Читать книгу The Rutherfurd Saga - Anna Buchan - Страница 14

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“O brave new-world

That has such people in’t.”

The Tempest.

A few days later Nicole and her mother—Barbara had pleaded excessive boredom at the prospect and had been let off—set out to return their neighbours’ calls.

Nicole carried a card-case which she had unearthed from somewhere, and was very particular about what her mother should wear.

“The new long coat with the grey fur, Mums; it has such a nice slimifying effect—not that you need it. What a blessing that we are sylphs, you and I. Wouldn’t you hate to feel thick, and to know that you had a bulge at the back of your neck? . . . You really are ridiculously young, Mums. You could wear your hair shingled, for the back of your neck is the nicest thing I ever saw, almost like a child’s; and your little firm face is so fresh—only the eyes shadowed a little. And not one grey hair! How have the gods thus guarded your first bloom, as the poet puts it?”

Lady Jane, standing before the looking-glass pulling a small hat over her wavy hair, laughed at her daughter.

“All this flattery because I’ve consented to go with you and call! Or is there something more you want?”

Nicole stood beside her mother looking at the reflection in the mirror.

“We might easily be taken for sisters, Mums. In fact, I might be mistaken for the mother, for there is something stern in my visage that ages me. . . . How nice it is that now mothers and daughters can dress alike—the same little hats, long coats, and unimportant dresses. At one stage of the world’s history you would have worn a bonnet and a dolman, Madam, and I should have had a sailor-hat tilted up behind (see old Punches) and a bustle. What we have been spared!”

“Come along, then, and get our visits over. I’m ready.”

As they mounted the long street that led from the shore to the villas on the top of the brae, Lady Jane remarked, “I should think every one will be out this fine day.”

Nicole pinched her mother’s arm. “Don’t say it so hopefully; you’re as bad as Barbara. I want them all to be in. . . . Do let’s speak to this woman; she’s a friend of mine, a Mrs. Brodie.”

They were passing a little house, the doorway a few steps under the level of the street, with two little windows each curtained with a starched stiff petticoat of muslin, and further darkened by four geraniums in pots. A large, cheerful-looking woman was standing at the door, holding a baby, while two slightly older children played at her feet. She greeted Nicole with a broad smile, and when she said, “Mrs. Brodie, this is my mother,” she gave an odd little backward jerk of the head by way of a bow. They admired the baby, and Lady Jane asked how many other children she had.

“Just the nine, no mony if ye say it quick eneuch,” and Mrs. Brodie laughed loudly at her own joke. “Ma auldest’s a laddie; he’s leevin’ the schule gin the simmer holidays. Then comes three lasses and the twins, an’ thae three.” She looked at the two playing gravely at her feet with a broken melodeon, then she chirruped to the baby, who leapt and plunged in her arms like a hooked trout.

“Ay,” said his mother encouragingly, “I ken ye’rs a wee horse. I ken fine ye’re a wee horse. By! ye’re an awfu’ ane.”

Lady Jane’s eyes met those of Mrs. Brodie over the head of “the wee horse,” and she said, “You’re a happy woman, Mrs. Brodie, with your children all about you.”

“Ay, I mind ma mither aye said a wumman’s happiest time was when her bairns were roond her knees, an’ she gethered them under wan roof when nicht fell. I’m thrang eneuch, guid kens, but it’s hertsome wark.”

She nodded to the mother and daughter as they left her, remarking that they were getting a fine day for their walk.

Miss Symington was in, they were told, when they had rung the bell at Ravenscraig, at which intelligence Nicole cast an exultant glance at her mother.

There was no one in the drawing-room, and the housemaid lit the gas-fire and left them. The room had an unused feeling; no books lay about; in one of the big bow windows there stood on the floor an aspidistra in a yellow pot.

“It looks lonely,” Nicole said, eyeing it.

Miss Symington came in, apologising for having kept them. She was dressed to go out, and looked oddly bulky in her coat and skirt and round felt hat beside the mother and daughter in their slim long coats and close-fitting hats.

It was obvious at once that if there was to be any conversation it would have to be made by the visitors.

Nicole, poising her card-case between the tips of her fingers, smiled gaily into the somewhat unresponsive face of Miss Symington and began to talk. She and her mother tossed the ball of conversation deftly to each other, appealing often for confirmation to the shadowy third, putting remarks into her mouth until that lady began to feel that she shone in company.

