Hungry Hill (26 page)

Brodrick herself seemed to forget it sooner than they did.

For three months or so Fanny-Rosa had shown every wild extravagance of grief. She had threatened suicide, she had stayed in bed and been nursed tenderly by Barbara and Eliza, she had vowed that she would never be able to continue living, and then, shortly before Christmas, the sisters-in-law had prevailed upon her to accompany them to Saunby for the winter, and the change of scene, the visits of friends, the high spirits of the children, all combined to make her throw off the first transport of grief, and when she returned to Clonmere in the spring she was almost the same Fanny-Rosa as before. Almost, not quite. Something indefinable had gone out of her, never to return. The light, joyous quality, the glow of loveliness that John had awoken in her with his love and tenderness, flickered and died, finally and for ever. Her appearance, her dress, the care of her hair, suddenly these things ceased to matter. Once it had been amusing to buy gowns and hats, because of John, because he would look at her with that light in his eyes, and hold out his arms.

Now there was little point in bothering to purchase material; last season’s gown would do for this as well. A widow of twenty-nine might be expected to marry again, and Doctor Armstrong, when he saw Fanny-Rosa after her return to Clonmere, some six months after her husband’s death, said to himself that no one of her temperament and vitality would be likely to remain single for long. He was wrong.

All that side of life was finished and done with. The future remained, with one day Johnnie master of Clonmere, Mrs. John Brodrick was a person of importance. One day, surely before very long, her father-in-law would die, and Johnnie would come in for the estate and the money. Fanny-Rosa would be mistress of Clonmere. It would be she who would give all the orders, pay the wages, have the handling of Johnnie’s purse; and his fortune would be enormous, no doubt, for the copper was bringing in vast sums, and Mrs. John Brodrick, running the estate for the benefit of her son, would be someone of considerable significance in the barony. She had never forgotten that she was the niece of the Earl of Mundy, and now and again she would remind Eliza and Barbara of the fact, just dropping a casual word or two, but those words sufficient to bring them to some sense of reality, if familiarity with her presence had caused them to neglect it.

Little by little she began to talk of what she would do to Clonmere when the house became hers, or rather Johnnie’s, which Barbara and Eliza felt was rather premature. Their father was not yet seventy and enjoyed excellent health, and there seemed small prospect of his making way for his grandson for several years to come.

“It is a pity,” said Eliza one day to Barbara, “that Fanny-Rosa talks so incessantly as though Clonmere belonged to her. For my part, I find she has become very altered since John died. She has lost much of her gaiety, and is overbearing.”

“Poor Fanny-Rosa,” sighed Barbara; “we neither of us know quite how much she misses John. We must be patient and not mind; and don’t forget how devoted she is to darling Johnnie.”

“I say nothing against her devotion to Johnnie,” replied Eliza, “but I find it rather trying when Fanny-Rosa gives orders in the stables, and has my horse saddled for herself when she wishes to ride.”

“You forget,” said Barbara the peace-maker, “that Fanny-Rosa has been used to giving orders too. She did everything at Lletharrog, and a married woman who has had a house of her own is lost without servants to command. I am always finding her in the kitchen, countermanding my instructions, because she tells cook that certain dishes are bad for the children’s digestion, and as she is probably right, I say nothing. Whatever she does, do let us avoid any unpleasantness.”

“It amazes me that father does not become annoyed at times,” said Eliza. “She flatly contradicts him at dinner very often, which was a thing he never would accept from any of us.”

“Fanny-Rosa has travelled, which you and I have never done,” said Barbara, “and she has also read many more books. And I have frequently noticed that men will argue quite amicably with women who have had husbands, when they will snub unmarried women like you and me. I suppose they have some sort of superior knowledge of life that we do not possess.”

Eliza sniffed. She hated to be reminded of spinsterhood and her middle years. But her brother’s widow had come to live with them for good, and Barbara was right, it was no use having any unpleasantness. So “Mrs. John,” as she was known to the servants, began to take a more prominent place in the running of the household than either “Miss Barbara” or “Miss Eliza,” but in a different way. Meals that were late and rooms that were undusted meant little to her, but if pastry appeared on the table when she had ordered a milk pudding she would storm into the kitchen and shout at Mrs. Casey, shaming her before the other servants, and if some article of dress or a trinket was missing from her dressing-table (and no doubt fallen behind it, for Fanny-Rosa had no sense of order in her room) the housemaid would be summoned and upbraided as a thief, and possibly be sent from the castle at once, without Barbara’s permission or even knowledge that any such scene had occurred.

