That night he was feverish and troubled with fantastic bits of thought and dream. Then all grew quiet and he was aware that a little girl of Sheena’s age was sitting on the mat in front of the fireplace. She had black hair, wore a diminutive white linen nightdress, and was completely preoccupied taking pebbles from a painted bowl and placing them on the floor before her. She leaned forward to the bowl and then back, and had the air of communing deeply with herself though she was quite silent. Somehow this preoccupation was more arresting than if she had been doing something full of mystery. He knew quite well nothing was going to happen. He knew it did not matter which pebbles she picked or how or where she arranged them on the floor. It was the concentration on the doing that was remarkable; it was beyond or behind everything that could happen; it was so complete that he himself with a feeling of infinite ease got lost in it, and his eyes moved behind the child—and saw the feet. They were the naked feet of a grown woman. Instantly his whole being was gripped, and he could not move his eyes from the feet. He knew he had to look up at the woman but he could not. In the struggle with himself, he awoke. The grey morning was in the window.
As he lay back, the thought came to him full-blown: why did they drive me out to the cairn—the cave—the storm with death in it? For it was no good denying that he had felt a compulsion to go out. He had been pushed out by the “influence” in the room.
He was wide awake now, with the sea-shiver tremulous in his skin. It was not a true fever. He knew that. And he argued that the “influence” could be only in his own mind. He made this quite clear to himself, but the logic of it could not blot out what had happened, could not destroy even now, at this moment, his apprehension of an invisible traffic between the long narrow box and the mat before the fireplace. His sensitivity became so acute that he got up, opened the door of his “dark room”, felt queerly vulnerable as he stretched up and unpinned an edge of the black cloth which covered the skylight, looked down at the long box and around, closed the door, and got back into bed.
Inside his own mind: that’s where it all happened. But logic now became uncanny and asked him: why did your mind produce the feet?
He saw the feet again, solidly moulded, clear in every toenail. He had been at ease, lost in the child’s concentration and then—the feet, the clutch of fear.
Logic began to mock him, shifted its footing with every Why? until it became more evasive, more mysterious, than the “influence”. He grew very hot, and when the blood-pulse became audible in his head took a sleeping tablet.
That afternoon he felt pleasantry languid and was amused at Mrs Cameron’s whispered references to Sheena who was still silent but utterly wedded to the case that contained the Silver Bough. It was as if something incredible and august had happened to the little girl. From hidden corners came an occasional note or two and once the voice had sung the melody with a pure solemnity, but during her movements through the ordinary world the box was shut.
Anna had gone to Kinlochoscar, and Mrs Cameron was explaining with exaggerated humour that she dare not even make a call on a neighbour who was ill, when he offered to take Sheena out for a stroll.
To their astonishment, Sheena silently went to him and took his outstretched hand.
“Well! Well!” said her granny. “But surely you are not going to carry the box with you, too? It might fall down and break.”
Sheena looked at Mr Grant.
“It would be safer at home,” he said seriously. “I’ll tell you what—we’ll lock it up in my box and I’ll carry the key away with me.”
“Nobody would ever get near it in that case,” said Mrs Cameron.
“And we’ll go away to the little shore and gather some pretty shells for your housie.”
They had much conversation on the way, for Sheena, relieved of the sweet tyranny of possession yet with the knowledge that the Silver Bough would be safely waiting for her, came right out of herself. She expended so much energy that he saw her flagging going up the slope and asked if she would like a lift. She raised her arms so naturally that she finished her question with one arm round his neck. The warmth and smell of her little body, the whisk of her hair on his cheek, stirred him so profoundly that it stirred him to his brightest humour. He was sweating before he set her down and sat down himself, wiping his forehead and laughing. In time they reached the little shore, where she had been with her mother when Norman had come to them and Martin in the boat.
He was sitting on a low rock, watching her gathering shells, when he happened to look to sea and saw a rowboat coming down the coast towards Clachar. It was Martin and as he drew abreast Grant stood up and lifted an arm in salute. Martin lay on his oars for a moment or two then turned the bow to the rock, where Grant met him.
“Like some fish?”
“Nothing I like better. You’ve been lucky.”
“There’s a good patch opposite the White Shore,” said Martin indifferently.
“Is that the white strip of beach you can see from the headland up there?”
“Yes. Can I heave them out for you or—I think I’ll stretch my legs. You get cramped sitting.” He took the painter with him. Then he stood, arrested. A small face was showing beyond the low rock.
Grant, who had completely forgotten Sheena, said at random: “I’m acting nursemaid today!” He laughed. “This is Sheena. We’re great friends.” Then he called, “It’s all right, Sheena!” and went a couple of paces towards her. He did not know what to do, so went right up to Sheena. “How many shells have you got now?” He stooped; he inspected what she had gathered. “We’ll need more yet for the path up to your housie.” But her attention was distracted; yet he refused to turn round; and did not do so until she had been persuaded to gather more. Martin was sitting on the rock, smoking a cigarette, his face impassive.
