Poverty Castle (33 page)

‘Surely he should have been thinking of you, then?'

‘He would be, in his way. It's a pity. He worked so hard at it.'

‘And killed himself doing it. How stupid.'

‘It was his life, writing his books.'

‘God knows why. It's not as if he ever made much money out of them.'

‘He didn't do it for money.'

‘What other reason makes sense? I could see the point of wearing yourself out finishing a book if it was going to make
a lot of money but not if it was going to be a financial flop like all the others.'

‘He didn't want to leave his characters in the lurch.'

There was a pause. ‘Are you sure you're all right, Mother? It must have been a terrible shock.'

‘Yes, it was, and yet I suppose I was expecting it. My husband whom I married more than forty years ago has just died. Is it any wonder then if I say peculiar things?'

‘I'm sorry, Mother. I didn't mean it like that. It's just that, well, we both know his characters never existed, except in his mind.'

‘And in mine. If you can come, Morag, I'll be very pleased to have your company. I don't suppose William will come with you.'

‘He's at a conference in Los Angeles at the moment.'

‘It doesn't matter. Your father wanted just you and me to be present.'

‘Aren't any of his literary friends to be there?'

‘He left instructions that there was to be no public notice of his death until after the funeral, so only the people around here know. I expect you'll fly to London and then to Glasgow. Do you want me to meet you at Glasgow airport?'

‘There's no need. I can find my way to Dunoon. Perhaps you could meet me at the pier.'

‘There's been quite a lot of meetings there recently.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing. When you know the times of your flights will you let me know?'

‘I'll telephone you later today. In the meantime look after yourself.'

That was the trouble, she had only herself to look after now.

The hearse was to set off with the coffin at eleven so that it could make the one-hundred-mile journey at a seemly speed. Mr McClure the undertaker was already perturbed by there being no minister and only two mourners who in addition were
not to be conveyed in one of his opulent chauffeured limousines but were driving themselves in a seven-year-old dented yellow Mini. He had made it plain that he was more concerned about propriety than profit. Morag too was upset by the lack of a service but she said nothing. She had arrived tight-lipped, dry-eyed, and edgy. Her mother had explained that she was going to take the opportunity to have a look at Kilmory or Kilcalmonell which she hadn't visited for more than twenty years. She did not mention that she wanted to see places associated with the Sempills. Morag would never have understood and her incomprehension would have been increased if she had been told that for her mother there would be two funerals that afternoon, one real, and the other happening in her mother's imagination. For Jessie would see in her mind the mourners who, that other October, had gathered round Mrs Sempill's grave.

Jessie had to do all the driving, Morag being accustomed only to cars with automatic transmission. Luckily it was a fine day, with good driving conditions.

‘We'd better not be late,' muttered Morag, as they ambled alongside Loch Eck at a steady thirty-five miles an hour.

‘Aren't the rowans beautiful?'

Morag was no enthusiastic admirer of nature. ‘All those berries, doesn't it mean a severe winter?'

‘So they say.'

‘I still think you should come and live with us: for a while anyway. I don't like to think of you all by yourself in that lonely house, with only sheep for neighbours.'

‘I won't be alone. I've got Harvey and my neighbours are deer, rabbits, cows and birds. A hawk comes every day and sits on the telephone pole.'

‘I'm not joking, mother. At your age you shouldn't be on your own.'

‘Wouldn't I be on my own in Milwaukee most of the time, when you and William were out at work? It would have been different if you had children.'

That put Morag into a huff. She shed tears.

‘They drove along this road lots of times,' said Jessie.

‘Who did?'

‘The Sempills.'

Morag had forgotten. ‘Who are they?'

‘Characters in your father's book.'

‘For heaven's sake, Mother, please stop talking about them as if they were real people. It's crazy.'

So Jessie didn't talk about the Sempills but she thought about them more than she did about Morag.

At Cairndow she quoted Keats, to herself, vaguely: ‘Truth is beauty, beauty truth.'

In some ways, she thought, Morag's like Diana. She has the same habit of tightening her lips to show disapproval, lacks humour, and distrusts imagination.

After two and a half hours they drove down the brae into Tarbeg. The harbour was crammed with fishing boats. There were hundreds of gulls and five swans.

‘Let's have lunch here,' said Jessie, and she parked the car in front of the Royal Hotel.

‘Have we time?'

‘Plenty. It's only half an hour from here to Kilcalmonell.'

‘All right.' Morag felt she needed a rest from her mother's driving.

‘We'll have a sherry in the lounge first,' said Jessie, leading the way.

‘Mother, this is Father's funeral, remember.'

‘I remember.' In the lounge, was it at that table the Sempills had sat, when Diana had chatted to the waitress about a schoolfriend keen on dancing who had married a shepherd and gone to live in a cottage among the hills? Was
that
the waitress? And was it in that corner, among the potted plants, that Mr and Mrs Sempill had sat before going for their stroll in the moonlight?

