Part 61 (2/2)

'Ay,' said Mason, 'and the funeral was the least of it.' He took a heavier swig than before and stopped chewing altogether, while he thought.

'How many were there?' I had always been curious about that.

'Just me, and Cuddy MacFerrier, and the Shepstones.'

The Shepstones were relatives. I had of course never set eyes upon even one of them. I had never seen a likeness. Millais had never painted a single Shepstone, and if one or more of them had appeared upon a criminal charge, my father would hardly have been the Judge.

'How many Shepstones?' I asked, still essaying to devour.

'Just the three of them,' replied Mason, as if half-entranced. I am making little attempt to reproduce the Scottishness of his speech, or of anyone else's. I am far from being Sir Walter or George Douglas.

'That is all there are?'

'Just the three. That's all,' said Mason. 'Drink up, man.'

'A minister was there, of course?'

'Ay, the minister turned out for it. The son was sick, or so he said.'

'I am the son,' I said, smiling. 'And I was sick. I promise you that.'

'No need to promise anything,' said Mason, still motionless. 'Drink up, I tell you.'

'And no one else at all?' I persisted.

'Maybe the old carlin,' said Mason. 'Maybe her.'

For me that was a very particular Scottish word. I had in fact sprung half to my feet, as Mason spoke it.

'Dinna fash yoursel'. She's gone awa' for the noo,' said Mason.

He began once more to eat.

'I saw her once myself,' I said, sitting right down again. 'I saw her when my darling mother died.'

'Ay, you would,' said Mason. 'Especially if maybe you were about the house at the time. Who let her in?'

'I don't know,' I replied. 'Perhaps she doesn't have to be let in?'

'Och, she does that,' said Mason. 'She always has to be let in.'

'It was at the grave that you saw her?'

'No, not there, though it is my fancy that she was present. I saw her through that window as she came up from the sea.'

I know that Mason pointed, and I know that I did not find it the moment to look.

'Through the gla.s.s panes or out on the wee rocks you can view the spot,' said Mason. 'It's always the same.' Now he was looking at nothing and chewing vigorously.

'I saw no face,' I said.

'If you'd seen that, you wouldn't be here now,' said Mason. He was calm, as far as I could see.

'How often have you seen her yourself?'

'Four or five times in all. At the different deaths.'

'Including at my mother's death?'

'Yes, then too,' said Mason, still gazing upon the sawn-up sections of meat. 'At the family deaths she is seen, and at the deaths of those, whoever they be, that enter the family.'

I thought of my brother whom I had never known. I wasn't even aware that there had been any other family deaths during Mason's likely lifetime.

'She belongs to those called Leith, by one right or another,' said Mason, 'and to no one at all else.'

As he spoke, and having regard to the way he had put it, I felt that I saw why so apparently alert a man seemed to have such difficulty in remembering that I was presumably a Leith myself. I took his consideration kindly.

'I didn't see anyone when the Judge died,' I remarked.

'Perhaps in a dream,' said Mason. 'I believe you were sick at the time.'

That was not quite right of course, but it was true that I had by no means been in the house.

We dropped the subject, and turned once more to feu duties, rents, and discriminatory taxes; even to the recent changes in the character of the tides and in the behaviour of the gannets.

I have no idea how I scrambled back to dismal Pollaporra, and in twilight first, soon in darkness. Perhaps the liquor aided instead of impeded, as liquor so often in practice does, despite the doctors and proctors.

III.

After the war, Jack Oliver was there to welcome me back to the office off Cornhill. He was now a colonel. His uncle had been killed in what was known as an incident, when the whole family house had been destroyed, including the Devises and De Wints. The business was now substantially his.

I found myself advanced very considerably from the position I had occupied in 1939. From this it is not to be supposed, as so many like to suppose, that no particular apt.i.tude is required for success in merchant banking. On the contrary, very precise qualities both of mind and of temperament are needed. About myself, the conclusion I soon reached was that I was as truly a Scottish businessman as my ancestors in the kirkyard, whether I liked it or not, as O'Neill says. I should have been foolish had I not liked it. I might have preferred to be a weaver of dreams, but perhaps my mother had died too soon for that to be possible. I must add, however, that the business was by no means the same as when I had entered it before the war. No business was the same. The staff was smaller, the atmosphere tenser. The gains were illusory, the prospects shadowy. One worked much less hard, but one believed in nothing. There was little to work for, less to believe in.

It was in the office, though, that I met Shulie. She seemed very lost. I was attracted by her at once.

'Are you looking for someone?' I asked.

'I have just seen Mr. Oliver.' She had a lovely voice and a charming accent. I knew that Jack was seeking a new secretary. His present one had failed to report for weeks, or to answer her supposed home telephone number.

'I hope that all went well.'

Shulie shook her head and smiled a little.

'I'm sorry about that.'

'Mr. Oliver had chosen a girl who went in just before me. It always happens.'

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