Daphne du Maurier - Hungry Hill

"My dear Hal, I am sorry I shan't be able to get down for the fourth, but we have a luncheon arranged here for that day. I shall ask your uncle Edward to go down instead, and no doubt Molly and Kitty will wish to accompany him. '?

Hal shrugged his shoulders when he read the letter, and tearing it across, threw it in his waste-paper basket.

The woman had prevented him, of course; he knew how it would be. All right, what the hell? If his father did not want to see him row there was an end to it.

Rowing happened to be the one thing he could do decently, and he had hoped, secretly, that his father would be proud of the fact. Apparently not. It did not interest him.

His last half at Eton, and his father had come down to see him once in four years. The same thing would happen at Oxford. An occasional letter, a fat cheque, and nothing else. Well, he was used to it by now. It did not matter any more.

It was during Hal's second year at Oxford that Molly, on a visit to the Eyres across the water, met and became engaged to Robert O'Brien Spencer, J. p., a friend of her uncle Bill's.

"He is such a dear," she wrote to Hal, "and loves every inch of the country, just as I do. And don't think I am doing this to get away from Adeline, because it isn't true, whatever she may say to father. I am really fond of Robert. But the glorious thing is this, we shall live only thirty or forty miles away from Clonmere, and Robert is going to write and ask father if we may go there for Christmas, home I mean, and give the darling place an airing. Of course you must join us, and Kitty, and Lizette."

Home, after ten years. And dear old Molly going and getting herself engaged, to one of her own countrymen into the bargain. It was the greatest excitement since he had been up at Oxford-even better than rowing against Cambridge last spring. He must hold a celebration, give a dinner-party to all his friends and get gloriously tight. His allowance was running through his hands like water through a sieve, but it did not matter a damn. The old mines could stand the racket And he would paint Molly's portrait and present it to the happy bridegroom with compliments. Home for Christmas…

Molly was married in November, and there was a glorious gathering of the clans that even Adeline could not squash. She arranged the ceremony, of course, and did her best to damp the proceedings by insisting that the house in Lancaster Gate was too small for the reception, and it must be held in a hotel, that was big and dreary and lacked all personality. But she could not take away the radiant look on Molly's face as she stood receiving her guests in the centre of the room, and she could not stop the whispered admiration for Kitty, the chief bridesmaid, who at seventeen had lost her coltish look and was strikingly lovely, like her mother before her. And though she did all she could to prevent it, she could not drag Henry away before the stalwart bridegroom had persuaded him to allow his family the occupation of Clonmere for Christmas.

"We've won," said Hal gleefully, rubbing his hands, "we've trounced her at last. Don't look so scared, Lizette, she can't hear me. And I don't care if she does. Kitty and I are going to take you back home, over the water."

They set forth on the sixteenth of December, crossing to Slane and going down by train to Mundy, where they found that the little paddle-steamer was still running in spite of the lateness of the season, and it took them across the twenty miles of bay to Doonhaven itself.

The ten-year-old Lizette stood by the rail, between her sister and brother, looking upon it all for the first time, her pinched face losing its haunted expression, and the colour coming into her cheeks. The breeze was soft, from the south-west, the sky was full of little fleecy clouds, and the hills were green under the sun.

"There's Andriff Castle, where Grannie was born," said Hal, pointing to the far distance. "We have cousins there, I expect Molly will ask them over.

They must be grown up by now, and you see that church, standing in shadow, down by the water's edge-that's Ardmore, where we used to go every Sunday. Mamma is buried there."

How tiny it looked. How windswept and alone.

Had she lain there all these ten years, with no one belonging to her? Did anyone put flowers on her grave? Hal felt his throat tighten. The past seemed so remote, so long ago.

There was Hungry Hill, lifting his old granite head to the sky, and the mine-workings at the base, the chimney-stacks, the sheds, the tracks, and as the steamer rounded the point the humped back of Doon Island lay before them, the long line of garrison buildings, and the village of Doonhaven, nestling in the shadow of the hills.

"Look there, at the head of the creek across the harbour-that's Clonmere," said Hal.

They stared in silence, at the home they had deserted as little children. The sun shone in the windows and upon the grey walls. The new wing had mellowed with the years and had become part of it all, but it was still empty, untouched since the builders had left it in 1871. A flag was flying from the old tower. Boats were anchored in the creek.

The tears were running down Kitty's cheeks.

"I know it's idiotic, but I can't help it," she said, smiling at Hal. "I thought somehow it would be different, but it's not. It's just the same."

"There's a fellow in one of the boats," said Hal. "I wonder if it's a Sullivan or a Baird? He's probably been after killigs."

"The herons still live in the trees below the park," said Kitty. "Look, Lizette, by the other creek, you can see their big, untidy nests…

There's the harbour wall. It's low tide, the harbour is dry. We shall have to anchor outside and pull ashore."

"I see Molly and Robert on the quay," said Lizette, "and other people with them. The man is dressed as a clergyman. He has a long grey beard."

"It's Uncle Tom," shouted Hal. "He used to be father's best friend. And look, there's Aunt Harriet; she's waving a handkerchief."

"That must be Jinny with them," said Kitty. "Good heavens, she was six when we left. And now I suppose she's sixteen."

The paddle-steamer thrashed the water and went astern.

The anchor plunged from the bows. And across the dancing water the little boats pulled. Everyone was smiling, and kissing, and shaking hands. Uncle Tom had one hand on Hal's shoulder and the other on Kitty's.

Aunt Harriet had picked Lizette up in her arms and was holding her tight. Jinny looked from one to the other with warm brown eyes.

"God bless you all," said Uncle Tom, in his deep voice. "We are so very glad to welcome you home, so thankful and so happy."

The familiar cobbled stones, the shingle beach, the boats drawn up above the tide. Old Murphy's shop, the chandler's at the corner, the public-house across the square. It was market-day, and the stalls were being put away. A cowman was driving the cattle up the hill. Men stood about the square with straws in their mouths, staring and doing nothing, as they had always done. A woman was scolding a neighbour from her doorway, and a little slatternly child ran out with his finger in his mouth. The priest stood on the step of Murphy's shop, with a cabbage under his arm. Some half-dozen miners, in their working clothes, came singing down the road from Hungry Hill.

"Why did we ever leave?" said Hal. "Why did father make us go away?" Uncle Tom smiled, and took his arm.

"Never mind about that," he said. "You're home once more." How good it was to see Uncle Tom again, and kiss Aunt Harriet's plump cheek; smell the familiar Rectory smell, of leather chairs, and ferns, and dogs; sit down to an enormous tea, and a fruit cake of Aunt Harriet's own baking.

And memories, happy ones, tumbling over each other.

"Do you still churn the butter, Aunt Harriet, and skim the cream off with a scallop shell?"