‘What's the matter?' asked Morag. ‘You're looking funny again.'

‘Your father and I once spent a weekend in this hotel. Before you were born. We were visiting Kilcalmonell.'

‘You mean Kilmory.'

An hour later they were on their way again.

As they turned off the main road and headed for Kilmory, Morag was impressed by the beauty of the countryside. ‘But it's miles from anywhere,' she added.

‘Your father used to be cross when I said that. Where's anywhere, he would ask. Is it Glasgow? Edinburgh? London? Timbuktu?'

‘He must have known what you meant. Miles from decent shops, theatres, cinemas, busy streets. Was that a seal I saw on that rock?'

Jessie looked back. It was a seal. Why not the Sempills' seal?

‘I wonder,' she said, ‘if your father when he was at Glasgow University ever met anyone like Peggy Gilchrist?'

‘Who's she? Don't tell me, a character in his book.'

‘I wonder what happened to her. I like to think she married Nigel. But then, like Mrs Gilchrist, I'm a romantic at heart.'

‘This is becoming an obsession, Mother.'

‘It's my way of remembering your father.'

They came to the highest part of the road before it began the descent into Kilmory. Jessie stopped, got out of the car and looked through binoculars at the village below her.

Yonder, among trees, was Kilmory House. To the right of it shone a beach of white sand. That was where Poverty Castle ought to be, and there it was, high and splendid in the sunshine. It was really a massive rock.

‘We'll be late, Mother,' called Morag.

Yonder was the cemetery. The hearse was there, glittering. A number of people were gathered at the gate. The news must have got out. At Mrs Sempill's funeral, how many had come to watch?

They arrived at the cemetery gate at five minutes to three. Mr McClure, displeased at what he considered their disrespect, informed them in a whisper that since the gate was too narrow
to admit a vehicle the coffin had to be carried to the grave. This would be done by men from Tarbeg whom he had engaged. It ought, his tone implied, to have been done by friends or relatives of the deceased.

None of the local people approached to speak to Jessie. One or two were old. They might well have been at school with Donald.

Morag and Jessie followed the coffin through the gate and into the cemetery.

‘I've never seen such untidy graves,' muttered Morag. ‘We'll have to hire somebody to look after Father's.'

‘He preferred untended graves and ruined churches.'

Morag did not say it but her face showed it: her father was now no doubt paying for his sacrilegious prejudices. She and William were members of an Evangelical church in Milwaukee.

As the coffin was lowered into the grave curlews on the shore called mournfully. Donald after all was having his funeral service.

Jessie closed her eyes.

She saw Effie in a red jerkin with a black band round her arm. Both hands were thrust into her pockets and her shoulders were hunched. She had vowed not to weep at the graveside and she wasn't weeping. Beside her Jeanie was, quietly: she too wore a black armband. Diana stood beside Edwin, she in a black coat and hat, he in a dark suit with a black tie. Once he tried to take her hand but she withdrew it. In Rowena's pocket was a brooch taken from her mother's jewel box, just as she had years ago taken the glass cat from the shelf in the shop. She held Rebecca's hand, not to give comfort but to receive it. Rebecca, the youngest and gentlest, was also the bravest. Both of them wore coats that bright but cool day, Rebecca's red and Rowena's green. Their tokens of mourning were black ribbons in their hair.

Beside Peggy Gilchrist in her borrowed clothes stood Nigel. Did he, once, offer to hold her hand?

Mr Sempill's eyes, wet even on the happiest occasions,
streamed tears. He could not subdue his grief: it had him by the throat. He thought of himself as his wife's murderer and at the graveside was desperately but hopelessly contrite.

A nurse was looking after the baby in Poverty Castle.

Mrs McDougall was present, and several anonymous Edinburgh relatives.

Had there been a piper, in that corner over there, behind the whins, playing a lament?

Had Mr Sempill composed an elegy for his wife? Unable to speak it himself, which of his daughters had done it for him? Rowena, so clever at reciting? Diana, the most resolute?

Only the dead man in the coffin could have answered those questions.

Jessie felt her arm being tugged. It was Morag, impatient to leave a scene of sorrow and shame. She would complain about it to William for years.

Jessie was in confusion as she walked towards the gate. They were all going, to the blue Daimler, the white Escort, and the black limousines of the undertaker. There would be refreshments at Poverty Castle. Would the baby be kept discreetly in the background, or would he be brought into their midst triumphantly? Would they all, including Effie and Peggy, take turns at holding him?

They were all gone.

‘You're on your own now,' murmured Jessie. ‘He's done all he could for you. Good luck.'

‘What did you say, Mother?' asked Morag.

‘Nothing.'

‘You did say something, Mother.'

‘I must have been talking to myself.'

‘Not for the first time, I must say. I think we should go straight home.'

‘No. Let's go to the shop and find out if they still serve tea in October. The robins, you know, are very tame.'