Magnus Merriman (34 page)

The sea was calm but the wind was cold, and long before
they had crossed the Firth Magnus had lost the night's exhilaration, and its queasy aftermath was aggravated by the
malaise
he had felt on the previous morning. The small unsightly sore on his lip was no better, and his tongue was furred with a richer fur than whisky and tobacco, even in the largest quantities, should bestow. It appeared to be somewhat swollen and clumsy in its movements. He shivered violently in the cold wind, and when he went below felt hot and feverish. Rose made an unfavourable comment on his miserable appearance, and said, ‘This'll be a lesson to you, I hope. If your stomach won't stand whisky, you'll need to stop drinking it.'

To Magnus, who prided himself on a hard head and capacity for huge potations, this was a bitter reproof. That he, who so often had drunk out the night with strong men, should be called a weakling in drinking by a mere girl, this child of twenty-two, his shy and simple bride! But he did not defend himself. He said, ‘I think I'm sickening for something. I'm afraid I'm going to be ill, Rose.'

‘Come up on deck and you'll feel better,' she answered, and Magnus, obediently following her, walked the deck and felt the wind come cold-fingered under his clothes, and tried to talk in a honeymoon way though his teeth were chattering and his tongue seemed too big for his mouth.

They landed at Scrabster in the early afternoon, and drove to a small hotel in Thurso for lunch. But Magnus had no appetite. He went out and found a chemist's shop, where he bought a thermometer, and returning to the hotel hid himself in the lavatory and took his temperature. It was rather more than a degree above normal. He felt worse immediately, and finding Rose in the lounge told her the news with a certain feeling of satisfaction.

‘You've caught a cold, I suppose,' she said. ‘Standing out in the yard drinking with Jock of the Brecks, with your coat off, and you all hot from dancing! Well, we'd better stay here for the night, and maybe you'll feel better in the morning.'

Magnus engaged a room and went to bed. Rose, in a brusque, matter-of-fact way, made him comfortable with a hot-water bottle and extra blankets, and then left him. She
spent the afternoon in the lounge, reading a magazine that she had bought. In the evening Magnus's fever increased and Rose borrowed a couple of aspirin tablets from a maid. He suggested, half-heartedly, that she should sleep in another room. But Rose was scornful of that proposal, and said that if he was really ill, which she doubted, she must stay there to look after him; and if he wasn't ill, then there was no need to go the expense of taking another room.

She turned his pillow and remade the bed. She undressed very modestly and quickly, put out the light, and got in beside him. For a minute she lay still. Then she turned and threw her arms round him and kissed his cheek and forehead, and whispered endearments, not pleading for love, but giving it. Magnus restrained his answering tenderness and said mournfully, ‘How the hell can I kiss you as you ought to be kissed, with a damned sore on my lip and a mouth like a heron's nest? Rose, I swear I'll never get drunk again. I'll work hard, I'll be a damned good husband to you, I'll…'

‘You'll go to sleep now,' she said, ‘and you'll feel better in the morning.'

She patted his shoulder, moved to the far side of the bed, and in a few minutes was comfortably sleeping. Magnus, drowsy already, silently repeated his good resolutions and followed her example. He woke in a heavy sweat some hours later, and, without waking Rose, got out of bed and changed his pyjamas. In the darkness of the night he grew pessimistic, and felt sure that he was seriously ill. He was cold now, his tongue was dry and swollen, and his throat was sore. A sore throat, he knew, might be the symptom of grave disorder. Perhaps he had diphtheria. Typhoid fever, perhaps, or paratyphoid. He knew a man who had caught rheumatic fever after a drinking bout. Pneumonia was another possibility. He had seen a man die of pneumonia, but that was after an operation. He also had been a heavy drinker. And someone he had known in India—he could not remember his name—had died of enteric fever. There were so many fevers, and probably they were all heralded by a sore throat. He shivered. That was a rigor, he thought, and wondered if he should put on the
light and take his temperature. But drowsiness held him, and reluctance to face the coldness that lay beyond the blankets. He was tempted to seek warmth by creeping nearer to Rose, but heroically he resisted the temptation lest she by contact should be infected with the grave disease, whatever it was, from which he suffered. Eventually he fell asleep again, but with such gloomy thoughts of a choking death from diphtheria, of the racking pains of rheumatic fever, that he dreamt of torture and the scaffold and midnight cemeteries.

