Poverty Castle (30 page)

Peggy crept off to the chair in the corner. It was going to be an ordeal but if she said nothing and kept out of the way she could thole it. She had discovered though that she had a great deal more pride than she had thought. She might have difficulty in subduing it, if any of them, Nigel most likely, tried deliberately to humiliate her.

She should have avoided alcohol lest it made her talkative, but when Edwin brought her a sherry she took it, encouraged by his friendly grin.

Sir Edwin proposed a toast. ‘To the Sempill ladies, as bonny a bunch of gals as a man could ever wish to see in his house. Especially you, my dear.' That was said to Mrs Sempill. ‘I am sure none of your daughters will be offended if I say you are the bonniest of all.'

His wife was offended. What she was drinking couldn't have been vinegar, though her expression couldn't have been sourer if it had.

The compliment, alas, caused Mama to forget her promise to be discreet.

‘Thank you, Sir Edwin,' she cried. ‘If I am blooming it is because, as you know, I am going to have another child, a boy this time.'

The Sempills waited apprehensively, not knowing what Mama might say next. None of them, not even Diana, looked cross with her. They loved her too much.

The Camptons reacted more individually. Sir Edwin was delighted, though he might not have been able to say why, for if his own wife had just said she was pregnant he would have been appalled, especially as, Peggy suspected, they had long ago given up what produced pregnancy. Lady Campton sulked, though she too couldn't have said why, for the only time she looked happy was when she was gazing at Nigel,
her
baby. Lady Angela was lewdly amused and told Horatio so. Nigel showed himself to be a prude as well as a prig, by scowling in disgust. Evidently like Sir Thomas Browne he would have preferred human beings to propagate like trees, without any messy contact.

‘I would have thought,' said Lady Angela, ‘that you were a bit too old for the breeding game. Like darling Horatio. He used to sire champions, you know.'

‘I am the happiest woman in the world,' said Mrs Sempill.

‘May I say you look it, dear lady?' cried Sir Edwin.

‘Thank you, Sir Edwin. I feel young again. It is as if my whole body is being renewed. Look, Lady Angela, hardly a wrinkle.' She stroked her cheek and neck.

Her daughters who knew she was being brave as well as proud smiled at her with love and then frowned at Lady Angela with indignation. Even gentle Rebecca was indignant.

The dining-room was worse-lit and not much warmer. The table could have accommodated twenty with room to spare, so fourteen, Horatio being allowed to avoid unlucky thirteen, had either to be crowded cosily at one end or spaced out. Lady Campton had opted for the latter arrangement, for some reason of her own. The guests were not permitted to sit where they wished. Lady Angela was placed between Edwin and Diana, to the former's chagrin. Peggy herself had Nigel as her nearest neighbour. She wondered why, never guessing that it had been his suggestion. She didn't mind. It wasn't every day she had dinner with, at her elbow, a baronet's son. She might want to boast about it to her children one day, pointing out to them that it outdid walking on the moon.

The stony-faced maid and a footman attended the table. Had the butler been left in England or couldn't the rich afford butlers any more?

It was no banquet. The food reminded Peggy of that served at Sonia's wedding: meagre portions, fancily dressed-up, and tepid. There was, however, plenty of wine.

At the outset Nigel called to his mother. ‘Shouldn't we say grace, Mother?'

‘Don't be silly, Nigel. You know we never say grace.'

‘Neither do we,' said Mr Sempill.

‘But perhaps Miss Gilchrist's people do?'

‘They don't,' said Peggy.

He lowered his voice: ‘I was under the impression that Scots of the lower orders were all Calvinists.'

She lowered hers: ‘Just as I was under the impression that the English of the higher orders were well mannered.'

First goal to me, she thought.

She let her wine glass be filled. She needed all the help she could get.

Horatio was eating off Lady Angela's plate. Peggy's mother would have been horrified.

‘What's so amusing?' asked Nigel.

‘It's private.'

‘It's not the done thing, you know, to indulge in private thoughts on a public occasion.'

She looked about her and saw that others too were having private thoughts. Lady Campton's seemed to involve Peggy, judging from the looks she was giving her. The Sempill girls were unusually quiet: they still hadn't forgiven Lady Angela, who didn't give a damn. Mrs Sempill seemed to be in a dwam. She didn't look all that young.