Her children were never quite sure of her. She would spoil them lavishly one moment, and scold the next; and, after their grandfather, the most dominant figure during those years of childhood at Clonmere would be the bewildering, changeful personality that was their mother, sometimes an angel with smiling eyes and a cloud of hair about her face, at others a wrathful demon, a fury from a fairy-tale, with a voice that uttered angry sounds.

The only person to beat Johnnie was his godfather, Doctor Armstrong, or “Uncle Willie” as he was known to the children, and Johnnie never forgave him, because the beating, for the first time in his life, was undeserved.

Aunt Barbara had not been well, she was always coughing these days, and Uncle Willie had come to see her. She had been making a shawl for a sick woman up at Oakmount, and her wool had been left in the drawing-room. Uncle Willie, requested by Aunt Barbara to fetch the shawl so that she could continue working upon it while laid up in her room, found the wool tangled and dirtied beyond repair, and the shawl torn in shreds. The servants, when questioned, admitted to having seen “Master Johnnie” playing with the wool after breakfast. Johnnie was summoned by his godfather and accused of doing wanton mischief. In vain he protested that he had only touched the shawl for a moment and then put it aside, saying that no doubt the nursery puppy had broken loose and done the damage, for which he was very sorry.

He would not have displeased Aunt Barbara for the world when she was unwell. His godfather refused to believe him, and told the boy that he was lying.

Johnnie flushed scarlet. “I am not lying, God damn you,” he said (he was just turned ten at the time) and made to leave the room.

Uncle Willie laid hold of him, and being a strong, powerful man, he was able to control his struggling godson.

“You deserve a beating for the mischief and for lying to me,” he said firmly, “and that the matter may sink in I shall do the business in front of the servants, so that they may know you for a spoilt, ill-tempered, unmannerly boy.”

And there in the stable-yard, before Casey, and Tim, and Thomas, and the women gaping from the kitchen window, Johnnie’s breeches were taken down, and his hind-quarters bared to the world, while his godfather gave him a dozen hard strokes with his cane.

Johnnie was too stupefied to cry, but when the performance was over and his godfather had walked back into the house Johnnie suddenly realised what had happened, that his breeches were hanging about his ankles, and that the kitchen girls were sniggering behind their hands. The shame of what he had undergone came over him in a flash, and, plunged into misery that he had never known in his life before, he ran up to the woods and flung himself upon the ground, weeping tears of bitter humiliation. Never, never again could he go back to the house. Never could he face Tim or the servant girls. The indignity, the injustice, the stark horror of the whole proceeding! Passionately he prayed for Uncle Willie’s death, and that some kind fate would overtake him too, and bear him away from Clonmere. It became dark and cold, and still the boy lay out in the woods, his handsome face swollen with anger and grief and pain, while the weals on his backside began to smart and prick, and the load in his heart became heavier. His mother would pity him, and no doubt be angry, furiously angry, with Uncle Willie, but she would pity him none the less, and want to put lotion on his sore buttocks. But he did not want her pity, he wanted her admiration and her love. He wanted her to think that he, Johnnie Brodrick, was the most wonderful person in the world, not merely a small boy whose breeches had been taken down in front of servants. His mother would not understand the agony and shame that held him now, the sense of impotence. And desperately, his head in his hands, the tears pouring down his cheeks, Johnnie cried, “Oh, why did my father die? He would not have treated me thus…

.? Dimly, for his boy’s memory was short, he saw the tall, dark figure of the man who had been his father, he saw the smile, he felt the pat of his hand on his shoulder, he heard the low, quiet voice, and for the first time he was aware of bereavement, he who had realised little or nothing of it when his father died.

