The Morning Gift (29 page)

But about the puppy it was more difficult to be charitable, especially as she had torn the lining of her dress, and Lady Plackett, hurrying down to aid her daughter, did not even make the attempt.

'What an extraordinary creature!' she said. 'Does it belong to one of the servants?'

Miss Somerville, mortified, said the puppy was going to the village carpenter on the following day and tried to catch it, but it was Quin who seized the little dog, upended it, and examined it with the intensity which zoologists devote to a hitherto undescribed species.

'Amazing!' he said, grinning at his aunt. 'Those abdominal whiskers must be unique surely? Does Barker know that he is to be the most fortunate of men?

Miss Somerville, not amused by his levity, said Barker was behind with repairs to the pews in the church and would presumably know his duty, and carried the dog from the room.

In spite of this inauspicious beginning, dinner went off well and Miss Somerville, reviewing the evening in the privacy of her bedroom, had every reason to be satisfied. Perhaps Quin's chivalry had been aroused by Verena's unfortunate descent; at any rate he was attentive and charming and Verena said everything that was proper. She admired the portrait of the Somervilles, even declaring that the Basher's face was full of character; she was able to be intelligent about farming, for her uncle in Rutland not only bred Border Leicesters but had a prize herd of Charolais cattle. And when Miss Somerville mentioned - trying to make a joke of it -Quin's intention of making the house over to the Trust, the Placketts had been as incredulous and aghast as she had hoped.

'You cannot be serious, Professor!' Lady Plackett had exclaimed. And Verena, risking a somewhat outspoken remark said: 'Forgive me, but I would feel as though I was betraying my unborn children.'

In fact Verena, throughout the evening, said all the things that Frances had been thinking. Verena was sound on the subject of refugees and had, when Quin was out of the room, expressed satisfaction that an Austrian girl in her year would not be coming up with the others later that night. She was able to trace a connection between the Croft-Ellises and the Somervilles, distant but reassuring, and what she said about the puppy was exactly what Miss Somerville herself had been thinking - it really
was
kinder in cases of this sort to drown the little things at birth.

'A very pleasant girl,' said Miss Somerville, as Martha came to bring her her bedtime cocoa.

A medieval monk bent on poverty, chastity and the subjugation of the flesh would have been entirely at home in Miss Somerville's bedroom. The window was open, letting in gusts of the damp night air, the rugs on the bare floorboards were worn, the mattress on the four-poster had been lumpy when Frances came to Bowmont and was lumpy still.

Martha agreed. 'She's made a good impression below stairs,' she said, not thinking it necessary to add that a Hottentot with small pox would have done the same if it ensured that Bowmont remained in private hands and that the servants' jobs were safe.

It was Martha who had gone with Frances to the house of her fiance on the Border, Martha who had come back after twenty-four hours and kept her peace for forty years about what had happened there - but even Martha could go too far.

'Why don't you let me get you a hot-water bottle?' she asked now, for her mistress, in spite of the success of the evening, was looking tired and drawn and the cold did nothing for her arthritis.

'Certainly not!' snapped Frances. 'On December the 1st I have a bottle and not a day earlier - you know that perfectly well.' But she allowed Martha to pick up the battered silver hair brush and brush out her sparse grey hair. 'I take it it was Elsie who let the puppy out?' she said presently.

Martha nodded. 'She's soft, that girl. It's with Comely not having anything to do with it. She hears it crying.'

'Well, see that it's taken down to Barker first thing in the morning; it nearly caused a nasty accident.'

'It'll have to be the day after. He's away over at Amble tomorrow. They're breaking up a ship and he's got some wood ordered.'

Lying in bed, her icy feet curled under her, Frances again thought how well the evening had gone - and in any case she meant to go and live in the village once Quin was married. True, Quin had not shown any particular interest in Verena, but that would come - and glad of an excuse, she picked
Pride and Prejudice
off the bedside table.
''She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt
me,' Mr Darcy had said when he first saw Elizabeth Bennet. Oh yes, there was plenty of time.