As they were leaving, “You have a nephew,” Nicole said.

“Alastair,” said Miss Symington.

“Yes, Alastair. He and I made friends on the rocks the other day. Is he in? I expect he’ll be out this fine day?”

“He goes out every afternoon from two to four.”

“Perhaps some day you would let him come to tea with us? My mother likes boys—don’t you, Mums?—and Alastair is such a lamb. He must be a great delight to you.”

Alastair’s aunt seemed surprised at this assertion.

“I do my best for him,” she said, “but I’m afraid I don’t understand boys. I would never think of asking a boy to come to see me for pleasure.”

Lady Jane leant forward, smiling. “Do bring Alastair to tea with us, Miss Symington, and we’ll all try to amuse each other. Which day? Wednesday?”

“I’ve a Mothers’ Meeting that afternoon.”

“Thursday, then?”

“Yes, thank you. We shall be very pleased, though I don’t see why you should be bothered having us. What hour?”

“Oh,” said Nicole, “shall we say four sharp, then we’ll have time to play after tea. That’s fine.”

As they walked down the gravel-path Nicole said, “I’m so glad I brought the indoor fire-works left from our last children’s party. I nearly gave them away, not thinking that Kirkmeikle might produce a small boy. . . . Miss Symington’s a nice woman, Mums, you think? Very, very well-meaning and decent.”

Lady Jane looked back at the house as they went out of the garden gate into the road.

“It is odd that a woman can live in a house like that and make no effort to make it habitable. I wonder if it has ever occurred to her how ugly everything is. I didn’t see one single beautiful thing. . . . She has nice eyes, Miss Symington, like clear pools, and I think she is utterly sincere.”

Her daughter nodded. “I know, but she is inarticulate, isn’t she? I felt ashamed of talking so much, but what could I do? . . . This is Knebworth. Here lives one Mrs. Heggie, with at least one daughter and, I daresay, others that we know not of. Quite a different type, to judge from the house. . . . Isn’t this fun? Let’s greet the unknown with a cheer. An electric bell this time, and, I expect, a much smarter parlour-maid. . . I thought so.”

She followed her mother and the short skirts and high heels of the maid through an ornate little hall, complete with a fireplace and ingle-neuk and red tiles, into the drawing-room. It was a room of many corners and odd-shaped windows, comfortably furnished, the walls hung with reproductions of famous pictures. Tall vases filled with honesty and cape-gooseberries stood about, and a good fire burned on the red brick hearth. A small book-case fitted into a niche held a selection of the works of the most modern writers, while on a table lay some magazines.

Mrs. Heggie was seated on a low chair beside the fire, with a writing-pad on her knee, and a bottle of ink perched precariously on the rim of the fender. As she rose to greet her visitors paper and envelopes and loose letters fell from her like leaves in an autumn gale. She was a tall, stout woman with a round face and an all-enveloping manner.

“Well now,” she said, as she held out one hand to Lady Jane and the other to Nicole, “isn’t this nice? and to think I nearly went out this afternoon! If it hadn’t been for some letters that I knew simply must go to-day nothing would have kept me in.”

“But,” said Lady Jane, “I’m afraid we are interrupting you—your letters——”

“Letters,” Mrs. Heggie said airily, thrusting her visitors into two arm-chairs, “they can wait: it’s hours till post-time, any way.” She subsided into her own low chair and asked in tones of deep interest, “And how d’you think you’re going to like Kirkmeikle?”

“Very much indeed,” Lady Jane replied. “We were lucky to get such a nice house. You know it, of course—the Harbour House?”

“I don’t. The Harbour House is a sealed book to me, and I’ve always had the greatest desire to see inside it. There is something about it—the crow-step gables and long, narrow windows facing the sea—that fascinates me. I’ve often tried to see in when I passed! Mrs. Swinton was a queer woman. She never visited the other people in Kirkmeikle. I suppose she had her own friends and kept to them, and of course she was quite right, if that was the way she was made. People are so different. Now, I’m miserable if I don’t know everybody. I don’t think I’m a busy-body, but I do take the greatest interest in my neighbours and their concerns, and if I can do anything to oblige them I’m just delighted. Rich or poor, I like people and want to be friends with them.”

