CHAPTER ONE

Twilight turned June’s reflection into a shadow. Slowly, as though by witchcraft, the mirror rendered back to her the hues of her flesh, the twin gleams of her eyes, the tawn of her hair, refused all but the nebulous outline of a young girl.

“Shall I turn on the light?” asked June aloud of the room.

But she was listless and did nothing, simply stood on there and felt the soft yet chilly night breeze contract her heart.

Half a year ago (how long it seemed!) June had been put to bed with one of those fevers that come from raw milk. She remembered herself quite well from those days: a thin, sinewy child, wild and rough as either of her two brothers. What had happened to that child? Where had she gone? Ah, she had vanished during those feverish nights and in those languid mornings she had disappeared, because the June who had risen lately could not have much to do with the June who had lain down. That homely drink of milk from which she had swallowed fever had contained, it seemed, another germ as well: the more ruthless one of adolescence. Yes, somewhere during the hazy aches of her illness, June’s childhood had gone forever. It was unfair. She had had no chance to say goodbye, no chance to make ready for the next guest.

June was displeased by the shape in the cupboard mirror. She saw herself as thickened, softened and spoiled, without purity of line. Her legs, because of a new fullness in her thighs, appeared shorter, her waist too small above her hips. Then, too, the dark, changing flowers of her bosom dismayed her and rubbed against her clothes. June was still weak from being in bed and was not allowed out or downstairs, so she was free to contemplate for hours these differences in her person.

As darkness settled, June could see the little dormer window in her room begin to glow, and innumerable insect sounds belonging to summer filled her head like a buzzing of her own ears. Then the lights were snapped on and a well-known voice said cheerfully:

“How can you stay like that in the dark?”

June turned to look at the stranger who was her mother. “When will I be able to go downstairs, Mother?” she asked.

June’s mother, or ‘young Mrs. Grey,’ as she was called, went over to the window and drew the blind. She was of the same colouring as her daughter: a dark blond with swarthy skin, but she had a thin, quick face and her figure was of the type known as smart. Before they had become strangers, June had really not known how her mother looked. Now she examined the woman furtively and closely, hoping that they were not alike.

“June,” said her mother, “you are getting well now and your strong constitution has helped, but you must go quietly and slowly. I came up to talk about summer plans. We have never really discussed them.”

The Greys had been preparing for a long trip which, in the case of June’s father, was a semi-business one. They believed in including their children on such excursions and were indeed very dependent on them for amusement and pleasure. June’s brothers were even now packing their bags. One could hear the sounds faintly through the thick old walls, a contrast to June’s own idleness and silence.

“You see, darling,” continued young Mrs. Grey, “you won’t really be your old self again until the fall. I know it seems sad that you should be here without us, but you must get in good shape for school. Besides, you’ll be such a pleasure to your grandmother.”

The summer stretched out in front of them both now, different for each, filled with mystery and hidden fate.

“What about my lessons?” asked June, who had missed the winter and spring term at school.

“Your father has found you a tutor—or rather your grandmother has. It appears she got a letter weeks ago asking her to find one for another child, and so had already made inquiries in the village. Really your grandmother is remarkable!” she finished in the cross tones which meant in fact: ‘She is secretive and sly.’

Young Mrs. Grey gave a bright smile and turned on her heel briskly as though glad everything were settled. She was about to leave the room when June asked:

“Mother, do you really think I will be my old self by winter?”

“Of course you will, darling. Why, you’ll be allowed downstairs in time to say goodbye to us.”

‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ thought June resentfully as her mother’s footsteps tapped sharply down the stairs, ‘and she knew perfectly well what I meant.’

It was true. June’s mother did know and she was glad to escape. She loved her children, but would she be able to love all of them, always? How oppressive the atmosphere had been in that darkened room! Something intensely sensitive, almost quivering, had emanated from the young girl’s being. Despite herself young Mrs. Grey felt a cold dislike and was unable to summon a grain of sympathy. She would be glad to leave for the summer; glad to leave June whom she had nursed so carefully for the last months, and glad as well to leave this gloomy house with its Victorian inconveniences. She could feel here an atavistic draught blowing through stairways and corridors. Alien blood called here from other lands, thick blood with which her own refused to mingle.