Unaware of his aunt's hopes, and deeply unconcerned with the fate of Verena Plackett, Quin stood by the window of his tower room and looked out at the ocean and the moon, continually obscured by fierce black clouds. It was still raining but the barometer was rising. It had been a risk bringing the students up so late in the year, but if Northumberland did choose to lay on an Indian summer, they would find themselves most richly rewarded. The autumn could be breathtakingly lovely here.

Quin had slept in the room at the top of the tower since his grandfather had led him there at the age of eight, a bewildered orphan in foreign clothes and a pair of outsize spectacles supposed to strengthen his eyes after an attack of measles. Separated by three flights of stairs from his nurse, laid to rest each night under the pelt of a polar bear which the Basher had shot in Alaska, Quin had gone to bed in terror -yet even then he would not have changed his eyrie for the world.

The students were due any moment now: the bus hired to fetch them from Newcastle could bump its way right down to Anchorage Bay. He'd been down earlier to check that the arrangements were in order: the stove lit in the little common room, the Bunsen burners connected to the Calor gas, the blankets in the dormitories above the lab properly aired. Everything was in hand yet he felt restless, and hardly aware of what he was doing, he picked up the guitar in the corner of the room and began to tune the strings.

Quin's guitar studies had not progressed very far. He had in fact stayed stuck on Book Two of the manual and his friends at Cambridge had always been unpleasant about his performance, putting their fingers in their ears or leaving the room. But though he could play only a few of the pieces in the book, they covered the normal range of human emotion: "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" was cheerful and outgoing; "Evening Elegy" was lyrical and romantic - and the "Mississippi Moan" was - well, a moan.

It was this piece which had particularly emptied the room when he played it at college, but Quin was much attached to it. Now, as the plaintive lament from the Deep South stole through the room, Quin realized that he had not chosen the "Moan" at random. He did in fact feel a sense of disquiet… of unease… and a few broken chords later, he realized why.

For it had to be admitted that he had not behaved well over Felton's efforts to bring Ruth to Bowmont. Roger worked ceaselessly for the students and deputized willingly for him, enduring all the boredom of committees. If he had set his heart on bringing the girl to Northumberland, Quin should have helped him. It would have been perfectly simple to work something out, nor was he in the least troubled by the disapproval of the Placketts. The truth was, he had acted selfishly, not wanting to be involved in the girl's emotionalism, her endless ability to live deep.

Well, it was done now, and the "Moan" - as it so often did - had cleared the air. Putting regret behind him, Quin moved to his desk and picked up Hackenstreicher's latest letter to
Nature.
Time to put this idiot out of his misery once and for all. Pulling the typewriter towards him, he inserted a clean sheet of paper.

Dear Sir,
he wrote,
It is perhaps worth pointing out in connection with Professor Hackenstreicher's communication
('Nature,
August 6th 1938) that his examination of a single cranial cast of Ceratopsian
Styracosaurus
scarcely warrants a rejection of Broom's reconstruction of evolution from a common stock. Not only was the cast incomplete, but its provenance is disputed by…

He was still writing as the bus passed the gates behind the house and bumped its way towards the beach.

Ruth woke very early in the dormitory above the boathouse. Everyone else still slept; Pilly, beside her, was curled up against the expected disasters of the coming day - only a few tufts of hair showed above the grey blanket. At the end of the row of bunks, Dr Elke's slumbering bulk beside the door protected her charges.

Of the previous night, Ruth remembered only the driving rain, the sudden chill as they scuttled indoors from the stuffy bus… that and the monotonous slap of the waves on the beach.

But now something had happened - and at first it seemed to her that that something was simply… light.

She dressed quickly, crept past her sleeping friends, past Dr Elke, twitching as she rode through Valhalla in her dreams, climbed down the ladder and opened the door.

'Oh!' said Ruth, and walked forward, unbelieving, bewildered… dazzled. How could this have happened overnight, this miracle? How could there be so much light, so much movement; how could everything be so terribly
there}

The sun was rising out of a silver sea - a sea which shimmered, which changed almost moment by moment. And the sky changed too as she watched it; first it was rose and amethyst, then turquoise… yet already a handful of newly fledged cotton-wool clouds waited their turn…

And the air moved too - how it moved! You didn't need to breathe, it breathed itself. It wasn't wind now, not yet, just this newly created, newly washed air which smelled of salt and seaweed and the beginning of the world.