“Hurrah!” said Nicole. “I feel like that too. Life is much too short to be exclusive in. One misses so much.”

Mrs. Heggie beamed at the girl. “That’s what I always say. You’ll find Kirkmeikle very friendly—what there’s of it. I suppose everybody has called?”

“Let me see,” Nicole said gravely: “Miss Symington, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, Dr. Kilgour and Miss Kilgour, Mr. and Mrs. Buckler—you and your daughter.”

Mrs. Heggie nodded her head at each name. “That’s all,” she said. “Are you returning all the calls to-day?”

“We hope to,” said Lady Jane, the corners of her mouth turning up. “We have just seen Miss Symington and are going on to the Bucklers.”

Mrs. Heggie sat forward. “You’ve seen Miss Symington? She’s very nice, quiet and solid, but very nice. Does a lot of good with her money. She’s very rich, you know, though you wouldn’t think so to look at her. She’s like her father: all he cared for was missionaries and evangelistic meetings. D’you know, every week-end Miss Symington has a minister of sorts staying with her! She keeps up the Mission-hall her father started in Langtoun for his workers, and the preacher stays with her. Of course she isn’t quite young; she must be forty-five anyway, and she’s so discreet that it’s quite all right, but I always expect to hear that one of them is going to hang up his hat—as the saying is.”

The visitors were silent, not quite knowing what comment to make, and Mrs. Heggie continued:

“You’ll like the Bucklers. Somebody told me that Mr. Buckler had quite a distinguished career in India, and I must say they are most obliging neighbours. I’m sorry for poor Mrs. Buckler with her servants. Now, you’ll stay and have tea; I’ll ring for it at once so as not to hinder you. It’s early, I know, but you may not be offered it at the Bucklers, for they have a housemaid who objects to giving tea to visitors unless they come at tea-time. No? Oh, don’t rise. You’re not going already? Joan may be in any minute. She’s all I have now. My husband died three years ago, and two boys in the Argentine. Joan is inclined to be literary—— Well, if you must go. . . . When will you come for a meal? Let me see, this is Monday—Would lunch on Wednesday suit you? Friday, then? we must fix a day.”

“If you don’t mind,” Lady Jane said in her gentle way, “we won’t fix anything just now. We are still rather busy settling down and would rather have no engagements yet awhile. Might we, perhaps, propose ourselves for tea one day? That will be delightful, and you must come and see us in our funny little house when you can spare time.”

“I’ll do that,” Mrs. Heggie promised heartily, “and you come here whenever you like. Just run in, you know. I’m always sitting here—except when I’m out somewhere. And when you feel like accepting invitations you’ll come here first, won’t you? I’ll give a dinner for you. . . .”

Half an hour later when Joan came in and asked casually if there had been any visitors, her mother replied with studied carelessness, “Only Lady Jane Rutherfurd and her daughter. They were here quite twenty minutes—the civilest people I ever met. And I didn’t ask one single question, though I’m just dying to know what brought them to Kirkmeikle. They’re charming, perfectly charming.”

Joan sat down heavily in a chair. “For any favour, mother,” she said, “give that worn-out adjective a rest. Whenever you ask what sort of person some one is you’re told—‘Charming,’ and when you meet her she’s nothing of the kind. Charm is not the common thing people make it out to be.”

“Oh well, Joan, I’m not going to quarrel with you about adjectives. You know far more about them than I do, but when you meet the Rutherfurds you’ll be charmed with them, I know that. . . . The daughter looked at your books—what a nice friend she’ll be for you. . . .”

Mr. and Mrs. Buckler received their callers with less excitement than Mrs. Heggie.

Nicole smiled up at Mr. Buckler as he put her into a carved chair with a brilliant embroidered cushion for a seat, saying: “The East in Kirkmeikle! I smelt it as soon as I came into the hall.”

“You recognise it? You know India?”

“Only as a Paget M.P.—I was out for a cold weather when I first grew up, just after the War. I went out to an uncle and aunt who happened to be there. . . . Have you been home long?”

Mr. Buckler, a thin man with tired eyes in a sun-dried face, drew up a chair beside Nicole.

