The Wax Fruit Trilogy Page 10

  “I think you should go, Arthur,” Bel said. “You could stay and come up on Monday.”

  Arthur pondered. He hated being put out of his routine. Besides he was now an assiduous kirk elder. But all common sense, every consideration of brotherliness pressed him to go.

  “You must go, Arthur. You must see for yourself how he is. We’ll be all right here. I’ll pack your bag and send it down to the warehouse.”

  “All right. There’s a train at Dunlop Street about twelve o’clock.” Being Saturday made it easier from a business point of view.

  Mungo now had his special place in the family. As farmers go he was becoming comfortably off. Old rule-of-thumb methods were going one by one at the Laigh Farm. With no one dependent upon him he was able to put back what he earned year by year into his stock. If he were allowed to buy his farm, Arthur did not doubt that he certainly would do so. But so far the laird, although he was on very friendly terms with his tenant, had shown no wish to let him do so. Arthur would certainly have helped Mungo with the purchase. It would be a brotherly act and an excellent investment, for Mungo in his way was as solid as himself.

  During the four years that had elapsed since he had been left solitary it had been Phœbe who had remained in closest contact. She had always gone for part of her school holidays. They had considered it right that she should not be cut off from her old home. She had always come back with her accent broadened and an inclination to be noisy, but Bel had sense enough to see that these were only surface faults, and with a little checking Phœbe lost them again in a week or two. The women servants Gracie and Jean were still there, and Mungo had assured Bel that they were good girls who would not let Phœbe come to harm. Last summer Sophia had implored Mungo to take her children for a fortnight while Phœbe was there. Wil was now eleven and Margy nine. But every day she had sent him letters telling him how to feed them, when they must go to bed, when they must change their clothes, asking if blankets were well aired, and heaven knew what else, until at last Mungo, in a rage, had sent them home. Mary’s children, and, of course, Bel’s were as yet too young to be an affliction to him.

  The consensus of opinion in the family was that Mungo and his surroundings were excellent in their way, but roughening and coarse for those who had profited by the refinements of town life.

  Now it was decided that Arthur should go. The bag was to be packed, and in addition, Bel was to make an expedition down to the shops to have a special parcel of delicacies made up for the invalid.

  Having a few minutes more before she must go to her Saturday morning dancing class, Phœbe sat down and wrote the following letter:

  “DEAR MUNGO,

  “This is terible news. You should not have gone up there. If I had been there I would have told you, because I knew these boreds were rotten with the damp and the rats. I have climed up often, so I know. Is your suffering terible? If so, remember we are all thinking about you. Jean and Grace nevertheless will be a very present help in time of trouble. We are all splendid here. Arthur, the second, is going to spend the day with Mrs. Barrowfield, and I am very angry, because I wanted to play with him this afternoon. How are Nith and Doon and the new poney doing? If you want me I will come down to you at once. Bel will just have to give me a line to get off the school. Trust in God and your affectionate sister,

  “PHŒBE MOORHOUSE.”

  She put this in an envelope, addressed it, and sealed it carefully so that Bel should not read it. Great as her secret admiration for Bel still was, Phœbe hated people poking into her affairs.

  III

  Old Mrs. Barrowfield sat up in bed watching her grandson. The child was her greatest joy in life. She kept insisting to everybody that he was the very image of his Grandpa Barrowfield. This may or may not have been true, but the old lady would have it so, for she could not endure to think that he should bear any likeness to his Grandpa Moorhouse, who had been nothing but a farmer. At all events the child had Bel’s fine, fair colouring.

  She was feeling better than she had felt for some days. For, in addition to her rheumatism, she had been suffering from acute loneliness and boredom—a complaint often to be found among the elderly—and for the time little Arthur had succeeded in banishing this.

  The clock on the mantelpiece of her large and comfortably upholstered bedroom overlooking the Glasgow Green chimed two.

