Authors: Neil M. Gunn
Second Sight (30 page)
There was the clatter of a rifle falling, the harsh sounds of male fear.
“Oh God!” screamed Joyce.
George let out a wild yell, pushed Harry aside, and charged for the gun-room into which the ghost had passed.
He hesitated one moment on the threshold, the light glittering in his eyes, then swept on and in. His voice rose high and challenging. There was a ghostly moan; followed by a smashing blow, lost in Marjory's wild cry:
“George! It's Geoffrey! It's Geoffrey!”
They were all on her heels at the door. The shrouded figure lay stretched out on the floor, solid and quite inert. George, wide planted on his feet, his arms hanging by his sides, like a boxer who had delivered a knock-out and was himself swaying, all in, gaped down at the body, mouth open.
With a cry, Marjory got to her knees. “Geoffrey!” But the body gave no response. She put her hands behind the head to lift it up.
“Wait, Marjory,” said Sir John.
Marjory withdrew her hands. They were red with blood.
“What have you done?” she cried. “What have you done to him?”
Lady Marway caught her wrists.
“Stand back!” said Sir John. Maclean helped him to examine the deep wound in the back of the head, at the same time pulling the rifle that Angus had let fall from under his back, Geoffrey's own rifle. Both men saw at once that the wound was fatal. The skull had been fractured by the edge of an iron clamp that supported the rifle rack.
“This floor is cold. Let us carry him in,” said Sir John quietly.
They stretched him out on the hearthrug before the sitting-room fire. Lady Marway turned the small wheel of the wick and the light increased normally and flooded the room.
“Is he very bad?” she asked.
“I'm afraid so. Some bandagesâquickâto stop the blood.” But there was no anxiety in Sir John's voice, no eagerness.
“But it can't really be bad,” said George. “I hardly hit him at all. I just hit him on the chin. It wasn'tâit wasn't a knockout. Not really.” He wanted to tell everyone this. There was an eager pathetic smile on his face. He looked from one to another. “I never thought!”
“It was not your blow,” said Sir John. “It was what he fell on.” He withdrew his hand from Geoffrey's heart.
Lady Marway came in with a bandage roll and some napkins. As she got down on her knees, she looked at her husband. He met her eyes. Her head drooped.
Marjory's whisper pierced the room: “He's not dead?”
They gave her no answer. “I'll do this,” said Sir John, releasing his wife.
“But he can't be!” said Marjory. “Oh he can't!” Her voice was rising shrilly. “It was a joke! Don't you understand? It was just a joke!”
Lady Marway went to her. “Hush, Marjory!”
“But, you see, butââ”
“Yes, my dear.” Lady Marway put her arm round her. “Hush, now.”
“But it can't beâhe couldn'tââ” She tried to go to Geoffrey, but Lady Marway held her.
“No, no, Marjory. You can't help now.”
“Butâoh, I told him I didn't want to! At first, I didn't mind, but then I got terrified! Something terrified me!”
“I know, dear. That's why you acted so well.”
“He only wanted to proveâthat you could be frightenedâby nothing!” She was quivering all over, wild-eyed, her fingers still stained with blood, though Lady Marway had done her best to wipe them.
“We understand now, dear. But keep holdâwe have all to face up to this.”
As if unaware of what she had been saying, Marjory now stared at Sir John, and asked, like a somnambulist, the words dripping from her lips: “Is he dead?”
“Yes,” said Sir John.
She turned cold and deathly pale.
“Was it you who turned down the light?” Sir John asked her.
“Yes,” she answered. She remained quite still and straight, now and then taking audible gulps of breath. “He made me.” She turned to Lady Marway, and spoke as she might in a court of law, out of a dreadful responsibility. “When you left the bedroom, he spoke to me. He had dosed himself with somethingâquite harmless, he saidâfor the time being. But when I saw him all stiffâit frightened me. His side was very bad. I didn't want to do any more. I said I wouldn't go. I tried to persuade him. I begged him on my knees. He got angry. He said he could never trust me again. He said if I didn't goâit would spoil all the fun.”
