The Morning Gift

Chapter 17

Quin had never had any fault to find with the behaviour of the people who worked at Bowmont, but as he drove through the village and up the hill, it seemed to him that everyone was in an unusually genial and benevolent mood. In spite of the rain driving in from the sea, Mrs Carter who kept the post office, the blacksmith at the forge and old Sutherland at the lodge, came out to smile and wave and several times as he stopped, his hand was shaken with a cordiality which seemed to hint at some particular pleasure lying in store for him in which they shared.

‘But you’ll be wanting to get along today,’ said Mrs Ridley at the farm when they had exchanged a few friendly words. ‘You’ll not be wanting to waste any more time, not today.’

Arriving at the house, he found Turton in a similar mood. The butler called him Master Quinton, a throwback to some twenty years ago and told him, beaming with good will, that drinks would be served in the drawing room in half an hour, giving him plenty of time to change.

This alone indicated more formality than Quin usually permitted, for he made it clear that when he came for the field course, he was here to work, but as he went inside he found further signs that all was not as usual. The hall at Bowmont, with its arbitrary collection of broadswords, incomprehensible tapestries and a weasel which the Basher had stuffed, but without success, was not a place in which anybody lingered. Today, though, in spite of his aunt’s conviction that warmth inside the house spelled softness and decay, the ancient deposit of pine cones in the grate had been replaced by a fire of brightly burning logs, and though flowers were seldom cut and brought indoors, Frances preferring to let her plants grow unmolested, the Chinese vase on the oak chest was filled with dahlias and chrysanthemums.

But it was his aunt’s attire as she came forward to welcome him, that confirmed his fears. Frances always changed for dinner, which meant that she replaced her lumpy tweed skirt by a slightly longer one of rusty silk — but there was one outfit which for decades had signalled a special occasion: a black chenille dress whose not noticeably plunging neckline was covered with an oriental shawl. It was this that she was wearing now, and Quin’s last hope of a quiet evening to prepare for his students vanished.

‘You look very splendid,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Do we have visitors?’

‘You know we do,’ said Aunt Frances, coming forward to give him her customary peck on the cheek. ‘I wrote to you. They’ll be down in a minute — you just have time to change.’

‘Actually, I don’t know, Aunt Frances! I’ve come straight from Yorkshire. What did you write?’

Aunt Frances frowned. She had hoped that Quin would come prepared and joyful. ‘That I’ve invited the Placketts. Verena and her mother.’ And as Quin remained silent: ‘I knew Lady Plackett as a girl — surely she told you? We were together at finishing school.’

She looked at Quin and felt a deep unease. The signs of displeasure were only too familiar to her after twenty years of guardianship: Quin’s nose was looking particularly broken, his forehead had crumpled into craters of the kind seen on pictures of the moon.

‘Verena’s one of my students, Aunt Frances. It would be very wrong for me to treat her in a way that is different from the rest.’

Relief coursed through Aunt Frances. It was fear of seeming to single Verena out that was holding him back, nothing more.

‘Well, of course I see that, and so does she. In fact she’s said already that she expects no special treatment while you are working out of doors, but Lady Plackett is a friend — it would be very strange for me to refuse to entertain her daughter.’

Quin nodded, smiled — and the devastated features recomposed themselves into that of a personable man. Already he felt compunction: Aunt Frances must have been lonelier than he realized if she could contemplate entertaining the Placketts. Perhaps it had all been a mask, her unsociability, her stated desire to be alone — and he wondered, as he had not done for a long time, just how hurt she had been over her rejection on the Border all those years ago.

‘That’s all right, I’m sure it’ll all work out splendidly. I’d better go and change.’

But before he could make his way to the tower, he heard, somewhere above him, a cough. It was not a shy tentative cough, it was a clarion cough signalling an intention — and Quin, searching for its source, now saw a figure standing on the upstairs landing.

Verena, who had read so much, had also read that no man can resist the sight of a beautiful woman descending a noble staircase. She had watched Quin’s arrival out of her bedroom window and now, gowned simply but becomingly in bottle-green Celanese, she placed one hand on the carved banister, gathered up her skirt, and while her mother waited unselfishly in the shadows, began to make her way downstairs.

The descent began splendidly. Not only the long back, the long legs of the Croft-Ellises came to her aid, but the training she had received before her presentation at court. Verena, who had kicked her diamanté-encrusted train backwards with unerring aim as she retreated from Their Majesties, could hardly fail to walk with poise and dignity towards her host.