  “It’s time Sarah was coming for you,” she said to the mite, who was hunting lions and tigers at the foot of her enormous bed. She had promised to send the little boy home, to have his afternoon sleep, for it was essential that he, with Sarah, should get home in safety in the daylight. And she herself, comfortable and happy now, would be quite content to drop over until tea-time.

  No sooner had she spoken than Sarah appeared. Sarah was grim and purposeful, having just eaten her dinner in the enemy’s camp. She began packing Arthur into his little velvet coat, gaiters, muffler, gloves, sailor hat and all the rest of it. His grandmother watched him with sleepy approval. There were not many little boys so well dressed as her grandson. That little coat had been a gift from herself. (In secret Bel thought corn-flower blue a little over-bright, but wear it he must when he went to Monteith Row, or there would be no plumbing the depths of the offence her mother would take.)

  Affectionate goodbyes were said, and Sarah and her charge set to. The sun was shining through a gap in a wintry sky, but as November sunshine is precious the woman determined to make the most of it. She would take her way across the Green. Probably Arthur would run for some distance, and for the rest she could carry him, for she was strongly built and well able to lift and carry a child of three. For a time after they left the Row it was very pleasant sauntering at a child’s pace in the open, grassy expanse, but as they neared the Saltmarket it became unpleasantly crowded with slum children. Sarah picked up Arthur and hurried on into the Saltmarket itself. She was glad she had not come any later in the day, for already this street, famous for its disarray and squalor, was beginning to show signs of living up to its reputation. Men and women—their newly received weekly earnings already being quickly spent in the numberless drinking-shops—were showing signs of becoming boisterous.

  But Sarah’s honest stomach was not easily turned. You couldn’t be brought up in Glasgow, if you were of the working class in however decent a family, without having seen a thing or two. She continued, therefore, cheerful and undaunted, up the Saltmarket.

  It was outside O’Reilly’s Oyster Rooms that the thing happened.

  A younger sister of Sarah’s, Peggy by name, suddenly emerged from a provision shop. She was a child of about fifteen. Sarah was annoyed to find her down here, for her family did not live in this low quarter of the town, but in a respectable quiet cottage up at the Monkland Canal. Their father had work in one of the many woodyards by its banks. She stopped to ask what Peggy was doing. Their mother had sent her out to get something, she replied, but she had failed to get it further up the town.

  Sarah would not believe this. The girl had reasons of her own for being down here. Sarah decided to find them out. She was filled with what she considered was a just and righteous fury. She set down Arthur and pitched into her. Peggy defended herself badly, for she was a weak sort of girl, but Sarah’s reproof was long and heated. Peggy must remember that she came from decent folk. Saturday afternoon was no time for her to be by herself in the Saltmarket. For some moments the sisters became engulfed in their quarrel.

  One or two people, hearing, wondered what it was all about. Who was this decently dressed woman talking to this girl? She must be a servant. The rich-looking, golden-haired child in the blue coat, who was wandering round them, must be in her charge.

  Two or three entrances up, a hag who dealt in old clothes—and other things bent down and picked up a kitten that was playing at her feet. She came down towards them, and dropped the kitten near Arthur. He saw it and pattered towards it. She leered at him, picked up the kitten and dropped it again further off. He still followed. She did
this a third time. Still he followed. Now he was opposite her own entrance. Again she picked up the kitten and again Arthur followed.

  Sarah turned: “Where’s Arthur?”

  She could not believe he was not by her side. She refused to believe. She shrieked.

  A passing urchin pointed. “The wee boy went in there.”

  She rushed to the doorway. It was merely a passage-way leading through to a narrow close, known as “Hughie’s Yeard”. There were a dozen doors leading up filthy stairways to rooms above. He might have been taken up any of them. There was no one in the yard. She tried one stairway, but it was blocked by two drunken men. She tried a second, tripped and fell on her face, while half a dozen hags yelled abuse and laughed at a decent girl making a fool of herself. At a third a man put his arms about her. She had to struggle to force him to let her go. Out in the middle of the yard again, he stood at the door and smiled a drunken smile. Slowly he withdrew one hand from a pocket. It held a razor.