Her lips shut tightly.
“Was it you who knocked at the door?” asked Sir John.
She nodded. “I went out at the front doorâround to the gun-roomâand back. It wasâmy idea.” The heavy gulps of breath were becoming more frequent. “He meantâafter appearing hereâand going through the gun-roomâto hurry round to the front doorâand get back to bed. You would have been mystified. He would thenâhave been in a positionââ”
She began to sway. Lady Marway caught her; Harry put a supporting arm round her; together they led her from the room. She made a supreme effort at the top of the stairs. “Thank you, Harry,” she said, dismissing him. Grasping her arm firmly, Lady Marway led her to her room.
As Harry entered the sitting-room, four men were lifting Geoffrey, Sir John and George his head, Maclean and Angus his feet. Involuntarily Harry started to go forward, but Alick held him back with an arm, to let them pass. As they were going out of the door, the dinner bell began to toll, for when Ina had rushed into the kitchen saying she had seen a ghost, Cook took the opportunity to give her a delayed lecture. As both girls were terrified to go into the hall, she went herself and was thus ringing the bell, which hung from the wall like a ship's bell, when the four men brought the body out and began carrying it upstairs. Cook spoke to Sir John and learned that Mr. Smith was dead.
In the sitting-room, Alick stood looking after the procession, obviously unaware of Harry, Helen, and Joyce. Harry gave him a glance, but quickly averted his eyes. Helen's trance-like expression came to rest on him, then her whole body quickened and her eyes, brilliant with pain, sought Harry.
Joyce, staring through the open door, burst out, “Isn't it dreadful for George?” Her head went up, her arms stiffened. A moan quivered in her throat.
Helen turned to her. “Joyce,” she said gently. “George couldn'tââ”
“I say, isn't it awful?” cried Joyce.
“He wasn't to blame.” Harry's voice was level. “He didn't do it. You mustn't worry about that.”
Joyce did not hear them. “He's so sensitive he'llââ” She caught her lip in her teeth to keep the scream back.
“Joyce, Joyce,” said Helen.
“âhe'll never forgive himself!” Her voice rose to an hysteric cry. She rushed out of the room.
There was a long pause, then quietly, without feeling, Harry said, “It
is
hard on George, of course.”
Helen came close to him.
They could not look at Alick. Harry wanted to say something to Alick. He could not. There was nothing to say. They could not stay there, with Alick beside them.
Harry looked into Helen's eyes. Something in his smile of weariness, of oldness, touched Helen on the quick of the heart. She came alive and caught his arm. He walked out of the room, with the feeling, none the less terrible because it was surely quite irrational, that he was deserting, that he was betraying, Alick. Opposite the dark dining-room they paused. Harry led Helen into it and closed the door.
Alick's eyes had followed them. Then he looked in front again and an expression of irony took on a bitter depth. He swallowed, pressed his forearms against the pit of his breast, and, as if feeling sick or weak, sat down on the soft arm of a chair.
He got up as he heard Maclean and Angus coming in.
“Well, Alick, it's a sad business,” said Maclean. The voice was friendly, but with some intangible reserve. He did not look at Alick.
“It is,” Alick answered.
There was silence. Angus threw a pained confused glance at Alick. The occasion, the place, made him ill at ease.
“Come,” said Maclean quietly. “We may as well go home. There will be no hill to-morrow.”
Maclean and Angus went out. But Alick did not follow them. The ironic expression came back. He sat on the chair arm. His head drooped. I'm feeling sick! he thought, as if by gathering his attention on so small a point he could ward off the blackness of despair, the terrible disintegrating blackness that slowly wrenches the mind to bits.
Mairi appeared in the hall door and stood for some time looking at him. When she had conquered the up thrust of her emotion, she closed the door softly behind her and came to his side.
“Alick,” she said gently.
His head lifted and looked in front.
“Well?” he demanded drily.
She put her hand on his shoulder.
“Don't do that,” he said coldly.
She took her hand away, in no way hurt, as if she understood him.
“I'm sorry, Alick.”
“Oh, it's all right,” he muttered indifferently.
