The Baker’s Daughter (13 page)

“I must get on now,” said Sandy, interrupting the lecture. “I'm just wasting time here. I'll walk across the hills and get the train at Langtown.”

“Have you got money for your fare?” she inquired.

“Yes,” said Sandy shortly. He was annoyed with Sue for mentioning money, for it reminded him of the unpleasant scene at the shop. It was a scene he wished to forget.

Sue was surprised at his reply, for she had never known Sandy to refuse money. “But, Sandy—” she began.

“Don't fuss,” he said. “I'm not a child. I know what I'm doing. It will be grand to be on my own and not have people after me from morning to night nosing into my affairs. I don't mean you,” he added generously. “You've always been decent to me.”

“Oh, Sandy, I don't like you going like this.”

“It's the only way. Father's determined to have me in the bakery, and I couldn't stand it. I want a man's life. I want to travel about and see the world.”

He was feeling a man already, for his little talk with Sue had encouraged him tremendously. It was not so much what she had said to him but what he had said to her. No longer did he feel a fugitive from justice but a bold adventurer setting forth to make his fortune. He saw himself leading a forlorn hope against overwhelming odds and could almost hear the plaudits of his comrades and the quiet commendation of the Colonel. “Pringle is the sort of fellow we want,” the Colonel would say. “He must have a commission—perhaps I should recommend him for the VC.” They would all be sorry then, thought Sandy—sorry for the mean way they had treated him.

Buoyed up by these dreams of the future, Sandy said good-bye to Sue, crossed the river, and set off at a good pace up the hill. He paused once or twice and waved to her, and Sue waved back.

No sooner had Sandy vanished than Sue began to regret her part in the interview. He had taken her so by surprise that she had absolutely lost her wits.
I should have asked him if they had a row
, thought Sue,
and why on earth didn't he take his coat—he'll be starved with cold before he gets to Edinburgh—and it's Saturday too. What will he do when he gets there if the recruiting office is shut? And I wonder if he's thought of this for long—maybe it's just one of his sudden hare-brained schemes. Oh dear!

She was still standing on the path, thinking it all over and wondering whether she had been mad to encourage Sandy in his plan, when she saw Darnay approaching. He waved and beckoned to her, and she turned to meet him.

“Your father's here,” he said. “I'm afraid it's trouble for you, Miss Bun.”

“Trouble?” she asked, taking care not to meet his eyes.

“It's about Sandy,” Darnay explained. “Your father's furious. He says Sandy took a pound note out of the till and disappeared.”

“What!” cried Sue aghast. “He took…money?”

“It's all right,” said Darnay, seizing her arm and trying to comfort her with the first words that came to his lips. “Sandy's only a child. Don't worry too much…”

“Worry!” she cried.

“I know how you feel,” declared Darnay, and indeed, it was true, for he knew his Miss Bun inside out by this time.

“Nobody knows how I feel,” she murmured faintly.

“I know,” he said. “You feel it's the end of the world because he stole money out of the till, but the boy was in some sort of trouble, I'm sure of that. I felt certain that he was in trouble… I ought to have done something about it.”

“There's no excuse—”

“Oh, but there is,” Darnay interrupted. “There's every excuse. Sandy isn't like you, and you mustn't judge him by your standards. Your father should never have had a sensitive son.” He had been talking rather wildly, for Sue's distress had frightened him; her face was as white as chalk, her whole body trembling. He saw now that she was a little comforted by his words. “Sit down for a minute,” he continued. “We must go back and talk to your father, but there's no hurry.”

“You're kind,” she said, looking up at him gratefully, “but why should you have all this…bother? You had better let me go back myself.”

“Perhaps you're right,” admitted Darnay thoughtfully. “Perhaps you should see him alone. It's nothing to do with me, and I don't want to meddle with your affairs. Go back yourself and see what he has to say—don't talk, but just listen. I have a feeling that his bark is a good deal worse than his bite.”

