Hungry Hill (59 page)

He would come down to Doonhaven and find his son in bed probably, with his eyes bandaged, and his body black and blue. And he would not believe the story of a fight on Hungry Hill, for twenty-five years of living across the water would have made him forgetful of the strange ways and crazy happenings of his own country, where men drank with one another one moment and fought the next, all because of something that happened before they were born. His father would be shown up to the bedroom by a shy and nervous Jinny, and he would see Hal lying against the pillows with two black eyes, and say to himself “A drunken brawl, of course; the girl is trying to hush it up.” The thought of this, so typical and inevitable, made Hal laugh helplessly to himself, and he thought how impossible it was going to be to explain to his father what had happened. It would be simpler to let the matter rest, and for his father to continue thinking him useless, tipsy, and incompetent, staggering home in his cups on a Saturday night, as half the men in Doonhaven had done since the beginning of time.

Hal touched something with his hands, a rough, hard surface, like a brick wall, and he stumbled over a piece of planking at his feet.

God damn it all, he thought wearily. I’m nowhere near the dressing-sheds. This feels like the boiler-house wall-and he went forward, step by step, groping his way in the darkness. He felt himself getting lightheaded, and he was aware suddenly of a feeling of sadness, that somehow he had made a mess of his day on Hungry Hill, that should have brought him peace and quiet, and now it was going to end foolishly, like so many things in his life.

Jinny would worry about him, and so would Uncle Tom; they were going to be unhappy because of him.

Everything was dark, he could see nothing with his damned swollen, bleeding eyes, and surely he was not by the mines at all, not on Hungry Hill, but walking in the shadows of the new wing at Clonmere, a little boy again, trying to find his way to mamma’s bedroom?

The door to the boudoir was close at hand, and if he opened it and stepped into the room he would go to the shutters and pull them aside, that had stood rusted so long with the damp, and mamma would be waiting for him on the balcony that she had never used.

The moon rose over the shoulder of Hungry Hill, he could feel the light of it, in his blindness, and he thought it was the lamp she had lit for him, and that she stood waiting for him by the open door. He turned to go to her, and the black shaft yawned at him as he went’.

Jinny dressed her boy with great care, and he did not protest because although he was barely two he understood that sadness had come upon them all, and if he pulled and tugged at his clothes he would make her unhappy. He sat on her lap while she drew on the clean white socks, and the black shoes with the buckles. Then she took out his new suit from its tissue paper. Bottle-green velvet, with lace collar and cuffs. She parted his hair on one side for the first time, brushing away the heavy, dark fringe.

She had a tear at the corner of her eye, and this made him sorrowful. There was nothing he could do. He looked away over her shoulder at the beaver hat that had been bought for him from the shops. He knew that it would be uncomfortable, and he did not want to wear it.

It was black, like his shoes, and like the dress she wore. Her pretty blue dress was hanging in the cupboard. When Jinny had finished dressing him she stood him up on a chair and looked at him, and he had the feeling that she wanted him to be bigger than he was. Then she smiled at him, although the tear was still in the corner of her eye.

“I’m proud of you, dear,” she said, “you look very nice. And I want you to be very good, because we are going to see your grandfather.”

He considered this a moment. The word was too long for him, but it had a meaning.

“Granpie?” he said slowly, his expression brightening.

“No, not Granpie,” she said, “someone else, that you have not seen before. We are going up to Clonmere to see him.”

This could be understood. Clonmere was the house with the balcony and the windows, where they went so often for their walks. And climbing down from the chair, he allowed the ugly beaver hat to be placed upon his head, and the elastic snapped tight under his chin.

They went downstairs to the hall, hand in hand, and outside in the road Patsy was waiting, with the pony and trap. John-Henry looked to see if the picnic-basket was to be put in the trap, but there was no nigh of it.

“Picnic?” he said, watching his mother’s face, but she shook her head.

“No, son,” she said, “no picnic today.”

