BOOK FOUR. CHAPTER SIX

When Emmy caught a quinsy, Nannie said January had always been an unlucky month for Lockharts and Royalty. I sat beside her most of the day, talking and reading out to her, but time went by heavily in the room where the skylight cast a square of light on the floor. Emmy could no longer harness her mind by throwing herself into activity; and now her hands were idle, her unchecked thoughts had her at their mercy. I think during those days she knew melancholy in all its myriad forms, from depression of the body to sadness of the spirit, from haunting mournfulness to flagging lassitude and desolating despondency. But she never spoke even to me of what she thought or felt.

Edwin sent her a beautiful bunch of black grapes and she sat up in bed under the sloping ceiling, a shawl over her pointed shoulders, while she skinned and removed the pips of each grape. She informed me she was not going to allow herself to eat one until she had prepared them all. But after she had finished, she said they somehow did not taste so nice. ‘There’s a moral to that somewhere,’ she remarked as she lay down again, ‘but I’m too tired to think it out just now.’

Julia had spent Christmas in her Glasgow home but she returned to Gel Lodge towards the end of February, for Christine was to be married from there in spring. Julia wanted Emmy to stay with them but Emmy would not leave home, because of her throat, she said, although I knew it was quite well again. She was worn out and had no desire for her emotions to be stirred, so that she would not go even for the day to Gel Lodge for fear she should meet Stephen Wingate, but I went one afternoon in March to spend the night.

Everything was in an upheaval because of the approaching wedding, yet there seemed a lack of spontaneity and eagerness in the air. Martin was the only person who appeared to be in excellent spirits, fooling as usual at tea and making me laugh in spite of myself. But at the back of my mind lay the knowledge, realised only at that moment, that Christine’s wedding was now not even a matter of weeks distant, but of days.

It was well Emmy had not come with me for Stephen Wingate had travelled north the previous day to stay with his aunt until his marriage. He was not expecting to see me that afternoon at Gel Lodge and when he caught sight of me I thought he was going to exclaim. He did not, however, but glanced round the room a little wildly, his lips parted, as though looking for some one. He stood behind me, the last place I like people to stand, with his hands on the back of my chair, and the thought streaked through my mind that, if the opportunity came, he would bend down and ask me something—I knew not what. Perhaps he, too, was not quite sure.

That was the first time I had met him since Emmy had spoken of him to me last summer on the bank of the burn, and I looked at him now as though I had never seen him before. I had always thought of him as a frank, good-looking young man with his gay blue eyes and unforced laugh. Now I had to revise that impression. This man, who stood listening to Martin’s chatter yet seemed dwelling on his own thoughts, was not so tolerant as I had imagined. His blue eyes could darken, he might be moody, and I saw from a certain mettled imperiousness in his bearing I had not marked before that he would bear no restraint. In this he reminded me of Emmy with her impatient gestures and her quick suspicion if any one tried to curb her. For one dangerous moment I let my imagination picture them together; then I made myself look at Christine. She was sitting drawn back in her low chair, as though she were being out-talked, which she certainly was by her voluble brother, while her eyes watched Stephen Wingate appealingly. I could sense that she irritated him and that unconsciously she knew it. She would reproach when she should retort, advance where she should withdraw.

I left Julia’s next day and, rather to my surprise, Christine accompanied me in the carriage. She wanted to see Emmy, she explained, and she thought this would be a good opportunity when she would have my company to the manse.

I felt myself grow bitter at the thought of Christine’s marriage, but it was not altogether resentment, which I knew to be unjust, at Christine having what Emmy might not have, that made me feel little at ease with her. We had never had much to say to each other; she was Emmy’s friend and evinced no interest in me. Perhaps the things that appealed to her in Emmy were the very things she did not possess. She was what Nannie would call ‘finger-fed’—quite unfitted for the wear and tear of daily life.

We sat together in the carriage, each looking out of a different window and neither making any pretence to keep up conversation. It was a still, motionless day with a gloom lying over everything like the bloom on fruit. This olive-green atmosphere, a token of coming storm, made the landscape, with trees studded here and there, look like the background of an old Italian picture. When we drove through Dormay, the sound of the blacksmith’s hammer on his anvil could be heard down the length of the street.

