The Cone Gatherers by Robin Jenkins

Author:Robin Jenkins [Robin Jenkins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781847675040
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 1995-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lady Runcie-Campbell burst out laughing; she was still astonished, but she was also fond and proud.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘aren’t you the complete democrat? But don’t overdo it, please.’

‘I wanted to tell them we were sorry,’ he said.

Her astonishment sharpened into indignation.

‘What!’ she cried. ‘If this is a joke, Roderick, I don’t much admire its taste.’

‘It’s not a joke,’ he said. ‘We didn’t treat them fairly.’

She frowned. Foreboding chilled her. Too weak physically to be able to attend school like other boys of his class, was he also, as his father when tipsy at midnight had once dolefully declared, faulty in mind? He did not see things or people as a baronet’s heir should. Certainly his tutor could not be accused of corrupting him: Mr Sorn-Wilson was more aristocratic than any duke. Yet there had been a corrupter: her own father now dead; and perhaps there still was one, herself the Christian.

With a sigh she turned again to Duror.

He had been standing respectfully waiting for permission to take his leave.

She found comfort and encouragement in his aloof submissiveness. Surely an order of society in which so honourable a man as Duror knew his subordinate place and kept it without grievance or loss of dignity, must be not only healthy and wise, but also sanctioned by God?

‘Of course he knows you’re coming, Duror,’ she said. ‘I telephoned him.’

‘It was good of you, my lady.’

‘I’ll consider my goodness recompensed,’ she said, smiling, ‘when you come back with a good report.’

‘I’m sure I’ll be able to do that, my lady.’

‘You’d be a hard man to convince you were ill, Duror. I don’t ever remember you being ill.’

‘I have never been ill, since I had the measles at ten.’

She laughed. ‘Touch wood, Duror, touch wood.’ She touched it for him. As she did so, she remembered her husband and brother in Africa, where men were killing one another; and she found herself wishing that the ancient superstition had virtue in it. Christ of course would then be banished forever into the darkness.

She shivered.

‘Well, Duror,’ she said, ‘you know we’re going to the pictures. We’ll pick you up here as soon as the show’s over.’

‘Very good, my lady.’

‘You won’t keep us waiting?’ She dropped her voice. ‘I don’t want to keep the children up any later than is necessary.’

He knew she was worried about the boy.

‘I’ll be here waiting for you, my lady,’ he said.

An irrelevant thought occurred to her.

‘How will those two get back?’ she asked.

He knew whom she meant. ‘They’ll walk.’

‘Walk? Dear me.’ She laughed. ‘I wouldn’t say they look very good walkers, whatever they’re like as climbers of trees. They must be very keen surely to visit Lendrick.’

‘Likely they’ll find it lonely in the wood, my lady.’

‘I suppose so.’ Admiring Duror for his solicitude, she indulged in a little herself. ‘I suppose they’re to be pitied really.’

‘Why don’t we offer them a lift, Mother?’ asked Roderick, in the quiet voice she had learned to regard as ominous. ‘We’ve got plenty of room.’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ she said quickly.

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