“Aren't you going home?”
“I'll have to go somewhere, I suppose.” There was a pause. “Not much good staying here, is there?” His mouth gave a twist. “They're beginning to avoid me already.”
“They don'tâmeanââ”
“No. Oh no.” Then on the same level tone but with a sudden intensity. “Damn, I am vexed about it. He was a decent enough fellow.” He breathed heavily. “Howeverâthat's that.”
“They won't hold it against you.”
“Perhaps not. But they'll never be able to look at me without remembering. I know all about that.” His mouth caught its bitter expression. “Pity, for I like this country well enough. It's good enough for meâperhaps because it is my own country.”
“But Sir John wouldn'tââ”
“No. He wouldn't. He's kind. But he will expect
me
to go.” The bitterness found its own humour. “Mr. Kingsley said they were having great arguments about how things in the Highlands were dying out, even things like second sight.”
“Alick!”
“He asked me why. I didn't like to tell him.”
“Why?”
“We are so sensitive, I suppose.” Self-mockery was in his breath. “We must goâand take the things with us. That has always been our small tragedy.”
“Butâyou needn'tââ”
“No? You think not?”
Then Mairi said, after a little time, in a toneless voice: “Yes, you'll have to go.⦠Where?”
“Southâwhere I won't be known.”
“To the cities?⦠When?”
“Now.”
Very quietly, in the same toneless voice, she said: “I should like to go with youâif you would take me.”
“Would you?” he asked indifferently.
“Yes.”
“Not afraid of a vision of death?”
“No.”
For the first time, he turned his head and looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She held herself against the upthrust of her emotion and said simply: “It would be death for me without you.”
His irony became very bitter, very searching. “You think love should triumph over death?”
“It does.”
His searching expression broke. “Mairi!”
The sound of her name was little more than a breath of tenderness, but it broke the barrier she had raised against her emotion. She dropped to the floor and buried her face between his knees, clinging to him to stifle her sobs.
“Come, Mairi,” he said after a few moments. “We'll go. Come on.” He helped her to her feet. “We'll go together.”
And they went out through the gun-room door.
“Oh God!” screamed Joyce.
George let out a wild yell, pushed Harry aside, and charged for the gun-room into which the ghost had passed.
He hesitated one moment on the threshold, the light glittering in his eyes, then swept on and in. His voice rose high and challenging. There was a ghostly moan; followed by a smashing blow, lost in Marjory's wild cry:
“George! It's Geoffrey! It's Geoffrey!”
They were all on her heels at the door. The shrouded figure lay stretched out on the floor, solid and quite inert. George, wide planted on his feet, his arms hanging by his sides, like a boxer who had delivered a knock-out and was himself swaying, all in, gaped down at the body, mouth open.
With a cry, Marjory got to her knees. “Geoffrey!” But the body gave no response. She put her hands behind the head to lift it up.
“Wait, Marjory,” said Sir John.
Marjory withdrew her hands. They were red with blood.
“What have you done?” she cried. “What have you done to him?”
Lady Marway caught her wrists.
“Stand back!” said Sir John. Maclean helped him to examine the deep wound in the back of the head, at the same time pulling the rifle that Angus had let fall from under his back, Geoffrey's own rifle. Both men saw at once that the wound was fatal. The skull had been fractured by the edge of an iron clamp that supported the rifle rack.
“This floor is cold. Let us carry him in,” said Sir John quietly.
They stretched him out on the hearthrug before the sitting-room fire. Lady Marway turned the small wheel of the wick and the light increased normally and flooded the room.
“Is he very bad?” she asked.
“I'm afraid so. Some bandagesâquickâto stop the blood.” But there was no anxiety in Sir John's voice, no eagerness.
“But it can't really be bad,” said George. “I hardly hit him at all. I just hit him on the chin. It wasn'tâit wasn't a knockout. Not really.” He wanted to tell everyone this. There was an eager pathetic smile on his face. He looked from one to another. “I never thought!”
“It was not your blow,” said Sir John. “It was what he fell on.” He withdrew his hand from Geoffrey's heart.
