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THE WAX FRUIT TRILOGYThe Wax Fruit Trilogy brings together Guy McCrone’s three

classic novels, Antimacassar City, The Philistines, and The Puritans, which chronicle the life and times of the Moorhouse family as they

rise from the obscurity of an Ayrshire farm to a position of great prosperity in Victorian Glasgow.

The first part of the trilogy introduces the Moorhouse family – Arthur, the successful businessman and first of the family to move

to Glasgow; David, the dashing and impulsive socialite; Bel, driven by ruthless social ambition; and Phoebe, the half-sister from the Highlands who grows up to be a great beauty. The second and third volumes follow the changing fortunes of the family, as their lives are touched by triumph

and tragedy – in Glasgow at the height of the Victorian era, and in Vienna, glittering capital of the Hapsburg Empire.

‘Wax Fruit recaptures the atmosphere of the period most effectively.’ Glasgow Herald

‘Very fine indeed . . . McCrone knows just about everything a man can know about the Glasgow of those days.’

Glasgow Evening Citizen

‘a very readable story.’The Guardian

i

WAX FRUIT

GUY MCCRONE was born in 1898 in Birkenhead.After his parents’ return to their native Glasgow, hewas educated at Glasgow Academy, going on toread modern languages at Pembroke College,Cambridge, and then studying singing in Vienna.On his return to Glasgow, he organised the firstBritish performance of Berlioz’s Les Troyens atthe Theatre Royal in 1935. He was also one of thefounders of the city’s Citizens’ Theatre.

Glasgow provided the main inspiration forMcCrone’s writing, and the novels AntimacassarCity, The Philistines and The Puritans, begun in1940 and published as Wax Fruit in 1947, arewidely regarded as his finest work. Two moresequels followed: Aunt Bel (1949) and TheHayburn Family (1952). His other novels includeThe Striped Umbrella (1937), James and Charlotte(1955) and An Independent Young Man (1961).Guy McCrone retired to the Lake District in 1968,where he died at Windermere in May 1977.

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Other B&W Titles by Guy McCrone

AUNT BEL

THE HAYBURN FAMILY

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�

b & w p u b l i s h i n g

WA X F R U I T

GUY MCCRONE

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First published 1947First published by B&W Publishing Ltd 1993

This edition published 2012by B&W Publishing Ltd

29 Ocean Drive Edinburgh EH6 6JL

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 12 13 14 15

ISBN 978 1 84502 417 8

Copyright © 1993 Guy McCrone

The right of Guy McCrone to be identifiedas the author of this work has been asserted by him

in accordance with the Copyright, Designsand Patents Act 1988.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publicationmay be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library.

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, SuffolkPrinted and bound by Nørhaven, Viborg

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CONTENTS

BOOK I ANTIMACASSAR CITY 1

BOOK II THE PHILISTINES 209

BOOK III THE PURITANS 397

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To Glasgow Readers

No. You must forgive me. But I did not havethe impertinence to draw for you portraits of

your grandparents and their friends.

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antimacassar city

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2

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Chapter One

WHY were the dogs whining? It was Doon and Nith that were making the noise. Clyde,

who was the oldest and was most attached to her father, musthave trotted off after the trap when her mother and he had drivenoff this evening.

The strong moon, coming through the skylight, made a dazzlingoblong on the wall opposite the little girl’s bed. Although sheherself lay snug, the attic room was so cold that she could seeher breath when she puffed in the direction of the beam of light.

“Haud yer tongue, Doon! Keep quate, Nith!” That was herbrother’s voice. She could hear his heavy boots cracking thefrozen puddles of the farm close.

What time was it? Nine or ten o’clock? Late for Ayrshire farmfolks, anyway. Her instinct told her that her parents were notyet come home from their visit. There was still a sense of waiting.That must be why the dogs were restless.

She knew all the farm’s lightest sounds. She could tell theirmeaning. She could hear the movement of hoofs as the Clydes-dales shifted the weight of their great resting bodies from one legto the other.

But the lighter taps of the pony’s hoofs were wanting.A suppressed excitement took hold of her. It was not quite

anxiety, though she was beginning to feel that too. This oddchild of ten was beginning to hope, almost, that something wascoming to her. For, though she did not know it, she was of thosestrange people who must have experience, even though it betragic—who, even in catastrophe, are able to stand back andappraise.

She climbed out and threw some bedclothes about her. Draggingthe one chair in the room beneath the skylight, she climbed uponit and pushed the glass frame wide open. The air, cold as aknife, met her round warm cheeks, but she did not care. Shecould now get her head through.

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She could see the shape of the buildings—the barn, the cart-shed, the stables, the byre. And beyond, the stacks in the stack-yard, then the gate to the road. In the strong moonlight, andrimed with hoar-frost, everything was colourless. Everythinghad been reduced to planes and angles of velvet blackness andsilver-white.

But for the occasional shuffling of the beasts in the stablesand the cowshed, there was silence now. The collies must havefollowed her brother, wherever he was.

No, there they were, back again, wheeling about the yard likephantoms. Now they were whining the low, restless whines thathad awakened her.

“Nae sign yet?” A farm-hand’s voice was speaking.“No’ yet.” Her brother’s voice again.“Whit time is it?”“Ten.”So they were late. The farm usually went to sleep at eight.

This tension was exciting. There were little thrills all over her. Itwasn’t just the cold creeping up from her bare feet.

II

Were these the steps of a pony now? She listened intently.Her brother and the man emerged from the shadows and,

crossing the yard, hung over the gate.Were these the familiar hoof-claps? They must be. But she

couldn’t understand. She knew the weight and ring of them. Butshe could hear no wheels, and the hoofs clattered together attimes as though the pony were dancing hysterically on a leading-rein.

Where was the trap? And where were her father and mother?She could feel her heart thumping in her body.

The dogs had run forward to the gate too, barking excitedly.Her brother turned on them and again shouted at them to bequiet. Suddenly something ran through them. It was her father’sdog Clyde. Paying no attention, he came down to the centre ofthe yard. In the strong moonlight she could see the handsomelong limbs of the old collie trembling. His bushy tail was clapped

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down tight over his thin buttocks. His ears lay as though hewere in pain. For a moment he stood shivering, turning his long,elegant muzzle this way and that, looking about distractedly;then, balancing backwards, one thin front paw off the ground,he threw back his head and uttered a long, low howl.

The child had never heard anything so heartbroken. The otherdogs seemed to get his meaning, for they were circling roundhim now, copying his low-sung note of woe.

Her brother paid no attention to them, for the pony, impatientat being led by a strange hand, was dancing sideways throughthe opened gate.

The three men were talking together excitedly. Suddenly herbrother broke from them and ran towards the house. Now,inside, she could hear him calling, though she could not catchwhat he said.

She jumped from her chair and listened at her door. The houseseemed to be stirring. She could hear the door of the servant-girls’ room bang.

All this was very exciting. It was horrible to be missinganything. Should she go down to ask what it was? She did notdare. Her brother would order her back to bed, for he was strictwith her, as their father was.

Now she could hear heavy steps coming to the foot of theattic stair. They began to ascend. She jumped into bed andcovered herself up, ready with the pretence of sleep.

