The Good Provider (38 page)

He came to her quickly, placed his hands on her shoulders and drew her round. Her belly protruded, keeping them apart. Craig held her at half arm’s length. He leaned forward, kissed her.

‘I didn’t mean you, love,’ he said.

Kirsty blinked, striving to keep tears from trickling from her lids, praying that she would not weep.

Dispassionately Craig kissed her again, upon the tip of the nose.

Kirsty heard herself say, ‘I know you didn’t.’

Craig smiled, nodded. ‘All right then?’

‘All right,’ said Kirsty.

They drank keg Export from the taps of the railway bar in the North British station and warmed their fingers and toes at the coals in the grate of the huge black iron fireplace that dominated the refreshment room. Jack ordered a second half pint to wash down the three smoked mackerel and the baked potato from which he had made a second breakfast. He had every right to be peckish; he had been up before six to struggle through from Glasgow and had had only a heel of bread and a cup of coffee extract in his lodgings with which to fortify himself for his journey to the capital. There was snow in the clouds and a taste of winter on the wind and the draughts that slithered through Princes Street Gardens and down the steps from the Waverley Bridge were snell enough to chill the blood of all but the most hardy travellers who were on the road that Boxing Day.

The Lockhart brothers would have gone north before Christmas as was their habit – Jack had been free of Anatomy since the 21st – but David had been invited to take part in a Christmas Day service in St Giles. As the offer had come directly from his Professor of Divinity, and the Reverend Matthew Walters was a prime supporter of ecumenicalism and union in the Presbyterian churches, it would have been churlish of David to refuse. Uncle George would have missed their company at the festive board in his house in Invermoy parish but he was a gregarious man with many friends in the parish and no doubt he had found a hearth upon which to plant his boots and a host with which to split a bottle of good Madeira wine. He would have the boys for the New Year, the best of Highland celebrations, but would have to content himself with the knowledge that this would be the last they would spend together; soon his nephews would be gone from Scotland and he would not see either of them again unless he packed his bag and shipped out for Shanghai.

Twenty-two months separated the Lockhart boys but they were so alike in appearance they might have been been taken for twins. Jack was a little taller than his brother, a little leaner too. By temperament he was less outgoing, perhaps because he lacked David’s ease of manner and had had to work harder at his studies, at games, at making friends. There was no envy or animosity between them, however. Jack accepted David’s leadership while David in turn had nothing but admiration for his brother’s thoroughness and determination.

‘Did the Lesson go well, then?’ Jack asked.

‘Seemed to,’ said David. ‘All I could see out there were grey stone piers and tattered flags.’

‘No congregation?’

‘Pale faces floating in a fog of history.’

‘Oh, come now, David.’

David grinned. ‘It’s like preaching from a rock in the ocean, if you must know.’

‘Weren’t you nervous?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘I should have been.’

‘I was too cold to be nervous.’

‘Was old Matthew pleased, do you think?’

‘He took me for supper afterwards with Guthrie and Pettigrew and old Neb.’

‘Neb? Really? Where did you eat?’

‘At Guthrie’s house.’

‘My, you are moving in exalted circles.’

‘Guthrie knew Father rather well in the old days. I think he was under the impression that I was a starving waif and that he was giving me a treat – like an orphans’ tea-party,’ David said. ‘No, I mustn’t be cynical.’

‘No,’ said Jack. ‘You mustn’t.’

‘Still, it’s odd how deferential these granite pillars of the kirk can be.’

‘What’s your definition of “deferential”?’ Jack said.

‘They seem to covet Father’s life-style, his years in the field, acting for God. They regard mission work as
real
Christianity. They are under the impression that Mother and Father
suffer
all the time.’

‘Suffer? They love the work,’ Jack said.

‘Of course they do,’ said David. ‘But the “talkers” truly imagine that they sacrifice everything to minister to the heathen.’

‘Sacrifice a house in Marchmont Terrace, a generous stipend and the adoration of the old ladies of Edinburgh?’ said Jack. ‘It sounds little enough to me – by way of sacrifice, I mean.’

‘Do you know what Neb told me – this, mark you, after a twenty-minute sermon on Disruption Calvinism – he clutched my wrist as if he were drowning in his own verbosity and quoted:
For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account
. And he keeked at me as if he expected me to absolve him from something or other, as if the fact that I’d tramped the hills of China with Dad had bestowed upon me some special grace.’

‘What nonsense,’ said Jack.

‘Absolutely,’ said David; he paused. ‘Do you remember much about China?’

‘Of course; don’t you?’

‘This and that,’ said David. ‘When I think hard about it.’

‘Don’t you think about it?’

‘Not often.’

‘I do,’ said Jack.

‘Are you dyin’ to get back?’

Jack did not hesitate, did not ponder his reply. ‘Yes.’

David said, ‘What do you remember?’

Jack laughed. ‘I remember the harmonium.’

‘The harmonium,’ said David. ‘Lord, yes, on the hill track out of Honan. That must have been the very first time that Dad took us both with him.’

‘When the donkey died.’

‘Yes.’

‘There we were with this gigantic great harmonium couped over in the dust, Dad prancing round it, wringing his hands.’

‘He was very fond of that harmonium.’

‘Lord knows, it cost enough,’ said Jack.

‘Yes,’ said David. ‘Do you remember how he had us all put our shoulders to the wheel and heave it upright and then fitted us into the shafts like coolies. He was not going to give in.’

‘What I remember,’ said Jack, ‘is how we had gone but a quarter of a mile or so before we had a dozen willing helpers, not even converts. They just seemed to appear, materialise, and dragged the thing up the hill to Fanshi in no time at all.’