As we neared the manse, I became conscious that Christine’s customary quietness when she was alone with me could not account for her unbroken silence now. I stole a look at her as she sat with her hands in her muff and saw from her face, half turned towards the window, that she was sunk so deep in her own thoughts she had forgotten all about me. I wondered why she had been so anxious to come to the manse that afternoon, nearly weeping when Julia suggested she should wait until Monday and accompany her when she was coming to spend the whole day with us.

Emmy was waiting at the gate for me and was obviously surprised when she saw Christine. But Christine was not in the mood to notice, or care if she did, what effect her unheralded visit had. She kissed Emmy warmly, clinging to her hands and exclaiming her name as though she had at last found her.

We had tea with mamma, who spoke to Christine of her coming wedding with all her wonted enthusiasm, but Christine remained sweetly smiling and monosyllabic, her fingers plucking at her frock. After tea, she surprised me by proposing—for she usually left suggestions to others—that a walk would be very nice, and on our way upstairs for our bonnets, she put her arm through Emmy’s. We had no sooner entered our bedroom when she said:

‘Let’s stay here for a little.’

‘Yes, of course—if you want to,’ Emmy agreed, ‘but I hope you won’t find it cold, Christine. Lisbet, shut the skylight. It’s nice and undisturbed here,’ she said, sitting on our bed and looking round.

Christine sat down beside her, her wide skirts making an island round her. She moistened her lips and turned her pale face beseechingly towards Emmy.

‘Oh, Emmy,’ she said, ‘you’re the only person I can tell—Juley’s different somehow and I couldn’t tell Aunt Bertha.’

‘Tell, Christine?’ asked Emmy, her face setting and her voice sharp with dread.

‘About Stephen. When he’s with me now it’s all so different to what it used to be, and when he’s away his letters are merely notes in answer to mine, with very little beginning or end.’ She made a choking sound in her throat. ‘I’ve felt a change in him ever since last summer—ever since Juley’s wedding really. It’s almost as though he didn’t care the same. But that can’t be, that can’t be—I’m just the same as when he knew me first. What would you do if you were me? You’re so strong and decisive and not like me who can’t make up my mind or keep it fixed for two minutes on end. Say something to me. Tell me you think he cares the same as he ever did.’

Emmy’s mouth dragged.

‘Oh, I know what you would do,’ Christine said, covering her face with her hands, ‘don’t say what you would do. I couldn’t do that—I’m not you. Besides he might tell me that he—that he—’ She began to cry behind her hands. ‘I could bear anything but that, anything in the world but that. Perhaps it’s only his way, perhaps all men are like that when they grow more accustomed to you. But I used to think he couldn’t be anything other than gentle or say an unkind word, and now sometimes I catch him looking at me in such a curious way that makes my blood freeze. And once or twice, when he hasn’t quite caught what I’ve said, he’s spoken to me almost angrily. Emmy, you’ve met him and you know people even if you’ve only seen them once. You don’t think he could be cruel, do you? Lately I’ve wondered when I’ve looked at his face. But the terrible thing is that even if I knew he were and a hundred other things besides, I would still love him and want him. What should I do? Tell me what I should do.’

‘I can’t think what you can do.’

‘He’s worked me into such a state now that I can hardly speak to him or bear to hear him speak for fear of what he’ll say. I can’t endure it any longer. Emmy, Emmy, tell me how I can put things right. There must be some way, there must. He cared before—at the beginning—so why shouldn’t he care again? Help me, Emmy, help me.’

‘If you couldn’t ask him and straighten out things yourself, there’s your father. He would be understanding and do anything to help you.’

‘No, no, that would never do—it would be so much easier for him to tell papa than to tell—’ She broke off and stared a little stupidly in front of her, as though her mind refused to comprehend what her lips said.

She began to cry soon after, forlorn sobs that shook her shoulders. Emmy, who had been leaning against the bolster as though she were very tired, knelt beside her and tried to comfort her, but Christine cried as if her heart would break. Her tears must have brought her some relief, however, for when she began to dry her eyes she seemed a little heartened.

‘I may be imagining it all,’ she said gaspily. ‘You can imagine all kinds of things, can’t you? After all, our wedding isn’t so very far away.’

‘No,’ Emmy agreed, ‘it’s within a few days.’

‘Seven days exactly to-day,’ said Christine, winding her bonnet strings round and round her fingers; ‘nothing very much could happen within that time, could it?’ She stood up and we smoothed out her crumpled frock. ‘Seven days!’ she exclaimed, her face brightening, ‘seven’s a lucky number, isn’t it?’