In another moment the catch was lifted and her brother stoodin the doorway. Was it the moonlight that made him look likethis? His aspect gave her a sensation of intense interest. So peoplelooked like that if something dreadful had happened. He wasstruggling to seem calm. She could see that his deliberation wasmerely to give himself time.

She sat up abruptly as though she had been shocked out of adeep sleep.

“What is it?”His voice was even stranger than his looks as he told her.

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Chapter Two

MR. AND MRS. ARTHUR MOORHOUSE, of Ure Place,in the City of Glasgow, were already half-dressed by seven

o’clock.Arthur was standing in his best trousers pouring out his

shaving-water from a shining copper can. For though, in thisyear 1870, hair on the face of the male was considered moreornamental than in later days, there was still a certain amountof shaving to be done. Arthur limited his natural decoration tomutton-chop whiskers. He was wise, for their blackness lent hisstrong features, his black eyebrows and the natural paleness ofhis skin an added distinction.

“There was no need for ye to get up so early, my dear. It’s abitter morning.” Arthur drew out his razor and tested the edge.

Bel Moorhouse, wrapped as well as was possible against theArctic chill of the bedroom, was running her comb down throughthe thick ripples of her hair. Its waved fairness shone bravely inthe light of the two gas-jets above her head.

“Nonsense, dear. You’ve got a long, cold day in front of you.I must see that you get your breakfast properly.”

Bel went on with her combing and Arthur took up his shaving-brush.

These foregoing words do not seem, in themselves, verypregnant, but their overtones were many, and to each of theseyoung people betokened more than a perfunctory demonstrationof affection on a cold morning.

Bel should stay in bed and take care of herself, Arthur wasimplying, because she was his precious wife, only lately acquiredafter many tedious years of looking after his own none toothankful family. And in addition—and of still greater import-ance—he was delicately reminding her that her body was a frailcasket bearing within it their first child, to whose birth bothwere looking forward with the keenest pleasure. In his heartArthur knew that Bel was as strong as a horse. But the strength

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of horses is not romantic, except perhaps in the horses themselves.Certainly it was not considered so in a twenty-four-year-oldmatron of mid-Victorian days. Politer to assume that any puffmight blow her away, though you knew perfectly—and were thank-ful for it—that her agile young body would stand a hurricane.

And Bel’s answer had been just as full of meaning. “You mustbe fed and tended, my dear husband,” it implied, “by the onlyperson who really knows to a hair’s-breadth all your needs,physical and mental. You must be fortified against all discomfortsof the body and of the mind. Today you are to be with relativeswho for the past fifteen years have done nothing but worry andannoy you. You are going to bury your old father—for whom Ipersonally never cared—and with him, a second wife twenty yearsyounger than himself, whom he should never have married. Ithas all been very sudden and annoying, coming in this the eighthmonth of our marriage and just before Christmas. But I am muchtoo fine a woman to complain. With my charm, my profoundaffection and, above all, my great good-sense, I shall throw myselfbetween you and your annoyances. In a word, I shall be to youthe perfect wife.”

Each comprehended the meaning of the other perfectly. Whichall goes to show that Arthur Moorhouse and his wife were onexcellent terms.

By half-past seven Arthur was warming himself before acrackling fire in their pleasant red-plush dining-room. Thebreakfast-table looked cosier than ever from the fact that theroom was still in gas-light.

Bel, all pride and importance behind the teacups, was lookingup at her slim, thirty-three-year-old husband, more dark andeffective than ever in his long black coat. And Arthur, lookingdown upon his glowing wife, decided that black suited herfairness almost better than anything else.

“When is your train, dear?” Bel asked as he took his place.“Half-past eight.”“Then you won’t be going down to business first?”Down was the right word, for on their marriage the Arthur

Moorhouses had set up house here in Ure Place, a quiet andpleasant little square with trees in the middle, set on the side ofa steep hill. Up there they were in the City of Glasgow, but not

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quite of it. Yet in little better than five minutes Arthur’s longlegs could drop him down Montrose Street and into the Candle-riggs, where he conducted with diligence his business of wholesaleprovision merchant.

Arthur finished his last spoonful of porridge and held out hishand for his plate of ham and eggs.

“No,” he said, “I’ve no need to go down. David is going tolet me know if there’s anything.”

“That’s good,” was all Bel said, but in her mind she wonderedif Arthur’s young brother would really trouble himself to go. Hewas such an unreliable creature.

“There’s time to send one of the maids for a cab,” she saidpresently.

“Nonsense. I’ll walk across the town. If I leave at eight I’llhave lots of time.”

But Bel was insistent this morning. She even went the length—Junoesque though she was—of pretending, a little, to be pathetic,and thus, conquering her lord and master, she succeeded in havingthe cab ordered.

II

At five minutes to eight, Mr. and Mrs. William Butter arrived.Mrs. William had been Sophia Moorhouse. Before her marriage,

some eight years ago, she had kept house for Arthur. Arthur atthe age of eighteen had left his father’s farm and come to Glasgowto make his fortune. One by one his brother and sisters hadfollowed him, with the exception of the oldest brother, Mungo,who remained a farmer. Sophia had been the first.

Sophia was not perhaps one of Bel’s favourites. For, of all thefamily, she exploited Arthur with the least shame. Even now—from habit—Bel wondered for a moment what Sophia and herstolid husband could be wanting that they should call in on theirway to the station; for they lived in a flat in Grafton Square,further up, across Cathedral Street, or the Stirling Road as itthen was, and there was no reason whatever why they shouldcome to Ure Place.

“Good morning, Bel dear. What a cold morning! How cosy

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you both look! Could William and I possibly have another cupof tea? Or would it be a bother? We were so hurried at breakfast.Little Wil and Margy were so sure we would be late for theirgrandpapa’s funeral, they kept running with gloves and things.William nearly died laughing.”

As their sister-in-law pulled the bell—with the shallowestappearance of hospitality—to have more teacups brought, shecould not help wondering what William looked like dying oflaughter.

For, although William was only thirty-three, he was fat andsquare, and as much of his face as possible was covered withhair. Her gay young brother-in-law David had once describedWilliam Butter to Bel as a fat, hairy man who stood. You mightas well connect the expressing of emotion with the TolboothSteeple as with William. Perhaps it was the hair, Bel pondered.But after all he could emit sounds. And this he didn’t do either,much. No, if you shaved him clean, there would still be little orno movement of his facial muscles.

“Not that they aren’t very sorry about grandpapa’s death,”Sophia was going on. “But as they’ve only seen him twice—orwas it three times, William?”

William said nothing.“Yes, that’s right, three times, and then only for a little; they

can’t remember him very well. This tea’s putting new life intome, Bel dear. We must get some like it. Mustn’t we, William?”

William said nothing.“It’s time we were getting to the station,” Arthur said, pulling

out his watch.“What about your bonnet, Bel dear?”“Bel’s not coming,” Arthur said irritably.“Why? Oh, of course. How wise. I was forgetting.” She patted

Bel’s hand knowingly, then apropos of what appeared to benothing, looked about her and said: “Delightful to think—”

“I’ve arranged to go to the station in a cab. Would ye like alift?” Arthur said, with no attempt at grace in his invitation.

