The Weatherhouse. Nan Shepherd
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Miss Theresa would say, sure that it was Miss Theresa who would act spokesman against this earthy relic of an older age.
But before Miss Theresa could speak, Stella Dagmar, angry at her interrupted play and offended that no one noticed her, began a counting rhyme, running about among the women and slapping each in turn:
I count you out
For a dirty dish-clout.
Miss Theresa’s wiry hands were on the culprit. ‘A clout on the lug, that’s what you would need. Francie hasn’t his sorrow to seek.’
Stella dodged and screamed. The whole room was in an uproar. And suddenly Miss Barbara, loosening her grasp on Lindsay, broke into a bellow of laughter; and in a moment was gone.
Miss Theresa was scarlet in the face from fury.
‘Saw you ever such an affront to put on a body?’ she cried, cudgelling Stella to the rhythms of her anger. ‘Coming into a body’s house at a New Year time a sight like yon. Coming in at all, and her not bidden. And I’m sure you needn’t all be making such a commotion now. You couldn’t tell what’s what nor wha’s Jock’s father.’
They were all talking together. Lindsay stood amazed. The voices became appallingly distinct, resounding in her very head; and the hot, lit room, the excited ladies in their rich apparel, burdened her. She wanted to run after Miss Barbara, to escape; and, picking up her crimson curtain, she said, ‘I’ll put this past.’
‘I kent it was you all the time,’ Stella flung at her. But Lindsay was already gone. She closed the door from the parlour and stood in the cold, still hall. Through the windows poured the light of full moon. And Lindsay had a vision of the white light flooding the world and gleaming on the snow, and of Miss Barbara convulsed with laughter in the middle of the gleam.
She threw the curtain about her, drew on a pair of galoshes, and ran into the night.
The night astonished her, so huge it was. She had the sense of escaping from the lit room into light itself. Light was everywhere: it gleamed from the whole surface of the earth, the moon poured it to the farthest quarters of heaven, round a third of the horizon the sea shimmered. The cold was intense. Lindsay’s breath came quick and gasping. She ran through the spruce plantation and toiled up the field over snow that was matted in grass; and, reaching the crest, saw without interruption to the rims of the world. The matted snow and grass were solid enough beneath her feet, but when she looked beyond she felt that she must topple over into that reverberation of light. Her identity vanished. She was lost in light and space. When she moved on it surprised her that she stumbled with the rough going. She ought to have glided like light over an earth so insubstantial.
Then she saw Miss Barbara.
Miss Barbara Paterson came swinging up the field, treading surely and singing to herself. Her heavy bulk seemed to sail along the frozen surfaces, and when she reached the dyke she vaulted across it with an impatient snort.
‘O wait for me!’ Lindsay cried. She too was by the dyke, and would have leaped it, but was trammelled with her curtain.
‘Wait for me,’ she cried. ‘I want to speak to you.’
But when Miss Barbara turned back, there was nothing she could find to say.
‘Were you wanting over?’ asked Miss Barbara. She leaned across the dyke, lifted the girl in her arms and swung her in the air. ‘You’re like the deil, you’ll never hang, for you’re as light ’s a feather.’
‘Oh, put me down. But I want to go with you. Will you show me Knapperley?’
‘Ca’ awa’ then.’ Miss Barbara, without further ado, made off up the top of a furrow, pushing the girl firmly along by the elbow. Lindsay kept her footing with difficulty, sinking ever and again in the deep snow that levelled the furrows. She wondered what her mother would think. It was like an escapade into space. Her safe and habitual life was leagues away.
Miss Barbara made no attempt to speak. They passed through a woodland and came out by a gap.
‘There’s Knapperley for you,’ its owner said.
Lindsay stared. From every window of the tall narrow house there blazed a lamp. They blazed into the splendour of the night like a spurt of defiance.
‘But the Zepps,’ she gasped.
‘They don’t come this length.’
‘But they do. One did. And anyway, the law.’
‘That’s to learn them to leave honest folks alone.’
A spasm of terror contracted Lindsay’s heart. Miss Barbara had clambered on to the next dyke. She made little use of stile or gate, preferring always to go straight in the direction she desired. She stood there poised, keeping her footing with ease upon the icy stones, and pointed with an outstretched arm at the lights, a menacing figure. Then she bent as though to help Lindsay over.
‘Will she lift me again?’ thought the girl. The insecurity of her adventure rushed upon her.
‘Will she kidnap me and make me her servant girl? But I couldn’t live in a house with lights like that. There would be policemen if there weren’t Zepps.’
She twisted herself out of reach of the descending hand and fled, trailing the scarlet curtain after her across the snow.
Meanwhile in the Weatherhouse parlour Mrs Hunter was discussing Miss Barbara.
‘If she wasna Miss Barbara Paterson of Knapperley she would mak you roar. You would be handin’ her a copper and speirin’ if she wanted a piece.’
‘O ay, she’s fairly a Tinkler Tam,’ said Miss Theresa. ‘Coming into a body’s house with that old tweed. But she hasn’t any other, that’s what it is.’
‘That’s where you’re mistaken, Miss Craigmyle. She’s gowns galore: silk gowns and satin gowns and ane with a velvet lappet. Kists stappit fu’. But whan does she wear them? That’s the tickler. It’s aye the auld Lovat tweed. And aye the black trallop hangin’ down her back.’
‘It’s her only hat, that I can wager.’
‘It or its marra. Wha would say? She bought it for a saxpence from a wifie at the door and trimmed it hersel’ with yon wallopin’ trash. “If you would do that to your hat, Barbara Hunter, it would be grander.” “God forbid, Barbara Paterson, that I should ever wear a hat like that.” But she’s aye worn it sin’ syne. Some says it’s the same hat, and some says it’s its marra and the auld ane gaes up the lum on a Sabbath night whan there’s none to see.’
Mrs Hunter talked with enjoyment. She was entirely devoted to the spanking mare on whose land she and her husband held their croft, and entirely without compunction in her ridicule of Miss Barbara’s departures from the normal. She liked to talk too—gamesome cordial talk when her hard day’s work was over; and the Craigmyle ladies, with their natural good-heartedness, allowed her to talk on.
‘Auld Knapperley gave her an umbrella and her just the littlin, and she must bring it to the Sabbath school as prood’s pussy. “What’ll I do with my umbrella?”—hidin’ it in ahin her gown—“it’s rainin’.” “Put up vour umbrella, Barbara.” “I won’t put it up, Barbara. I won’t have it blaudit, and it new.” And aye she happit it in the pink gown. Me and her was ages and both Barbara Paterson then, and she took a terrible notion o’ me. If I had a blue peenie she must have a blue peenie as well. And syne I was servant lassie at Knapperley for a lot of years. I couldna but bide, her that fond of me and all.’
‘But you won’t let Maggie