Authors: Yelena Kopylova
scale. While he was at home my life was easier, but when he was away, neither my uncle nor my
grandmother could save me from thrashings.
“I understood that from the second year of their marriage they ceased to live as man and wife. Yet, she
was known to give her attention generously to other men. At times she became mad. I
think that she
was insane, that she had been insane all her life. Anyway, both my grandmother and my
uncle were
afraid of her, but like a lot of insane people she was very clever and wily. And when my father, at one
stage, tried to get her confined to a clinic, she spoke to the doctors so reasonably that they could not
agree on her mental state.
“My father wanted to send me away to school but she was against it. I was her whipping stool. It was
nothing for me to be locked in a cupboard for twenty-four hours at a time. My father died when I was
twelve, and the day after he was buried she gave a party to people from the lowest part of the town.
What happened at the end of the party is still a mystery. It is known my grandfather
Hamilton appeared
on the scene, as did my Uncle Benjamin, who by this time was living his own life away
from her. There
was a fracas as they tried to turn out the motley crew, and in it, my mother was struck with a poker. It
was whispered
it was my grandfather who did it; then again, that it was her brother, my uncle; but of course the blame
was put on one of the visitors who had disappeared back into their holes. Whatever the truth of that, she
was dead.
“It was the happiest day of my life so far when I joined her funeral cortege. And after that life became so
wonderful that I imagined that I, too, might die before I had had enough of it. My
grandmother
Bannaman is a very gentle woman, and as she grew older she talked more and more of
her life spent in
this country, mostly of her happy childhood and girlhood before she married.”
He stopped talking and put his hands over his eyes, and she saw that beads of sweat were running down
his face. And now she wanted to put her hands out to him and bring him down beside her, but he began
to pace the floor again and talk as he did so, saying, “I forgot to mention that my
grandmother’s cousin
didn’t find her relatives from Eng land very compatible. And if my mother hadn’t
married quickly, that
association would have been broken up in any case. I understand she died when I was
quite young. But
He stopped in his pacing and, looking at her, he said, “ As time went on and I listened to my
grandmother reminiscing, I knew that there was something she was holding back,
something she wanted
to tell me but was fearful of doing so. Incidentally, I was seventeen when Grandfather Hamilton took me
into the business, but he was failing in health and three years later he sold the entire company. His
retirement didn’t last long and he died a year later. He had been a widower for many
years, and but for a
few bequests he left his entire fortune to me. “
Her mouth fell open at this stage. He had said he had been left a fortune, yet had been living in that
one-roomed hovel all the winter.
What was the matter with him?
“You seem surprised, and I know what you’re thinking. Why haven’t I lived differently?
I will tell you.
Last year, my grandmother became ill, and fearing that her time might be running out, it was then that she
told me the whole grizzly story of her husband’s life, which she had had no inkling of until the constables
came to the house, although apparently my mother had gleaned some knowledge of his
doings earlier on.
There was a store under the cellar.” He turned his head and nodded towards the far wall of the kitchen.
“I have been in it. She must have discovered it at some time. Anyway, she knew what my grandmother
didn’t know, and what my grandmother also didn’t know until she had been some time in
America, and
she only learned of it from her son when he had drunk more than usual one day, for he
became a heavy
drinker, was that they had left a man trussed up in the barn of the house and that there was no possibility
of his ever being found alive.
My grandfather had apparently killed this particular man’s father. “
He now brought up his shoulders tight around his neck as if to shrug off some burden he was carrying,
then ended, “You know all about it.
And now, about me. When happily my grandmother recovered, I resigned from the old
firm at which I
was still working and came here, because I was haunted by the story. I could not believe that these
things had happened until I remembered what my mother was like, and then I had to
admit the truth of
them to myself. Yet, I had to come.
“At first I stayed at an inn in Allendale and from there went out walking. And one day I saw that little hut
of a cottage. There was a man on horseback outside it. He turned out to be Charles. He said at one
time it had been a shepherd’s cottage, and it happened to be on his land. I apologized for trespassing.
He was very kind. We rode back together and adjourned to the inn, and as we talked the idea came to
me to live in that place, to experience life at its lowest, and also to give a reason for my presence. I said I
was a kind of writer, more of a journalist, and wanted to record this part of the country, for some of my
forebears had come from here. I gave their name as Hamilton. He knew no one in the
vicinity by that
name. As he said, they must have lived here a long time ago. So there it is, Kate. Now you know why
I’m here, and who I
am. But there are two things you don’t know as yet. The first is that I own this house and the land
surrounding. I bought it last week. I have no need to come through the pantry window, I have a key to
the front door. And the other thing that you don’t know, Kate, or perhaps you do. I hope you do. “ He
now moved slowly towards her and sat down on the edge of the settle and, taking her
limp hand, he said,
“ I love you, Kate. “
The room was spinning around her. Outside the smeared window the land was lifting
from its base, the
whole world was whirling. Something was happening inside her head. She was going to
faint. No, she
wasn’t. She had never fainted in her life and she had very little use for women who used this as a last
resort, mostly to achieve what they wanted.
Isabel Younger over at Bretton House, could faint to order, and always succeeded, to
bring her husband
to his knees. No, she wasn’t going to faint. But something was happening to her: her
heart seemed to
have stopped beating. Yet again, that was wrong, for it was thumping against her ribs so forcefully that
she felt it would break through.
“Kate. Kate. Look at me.”