“That would be a great help, wouldn’t it, William?”William did not seem to hear.And at last it broke upon Bel why these two had come down

to them this morning. Young David had christened them the

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Emperor and Empress of Cadge. David, Bel reflected, was notfar wrong.

It was bitterly cold as she opened the front door for them. Shesaw her husband into his thickest overcoat and tied a woollenmuffler of her own knitting about his neck.

Arthur went down the front steps, said “Bridge Street Station,please,” and got into the cab without further ceremony.

Sophia bade Bel an effusive goodbye and regretted not havingher company in the train.

Bel, having decided that William’s hand was a little inclinedin her direction, grasped it and shook it.

Holding the cab door open, Sophia turned. “Bel dear, as you’renot coming, could you bear to send over for the children today?After all, it is Christmas-time. Poor wee mites. We can hardlyexpect them to feel our sorrow very deeply. They looked soforlorn when we said goodbye.”

Bel succeeded—just in time—in looking vague and sayingsomething about devoting the day to her mother.

“Well, anyway, if you can— Come along, William, don’t keepArthur waiting. Do you know what the time is now?”

But William did not bother to tell her the time. He merelyfollowed his wife into the cab.

III

As they drew up at Bridge Street Station, they could see the slimblack figure of Arthur’s younger brother, David, turning into theentrance. His hands were deep in his overcoat pockets and hisshoulders were hunched against the cold.

The noise of the car attracted his attention and he turnedwith a beaming smile to hold the door for its occupants. Davidwas always delighted to see everybody.

Arthur bounced out, paid the cab, then turned to David,saying: “Anything from the office?”

“I didn’t go in this morning.”“Why the devil didn’t you? I told you to. Have you got your

ticket?”“No.”

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Arthur said no more. But, going to the ticket office, boughthis own and his younger brother’s. By this time Sophia washovering.

“Come on,” he shouted. “I’ve bought your ticket.”Sophia’s gentle expostulation, “But, Arthur dear, William

didn’t mean you to,” was cut in two by Arthur saying: “I haven’tgot your tickets, Sophia. Just David’s and my own,” as hedisappeared into the inner station.

His second brother-in-law George was pacing the platform.George McNairn Esquire, as David always called him, was alarge, elderly-looking man of thirty-five. If ever a stomach wasmade to support the chains of office—if ever shoulders weremade to carry municipal ermine, these belonged to Mr. McNairn.He seemed infinitely large as he moved, slow and important, upand down.

He did not go to meet his brothers-in-law, but rather allowedhis stately progress to converge with their more abrupt steps.He shook their hands with ceremony and, looking beyondthem, spoke impersonally as though he were addressing theback gallery of the City Hall. His words could be heard all overthe station.

“Good morning, Arthur. Good morning, David. Well, this isa melancholy duty—a melancholy duty.”

Arthur returned his handshake quickly. “Good morning,George. Where’s Mary?”

“At the fire in the waiting-room. She’s feeling this very badly,poor girl—very badly.”

Arthur hurried on to find his younger sister.Mary was sitting solitary on a hard chair before a new-lit fire

that was, as yet, giving out no heat. Her wide black dress was allabout her and a thick veil hung over her face. Her hands, intheir black gloves, were folded on her lap.

Arthur went to her and greeted her in a business-like way.“Hello, Mary, how are you? Cold, isn’t it?”Mary raised her veil to allow her brother to kiss her.“Good morning, dear,” she said, in a voice that was controlled

and gentle. You could never quite determine just how much thistone was assumed and how much of it came naturally to her.

Mary Moorhouse was a beautiful woman of thirty. Her face

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was oval, her brows clear and serene, and her eyes da Vinci-likeand candid.

Mary was in danger of becoming a saint. Consciously, that is.For there was a conscious, thought-out quality about everythingshe did. Like most saints, she was not above staging herself a little.And, again like most saints, she was quite devoid of humour.

At this point Sophia flooded into the waiting-room, embracedher sister and gave her good morning.

“And how are the boys, Mary?” she gushed to her sister, whowas settling down again like a lake after a sudden squall.

Mary knew that Sophia was only asking after the childrenthat she might make for herself an opening to begin talking abouther own, but she put this unworthy thought from her. Besides,she had something to tell Sophia.

“Georgie and Jackie are having a little tea-party this afternoon,dear. Not anybody in, of course, but I baked some cakes. I feltthat they should be happy at Christmas-time. They’re too smallto understand about their grandpapa.”

Before she could say more, Sophia had broken in. “Mary, Iwish I had known! My children could have gone there today.Their Auntie Bel wants them.” (In the background Arthur gruntedat this.) “But still, it would have been nice for the children to beall together.”

“I’ve arranged for a cab to go for them, dear,” Mary went onserenely, knowing in her heart what she was saving Auntie Beland not feeling the less saintly for the knowledge. “One ofGeorge’s clerks had just been down to take any orders we mighthave to give him, so I told him to see to it.”

In the matter of worldly gear, Mary had done better thanher sister. She lived in a neat, front-door house at Albany Place,near Charing Cross. And her husband conducted a flourishingmanufacturers’ agency in Queen Street.

Sophia, to do her justice, was not really jealous of her sister’sgreater prosperity. But her motto in life was: If there’s anythingto be had, then have it. And there was so much to be had fromand in connection with Mary.

She turned to her husband, who was standing mute behindher. “William, aren’t you delighted? Wil and Margy are goingalong to tea at their Auntie Mary’s.”

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At this point Arthur, who had been looking out of the door-way, shouted, “Hurry up and get into the train.”

So William Butter did not appear to feel it necessary to add tohis wife’s expressions of rapture. Or perhaps he was just standing.

IV

They were all in the train now and settling down to a melancholy,and what promised to be a cold, journey.

George, by dint of impressing with his majestic presence theman with the trolley of warming-pans, had two put into theircarriage instead of one. But these, they reflected regretfully, wouldnot remain hot for long upon so cold a morning.

The train jogged slowly out towards Paisley. In these days alltrains going to central Ayrshire went by Paisley, for the directline to Kilmarnock was not yet available, and the journey, forthis reason, was more than an hour longer.

Arthur sat huddled, trying to read his newspaper, but theconstant chatter of Sophia—about her children, about her house,about her maids, about a misunderstanding with a lady in thechurch—became too much for him and he set it down, thrust hishands into his coat-pockets and looked at his brood, pondering.

For in a very real sense they were his brood. He had put themall where they were. In a sense he had taken the place of theirfather.

Fifteen years before, feeling that life at the Laigh Farm couldoffer him no future, he had taken himself to the City. The firstyears had been hard. A man with whom his father dealt hadtaken him in as a clerk. Pay had been meagre for the eighteen-year-old lad, but Arthur was country-bred and wiry. His healthhad stood up to long hours, airless quarters and none too lavishfood. Presently he had found himself with better wages and moreresponsibility. It was inevitable, for he had health, character anda sound village education, and his own mother, though a farmer’swife, had been anything but crude. The others had not come toGlasgow until their father’s remarriage to one of his own servantseleven years ago had scattered them. The girls had felt theirsituation worst. Sophia had come to him almost at once. For a

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couple of years he had made a home for her; then, to thesatisfaction of all, the high-mettled William Butter had lost hishead at a church soirée (or perhaps Sophia had taken mattersinto her own hands) and claimed her for his own.

