‘Will I dance to you now?’
‘Surely, ma dear, surely.’
She had never been taught to dance. Frock, boots, big-boned hands and limbs were clumsy, and her dancing was little more than a solemn series of ungainly hops. An intelligent observer might have been hard put to it to discover the rhythm to which she moved. A loving observer would have understood that even the worlds in their treading of the sky may sometimes move ungracefully. A young undisciplined star or so, with too much spirit for all its mastery of form … Aunt Josephine was a loving observer. She had never heard of cosmic measures, but she knew quite well that the force that urged the child to dance was the same that moved the sun in heaven and all the stars.
So she let her work alone and stood watching, as grave as Martha herself, and as happy.
‘Lovely, ma dear, just lovely,’ she said: and forgot about the tatties to pare and the dishtowels to wash before another thunder-plump came down. For be it understood that nothing so adaptable as work was allowed to put Aunt Josephine about. She was never harassed with it. She performed the meanest household task with a quiet gusto that made it seem the most desirable occupation in the world. But as soon as anything more interesting offered, she dropped the work where it was, and returned to it, if there was reason in returning to it when she was again at leisure, with the same quiet gusto. If there was no longer any reason in completing the work, why, it was so much labour saved.
‘Josephine sweeps the day an’ dusts the morn,’ Leebie once said with her chilliest snort.
But Leebie’s attitude to labour had been subtly deranged by her many years’ sojourn in Jean’s immaculate household. Early left a widow, and childless, Leebie had lived for nearly thirty years with Mr. and Mrs. Corbett. To the discipline of Jean’s establishment she owed her superb belief in labour as an end in itself. To rise on Tuesdays for any other reason than to turn out the bedrooms, or on Fridays for a purpose beyond baking, would have seemed to both sisters an idle attempt to tamper with an immutable law of life. Indeed it is to be doubted, had Mrs. Corbett not been too much engrossed with the immediate concerns of this world to have any attention for a world beyond, whether she could possibly have envisaged a Tuesday spent in singing hymns. Bedroom day in heaven … the days in their courses, splendid and unshakable as the stars. …
Aunt Josephine, on the other hand, had time to spare for the clumsy young stars, not at all splendid and still rather shaky as to their courses. She stood in great contentment and watched the one that was dancing on her path. Peter Mennie the postie, coming up the path, was drawn also into the vortex of the clumsy star.
‘See to the littlin,’ said Aunt Josephine.
‘She’ll need a ride for that,’ answered Peter.
He was an ugly man − six foot of honest ugliness. He could never be ugly to Martha. She stopped dancing at sight of him, too shy even to run and hide. He hoisted her on to his shoulder and she went riding off in terror that soon became a fearful joy.
Next day she watched for Peter and went with him again; and the next day too. At Drochety − the farm west from Aunt Josephine’s where they delivered the newspaper − Clemmie had always heard them coming and was there at the door, waiting. A raw country lass, high-cheeked, with crude red features and sucked and swollen hands, she managed Drochety and his household to the manner born. Mrs. Glennie, Drochety’s feeble wife, lay upstairs in her bed and worritted – Aunt Josephine told Martha all about it as though she were a grown-up and Martha listened with grave attention. But she need not have worritted, for Clemmie, though she came only at last November term, had the whole establishment, master and mistress, kitchen and byre and chau’mer, securely under her chappit thumb.
Clemmie had a soft side to Peter, and for his sake was kind to Matty: though she would not of her own accord have made much of a lassie. ‘It’s aye the men-fowk I tak a fancy to,’ she said with perfect frankness. Martha could hear her skellochin’ with the cattleman in the evenings, ‘an’ him,’ said Aunt Josephine, ‘a merriet man.’
The rest of the day Martha trotted after Aunt Josephine or played among the broom brushes above the house. And each day was as sweet smelling and wholesome to the taste as its neighbour.
On the tenth of these days Miss Leggatt straightened herself from the rhubarb bed, where she had been pulling the red stalks for Martha’s dinner, and saw young Willie Patterson come cycling down the road. And when young Willie Patterson visited Miss Leggatt, three things always happened: they played a game of cards; they talked of old Willie and the crony of his young days, Rory Foubister; and Miss Josephine forgot the passage of time.
She forgot Martha also. The child stood gravely by, watching; and heard for the first time the name of Rory Foubister. Willie and Miss Josephine took him through hand − a likely lad he had been, ‘the warld fair made for him,’ said Miss Leggatt. ‘But he wasna a gweed guide o’ himsel. Never will I forget the day he cam to say fareweel. “I’ve been a sorrowfu’ loon to my parents, Josephine, an’ mebbe I’ll never come back.’”
‘Well, well, now,’ said Willie, ‘it’s just as well you spoke of Rory’ (as though Miss Josephine ever neglected so to do), ‘for didna I just look in on his cousin, old Miss Foubister at Birleybeg. “Tell Miss Josephine,” said she, “that Mrs. Williamson and Bella will be here in an hour’s time, and we’ll be looking for her to make the fourth, and stay as lang’s she can,” she says.’
‘Weel, weel, noo,’ said Miss Josephine.
The good humour shone in her. She was burnished with it. When Mrs. Williamson and Bella came to Birelybeg, the summoning of Aunt Josephine followed as a matter of course. So did whist: and it was no idle game.
Aunt Josephine was in a delightful bustle. There was her best black silk boady to fetch and air, her boots to polish, her clean handkerchief to lay in readiness beside the bonnet with the velvet pansies. One thing Aunt Josephine forgot was the dinner. The beheaded stalks of rhubarb lay in a heap in the garden where she had left them when Willie Patterson appeared. Their skin had tightened and toughened in the sun and shreds of it were curling up like tendrils. The mince was still upon the shelf.
‘We canna wait noo or it’s cookit,’ said Aunt Josephine when she remembered. She was standing in her petticoat and slip-body in the middle of the kitchen floor. ‘We’ll just hae a cup of tea an’ an egg, an’ you’ll carry hame the mince to yer mither in yer bundle.’
On the strength of the cup of tea and the egg Aunt Josephine locked her house door and pocketed the ponderous key. On the strength of the cup of tea and the egg Martha watched her go and turned to face her first revisitation of her home.
When Aunt Josephine had walked off westward in her best silk boady, Martha turned back alone to Wester Cairns. Life was a queer disappointment. Its Aunt Josephines had incomprehensible transactions with the world. Its very woods were dumb. She crawled in among the bracken to rest. Its great tops swayed above her, smelling good. The earth smelt good too; and she fell asleep.
When she awoke the shadows had altered. Thin blades of sunshine had stolen into the wood, shadow had stolen over great patches of the sunny land. She had slept till evening. But Martha was as yet unskilled to read the light and did not know that she had slept so long. She rose and left the wood.
The iron gate to the field was open and two small boys lay on their stomachs beside the puddle. Beyond, a black-eyed girl was strutting, an old cloak tied round her middle.
‘Ye