Hungry Hill (15 page)

John tore the letter into shreds, and did not write again. The family must think what they liked of him.

And instead of going home John went up to Norfolk to stay with an old Oxford friend who bred greyhounds for coursing, and most of the early autumn and winter when he could make an excuse to leave London he would be in Norfolk, thinking and talking greyhounds, for, as he told his friends, “Dogs are the only things I understand, and the only things that understand me.” To John, a greyhound was a thing of beauty and of moods, sensitive and delicate. And when highly bred, the more temperamental, the more inclined to brilliancy if rightly handled, or to hopeless failure if indifferently trained. He would study each dog individually, know which one could be expected to do well on different days, how one would sulk in the rain and wind and lose interest at a trifle, how another would work with a staunch heart whatever the weather.

John would have great tenderness for them, touching them gently with his strong, square hands. Then the training would begin, and finally would come the reward for his skill and patience, the excitement of the course itself, the betting, the shouts of the spectators, and Lightfoot, the greyhound that had seemed so fragile and nervous a creature when he first had her, would prove her breeding and her worth in a few minutes before the crowd, doubling and twisting with the frightened hare, making escape impossible. Once more John would be clapped on the back and congratulated, with another great silver cup to his name, and Lightfoot, shivering in excitement and ecstasy, crouching at his knee.

In March the coursing season came to an end, and John, who had thought of little else for the past six months but his greyhounds, was faced with the prospect of another long summer in London, making up his arrears in work, or giving up finally and for ever the farce of Lincoln’s Inn and settling down with his father and his sisters at Clonmere. If he threw up his work in London he would be able to idle pleasantly through the summer at Clonmere, race his dogs in the neighbourhood during the autumn, and bring them back to Norfolk again for the three months after Christmas, when the family was at Lletharrog.

The prospect was too good to be laid aside, and he wondered to himself if he had been a very great fool the year before in taking his brother’s death in the way he did. The thing had been a tragedy, but tragedies become less poignant as the months pass, and no one in the world would have grudged the possession of Clonmere to John less than Henry.

So in May John said goodbye to the files of paper, the ink, and the dust of Lincoln’s Inn, andwitha feeling of freedom he had never known before he embarked on the steam-packet to Slane, and travelled down by road to Doonhaven, his greyhounds and his kennel-man accompanying him. When he came to the rise of the road past the mine on Hungry Hill, and looked out across Doonhaven to Clonmere, standing grey and solid at the head of the creek, a strange feeling of pride and delight swept over him that he had never sensed before, Clonmere had suddenly become more personal, more significant, the thing of beauty he would one day possess.

His homecoming was a happy affair. His father and his sisters had walked out along the drive to meet him, and there was no question of coolness, no shadow of restraint. His father shook hands with him warmly, remarked how well he was looking, and then proceeded to enquire after the greyhounds. The dogs at once descended from the box and were exhibited with pride, and then the whole family walked back to the castle along the path by the creek, chatting and laughing, a sister on either side clinging to John’s arms. The little path beneath the fir trees felt hard and springy under John’s feet, and there was the lively scent of young summer in the air, a happy blend of pine, and primrose, and rhododendron, and the salty, pungent, muddy smell of a bubbling ebb-tide.

They came out of the woods by Jane’s water-garden, at the head of the creek, and here there were new plants to be admired, and a new flagged path to criticise, Jane, flushed and excited, holding on to his hand, and so on to the boat-house, where one of the men was busily engaged in painting John’s sailing-boat, the gig being already in the water.

Everyone smiled, everyone was happy, and John himself felt something warm and new stirring in his heart which he could not express. He ran up to his room in the tower.

There were his guns, and his rods, and all his old schoolboy books, worn and familiar, and the painting of the chapel at Eton, and the quad of his college at Oxford. There was the case of butterflies, passionate hobby of one summer holiday only, and the collection of birds’ eggs, and on the mantelpiece the random objects that he had gathered from time to time in his boyhood: a piece of flint from Hungry Hill, a queer-shaped stone like an egg he had found once on Doon Island, a patch of dried moss from the bogs around Kileen.