It was then that Mary came. For much the same length oftime she had been with him. She had always been calm anddistinguished. Though she was country-bred, she took on therefinements of the town at once. It was as though its gentler,more genteel ways had called to something in her blood. Arthurhad been sorry, a little, when George McNairn had taken her tohis majestic bosom. For Mary, in her quiet, self-conscious way,was a highly capable person.

That left only David to come—for Mungo, the oldest of themall, remained a farmer. At the time of his father’s remarriage,David was a child of twelve.

He had better make himself responsible for David, Arthur haddecided. He didn’t want the boy to live in a house where hemight feel himself a stepchild. And so, for David’s sake, he hadpersuaded their aunt—a sister of their own mother—to put herselfbeneath his roof, to keep house, and to bring up his youngestbrother.

As he sat now looking at David, he doubted if he had donethe right thing. Would it have been better had the boy beenbrought up in the country? He had been delicate and their aunthad spoilt him. And now that he was twenty-three he was alltoo well acquainted with the town’s ways.

David was slack.Arthur had him in the business now and was trying to knock

some kind of discipline into him, but it was uphill work. Hemight have done better to leave him to his father and his step-mother.

Why had they taken such a hate to this Highland woman thattheir father had married? After eleven years they still knewnothing against her, except that she had been a hired servantand was almost illiterate. Mungo, the only one who really knewher, had liked her well enough. Had they been unfair in keepingaway so much from the old man? They had felt it, perhaps,a desecration of their mother’s memory. But had that beenreasonable? And now, they hardly knew their little half-sister

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Phœbe. Bel had asked what was to become of her. She hadeven suggested she should be brought to live at Ure Place. Hewondered if he ought to let her come. His habit of takingresponsibility for everybody told him he should. Bel had main-tained that the child could not stay on at the farm with onlyMungo and a household of crude farm-women.

V

The train was jogging on through the frost-bound country. Helooked out across the wide Clyde valley. The Kilpatrick Hillsand, further away, the Campsies stood peppered with snow. Inthe rosy-morning distance a white cone stood out. That must beBen Lomond. He and Bel must make a trip to Loch Lomondsometime. And there were the buildings of the new Universityon Gilmour Hill at the extreme west end of the town. In the fardistance they looked almost completed. He had heard about thedifficulty the builders were having with the spire and wonderedwhat they intended to do about it.

Yes, it had been nice of Bel to think of taking in his little half-sister. But he felt reluctant. He felt he had done enough foreverybody. Or was he the kind of person to whom everybodywould always turn for help? Would he never be able just to leadhis own life, be able just to look after his wife and his childrenand bother about nobody else?

He had hoped he had come to an end when, before hismarriage, he had seen David settled in rooms, sold the flat wherethey had lived alone together—for their aunt had died—and,with the help of his wife-to-be and her mother, had furnishedthe pleasant house in Ure Place.

That was only eight months ago. And now suddenly his littlehalf-sister was an orphan.

Well, they would all have a look at her today. And thisevening, back again at tea in his own house and with the help ofhis sisters and their husbands, the future of Phœbe would haveto be thrashed out.

The carriage jingled on the points and came to a standstill.“Dear me,” Sophia was saying, “this is only Paisley!”

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Chapter Three

PUNCTUALLY to the minute, old Mrs. Barrowfield wasroused to consciousness by the housemaid re-laying her

bedroom fire.This began every morning on the stroke of eight. Old Mrs.

Barrowfield saw to that.“A body’s not much worth, if she’s come to the age of sixty-

five and still lets her girls get the better of her.”Mrs. Barrowfield’s two girls had not sought to get the better

of her for a long time now. They had been with her for moreyears than any of them cared to remember, and the discipline ofthe old lady’s much-betasselled and upholstered flat in MonteithRow had long since ceased to chafe. Time had been when theyhad not been above an exchange of wit with young men at thedoor on the back lane. But their hair was grey now and theirbodies had long since lost the fluidity of youth and had, like thebody of their mistress, turned unalluring and rotund. And youngmen had, somehow, ceased to be witty.

Mrs. Barrowfield awoke with a sense of uneasiness. She hadfallen asleep worrying over her only daughter Bel.

She raised herself on her pillow a little and looked about her.“Wipe yer hands, Maggie, and draw back the curtains.”The respectful, respectable woman rose to her feet and did as

she was bade. From her bed the old lady looked out on the slowwinter dawn.

“Is it still frosty?”The maid at the window cast her eyes over the wide expanse

of Glasgow Green—to the winding banks of the Clyde—to thebelching chimneys on the further side. On the south-east, therising day was still red, made redder than it should be fromparticles of smoke. One or two stragglers, huddled in overcoats,were hurrying quickly along the carriage-way in the park. Distantbuildings loomed indistinct in the morning haze.

“Aye, it’s still frosty, Mam.”

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Mrs. Barrowfield let Maggie go back to her work and laywatching her get the fire going. She did it deftly and quickly,according to minute instructions long since given and long sincelearnt.

Bel. Bother the girl with all her high falutin nonsense.Mrs. Barrowfield was proud of her twenty-four-year-old

daughter. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that she livedfor her—that is, when she was not living for her own, immediateand highly organised comfort. But, as Bel’s mother often assuredherself, she would be no proper parent if she were blind to herchild’s faults. And to high falute was one of Bel’s worst ones.

Mrs. Barrowfield lay considering. Of course, the girl had gotit direct from her father, the lamented Doctor Barrowfield. Alittle decorative pomp had been no bad thing in a doctor with agood-class practice, where bedside manner was everything. Butit was merely irritating in the doctor’s daughter. Besides, CharlesBarrowfield had always managed to high falute without incurringobligation. Which was just precisely what his daughter was notdoing. She was threatening to take on a responsibility that mightbe a trouble to her for years. That might, indeed, threaten hermarried happiness.

But here Mrs. Barrowfield’s sense of comfort intervened. Thisworry was spoiling the nicest hour of her day. The cracklingfire. The newspaper. Tea, toast, and ham and eggs (the eggs justsoft and no more, or cook would hear about it).

She would try to dismiss Bel until she had got up.The maid was standing now, scuttle in hand, preparing to go.“Bring up my Herald now, Maggie. And you’ll have to light

the gas. It’s dark these mornings.”Maggie was surprised. The old lady usually lay contented until

her breakfast came up punctually at half-past eight. But she didas her mistress told her, helped to arrange her in bed, found ashawl for her shoulders, and gave her spectacles a rub.

Mrs. Barrowfield—to show defiance, perhaps, to her ownuncomfortable thoughts—snapped the paper open.

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II

The Glasgow Herald, Saturday, 24th December, 1870.It was her habit to look through the paper systematically. This

morning she started fiercely at the top left-hand corner of thefront page.