In the morning his throat was worse and his temperature was 102 degrees. He tried to inspect his tonsils with a hand-mirror, and what he saw frightened him severely. For now his tongue was not merely furred but spotted like a leopard-skin. He regarded the horrid image with the utmost consternation. Morbid fears possessed him. He put out his tongue again, and again the mirror reflected the leopardish spots. Perhaps he had brought home from India the germs of some oriental disease that, stirring at last, had now come to awful life. It might even be leprosy. He wakened Rose and bade her get up and go for a doctor.

‘Are you worse?' she asked.

‘Much worse,' said Magnus. ‘I'm really ill, Rose. I don't know what it is, but it's serious. It may be typhoid, or something like that, or it may be some fever I was infected with in India. I don't know. There are some tropical diseases that don't show themselves for a long time. I don't want to frighten you, but you must get a doctor at once.'

He spoke with difficulty owing to his swollen tongue, and Rose, now also alarmed, dressed in all haste. ‘I don't like to leave you,' she said when she was ready to go.

‘I'll be all right,' said Magnus, and smiled bravely. ‘Don't be frightened, Rose.'

‘I'll be as quick as I can.'

Magnus nerved himself to make a fine gesture. ‘You'd better have your breakfast before you go out,' he said. ‘I can wait a little longer, I expect.'

‘I'll do no such thing!' said Rose indignantly, and shut the door behind her.

She returned with a doctor in less than half an hour.
She had found him at breakfast, and been very ill-pleased because he would not come with her till he had finished eating. The doctor was a tall stout young man with an air of great assurance. He felt Magnus's pulse, took his temperature, examined his tongue, and asked when the little sore on his lip had first appeared.

‘Four or five days ago,' said Magnus. ‘I cut myself shaving.'

The doctor nodded contentedly and began to write a prescription.

‘What's wrong with him?' asked Rose.

‘What's the matter with me?' asked Magnus in the same moment, and waited nervously for typhoid, enteric, or even leprosy.

‘Thrush,' said the doctor.

‘
What?
'

‘Thrush,' repeated the doctor.

‘But that's something that only children get. And dirty children at that,' said Magnus, who was even more taken aback than he would have been had the doctor said ‘leprosy'.

‘That's generally so,' agreed the doctor. ‘But other people get it occasionally. You are a very good example. Your mouth was probably infected from the sore on your lip.' He turned to Rose. ‘He'll have to stay in bed for a few days, Mrs Merriman. Light food only till his temperature goes down. No, it's nothing serious. You have nothing to worry about. I'll look in again. Good-bye!'

‘Thrush!' said Rose disdainfully when he had gone. ‘And you saying it was typhoid or worse!'

‘Anyway, it's damned painful. I feel damned ill,' said Magnus.

‘When I was at school,' said Rose, ‘there were two bairns that no one would sit near to, because of their heads. And I mind one day they said they were sick, and it was thrush they had. I saw their tongues myself.'

‘I don't care though every foundling, orphan, and tinker's brat in the kingdom has had it,' shouted Magnus, and choked on his words, and coughed, and choked again.

‘If you'd shown me your tongue I'd have known what was wrong with you. Let me see it now.'

‘I will not!'

‘Pull it out. Right out. It would have been better if you'd done that before, instead of frightening me with your stories of typhoid and I don't know what!'

‘I didn't mean to frighten you.'

‘Well, you did!' said Rose. ‘And now what do you want for your breakfast?'

Magnus lay in bed for three days and submitted to Rose's nursing. She was efficient in the sick-room and unfailingly attentive, but only at long intervals did she reveal any sympathy. On the third day she admitted that she did not like invalids, and having admitted it she grew more cheerful and appreciably fonder. But Magnus, whose spirit was still rueful at the thought of having been stricken down by so trivial a disease, was again humiliated. He was aware that in these three days of nursing Rose had acquired a moral advantage over him. She had found that his wisdom was impeachable and his judgment liable to error. She had been in command of the situation, and her manner had shown that she was aware of her power. He admitted his admiration for her capability, and perceived in himself a growing inclination not only to rely on her but also to enjoy such reliance. Now and again, in small matters, her maiden shyness reappeared, but generally she behaved as though she had been married for years, and though she had only once before travelled out of Orkney the fact of living in a strange hotel did not appear to disconcert her. She had, indeed, as many Orkney people have, a slight feeling of contempt for foreigners, and she could not believe that the actions and opinions of those who dwelt elsewhere had very much significance.—Magnus discovered that his reputation as a novelist, his modest fame in both England and America, impressed her only in the smallest degree.—This parochialism sometimes annoyed him, but on thinking it over he came to the conclusion that it was only an extreme example of the small nationalism he had been preaching earlier in the year, and that he had no logical complaint against it.