June’s mother was impatient. With her light step and quick, light, mobile thoughts, she longed for a country house of her own. She wanted chintz curtains, comfortable chairs and a fleecy bathroom. Yet so far they had come here every summer to live with an old woman on her hilltop where great, dripping trees darkened the windows.

Philip, nine years old, ran up to her as she reached the floor below. “Mother, I have no slacks and I need a real tie, don’t I, if we’re going anywhere?”

Philip had been a white blond, but each year his hair was growing darker just as his deliciously plump body was beginning to get thin. Now his whole face was twisted into an anxious, pleading expression. His mother smiled. She could see just the kind of tie he wanted: blue with a red stripe to turn him into a monkey.

“We’ll have to go shopping in the village tomorrow, won’t we?” she said in that complacent and motherly voice that is the balm of children. Silently she asked: ‘Will you get strange and different too? Will you be on my side?’

Philip’s blue eyes stared back at his mother as though to say: ‘Pierce me if you can. It’s still a secret.’ Then the little boy ran thumping off in his brown, schoolboy’s shoes.

And after all, reflected young Mrs. Grey, she felt no difference in Charles, and he was June’s elder by two years. Perhaps this house, this atmosphere, would only claim one of her brood, and leave the rest alone.

Below, from the ground floor, an uneven tapping told that old Mrs. Grey, called simply ‘Mrs. Grey,’ was moving from one room to another. After dusk set in, the old woman sometimes became restless. It was as though she were expecting a great company of guests and were seeing to it that the house was in readiness. Yet she turned on no lights and did not so much as raise her hand to straighten a curtain. Over her shoulders she wore a lilac shawl and her face shone like parchment. At Philip’s eager voice she turned her head upwards, but she did not smile for she disliked children as such, or rather, there were no children any more to whom she could give a place in her world.

‘How nice it will be when they go,’ she thought, ‘and when I am left alone in my house.’ Only June would remain, and June was no problem to her grandmother. She resumed her journey slowly, going out onto the wide veranda which overlooked both wood and water. Feeling the sweet night air she thought: ‘How it used to make me suffer!’ and she plumbed her breast for any sign of pain now. But there was none.

“Hello, Mother.” It was her son, her only remaining child, back from the city. He sat down on the railing. “Well, we’ll be off soon.”

“All but June,” said Mrs. Grey.

“Yes, I hate to leave her,” said June’s father.

“Well, you know,” said the old woman, “I don’t think she’ll mind. She’s at that age.”

John Grey looked startled, threw away his cigarette and said: “I guess I better go up and have a talk with her now. There won’t be time tomorrow.”

He found June sitting on the bed, brushing the lion-coloured hair which fever had somewhat dulled. She was thinking: ‘When they leave I can experiment with it,’ or rather she had started in that vein before her father’s step sounded on the stair. Then all reflections were cut off. Her body tensed and she waited.

As her father entered, June looked away and listened to his summer instructions while examining her hairbrush. She was to work hard so as not to go back a class. She was to remember that she was now fifteen. She was also to keep in mind that money did not grow on trees.

“But I won’t spend any here,” she said defensively.

“I’m not talking of spending,” said John Grey. “You can’t have been listening. I was saying that you must begin to think of the future; of what you want to do in the world to support yourself, and of how to prepare for it. Of course,” he continued, making his voice stay matter of fact, “your mother and I hope you will marry. That’s another thing I want to talk about. When we come back we must think of your wardrobe and appearance.”

He was self-conscious by now and June felt cold with embarrassment. ‘So he too sees the change,’ she thought, and aloud she muttered: “I won’t be fifteen for more than a week.”

