Hungry Hill (51 page)

“Lancaster Gate and London would be all right if it wasn’t for Adeline,” said Molly. “We were happy enough when we were alone with father.”

“No, we were not,” said Hal. “None of us has ever been really happy since we left Clonmere, and you know it. Nothing has been the same since mamma died, and never will be.”

His sisters stared at him. He looked white and strained, and there were tears in his eyes.

“Oh, what’s the use of anything?” he said.

“Sometimes I wish I was dead.”

And he ran away from them across the Saunby sands, the dogs leaping and barking at his heels, the wind blowing his hair across his face.

“He’s got to the difficult stage,” said Molly; “boys always get like that. Aunt Cathie said Bob used to be the same.”

“Bob had a home to go to,” said Kitty.

“Hal only has Lancaster Gate.”

The problem of the holidays became more acute as the years passed. Henry’s second wife made no secret of the fact that she disliked her stepchildren. There was no question of sharing Henry with his children. She wanted him for herself, and the only way to accomplish this was little by little to wean him from them, make him believe that they cared nothing for him, that none of his friends or relatives was worthy of him, and that she alone understood his needs, his comforts. She had rescued him from a life of wretched loneliness, and now he must cling to her only for consolation.

It was exciting, at first, to be wanted with so much passion. It was a novelty to Henry, who took full advantage of it, thinking he could atone thus for the wasted years. He was roused and flattered. It was pleasing to know that Adeline adored him, and while she adored him she was also able to take all responsibilities upon her shoulders, run his house with efficiency, deal with his children, tell him all the things that he wanted to know, and keep from him what was better ignored. Marriage with Adeline made life easy, he said to himself, made life comfortable and soothing. If Molly and Kitty and Hal were difficult it was their fault, they should be more adaptable. Anyway, they must go their own way. He did not want to be worried about them. Adeline was right, they were an ungrateful trio, thinking only of themselves. They did not realise what he had been through.

They did not understand that a man needed a wife in his home, otherwise he went to pieces. If the children did not get on with Adeline then they must go somewhere else for their holidays, to Herbert or to Edward.

They had nothing to complain of, because he always insisted that they should have the best of everything. When it was a question of Molly coming out, parties were arranged and dinners given, and Edward and his wife came to London to take her about. Adeline refused, quite rightly too, when Molly had always shown her so little affection.

Henry took Molly out once or twice, but somehow when he did it seemed to make trouble with Adeline afterwards.

“I wish you would come too,” said Henry.

“Molly really did look very charming at the ball the Goschens gave.”

“No doubt she did, because I wasn’t there,” laughed Adeline. “Miss Molly likes to have all the attention, and always did. I remember the time she used to make eyes at the music-master.”

“Oh, come ‘?

“My dear Henry, I’m not blind. Well, I suppose you are going out again tonight? You prefer your daughter’s company to your wife’s.”

“Of course I don’t. If you’d rather I stayed …”

“It’s not a question of what I’d rather. You know I never think about myself. No, if you enjoy spending a heated evening in a ballroom watching your eldest daughter doing her best to snaffle ? husband, you’re welcome. Personally, I shall go to bed early.

I’ve had a wretched head all day.”

“Well then, I will stay. Edward can take Molly. I don’t want to go.”

After two or three similar episodes it was simpler to leave Molly in Edward’s hands altogether.

The next difficulty was when Hal wrote asking Henry to come down on the fourth of June. He was rowing stroke in one of the senior boats, and he wanted his father there on the occasion.

“Please come alone,” he said, “or bring Molly and Kitty with you.”

Henry feared that this would go badly with Adeline, and tried to hide the letter from her on the breakfast-table.

Her sharp eyes caught sight of the Eton post-mark and Hal’s writing.

“Well, what’s your son got to say for himself?” she said. “Been get-ting into trouble with the authorities?”

“He wonders if I’d take the girls down for the fourth. He’s stroking one of the boats.”

“Doesn’t ask me, I suppose.”

“No, not actually. But I’m sure he’d be delighted to see you.”