“Tomorrow,” he said to Jane, “tomorrow we will go fishing for killigs in the creek,” and holding her at arm’s length, and cocking his head on one side, he observed, “You know you are becoming very pretty.”

Jane blushed, and told him not to be absurd.

“She is having her portrait painted,” said Barbara. “We all think it a most excellent likeness, although Willie Armstrong says it does not do her justice.”

And there in the drawing-room, standing upon its easel, the paint still wet on the canvas, was the replica of the Jane who stood beside him, wearing the new cream gown which had been purchased in Bath that winter, her pearl necklace round her throat, her warm brown eyes full of the expression he knew so well, wistful and a little unsure of herself.

“And what does Dick Fox say to the portrait?” asked John.

“Oh, he is delighted, of course,” said Eliza, tossing her head. “He used to come to every sitting, and talk to Jane to relieve the monotony. No doubt that is why Jane has such a simpering look about her in the portrait.”

John, glancing at his youngest sister, saw that she seemed distressed at Eliza’s words, and that tears, even, were not far distant. He smiled across at her and shook his head.

“Take no notice of Eliza,” he said, “the grapes are very sour,” and with quick understanding he changed the subject from the portrait.

So Jane is growing up, he thought at dinner, and is falling in love with Dick Fox on Doon Island, and only yesterday it seemed she was a little girl reading fairy stories before the fire in the old nursery. Dick Fox was a good sort of fellow, no doubt, but for a moment there was a nickering jealousy in John’s heart that his pet Jane, who had been such a dear companion, should look kindly upon any man but himself, and the thought of her being kissed and perhaps fondled by a scruffy young officer from the garrison was distasteful, and did not bear thinking about.

?’

John started, and “Yes, sir, of course, I shall be delighted,” he said, Without a notion of what his father had been talking about.

Barbara gave him a warning nudge with her knee.

“I entered into an agreement,” continued Copper John, “to take one-half of the arrears and let him hold the ground at able130 a year. Needless to say I have not received a penny, and gave him notice to quit last March, which he has not yet done. The position is intolerable, as you see.”

“Oh, quite, sir. Most intolerable.”

“I mean to make every exertion in my power to get the communications opened by a good road between Doonhaven and Denmare, which, you will agree, will be of incalculable advantage to Robert Lumley’s and Lord Mundy’s estates, and if we can once open up the route from the lakes by Denmare and Doonhaven and Mundy to Slane, I think that visitors to the west would prefer it to returning the same way. Then we might safely build an inn in Doonhaven.

Indeed, it might induce gentlemen to reside in the neighbourhood. What do you think, John?”

“I am of your opinion undoubtedly, sir.”

“I don’t know whether the Government have money at their disposal for the purpose, but I shall get all the information I can. They might do it all at their own risk. It would be a great matter to open up communications with the west part of the country, and ships of war could be supplied with provisions in the event of another war. I only hope our Ministers will not kick up some row unexpectedly, and get us all into a scrape.”

“I hope not, sir,” said John.

Very little of what his father was saying made any interest to him, but he hoped that his voice rang with some conviction and that his father would be satisfied.

“The Flowers are at Castle Andriff, by the way,” said Barbara. “They were abroad as usual, until just recently. I am glad to say that Fanny-Rosa is not such a harum-scarum, wild thing as she was. Wintering abroad has given her poise and good manners. But I believe she does exactly as she pleases.

And poor Mrs. Flower has no control over the younger girl at all.”

“They say some Italian was desperately in love with Fanny-Rosa,” said Eliza, “a titled man too, who had a wife already.”

“Never listen to scandal, Eliza,” said her father.

“It does no good to the hearer, and less to the speaker.

If you come into the library, John, I can show you the exact spot on the plan of Hungry Hill where I think of making a further trial. There is copper there, and at no very great depth either, so that our expenses would be inconsiderable.”