The first flight was accomplished and Quin stood as she had expected, his head thrown back, watching. She was not quite ready yet to utter the words she had prepared, but almost. ‘You cannot imagine what a pleasure it is to be in Bowmont after all we have heard of it,’ was what she planned to say.

But she didn’t say it. She didn’t, in fact, say anything coherent. For someone — and Aunt Frances was beginning to suspect the second housemaid whose father was a Socialist — had once more opened a door.

The puppy was not primarily interested in Verena, it was Aunt Frances that he desired, but as he passed the staircase, the mountaineering thirst which had sent him dashing at the running board of the Buick reasserted itself. With a growl of aspiration, he gathered himself together and leapt, managing to reach the bottom step at the same time as Verena completed her descent.

Verena did not tread the puppy underfoot, nor did she fall flat on her face. Anyone else would have done so, but not Verena. She did, however, stumble badly, throw out an arm, stagger — and land in disarray on her knees.

Quin, of course, was beside her in an instant to help her up — and to lead her to a chair where, being a Croft-Ellis, she at once made light of her mishap.

‘It is nothing,’ she said, as brave British girls in school stories have said for generations, spraining their ankles, biting their lips as they are carried away on gates.

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 smallpox 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 fiancé 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.

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 boat-house. 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 the 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.’

The dingy was beached now. Quin took a rope from the bows and tied it round a jagged rock — and together they made their way towards the boathouse. Since she had walked in a trance towards the rim of the sea, Ruth had never once looked backwards to the land. Now she stopped dead and said: ‘Oh, what is that? What is that place?’

‘What do you mean?’ Quin, at first, didn’t understand the question.

‘Up there. On the cliff. That building.’

‘That? Why, surely you know? That’s Bowmont.’

Ruth was unlucky. She could have seen it in driving rain or in winter when the wind blew so hard that no one had time to look upwards. She could have seen it, as many had, when a shipwreck brought weeping women to the shore, or on a day when the notorious ‘fret’ made it no more than a threatening, looming shape. But she saw it on a halcyon morning and she saw it, almost, from the sea. She saw it — half home, half fortress — with the pale limestone of its walls turned to gold and the white horses licking softly against the cliffs it guarded. Gulls wheeled over the tower, and the long windows threw back the dazzle of the sun.

‘You said it was a cold house on a cliff,’ said Ruth when she could speak again.

‘So it is. You’ll see when you come to lunch on Sunday.’

Ruth shook her head. ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘I shan’t be coming to lunch on Sunday. Nor on any other day.’

It was Kenneth Easton who had told the students that Verena would not be coming to the boathouse.

‘She’s staying up at Bowmont,’ he said as the train steamed out of King’s Cross Station. ‘The Somervilles have invited her.’ And as they stared at him: ‘It’s only natural — her family and the Professor’s belong to the same world. It’s what you’d expect.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ Sam had said staunchly. ‘It’s not like the Professor to single one student out.’

‘Lady Plackett’s going to be there as well. She and the Professor’s aunt are old friends. And there’s going to be a dance for Verena’s birthday. The Somervilles insisted,’ said Kenneth, well briefed in Verena’s version of events.

For Pilly and Janet, the thought that they wouldn’t have to share a dormitory with Verena came as a welcome relief, but Ruth had been silent for a while, staring out at the flat, rain-sodden fields. Quin’s story and hers was over — yet it had hurt a little that in spite of what he had said about Verena, he cared for her after all.

It had not taken her long to school her thoughts and tell herself how little this concerned her, but she meant what she said about not coming to lunch. Exaltation was one thing, but seeing Verena Plackett lording it in the house which, if this had been a proper marriage, would have been her home, was quite another.

One could expect only so much uplift, even from the sea.

Pilly had come closest in the speculations about Verena’s pyjamas. They were blue and mannish, but elasticated at the ankle for she wore them to do her exercises.

Verena always exercised with vigour, but this morning her press-ups had a particular élan and her thighs scissored the air with a special purpose, for she had decided, if all went as she hoped and she became Mrs Somerville, to accompany Quin on his expeditions, and fitness now was imperative.

Her window took in a view of the bay and the boat-house where the other students still slept. Verena had no objection to the laboratory; as Quinton’s helpmeet and fellow researcher, she approved of a field station so close to the house, but the bringing up of students would not be encouraged. Quin’s future, it seemed to her, lay more in some role like President of the Royal Society or head of an institute — it was surely a waste of time for such a man to spend time in teaching.

