The Unicorn (9 page)

Ce toit tranquille, ou marchent des colombes,
Entre les pins palpite, entre les tombes;
Midi le juste y compose de feux
La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée….

‘All the people round here are related to the fairies,’ said Jamesie Evercreech.

Marian laughed.

She was in a good humour. It was a bright sunny day and the sea was the colour of amethyst. The wind had dropped. The base of the black cliffs steamed gently in the hot sun. She and Jamesie were bowling along in the Land Rover in the direction of Blackport, where they were to pick up a crate of whiskey and some clothes which had come on approval for Hannah. Jamesie, who was a keen photographer, was also going to get supplies for his camera. He had used up his last roll of colour film taking a large number of pictures of Marian on the previous day. She was partly flattered and partly unreasoningly alarmed at this attention.

Today all seemed suddenly gay and normal and Marian was quite simply delighted at the thought of a visit to civilization. To see a paved street, to buy a newspaper, to enter a shop, see ordinary people passing, these things seemed positive treats; and although the pubs were taboo, there was apparently a little fishing hotel where she could see a row of bottles and order herself a drink: old rites, familiar and greatly missed.

The last few days at Gaze had been exceptionally somnolent. She had started reading
La Princesse de Clèves
with Hannah and they had almost fallen asleep over it at eleven o’clock in the morning. The wind had been blowing, producing the aching restlessness of which Hannah had spoken. Gerald Scottow had been unobtrusively absent, had unobtrusively returned, had continued to be polite, dignified, charming and totally unapproachable. Violet Evercreech had been intense and attentive but had not yet again proposed the ‘little talk’. Alice Lejour had been silent. Marian had reflected long and vainly about why the Lejours were never mentioned at Gaze. She had scanned Riders frequently through her glasses and had once or twice seen a youngish man and a dog on the terrace. Feeling today lively and more than usually liberated from shyness, she resolved to question Jamesie about a lot of things before the journey should be out.

‘You don’t come from around here, do you? I mean, have you got fairy blood?’

‘No. I’m one of the other lot.’

‘Of course - you’re related to Mrs Crean-Smith.’

‘Distantly.’ He gave his little weird cry of a laugh.

The car descended steeply into a ravine where the road, behind a low buttressed sea-wall, almost skirted the waves. Marian felt an unpleasant thrill, almost like a sense of guilt, at the sudden proximity of the sea. She had not tried to swim again. She looked hastily inland up a hazy tree-entangled gully. A bright line of trembling light was a distant waterfall.

‘A pretty place.”

‘A rather nasty place, really. It’s called the Devil’s Causeway. There are some very funny-looking rock forms, further up, you can’t see from here.’ He added, ‘Something dreadful happened there on the night of the flood.’

‘What?’

“That little river you saw, like our river at Gaze, came suddenly roaring down from the bog and carried away a car from the road and threw it into the sea and everyone was drowned.’

‘How awful. Were you here when the flood happened?’

‘No. But Mr Scottow was.’

‘How long has he been here?’

‘Seven years.’

‘I suppose there’s no danger of it happening again, something like that?’

‘Oh no. The lake had gone, you see. You must go up on the bog sometime, to the edge anyhow. It’s pretty up there in a funny way. The local people are frightened of it, of course. They only go there in broad daylight to cut turf. Then if the sky becomes at all overcast they run. The bog certainly turns very queer colours.’

T expect they think their relations live there!’

‘I expect they
do
live there. I wouldn’t go up there in the dark myself for any money. There are strange lights. Anyway, unless you know the paths you can sink into it. There are brushwood paths, but you can get sucked down. A man was sunk in the bog two years ago. They heard him calling all night, but no one could get near him and he sunk in and died.’

Marian shuddered not only at the tale but at some relish in Jamesie’s telling of it. The boy was not all sunshine.

‘I suppose Denis Nolan is a local man?’

‘Yes, he’s one of them. He’s not really here at all. He’s one of the invisible ones. We call him the invisible man. His father was a gillie at Riders.’

‘At Riders, really? I met Miss Lejour the other day. She said she’d invite me over to Riders when someone called Effingham Cooper arrived.’

‘That’ll be a treat! Was she very full of Effingham Cooper?’

‘Well, now that I come to think of it she did mention his name quite a number of times. Are they - engaged, or something?’

Jamesie laughed shrilly. ‘Not at all. Though I expect she wanted you to think sol She’s been making herself a fool about Effingham Cooper for years, everyone knows it. And he doesn’t care for her at all.’

Marian was interested. She wanted to keep the conversation on Riders. ‘Then why does he come here?’

‘For the old man. But mainly - oh, mainly for Mrs Crean-Smith.’ Jamesie cackled again.

Marian was very interested. She did not want to seem too curious or to want to gossip with Jamesie about Hannah, but she could not resist saying casually, T suppose Mrs Crean-Smith is a widow?’

‘No. Mr Crean-Smith lives in New York.’ Jamesie smiled his wide brilliant smile at the empty road and accelerated.

‘Are they - divorced?’

