The Wax Fruit Trilogy Read online

  Other B&W Titles by Guy McCrone

  AUNT BEL

  THE HAYBURN FAMILY

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  BOOK I ANTIMACASSAR CITY

  BOOK II THE PHILISTINES

  BOOK III THE PURITANS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  To Glasgow Readers

  No. You must forgive me. But I did not have the impertinence to draw for you portraits of your grandparents and their friends.

  ANTIMACASSAR CITY

  Chapter One

  WHY were the dogs whining?

  It was Doon and Nith that were making the noise. Clyde, who was the oldest and was most attached to her father, must have trotted off after the trap when her mother and he had driven off this evening.

  The strong moon, coming through the skylight, made a dazzling oblong on the wall opposite the little girl’s bed. Although she herself lay snug, the attic room was so cold that she could see her breath when she puffed in the direction of the beam of light.

  “Haud yer tongue, Doon! Keep quate, Nith!” That was her brother’s voice. She could hear his heavy boots cracking the frozen puddles of the farm close.

  What time was it? Nine or ten o’clock? Late for Ayrshire farm folks, anyway. Her instinct told her that her parents were not yet come home from their visit. There was still a sense of waiting. That must be why the dogs were restless.

  She knew all the farm’s lightest sounds. She could tell their meaning. She could hear the movement of hoofs as the Clydes-dales shifted the weight of their great resting bodies from one leg to the other.

  But the lighter taps of the pony’s hoofs were wanting.

  A suppressed excitement took hold of her. It was not quite anxiety, though she was beginning to feel that too. This odd child of ten was beginning to hope, almost, that something was coming to her. For, though she did not know it, she was of those strange people who must have experience, even though it be tragic—who, even in catastrophe, are able to stand back and appraise.

  She climbed out and threw some bedclothes about her. Dragging the one chair in the room beneath the skylight, she climbed upon it and pushed the glass frame wide open. The air, cold as a knife, met her round warm cheeks, but she did not care. She could now get her head through.

  She could see the shape of the buildings—the barn, the cart-shed, the stables, the byre. And beyond, the stacks in the stackyard, then the gate to the road. In the strong moonlight, and rimed with hoar-frost, everything was colourless. Everything had been reduced to planes and angles of velvet blackness and silver-white.

  But for the occasional shuffling of the beasts in the stables and the cowshed, there was silence now. The collies must have followed her brother, wherever he was.

  No, there they were, back again, wheeling about the yard like phantoms. Now they were whining the low, restless whines that had awakened her.

  “Nae sign yet?” A farm-hand’s voice was speaking.

  “No’ yet.” Her brother’s voice again.

  “Whit time is it?”

  “Ten.”

  So they were late. The farm usually went to sleep at eight. This tension was exciting. There were little thrills all over her. It wasn’t just the cold creeping up from her bare feet.

  II

  Were these the steps of a pony now? She listened intently.

  Her brother and the man emerged from the shadows and, crossing the yard, hung over the gate.

  Were these the familiar hoof-claps? They must be. But she couldn’t understand. She knew the weight and ring of them. But she could hear no wheels, and the hoofs clattered together at times as though the pony were dancing hysterically on a leading-rein.

  Where was the trap? And where were her father and mother? She could feel her heart thumping in her body.

  The dogs had run forward to the gate too, barking excitedly. Her brother turned on them and again shouted at them to be quiet. Suddenly something ran through them. It was her father’s dog Clyde. Paying no attention, he came down to the centre of the yard. In the strong moonlight she could see the handsome long limbs of the old collie trembling. His bushy tail was clapped down tight over his thin buttocks. His ears lay as though he were in pain. For a moment he stood shivering, turning his long, elegant muzzle this way and that, looking about distractedly; then, balancing backwards, one thin front paw off the ground, he threw back his head and uttered a long, low howl.

  The child had never heard anything so heartbroken. The other dogs seemed to get his meaning, for they were circling round him now, copying his low-sung note of woe.

  Her brother paid no attention to them, for the pony, impatient at being led by a strange hand, was dancing sideways through the opened gate.

  The three men were talking together excitedly. Suddenly her brother broke from them and ran towards the house. Now, inside, she could hear him calling, though she could not catch what he said.

  She jumped from her chair and listened at her door. The house seemed to be stirring. She could hear the door of the servant-girls’ room bang.

  All this was very exciting. It was horrible to be missing anything. Should she go down to ask what it was? She did not dare. Her brother would order her back to bed, for he was strict with her, as their father was.

  Now she could hear heavy steps coming to the foot of the attic stair. They began to ascend. She jumped into bed and covered herself up, ready with the pretence of sleep.

  In another moment the catch was lifted and her brother stood in the doorway. Was it the moonlight that made him look like this? His aspect gave her a sensation of intense interest. So people looked like that if something dreadful had happened. He was struggling to seem calm. She could see that his deliberation was merely to give himself time.

  She sat up abruptly as though she had been shocked out of a deep sleep.

  “What is it?”

  His voice was even stranger than his looks as he told her.

