Читать книгу The Rutherfurd Saga - Anna Buchan - Страница 20

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“Be this, good friends, our carol still—

‘Be peace on earth, be peace on earth

To men of gentle will.’ ”

W. M. Thackeray.

The Rutherfurds had settled down in the Harbour House in a way that surprised themselves. It seemed almost unbelievable that a bare three months ago they had known nothing of Kirkmeikle and its inhabitants and were now absorbed in the little town.

Nicole’s desire to know only Kirkmeikle, and Barbara’s determination to know as little of the town and as much as possible of the county, had resulted in a compromise. People from a distance were welcomed and their visits returned, and Barbara suffered Nicole’s Kirkmeikle friends, if not gladly, at least with civility. The Bucklers she liked, and the Lamberts and Kilgours, but Mrs. Heggie and Miss Symington she could not abide, and marvelled at her cousin’s tolerance for those two ladies.

“The appalling dullness of them, their utterly common outlook on life, their ugly voices and vacant faces, how you can be bothered with them, Nikky, passes me.”

“But it’s the way you look at them,” Nicole protested. “You expect to find commonness, so of course you do. I find nothing but niceness in Mrs. Heggie. Just think what fun she is to feed. I met her the day after we had had her to luncheon and she went over the whole menu with reminiscent smacks. ‘The grape fruit! delicious: and that new way of doing eggs . . . and such tender beef I never tasted . . . and the puddings were a dream. I simply couldn’t resist trying both, though I know it was rather a liberty the first time I had lunched with you, and the whole thing so recherché!’ Isn’t it worth while to have some one like that to a meal? I think it is. As for Joan Heggie, she is rather ugly and awkward, but she can write poetry. . . . Miss Symington interests me.”

“You like them,” said Barbara, “because they make a little worshipping court for you; you shine against their dullness.”

But Nicole only laughed, and called heaven to witness that she had a very rude cousin.

As for Lady Jane she was gently civil to every one who came, but preferred Mrs. Brodie and her noisy brood, and old Betsy with her talk of Tweedside, to any of them.

December is a month that, for most people, “gallops withal,” and it seemed to be Christmas before any one was prepared for it at the Harbour House.

It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and the drawing-room did not present its usual orderly appearance. White paper, gay ribbons, boxes of sweets and candied fruits, and crackers for the out-going parcels lay about on the big sofa, while the long table at the far end of the room was piled with parcels which had arrived by post. Nicole gazed round her ruefully, remarking that everything must be packed before luncheon, whereupon Barbara came briskly to the rescue.

“Say what’s to go into each parcel,” she said, “and I’ll tie them up. These are the local ones, I suppose?”

“Thank goodness, yes. All the others were packed days ago. I wish I hadn’t gone to Edinburgh yesterday and I wouldn’t be in such a state of chaos to-day! Are you sure you can spare the time? . . . Well, first a parcel for Mrs. Brodie from mother; just oddments to make a brightness for the children. Is there a box to put them in? These gaudy crackers, sweets, dates, shortbread, and sugar biscuits: a tin of tea for Mrs. Brodie, and those toys for their stockings. Will they all go in? Good. That’s the only really bulky parcel. You do tie up so neatly, Babs. Providence obviously intended you for a grocer.”

“What about this?” Barbara asked, holding up a large flat box.

“That only wants a ribbon round it and a bit of holly stuck in. It’s for old Betsy; shortbread. I had it made with ‘Frae Tweedside’ done in pink sugar—a small attention which I hope she’ll appreciate. Mother is sending her tea, and other things. The framed print is for the Bucklers, they haven’t many household gods; the Bond Street chocolates are for Mrs. Heggie, she has such a sweet tooth; the book of Scots ballads for Dr. Kilgour.”

“I can’t see that Mrs. Heggie needs anything,” Barbara said, as she wrapped each thing in white paper and tied it with a red ribbon. “It will only make her insist on us all going to dinner at her house.” . . . She looked round at the articles remaining and asked, taking up a Venetian glass bowl with a lid, “Who is this pretty thing for?”