“My dear, don’t pretend to me, I can’t stand it. I wouldn’t go to Eton if I was asked. As a matter of fact I’d arranged luncheon here with the Armitages and the Masons. I’d no idea you would want to go streaking off to Eton. It’s going to be very awkward having to entertain them on my own. After all, they are your friends. But don’t let me spoil your plans, please. I don’t know why Hal should suddenly express a wish to have you down. I suppose he wants someone to show off before, as rowing seems to be his one accomplishment, besides drinking.”

“What the devil do you mean?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forget you didn’t see the photograph he sent Kitty. I happened to see it on her dressing-table. He and some other boy had a bet, it appears, as to who could drink down the most beer, out of a monster tankard. Your son distinguished himself by winning, and had his photograph taken doing it. Of course I always have thought him the image of that photograph of your brother Johnnie, but never liked to say so. You’ll have to watch out. That sort of thing is hereditary, you know.”

She laughed, and got up from the breakfast table. “Poor dear! what it is to be a parent,” she said. “At least I spare you most of it. I’m taking Lizette to the masseuse this morning, and fetching Kitty from the dancing-class this afternoon. If I were you I should write to Hal and congratulate him on his capacity for strong ale.”

She swept out of the room for her morning sa^cance with the cook.

Henry did not answer. He collected his letters and went into the smoking-room. Hal like Johnnie…

. No one had ever seen a likeness between them. Or had they? And refrained from saying so because they had regard for his feelings? Adeline was so often right in her judgement, shrewd and clear-sighted. That sort of thing was hereditary. Johnnie, and old Grandfather Simon Flower. ‘

“My dear Hal, I am sorry I shan’t be able to get down for the fourth, but we have a luncheon arranged here for that day. I shall ask your uncle Edward to go down instead, and no doubt Molly and Kitty will wish to accompany him. ‘?

Hal shrugged his shoulders when he read the letter, and tearing it across, threw it in his waste-paper basket.

The woman had prevented him, of course; he knew how it would be. All right, what the hell? If his father did not want to see him row there was an end to it.

Rowing happened to be the one thing he could do decently, and he had hoped, secretly, that his father would be proud of the fact. Apparently not. It did not interest him.

His last half at Eton, and his father had come down to see him once in four years. The same thing would happen at Oxford. An occasional letter, a fat cheque, and nothing else. Well, he was used to it by now. It did not matter any more.

It was during Hal’s second year at Oxford that Molly, on a visit to the Eyres across the water, met and became engaged to Robert O’Brien Spencer, J. p., a friend of her uncle Bill’s.

“He is such a dear,” she wrote to Hal, “and loves every inch of the country, just as I do. And don’t think I am doing this to get away from Adeline, because it isn’t true, whatever she may say to father. I am really fond of Robert. But the glorious thing is this, we shall live only thirty or forty miles away from Clonmere, and Robert is going to write and ask father if we may go there for Christmas, home I mean, and give the darling place an airing. Of course you must join us, and Kitty, and Lizette.”

Home, after ten years. And dear old Molly going and getting herself engaged, to one of her own countrymen into the bargain. It was the greatest excitement since he had been up at Oxford-even better than rowing against Cambridge last spring. He must hold a celebration, give a dinner-party to all his friends and get gloriously tight. His allowance was running through his hands like water through a sieve, but it did not matter a damn. The old mines could stand the racket And he would paint Molly’s portrait and present it to the happy bridegroom with compliments. Home for Christmas… .

Molly was married in November, and there was a glorious gathering of the clans that even Adeline could not squash. She arranged the ceremony, of course, and did her best to damp the proceedings by insisting that the house in Lancaster Gate was too small for the reception, and it must be held in a hotel, that was big and dreary and lacked all personality. But she could not take away the radiant look on Molly’s face as she stood receiving her guests in the centre of the room, and she could not stop the whispered admiration for Kitty, the chief bridesmaid, who at seventeen had lost her coltish look and was strikingly lovely, like her mother before her. And though she did all she could to prevent it, she could not drag Henry away before the stalwart bridegroom had persuaded him to allow his family the occupation of Clonmere for Christmas.

“We’ve won,” said Hal gleefully, rubbing his hands, “we’ve trounced her at last. Don’t look so scared, Lizette, she can’t hear me. And I don’t care if she does. Kitty and I are going to take you back home, over the water.”