Next door, Lady Plackett heard the familiar bumps and thumps with satisfaction. Her daughter had made an excellent impression the night before and she herself, encouraged by the warmth of her welcome, had decided to stay for the duration of the field course so as to help in the preparations for Verena’s dance. As for Miss Somerville — whom she had heard spoken of as unsociable to a degree — her friendliness was now explained. If her nephew really was contemplating giving his home away, it would be very much in her interest to see him married, and to a girl who would not permit such folly.

At a quarter to eight precisely, Verena and Lady Plackett descended and were greeted with relief by their hostess. Neither of them wore fur coats or asked about central heating, and though Miss Somerville made a suitable enquiry about the night they had passed, she realized at once that it was superfluous.

‘Verena always sleeps well,’ said Lady Plackett, and Verena, with a calm smile, agreed.

Comely now arrived, and the old Labrador with a white muzzle, and they were permitted by Verena to wag their tails at least half a dozen times before being requested to ‘Sit!’ which they instantly did. Her credentials as a dog lover established, she moved over to the sideboard where she helped herself to bacon, sausages and scrambled eggs.

‘Verena never puts on weight,’ commented Lady Plackett fondly, and Miss Somerville saw that this might be so. ‘All the Croft-Ellises can eat as much as they wish without putting on an ounce.’

But as they progressed to toast and marmalade, it was natural to enquire about the Professor. ‘Has he breakfasted already?’ Verena asked.

‘Quin just has coffee over in his rooms. He’s gone to Bowmont Cove to fetch the dinghy.’

The Placketts exchanged glances. If Quin was going to keep himself to himself in the tower and creep off to the boathouse at dawn, it might be necessary for Verena to change her routine.

Since work on the first day was not due to begin until 9.30, the Placketts accepted an invitation to look round the rest of the house which, arriving late the previous afternoon, they had not yet explored. Politely admiring everything they saw, they had the added satisfaction of being able to make comparisons. In the library, Verena was able to point out that her Croft-Ellis uncle also owned a set of Bewick woodcuts which were, perhaps, a little more extensive, and in the morning room Lady Plackett was reminded of the petit-point stool covers which her grandmother had stitched when she first came to Rutland as a bride.

‘In no way better than these, dear Miss Somerville, though the Duchess asked if she could copy them.’

A tour of the grounds followed. Crossing the lawn and the bridge over the ha-ha, they passed the door of the walled garden and Miss Somerville asked if they would like to see it.

‘Ah yes,’ said Lady Plackett. ‘It’s well known, isn’t it? Of course we have a famous walled garden in Rutland too, as you probably know.’

Miss Somerville resisted the impulse to say that there was nowhere like her walled garden, and opened the door. She always wanted to put her finger to her lips when she did this, but Verena and Lady Plackett had already begun to admire, in loud, clear voices, the garden’s lay-out, though Verena was able to point out a spot of canker on the stem of a viburnum which she thought might interest Elke Sonderstrom.

But though she endeavoured to conceal it, Verena was growing restive.

‘I mustn’t be late for work,’ she said laughingly. The idea of Professor Somerville already mingling with the students was not attractive; she had particularly wanted to arrive in his company and make clear her special status as a house guest. ‘I’ll have to go and get my things.’

‘We’ll go in round the front,’ said Miss Somerville, never able to resist a little early-morning viewing through her binoculars.

Lady Plackett’s praise of the view from the sea terrace was warm enough to satisfy even Miss Somerville, but Verena, as she requested for a moment the loan of Miss Somerville’s binoculars, seemed for some reason to be displeased.

‘How extraordinary,’ she said, fixing her eyes on two people standing together by the edge of the sea. One was Professor Somerville, looking unfamiliar in a navy sweater and rubber boots. The other was a girl, barefooted, with wind-blown, tossing hair. And to her mother: ‘Unless I’m mistaken, Miss Berger has managed to get herself up here after all. I wonder what strings she pulled to achieve that?’

Lady Plackett took the binoculars. Her sight was less keen than her daughter’s but she too agreed that the girl was Ruth. She turned to Miss Somerville. ‘This is unfortunate,’ she said. ‘And quite irregular. The girl is a Jewish refugee who seems to think that she is entitled to every sort of privilege.’

‘One must not belittle her, of course,’ said Verena, anxious to be fair. ‘She works extremely hard. She is a waitress in a café in the north of London.’

‘They say she brings in all sorts of trade,’ said Lady Plackett meaningfully.

Miss Somerville sighed. She took back her binoculars, but she did not put them to her eyes. If there was one thing she did not wish to examine so early in the morning, it was a Jewish waitress on Bowmont beach.