The Glasgow Weekly Herald was advertising itself. SpecialHogmanay Stories. “A Loveless Marriage”, by A Young Lady.“The Fate of Baby Daisy, the Village Beauty.” How could peopleread such trash? People, that was, who had business to attendto. For herself, seeing that time lay in plenty on her hands, shemight go the length of a penny to see just in what respect themarriage had failed, that it had become loveless.

The new Theatre Royal, Hope Street. The pantomime, “Sinbadthe Sailor”, the cast including King Wangdoodle of theChickorybony Islands. Pity Bel had to be in mourning for herfather-in-law, otherwise she might have taken the young coupleto see this. Not that she approved of theatre much, but of coursethe pantomime was different.

Hengler’s Circus. Herr Holtum would exhibit his wonderfulpowers of juggling with cannon-balls. The circus was for children.She laid down her paper smiling and looked about the much-upholstered room, which was becoming lighter with the growingday. Well, Bel was making a start. In May there would be agrandchild.

And say in five more years he—she was determined it shouldbe a he—would be ready to go to the circus. The prospect of thisgrandchild enchanted Mrs. Barrowfield. She would, she pondered,be able to give the little boy lots of good advice.

If only Bel didn’t go and—Mrs. Barrowfield snapped up thepaper and went on reading.

Pretty Baby Things could be had at Mrs. Fyfe’s shops in ArgyleStreet and in Sauchiehall Street. She must remember that for Bel.She would look into the Argyle Street shop. There was no needof her dragging up into the West End where things were boundto be dearer and not a whit better.

Great Bargains! Smart clothes for genteel assemblies. She waspast genteel assemblies and Bel didn’t feel like them just now.

The Argyle House was overflowing with French and German

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fancy goods. Just imagine that now! With the Germans and theFrench fighting each other as hard as they could! You wouldwonder that they had time to send fancy goods anywhere.

Wine advertisements. She could do with a bottle or two ofthat Marsala for odd guests on New Year’s Day.

She turned a page.Reviews of Books. They all looked as dry as dust.Letters to the Editor. Women’s rights. Dear me! What was

making them start that nonsense? Signed “Dejected Brother”.Did you ever? What was he dejected about? Because these modernhussies expected all the chivalries from the male sex and yetexpected to be on equal terms with them. Rights had neverworried Mrs. Barrowfield much. She didn’t know what they weretalking about. But there would be nothing dejected about hertreatment of these shameless besoms. A good skelping from theirfathers was what they were all needing. That behaviour like thisshould be happening in what was nearly the year 1871! Shewould just like to know what the Queen thought of it all!

Criminal Judge of London Court deprives two pickpockets oftheir Christmas dinner. And quite right too.

War Victims’ Fund. A Glasgow meeting to raise funds to helpthe women and children of France in their terrible plight hadmet with discouraging response. Poor things! It was terrible forthem. Mrs. Barrowfield immediately forgot them as Maggieappeared with the breakfast.

She sat up yet higher, buttered her toast, poured out her teaand took a sip.

Serious Railway Accident at Port Glasgow. Dear me! Thatwas terrible too!

Nice ham they were getting just now.The War. Great Battle in the North: Sortie from Paris. What

was a sortie? Additional details. This war news was really verydifficult to follow. Besides, she was perfectly certain the news-papers exaggerated it just to get more sales.

The Mont Cenis Tunnel had been completed for a distance of12,215 metres. (Why couldn’t they say yards or miles or inches?)And only five now remained to be pierced. A banquet was to beheld in the tunnel to solemnise the completion of the event. Fancy!In a tunnel. Had they no nice hotels at one end or the other

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where they could sit down in comfort? But you never knew withforeigners what they would be up to.

The stock market was very quiet, but prices were steady. Thatwas good. Consols were at 913/4 per cent, Railways were firm.

She took a last look through the pages.Last Days of the Art Union Draw. She had three tickets. It

would be nice if she got a picture. She would give it to Bel for hernew house. Young marrieds couldn’t afford things like pictures.

Mr. Charles Halle, pianist, and Madame Norman Neruda,violinist, were giving a recital in the Queen’s Rooms. Well, shewould not be there. No one would catch her going right awayup to the very edge of the town to sit among the hoity-toitiesfrom Park Circus and Royal Crescent. She liked a bit of musicyou could tap your toes to. But these devil’s trills were not forsensible people. Bel and her husband had gone once or twicewhen they were courting. It was nice to think of them going. Forher Bel could hold her head as high and look as fine as any ofyour new-fangled ladies in the West End! And very plain porridgethey had come from, some of these very ladies! Mrs. Barrowfieldsmiled to think what some of them would have thought of theirgrandfathers.

III

While she was dressing comfortably before her fire, a note wasbrought by a messenger.

“DEAR MAMA,“The funeral is today, as we expected. Arthur and all the others

have just gone. I offered to go too, but Arthur wouldn’t hear ofit. He said it would be much too exhausting for me at present. Ihave invited them all to come here for tea, but I shall be alone allday before they get back. Would you like to come up and havedinner with me—just the two of us alone? Or are you still busywith your Christmas shopping? Try to come.

“Your loving daughter,“BEL.”

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Mrs. Barrowfield had had every intention of going to herdaughter this morning, but the letter pleased her. It wasaffectionate and, from its tone, she judged that Bel would beamenable to reason.

And it said nothing about her husband’s little half-sister,Phœbe Moorhouse, who was the cause of all the trouble. PerhapsBel was now taking a less emotional view of the child’s situation.After all, children had been left orphans often before. And inmuch less pleasant circumstances.

Mrs. Barrowfield hurried into her clothes, intent upon walkingacross the town to Ure Place where her daughter lived.

At ten o’clock she was out on the pavement in front ofMonteith Row, wondering which way she would take. Therewas bright winter sunshine now. The Green was white with hoar-frost. Windows here and there glittered in the sunlight. Mrs.Barrowfield stood for a moment looking up and down the Rowitself—that handsome block of flats and front-door houses—thathad, when she was yet a growing girl, been built to be the mostexclusive terrace of Regency Glasgow, overlooking Glasgow’sHyde Park. But now the prestige of the Row was sinking. Theindustrial princes had forsaken it twenty years ago, escaping intothe prevailing west wind from the smoke of these, their ownfactory chimneys. And the famous Green itself, that had playedso great a part in Glasgow’s story, was sinking too. Coveredwith smuts, it was fast turning into a mere lung in the centre ofan ever-growing mid-Victorian city.

But Monteith Row had not yet fallen to nothing. For middle-class people who liked a well-built place and were not too snob-bish—for people like old Mrs. Barrowfield, in short, who putcomfort and convenience before an exclusive address, it was, atthis stage of its history, just the right place.

On this bright morning, however, many uglier corners of thetown had taken on a glamour. The frost and the sunshine had,for the time, obliterated all suggestion of smoke and squalor. Inspite of her preoccupation, Mrs. Barrowfield’s spirits rose. Sheset off briskly. She was a big woman who had, as yet, lost noneof her vigour. Iron-grey curls and a bonnet tied with broad flyingribbons. Rather too pronounced, masculine features. Large handsthrust into a small, tight muff. Swaying crinolines, for she refused

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to be new-fashioned. A sealskin jacket, elastic-sided boots. Shemoved along the pavement, a galleon in full sail.