‘No, no.’ He went on smiling and darted a quick look at her.

Marian was disturbed by his provocative enjoyment of her curiosity. She said, to change the subject and because the information had seemed for some reason interesting, ‘You say Mr Scottow came to this region seven years ago?’

‘Oh no. He came to Gaze Castle seven years ago. He’s been in the region almost all his life. He’s a local man too. He was born in the village. His mother still lives there.’

‘Really!’ said Marian. She was very surprised and somehow disconcerted. Yet at the next moment the figure of Gerald Scottow appeared in her imagination more fascinating and mysterious than ever. So he too had fairy blood.

‘Yes. He’s quite the gent now, isn’t he?’ said Jamesie. ‘He likes to keep his old ma dark!’ He giggled, seeming to enjoy the revelation. Yet it had also seemed to Marian that he was very fond of Scottow.

Jamesie went on. ‘His da worked at Riders like Denis’s da. Only Denis stayed on there and Gerald went off to town and got grand.’

‘Oh, Denis worked at Riders?’ Any connexion with the other house was a matter of concern.

‘Yes. Till they chucked him out!’

‘What did they chuck him out for?’

‘Shall I tell you? Yes I will! He jumped on Miss Lejour one day.’ Jamesie laughed so much that the car swerved.

‘Jumped
on her?’

‘Yes. Tried to mount her you know. He was with her up at the salmon pool. There used to be salmon up there. And suddenly he sprung on her. Not a thing I’d do, though I suppose she was prettier then. It’s not so very long ago though. After that they were afraid for the maids and everything and they asked him to leave.’

‘How very surprising,’ said Marian. It was surprising. She could not at all picture the subdued and gloomy Denis doing any such thing. He had not the look of a satyr. He was like a wild thing that hides, not a wild thing that pursues. Perhaps that explained the resentful yet penitential air which he carried about with him. It added a new interest to his image, however. She wondered if Mrs Crean-Smith was ever afraid of being ‘jumped on’.

‘This is the best view-place,’ said Jamesie. He slowed down abruptly and turned the car off the road. There was a sudden silence and they both got out into the warm sunshine. The cliff edge was near and they walked towards it.

It was a clear day. The sea, at the horizon a hazier blue, faded away into azure light and became sky. To the north the bastions of limestone were a dark purple. To the south the land sloped now and the cliffs had ended. A few scattered cabins and tiny walled fields lined with blazing fuchsia appeared on the seaward shelves. Then there was the little harbour of Black-port with its yellow and black lighthouse and a cluster of sails and a long green headland beyond. Here the landscape was gentle, ordinary, human. It was the end of the appalling land.

Marian had been absorbed for some time in the delight of looking when she realized that Jamesie was staring at her. After a moment she looked at him quickly. Some significant unsmiling message passed between them. She went back to gazing, but now the scene was invisible.

Jamesie continued to stare. She was aware of his face. He said at last in a deeper voice. ‘I’ve never known a woman like you. You’re different. You’re real. Like a man.’ Marian was both unnerved and pleased at the unexpected change of key. No woman minds such a sudden disarming of her traditional adversary. She became tense and still, realizing that in a moment he might touch her. She had not expected this. She said quickly and lightly, ‘Well, I hope that’s all right!’

‘Very all right. You’ll make a difference.’

To what? Marian wondered. She smiled vaguely and moved a little forward away from him toward the edge of the cliff. The sense of the sheer drop below suddenly pierced her body. She began to hear the far-off beating of the sea. She fell almost involuntarily upon her knees.

Jamesie knelt beside her. It was like a strange rite. She felt the rough sleeve of his coat touch her bare arm. She felt giddy

and alarmed and said at random, ‘See, what a dreadfully long way down. One could not go over there and live.’

He said something which she could not catch.

‘What?’

‘I said Peter Crean-Smith did.’

‘What?’

‘Fell over the cliff and lived. Seven years ago.’

Marian turned to him. He was looking at her with a kind of delight. The cliff seemed to shake with the heart-beats of the sea. She began to say something.

‘Hello you two, what are you up to?’

Jamesie and Marian both jumped to their feet, jerking away from each other, and stumbled back from the cliff edge.

Gerald Scottow, mounted on a massive grey horse, was close behind them. The pounding of the sea had covered his approach. Marian felt, at the sight of him, a mixture of guilt, excitement and relief.

Jamesie went toward Scottow and stood at his horse’s head, looking at him. There was a sort of confiding submissive surrender in the immediate close approach. Marian followed more slowly.

Scottow mounted looked huge. He was casually dressed, his check shirt lolling open from his long thick neck. But his riding-boots were bright with polish. She smelt their sweet resinous leathery smell as she came near him now. She was glad that Jamesie had not touched her.

Scottow and Jamesie were still regarding each other. Scottow said, ‘Have you been telling fairy stories?’ He laughed and brushed the boy’s cheek lightly with his whip.

‘That suits yon, Marian, look!’ said Hannah. She held up the big hand-mirror which they had brought out with them on to the terrace.