My Friends the Miss Boyds Read online

  In church I always listened to a fair amount of the long sermon although I could understand very little of it or our erudite minister’s ramblings through the mazes of the moralities and the philosophies, partly because I was amused by the Reverend Roderick’s soft Hebridean accent and voice and partly because, when George, Tom and I were alone, we had competitions at ‘imitating the minister’, which would have caused the wrath of my grandmother and father to burst over our heads had they known of them. Today, when the Reverend Roderick announced his text, it was the one that George and Tom called ‘the ould hollow square’, the Master Formation, as it were, that the minister fell back upon when at his fighting, Highland best, with his very soul in battle against some colossal, almost over-powering sin.

  A deadly hush fell on the congregation as the Reverend Roderick rose, majestic in height, impressive of dark hair and beard and eagle nose, gripped the fronts of his black gown and said: “At the thirtieth chapter of Profferps you will find these words——” Not a Bible page was turned. From Sir Torquil right down to me the entire congregation knew what was coming. “There pe three theengs wheech are too wonderful for me, yea, four wheech I know not: the way off an eagle in the air; the way off a serrrpent upon a rock; the way off a ship in the midst off the sea; and the way off a man with a maid.” The deadly silence prevailed. “Today, I am going chust to speak apout the first two—that pird of prey the eagle and that sympol of a-all evil, the serrrpent.” A sort of inaudible sigh, a sort of invisible movement of relief passed through the church.

  With the ‘Hollow Square’ as a text, the sermon could fight on four sides as it were, and we were all relieved to know that, today, it was not the fourth side, ‘the way of a man with a maid’, that was coming. The Reverend Roderick had his finger on the pulse of the parish, his ear to its whispering ground, and he knew every young couple who were staying out too late o’ nights in the Green Loaning or other idyllic places. Fighting the fourth side of his Hollow Square, he could, without naming any names, do everything in a sermon except consign the couple to the bottomless pit then and there while at the same time bringing the grey heads of their parents in disgrace and sorrow to the grave. Today, however, we realised right away that it was that ‘serrrpent the Kaiser’ and his ‘Cherman eagles’ that were ‘in for it’, and we all settled back in comfort. In principle, we all agreed with the Reverend Roderick that sinners should be chastised and drawn back from the edge of the bottomless pit if possible, but it was more comfortable and relaxing on a warm morning that the sinners should be real enemies and ‘them rotten Chermans’ at that, instead of, perhaps, young Kate Findlay and the third ploughman from Dinchory. So, while the minister declared that the ways of eagles and serrrpents were beyond his comprehension as well as that of King Solomon, but also declared his faith that they were not beyond the comprehension of the Almighty and would be duly and justly punished for their sins in His Good Time, I gave myself up to contemplation of the Miss Boyds and the probable effect of their behaviour on the temper of my grandmother for the rest of the day.

  When church was over we all came out into the sun again and stood in the churchyard while Tom went to get our trap and George was sent by my grandfather to bring the wagonette round for Sir Torquil, and Lady Lydia came again, with her visitors, to talk to my grandmother, while Sir Torquil talked to my grandfather. The relationship that existed between these people is difficult to describe, for I know of no parallel today or, indeed, at any time in history, although in my childhood it was common enough in Highland Scotland. My people were not part of the Poyntdale tenantry, as were many of the people at church, for they were independent owners of Reachfar, just as Sir Torquil was the owner of Poyntdale. For this reason my father was not an ‘employee’ of Sir Torquil, as were his ploughmen and cattlemen—he was the son of a neighbour, the neighbour being my grandfather, who, at one time, had ‘helped’ Sir Torquil’s father by acting as grieve of Poyntdale. My grandmother put a point on the whole thing like a tall black exclamation-mark as she stood there in her black Sunday clothes. She was a daughter of the glens of the West, fiercely independent, highly skilled in the arts and crafts of her peasant class, and cleverly cunning enough in veterinary and obstetric matters to have earned the reputation of being a witch, a reputation which she was at pains to foster rather than disclaim. When Lady Lydia and my grandmother held converse in the churchyard, a local throne was speaking to a local throne, and the local populace knew it, stood back and held their peace. I think now, forty years later, that if I had been the local populace I would have looked forward to witnessing a difference of opinion between these thrones, but I also know now, forty years later, that my looking forward would have been in vain. They had no major differences of opinion, but, apart from that, if they had had, they were both—in their own estimation—ladies much too great and dignified to stoop to making a rare show of themselves for the hoi polloi. No. Any differences they might have would be settled in strict privacy. In public, thrones would always have the dignity of THRONES, as long as Lady Lydia and my grandmother were their occupants.