At the end of the Row she wondered if she should continuealong London Road and thus go direct, but sunshine like thiswas rare in winter, so, deciding to remain in it longer, she turnedalong Greendyke Street.

No. She had made up her mind to talk to her daughterstraightly. Why should Bel rush to take little Phœbe Moorhouseinto her home? She wasn’t even her husband’s full sister. Indeed,Arthur hardly knew her. It was after he had left the farm tocome to Glasgow that his father’s second marriage had takenplace. And, so far as she knew, none of the Moorhouse familyhad ever liked their stepmother. Arthur had told Mrs. Barrowfieldwhat he knew of her. She had been a wild Highland woman offorty—handsome, lithe and silent—who had come to the farmas a housekeeper. In a year she had married old Moorhouse andin a year more had borne him this daughter.

And now, only on Wednesday, driving home from a neigh-bouring farm late in the night, old Moorhouse’s pony had boltedand hurled the couple to disaster. The old man was killed atonce. The woman had lived until Thursday.

And Bel hearing of the disaster in her mother’s presence—and what to Mrs. Barrowfield was much more serious, in thepresence of her brother- and sisters-in-law—had exclaimed: “Thisis terrible! And poor wee Phœbe! Listen, Arthur, I won’t hear ofanything else. Phœbe’s to be sent up here to me. I won’t allowthe child to be without a mother.”

Mrs. Barrowfield had known it was no use talking at thetime—indeed, it would have been unseemly—but she consideredthat Bel’s heroics had been simply ridiculous. Moreover, she hadseen the momentary glint in Sophia Butter’s eye. As though tosay: “Bel, dear, that’s the kind of high falutin that takes a lot ofgetting out of!” And Bel’s mother knew that Bel hated climbingdown, just as Bel’s father had done.

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IV

Old Mrs. Barrowfield stamped furiously along Greendyke Street.Why should Bel take the child? The farm would go to Mungo,the oldest brother, of course. The child could go on living there.What was to stop her? He was thirty-five and a bachelor, butprobably he would marry now, and his wife would have to lookafter the child. Why should her handsome daughter Bel, forwhom she had every ambition, be worried by a gawky farm-child? It was all very well being sympathetic. But there werelimits. She preferred to think of her daughter sitting fragrant andMadonna-like, awaiting the advent of her firstborn. Not fagginground after what might turn out to be a very troublesome girl often.

She had left the Greendyke now and had come into the Salt-market. So intent was she upon her thoughts that she was quiteunaware that a barefoot urchin had emerged from a vennel andwas following her, begging.

“Gie’s a ha’penny, lady. Gie’s a ha’penny.”At last she noticed him. Barefoot on this cold winter morning

and filthy. The people in this neighbourhood were almost beasts!Drunken, brutish and undersized. It was, indeed, only on brightmornings such as this that she would venture up the Saltmarket.On rare occasions when she spent the evening at Bel’s or else-where, she took care to come home in a cab—or at all eventsaccompanied by a man. Ladies always avoided the wynds andvennels, of course. It was not genteel to know much about them.But this old woman’s husband had told her. A doctor must gowhere others did not.

“Gie’s a ha’penny, lady.”She walked on.Suddenly a memory flared up vividly in the mind of this rather

smug, not very imaginative woman.She saw her husband sitting exhausted and beaten after a long

and indescribably squalid midnight confinement in one of theseterrible places. It was not his custom, as an established doctor,to take such work, but this time—to help an overworked youngercolleague—he had gone.

“I tell ye, ma dear, it’s an abominable blot on the honour of

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the town. It’s a wonder the Lord God doesn’t strike all the well-to-do folks of Glasgow with His thunderbolts of wrath!”

“Gie’s a ha’penny, lady.”Well, it was Christmas. And, when you came to think of it,

this child beside her must be human too. She took her pursefrom her muff and gave him a sixpence. Without a word, hesnatched at it, thrust it into a filthy little waistcoat pocket, turneda cartwheel with the agility of an ape and disappeared.

Mrs. Barrowfield walked on, indignant for a moment at theconditions that should bring such a gruesome little creature intoexistence, only to become a danger to more worthy people. Whydid they allow these places? Glasgow was rich!

But the conscience of this comfortable Victorian city wasstirring. The City Improvements Trust had come into being andwas taking thought. And more potent still than conscience,perhaps, vested interest, in the shape of a railway company, hadthrown a bridge across the Clyde and was continuing its archesover the Briggate and through the very worst of these dens,forcing much to be pulled down that should long since havegone. The Royal Hand that signed away the old College of Lister,Watt and Kelvin to make a drab goods station, was also signingthe death-warrant of scores of these earthly hells. And now therewas talk of a great terminal station on the north side of theClyde, with an hotel of a luxury unparalleled in Scotland, facingSt. Enoch’s Square. That would inevitably demolish a great manymore of these places.

At the Cross the old lady halted, looking about her. The clockin the Tolbooth Steeple stood at the quarter past. People werelounging about in the sunlight. As there was but little traffic, shecrossed over to look at the Christmas display in the windowsof Millar’s warehouse on the corner of the Gallowgate andHigh Street. Presently she turned and looked up, wondering if,on her way to Ure Place, she should go on up the hill past thedoomed College, or along past the Tontine and up Candleriggs.She took the latter course. There were shops in the Trongate shemight have a look at. As she passed the equestrian statue ofKing William III, she smiled to herself, remembering that herson-in-law’s brother David Moorhouse—who thought himself awag—had told her that the King’s horse was a wise beast, that,

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bronze though it might be, it knew to wag its tail at everyIrishman.

But presently her thoughts were on Bel once more. No, it waspreposterous. The child might have a very bad influence over thegrandchild who was coming. Country children were so coarseand uncontrolled.

“Guid-day, Mum.”She was in the Candleriggs now, passing the business premises

of her son-in-law.“Oh, good morning.” She cast an appraising eye through the

open door. Everything very neat, she must say. The stock wascarefully arranged and tidy.

“Mr. Moorhouse would not be here this morning?” she said,to make a moment’s conversation with Arthur’s man.

“No, Mum. It’s terrible aboot his faither.”“Yes, terrible. The funeral’s today, of course. Good morning.”“Guid-day.”At first she hadn’t much liked the idea of Bel, a doctor’s

daughter, marrying a wholesale cheese merchant. But Bel hadbeen twenty-four and it was time she was marrying someone.She, her mother, had had to suffer all the disgrace of spinsterhooduntil she was thirty-nine (she still regarded it as an interventionfrom heaven that she had emerged triumphant in the end), andshe had had a horror at the thought of her daughter being amongthe unwanted. She herself had known everything there was toknow of patronage from the securely wedded and copiouslyfecund.

Besides, the Moorhouse boys, although they were farmer’ssons, had a strange air of breeding. As though a lacing of blueblood flowed in their honest Ayrshire veins. Perhaps a youngaristocrat a generation or two back. But if there was a storyMrs. Barrowfield had never heard it. Victorian propriety forbade.