Lady Marway came in with a bandage roll and some napkins. As she got down on her knees, she looked at her husband. He met her eyes. Her head drooped.
Marjory's whisper pierced the room: “He's not dead?”
They gave her no answer. “I'll do this,” said Sir John, releasing his wife.
“But he can't be!” said Marjory. “Oh he can't!” Her voice was rising shrilly. “It was a joke! Don't you understand? It was just a joke!”
Lady Marway went to her. “Hush, Marjory!”
“But, you see, butââ”
“Yes, my dear.” Lady Marway put her arm round her. “Hush, now.”
“But it can't beâhe couldn'tââ” She tried to go to Geoffrey, but Lady Marway held her.
“No, no, Marjory. You can't help now.”
“Butâoh, I told him I didn't want to! At first, I didn't mind, but then I got terrified! Something terrified me!”
“I know, dear. That's why you acted so well.”
“He only wanted to proveâthat you could be frightenedâby nothing!” She was quivering all over, wild-eyed, her fingers still stained with blood, though Lady Marway had done her best to wipe them.
“We understand now, dear. But keep holdâwe have all to face up to this.”
As if unaware of what she had been saying, Marjory now stared at Sir John, and asked, like a somnambulist, the words dripping from her lips: “Is he dead?”
“Yes,” said Sir John.
She turned cold and deathly pale.
“Was it you who turned down the light?” Sir John asked her.
“Yes,” she answered. She remained quite still and straight, now and then taking audible gulps of breath. “He made me.” She turned to Lady Marway, and spoke as she might in a court of law, out of a dreadful responsibility. “When you left the bedroom, he spoke to me. He had dosed himself with somethingâquite harmless, he saidâfor the time being. But when I saw him all stiffâit frightened me. His side was very bad. I didn't want to do any more. I said I wouldn't go. I tried to persuade him. I begged him on my knees. He got angry. He said he could never trust me again. He said if I didn't goâit would spoil all the fun.”
Her lips shut tightly.
“Was it you who knocked at the door?” asked Sir John.
She nodded. “I went out at the front doorâround to the gun-roomâand back. It wasâmy idea.” The heavy gulps of breath were becoming more frequent. “He meantâafter appearing hereâand going through the gun-roomâto hurry round to the front doorâand get back to bed. You would have been mystified. He would thenâhave been in a positionââ”
She began to sway. Lady Marway caught her; Harry put a supporting arm round her; together they led her from the room. She made a supreme effort at the top of the stairs. “Thank you, Harry,” she said, dismissing him. Grasping her arm firmly, Lady Marway led her to her room.
As Harry entered the sitting-room, four men were lifting Geoffrey, Sir John and George his head, Maclean and Angus his feet. Involuntarily Harry started to go forward, but Alick held him back with an arm, to let them pass. As they were going out of the door, the dinner bell began to toll, for when Ina had rushed into the kitchen saying she had seen a ghost, Cook took the opportunity to give her a delayed lecture. As both girls were terrified to go into the hall, she went herself and was thus ringing the bell, which hung from the wall like a ship's bell, when the four men brought the body out and began carrying it upstairs. Cook spoke to Sir John and learned that Mr. Smith was dead.
In the sitting-room, Alick stood looking after the procession, obviously unaware of Harry, Helen, and Joyce. Harry gave him a glance, but quickly averted his eyes. Helen's trance-like expression came to rest on him, then her whole body quickened and her eyes, brilliant with pain, sought Harry.
Joyce, staring through the open door, burst out, “Isn't it dreadful for George?” Her head went up, her arms stiffened. A moan quivered in her throat.
Helen turned to her. “Joyce,” she said gently. “George couldn'tââ”
“I say, isn't it awful?” cried Joyce.
“He wasn't to blame.” Harry's voice was level. “He didn't do it. You mustn't worry about that.”
Joyce did not hear them. “He's so sensitive he'llââ” She caught her lip in her teeth to keep the scream back.
“Joyce, Joyce,” said Helen.
“âhe'll never forgive himself!” Her voice rose to an hysteric cry. She rushed out of the room.