Sir Edwin and Mr Sempill at opposite ends of the table had begun a conversation or rather an argument about the names of their houses. Sir Edwin contended that if Ardmore could be changed to Poverty Castle then Kilcalmonell House could be changed to Kilcalmonell Castle. There already was a Kilcalmonell Castle, said Mr Sempill. Just a heap of old stones, said Sir Edwin. They were both quite tipsy.

‘Isn't it extraordinary,' whispered Nigel, ‘that a girl from your background should be at University, even if it is red brick?'

‘What do you mean, my background?'

‘Are you not from the working class? Proud of it too, I've been told.'

‘Glasgow University is not red brick. It was founded in 1451. It isn't extraordinary. Not in Scotland. It's a tradition here for clever young men and nowadays clever young girls to go to University, whatever their position in society. As a nation the Scots have always been more democratic that the English. At school we laughed at
Look Back In Anger
. All that fuss about a working-class man with a degree. In Scotland they've always been ten-a-penny.'

Lady Campton was looking puzzled. Nigel seemed to be quite interested in that awful little girl.

Edwin was casting lovelorn glances at Diana, past snarling Horatio.

‘Isn't my brother an ass?' asked Nigel.

‘Yes, but a nice ass. Is that oxymoron?' The wine was beginning to talk. ‘I had a teacher once who was daft about figures of speech. He made us learn them all. Oxymoron, synecdoche, paronomasia, metonymy, and the rest. I bet you couldn't give me an example of synecdoche.'

‘Are you trying to pull my leg?'

‘Succeeding too.'

During dessert – ice-cream and tinned peaches – he leaned towards her. ‘Tell me, Miss Gilchrist, are you a virgin?'

She giggled. ‘To tell the truth Mr Campton, I'm not sure.'

She had gone one Sunday afternoon with Tom Moncrieff, founder of the Anti-Titles Society, in a borrowed car to Loch Lomond. All she had wanted was to admire the bonny banks but he was determined to fill her empty life, not to mention her womb. She had kept remembering her mother's admonition: ‘Time enough for that nonsense when you're married.' Tom had complained about her lack of co-operation. He had got her tights and panties down and was poking at her when an old woman wearing a white woolly hat had knocked on the car window with her stick.

Meanwhile, Sir Edwin and Mr Sempill were having another argument. Sir Edwin had been informed by a member of his club – ‘fellow in a responsible position in the Government' – that if the distances were properly measured it would be found that most of the North Sea oil fields were in English, not Scottish, waters. Like most people Sempill made the mistake of forgetting that the world was round not flat. After dinner, if Sempill was game, they could go to the library where there was a globe.

Peggy and no one else could tell if Sir Edwin was joking. Perhaps he didn't know himself. That dubious jocularity, she thought, so peculiar to the English ruling class had brought them an Empire. So often they had proclaimed jovially to the
citizens of this or that country that they would be much better off under English rule. While they were laughing at the joke they were taken over. It had happened to the Scots in 1707, with some help from the venal Scots' nobility.

She turned round. Nigel was staring at her. ‘Do you know,' he whispered, ‘you and I are alike.'

She was astonished. Given a minute she could have named a dozen differences. The wine wasn't just talking in him, it was havering. ‘How do you make that out?' she asked.

‘You are always on your own. So am I.'

She was about to say, speak for yourself, and point out that she had her parents, her brother, her sister-in-law, her neighbours, and her University acquaintances, but of course he was right. The private and ambitious Peggy Gilchrist had been alone since birth.

She would have thought though that he had plenty of friends. Surely he wasn't awful to everybody? If he was he deserved some credit for consistency.

After dinner Edwin offered to show the Sempill girls and Peggy round the house, but just when they were about to set off Mrs Sempill felt ill. Mr Sempill had to be summoned from the library.

Edwin was the only one who came out to wave them off. Peggy felt sorry that Nigel hadn't appeared to say goodbye. It wasn't likely she would ever see or hear from him again.