He accepted the statement, but it was strange to drive in the trap with Patsy unless food was taken, and Granpie came, with rugs, and sticks, and coats, and parasols. Perhaps the arrival of the trap was a tribute to his velvet suit and the black beaver hat.

As Jinny passed the study she glanced in through the door, and saw that the Rector was sitting at his desk.

“We’re going,” she said. Her voice was calm and steady.

Tom Callaghan turned round in his chair. His face was grave, but his deep-set eyes were tender as he looked at his daughter and the boy.

“I’ve told you,” he said, “not to expect anything from him. He is hard and cold, Jinny, not the man you remember as a child, who laughed and smiled and was gay, like our dear Hal. The years have been heavy with him.”

“I don’t want anything from him,” said Jinny.

“I only think it right that he should see John-Henry.”

“Yes,” said the Rector, “yes, I understand.”

Then she went from the room, with the boy, and they climbed into the trap and drove through the village street up the hill and past the cottages at Oakmount, until they came to the long wall, and the gatehouse.

Young Mrs. Sullivan was standing at the entrance to the drive, and as the trap drove through she curtseyed to Jinny, who returned the gesture with a solemn little bow.

John-Henry sat stiff and straight beside her.

People did not curtsey to her as a rule. Another tribute to the velvet suit.

He glanced at her hands. She was wearing gloves, a thing she only did in winter, or when she went to church with Granpie on Sunday morning.

Down the drive bowled the trap, through the rough park-lands and the woods, and there was the creek to the left of them, and the castle standing on the high grass bank above them. There was smoke coming from one of the chimneys, and the windows in the old part of the house had been flung open. There was a carriage drawn up in the turn of the drive before the castle. There was luggage placed on the seat beside the driver. The front-door of the great hall, that Jinny had never seen open, was open now.

Jinny hesitated a moment, but custom was too strong for her, and in a low voice she bade Patsy drive to the side-door, in the old part of the house.

She was a little nervous now. She pulled at the boy’s lace collar, and straightened his hat on his head. Something of her feeling communicated itself to the child, and he felt shy and uncomfortable; he wanted to stay in the trap with Patsy.

“No,” she said firmly, “you must come with me. And I want you to shake hands very politely when you see your grandfather.”

The side-door was open, but Jinny rang the bell. It clanged loudly, echoing in a passage far away. A servant came to the door-the valet, she supposed, who had travelled over from London with his master.

“Mrs. Brodrick?” he asked, and John-Henry saw his mother bow again.

The gesture pleased him. It was so full of dignity. He imitated her, nodding his head up and down, but she frowned, and he supposed it was something that only grown-up people were allowed to do.

The servant opened a door across the hall and showed them into a large room, a dining-room. The cloth had been removed, but there was a long strip of green baize down the centre of the table.

This is where we lunched that Christmas Day, thought Jinny, when I was sixteen and Hal was twenty…

The servant had kindled a small wood fire in the grate, for although it was August the weather was chill. There were two chairs before the fire. Jinny was uncertain whether she should sit or stand. She had expected that Hal’s father would have been in the room, waiting for them. The door at the end of the room was open. She remembered that it gave on a passage leading to the new wing, and she wondered if he had gone through there, to the other part of the house. She went on standing before the fire-place, holding John-Henry by the hand, and the little boy looked about him with interest, and pointed to a picture on the wall. It was a young girl, with soft brown eyes and dark curling hair.

She wore a string of pearls round her neck.

“Yes,” whispered Jinny, “she’s very pretty.”

Jinny turned to the other side of the fire-place and gazed at the portrait of Hal’s mother. How like him she must have been! That same reserve, that silence for no reason. Then the boy tugged at her hand, and looking over her shoulder, she saw that Hal’s father had come into the room. He was not the Henry Brodrick she remembered as a child, not the Henry of the pencil sketch in the study at the Rectory. He was thinner, much thinner, and his face had fallen away, that had been large and firm before. His hair was scarce on top, and nearly white. The mouth was narrow, and the eyes more prominent than she remembered. Then he came forward, holding out his hand.

