The Three Kings Page 4

  She didn’t tell Sammy about this arrangement in case he refused to eat with them, and held her breath when he came in for dinner in the evening. He did look surprised when he saw his father, though he said nothing and kept silent during the entire meal, but at least he was there.

  As he did twice a week, Mr Gunn went out after dinner, and Katie was sure that Sammy would join her in her walk if only to find out why his father had dined with them. She had just left the house when he popped out from behind a tree.

  ‘Why was he there?’ he demanded. ‘Sammy doesn’t want him in the kitchen. Sammy likes when it’s just me and you.’

  ‘It’s only till your mother’s better.’

  He walked on for a few moments before remarking, ‘Sammy’s seen him.’

  ‘Your father? I know you’ve seen him.’

  ‘Far down in the woods.’

  The thought that she could have run into Mr Gunn at any time on her solitary walks terrified Katie, but she said, ‘I wondered where he went.’

  The boy gave a sly smile. ‘Sammy knows. Sammy has a place, a special place, secret. Sammy sees things.’

  Not heeding his last sentence, Katie said, ‘It’s nice to have a special place, isn’t it?’ Her own special place was on the shore at Cullen, which wasn’t really a secret place, but it was where she had spilled out all her frustrations and fears, which was maybe what Sammy did, too.

  ‘Do you want to see my special place?’

  ‘Not tonight, Sammy. You can show me some other time.’

  Next night, when Mr Gunn came into the kitchen, he looked sternly at his son. ‘You did not trim the hedge properly.’

  Sammy raised his head abruptly. ‘I did. I cut it all.’

  Katie stepped back in astonishment as the man took his balled fist with full force against his son’s mouth. ‘Do not answer me back, boy! I will not have my meals spoiled! Go up to your room this instant and stay there until morning.’

  Discretion, and fear, kept Katie from protesting, and she watched sadly as Sammy trailed out, his shoulders hunched. She was so upset for him that she hardly ate a thing, but Mr Gunn’s appetite was not impaired, and she jumped when he said, as if he knew what was going through her mind, ‘Do not smuggle anything up to him, Katie. He would get completely out of hand if I did not chastise him.’

  When she brought down his wife’s tray, Mr Gunn had already cleared the table and was standing by the sink. She was ready with a polite refusal if he offered to dry the dishes, but this was not what he had in mind. His arms clamped round her, and he said, in a strange, hoarse voice, ‘I have been waiting weeks for a chance like this.’

  ‘Let go of me!’ She struggled against him, straining her head away when his mouth sought hers.

  ‘Come now, Katie,’ he coaxed. ‘I only want a little kiss.’

  Sick at the thought, she slapped his face without thinking of the consequences. ‘I’m not paid to kiss you, Mr Gunn, and if you don’t stop this minute, I’ll tell your wife.’

  His beetling brows shot down fiercely, but he let her go and went out. Hardly able to believe that he had taken no for an answer, Katie sagged with relief. She had got off easier than she had feared.

  If she had seen the expression on Angus Gunn’s face as he settled into his armchair in the parlour, however, she would not have felt so complacent.

  Chapter Three

  More wary than ever of Mr Gunn, Katie hoped that he wouldn’t send Sammy to bed early any more, but it happened again only a week later. He had reprimanded his son for not chewing his food properly and the boy had begun, ‘I’ve got good strong teeth, I don’t need to …’ That had been enough and Sammy was banished to his room.

  Katie had remained sitting after the meal was finished, thinking that Mr Gunn would get tired of waiting for her to stand up, but when he pushed back his chair, he came and stood behind her. Her heart palpitating, she forced herself to remain perfectly still, but when his hands slid round her neck, she jerked away automatically.

  ‘You little fool,’ he muttered, ‘I could be a very good friend to you, if you would let me.’

  He went out without waiting for an answer, but Katie was trembling when she stood up. Friendship was not what he was after, the dirty old devil, and how much longer would he pester her before he gave up?

  When Sammy joined her on her walk the following evening, it occurred to her that he could help her. ‘Listen, Sammy,’ she began, ‘I can’t do anything about your father hitting you, but I want you to promise me you won’t answer him back again. That’s what makes him send you to bed early, and I’m scared he might do something bad to me if there’s nobody else in the kitchen.’