  “Yuh know-oh, Miz Sandison,” said one of Lady Lydia’s visiting ladies, “Ah think yo’ li’l gran’daughter is jus’ the cutes’ thi-ing!”

  It was a beautiful voice, I thought, that sounded as if she were laughing, singing and speaking all at the same time. My grandmother, about six feet tall, counting the feather in her hat, bent an eagle eye on me from away up high.

  “She is cute enough, madam,” she said. “Sometimes a little too cute, maybe.”

  “Mrs Sandison doesn’t mean quite what you mean by ‘cute’, Maddy Lou,” said Lady Lydia.

  “But yo’ ah-ah cute, huh, Jah-net?” the lady asked.

  I smiled at her. “Please, why is your name Maddy Lou?”

  “See, ain’t that cute, Lydia, honey? The way she says ‘Please, why’? . . . Mah name is Madeleine Louise de Cambre, sweetie, an’ mah frien’s say Maddy Lou for short, see?”

  “I think that’s nice—and cute,” I said. I knew, I thought, this lady’s meaning of ‘cute’.

  “Janet!” said my grandmother. “That will do. There’s Tom with the trap. Say Goodbye and go now.”

  I made my curtsy. “Goodbye,” I said, and went away to Tom, followed by the languid trailing voice: “Wa-al, Ah think it’s jus’ the cutes’ thi-ing Ah’ve seen in this ol’ country!”

  Maddy Lou put the Miss Boyds clean out of my head, and I thought about her and practised her voice silently to myself all the way home, where my mother and father came out to meet the trap. My father led Dulcie away to unyoke her while George and Tom went in to change out of their Sunday clothes and my mother took me to her room that my bonnet and gloves might be put away in their box on top of her high wardrobe.

  “Mother! There was a very bonnie lady at church with Lady Lydia and she spoke like this: Miz Sandison, Ah think yo-oh li’l gran’daughter is jus’ the cutes’ thi-ing——”

  “Janet, you must not mimic people. Go and change your skirt and blouse.”

  “No mimicking, Mother. It was nice, as if she was singing and laughing as well as speaking.”

  “I see. That would be the American lady who is staying at Poyntdale. Run and change. Dinner’s ready.”

  When I had changed and had come down to the kitchen where the Sunday broth was already in the plates and the Sunday boiled beef was sitting in its ring of turnips and carrots on the dresser, everyone was in place and I slipped into my chair between George and Tom on the ‘bairns’ side’ of the table. My grandfather looked round us all, covered his eyes and said: “For what we are about to receive, Lord, make us truly thankful. Amen”, and then we all began to have our soup. “Little Clip-Cloots there tells me that Lady Lydia brought her visitors to church,” my mother said.

  The Highland description of a gossiping tongue is ‘a tongue that would clip cloots’, and occasionally I was referred to as ‘Clip-Cloots’, for, in another Highland phrase, my tongue was reckoned t
o be ‘for ever clapping like a kirk bell’.

  “Aye,” my grandmother confirmed. “One of them was the American leddy—Duncan, what’s her name now?”

  “Madeleine Louise de Cambre,” I said in the French fashion and singing accents of Maddy Lou. My mother gave me a Look, but Maddy Lou had called me cute and I was away above myself and not to be put down by a Look, even from my mother. I gave tongue with another of the remarks Maddy Lou had made. The Looks now became a concentration and I realised that I Had Gone Too Far, and when I Had Gone Too Far one of the best Ways Back was a request for scholastic information, so: “Madeleine Louise de Cambre—George, I bet you couldn’t spell a name like that! Dad, how do you spell it?”