“You are Jinny,” he said, “and I haven’t seen you since you were six years old.”

She had been ready to stand on her dignity, to speak at once in defence of Hal, of all that had happened, to accuse Henry if need be of neglect, unkindness, hardness of heart, but at his words her antagonism went, her defences were stripped from her, and she saw that he was shy and uncertain, even as she was herself, and lonely too.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m Jinny, and this is John-Henry.”

The boy put up his hand, as he had been told to do, and looked then around him at the door, wishing they might go.

“Won’t you sit down?” said Henry, pointing to the chair, and Jinny held the boy by her side, whispering to him to be still.

For a moment Henry did not speak. He glanced away from the boy to the wood fire in the grate.

“What are your plans?” he said.

“I shall go on living in Doonhaven, with father and mother at the Rectory,” she said, “until it is time for John-Henry to go to school. Then, I don’t know.

It will depend on many things.”

“I suppose,” said Henry, “that Tom would like him to be a parson?”

“I don’t think so,” said Jinny. “Once, when I was talking about the future, he said that the Navy would be an excellent thing for John-Henry. But we needn’t think about it yet.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“And Hal?” said his father. “Did he have any ideas on the subject?”

Jinny held the boy’s hand, which was fidgeting with the lace collar.

“No,” she said gently. “Hal was not interested in education, or professions. He just imagined that-that one day John-Henry would live here at Clonmere.”

Henry rose to his feet, and stood with his hands behind his back, looking down on Jinny and his grandson, “I wanted to sell the place,” he said, “many years ago. Hal will have told you that. I would still sell it, but, as you probably know, Clonmere is entailed. When I die, and this boy reaches the age of twenty-one, he can do as he likes. He can break the entail at will.”

“Yes,” said Jinny.

Henry walked slowly up and down the room.

“Property is a burden these days,” he said.

“There is not the value in it that there used to be.

We’re soon going to enter upon a new century too, and things are changing fast. This country may be slower to change than most, I don’t know about that.

I’ve lived away too long either to know or to care.”

He spoke without bitterness, but his voice was sad, as though, since he had looked upon his home, the past had risen up and closed upon him.

“Will you never come back to live here again?” said Jinny.

“No,” he said, “no, that’s all finished and done with.”

He turned and faced her, his hands behind his back, his head a little on one side. That is how Hal used to stand, she thought. He had been part of him after all, a very great part, he had not belonged entirely to his mother.

“The mines are gone,” he said; “they were the great link with this country. They brought good fortune to my family, but I doubt if they brought happiness. That is one of the reasons that I sold them, not to be quit of a bad debt, as most people believe. Now only the house remains, and if you and the boy want to live here, you are welcome to do so. There won’t be any money for the upkeep though, not until I die. And I don’t propose spending a penny on it in the meantime.”

Jinny flushed. This was the Henry her father had warned her about. The business man, who sought first his own interests, or rather those of the wife at his back across the water, and was not likely to put his hand in his pocket for anyone else, not even his own grandson.

“It would be rather too big,” said Jinny, “for me and John-Henry alone. Living close by, at the Rectory, we can come here often, and later on, when he is older, he will understand that one day it will belong to him.”

It seemed to her that he looked upon her strangely, and with pity, and she held the boy’s hand tightly, as though the firmness of his touch gave her strength and consolation.

“This is the third generation of my family,” he said, “to be brought up by one parent only. You have lost Hal. I lost my Katherine. And my mother lost her John, when he was only a year or so older than your Hal. You will find it is not easy, for the one who is left… .?

“No,” said Jinny, “it will not be easy. But I love John-Henry, and I am not afraid.”

He looked away from her, up at the portrait of Katherine on the wall. Then, very slowly, he put his hand inside his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a small round leather case. He held it a moment in his hands, and then snapped the clasp. He took from the case a replica of the portrait on the wall, in miniature. The likeness was well done, although the colouring was a little smudged in places, and the hair brighter than in reality.