‘And Mr Wang, do you remember him?’ said David.

‘How could one forget him, with his bad temper—’

‘And his opium kit.’

‘It always struck me as odd,’ said Jack, ‘that Dad would entrust our language teaching to an opium-eater.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t know,’ said David.

‘Oh, he knew. Of course he knew. I think he had his eye on a miraculous conversion. I wonder what happened to Wang.’

‘He died,’ said David. ‘Mother wrote to us, don’t you recall, some six or seven years ago.’

‘The poppy finally killed him.’

‘Cholera, I believe.’

‘There wasn’t much to kill; all skin and bone.’

‘Aye, but could he talk, could he tell tales!’ said David.

The northerly wind surged across the platforms and rattled the doors of the refreshment room and the young men turned from the fire and glanced at them, almost as if they expected to see a Chinaman there, the spectre of Mr Wang summoned by the very mention of his name.

Two girls, escorted by their father, entered. They were young, pretty as painted china in loose sacque overcoats with facings of blue-black velvet and neat little boots with pointed patent-leather toes – twenty or thirty guineas each upon their backs – conscious of their breeding and their appealing style. Father was a musk-ox of a man, his belly filling his double-breasted overcoat, and the silk tile-hat set square on a bush of greying pomaded hair. He lumbered to a chair, seated himself upon it and raised one hand to summon service while his daughters settled themselves, giggling, and, within seconds, caught sight of the Lockhart boys and went into a dove-dance of flirtation.

‘What do you think of them, David?’ murmured Jack.

‘I can’t imagine them on skates, can you?’

Jack laughed. ‘Falling on their little bottoms – no, I can’t.’

‘Are they still givin’ us the eye?’

‘In trumps,’ said Jack.

‘I wonder why.’

‘Because we’re handsome, well-set-up young fellows.’

‘What can come of it, though?’

‘Nothing. It’s amusement. Practice, I suppose. Come now, David, you haven’t turned priggish on me, have you?’

‘Certainly not,’ David said. ‘I just—’

‘Papa is castin’ a cold eye over us now.’

‘He can probably calculate our circumstances to the last farthing.’ David inched round in his chair and glanced casually at the family group. ‘By Gum, though, ain’t he fierce!’

‘Probably beats the servants.’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

Jack put down his glass. ‘I do rather care for the little dark one, though.’

‘Can you see her in Fanshi in August?’ said David. ‘Can you imagine her wielding a mopping-cloth in the baby-school?’

‘No,’ said Jack reluctantly. ‘That I cannot do.’

‘They aren’t for us, lad. Never will be, their sort.’

‘No harm in lookin’, Davy.’

‘No harm at all,’ David conceded but turned again to face the fireplace and, with legs thrust out before him, settled his hands over his chest as if he intended to sleep.

‘I’m glad I’m not Popish,’ said Jack. ‘Shouldn’t at all like to be a priest.’

‘Celibacy may have its advantages,’ said David.

‘I thought you liked Miss Dickie. Is that all off?’

‘It was never on,’ said David. ‘Oh, Sarah’s all right.’

‘I’ll say,’ Jack put in. ‘More than all right.’

‘It’s pointless, Jack. Pointless.’

‘Because we’re going overseas so soon?’

David said, ‘I don’t want to fall in love.’

‘I thought you liked being in love.’

‘I mean seriously.’

‘Dad loves Mother.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ said David.

‘Made in Heaven, that one.’

‘Yes.’ David fished in his vest pocket and brought out a pocket-watch, clipped open the cover. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘Must say I’ll be glad to get home,’ said Jack.

David buttoned his overcoat and adjusted his scarf. ‘Do you mean to China, with Dad and Mother?’

‘I meant Invermoy, actually,’ said Jack. ‘But yes, I admit that I will be glad to return to China, to be set on the right path at last.’

‘Can you remember what they look like?’

‘Mother and Dad?’

‘Yes. I can’t, not clearly.’

‘I can; from the photograph.’

‘That’s old. They’ll have changed.’

‘We’ve changed, that’s for sure,’ said Jack. ‘I doubt if they’ll recognise you come August.’

‘If I go back,’ said David softly, ‘come August.’

‘
What
did you say?’

‘I’m not sure I want to go back.’

‘I can’t believe my ears.’

‘Oh, I expect I shall.’

‘It’s not a matter of what you expect, David; it’s what is expected of you.’

‘No call to get het up, Jack.’

‘After all the planning, the study, the money that Uncle George has laid out—’

‘Come on, I think I hear our train.’

‘Bother the train!’

‘You won’t say that if we miss the connection at Perth.’

‘David, tell me that you didn’t mean it, about not going back.’

‘I’ll be in Nanking in August, never fear. Trained and ordained.’

They moved across the refreshment room, David in the lead, his brown leather portmanteau clutched in his fist.

As they passed the girls, each sipping hot Russian tea from a glass, he stared at them deliberately and his sudden scowling attention made them flutter, flush and look away. He went on, Jack at his heels, out of the warmth and on to the cold reaches of the platform towards the great clouds of white vapour and roiling black smoke that hid the locomotive.

Jack caught him by the sleeve.

‘David, the truth now.’

‘Jack, you idiot, I meant nothing by it.’

‘Word of honour?’

‘Word of honour.’

‘Cross your heart.’

Ruefully David studied his brother as steam hissed and billowed about them and then, with his index finger, he carefully traced the sign over his heart.

‘Is that better?’ David asked.

Jack nodded, grinned with relief, and let his brother steer him towards the waiting train.