It was Rose who suggested they should abandon their honeymoon and go back to Orkney as soon as Magnus was able to travel. She said, very sensibly, that he was in
no condition to enjoy himself, and that a holiday without enjoyment was mere waste of money. After a little argument Magnus agreed with her—as she had made up her mind there was nothing else he could usefully do—and a few days before Christmas they slept for the first time in their new home at Mossetter.

To his amazement Rose's shyness reappeared when her friends came to visit her, and though she was efficient in other ways it was difficult to believe that she was so accomplished an actress as to present this perfect simulation of bashfulness and innocence but newly surprised. Her shyness was real, but it was no more than a blind over the window of a room, small indeed, but well-lit and furnished most orderly.

Their child was born in April after a labour that was more enervating to Magnus than to Rose. She indeed had gone about the whole business of motherhood with calmness and ease. She had worked hard and without sign of distress until the very eve of her confinement, and only once had she betrayed that instability of mind which, so Magnus had feared, was inevitably and always concurrent with pregnancy. She had never demanded strange exotic fruits, she had never turned him out of doors, nor shown a frenzied antipathy to familiar furniture. But once she did behave unreasonably, and suddenly declared, ‘I've nowhere to put my things.'

‘What things?' said Magnus.

‘All sorts of things,' said Rose irritably. ‘I must go and buy a chest of drawers.'

‘There's no room for another one.'

‘Then you must make room.'

‘But why? You have two already, and a wardrobe, and cupboards, and a wooden chest…'

‘I tell you I need a new chest of drawers,' said Rose, and took a bus to Kirkwall and bought one at an auction-sale of which she had seen the advertisement. It arrived on a lorry the next day and proved too big to go through any of the doors. It was an article of stupendous size, a
monument rather than a piece of furniture. The drawers were as big as coffins and must have been excessive even for the bed-linen of the Victorian family for whom it had been designed. With great difficulty it was carried into the barn, and Rose spent the rest of the day there looking at it. In some distress Magnus went to Peter of the Bu and told him what had happened. Peter bade him not to worry.

‘She's nesting, that's all,' he said. ‘Her mother was the same at first, only it was sofas she wanted. She bought three of them.'

And when a day or two had passed Rose no longer worried about the chest of drawers, and presently Magnus found it very useful for tools and hens' food and odd pieces of harness.

The child that was born after this model or nearly model pregnancy and this easy labour was a well-made boy weighing almost ten pounds. He fed well, slept well, and soon began to display considerable energy. He was christened Peter after Rose's father, and Magnus was extremely proud of him. As soon as he had forgotten the anxiety—his rather than hers—of Rose's confinement, he decided to have a very large family as early as possible, and become indeed the patriarch of whom, lying drowsily on the heather, he had once dreamed.

He found farming less easy than he had thought it would be. His small stock of animals had been delivered to him within a day or two of his return from the unfortunate honeymoon, and as he had bought Mossetter with the previous year's crop in the yard there was no difficulty about feeding, except that he was not quite sure how much food to give to the different beasts. But he had engaged Johnny the ploughman's boy from Midhouse to work for him, and by watching Johnny he soon learnt a great deal. He had a pair of horses—a rough, strong, ten-year-old gelding, and a mare two years younger—a cow in milk, two in calf, three yearling cattle, a couple of fostered calves, and three ewes. He bought a young sow, and Rose had her own hens. The cattle did not improve much on a diet of turnips and straw, but they seemed healthy.

Magnus took a great delight in ploughing and did it all himself. To follow the straining horses, and keep a straight
furrow, and watch the sheared earth fall, lightly crumbling, in long broken turves, was a constant pleasure. A little cloud of gulls would keep him company, and the north-east wind blew coldly, and the plough leapt like a live thing when its nose struck stone. At first his arms ached with the labour and his fore-arms were hot with pain, but in a little while his muscles strengthened and the plough seemed to run more easily and almost of its own accord. Had farming consisted merely of ploughing, hay-cutting, harvesting, and leading fine animals to the Dounby Show he would have done very well at it. But there were a hundred details to attend to, and of many of these he was, not wholly ignorant perhaps, but possessed of a merely casual knowledge.