She did not know that she had turned her head away, and now when she looked back at
him, she heard
in surprise her own voice saying, “You can’t mean that. How can you?”
“I can, because I think you’re the finest creature I’ve ever come across.”
“Oh She turned her head away again, then muttered, “ Don’t make fun. “
His hands were on her shoulders now and she was actually being shaken.
“I was never more serious, Kate. Don’t accuse me of making fun. Listen to me. I’ve
loved you from
our first meeting on the hills, perhaps even before that, when we looked at each other in that hotel
dining-room. The spark was kindled then. These things happen.”
“Oh, Ben, please’ her voice was soft ~ ‘don’t make me say it.”
“Say what?”
“Well—’ She tossed her head now from side to side.
“Look at me. I’m an outsize in women, but that wouldn’t matter so much except I am
beyond plain.
Let me put it starkly. I have seared in my mind a remark made by a friend of ours. He did not mean me
to overhear it, but what he said was, I wouldn’t be everybody’s taste in ale, but then the man could
always close his eyes when he put the mug to his mouth.”
“God Almighty! And you’ve stored things like that in your mind? Kate, you have never
looked at
yourself squarely. You’ve got a body on you like a Venus, and eyes the like I’ve never looked into
before, and a voice that sounds like music. And in addition, you have a mind. And again, what is more,
you are kind, your character oozes kindness.
Kate, to me, you are a lovely creature. Oh, my dearest, my dear.
Please, please, don’t cry. “
Now he had pulled her to her feet and, his arms about her, he was holding her tight, and as she leant
against him she shivered from head to foot as if with cold. After a moment he pressed her head upwards
and said firmly, “We shall be married, Kate, you and I, and we shall cleanse this house of all its past
memories.”
“Oh! Ohf She pushed herself from him.
“Ben, no, no.” She turned away, her hands clasped tightly under her chin now. The
situation had raced
out of all control: her, living in this house; her, marrying a man, the son of the woman who had tried to kill
her father, and in such a terribly cruel way, not forgetting how his grandfather had
murdered both her
father’s and her step-father’s fathers. The obstacles against their ever coming together were so gigantic
that she groaned aloud.
Shaking her head, she said, “It’s impossible. It could never come about.”
“It must.” He was holding her by the shoulders again.
“Because I know now, I hadn’t to leave the comforts of my home in America, the friends I had made,
the business I had been thinking of investing in, and undertake a
damnable crossing just to find out where my terrible forebears had begun. No, they were best lain
hidden, not unearthed. There had to be something else, and that something else was you.
Then what
stopped me marrying two years ago? I was on the point of proposing to the daughter of a friend of ours,
but then I almost took to my heels and ran. I went off on a shooting expedition. Upset the girl greatly.
But but suddenly I knew I couldn’t ask her to be my wife. Yet from the moment I looked up at you on
your horse from where I lay dozing on the path, I knew the reason for it all: I had found the one that was
for me. Don’t shake your head in such a way, Kate, I’m no silly boy experiencing a calf love. “
He was no silly boy. The statement brought forward the matter of age.
He must be younger than her, quite a bit, but he looked older. Yet after all what did that matter? It
would make no difference one way or the other. Yet she said, “You must be younger than me. That’s
another thing.”
“Yes, I should imagine nearly eighteen months. But that’s utterly irrelevant. Age does not come into
this, but love does. You are for me, Kate, and... and I know now I am for you, because you do care for
me, don’t you?”
She closed her eyes tightly and put her hand across them, only to have it pulled away, and, his arms
about her once more, he said, Tell me.
Just let me hear you say it. “
Her mind was winging away from her, seeming to lift her big body from the ground. She
felt light and for
the first time in her life she knew it didn’t matter what her appearance was like for she was being loved.
Not that she hadn’t known love. But that was family love, and that kept you solid and
protected on the
ground. This love bore upwards, made you feel beautiful inside and created in you a
power that you
imagined could conquer all obstacles, and brought to your lips words that you never
imagined you would
have the chance to say to any man.
“I love you, Ben. Oh, yes, yes, I love you. But I can’t believe... “
Her breathing was checked by his mouth on hers and she knew that never in her life
would she know a
moment that would exceed the happiness that was in her now.
She was brought back to reality when he said, “You will tell them, your people? I
particularly would like
to talk with your father, not only about us, but to tell him how I feel....”
As if a pain had now shot through her body, she drew in a sharp breath. And so evident was her
distress he said, “Kate! Kate! What is it? Are you feeling ill?”
“No, no.” She pressed herself gently from him, then slowly sat down on the settle again and, looking up
at him, she said, “You ... you don’t know the ... the feeling of bitterness and recrimination that is still alive
in my father against all the Bannamans. Even the name is enough at times to set the
muscles of his face
working.”
“But I am not a Bannaman.”
She dropped her gaze from his, bit on her lip, and said, “She was your mother, and ... and no matter
what you felt about her, I ... I can never see you bringing Father round to your side.”
“But I must.” He was on his knees before her now.
“Kate, I must. We must. Either that or just go off together. I’ll take you back home.”
“Oh! no. That’s impossible.” She put her hands out and touched his face.
“As much as I would like to see America, I ... I could never just go off and leave them.
My real father
went off and left my mother. I couldn’t repeat the pattern. It would be too cruel.”
“The reverse would be too cruel as well, Kate. If they tried to part us, what then?”
Yes, if they tried to part them, what then? It was unthinkable. That must never happen.