  Chapter Two

  MR. AND MRS. ARTHUR MOORHOUSE, of Ure Place, in the City of Glasgow, were already half-dressed by seven o’clock.

  Arthur was standing in his best trousers pouring out his shaving-water from a shining copper can. For though, in this year 1870, hair on the face of the male was considered more ornamental than in later days, there was still a certain amount of shaving to be done. Arthur limited his natural decoration to mutton-chop whiskers. He was wise, for their blackness lent his strong features, his black eyebrows and the natural paleness of his skin an added distinction.

  “There was no need for ye to get up so early, my dear. It’s a bitter morning.” Arthur drew out his razor and tested the edge.

  Bel Moorhouse, wrapped as well as was possible against the Arctic chill of the bedroom, was running her comb down through the thick ripples of her hair. Its waved fairness shone bravely in the light of the two gas-jets above her head.

  “Nonsense, dear. You’ve got a long, cold day in front of you. I must see that you get your breakfast properly.”

  Bel went on with her combing and Arthur took up his shaving-brush.

  These foregoing words do not seem, in themselves, very pregnant, but their overtones were many, and to each of these young people betokened more than a perfunctory demonstration of affection on a cold morning.

  Bel should stay in bed and take care of herself, Arthur was implying, because she was his precious wife, only lately acquired after many tedious years of looking after his own none too thankful family. And in addition—and of still greater importance—he was delicately reminding her that her body was a frail casket bearing within it their first child, to whose birth both were looking forward with the keenest pleasure. In his heart Arthur kn
ew that Bel was as strong as a horse. But the strength of horses is not romantic, except perhaps in the horses themselves. Certainly it was not considered so in a twenty-four-year-old matron of mid-Victorian days. Politer to assume that any puff might blow her away, though you knew perfectly—and were thankful for it—that her agile young body would stand a hurricane.

  And Bel’s answer had been just as full of meaning. “You must be fed and tended, my dear husband,” it implied, “by the only person who really knows to a hair’s-breadth all your needs, physical and mental. You must be fortified against all discomforts of the body and of the mind. Today you are to be with relatives who for the past fifteen years have done nothing but worry and annoy you. You are going to bury your old father—for whom I personally never cared—and with him, a second wife twenty years younger than himself, whom he should never have married. It has all been very sudden and annoying, coming in this the eighth month of our marriage and just before Christmas. But I am much too fine a woman to complain. With my charm, my profound affection and, above all, my great good-sense, I shall throw myself between you and your annoyances. In a word, I shall be to you the perfect wife.”

  Each comprehended the meaning of the other perfectly. Which all goes to show that Arthur Moorhouse and his wife were on excellent terms.

  By half-past seven Arthur was warming himself before a crackling fire in their pleasant red-plush dining-room. The breakfast-table looked cosier than ever from the fact that the room was still in gas-light.

  Bel, all pride and importance behind the teacups, was looking up at her slim, thirty-three-year-old husband, more dark and effective than ever in his long black coat. And Arthur, looking down upon his glowing wife, decided that black suited her fairness almost better than anything else.

  “When is your train, dear?” Bel asked as he took his place.

  “Half-past eight.”

  “Then you won’t be going down to business first?”

  Down was the right word, for on their marriage the Arthur Moorhouses had set up house here in Ure Place, a quiet and pleasant little square with trees in the middle, set on the side of a steep hill. Up there they were in the City of Glasgow, but not quite of it. Yet in little better than five minutes Arthur’s long legs could drop him down Montrose Street and into the Candle-riggs, where he conducted with diligence his business of wholesale provision merchant.

  Arthur finished his last spoonful of porridge and held out his hand for his plate of ham and eggs.

  “No,” he said, “I’ve no need to go down. David is going to let me know if there’s anything.”

  “That’s good,” was all Bel said, but in her mind she wondered if Arthur’s young brother would really trouble himself to go. He was such an unreliable creature.

  “There’s time to send one of the maids for a cab,” she said presently.

  “Nonsense. I’ll walk across the town. If I leave at eight I’ll have lots of time.”

  But Bel was insistent this morning. She even went the length—Junoesque though she was—of pretending, a little, to be pathetic, and thus, conquering her lord and master, she succeeded in having the cab ordered.

  II

  At five minutes to eight, Mr. and Mrs. William Butter arrived.

  Mrs. William had been Sophia Moorhouse. Before her marriage, some eight years ago, she had kept house for Arthur. Arthur at the age of eighteen had left his father’s farm and come to Glasgow to make his fortune. One by one his brother and sisters had followed him, with the exception of the oldest brother, Mungo, who remained a farmer. Sophia had been the first.

  Sophia was not perhaps one of Bel’s favourites. For, of all the family, she exploited Arthur with the least shame. Even now—from habit—Bel wondered for a moment what Sophia and her stolid husband could be wanting that they should call in on their way to the station; for they lived in a flat in Grafton Square, further up, across Cathedral Street, or the Stirling Road as it then was, and there was no reason whatever why they should come to Ure Place.