After her father had gone and while June undressed, she pondered on those remaining days in which she would still be fourteen. They did not count, it seemed. Her father had spoken as though they were over already. Yet she was sure he would never discount them in the other direction. He would never, two weeks after her birthday, call her fourteen. People hurried one along so fast, as though to urge one to catch up with them. And it was useless because their own spans ran on ahead. The talk of marriage was especially outrageous. How unbecoming of her father! How dare he speak of such a horrible thing? As if she, June, would ever marry! On the other hand the thought of preparing for some unknown job was equally alarming. The words ‘support yourself’ had a dry, routine, tedious sound.

June shook her head as if in this physical act to scatter her father’s words. She released the blind once more and turned out the light. As she got into bed she could feel the summer evening take possession of the room again. Its throbbing insect song permeated the darkness. How quickly the summer would pass here on the peninsula—the last remaining months before she would have to think about life. June lay back with a sigh, and her hair, loose on the sheets, gave out to her nostrils a strange, womanly smell. This odour seemed to June in some odd way to answer the night sounds from her window.

Suddenly, down the hill towards the bay, a cry sounded: high, thin, melodious, hauntingly sweet. June had heard that same cry just after nightfall for the last week. Not knowing from what creature it came, she had imbued it with profound meaning. It was repeated a second and a third time. Vague longings filled the young girl’s head and mingled with her dreams.

CHAPTER TWO

June waved goodbye to her family. She had been carried downstairs by McGreggor, the gardener, and stood on the porch while, with much confusion, her brothers, mother and father settled themselves in the car and drove off. She moved her arm up and down to them across the shimmering space of heat which widened as they circled a clump of bushes and then nosedived over the edge of the hill. Although she had never wished to go with them, June felt rather abandoned. “They might go away and never come back,” she murmured experimentally, but no new sensation entered her heart. Then she saw McGreggor returning to carry her upstairs.

McGreggor, to go by his name, sounded like someone out of a children’s book. Yet he was a dour man and June did not like him much. Rumour had it that he had been the suitor of Catherine, Mrs. Grey’s one remaining servant, for twenty years. If so, his courtship was discreet. He lived in a cottage which was joined on to the rear of the stables and he came over every evening to sit for an hour on the back porch with Catherine. No one had ever heard them utter a word during these sessions although Catherine was talkative at other times. Occasionally too, in the late summer dusk, McGreggor could be heard playing his bagpipes to the woods. June had seen him standing on the far side of the stables, his face crimson with effort, hurling into the pipes at once his breath and his spit. Aside from these two diversions, he was a tireless worker, rising at dawn to brew his black tea. He had a team of horses and three fields which he rotated, one lying fallow. Although Mrs. Grey did not know it (or appeared not to) McGreggor made quite a good thing out of selling extra vegetables to the village. He sold butter and cream as well from the five cows. For this reason he disliked it that the son and grandchildren of Mrs. Grey came to stay with her, and thought of them as parasites robbing him of his just dues.

He came trudging around the corner with his dead pipe clamped in his mouth, his heavy hands hanging by his side. June, looking at him, did not want to be in his arms. How had she stood it on the way down? As he came close she became aware of his smell: mingled with earth and sweat, there was also the peculiar odour of a celibate and bad-tempered man.

“Let me try myself, Mr. McGreggor,” she said. “Mother told me I could.”

He shrugged and went off without a word.

The climb up the two flights of stairs was difficult that first time and June stopped often, drenched and trembling. The joints of her ankles, which she could not control, hit against each other and made bruises. There seemed not only a weakness in her muscles but also in her veins. They quivered like string that is pulled too hard. The exasperated nerves of convalescence made her want to cry.

Mrs. Grey’s house was very big. It contained twenty-seven rooms, although most of them were now closed. Once, of course, all the rooms had been open and filled. Mrs. Grey had had three sons and a husband. Two of the sons were dead; a childhood illness had taken one, and the other had bled to death in a foreign land. Their faces looked down from the walls fresh and innocent, stamped with the righteousness of those who die young. Mrs. Grey’s husband had followed the two boys. The money had dwindled. The servants departed.