There was too much. Too much beauty, too much air to breathe, too much sky to turn one's face to… and unbelievably too much sea. She had imagined it so often: the flat, grey, rather sad expanse of the North Sea, but this…

A shaft of brilliant light pierced the surface and caught the needle of a lighthouse on a distant island… There were fields on this ocean: patches of shining brightness, others like gunmetal and calm oases like lagoons. It never stopped
being,
the sea, she had not been prepared for that.

The tide was out. Taking off her shoes and stockings, she felt the cool, ribbed sand massaging her bare feet. There were acres of it; golden, unsullied… Moving drunkenly towards the edge of the water, she began to calm down enough to notice the inhabitants of this light-dappled world… Three heavy, ecclesiastical-looking birds diving from a rock -cormorants she thought - but could not name the narrow-winged flock whose whiteness was so intense that they seemed to be lit up from within.

Now she came to the first rock pool and here was a simpler, more containable, delight. Dr Felton had taught her well; she knew that Latin names of the anemones and brittle stars, the little darting shrimps, but this was the world of fairy tale. Here were submerged forests, miniature bays of sand, pebbles like jewels…

By the rim of the ocean, she paused and put a foot into the water, and gasped. It was like being electrocuted, so cold. Even the foam carried a charge… and then almost at once she became accustomed to it. No, that was wrong; you couldn't become accustomed to this invigorating, fierce stab of cold and cleanness, but you could want more of it and more.

I didn't know, she thought. I didn't imagine that anything could be like this, could make one feel so… purged… so clean… so alone and unimportant and yet so totally oneself. For a moment, she wanted everyone she loved to be there -her parents and Mishak and Mishak's beloved Marianne risen from the dead, to come and stand here beside the sea. But then the sky performed one of its conjuring tricks, sending in a fleet of purple clouds which moved over the newly risen sun, so that for a moment everything changed again - became swirling and dark and turbulent… and then out came the sun once more, strengthened… higher in the sky… and she thought, no, here I can be alone because there isn't any alone or not alone; there's only light and air and water and I am part of it and everyone I love is part of it, but it's outside time, it's outside needing and wanting.

It was at this point of exaltation that she noticed a small white sail and a boat coming round the point and making for the bay.

Quin too had woken at dawn and made his way to the sheltered cove by Bowmont Mill where he kept the dinghy when it was not in use. He'd been glad of an excuse to get away from the house and bring the boat round for the students; glad that the weather had lifted: the golden day was an unexpected bonus. For the rest he was without thought, feeling the wind, tending his sail…

He saw the lone figure as soon as he rounded the point and even from a distance realized that the girl, whoever she was, was in a state of bliss. The breeze whipped her hair, one hand held the folds of her skirt as she moved backwards and forwards, playing with the waves.

The obvious images were soon abandoned. This was not Botticelli's Venus risen from the foam, not Undine welcoming the dawn, but something simpler and, under the circumstances, more surprising. This was Ruth.

She stood quietly watching as he dropped his sail and allowed the dinghy to run onto the sand. It was not until she waded out to help him, pulling the boat up with each lift of the waves, that he spoke.

'An unexpected pleasure,' he said idiotically - but for Ruth the creased, familiar smile threatened for a moment the impersonality of this scoured and ravishing world. 'I didn't think you were coming.'

'My mother bullied me and Uncle Mishak. Oh, but imagine; if they hadn't. Imagine if I'd missed all this!'

'You like it?' asked Quin, who found it advisable to confine himself to banalities, for it had been disconcerting how well she had fitted the dream of those who come in from the sea: the long-haired woman waiting by the shore.

She shook her head wonderingly. 'I didn't think there could be anything like this. You lose yourself in music, but in the end music is about how to live; it comes back to you. But this… I suppose one
can
have petty thoughts here, but I don't see how.'