“I'll go now,” said Sue, getting up from the rock where she had been sitting.

“No, wait for a minute. Wait till you feel better.”

“I'm all right,” she declared. “Really I am—it was just the—the shock. I can't possibly sit here… Oh, Mr. Darnay, it will be dreadful!”

Darnay realized that it was her nature to take her fences at a gallop and he let her go. He sat down and thought about it very seriously, for he was deeply interested in the lives of these people, and it did not seem strange to him that he should waste a whole morning of his precious time in considering their problems. How strange it was, thought Darnay, that this brother and sister, brought up in the same atmosphere, should have “come out” so utterly different. Will Pringle was a tyrant—there was no doubt of that—but his tyranny had affected his two children in exactly opposite ways.

Meanwhile, Sue had reached Tog's Mill and had found her father striding about the studio like a caged beast. It was an unpleasant interview, but not really so appalling as Sue had feared. Perhaps she had outgrown her fear of Will, or perhaps Darnay's suggestion that “his bark was worse than his bite” had given her courage. He raged and stormed at her, and she sat and listened, and after a little she actually began to feel sorry for him. How foolish it was to expend so much energy raging at an innocent person—he was foolish and impotent.

“What will folks say?” cried Will, striding up and down the room and pausing to shoot out the question at the silent figure of his daughter, who sat at the table resting her chin on her hands. “What will folks say—tell me that. Are ye dumb, Sue?”

She looked up at him but made no answer, and Will's eyes fell before her straight unflinching gaze.

“The whole of Beilford to know that my son's a thief!” he cried.

“They needn't know,” Sue pointed out. “Nobody need know unless you tell them.”

He looked at the floor. “I was going to the police,” he said doubtfully.

“Everybody will know then,” she replied, trying to hide her dismay and to speak in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Aye, that's true enough,” he said. There was silence for a few moments and then he added, “Maybe I'd better keep it to myself.”

“That's for you to decide.”

“Aye, that's true.” He hesitated a moment and gazed out of the window with his hands in his pockets. “Maybe I'll just wait till he comes home—and then thrash him,” added Will, with relish.

* * *

Ten days passed before Sue received the letter that Sandy had promised, and she was beginning to wonder whether his determination to enlist had lasted long enough to carry him to the recruiting office. She tore the envelope open with shaking hands and straightened out the flimsy sheet of paper. It was not a long letter, but it told her all she wanted to know. Sandy had enlisted and was comparatively happy in his new life. It was hard work, and there were a good many drawbacks, but he had no regrets. There was one sentence that comforted Sue a good deal, for she thought it gave a clue to Sandy's nature. “They are very strict here,” he wrote, “but if you do your best, they give you credit for it. They never jump on you for no reason and frighten the life out of you.”

Sue could read a good deal in this, for she knew who it was that had jumped on Sandy and frightened the life out of him. If Sandy was not afraid anymore, there would be no need for deceit. She took the letter to Mr. Darnay and showed it to him. It was the least she could do after all his kindness to her, and Sue did not feel that she was breaking her promise to Sandy in letting him into the secret, for Mr. Darnay was in a different category from other people—or so she felt.

“You knew about this before,” said Darnay, looking up at her and smiling. “Oh yes, you did. You can't deceive me, Miss Bun. If you hadn't known where the boy was, you would have been far more anxious and worried over him—and so should I.”

“What
do
you mean?” she inquired.

“You were a little anxious about him, but not unduly,” Darnay pointed out, “so I took the hint and didn't worry too much. I'm fond of Sandy, you know, and I'd like him to have a chance to make good. He's got it now.”

“You really think so?”

“It will be the making of him,” said Darnay confidently. “He's feeling better already—you can see that.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, if he sticks to it.”

“He must stick to it. He has no choice,” Darnay pointed out. “You can write a nice little lecture to him about his disgraceful behavior and tell him that his father is waiting for him with a big stick. It will do him good, Miss Bun, for Sandy is obviously one of those fortunate people with a very short memory for their own misdeeds.”