They set forth on the sixteenth of December, crossing to Slane and going down by train to Mundy, where they found that the little paddle-steamer was still running in spite of the lateness of the season, and it took them across the twenty miles of bay to Doonhaven itself.

The ten-year-old Lizette stood by the rail, between her sister and brother, looking upon it all for the first time, her pinched face losing its haunted expression, and the colour coming into her cheeks. The breeze was soft, from the south-west, the sky was full of little fleecy clouds, and the hills were green under the sun.

“There’s Andriff Castle, where Grannie was born,” said Hal, pointing to the far distance. “We have cousins there, I expect Molly will ask them over.

They must be grown up by now, and you see that church, standing in shadow, down by the water’s edge-that’s Ardmore, where we used to go every Sunday. Mamma is buried there.”

How tiny it looked. How windswept and alone.

Had she lain there all these ten years, with no one belonging to her? Did anyone put flowers on her grave ? Hal felt his throat tighten. The past seemed so remote, so long ago.

There was Hungry Hill, lifting his old granite head to the sky, and the mine-workings at the base, the chimney-stacks, the sheds, the tracks, and as the steamer rounded the point the humped back of Doon Island lay before them, the long line of garrison buildings, and the village of Doonhaven, nestling in the shadow of the hills.

“Look there, at the head of the creek across the harbour-that’s Clonmere,” said Hal.

They stared in silence, at the home they had deserted as little children. The sun shone in the windows and upon the grey walls. The new wing had mellowed with the years and had become part of it all, but it was still empty, untouched since the builders had left it in 1871. A flag was flying from the old tower. Boats were anchored in the creek.

The tears were running down Kitty’s cheeks.

“I know it’s idiotic, but I can’t help it,” she said, smiling at Hal. “I thought somehow it would be different, but it’s not. It’s just the same.”

“There’s a fellow in one of the boats,” said Hal. “I wonder if it’s a Sullivan or a Baird? He’s probably been after killigs.”

“The herons still live in the trees below the park,” said Kitty. “Look, Lizette, by the other creek, you can see their big, untidy nests… .

There’s the harbour wall. It’s low tide, the harbour is dry. We shall have to anchor outside and pull ashore.”

“I see Molly and Robert on the quay,” said Lizette, “and other people with them. The man is dressed as a clergyman. He has a long grey beard.”

“It’s Uncle Tom,” shouted Hal. “He used to be father’s best friend. And look, there’s Aunt Harriet; she’s waving a handkerchief.”

“That must be Jinny with them,” said Kitty. “Good heavens, she was six when we left. And now I suppose she’s sixteen.”

The paddle-steamer thrashed the water and went astern.

The anchor plunged from the bows. And across the dancing water the little boats pulled. Everyone was smiling, and kissing, and shaking hands. Uncle Tom had one hand on Hal’s shoulder and the other on Kitty’s.

Aunt Harriet had picked Lizette up in her arms and was holding her tight. Jinny looked from one to the other with warm brown eyes.

“God bless you all,” said Uncle Tom, in his deep voice. “We are so very glad to welcome you home, so thankful and so happy.”

The familiar cobbled stones, the shingle beach, the boats drawn up above the tide. Old Murphy’s shop, the chandler’s at the corner, the public-house across the square. It was market-day, and the stalls were being put away. A cowman was driving the cattle up the hill. Men stood about the square with straws in their mouths, staring and doing nothing, as they had always done. A woman was scolding a neighbour from her doorway, and a little slatternly child ran out with his finger in his mouth. The priest stood on the step of Murphy’s shop, with a cabbage under his arm. Some half-dozen miners, in their working clothes, came singing down the road from Hungry Hill.

“Why did we ever leave?” said Hal. “Why did father make us go away?” Uncle Tom smiled, and took his arm.

“Never mind about that,” he said. “You’re home once more.” How good it was to see Uncle Tom again, and kiss Aunt Harriet’s plump cheek; smell the familiar Rectory smell, of leather chairs, and ferns, and dogs; sit down to an enormous tea, and a fruit cake of Aunt Harriet’s own baking.

And memories, happy ones, tumbling over each other.