  Screwing up his face in deep thought, he took some time to reply. ‘You want Sammy to be good?’

  ‘Very good.’

  His face broke out in a wide smile. ‘I promise. I wouldn’t want him to do bad things to you.’

  ‘I know you wouldn’t.’ But she couldn’t help thinking that she was wasting her time – his father could send him to bed for nothing if he felt like it.

  Fortunately, only the next morning Mrs Gunn announced that she was feeling much better and would come downstairs. She certainly had a little more colour in her cheeks, and after a few days she had regained her previous, rather doubtful, health and was doing more housework than she had done for some weeks prior to her mysterious illness. With his wife back on her feet, Mr Gunn had no option but to sit with her in the dining room again, and it was not only Sammy who was pleased that his father would no longer have his meals in the kitchen.

  While Mrs Gunn was in bed, Katie had thought that she would never get the weekend off she had been promised, but her employer had not forgotten. ‘You’ve been here for six months now,’ she said, one day in October, ‘so I think it’s time you went home to see your grandparents. You had better take the opportunity as long as I’m feeling well enough to cope by myself.’

  Katie murmured her thanks, and Mrs Gunn went on, ‘I’ll pay your fare to show my appreciation for the extra work you had to do while I was laid up.’

  ‘There’s no need for that, Mrs Gunn, I was glad to do it. I wasn’t expecting anything …’

  ‘I know you weren’t, but it would make me feel we hadn’t imposed on you unfairly.’

  Very early on Friday morning, therefore, Katie set off in a steady drizzle to walk the five miles to the railway station at Huntly. By the time she boarded the train, her coat was wet, and her brown hair was plastered black against her head, dripping into her eyes, but even that did nothing to spoil her fizzy anticipation of seeing her grandfather again. She waited at Keith impatiently for the other train which would take her to the coast, thinking in amusement, when she saw her reflection in the carriage mirror, that she looked like a drowned rat, and when, at last, she caught sight of the sea, the waves glittering in the sun which had emerged from the dark clouds, her breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t long until she spotted the familiar broad outline of the Bin – the hill was a landmark for miles – and she knew that she was almost home.

  Her excitement at fever pitch when she came out of Cullen Station, she ran all the way down the hill to Seatown and burst into her grandparents’ house. Mary Ann – her sleeves rolled to the elbow, corseted figure erect as ever as she stirred a pan on the hob – turned round startled by the intrusion, and Katie came to a breathless halt, disappointed that her grandmother had shown no pleasure at seeing her.

  ‘You should’ve let us ken you’d be here the day,’ Mary Ann said, brusquely.

  This deflated Katie’s spirits even more. ‘I wanted to give you a surprise,’ she mumbled.

  ‘You did that right enough, coming in like a raging lion. Have you forgot your manners since you went to the Howe o’Fenty, or do the Gunns nae bother with suchlike things as knocking on folk’s doors?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Grandma.’ Katie hadn’t thought it necessary to knock since this was her home, and felt like a four-year-old again being repri
manded for the heinous crime of losing her handkerchief.

  ‘Well, you’d best take off your coat now you’re here.’ A suspicion suddenly forming in her mind, the old woman said, ‘You havena lost your job, have you?’

  ‘No, I’ve got the weekend off, and I haven’t to go back till the first train on Monday. Can I hang my coat up by the fire? It got wet when I was walking to Huntly Station.’

  ‘It hasna been raining here.’

  At that moment, William John walked in from the back, his eyes lighting up when he saw his grand-daughter. ‘Oh, Katie lass, it’s good to see you.’ He opened his arms and she ran to kiss his leathery cheek. ‘How did you get here?’ he asked then, hugging her tightly, ‘And how long are you biding?’

  When he learned that she’d had to walk five miles to catch the train, his smile vanished. ‘I thought you said in one of your letters Mr Gunn had a motor car. Did he nae offer to take you to the station when he was going to his shop?’

