“Know of James Douglas?” he answered finally. “I think I should. I was his foreman for more nor twenty years.”
“Then I hope you can give me news of him, and his family.”
“Come in a minute,” Donaldson said. “It’s nippy by the door, this time of year.”
Moray followed him into a small dark kitchen with a faint blink of fire in the grate, the stuffy, untidy room of an old man living alone. Donaldson pointed to a chair, then, still wearing his cap, shuffled to his own corner and sat down below the wooden pipe rack.
“You’re a friend of the Douglases?” he inquired, with caution.
“Of long ago,” Moray said hurriedly. “And now almost a complete stranger here.”
“Well . . .”, the other said slowly, “the story of the Douglases is not a very cheery one. James, poor man, is dead and in his grave, lang syne, and Minnie, the sister-in-law, too. Ye may as well know that for a start. Ye see, James failed in his business and was made a bankrupt—there was queer work behind it, to do with condemning the property and making the new street, all by order of the town council. Anyhow, the disgrace just fair killed James, for he was an upright man and as honest as the day. Minnie, who was aye an ailing sort of body, soon followed him up the road to the cemetery. So that was that, and in place of James’s shop we got these grand premises, and pastries that would rot your bowels—not that I have anything against the company, mind ye, they kept me on and gave me this bit of a job.”
He broke off, lost momentarily in the past. Intently Moray pressed forward.
“There was a daughter, was there not?”
“Ay,” the other nodded. “Mary . . . and she had her troubles too. When she was a lass she got engaged to some fly-by-night that away and left her. A sore, sore heart she had for many a day. When I cam’ out the auld bakehouse I used to see her greetin’ by her window. But in time she come to, got verra religious in fact, and some years later when the new young minister, Urquhart by name, came to the Longend church, and a fine man he was, she had the luck to marry him. And ’deed, a nice bairn she gave him a year or so after.”
Stunned, Moray sat rigid in his chair. She had married, forgotten him, or at least betrayed what he had believed to be a unique and lifelong love: more painful still, had borne another man a child. In his present state of mind it seemed a desecration. And yet, for all his chill dismay, reason had not entirely left him. Who was he to deny her the right to happiness, if indeed she had found it?
At last, in a strained voice, he said:
“She is here, then, in the town, with her husband?”
“No. She left Ardfillan with her daughter not long after the husband died.”
“Died?” he exclaimed.
The old man nodded.
“He wasna’ one of the strongest, ye ken, and when we had the big Spanish ’flu epidemic in thirty-four he was taken to his eternal reward.”
Unconsciously, Moray relaxed slightly, drew an easier breath. The situation was suddenly and to some degree ameliorated. Dreadful, of course, to have lost a young husband whom he, on his part, would never have wished the slightest harm. Still, the unfortunate fellow had apparently been weakly from the start; the motive on Mary’s side might well have been pity rather than love. Partially restored, and with renewed feeling, he put his final question.
“Where did they go, Mary and her daughter?”
“A village in the Lothians. Markinch they call it. The daughter wanted to train for a nurse and they sought a place that was near to Edinburgh. But what’s come of them since I cannot tell ye. They werena’ in the best of circumstances, and they’ve never looked near Ardfillan since the day they left.”
A long silence followed while Moray, with bent head, tried to reassemble his thoughts. Then, still visibly affected, he stood up and with a word of thanks pressed a note into Donaldson’s hand. The old man, after feigning reluctance to accept it, was peering at his visitor across his spectacles with growing curiosity.
“My sight isna’ what it was,” he remarked, as he accompanied Moray to the door. “But I have an odd notion that I’ve seen you before. I’d like fine to ken who ye are?”
“Just think of me as someone who means to do well for Mary Douglas and her daughter.”
He made the statement firmly, with the consciousness of a new honesty of purpose and, turning, made his way back to the car. Now he perceived how illusory his hopes had been, how an his imaginings had been falsely based on a romantic re-creation of the past. Had he actually expected, after thirty years, to find Mary as on the day he had abandoned her, sweet with the freshness of youth, tenderly passionate, still virginal? God knows he would have wished it so. But the miracle had not occurred and now, having heard the history of a woman who wept for him late and long, who married, though not for love, then lost an invalid husband, who suffered hardships, ill-fortune, perhaps even poverty, yet sacrificed herself to bring up her daughter to a worthy profession—knowing all this, he had returned to reality, to the calm awareness that the Mary he would find at Markinch would be a middle-aged woman, with work-worn hands and tired, gentle eyes, bruised and beaten by the battle of life, but because of that the more willing, perhaps, to forgive and accept his generous attentions.
His heart warmed to these thoughts as he drove back to Winton through the fascination of the deepening river dusk. Then, all at once, it occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask Donaldson about Willie. Inexcusable omission! What, he now wondered, had happened to that bright little boy, the eager inquirer of their evening hours? Well, he would find out soon enough, and from Mary herself.
Seven o’clock was striking when he reached the hotel, and having eaten little all day he was thoroughly sharp set. After a quick wash and brush-up he descended to the grill room, ordered a double rump steak, onions, baked Arran Chief potato, and a pint of the local Macfarlane’s ale—all with such aplomb that he might never have been away. Afterwards he proposed to yield to the rich seductions of golden syrup tart. How good these native dishes were. He attacked them hungrily, secure in the knowledge that he would leave for Edinburgh and Markinch first thing tomorrow.
Chapter Three
Although the car was not running particularly well, misfiring occasionally on one cylinder, he decided to retain it rather than face a chafing delay at the agency, and at eleven o’clock on the following morning, having settled his bill at the Central, he set out for Edinburgh. According to his road map, Markinch lay some five miles inland from Dalhaven on the east coast, a small village apparently—at least he had not heard of it—and its limited population would undoubtedly facilitate his search.
The day was grey and breezy, with woolpack clouds tumbling about the sky, but in the early afternoon, when he reached Edinburgh, a low sun broke through, sending shafts of brilliance from the Castle ramparts across the gardens of Princes Street. A good omen, he thought, setting his course along the eastern road to Portobello. Here the traffic was held up for a few minutes at the Cross to let the Portobello Girls’ Pipe Band go through, on their way, he fancied, to some local gathering. It did him good to see the bonnie Scots lassies swing past to the strains of “Cock o’ the North”, their kilts swishing about their hurdles, Glengarry ribbons streaming in the blast of the chanters. Scotland’s natural resources, he told himself, with a smile, his discriminating eye singling out several most promising little pipers. But the hooting of cars behind recalled him and he drove on, through Musselburgh and Newbigging. He struck the coast beyond Gosford Bay and, drawing up beside a deserted beach, ate the sandwiches they had packed for him at the Central. Then he was off again. The sea had a sparkle, and a keen wind blew across the cropped links and the yellow dunes fringed with sharp-edged, bleached grass and tangled aromatic wrack. Offshore on his left the Bass Rock came in sight, and far ahead, on the landward side the green cap of Berwick Law. Gulls were wheeling and calling above the blowing sands. He could taste the salt in the spray-filled, gritty air; the tang of it against his teeth was the very feel of home.