When they got back to Poverty Castle, Mama fainted when being helped out of the car and had to be carried into the house. An outsider might have suspected that she had had too much to drink and found it rather funny, but her family and Peggy, who had been made one of them, knew differently and were very upset.

 

A
N EXTRACT
from a letter from the novelist's wife to her daughter. ‘He's absolutely worn out but refuses to rest. When I tell him that it doesn't matter a button whether or not he finishes his book – all his previous ones having been more or less ignored – do you know what he says? That it isn't simply a matter of finishing a book, it has to do with not leaving his characters in the lurch. No doubt he's being ironical as he often is, but he's serious too. He really does think he has a responsibility to those people who don't exist. It's useless telling him they don't exist. He just says I give them existence by denying their existence. I haven't looked at his manuscript for some time, so God knows what's happening to his precious Sempills.

Another thing, he now wants to be buried in Kilmory cemetery; Kilcalmonell in his book. You know how he's always said he wanted to be cremated, with as little fuss as possible. Yet he now asks to be buried in a place at least a hundred miles from here, at the back of beyond, when there's a perfectly suitable cemetery in Dunoon just eight miles away, not to mention another very picturesque one at Inverchaolin even nearer, though it's a kirkyard and the minister might have objections to an atheist being buried in it. I suppose I could promise for the sake of peace, and then do the sensible thing and have him buried locally or cremated. How could it matter to him? He believes there's nothing at all after death. But I couldn't do that, so if he doesn't change his mind again he'll get his wish and be buried in Kilcalmonell or Kilmory I should say. After all, that's where his parents are buried. Would you come, Morag? I'd very much like you to but considering the distance and
expense I would understand if you didn't. So would he. He doesn't want anyone else to be there. If I'm alone, except for the gravediggers and undertaker I don't think I could stand it. It would be like a scene in one of his books. Only he would have made it in some way funny! After forty years of marriage I still don't know him. I can't forgive him either for during his last weeks giving far more time to these characters of his, these Sempills, than to me. You never thought your mother was such a crybaby, did you?'

D
IANA AND
the twins, seeing Peggy off on Dunoon pier, had promised to send her a postcard from Spain, but weeks went by without her hearing from them. She was more disappointed than she would admit, even to herself. In the supermarket she proved so dexterous and quick on the uptake that her mother and some of the other women who worked there advised her to make it her career and forget the University. Weren't they always reading about people with degrees who couldn't get jobs? She could easily work her way up to be a manageress and earn more money than most schoolteachers. It was more interesting too, meeting real people instead of reading about imaginary or dead ones in books.

Sonia had her baby, a boy, and every day pushed him in a second-hand pram to her mother-in-law's where she breast fed him and changed his nappies while Auntie Peggy read
Civilisation On Trial
.

Then one day towards the end of August she came home from work and found a postcard waiting for her. It was from Spain and showed a view of orange groves against the background of a thumb-shaped mountain. On the back Effie had scribbled: ‘Enjoying our holiday here, in a village called Jesus Pobre (Poor Jesus!) We all send our love.' That was all. There was no mention of Mama.

Sonia took it and read it without asking permission. Postcards weren't private, she said.

‘Huh! Enjoying their holiday, are they? It was mean of them not asking you to go with them, Peggy.'

‘They knew I would be working.'

‘You'd have thought, wi' that big hoose lying empty they'd have offered it to us for a holiday.'

‘It's not empty. Mrs McDougall their housekeeper will be living in it and looking after the animals.'

Peggy often revisited Poverty Castle in her imagination. She remembered with particular pleasure the ceremony, that was Mr Sempill's word for it, when he carved her name on the trunk of the rowan tree, among the names of his family. It was, Effie had said, the equivalent of Red Indians mixing blood. Edwin was the only other person outside the family to be given the honour. They had all watched Papa carving and when he was finished had applauded.

About two weeks later another postcard came, not from Spain this time but Greece. It had a picture of the Acropolis in Athens. On the back was neatly written: ‘Give us this day our daily bread.' The sender's name wasn't given. It had been sent her care of Poverty Castle, and at the foot was a note from Effie saying that they thought it must be from Nigel who was on holiday in Greece. They had no idea what the message meant. Was it some kind of code?