V

At the head of the Candleriggs she crossed over to the pavementin front of the Ramshorn Kirk, reflecting for an instant that herown parents were buried over there in the churchyard. In a second

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or two more she was in Montrose Street and making her way upthe hill.

She was breathless as she rang her daughter’s door-bell. Forthe upper part of Montrose Street was very steep and UrePlace was almost at the top of it. It had once come into her mindthat her son-in-law had fixed his house in a place that wasdifficult of access to an elderly woman so that he need not seetoo much of her, but her common sense told her that Arthur’smind could not jump to such subtleties. He was much toostraightforward.

Five minutes more found her sitting by the fire in her daughter’spleasant plush parlour, sipping a glass of sherry wine and eatinga piece of black bun. Her bonnet, with its dangling ribbons, waslaid aside with her sealskin jacket and muff and she was lookingpleasantly about her.

“Well, dear, it’s nice to have ye to myself for a day. What aterrible hill that is! I’m all peching.”

“Yes, Mama. But it’s convenient for Arthur up here. He candrop straight down to his work. The steepness is nothing tohim.”

Mrs. Barrowfield smiled at the bride’s pride in her husband’svigour.

Bel was looking wonderful. Her tall fairness was enhanced bythe unrelieved black of her mourning. In her wide, unrevealingdress she was still elegant. Admiration and ambition for herprompted her mother’s next words.

“I hope before long you’ll can move out to the West.”Bel, though she was fully at one with her mother, merely said:

“It’s very far away for Arthur.”“Nonsense. I hear Menzies is running his Tartan Buses to the

Kirklee now. I’m not suggesting as far out as that, of course. Butyou could go out to the Great Western Road somebit near theKelvin Bridge. You could even go up the hill into the Hillheed.And with the new University being nearly finished out there, it’sbound to turn out a very nice district.”

A vision of polite calls and pleasant, intellectual converse inprofessors’ drawing-rooms rose for a moment in Bel’s mind.

But “We’ll have to make more money first,” was all she saidas she settled down on the opposite side of the fire from her

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mother. “Besides,” she went on as she took up her sewing, “thepeople out there would be much too grand and brainy for Arthurand me.” She did not say this because she believed it for onemoment. For Bel had a fine conceit of herself. It was merely tofish from her mother a little comforting praise.

But all she got was a complacent “Not them.”Mrs. Barrowfield had no fears for her daughter’s social abilities

when they should be put to the test. Had not Bel been sent foryears to a very reputable establishment for young ladies in St.Andrew’s Square? If she herself still held in part to the speechand homely manners of earlier days, she had seen to it thather child should speak pure English and observe the modernelegances.

She noticed that Bel was making something for her baby. Agood moment to appeal to her, perhaps. But she approached thetopic warily.

“So the funeral is today?”“Yes.”They spoke of this for some moments. How the accident had

happened. How the pony had stumbled, then, frightened, haddashed ahead, out of control, along the ice-bound road. Arthur’sstepmother had been able to explain before she died.

Mrs. Barrowfield listened to these things with perfunctoryinterest. Old Moorhouse and his wife were nothing to her. Atlength, at what she deemed to be the right moment, she said:

“You didn’t mean to take Phœbe, did you, Bel?”“Yes, Mama, I think so.”“What way, can she not stay at the farm?”“I can’t allow Arthur’s sister to grow up like a farm-servant.”Her mother’s inward comment was fiddle-de-dee, but she said:“She’s got her brother, Mungo.”“He’s a single man. Besides, although he’s the oldest, Arthur

and I are really at the head of the family.”There was Bel at it again, giving herself airs. Her mother

looked across at her severely. “Bel, mind, you’ve got yourselvesto think of. And what’s more, you’ve got your own bairns tothink of. For all you know, Phœbe Moorhouse may be a thrawnwee besom. Have you thought what you’re doing?”

“Yes, Mama. I’ve thought. And besides, the old man made

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Arthur her guardian because he was a businessman and knewabout money.”

The old woman pricked her ears. “Money? But the bairn hasno money.”

“Well, of course, it would make no difference if she hadn’t,Mama, but as it happens she has. It won’t be much, but enoughto educate her, we expect. The old man had little outside hisfarm stock, but what there was goes to her.”

Mrs. Barrowfield was deeply interested. Perhaps Bel was nearerher house out West than it might appear. All her worry had,perhaps, been over nothing! With the girl’s money—

“And you see how it is, Mama. Arthur has the responsibilityfor her anyway. It would be much better if we had her hereunder our eye.”

A benign smile suffused Mrs. Barrowfield’s features.“You’re your father’s bairn, my dear. Aye thinking about doing

good to somebody else,” she said.“Actually, it’s to be settled this evening when they all come

back,” Bel said.

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Chapter Four

IT was all strange and very unnatural. Yet little Phœbe Moorhouse was by no means struck down by her double

bereavement. As was the custom, her elders thought it right thatthe child should be taken to look upon her dead. The first time,her oldest brother Mungo had taken her by the hand and led herinto the eerie, familiar room where her parents lay. Her father’sface frightened her at first. He looked so old, so pinched, soyellow. But her mother lay like serene marble, with her white,well-shaped face and her raven-black hair parted in the middleas she had always worn it in life.

Phœbe had clung to Mungo’s hand.But soon she had gone back into the room with her friends,

the women servants, Gracie and Jean, who had wept a greatdeal, and, Phœbe could not help thinking, with a contemptiblelack of control. And presently she found herself taking thosewho came to pay their respects into the chamber of death withoutany emotion other than a feeling of importance.

The physical aspect, the appearance of her parents as theylay there, quickly came to have no effect upon her, for already,at the age of ten, this country child had seen the death of somany animals, just as she had seen their birth, and she hadlong since accepted both phenomena without being undulystirred.

In life, her father and mother had been so remote, so for eachother, that the pulsing existence of the farm, with its friendshipsand quarrels, had, for the great part, gone on without them.Even their daughter had not broken through the invisible ringthat seemed to be about them.

Phœbe had grieved more bitterly when the beloved servantinto whose charge she was given as a baby, who had tended herin her first years, had finally married and gone away.

Now, in the darkened farmhouse in her new black dress, shetiptoed about, feeling her consequence as the chief mourner, and

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accepted all the abnormal petting and notice she was receivingwith pleasure and complacency.

Then Mungo told her that these other half-brothers and sistersthat she scarcely knew were coming to the funeral.

She had only had fleeting looks at them, and that, not for ayear or two. What each looked like was half-imagined, half-remembered. It would be exciting to see them again. She hadcaught herself wondering recently why they did not come often.Indeed, she had gone the length of asking her mother, but theHighland woman had merely laughed, a remote, wry laugh, themeaning of which this child of ten could not guess. But now shewas to see them and she was all agog.

II

They arrived. Some with Mungo in the trap, some in the onlycab that served the village station. She had pushed back a loweredblind and watched the two vehicles coming in the winter sunshineup the ice-bound road. By the time they had gained the top ofthe hill and were rounding the farm buildings to come into themore convenient yard, Phœbe, if she had dared do anything sounseemly, would have danced with excitement.

