Bildungsromans; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Scotland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Get out!" scoffed Jenny. "And don't put ideas in your own head.
Village! Talking shop, I should say."
The next morning was fine, and when Castleton called at Bochyn, Jenny
intrusted May with young Frank and suggested a walk. Granfa, who was
present during the discussion of the itinerary, declared the towans must
be visited first of all. Jenny was rather averse from such a direction,
thinking of the watchers who lay all day in the rushes. However, when
she thought how deeply it would infuriate her husband to know that she
was walking over that solitude in the company of Castleton, she accepted
Granfa's suggestion with a deliberate audacity.
It was pleasant to walk with Fuz, to laugh at his excitement over
various birds and flowers unnoticed by her. It was pleasant to watch him
trip in a rabbit's hole and roll right down to the bottom of a
sand-drift. But best of all were the rests in deep dry hollows above
whose edges the rushes met the sky in wind-waved, sharply cut lines.
Down there, making idle patterns with snail-shells, she could listen to
gossip of dear old London. She could smell in the sea air wood pavement
and hear in the scurry of rabbits passengers by the Piccadilly Tube.
And yet there was a gulf not to be spanned so readily as in the
tentative conversations of a single walk. Often in the middle of
Castleton's chronicles, she would wish desperately to talk of events
long buried, to set out before him her life, to argue openly the rights
and wrongs of deeds that so far she had only disputed with herself. In a
way it was unsatisfactory to pick up a few broken threads of a
friendship, leaving the reel untouched. Perhaps it was better to let the
past and the present alone. Gradually London dropped out of the
conversation. She wondered if, seeing London again, she would be as much
disappointed as by the tale and rumor of it borne down here by an old
friend. Gradually the conversation veered to the main occupations of
Jenny's mind--May and young Frank. May's future was easy to forecast.
She must in these fresh airs grow stronger and healthier, and supply
with the passing of every day a more complete justification of the
marriage. But what of young Frank's future? Jenny could not bear the
notion of him tied to the soil. She wanted his life to hold experience
before he retreated here to store up the grain and the gold. There must
be a great deal of her in young Frank. He could not, should not be
contented with bullocks and pigs and straight furrows.
Castleton listened sympathetically to her ambitions for the baby, and
promised faithfully that when the time came, he would do his best to
help Jenny achieve for her son at least one prospect of humanity, one
flashing opportunity to examine life.
"You see, I knew what I wanted when I was quite tiny. Of course nothing
was what I thought it would be. Nothing. Only I wanted to go on the
stage and I went. I shouldn't like for young Frank to want to do
something and have to stick here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account