Daphne du Maurier - Hungry Hill

He considered this a moment. The word was too long for him, but it had a meaning.

"Granpie?" he said slowly, his expression brightening.

"No, not Granpie," she said, "someone else, that you have not seen before. We are going up to Clonmere to see him."

This could be understood. Clonmere was the house with the balcony and the windows, where they went so often for their walks. And climbing down from the chair, he allowed the ugly beaver hat to be placed upon his head, and the elastic snapped tight under his chin.

They went downstairs to the hall, hand in hand, and outside in the road Patsy was waiting, with the pony and trap. John-Henry looked to see if the picnic-basket was to be put in the trap, but there was no nigh of it.

"Picnic?" he said, watching his mother's face, but she shook her head.

"No, son," she said, "no picnic today."

He accepted the statement, but it was strange to drive in the trap with Patsy unless food was taken, and Granpie came, with rugs, and sticks, and coats, and parasols. Perhaps the arrival of the trap was a tribute to his velvet suit and the black beaver hat.

As Jinny passed the study she glanced in through the door, and saw that the Rector was sitting at his desk.

"We're going," she said. Her voice was calm and steady.

Tom Callaghan turned round in his chair. His face was grave, but his deep-set eyes were tender as he looked at his daughter and the boy.

"I've told you," he said, "not to expect anything from him. He is hard and cold, Jinny, not the man you remember as a child, who laughed and smiled and was gay, like our dear Hal. The years have been heavy with him."

"I don't want anything from him," said Jinny.

"I only think it right that he should see John-Henry."

"Yes," said the Rector, "yes, I understand."

Then she went from the room, with the boy, and they climbed into the trap and drove through the village street up the hill and past the cottages at Oakmount, until they came to the long wall, and the gatehouse.

Young Mrs. Sullivan was standing at the entrance to the drive, and as the trap drove through she curtseyed to Jinny, who returned the gesture with a solemn little bow.

John-Henry sat stiff and straight beside her.

People did not curtsey to her as a rule. Another tribute to the velvet suit.

He glanced at her hands. She was wearing gloves, a thing she only did in winter, or when she went to church with Granpie on Sunday morning.

Down the drive bowled the trap, through the rough park-lands and the woods, and there was the creek to the left of them, and the castle standing on the high grass bank above them. There was smoke coming from one of the chimneys, and the windows in the old part of the house had been flung open. There was a carriage drawn up in the turn of the drive before the castle. There was luggage placed on the seat beside the driver. The front-door of the great hall, that Jinny had never seen open, was open now.

Jinny hesitated a moment, but custom was too strong for her, and in a low voice she bade Patsy drive to the side-door, in the old part of the house.

She was a little nervous now. She pulled at the boy's lace collar, and straightened his hat on his head. Something of her feeling communicated itself to the child, and he felt shy and uncomfortable; he wanted to stay in the trap with Patsy.

"No," she said firmly, "you must come with me. And I want you to shake hands very politely when you see your grandfather."

The side-door was open, but Jinny rang the bell. It clanged loudly, echoing in a passage far away. A servant came to the door-the valet, she supposed, who had travelled over from London with his master.

"Mrs. Brodrick?" he asked, and John-Henry saw his mother bow again.

The gesture pleased him. It was so full of dignity. He imitated her, nodding his head up and down, but she frowned, and he supposed it was something that only grown-up people were allowed to do.

The servant opened a door across the hall and showed them into a large room, a dining-room. The cloth had been removed, but there was a long strip of green baize down the centre of the table.

This is where we lunched that Christmas Day, thought Jinny, when I was sixteen and Hal was twenty…

The servant had kindled a small wood fire in the grate, for although it was August the weather was chill. There were two chairs before the fire. Jinny was uncertain whether she should sit or stand. She had expected that Hal's father would have been in the room, waiting for them. The door at the end of the room was open. She remembered that it gave on a passage leading to the new wing, and she wondered if he had gone through there, to the other part of the house. She went on standing before the fire-place, holding John-Henry by the hand, and the little boy looked about him with interest, and pointed to a picture on the wall. It was a young girl, with soft brown eyes and dark curling hair.

She wore a string of pearls round her neck.

"Yes," whispered Jinny, "she's very pretty."

Jinny turned to the other side of the fire-place and gazed at the portrait of Hal's mother. How like him she must have been! That same reserve, that silence for no reason. Then the boy tugged at her hand, and looking over her shoulder, she saw that Hal's father had come into the room. He was not the Henry Brodrick she remembered as a child, not the Henry of the pencil sketch in the study at the Rectory. He was thinner, much thinner, and his face had fallen away, that had been large and firm before. His hair was scarce on top, and nearly white. The mouth was narrow, and the eyes more prominent than she remembered. Then he came forward, holding out his hand.

"You are Jinny," he said, "and I haven't seen you since you were six years old."

She had been ready to stand on her dignity, to speak at once in defence of Hal, of all that had happened, to accuse Henry if need be of neglect, unkindness, hardness of heart, but at his words her antagonism went, her defences were stripped from her, and she saw that he was shy and uncertain, even as she was herself, and lonely too.

"Yes," she said, "I'm Jinny, and this is John-Henry."

The boy put up his hand, as he had been told to do, and looked then around him at the door, wishing they might go.

"Won't you sit down?" said Henry, pointing to the chair, and Jinny held the boy by her side, whispering to him to be still.

For a moment Henry did not speak. He glanced away from the boy to the wood fire in the grate.

"What are your plans?" he said.

"I shall go on living in Doonhaven, with father and mother at the Rectory," she said, "until it is time for John-Henry to go to school. Then, I don't know.

It will depend on many things."

"I suppose," said Henry, "that Tom would like him to be a parson?"

"I don't think so," said Jinny. "Once, when I was talking about the future, he said that the Navy would be an excellent thing for John-Henry. But we needn't think about it yet."

There was a moment's pause.

"And Hal?" said his father. "Did he have any ideas on the subject?"

Jinny held the boy's hand, which was fidgeting with the lace collar.

"No," she said gently. "Hal was not interested in education, or professions. He just imagined that-that one day John-Henry would live here at Clonmere."

Henry rose to his feet, and stood with his hands behind his back, looking down on Jinny and his grandson, "I wanted to sell the place," he said, "many years ago. Hal will have told you that. I would still sell it, but, as you probably know, Clonmere is entailed. When I die, and this boy reaches the age of twenty-one, he can do as he likes. He can break the entail at will."

"Yes," said Jinny.

Henry walked slowly up and down the room.

"Property is a burden these days," he said.