The Shadow (13 page)

As they came into the deep shadow of the house, she looked back. “Do you think it is going to be much?”

“No,” he answered. “There is life in the air. But I'll see about shelter when the daylight comes in.”

“The wireless forecast snow-showers and outlook unchanged.”

“Did it?” he said politely, cleaning his hands with snow.

“Come in.”

He scraped his boots clean. “I'll make such a mess of your floor.”

Inside, the bleating of the lamb sounded startlingly loud. As he struck a match, cupping it with his hands, she saw the glow of the light on his brown skin and the glitter of it in his dark attractive eyes. He needed a haircut. Then his face cleared and opened as he tilted it up, looking for the lamp. “Here's the lamp,” she said softly as if she might waken the house. Then she sent him out to the shed next the dairy where there were empty boxes and straw. “Hsh!” she crooned to the lamb, cupping its head in her hand, her fingertips at its mouth. The fragile body butted, the little bones slithering under the thin skin. She saw the discoloured skin and her own hands and wrists. He came in with the box and put it on the, floor by the kitchen range. “It's a feed he wants,” he said.

She nodded. “I'll wash my hands and then put on the fire.” She was no longer excited by the crying of the lamb and watched the way he took the sticks Jean had drying over the range and set about raking the embers which were still red under the ashes. He put a wisp of straw over the red, the dry sticks carefully on top, and blew. Up came the flames.

“You haven't a feeding bottle?” he asked.

She hadn't.

“I'll be back in a minute with one,” he said.

By the time he came back she had the milk blood-warm and the kettle over the fire with no more water in it than would make tea for two.

They spoke in quiet tones as she spread a tea-cloth over a corner of the kitchen table and set two cups on it, bread and biscuits, bright plates, butter and knives. “Leave him now and wash your hands,” she said.

She was lifting the teapot to fill his cup when a noise arrested her. The noise drew nearer. She knew it was Jean, but could not say a word, could not move the hand with the lifted teapot. They both stared at the door. It opened—and, her face half-petulant and flushed from sleep, there stood Jean, the servant girl. Her eyes widened as she gazed at Colin and then right down her neck, as she turned her face away, went a deep blush. Dark, wellbuilt, with a clear skin, she was inclined to moods occasionally but was a capital worker. At this moment, in her twenty-fifth year, she looked disturbingly attractive.

“Come in, Jean,” said her mistress quietly. She glanced at Colin. He was looking at his plate.

The emotion between them, whether it had ever been declared or not, was so obvious to their mistress that her hand shook slightly as she poured Colin's tea. “You're up very early.”

“I heard the lamb and I wondered,” Jean replied, her back to them, attending to the fire.

“Put some more water in the kettle, because there's hardly enough tea here for you.” Then she began telling Jean about the experiences in the snow. When she had drunk her cup, she got up. “What's the time? Nearly five! I think I'll have an hour or two in bed. There's no need for you to hurry, Colin.”

She left them and went up to her room.

She was feeling tired now, but when she had undressed and stretched between the sheets, still faintly warm, she experienced a sensation of ease, as though her body floated. A crush of snow, softer than the lamb's mouth, smothered itself against the window. And all at once she thought of the ewe—that she had quite forgotten—with the head thrown out and back, the neck stretched as to an invisible knife. The snow would be drifting about the body, covering it up … .

Aunt Phemie was startled out of her reverie by the opening of the door behind her. Her heart leapt as she turned with a wild scared expression. Ranald stood there, smiling, his slippers in his hand.

“You gave me such a start!” explained Aunt Phemie, as she got to her feet.

“I came as quietly as I could.” He had closed the door and now put on his slippers.

To have come on his socks was somehow unexpectedly thoughtful of him. “You had a good sleep?”

“Like a log.”

“I didn't want to disturb you. You must be famished.” She turned to the fire, got a fork and tried the potatoes. She glanced at the clock, “Dear me!” she said, then hurried to pour out what water was left in the potato pan and set the table for their meal. “Sit down. You didn't hear any sounds upstairs?”

“No. It was very quiet.” He stretched himself in the chair and yawned. “That was a good sleep.” The slow characteristic smile spread over his face; she turned her eyes away as though its self-assurance was still something she could not quite bear.

She had soup, a salad, cold boiled chicken, and potatoes. He got up from the chair and stood with his back to the fire, watching her arrange the table and fill his soup plate.

“You begin,” she said, “and I'll go and see if Nan is ready for her tray.” She closed the door quietly behind her.

When he had finished his soup, he waited for a time, then got up and began carving the chicken. Before sitting down, he went to the door, opened it and listened, closed it and went on with his meal. He ate a lot of salad with a chicken leg. The lettuce was crisp and his white teeth crunched it audibly. When at last he had finished he lit a cigarette and looked about him, leaning back.

Presently Aunt Phemie entered. She appeared agitated, scared, and, with care, did not quite close the door.

“She heard you,” she whispered.

“Did she?”

She nodded and rattled the plates.

“What did she say?”

“Hsh! her door is open.” She spoke no more, and in a moment went out with soup and bread on a tray. He sucked the cigarette smoke deep and blew it out slowly, his eyelids flickering in thought. When she came back she closed the door. He got up and looked at her. But beyond asking if he had had enough, she paid no attention to him.

“This can't go on,” she said when she had dished herself some soup. Her tone was level but low.

“That's what I was thinking.”

“She's so highly sensitised she hears things acutely. I said she couldn't have heard anyone, unless it was Mrs. Fraser going back for something she had dropped. She said it was someone coming out of Ranald's room. To prove to her it was no-one I went into your room and back.”

“Did she believe you?”

She supped her soup. “That's not the difficulty.”

“I see.”

She looked at him. “Do you?”

“Well, if she can't believe her own senses—where is she?”