“I retired about five years ago,” he said; “glad enough at the time to get away, but looking back at the life now, it seems the best on earth. Distance lending enchantment! I dare say if I went back I would be disillusioned. It’s not the India I went out to as a boy, and loved. Things, they tell me, are altering daily for the worse—still it’s India. . . .”

While Nicole and her companion recalled people and places Lady Jane listened while Mrs. Buckler told her of the trials of a retired Mem-sahib. She was a pretty, faded woman, with a vivacious manner.

“When I think of my jewel of a Khansamah who made everything go like clockwork and produced anything you wanted at a moment’s notice like a djinn in a fairy tale, I almost weep. Of course, we’re as poor as rats now and we can’t afford really good servants, and I know I ought to be thankful that at least we have honest women in the house, but, oh, Lady Jane, their manners! They never think of saying ‘Mum’ to me, and very seldom ‘Sir’ to Ernest. They seem to think it demeans them, whereas, as I tell them, all servants in good houses say it as a matter of course. They merely prove their own inferiority by not saying it. But how can one teach manners to women who don’t know what manners mean? It was quite funny the other day, though vexing. A friend of ours had motored a long way to see us, and found no one in. Mrs. Heggie—our neighbour next door—came up to the door at the same time and heard the conversation. Our friend has a very forthcoming, sympathetic manner, and she said to Janet, the housemaid, who had opened the door: ‘Now, tell me, how is Mrs. Buckler? Has she quite got over that nasty turn of influenza? Is she out and about again?’ Janet stood quite stolid (so Mrs. Heggie said), then drawled in a bored voice, ‘Och, she’s quite cheery’!”

Lady Jane laughed. “It was rather funny, wasn’t it? and most reassuring, and after all manners aren’t everything: I wouldn’t worry about them if I were you.”

“We tried,” Mrs. Buckler went on, “to be exceedingly polite to each other, Ernest and I, to see if that might have a good effect, but it hadn’t. They merely seemed to think we were feeble-minded. . . . But as you say, we might have worse trials—and Janet isn’t as bad as she was. The last time we had some people to dinner Janet’s way of offering the vegetables was to murmur ‘Whit aboot sprouts?’ . . . But I really don’t mind anything if Ernest and the children are happy.”

“You have children?”

“Two—a boy at Oxford and a girl in Switzerland. That’s why we live here. It is cheap and we can pinch in comfort—a contradiction in terms! . . . Must you go?”

Mr. Buckler walked down to the gate with the visitors, and as they stood talking a tall young man came towards them.

“Ah, Beckett, the very man I wanted to see! I heard this morning from the India Office. . . . By the way, have you met? . . . May I introduce Mr. Beckett? Lady Jane Rutherfurd, Miss Rutherfurd.”

“Mr. Beckett and I have met already,” Nicole said. “I told you, Mother—Alastair’s friend. . . .”

As they walked away Lady Jane asked if they had done enough for one day. “It must be nearly tea-time,” she said.

“Well,” said Nicole, “we haven’t time to attempt the Kilgours, but we pass the Lamberts’ house, it’s just here, this green gate in the wall—we needn’t stay more than a few minutes. Come on, Mums.”

The green door opened into a good-sized garden surrounded by a high brick wall on which fruit trees were trained. There was a lawn, wide borders which still held bravely blooming Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums, and plots of rose-trees—evidently a place on which was bestowed both labour and love.

“ ‘A garden enclosed,’ ” said Nicole, as they went up the path to the front door. “And what a pleasant-looking house!”

The manse was a rather long, low house built of grey stone. The front door stood open and children’s voices could be heard. When Nicole rang the bell a very young servant answered it. She was not more than fifteen, but her hair was put tidily up, and she wore a very white cap and apron: her face shone with soap and rubbing.

“No, Mem,” she said shyly. “Mistress Lambert’s oot, but she’ll be in to the tea aboot half five, and it’s that noo. Would ye . . . come in?”

Nicole picked out a card while Lady Jane said:

“No, thank you—we shall hope to see Mrs. Lambert another time. . . . Who is this young person?”

A small fat child had trotted out, and now held the apron of the maid before her as a protection, while she peered at the visitor.

“That’s Bessie. She’s three,” the rosy little maid said proudly, smiling down at her charge.