“Yes,” said Sue again.

“And you can cheer up,” continued Darnay. “Sandy will be all right, so you needn't worry about him anymore.”

Sue smiled a little sadly and went away. She was aware that the advice to “cheer up” was necessary, for she had been feeling very miserable indeed. The anxiety about Sandy was bad enough, but she had troubles of her own that were even harder to bear. She had been so happy at Tog's Mill, happy in her work and happy in her daily contact with Darnay, but since her discovery that she loved him, her happiness had gone. It was foolish, of course, for everything was going on exactly the same; it was only her feelings that were changed. It was foolish to be miserable, to lie in bed at night and wonder how she would be able to bear it when he went away and left her. He would go away—for this was only an interlude in his life. He would go back to his own world and forget all about her, and she would be left.

But why
think
about the future
, she would ask herself, beating her pillow and turning it over so that the cool side was against her hot cheek.
Why think of the future and be miserable about it? He's here now, so why can't I be happy? I don't know what's come over me. I used to be so sensible, and now I'm just a fool.

It was March, and spring was coming slowly but surely to the lands of Beil. The rooks were beginning to build in the trees at the other side of the river—or at least they were busy looking for suitable sites for their nests. They had their own way of alighting upon the trees, quite different from that of other birds. Other birds hopped up from branch to branch inside the tree, but the rooks hovered in the air and sailed downward, choosing a high branch and alighting upon it daintily. Their movements were a poem of balanced rhythm—a speck in the sky, a hovering, a sailing earthward, and lastly the swaying branch.

Sue watched them from the window of Darnay's room while she was dusting his dressing table. This was a labor of love, and she lingered over it, taking up each object in turn—his brushes and comb, his stud box, his razor case, and the manicure scissors in their tiny sheath—and tidying up as she went. Darnay was painting near home today; he was down near the weir, and she could see him standing there with his easel in front of him—it was like a little picture seen through the wrong end of a telescope, and her heart turned over in her breast.

Today she was even more miserable than usual, for Darnay had received a letter from the Laird asking him to dine at the castle. Darnay had told her about it casually and had added, “I suppose I had better go. It's nice of the old boy to ask me.”

Sue did not know about the incident at the curling match, so she could not understand the faint smile that accompanied Darnay's remark; she did understand, however, and only too well, that Darnay took the invitation lightly—it was nice of the old boy to ask him! All of a sudden she saw more clearly than ever before the frightful gulf that lay between them. Darnay was free and easy; he was able to descend to her level and to play his part quite comfortably at the Bullochs' hospitable board, but his real level, his real place in social life, was at the dinner table of the Laird—and she could never rise to his level however hard she tried.

I ought to be glad
, Sue told herself.
I'm a selfish, horrible creature. It's nice for him to be asked to the castle; he'll meet other gentlemen and talk to them and enjoy himself with his own kind. It's only right and natural. I ought to be glad.

Darnay was very pleased at receiving the invitation to dine at the castle, for it showed that the “old boy” bore him no grudge. In spite of Bulloch's assurance that all would be well, Darnay could not help feeling that Sir James had every right to be annoyed. The Laird had been incognito, of course—you might almost say disguised—but there were certain limits, and Darnay felt he had overstepped them.

Darnay whistled gaily as he put on his dinner jacket—the dinner was quite informal—and came down to the kitchen to have his collar brushed.

“I may be late,” he told Sue. “Don't wait up, Miss Bun.”

“No,” she said shortly.

He looked at her and saw that she was very white, and her lips were pressed into a straight line. “What's the matter?” he asked. “Don't you approve of me in this kit? It's pretty silly, isn't it?”

“You suit it, Mr. Darnay.”

“I suit it, do I?” Darnay laughed. “Well, it doesn't suit me… I'm much more comfortable in gray flannel slacks and a pullover.”