  She toyed with the idea of telling them that she would not have accepted a lift if he had offered, but it would worry them to know she was afraid of the man. ‘I like walking.’

  Over the fish soup – a delicacy known as Cullen Skink and made with a large smoked haddock, milk, potatoes and onions – it was William John who plied her with questions, frowning when she described Sammy Gunn as being ‘a bit simple’.

  ‘A daftie, is he?’ Mary Ann observed, dryly.

  ‘Not a real daftie,’ Katie protested. ‘He went to school, and he knows what’s going on, but his father doesn’t pay him a penny for doing the garden or all the other jobs he does.’

  ‘The creature likely doesna ken what money is,’ the old woman remarked, derisively.

  Katie was stung into exclaiming, ‘Sammy’s not a creature, he’s a nice boy and I’m sorry for him. We sometimes go for walks together in the woods at night.’

  ‘Katie Mair!’ Mary Ann’s eyes blazed. ‘You dinna mean to tell us you and him are – he’s nae your lad, is he?’

  Her scandalized face made the girl smile. ‘No, he’s not my lad, but his mother and father don’t bother with him and he needs a friend.’

  William John shook his head. ‘Oh, Katie lass, you’ll have to watch yourself. You never ken wi’ laddies like that. If you get ower friendly wi’ him, he could …’ He trailed off, too embarrassed to say what was in his mind, then ended, a trifle lamely, ‘… He could go for you.’

  Katie’s laugh was scornful. ‘Sammy wouldn’t try to kill me. He’s kind and gentle.’ His father would be more likely to try that, she reflected. She wouldn’t put it past Mr Gunn to murder somebody, he was wicked enough.

  After supper, she said she was going out. ‘Just for a wee while, to get the sea air into my lungs.’ Going along the shore, she wondered if she could still confide in the Three Kings, and came to the conclusion that she would have to try. There were things she couldn’t tell her grandparents, things they would be angry about though maybe they were just in her imagination.

  In the eerie, still darkness, it was easier than she thought. ‘I’ve only been away six months,’ she began, when she got near enough, ‘but it feels like years, for I don’t like the Howe of Fenty very much. Mrs Gunn’s all right to work for, though I’d to do everything myself when she was ill. I get on fine with Sammy, he’s the son, and he says he’s got a special place and all. I think he feels the same about it as I do about coming here. Grandma and Granda say I shouldn’t walk in the woods with him, but he’s my friend, and he wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  Katie paused for a moment, wondering whether to mention Mr Gunn, or if it would bring bad luck. But he was the main reason for her unease at Fenty, she couldn’t ignore that. ‘Mr Gunn’s not a nice man. He hits Sammy for the least little thing, and he wouldn’t let his wife get the doctor when she was ill. He only tried to kiss me once, and he’s never done it again, but I can’t help being scared of him.’

  She stopped as if waiting for advice. At first, she’d had a sense of reassurance from the rocks, but now everything had changed. A coldness seemed to be coming from them, seeping right inside her as though they were telling her that she was right to worry, that Mr Gunn wasn’t to be trusted. On her way home, she even had the feeling that they were warning her that he was to be the means of changing her life in some way … and not for the better.

  She went straight to her old bed in the back room when she returned home, saying nothing of her increased fears. If Granda knew how scared she felt, he’d want to take her away from Fenty, but her grandmother wouldn’t let him. She’d just laugh at her for thinking the Three Kings could speak to her. But they had! They’d told her to be on her guard against Mr Gunn because he meant to do her some ill.

  In the morning, she shrugged off the alarming thought; her imagination had got the better of her, that was all, likely because she had been too emotional last night at being home again. What could Mr Gunn do to her, after all? As long as she made sure he never got her on her own, she’d be as safe as houses. She had nothing to fear from either him or his son, despite what her grandfather had said about Sammy.

  She dressed to the accompaniment of raindrops pattering on the window pane, but she was not downcast because it was too wet to go out. It would be just like old times again, with her grandfather sitting by the fire talking to her.

  After breakfast, Mary Ann busied herself making the soup for their mid-day meal, then plied her sweeping brush round her husband and grand-daughter before she took out a duster and made an exaggerated onslaught on the furniture. All the time she was working, she gave the impression that she was paying no heed to their conversation, but Katie knew that she was taking in every word.