  George and Tom, as always, were right on hand and ready to help me. “Where could your poor crofter of a father be spelling a name like that?” said George.

  “And it foreign an’ American an’ a-all?” said Tom.

  With a tightening of the mouth that did not quite nullify the smile in his eyes, my father looked at the three of us on the bairns’ side of the table from his place by my grandfather’s right hand. “That’s enough of your capers, the whole three of you,” he told us. “I saw her name on her luggage when the men brought it from the station.”

  “Then spell it for me, Dad.”

  “All right.” He spelled the name for me. “And now, be quiet and eat your soup.”

  I did as I Was Told, but although my family could stop a person from talking they could never stop a person from listening, and all adult people should remember that even to cease talking and go into a Trappist silence is not an effective method of stopping a child hearing something, especially a child brought up in a lonely place, whose whole world is concentrated in the persons of the few people sitting round the Sunday dinner table. I knew every shade of expression on their faces, could interpret every glance of their eyes, could identify to hairbreadth precision the meaning of every inflection of their voices.

  There was a little normal conversation about Lady Lydia’s guests, and my father told them that Mrs de Cambre was the wife of an ‘American diplomatic gentleman’ who had come over on ‘business connected with the war’ and that she and Lady Lydia had gone to the same finishing school as young ladies. He also said that she was ‘a very free sort of leddy with no stinking pride about her’, very inquisitive about everything about the estate, that one minute you would find her at the sawmill and the next in the hay-field, and that she was already a great favourite about the place. I absorbed all this along with my soup, and then my grandmother went to the dresser to cut the beef while my aunt dished up the potatoes and cabbage from their big pots on the fire.

  “And a fine disgrace these silly craiturs made for Achcraggan in front of an American leddy that’s come to help us with the war!” my grandmother said vengefully, plunging the fork into the beef.

  “How? What happened?” my father asked.

  Normally nothing derogatory was ever said about any grown-up person in my hearing, with the exception of two—one was Jock Skinner and the other was Old Hamish the Tinker, and this was because these two were reckoned to be so far beyond the pale that even a child must see their faults, so there was no point in attempted concealment. Jock Skinner and Hamish apart, my family’s attitude in my hearing always was that all grown-up people were perfect; and although I knew from their eyes, faces and voices that much of the time they did not believe this to be true, I also knew that that was the belief I was expected to adopt and that no argument I might advance would get a hearing. Children did not—repeat NOT—have derogatory opinions about their elders who were, consequently, their betters. With the exception of that rascal Jock Skinner and that dirty, thieving, old tinker Hamish, of course.

  Today, however, things were different. Having served everyone with meat, while my aunt dispensed the vegetables, my grandmother, in the panoply of her second-best skirt and blouse into which she had changed on coming from church, and her black sateen Sunday non-working apron, gave tongue in no uncertain voice about no less than six grown-ups, to wit, the Miss Boyds, and when she had finished with the words ‘—neither fitness nor decency and that’s all about it’ there flashed into my mind a vision of My Friend Bella Beagle.

  Sometimes I would take myself a walk to Achcraggan to visit Bella at her whitewashed house in the Fisher Town and often she would be sitting at the gable-end, baiting the family nets with mussels from the big enamel basin by her side. Always, when she had baited the last hook, there would be some of the slimy, shelled mussels left over and Bella would pick up the basin, go down to the grass bank at the shore and, with a swinging movement, throw a long stream of mussels high in the air and say: ‘There, then, ye deevils!’ and with fantastic swooping skill the big seagulls who sat on every roof of the Fisher Town would fall, screaming, upon the airborne mussels so that not one had time to fell back on the sand of the beach. At eight years old, I had not yet met My American Friend Martha and I had never heard her phrase ‘strickly for the birds’, but that day I had the feeling that in my grandmother’s opinion the Miss Boyds, like Bella Beagle’s left-over mussels, were ‘strickly for the birds’.