Sue was silent, and he was surprised to see her compressed lips quiver. “Why, Miss Bun!” he cried. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Sue. “Nothing at all… It's getting late,” she added significantly.

“Good heavens, so it is!” he cried, snatching up his coat. “I musn't keep Sir James waiting for his dinner—that would be adding insult to injury, wouldn't it?”

* * *

Sir James Faulds was a widower. He had two sons, both of whom were in the army. The only other guest was Admiral Lang. They were drinking sherry in the library when Darnay arrived and toasting themselves in front of a roaring fire. They greeted Darnay cordially and invited him to pull in a chair.

“Have you seen my conifers?” inquired the Laird with twinkling eyes. “You know a good bit about them—unless you've forgotten the lesson you had at the curling match.”

“That wasn't the only lesson I learned,” declared Darnay, smiling ruefully.

“Good old Bill,” murmured the Admiral, with a mischievous look in his eyes.

It was obvious that the two gentlemen had enjoyed the joke. Bulloch had been right about that, and he had also been right in saying that they were “gey chief.” (This expression had puzzled Darnay at the time, but he had found out from Miss Bun that it meant very friendly—or perhaps “thick” was a better translation.) There was a very pleasant harmony between them, a harmony that can only exist between men who have known each other from boyhood's days, and even when they disagreed with each other—as they frequently did—their fundamental friendliness was undisturbed.

In spite of this friendliness, however, Darnay was not made to feel an intruder, but rather that he was giving them both a great deal of pleasure by his company and by his different views and ideas of life. This feeling excited him and went to his head (for it was so long since he had spoken to anybody of his own world), and he found himself talking a lot and knew that he was talking well.

The three men dined at a small round table set in the middle of the vast shadowy dining hall. The curtains were drawn and a huge fire burned in the old-fashioned fireplace. Two menservants moved about, soft-footed as shadows behind their chairs, offering them the conventional dishes in the conventional way. It was so different from his mode of life at Tog's Mill that Darnay could have laughed.

“What do you do with yourself when you're not painting?” inquired the Laird.

Darnay tried to tell them. There was not much to interest them except the Bullochs' dinner party, so he made the most of that for their benefit.

“They're grand folk,” Sir James said, “and I see you have discovered it—and they have discovered you. Well, I think you're going the right way to paint Scotland, for these folk are the real Scotland.”

“Now you're getting beyond me, Jamie,” declared the Admiral. “I can see Darnay would have to know the people before he could paint them, but why must he know the people before he paints the hills?”

“I never knew such a man for argument!” cried his host. “Darnay's told us he wants to paint the real Scotland—”

“He should paint you, then.”

“I don't want my ugly face immortalized,” declared Sir James somewhat ruefully, “but I wouldn't mind a good portrait of Jean. How about it, Darnay? Would you like a commission to paint my niece?”

“I'll wager he would!” cried Sir Rupert. “If he saw Jean, there would be no holding him.”

“I would like to,” said Darnay eagerly. “There's nothing I'd like better. But I wonder if you would like it.”

They asked what he meant by this, and Darnay explained about the “new medium.” He found himself telling them the whole story. How he had suddenly felt that everything had gone flat and stale and that he was not progressing in his art, and how it had seemed to him that the only thing to do was to “get away from it all.”

“Yet your pictures were selling—you had made a name for yourself,” the Admiral pointed out.

“I wasn't satisfying myself,” Darnay declared.

“You must paint Jean,” said Sir James. “I'd like to see what you make of her.”

“I'll paint her,” agreed Darnay. “And if you don't like it we'll burn it. How will that do?”

“That's certainly a fair offer,” declared Sir James, laughing. “Have some port, Darnay, and pass the decanter.”

Darnay did as requested.

“Your name is very unusual,” the Admiral remarked. “Is it English or what?”

“It's Norman,” replied Darnay. “D'Arraigné was the old form. Our crest is a spider.”