  The rain had not gone off by afternoon, and Katie offered to make the supper, but her grandmother said, sarcastically, ‘And have you spoiling good mince?’

  ‘I’ve been doing all the cooking for the Gunns for a long time, and none of them ever complained.’

  ‘Aye, well, some folks is easy pleased.’

  William John put his oar in now. ‘Ach, let the lassie show you what she can do. It’s nae often you get the chance o’ somebody cooking for you.’

  ‘It’s nae often anybody round here does anything for me,’ she snapped, glaring at him. ‘Some folks would sit on their backsides all day.’

  ‘Sit down on yours for a change, then,’ he grinned. ‘What can the lassie do to spoil mince?’

  His wife continued to glower at him for a moment, then plumped down on the chair Katie had vacated, pursing her lips as she picked up her mending basket from where it was kept next to the wall, and William John winked at Katie.

  ‘Well, now, I’m sure you canna fault that,’ he commented some time later, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘No,’ Mary Ann conceded, ‘I must say the doughballs were near as good as I make myself.’

  ‘Better,’ he mouthed to Katie, who had to turn away to hide a smile.

  ‘That was just grand,’ he said of the seven-cup pudding, and although his wife had to admit it was good, she took the gilt off the gingerbread by adding, ‘Of course, I couldna afford to make something like that every day.’

  ‘I wouldna want it every day,’ he laughed, ‘but it’s been a real treat, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Aye,’ she said, grudgingly, ‘it has that. You’ll make a good wife to some man some day, Katie.’

  Coming from her grandmother, this was high praise indeed to the girl. ‘Not for a long time yet,’ she chuckled, to cover the pleasure she felt.

  On Sunday afternoon, Katie and William John took a walk to the Bin, the frost-nipped air putting fresh roses into both their cheeks, and the Howe of Fenty was not brought up in their rare spurts of conversation. Man and girl were content to be in each other’s company again, free from Mary Ann’s disapproval of their closeness, and Katie felt closer to her grandfather now than she had ever done, closer even than to the Three Kings. He was like a rock himself, though his back wasn’t quite as
straight as it used to be, and she could tell him things she wouldn’t tell her grandmother. He hadn’t changed much since she was a little girl; he still wore the navy ganzies his wife knitted and covered his silver hair with the same old peaked cap … at least, it looked the same one, but maybe it wasn’t.

  On Monday morning, William John said he would walk to the station with Katie, and Mary Ann, cheeks more hollow than ever, came to the door to see her off. ‘Watch yourself,’ she cautioned, then muttered, as if it had been dragged out of her, ‘I’ve been real pleased to see you.’

  This was so unusual that Katie’s eyebrows shot up, but she just said, ‘It’ll be another six months before I’m back, but I’ll keep writing.’

  Once Katie was in the carriage, William John reached up and took her hand. ‘She really did miss you, Katie lass.’

  The train moving slowly forward, he gave her hand a tight squeeze then walked away, but not before she had seen the moisture in his eyes. Sitting down, she blinked her own tears away.

  When she arrived at Huntly, she was taken aback to see the gangling figure who loped forward to greet her. ‘Sammy! What are you doing here? Did your mother send you?’

  He grinned bashfully. ‘I heard her saying you’d likely be back on this train.’

  Katie’s heart swelled with fondness to think that he had wanted to meet her off the train when it was a ten-mile walk there and back. ‘You shouldn’t have come. It’s too far.’

  The light went out of his dark eyes. ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘No, I’m not angry. It’s good of you, but I hope you’re not too tired to do your work when you get home.’

  It had still been dark when she left Cullen, but the sun was shining now, and with the shambling boy pointing out the different trees they passed, commenting on the colours of the leaves which littered the ground and imitating the calls of the various birds they saw, Katie was amazed at how short the time seemed until they reached the track to Fenty.

  Sammy hung back as they neared the house then made for his shed, and gathering that he didn’t want his mother to know that he had gone to the station, Katie didn’t enlighten her.