  After my grandmother’s diatribe nobody had much to say and the remainder of the dinner passed in silence and everyone, except me, after the washing-up had been done and the fire stoked up, went off to have their Sunday sleep. I gave Fly her dinner, and after she had eaten up every piece of her bone from the beef she and I took ourselves a walk west from the house and soon came to the Strip of Herbage, which was the western boundary between the arable land and the moor. I had not, at eight years old, begun to think of it as the Strip of Herbage—that came later when I had read FitzGerald’s poem—but as I now can think of it by none other than that name I have used it here.

  Reachfar land was rich in valueless rock, the most of the arable land had been claimed from the rough, virgin moor within the memory of my grandfather. The field known as the ‘west Parkie’ had been ‘taken in’ in the childhood of my father and my uncle, and it was still yielding large lumps of rock to the plough. This meant that, every spring almost, the Strip of Herbage altered its character a little, as another boulder or two were rolled out into it, for it was a line of big stones that had been rolled there from year to year. In the contrary way of nature, however, although these rocks would not grow the crops my people fought for, the crevices between them grew all the things I loved—the violet, the sweet briar and the wild tansy rooted there and flourished; the lichens, like green pin-cushions full of golden pins, colonised the uptorn stones; the dog roses and the foxgloves came too and, as the rocks weathered to grey boulders, the wild thyme, which, like the Assyrian army, was all purple and gold, marched its cohorts across them in the summer sun. As when the coal boat came in, anything could happen at the Strip of Herbage. The proper way to behave at it was to get on to the big boulder at the south-west corner and make your way by hop, step and skip from boulder to boulder, treading on nothing but grey stone, to the big boulder at the north-west corner. This way, you saw from above every new plant that had taken root, every new flower that had come out. You could stop as often as you liked, and on a propitious day the Strip of Herbage could take you a whole afternoon to see it properly. Another desirable thing to have while hop, step and skipping was a song, and it was remarkable how, once you started off, the song would come to you, so I hopped, stepped and skipped today to a new song that came as I went along:

  ‘Bonnie Maddy—Lou—Lou, How do you do—do?

  While the bells were ringing, your smiling voice was singing.

  I’m glad I saw you there, there, with your curly hair, hair.

  You are cute too, too, Bonnie Maddy Lou-Lou!’

  I finished the Strip of Herbage fairly early that day, and when Fly and I went back to the house everything was still dead quiet, and when we had gone quietly into the kitchen the clock on the mantelpiece, with the flower-painted panel below the dial, said only quarter-past four. Sunday
tea was not until five-thirty.

  In a corner of the kitchen there was the ‘little table’ whose top held newspapers and a book or two, and which had two drawers, one of which held string and odds and ends and the other of which held my ‘bitties’. These consisted of small things which I might leave lying about, such as a shell from the beach or a particularly handsome spruce cone or shiny chestnut from the Poyntdale trees, and there was always an end of pencil in there, too. My mother was very good about my ‘bitties’ drawer, and would always put into it any odd piece of clean paper that could be written on and sometimes, even, a few sheets of Proper Writing Paper from her own box which I was not allowed to touch. Today, there was a half-sheet of paper from her box, so I took it to the table and with great care I wrote down my Maddy-Lou-Lou song, which took me all the time until the clock on the mantelpiece began to strike five.

  In that moment the house and farmyard came alive. There were movements upstairs, a rustling from my mother’s room as my father laid aside his newspapers which he did not have time to read during the week, Fly began to stretch and scratch herself and, outside, the hens began to squawk for their evening meal. My aunt, who was the youngest person in the house except me, came into the kitchen and swung the kettle on its hook over the fire, where it began to sing. She smelled very nice, I noticed—she had been trying ‘that stuff’ on her face again—she was always at capers like trimming hats or doing her hair a new way at Sunday sleep.