“I have come to the conclusion that seawater doesn’t do anyone any harm,” said Grant as lightly as he could.
“Depends on how much you get of it,” said Martin.
“I got a fair amount,” said Grant, holding to his smiling air.
But Martin was watching the child. Grant looked into the boat. “What are the fish with the red spots?”
“Plaice.”
Grant studied the shape of the flounders and plaice carefully, the gear in the boat, a pipe, a tin of mussels, brown handlines on wooden frames. He suddenly remembered the boat that had been wrecked. This was a rougher, heavier one. “Was she a total wreck, the other boat?”
“She might mend, if we had the timber.”
Grant could not look at him, as though something destructive or savage had come into the very air. When he did look he was surprised to find that Martin’s face was expressionless. His watching of Sheena was quite detached and Sheena at the moment was utterly absorbed with the mother-of-pearl shimmer in a shell. She was only a dozen yards away and they saw her try to scrape the shimmer off the shell with her fingernails but it wouldn’t come. This was so wonderful that her face lit up with brightness and she cried, “Look!” and came with it at arm’s length. Grant stepped down from the rock, took the shell and tried to wipe away the mother-of-pearl with the ball of his thumb; when he couldn’t do it she jumped with excitement.
“It’s a beauty,” he said, putting it back in her eager hands.
“I found it.” The tiny pink fingers with the transparent nails pressed against the mother-of pearl; the brightness shone again in her face as she looked quickly up—and saw Martin. The brightness faded and the small face grew solemn and thoughtful.
“Perhaps there are more,” suggested Grant.
Now she was looking up from under her brows and she came close to him; glanced at the shell and looked up again.
“Won’t you try to find some more?” The position was becoming very awkward. “Run away now!” He turned to Martin, smiling. “We are keeping you.”
Martin’s eyes came onto his face; they walked over it and stared in, without curiosity; they shifted to the child, held for a little while, then with a slow easy gesture he took a pull at his cigarette and said, “Well?”
Grant went along the rock to the boat. There was the question of how he should carry the fish. Martin went into the boat and threaded eight of them on a piece of string, shoving it under the covering flap of the gills and out through the mouth with a thumb.
“This is too many,” said Grant.
“Don’t think you can carry them?”
“No, I mean—it’s too much.”
“I could take you to the spit if you like.”
“That would be too kind, besides——”
“As you like.”
“Well——” Grant looked back and saw the child’s face staring at them over the rock. “If you’re sure it wouldn’t be a trouble?”
Martin didn’t trouble to reply.
Grant put the shells in his handkerchief and carried Sheena over the uneven rock. She was excited.
“You get in first,” said Martin; then he lifted Sheena in and Grant took her between his knees.
The sea was calm and the sun shining through a sky haze. Martin began to row away and Sheena’s eyes grew round and looked at Martin and at the receding shore.
She could not understand Martin’s face and turned sideways to it and Grant made conversation to her; but in a moment the lifting and falling of the boat over the slow impulse of the sea had her attention and she was looking at Martin again.
It was only then that Grant’s inner acute embarrassment passed from him, for he realised that in Martin there was no awkwardness at all and had not been from the first moment. No abrupt talk, no stress, only that gaze in which there was neither curiosity nor indifference. He pulled a slow steady stroke; the seaman’s oar. His face and shoulders had somehow an added distinction from the sea, an extra dimension of remoteness. When his eyes and Sheena’s met, it was Sheena’s that moved away. But he clearly did not frighten her. A slight wonder came upon her, a tendency to whisper: that was all; then she was looking at him again.
A small jetty pushed out from the northern shore of the spit and when Martin pulled alongside, Grant got out. Martin lifted Sheena out and then the fish.
“I can only thank you,” said Grant; but as they moved away Sheena looked back, dragging a little at his hand, but he did not care to turn round. He had thought he glimpsed Mrs Sidbury in the pine plantation, and as they went along the avenue through the trees he saw her in the distance. She was standing in the middle of the avenue looking half over her shoulder and turned to them as they came up.
“Mr Martin was good enough to give us a lift from the little shore,” he said, smiling, “and present us with these fish.”
She was pleased her brother had had such good sense and he presented Sheena. But Sheena had her right thumb at her mouth and curious eyes. Mrs Sidbury had to take her hand and shake it politely. Sheena drew back and regarded her with a child’s complete gravity, and for the second time Grant saw Martin in her face. He spoke laughingly to Sheena, for he did not care to look at Mrs Sidbury.
As they went on again his embarrassment returned and he felt a fool. Mrs Sidbury might think he was introducing Sheena to the family. Good lord! he thought. He had caught the tail end of the piercing look she had given the child. He felt hot.