Even when ploughing he was not always certain that he was ploughing what should be ploughed. He knew that the rotation of crops was a fundamental principle of modern agriculture, but apparently there were different systems of rotation. Peter of the Bu advocated a six-year shift, and had pointed out that his farm could be nicely divided into twelve acres of grass, four acres of cleanland crop, four acres of lea crop, four acres of turnips and potatoes, while the remaining acre would make a useful little paddock. That was all very well, but it seemed to Magnus that there were still a good many possible permutations and combinations in his acres, and as he was naturally averse from parading his ignorance he was compelled to spend considerable time talking to Peter in such a way that Peter would be led to supply the necessary information without being directly asked for it. In this he was ultimately successful, and his fields were at last ploughed, harrowed, sown, rolled, or left alone in perfect orthodoxy.

He showed a regrettable tendency, however, to buy unnecessary implements. Rose had yielded to the lure of furniture catalogues and filled the house to overflowing with chairs and tables; and Magnus was unable to resist the temptation to buy more turnip cutters, disc harrows, manure distributors, horse rakes, and mowers than he really needed. Yet these were not wholly wasted, for his neighbours borrowed them, and as he was always willing to lend what they
wanted they thought well of him and frequently helped him in return, pleasantly and unobtrusively.

By early summer he was feeling very well satisfied with himself. He had spent a lot of money and so far there had been no return except a small steady income from poultry.—Rose looked after the hens.—But that did not worry him. He was prepared to lay out more capital still before he looked for profits, and there were already masons at work extending and improving his byre and making some small additions to the house. He had decided gradually to replace his cattle with better ones, for only the cow he had bought from Peter was a really well-bred animal, and to house good beasts in a poor byre was clearly foolish. And Rose had taken advantage of the masons' presence to demand a back-kitchen and a small room where Johnny could sleep more conveniently than in the kind of cupboard which he occupied at present. Magnus offered no objection. Rose deserved well of him: she had borne a child who grew in strength from day to day, she worked hard and well, and she looked prettier than ever before. Rose could have her back-kitchen if she wanted it. Perhaps, said Magnus, she would also like a porch added to the front of the house? Rose said she would indeed. So the masons, having finished the byre, set to work and built a porch.

With all this activity to speed them the first seven or eight months of Magnus's married life passed with the semblance of unusual rapidity, and when he cut his hay in July it seemed there had been no more than a handsbreadth of time since he had yoked his horses, that now paced strongly in a ripe and yellow field, to the plough that sheared stiffly through a field all cold and black. He surveyed the neat cocks of hay, he considered the additions to his house and steading, he bent in fond admiration to tickle the fat ribs of his son: and everywhere he saw the evidence of achievement. The result of this self-satisfaction was that he began to cast about for an excuse to take a holiday: between haytime and harvest time there was little work to be done, and he felt that he required some relaxation and that his work deserved celebration.

In this mood he received an invitation that otherwise he would have ignored, for he was done with politics. The
invitation arrived in a letter from Francis Meiklejohn and consisted of a request to address the people of Scotland—or as many of them as cared to attend—on behalf of the National Party and in memory of the death of Sir William Wallace, the Scottish patriot. In the hands of the National Party, said Meiklejohn, this pious exercise had become an annual event of great importance, and this year, on the six hundred and twenty-seventh anniversary of his death, they hoped to attract even more interest than usual. Cunningham Graham and Compton Mackenzie had promised to speak: Hugh Skene, Macdonell, and other people whom Magnus knew would be there: and it was earnestly desired that Magnus himself, who had contested the by-election in Kinluce with gallantry undiminished by misfortune, would also be present. ‘Come back, like Cincinnatus from the plough, and help us once more,' said Meiklejohn. The date of the celebrations, he added, was August 23rd.

Coinciding with his holiday inclinations this request might have been successful in whatever words it had been couched, and the felicitous allusion to Cincinnatus made it irresistible. Magnus felt an impatient desire to meet again the man who could make so happy a comparison. Meiklejohn was in truth the ideal companion for his present mood. He went to Dounby and telegraphed acceptance of the invitation. Then he returned home and told Rose.

