The Stranger Came (10 page)

She
smiled
at
the
slyness
of
his
pleasure.
He
was
a connoisseur
of
her
credulity
and
would
sometimes
test
its
limits
as
if
she
might
believe
the
most
outrageous
thing
if
he
assured
her
it
was
so.

'That
sounds
like
our
summers,'
she
said.

He
bent
and
picked
up
a
stone
from
the
edge
of
the
path.
With
a
swing
and
jerk
of
his
arm
he
sent
it
curving
out,
and
watched
frowning
as
it
punched
through
the
thin ice.

'When
I
was
fourteen,'
he
said,
rubbing
his
fingers
clean,
'there
was
a
winter
like
that
one
we
had
five
years
back.
There
was
a
lochan
in
the
hills
above
our
village.
I
climbed
up
to
it
late
one
afternoon,
and
it
was
frozen
from
side
to
side.
“
I'll
bet
I
could
walk
across”,
I
said
to
myself.’

'Were
you
alone?'

'The
lochan
was
about
a
mile
long
–
very
narrow
–
perhaps
two
hundred
yards
across
where
I
was
standing.
Above
on
the
headland
there
was
a
lighthouse.
The
lochan
had
been
made
in
the
old
days
by
the
lighthouse
people
to
give
them
fresh
water.
Across
on
the
other
side,
directly
opposite
me,
was
a
pump
house.
That
was
my
mark.
I
was
about
halfway
before
I
started
to
get
worried.
I
heard
the
ice
crack
and
felt
it
bending
under
me.’

'Don't
tell
me,'
she
said.
'I
don't
want
to
hear.’

'On
the
other
side
I
could
see
the
trees
without
any
leaves,
just
little
trails
of
mist
winding
through
the
branches.
It
was
the
cold
in
my
legs
got
me
moving
again.
As
I
got
near,
I
could
see
the
grass
bent
over
under
the
ice
on
the
bank.
If
I'd
gone
through,
the
current
would
have
carried
me
down
to
the
dam
across
the
landward
end.
I'd have
got
trapped
there
and
stayed
until
the
thaw
came.
Unless,
of
course,
someone
had
looked
down
and
seen
me
staring
through
the
ice
at
them
with
a
face
as
yellow
as
the
grass.’

But
she
refused
to
be
horrified.
'Funny
you've
never
told
me
that
before.
It's
the
kind
of
story
you
like
to
tell.

'Every
man
his
own
hero.’

He
unlocked
the
car
doors
and
she
watched
through
the
window
as
they
passed
the
staff
club
and
more
residences
and
then
were
on
the
road
that
would
take
them
through
the
town
and
put
them
on
the
way
for
home.

Dearest
Lydia,
she
remembered
it
had
gone,
dearest children, farewell. My brain burns as the recollection grows. My dear, dear wife, farewell. Hugh Miller.

Born
Comarty
1802,
the
son
of
a
middle-aged
ship's
master
and
an
eighteen-year-old
mother,
Harriet
Wright.
Died
on
Christmas
Eve
1856.
They
had
found
him
with
a
bullet
in
his
chest
and
the
revolver
in
his
hand.
In
between
he
made
himself
a
scientist
who
impressed
Darwin,
a
writer
admired
by
Dickens.

'You
made
a
joke
of
his
signing
his
name
in
full.
You never
used
to.’

With
the
telepathy
of
the
long-married,
he
answered,
'On
a
note
like
that.
Telling
her
of
his
suicide.’
It
didn't
take
long
to
get
through
Balinter;
they
were
on
to
a
country
road
again.
"'Hugh
Miller.”
Sometimes
those
old
Victorians
seem
like
aliens
from
another
planet.’

'But
it
didn't
mean
he
didn't
love
her.
Wasn't
that
the point?
That
behind
the
changes
of
language
the
feelings
stay
the
same?'

'Hmmm,'
he
said.

'All
right,
I
understand,'
she
persisted,
'that
it's
about
paradigms.
About
Lamarck
and
Darwinism
coming
and
Miller
not
being
able
to
bear
it.
And
his
"elevatory
fiats"
and
how
the
Creationists
have
to
follow
just
the
same
line
because
their
belief
system
doesn't
give
them
any
choice.
And
how
Marxist
scientists
take
the
discontinuities
and
get
quite
keen
on
them
for
their
own
reasons
–
making nature
advance
in
bursts
of
revolutionary
change.
What
was
it
you
said?
–
"It
gathers
all
of
prehistory
for
them
into
the
neat
paradigm
of
the
dialectic.”
I
know
all
that.
But
all
the
same
...’

'I
married
you
because
you
were
my
prettiest
student,' he
said.

'Not
the
cleverest.’