  Again she shrieked and ran out through the passage into the Saltmarket. She had quite lost her head now. Her sister tried to speak to her, but she could get nothing but “What’ll the mistress say? What’ll the mistress say? It’ll be the jail for me!”

  Poor Sarah started to run. Out of the Saltmarket into the High Street, up Kirk Street, past the Royal Infirmary in Castle Street and beyond. In her hysterics she did not think what she was doing, but her instinct was taking her home to her father’s cottage.

  IV

  After her midday meal Phœbe had sat herself down in the nursery. Bel had established herself in Sarah’s accustomed place while her daughter had her afternoon sleep. Phœbe, lately promoted to serious knitting, was making a pair of socks—black and unspectacular—for Arthur. Her feelings of self-importance were just managing—and no more—to keep boredom at bay. For black is not an interesting colour for fourteen years to knit.

  The sound of voices, quickly distinguishable as those of Sophia and the two children, were not, then, entirely unwelcome to her.

  “Go down and say I’ll come in a moment, Phœbe. I’ll send Bessie up here.” Bessie was the cook.

  Phœbe went down. Pompously holding her knitting. Determined that Wil and Margy Butter should see how important she had become.

  Sophia’s children had settled down to play an improvisation for four fists at the piano.

  “Hello, dear. How are you? I’ve come across to hear about Mungo. William met David. Children, would you stop it! Aren’t they awful! I can’t hear what Phœbe’s saying! Is it true Arthur’s gone down?” There was a crazy kind-heartedness and warmth of feeling about Sophia that had always made Phœbe rather like her.

  Phœbe walked over to the piano. For the moment, perhaps because of her knitting, she was feeling very much their aunt, even though she was only two years older than Wil. She put a hand on the back of each of their necks and shook them until the din stopped. “Be quiet,” she said firmly, but without temper. “You’ll waken Isabel.”

  Wil and Margy were normal and spirited. A fact which never ceased to astound those who thought about it. For were they not the offspring of a hen and a deaf-mute? Sophia’s fussing had made them intolerably impertinent to herself. But apart from that they were much like other people’s children.

  The three young folks settled down to entertain themselves with Phœbe’s scrapbook. Bel came in and greeted Sophia. Her face was a little anxious.

  “Do you know,” she said, “I’ve just realised it’s after three, and Sarah is never home with Arthur yet?”

  “I thought Arthur had gone down to Mungo.” It was typical of Sophia to make such a senseless remark. Even with a light cloud of worry blowing up in her mind, Bel could not help seeing this funny. The thought of her serious husband having a day out with Sarah.

  “No, Sophia, I mean little Arthur.” She went to the window for a moment. “I do think it’s too bad of Mother to keep him so long. Old people are dreadful. You can’t get them to be sensible. And she promised faithfully to send him back after dinner. The streets down there get so nasty on a Saturday afternoon.”

  She came back to the fire, however, and talked of Mungo and his accident, showing no more worry until it was after half-past three. At last she called to Phœbe, “Go and look through the house and see if you can see any sign of them.”

  Phœbe went, and returned to say they were not anywhere to be seen.

  “Well, I’m not going to worry seriously until four o’clock. After that it begins to get dark.”

  “Mrs. Barrowfield will send them home in a cab now, surely,” Sophia said, trying to be comforting but arousing all kinds of horrors in Bel’s mind.

  Phœbe was hanging about. Scraps had lost their interest. She had left Wil and Margy to squabble by themselves.

  The hands of the clock came, after what seemed an eternity, to four. It was raining slightly, and the light was going.

  Bel was now frankly upset. Bessie came with tea, but she could not touch it. “I wish Arthur was here; I must go across to Mother’s. Bessie,” she said to the girl who had come back with little Isabel, “go and look for a boy to fetch me a cab.”

  Bessie went. There was usually a corner boy hanging about in the Place ready to run errands.