Then, suddenly, she felt shy.“Here, they’re comin’. Come on.”Jean had come to look for her. Phœbe was glad to take the

dairymaid’s large red hand as they both went together to thedoor opening on the yard.

Arthur and David were in the trap with Mungo. They were alljumping down. A farm-hand was holding the pony’s head. Howpale and distinguished these brothers from the city looked, withtheir shining top-hats, their long black overcoats and black gloves!

Arthur looked like a white-faced, fine-boned Mungo, with hisprominent, well-cut features and his mutton-chop whiskers.Mungo’s muscles were lusty and developed from a life of labour-ing in the open air. His body was burly and strong, with noclaims to elegance. Sun and wind had given his face a darkenduring tan. Yet his likeness to this brother, two years youngerthan himself, was very definite.

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David was quite different. At twenty-three he still lookedboyish. Phœbe noticed that his light hair curled pleasantly beneathhis black hat, and when he took this off and bent down to kisshis little sister, she saw how clear his skin was and how attractivehis eyes.

Arthur kissed her too and said: “Well, Phœbe, how are you?”Then seemed to think of nothing else to say. But the awkwardnesscould not last, for all three brothers must turn to help the ladiesfrom the cab.

Her half-sisters were very grand ladies indeed. Far grander,say, than Miss Smith, the retired schoolmistress in the villagewhere Phœbe, along with a dozen other well-to-do children, wassent for morning lessons in preference to the rough-and-tumbleof the village school. Far grander than the banker’s daughters,who helped with the singing in church. Grander, even, than theminister’s wife, who was old and—for a little girl—intenselyuninteresting.

Sophia got out first and came straight across to her.“And is this wee Phœbe? How are you keeping, dear? You

know, the last time I saw you, you were only half the height.About the height that Wil and Margy are now.” Sophia bentdown too and kissed her little sister. It took Phœbe a moment toremember who Wil and Margy were.

Mary pushed back her black veil and bent down too, puttingher arms round her. How calm and blue her eyes seemed! Andshe smelt of lavender. “Well, deary? Here are your big sisters tolook after you.”

Mary was so elegant in her well-made black clothes and herfurs. And indeed—by what Phœbe knew of elegance—Sophiadid not come so far behind her.

She suddenly became acutely conscious of her black serge dress,hastily put together by the village dressmaker, her home-knittedblack woollen stockings and her sturdy country boots.

But the child’s steady little mind was not long in summing upher sisters. Sophia was big and fussy and chattered withoutceasing about her own children. But somehow she seemedmore spontaneously kind than Mary, whose more ostentatiousgoodness appeared to be so consciously controlled.

Of their husbands, Phœbe took little note. They were just stolid

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male things in black that you shook hands with, then dismissedfrom your mind.

There was hot soup for all the travellers and a “dram” for themen, for the midday meal would take place late, after the funeral.But before they had this, the brothers and sisters requested tosee the last of their father.

The child, lynx-eyed and curious, followed them into the room.Mary and Sophia were weeping dutifully, bending over his faceas he lay ready in his coffin. Arthur and David stood solemnlyby, with set faces. Mungo, accustomed, stood behind merelywaiting.

Suddenly a flame of resentment flared inside Phœbe. They wereall looking at her father. Not one of them was thinking of hermother as she lay there so quiet, calm as she had always been,and, to her thinking, beautiful. On the woman’s breast lay aposy of very pearl snowdrops, grown under a frame in a sunnycorner of the minister’s garden. The minister’s wife had sent themto Phœbe, who had tied them up together with some ivy leavesand put them where they lay. It seemed an affront to herself thatthey should appear to take no thought for her mother. She wasstill too young to understand their embarrassment.

Tears sprang into Phœbe’s eyes—tears of pride and resent-ment. For a moment she stood alone beside her mother’s coffin,weeping.

It was Arthur who noticed first. He took her tears for un-complicated childish sorrow. But he came to her, put his hand inher own, and thus remained beside her until the others wereready to go.

From this time on, it was to be Arthur Moorhouse who wasto be first of all the family in his half-sister’s strange affections.Even before Mungo, whom she had known all her life.

III

People were coming for the service now, and presently theminister and the laird, Sir Charles Ruanthorpe, were there.

The service took place in the Room. This was the sitting-room of the farm—a room of tassels, horsehair stiff chairs,

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antimacassars and Cupid ornaments. Unlike the other rooms ofthis prosperous farmhouse, the Room did not pulse with life. Itwas merely a dead ceremonial chamber where, in the days beforetheir father’s remarriage, the two sisters had given occasionalformal tea-parties for such friends as were too genteel to eat inthe much more welcoming kitchen. Where, if the laird or hislady called, they were thrust to sit uncomfortably looking aboutthem, while the farmer’s wife went to tidy herself and to lookhastily into her supplies of cake and wine. For years it had givenPhœbe much quiet rapture to tiptoe into the darkened Room—the blinds were always down to keep things from fading—andto stand solemnly admiring its aloof splendour.

But now the Room was full to overflowing with black-coated,white-tied men—most of them neighbouring farmers and knownto her.

She felt herself wanting to run about to see everything thatwas happening, but Sophia and Mary sat by the kitchen fire andseemed to expect her to do the same.

At last, when all were there, they rose and, each taking one ofher hands, led her into the Room, where places had been keptfor them. But Phœbe did not want to sit between her sisters. Shewanted to sit between Jean and Gracie, who were wiping redeyes with the backs of their great hands. So, ignoring the chairthat was set for her, she wedged herself between her two friends,and, as this was no time nor place for remonstrance, succeededin remaining.

Except that the minister kept talking about “these, our dearbrother and sister” or addressed the Divinity concerning “these,Thy son and daughter,” Phœbe decided that the whole thingwas rather like church, only at home.

Yet, when the service was over and the child, watching oncemore from a window, saw the coffins borne out, the processionof mourners forming up and the whole beginning solemnly tomove away she ran to her room, threw herself down on her bedand wept bitterly.

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THE WAX FRUIT TRILOGYThe Wax Fruit Trilogy brings together Guy McCrone’s three

classic novels, Antimacassar City, The Philistines, and The Puritans, which chronicle the life and times of the Moorhouse family as they

rise from the obscurity of an Ayrshire farm to a position of great prosperity in Victorian Glasgow.

The first part of the trilogy introduces the Moorhouse family – Arthur, the successful businessman and first of the family to move

to Glasgow; David, the dashing and impulsive socialite; Bel, driven by ruthless social ambition; and Phoebe, the half-sister from the Highlands who grows up to be a great beauty. The second and third volumes follow the changing fortunes of the family, as their lives are touched by triumph

and tragedy – in Glasgow at the height of the Victorian era, and in Vienna, glittering capital of the Hapsburg Empire.

‘Wax Fruit recaptures the atmosphere of the period most effectively.’ Glasgow Herald

‘Very fine indeed . . . McCrone knows just about everything a man can know about the Glasgow of those days.’

Glasgow Evening Citizen

‘a very readable story.’The Guardian