There was a long pause, then quietly, without feeling, Harry said, “It
is
hard on George, of course.”
Helen came close to him.
They could not look at Alick. Harry wanted to say something to Alick. He could not. There was nothing to say. They could not stay there, with Alick beside them.
Harry looked into Helen's eyes. Something in his smile of weariness, of oldness, touched Helen on the quick of the heart. She came alive and caught his arm. He walked out of the room, with the feeling, none the less terrible because it was surely quite irrational, that he was deserting, that he was betraying, Alick. Opposite the dark dining-room they paused. Harry led Helen into it and closed the door.
Alick's eyes had followed them. Then he looked in front again and an expression of irony took on a bitter depth. He swallowed, pressed his forearms against the pit of his breast, and, as if feeling sick or weak, sat down on the soft arm of a chair.
He got up as he heard Maclean and Angus coming in.
“Well, Alick, it's a sad business,” said Maclean. The voice was friendly, but with some intangible reserve. He did not look at Alick.
“It is,” Alick answered.
There was silence. Angus threw a pained confused glance at Alick. The occasion, the place, made him ill at ease.
“Come,” said Maclean quietly. “We may as well go home. There will be no hill to-morrow.”
Maclean and Angus went out. But Alick did not follow them. The ironic expression came back. He sat on the chair arm. His head drooped. I'm feeling sick! he thought, as if by gathering his attention on so small a point he could ward off the blackness of despair, the terrible disintegrating blackness that slowly wrenches the mind to bits.
Mairi appeared in the hall door and stood for some time looking at him. When she had conquered the up thrust of her emotion, she closed the door softly behind her and came to his side.
“Alick,” she said gently.
His head lifted and looked in front.
“Well?” he demanded drily.
She put her hand on his shoulder.
“Don't do that,” he said coldly.
She took her hand away, in no way hurt, as if she understood him.
“I'm sorry, Alick.”
“Oh, it's all right,” he muttered indifferently.
“Aren't you going home?”
“I'll have to go somewhere, I suppose.” There was a pause. “Not much good staying here, is there?” His mouth gave a twist. “They're beginning to avoid me already.”
“They don'tâmeanââ”
“No. Oh no.” Then on the same level tone but with a sudden intensity. “Damn, I am vexed about it. He was a decent enough fellow.” He breathed heavily. “Howeverâthat's that.”
“They won't hold it against you.”
“Perhaps not. But they'll never be able to look at me without remembering. I know all about that.” His mouth caught its bitter expression. “Pity, for I like this country well enough. It's good enough for meâperhaps because it is my own country.”
“But Sir John wouldn'tââ”
“No. He wouldn't. He's kind. But he will expect
me
to go.” The bitterness found its own humour. “Mr. Kingsley said they were having great arguments about how things in the Highlands were dying out, even things like second sight.”
“Alick!”
“He asked me why. I didn't like to tell him.”
“Why?”
“We are so sensitive, I suppose.” Self-mockery was in his breath. “We must goâand take the things with us. That has always been our small tragedy.”
“Butâyou needn'tââ”
“No? You think not?”
Then Mairi said, after a little time, in a toneless voice: “Yes, you'll have to go.⦠Where?”
“Southâwhere I won't be known.”
“To the cities?⦠When?”
“Now.”
Very quietly, in the same toneless voice, she said: “I should like to go with youâif you would take me.”
“Would you?” he asked indifferently.
“Yes.”
“Not afraid of a vision of death?”
“No.”
For the first time, he turned his head and looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She held herself against the upthrust of her emotion and said simply: “It would be death for me without you.”
His irony became very bitter, very searching. “You think love should triumph over death?”
“It does.”
His searching expression broke. “Mairi!”
The sound of her name was little more than a breath of tenderness, but it broke the barrier she had raised against her emotion. She dropped to the floor and buried her face between his knees, clinging to him to stifle her sobs.
“Come, Mairi,” he said after a few moments. “We'll go. Come on.” He helped her to her feet. “We'll go together.”
And they went out through the gun-room door.
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