John followed his father into the library, and pretended an interest in figures and mining calculations, but all the while his thoughts strayed to Fanny-Rosa. He had not seen her for eighteen months, not since that unforgettable day on Hungry Hill when she had lain in his arms in the heather beside the lake and Henry had sailed for the Barbados. Last year, during the hot summer in London, John had wondered how much she had seen of Henry in Naples. Had she been sorry when he died? His thoughts then had added to the turmoil in his mind, and Fanny-Rosa became a symbol to him of something rare, and beautiful, and unobtainable, a ghost girl in a foreign land he would never see again. She would marry some Italian, and perhaps years later come to Castle Andriff with a brood of babies and a flashy husband, herself coarse and heavy, her charm vanished with the years.

Deliberately he had painted this picture in his mind so that he should not be hurt by the thought of her, and the idea of her marriage to her foreigner, and out of his reach for ever, gave him a peculiar, rather warped, satisfaction. His Fanny-Rosa would be a memory, a phantom thing born out of the loveliness of Hungry Hill, while she who continued living was someone with whom he had no concern. And now all the careful locking of his memory was to be broken by the real Fanny-Rosa, no ghost at all, but alive, and unmarried, and even if every Italian in Naples had made love to her she would be more beautiful than ever, and she was coming to Clonmere next week, Barbara had said. She might want to see the greyhounds, and Jim was given special orders to have the dogs groomed and ready on the day the Flowers were expected, and their coats upon their backs in spite of the warm weather, for the scarlet and grey trimmings were really rather fine, and the large J. L. B. looked well against the background.

About two hours before the Flowers were due to come he became fearful and sick of heart, and going to the far end of the grounds, by the last fir tree, he sat out of sight of the castle and stared across at Doon Island, wondering whether it would not be wiser to get his boat and disappear all day, and not come in to the house and meet the Flowers at all. He felt suddenly that he did not want to see Fanny-Rosa, or talk to her, and if he did, nothing would happen as he had planned; she would hate the greyhounds, scorn his cups, talk all the while about the Italians she had met, and the day would be disastrous, a failure from beginning to end. He was still sitting by the creek when he heard the carriage bowl along the drive, pass under the arch of rhododendrons, and sweep round again to the house, and then in the distance came the sound of Barbara’s voice, and Eliza’s rather irritating, high-pitched laugh. Barbara called, “John…

John… ea? and he crouched behind the tree, determined not to join them, wondering whether he could return to the house in some way without being seen, and go and shut himself up in his room in the tower. The voices were silent, they must have gone indoors, and he heard Casey come round for the carriage and drive the horses to the stable. Some impulse stronger than himself made him rise to his feet and walk slowly back across the grass to the house. His hands were trembling, and he thrust them into his pockets. He was aware of someone looking down at him from the drawing-room window.

“How do you do, John?”

And glancing up, he smiled, for there was Fanny-Rosa, the ghost of Hungry Hill, and the eighteen months since he had seen her were as though they had never been, were as yesterday, and fresh and vivid in his memory were the touch of her hands and the warmth of her lips as she lay on her back in the heather with his arms beneath her.

Then he was in the drawing-room, he was standing beside her, Bob Flower was saying something in his ear, everyone was talking, and laughing, and eating cake. He heard himself offering Bob a glass of Madeira.

“Father is at the mine,” Barbara was saying, “but he will be home to dine with us at five, as usual.

You men had better get off to your fishing while the weather holds.”

“I should like to come,” said Fanny-Rosa. “Does John not permit ladies in his boat?”

“Why, yes,” said John, “why, yes ‘

And delightfully, joyfully, the whole day had to be planned afresh, for now that Fanny-Rosa would be of the party Jane would accompany her, and the Bule Rock being too far and the sea perhaps too rough for them, they must sail by the island instead, and more food must be put in the basket, and one of Barbara’s shawls for Fanny-Rosa in case the wind freshened. What happiness in walking down to the creek, and bringing the boat to the steps, so that Jane and Fanny-Rosa might climb aboard, and then rolling his sleeves above his elbow, and shaking his hair back, and singing out to Bob to cast off from the moorings when the sail had been hoisted and the tiller shipped into place. Down the creek into the open waters of Doonhaven, with the long, straggling island ahead of him and the open sea beyond, and away on the left the great mass of Hungry Hill, green and shining under the sun.