Rose was not pleased at all. She said he was a farmer now and had no time for nonsense about Sir William Wallace or anybody else who had been dead so long as that. But Magnus said that even a farmer might take an interest in the affairs of his country and told her the whole story of Cincinnatus to convince her of this. On discovering that Cincinnatus had been dead even longer than Wallace, however, Rose refused to be convinced, and for the next few days went about her work in a very bad temper. She made an unnecessary noise in the handling of pots and plates, her voice grew harsh, and, most illogically, she referred unpleasantly to the extravagance that Magnus had shown in the enlargement of his house. ‘And now you're going off to spend more money,' she said, ‘though there's not
a penny coming in except what I get for my eggs and butter!'

But disregarding her anger Magnus made preparations for his journey and, when the time came, embarked for the mainland.

Scarcely had the mail-steamer left Scapa Pier when he fell into conversation with a stout, red-faced, comfortably dressed man with watery blue eyes and a slight smell of whisky around him that was far the more perceptible because of the early hour. He said he was a farmer in Caithness. His name was Carron. It soon became evident that his farm was considerably larger than Magnus's. He seemed to own wide acres, to breed only cattle of the finest sort, and to employ a large number of men. Yet he complained bitterly that farming did not pay and that unless prices grew much better than they were—and there was little hope of that, he said—then he would assuredly be ruined in a few years' time. At Thurso he and Magnus took lunch together and grew more friendly still. Mr Carron had his motor car in Thurso, and presently he suggested that Magnus might care to come and inspect his farm. 'You would see Jupiter,' he said.

‘Jupiter?' asked Magnus.

‘The bull,' explained Mr Carron.

‘Do
you
own him?'

‘Yes, at present,' said Mr Carron. ‘But I can't afford to keep him much longer. I'd sell him tomorrow if I could get a proper price.'

Both in Midhouse and at the Bu Magnus had seen photographs in farming journals of Jupiter, and he remembered the devout words with which Peter and Willy had praised him. Jupiter was a bull of superlative virtue. He had taken the Championship Cups at the Highland Show and the Royal Northern Show. He was perfect in his kind. But though Magnus had remembered all this he had forgotten the name of the owner, and now he regarded Mr Carron with increased respect. He said that he would be very pleased to visit him and see his notable herd.

Mr Carron found his motor car and they drove a long way through the spacious melancholy of Caithness till they came
to the southern part of the county and reached a farm whose magnificence could be discerned from a great distance. Magnus was impatient to see Jupiter at once, but first he was taken into the house, which was large and cheerless, and there he and his host had another drink. Then they walked through the fields and viewed the comely black herd, every one of which filled Magnus with envy. But Mr Carron, though obviously proud of them, constantly remarked in a gloomy voice that he was sure to lose money on them. Complete gloom had descended on him, indeed, at the very moment they came within sight of the farm, and the liberal dram he had taken had done nothing to lift it. They inspected the large and handsome steading, and Magnus, thinking of Mossetter's tiny byre, marvelled exceedingly.

‘It cost far too much,' said Mr Carron. ‘I'll never be repaid for what I spent on all this.'

At last they came to Jupiter, and Magnus was silent before his glory. Never had he seen such a bull. His black hide shone like silk, his broad head and generous nostrils bespoke virility, his tail hung like a whip-lash. He was enormous and his enormity was cast in a perfect mould. From square quarters to massive shoulder he was without blemish, and the ponderous pride of his head was superb. Nor was his pride a vain thing. There was sapience, there was even benignity, in those heavy eyes. They stood a long while in admiration of Jupiter.

Then Mr Carron said it was time they went in for dinner, and when Magnus protested that he must continue his journey added, ‘You'd better stay the night here. You're not in a hurry, are you?'

‘I must get to Edinburgh tomorrow night,' said Magnus.

‘You've got plenty of time to do that.'

Magnus felt a strong disinclination to remove himself from the vicinity of Jupiter. He was fascinated by the male beauty and bred perfection of the bull, and to be able to return and gaze a little longer at this nobility he agreed to postpone his southward journey and become Mr Carron's guest.

They returned to the house and Magnus was introduced to Mrs Carron, to her daughter, to an elderly Miss Carron, and to a Mr Beith. The meal was solid and the conversation dull.
At the first opportunity he proposed to Mr Carron that they should revisit Jupiter. His host agreed, but suggested that, as there was no hurry, they might have a little whisky before they went. They had drunk whisky during dinner and some more after it, and by this time the mere emptying of a glass seemed a good excuse for refilling it. When they returned to the byre that housed Jupiter Magnus's imagination was expanded to bursting-point, tight as a Christmas balloon, with a splendid extravagant notion.