One of the serving women, falling ill, went to Edinburgh to be
cured and never came back; paint, blistered and scarred from the doors
and window frames by the weather, was not replaced; the holes gnawed and
torn by the hungry rats in wainscot and floor were never patched and
food was more scarce than ever. Aunt Janet sat, a dourly silent ghost,
while Marcella read to Andrew, listening sickly to the beasts clamouring
for their scanty meals. And one night, when he had been out alone along
Ben Grief and seen his lands and his old grey house, Lashcairn the
Landless, as they called him, went back to his barrel.
For three days he lived behind the green baize door. On the fourth he
came out with his red-rimmed eyes ablaze, his gaunt face pinched, his
hair bedraggled. And that night a little old man, Rose's cousin from
Winchester, came to see them. He had never seen the mad family into
which his cousin had married; he had not seen her since she was a gentle
little thing in pinafores, with a great family of wax dolls. He did not
know that she was dead. Aunt Janet made no explanations; his small black
eyes took in all the decay and famine of the place; his neat black
Sabbatical coat looked queerly out of place in the book-room with its
scarred oak refectory table, its hard oak chairs and its dusty banner
hung from the ceiling above where Andrew Lashcairn sat.
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