She took a couple of spoonfuls and broke some bread on her plate. “What do you think should be done?”

“I think I should go and see her.”

She crumpled the bread, looking out the window. “I wish I knew,” she said, with controlled distress. “She was shaking, trembling, and did not want me to touch her. She turned away, tears in her eyes, but she was not sobbing. She looked pale and alien. I was suddenly frightened.”

“Alien?” he repeated.

“Yes, withdrawn into herself, into some world where I don't know—where she is alone. Away from us. I got the feeling she knew at last she was going there.”

“I see,” he said, almost coldly. His lids lowered. “Why don't you think I should see her?” he asked.

“Because of the effect you might have on her. I just don't know.”

“But something must be done?”

“Are you sure of yourself and your effect?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I'm not,” said Aunt Phemie. “Not yet.”

“You have to consider whether you are possibly being too emotional about it—and whether that helps.”

“I assure you I have considered it. There is also the effect of an absence of emotion.”

“I agree,” he said reasonably, as if suddenly pleased with her capacity for direct argument.

She looked straight at him and asked, “Do you know anything about her fear of leprosy?”

His features firmed to a sustained stare as his vision travelled through her. Then he turned and after sucking a last mouthful of smoke dropped the stub of his cigarette in the fire. “So that phantasy has come back?”

“So you know about it?”

“I think I do. But—well—it was merely a fantastic exaggeration of a—of a happening.”

“Don't you think I should know about it?”

“Certainly. It might take a little time to explain.”

“Do you know anything about Kronos?”

“Kronos?” His brows gathered as he looked at her. “No. Money, is it?”

“I don't know—but I hardly think so.”

“Who was Kronos again?”

“Kronos was the father who devoured his own sons.” She got up and began separating the thin slices of chicken breast which he had cut.

“Has she some delusion about it?”

“It's hard to tell. It's a Greek myth—like the one about Oedipus.”

He gave a dry appreciative smile, then asked, “How did she use it?”

“I don't know. It would doubtless be a displacement, or transference is it?”

“When she was very ill?”

“Yes.”

“You mean her unconscious used the figure of Kronos—to cover up someone else—even from herself?”

“Possibly. Who can say?”

“She was as bad as that?”

Aunt Phemie put a potato on the plate and the plate on a small round tray.

“Tell me,” he asked. “What
did
happen to her?”

She lifted the tray, then paused to look at him. “Should you see her now—or should we have a talk first?”

“I think you're right,” he agreed. “It might be better.”

He turned to the fire and she went out.

Later, when Mrs. Fraser was up with Nan, Aunt Phemie said, “We can talk now. She took some of the soup but wouldn't look at the chicken. However, she can still drink milk, thank goodness. She thinks I'm seeing the grieve. I try to interest her in what goes on about the farm. I saw her struggle to be interested, to come back from—from where she is. It's getting a bit dark in here.”

“It's all right. Have a cigarette?”

“No thank you. By the way, when we do go up to bed you could come in your stockings behind me. Your door is open. You can manage to see to yourself?”

“I have slept in some queer places in my time.”

“You were in the Air Force?” She sat down.

“Yes,” he answered, taking the chair which she indicated.

“Nan told me. You had a nasty crash——”

“Grounded, long before the war ended, so here I am.” He smiled. “They gave me an office job. It was good cover for more interesting work. That's when I really got to know Nan.”

“You know her very well?”

“Naturally, or I shouldn't be here.”

“Of course. I was merely thinking of knowing what she is really like. Far as I can gather, she seemed to move in a pretty fast set, and in my experience—it may not be much, but still… you don't get really to know people in such a milieu, not as a rule.”

“You don't think so?”

“No. Why, do you?”

“I do. I should say it's the acid test.”

Aunt Phemie was silent for a few moments. “Acid test of what?” she asked.

“Of sticking power; character, if you like.”

“I don't see it like that. I may be wrong but it seems to me that every set has its own rules—of behaviour and so on—its own beliefs. To be of the set you must conform. If you don't behave as the set do, you get broken.”

“But if the set doesn't suit you, you should clear out. You
would
clear out, as a matter of fact. You don't hang on anywhere unless you're getting some kick out of it.”

“It all depends on the kick, I suppose. Will you give me a cigarette, please?”

When she had it lit, she smiled slightly, taking the cigarette from her mouth with a certain elegance as if it were in a holder. “This brings back some of my remote past; late nights and endless argument. I am not without some small experience. Tell me about your set.”

“There's nothing really to tell. And it wasn't a set in that sense. You must understand that. Most of us worked very hard, late into the night often. I fancy Nan has exaggerated all this. In fact, I know she has. She got delusions about it—afterwards.”

“After what?”

“After she broke down. She saw people in the most exaggerated way. She magnified things, gave huge mythical meanings to—to quite simple acts. It was distressing—and very difficult to counter. But we understood it.”

“We?
You mean—all of you?”

“Yes, naturally. You may forget that London was blitzed, that bombs fell, that I myself dropped bombs, that human bodies were mangled or blown to bits as the natural order of things. That's the world we lived in. A mental breakdown of one degree or another was not unknown.”

“I stand corrected,” said Aunt Phemie, trying to tap ash away with an awkward forefinger. “All the same I should like to know more, if you don't mind. She mentioned, for example, someone named Freddie.”

“Freddie is all right. He's satirical, with a merciless eye for foibles, but he's witty. Nan liked him at first. It was only towards the end that she felt there was something disintegrating in him, that beneath his wit there was a real desire to tear people to bits.”

“And there wasn't?”

“Well, we all want to tear something to bits. At least I hope so. And Freddie could work.”

“What did he work at?”

“I was thinking of the work he did
after
his daily job. He limps from hip trouble so was always a civilian.”

“She mentioned Julie.”