Presently he fell asleep, exhausted by emotion, and here it was that Baird found him, on his way home through the woods to his cottage, and being an old, kindly man with some perception, he carried the boy back to his cottage, saying nothing of what had taken place, although the servants had told him the whole story, with many embellishments. He gave the boy half of his own dinner, and allowed him to go round trapping afterwards, carrying the ferret in his hand.

By nine o’clock Johnnie had recovered something of his former spirits, and was happy enough to borrow Baird’s lantern and go home to bed. He went indoors by the side entrance, and crept upstairs to the bedroom he shared with Henry, fearing that his mother or his grandfather might hear him and demand an explanation of his absence at dinner.

“I’ve been trapping with Baird,” said Johnnie loftily, taking off his clothes. “I have had a most interesting day. The ferret made no attempt to bite me, and I was not in the least afraid of him.”

“Lucky beggar,” yawned Henry; “you might have taken me with you. It’s been very dull here. Fanny and Edward were playing at houses, and I don’t care much for that; it’s too babyish.”

“Did my mother ask why I was not at dinner?” said Johnnie carelessly.

“She was not at dinner herself,” said Henry sleepily. “She had gone over to Andriff to see Aunt Tilly and the new baby. And Uncle Willie told Aunt Eliza that he thought you might not be in, and she was not to worry if you were late.”

This showed a glimmer of understanding on the part of Uncle Willie, thought his godson, but for all that he would never be forgiven.

“Was that all Uncle Willie said?” asked Johnnie.

“I don’t know,” said Henry; “he went away after seeing Aunt Barbara. I ran beside his horse for a little way. Will you take me to see the ferret tomorrow, Johnnie ? It would be such sport to go together.”

“I don’t know,” said Johnnie grandly. “I don’t think you are quite old enough for ferrets.”

And with that he turned on his side and was soon asleep. But he was careful the next morning to dress with his back turned well away from his brother, and went down to prayers in some anxiety, for fear he should read contempt on the faces of the servants. He realised, however, that Uncle Willie had said nothing of the business to the family.

He was greatly relieved, and his relief took expression in bullying the younger children during the rest of the day. He boasted loudly about his prowess with the ferret, so that Fanny’s and the boys’ admiration for his skill would cover his own shame at yesterday’s disgrace, and, although the day passed happily enough and without incident, he seemed to hear a mocking voice inside himself, whispering that he was in reality no very heroic figure, but a silly child, un-breeched before servants, and one day all the world might know. He listened with interest when his mother that evening mentioned something about “how the library would be his, when grandfather died.”

“But my aunt Barbara would surely use the library before me?” he said. “After all, she is the eldest person in the house after grandfather.”

Fanny-Rosa laughed at the serious, childlike logic of her son.

“Age has nothing to do with it,” she said. “When your grandfather dies Clonmere will be yours. You can do what you like with the rooms.”

“Do you mean I shall be the master, like grandfather is now, and the servants all have to do what I tell them?”

“Of course, my darling.”

“And could I forbid Uncle Willie the house, and set the dogs on him if he dared to enter it without my giving permission?”

Fanny-Rosa laughed again. “I think it would be an excellent plan if you did,” she said.

“Uncle Willie can be very disapproving and tire-some at times, and it would amuse me greatly to see him run for his life.”

“Don’t you like him, mother?” said Johnnie, greatly daring.

Fanny-Rosa did not answer for a moment.

“I don’t dislike him, of course,” she said, “but I have never cared much for his dictatorial manner. He presumes so much, because of his friendship with the family. And after all, he is nothing more than a country doctor. Most people would not receive him at all.”

“Is it inferior to be a doctor?” said Johnnie.

“Well, it’s one of those professions that gentlemen usually avoid. The Services and the Church are the only real professions. Actually, it is much better to have none at all, and just own property, as you will do.”

“Perhaps,” said Johnnie, after a moment or two, “my grandfather will die next month, and I can set the dogs on Uncle Willie.”

The idea, once fixed in his mind, took firm root, and often he would ply his mother with questions as to how they should live, and what they would do, when the great event took place. It seemed to Johnnie that to become master of Clonmere would take away the stain of that beating that rankled in his memory. The servants would never dare laugh at him then. He began to watch his grandfather carefully for signs of failing health.