  “Good morning, Bel dear. What a cold morning! How cosy you both look! Could William and I possibly have another cup of tea? Or would it be a bother? We were so hurried at breakfast. Little Wil and Margy were so sure we would be late for their grandpapa’s funeral, they kept running with gloves and things. William nearly died laughing.”

  As their sister-in-law pulled the bell—with the shallowest appearance of hospitality—to have more teacups brought, she could not help wondering what William looked like dying of laughter.

  For, although William was only thirty-three, he was fat and square, and as much of his face as possible was covered with hair. Her gay young brother-in-law David had once described William Butter to Bel as a fat, hairy man who stood. You might as well connect the expressing of emotion with the Tolbooth Steeple as with William. Perhaps it was the hair, Bel pondered. But after all he could emit sounds. And this he didn’t do either, much. No, if you shaved him clean, there would still be little or no movement of his facial muscles.

  “Not that they aren’t very sorry about grandpapa’s death,” Sophia was going on. “But as they’ve only seen him twice—or was it three times, William?”

  William said nothing.

  “Yes, that’s right, three times, and then only for a little; they can’t remember him very well. This tea’s putting new life into me, Bel dear. We must get some like it. Mustn’t we, William?”

  William said nothing.

  “It’s time we were getting to the station,” Arthur said, pulling out his watch.

  “What about your bonnet, Bel dear?”

  “Bel’s not coming,” Arthur said irritably.

  “Why? Oh, of course. How wise. I was forgetting.” She patted Bel’s hand knowingly, then apropos of what appeared to be nothing, looked about her and said: “Delightful to think—”

  “I’ve arranged to go to the station in a cab. Would ye like a lift?” Arthur said, with no attempt at grace in his invitation.

  “That would be a great help, wouldn’t it, William?”

  William did not seem to hear.

  And at last it broke upon Bel why these two had come down to them this morning. Young David had christened them the Emperor and Empress of Cadge. David, Bel reflected, was not far wrong.

  It was bitterly cold as she opened the front door for them. She saw her husband into his thickest overcoat and tied a woollen muffler of her own knitting about his neck.

  Arthur went down the front steps, said “Bridge Street Station, please,” and got into the cab without further ceremony.

  Sophia bade Bel an effusive goodbye and regretted not having her company in the train.

  Bel, having decided that William’s hand was a little inclined in her direction, grasped it and shook it.

  Holding the cab door open, Sophia turned. “Bel dear, as you’re not coming, could you bear to send over for the children today? After all, it is Christmas-time. Poor wee mites. We can hardly expect them to feel our sorrow very deeply. They looked so forlorn when we said goodbye.”

  Bel succeeded—just in time—in looking vague and saying something about devoting the day to her mother.

  “Well, anyway, if you can—Come along, William, don’t keep Arthur waiting. Do you know what the time is now?”

  But William did not bother to tell her the time. He merely followed his wife into the cab.

  III

  As they drew up at Bridge Street Station, they could see the slim black figure of Arthur’s younger brother, David, turning into the entrance. His hands were deep in his overcoat pockets and his shoulders were hunched against the cold.

  The noise of the car attracted his attention and he turned with a beaming smile to hold the door for its occupants. David was always delighted to see everybody.

  Arthur bounced out, paid the cab, then turned to David, saying: “Anything from the office?”

  “I didn’t go in this morning.”

  “Why the devil didn’t you? I told you to. Have you got
your ticket?”

  “No.”

  Arthur said no more. But, going to the ticket office, bought his own and his younger brother’s. By this time Sophia was hovering.

  “Come on,” he shouted. “I’ve bought your ticket.”

  Sophia’s gentle expostulation, “But, Arthur dear, William didn’t mean you to,” was cut in two by Arthur saying: “I haven’t got your tickets, Sophia. Just David’s and my own,” as he disappeared into the inner station.

  His second brother-in-law George was pacing the platform. George McNairn Esquire, as David always called him, was a large, elderly-looking man of thirty-five. If ever a stomach was made to support the chains of office—if ever shoulders were made to carry municipal ermine, these belonged to Mr. McNairn. He seemed infinitely large as he moved, slow and important, up and down.

  He did not go to meet his brothers-in-law, but rather allowed his stately progress to converge with their more abrupt steps. He shook their hands with ceremony and, looking beyond them, spoke impersonally as though he were addressing the back gallery of the City Hall. His words could be heard all over the station.

  “Good morning, Arthur. Good morning, David. Well, this is a melancholy duty—a melancholy duty.”

  Arthur returned his handshake quickly. “Good morning, George. Where’s Mary?”

  “At the fire in the waiting-room. She’s feeling this very badly, poor girl—very badly.”

  Arthur hurried on to find his younger sister.

  Mary was sitting solitary on a hard chair before a new-lit fire that was, as yet, giving out no heat. Her wide black dress was all about her and a thick veil hung over her face. Her hands, in their black gloves, were folded on her lap.

  Arthur went to her and greeted her in a business-like way.

  “Hello, Mary, how are you? Cold, isn’t it?”

  Mary raised her veil to allow her brother to kiss her.