs Hunter frankly admitted the failings of all her friends, but thought none the worse of them for that. ‘She’s her father’s daughter there. A good man, the old Doctor, and a grand discourse he gave. It was worth a long traivel to see him in the pulpit, a fine upstandin’ man as ever you saw. “Easy to him,” Jake says. Jake’s sair bent, Miss Craigmyle. “Easy to him, he’s never done a stroke of work in his life.” His wife did a’ thing—yoked the shalt for him whan he went on his visitations, and had aye to have his pipe filled with tobacco to his hand when he got hame.’

      ‘Where’s Lindsay gone to?’ Theresa cut abruptly across the conversation. ‘She’s taking a monstrous while to put away her cloak. And it’s time these bairns were home.’ She pulled the coloured streamers from the tree out of Stella’s hands.

      They called for Lindsay, but had no answer. When it became plain she was not in the house, there was a flutter of consternation.

      ‘Out?’