“Battle of Hastings, 1066,” put in Sir James. “That and Bannockburn, 1314, were the only two dates I could ever get into my head.”

* * *

After dinner they played billiards. Darnay took on the Admiral, while their host marked for them. They talked in a desultory fashion as they played, and the two old friends chaffed each other pleasantly.

“A wife in every port,” declared Sir James as he marked a break of eleven for Darnay. “Everybody knows that.”

“It's a libel,” replied his friend, with a smile. “The fact is sailors have no time for wives—I never had. Besides, the ladies are all such darlings, it's impossible to limit oneself by marriage.”

“You've never been in love?”

“No, never.”

“What,
never
?”

“Well, hardly ever.”

They all laughed.

“I knew a man,” continued the Admiral, “who disliked his wife so much that he went and lived on the top of a mountain to get away from her. It was a Swiss mountain, and they kept their cows in the house all winter. Now, if that man had been a sailor—”

“Tog's Mill,” began Darnay, and then he stopped, for he had been on the point of saying that the man might have lived at Tog's Mill—a place that seemed to be as distasteful to wives as a Swiss mountain top.

“Tog's Mill,” said Sir James, taking him up. “How do you manage about servants, Darnay. I've sometimes wondered about you.”

“I've got Bulloch's granddaughter.”

The Admiral, who had been chalking his cue, looked up quickly. “You have, have you?” he said.

“I'm in clover,” Darnay continued, with a smile. “She's most capable and very attractive. There's something very charming about her.”

“Her mother was a lovely creature,” declared Sir James. “D'you remember her, Rupert? What was her name again?”

“Mary,” replied Sir Rupert shortly. He took up his position and potted the white.

“What on earth did you do that for?” his host inquired. “Your game was in-off—it was an easier shot too.”

“Was she really beautiful?” Darnay asked. “And, if so, why did she marry the baker?—not a very attractive specimen, I thought.”

“Women do these odd things,” said Sir James, “and do them for the oddest reasons.”

“It's raining,” declared the Admiral. “I can hear it on the window. We're in for a wet night.”

Darnay left early, and when he had gone the two old friends sat down by the fire for a last chat before parting.

“I like that fellow,” said Sir James, pouring out a generous measure of whiskey as he spoke. “There's something very attractive about him. You feel he's absolutely straight—and I like his enthusiasm. There's too little enthusiasm about young people today. Even if you don't agree with his views, which are a bit peculiar to an old stick-in-the-mud like me, you've got to admit that he—”

“Listen, Jamie,” his friend interrupted. “There's something I want to tell you—it's about that girl.”

“What girl?”

“Mary Bulloch's daughter—she might be mine, Jamie.”

“What?”

“I said she might be mine. I never really knew. I don't know now. It's an old story, of course. Mary and I were in love—deeply—and I meant to marry her. Mary could have taken her place in any sphere of life. And then the war came and I was sent to the Dardanelles. You remember that, Jamie; it was a secret mission. I was in submarines then.”

“I remember.”

“When I came home she was married—and a mother.”

“Great Scott!”

“That's all,” Sir Rupert said. “I said nothing, I did nothing, for I thought it was better to leave it. I was sore and wretched as hell about the whole thing. What am I to do, Jamie?”

“Do? You can't do anything.”

“I want to do something for the girl.”

“You can't. You don't know anything—you said so yourself—and the girl doesn't need anything done for her.”

“How d'you mean?”

“I mean she's Bulloch's granddaughter. He can look after his own. Why are you bothering now, after all these years?”

“Because I'm lonely, I suppose,” said Sir Rupert slowly. “Because I'm old and lonely and selfish. He said she was very charming, didn't he?”

“Leave it alone, Rupert. Leave it alone. You'll only make trouble if you begin to stir up the mud.”

Sir Rupert sighed. “I suppose I must,” he said, “but I'd give a lot to know…”