“I can skip, but Aillie can’t,” the baby informed them, and received the rebuke, “Dinna boast—Aillie canna walk, let alane skip.”

The mother and daughter smiled to each other as they let themselves out of the little green gate in the wall.

“Doesn’t she remind you, Mums, of the heroine of Jane Findlater’s story? She’s ‘terrible bauld and firm.’ And so trim and clean. A most decorous maid for a manse—— Oh, my dear, would you mind? Just one more place. There’s an old woman here—Mrs. Martin told me about her—who comes from Langhope and wants terribly to see you.”

“Yes, but need we go to-day?”

“Well, I’m just afraid she may be looking for us. Besides, it’s so near—the Watery Wynd, the place is called. The first turning. This must be the place. There is the outside stair that I was told to look for. ‘ “On, on,” cried the Duchess.’ Take care, these steps are uneven. . . .”

The short November day was nearly done, and Betsy Curle’s kitchen was dark but for the firelight. She peered through the shadows at her visitors—“An’ whae may ye be?” she asked.

Lady Jane went forward. “I hope you don’t mind us coming,” she said. “Mrs. Martin, our cook at the Harbour House, told us you came from our own part of the world and we wondered if we might come and shake hands with you. We’re still feeling far from home.”

Betsy rose to her feet painfully and tried to drag two chairs to the fire for her visitors.

“Let me,” Nicole said. “You sit down in your own chair and tell us how you have strayed so far from the Borders.”

“Ye may say it! Sit whaur I can see ye. I mind yer faither, an’ yer grandfaither, an’ yer great-grand-faither!”

“Oh!” Nicole leaned forward, her eyes alight with interest. “My great-grandfather! Tell me about him.”

“He was handsome, like a’ the Rutherfurds, and mad! as mad as a yett in a high wind.” She turned to Lady Jane. “I mind fine o’ yer leddy-ship comin’ to Rutherfurd—the bonfires and the flags. That was fower and thirty years syne come Martimas. Ye were but a young lass in a white goon and a hat wi’ feathers, an’ they ga’ed ye a bunch o’ red roses.”

Lady Jane nodded. “I remember both the hat and the roses. . . . Where was your home?”

“D’ye mind the white-washed hoose at the edge o’ the pine wood afore ye come to Langhope? Ay, the keeper’s cottage. I bade there; ma faither was heid keeper at Langlands.”

“And what brought you to Fife?”

“Ye may ask! I mairrit a jiner. If I hed ta’en ma mither’s advice—‘Betsy, lass,’ said she, ‘there’s little sap amang the shavin’s.’ . . . His folk cam’ frae Fife, an’ efter we’d been mairrit a wheen years, he got the offer o’ a job here. I niver likit it—nesty saut cauld hole! No’ like oor ain couthy country-side. I canna thole the sicht o’ the sea, sae jumblin’ an’ weet. What wud I no’ gie for a sicht o’ the Tweed an’ the Lammerlaw! But I’ll never get hame noo, an’ I canna see hoo I can lie quait in that cauld kirkyaird. Of course ma man’s there, but it’s an exposed place.”

“Have you no children?” Lady Jane asked.

“Juist ae son leevin’—an’ he’s mairrit.”

“Oh—but he’s good to you, I hope.”

“As guid as his wife’ll let him be. O, ma guid-dochter’s a grand gear-gatherer. She was a Speedie, and they’re a’ hard. She’s big an’ heavy-fitted like her faither. Handsome some folk ca’ her! Handsome, says I, haud yer tongue! But I’m no’ sayin’ nae ill o’ her, ye ken. She’s welcome to a’ she can get. I never grudged naebody naething their guid wasna’ ma ill.”

“Well,” Lady Jane rose to go, “I hope you’ll let us come again. I want to talk to you about home. . . . Don’t get up. I’m afraid you’ve bad rheumatism?”

“Ay, it cam’ on me aboot five years syne. I was as soople as an eel till then. . . . Hoo’s Agnes Martin pleasin’ ye?”

“Oh, she’s a treasure. And I hope she’s happy with us.”

“Happy eneuch, I daursay. She’s the sense to bow to the bush that gie’s her bield,” and Betsy lowered herself slowly into her chair, while her visitors went down the stairs feeling rather snubbed.