  V

  Phœbe followed her to her room. Watching her in mute misery as she put on her outdoor things, she saw that there were tears in Bel’s eyes. For once she did not despise the sight of them. They must be for Arthur, and they filled her with an apprehension such as she had never known before.

  Bessie came to say that the cab had come. Phœbe followed Bel downstairs and hung about dejectedly at the open door after she had driven off.

  For quite ten minutes she stood gazing into the drizzling rain. When at length she turned to go, she noticed a figure of her own size hanging about the corner. It was Sarah’s little sister Peggy.

  Peggy was rather a friend of Phœbe’s. The girl often came to visit in the kitchen. Phœbe was very fond of her—or rather of her visits—because Peggy was a silly child and allowed herself to be dominated, which Phœbe much enjoyed doing. She shouted to her now.

  “Hello, Peggy, what are you standing there for?”

  The child came forward. Phœbe could see that she was crying.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Peggy’s father being a coward himself had sent her down with the news of Arthur’s disappearance. Sarah, still hysterical, was quite unfit to come herself. Seeing Phœbe, Peggy took heart. It was easier for her to tell Miss Phœbe than to tell Mrs. Moorhouse. Through her tears, and prodded on by Phœbe’s increasingly excited questions, the news came out.

  Phœbe was appalled.

  Arthur stolen! She had heard of such things. When she was younger Sarah and Bessie had told her tales to frighten her. But of course it was a thing that could never really happen to anyone you knew! She hadn’t even believed in the stories much.

  And Arthur! Her own particular Arthur! Had she not staked her claim upon him on the very first night she came here, months before he was born? Had she not lain in bed on some of those first homesick nights telling herself that there was a baby coming, who would make up for everything she had lost? She stood trembling. What was to be done? Her contempt for Sarah was measureless. Fancy leaving the place before she had got him out! She told Peggy so roundly.

  Peggy, protecting her sister, told her that the people in those places were terrible. Phœbe could have no idea.

  Phœbe almost spat back at her. No, she had no idea. But that had nothing to do with it! Sarah would have to go to jail!

  But she must think what to do. She told Peggy to come in and wait in the hall. The elder child obeyed.

  Sophia too was appalled at the news. But for once she became quite calm and sensible. She called for Bessie—told her to take her own children home at once, and bring back her husband and David, wherever they had got to. She would stay here and look after Isabel and Phœbe.

  Bessie went with Wil an
d Margy as she was bidden.

  When they were gone, Phœbe, hanging about miserably, felt herself in the very pit of dread.

  Arthur—what could they be doing to him? Why had they stolen him? She had heard that rich children had been taken for their clothes. But that might not be the end of it! This child who despised tears found herself choking back bitter, shocking sobs.

  No. She must do something. She must think of a plan too! Couldn’t she go and try to get him herself? She daren’t tell Sophia. Sophia would tell her she was mad, and trot out the usual tales that only slum people could go into these places with safety on Saturday nights.

  Very well. She would be a slum child. She would disguise herself. Only last Hallowe’en she had dressed as one and gone across with Sarah to Grafton Square. They had all been taken in. And when she liked she could talk like any of the beggar bairns that came to ask a piece at the Laigh Farm back door. Suddenly, in her innocence, she was enchanted with the idea. Peggy was here and could show her exactly where Arthur had been taken.

  She found Peggy still sitting, miserable, in the hall.

  “Come up to my room, Peggy.”

  The child followed her.

  “Now take off your dress and give it to me, I’ll give you this one.”

  “Whit are ye goin’ tae dae, Miss Phœbe?”

  “Never mind, give it to me. This is a better one for you anyway.”

  Peggy was the most easily cowed creature in the world. In a few moments they had exchanged dresses. She was standing in Phœbe’s little braided serge school dress, and Phœbe was in her plain stuff one. But this was not the end of it, for Phœbe had taken a pair of scissors and ripped Peggy’s into rags.