“It is pretty, isn’t it? I’m going to fill it with my own special geranium bath-salts, put it in a white box, tie it with a length of carnation ribbon and present it to Miss Janet Symington.” As she spoke Nicole looked impishly at her cousin, who said, “Ridiculous! What will she do with such a present?”

“Nothing, probably, but I’m determined she will have at least one pretty thing in her possession. Pack it, Babs dear, very gently, with cotton wool and lots of soft paper. . . . These are all the things for Alastair’s stocking. He’s coming here after breakfast to-morrow to get the big toy Mums has for him. The Lamberts are having him for early dinner and tea, so he’ll have quite a cheerful day.”

“You spoil every one,” said Barbara.

“I like spoiling people, but I quite see I’m a horrible trial to you. You would have liked this house to keep up its reputation for exclusiveness, wouldn’t you, poor pet? . . . But we’re not really over-run by my new friends. They never come unless they’re asked, and we have quiet jolly times, old Babs, you and Mother and I. I sometimes think it is almost unbelievable that we can be so happy after—everything.”

Barbara touched her cousin’s hand. “I know—— I didn’t approve much of coming here, as you know, but I’m bound to say I think Aunt Jane has been the better of it. She takes more interest in people and things than she did. I was really afraid for her before we left Rutherfurd, but now she is less of a gentle spirit and more of a living, breathing mortal. It pleases her to have Alastair so much with her, and she likes Mr. Beckett. D’you notice how she looks at them sometimes—the little boy and the grown man? I think it hurts her to see them, and yet the pleasure exceeds the pain. When Alastair plays round preoccupied and busy, talking to himself, she sees again Ronnie and Archie, for all little boys are very much alike: and in Mr. Beckett she sees them as they would have been now.”

Nicole nodded. “I’m rather dreading to-morrow for her. One can go on from day to day, but these special times are difficult. . . . What do outsiders matter after all, Babs? It’s we three against the world—though you and I do bark at each other whiles!”

After luncheon and a belated post had been discussed, Lady Jane and her niece settled down to cope with the last of the preparations, while Nicole set out to deliver parcels.

It was about three o’clock before she started. The frost of the morning had increased in intensity, so that walking was difficult on the cobbled stones, and Betsy’s outside stair, which had been recklessly washed, was now coated with ice.

Betsy herself was sitting wrapped in a shawl by the fire. “Come in,” she cried, “I kent yer step. Bring forrit a chair and get a warm. It’s surely terrible cauld?”

“It’s a perfect Christmas Eve,” Nicole told her, walking over to look out of the little window. “I can see the moon already, though the sun’s only going down now, and the red tiles have got snow on them, just a sprinkle. I do like your view of chimney-pots and roofs. It makes me think of storks, and Northern Lights, and Christmas trees in every window.”

This harmless remark seemed to provoke the old woman. “Gentry,” she said peevishly, “are aye crackin’ aboot views. I never felt the need o’ a view if I had a guid fire. An’ I dinna haud wi’ Christmas. It’s juist Papacy. It fair scunners me to hear the wives aboot the doors a’ crackin’ aboot Christmas here an’ Christmas there. Ye canna blame the bairns for bein’ taen up wi’ Sandy Claws an’ hingin’ up their stockins, but it’s no’ for grown folk. . . . Whae tell’t ye that Christ was born on the 25th o’ December? It’s no’ in the Bible that I’ve ever seen. Juist will-worship, that’s what ma auld minister ca’ed it, an’ he kent. The verra word’s Popish—Christ-Mass.”

Nicole left the window and sat down by Betsy.

“Does it matter about all that?” she asked. “Isn’t it a good thing that we should keep one day for kind thoughts and goodwill to all men, because long ago in Bethlehem a baby was born?”

Betsy sniffed. “Ay, but I dinna haud wi’t. It was aye the New Year we keepit at Langhope. Thae were the days!”

“Did you have presents?”

“Na, we hed nae money for presents, but the bairns dressed up and went frae hoose to hoose playin’ at ‘Galatians’ and singin’

‘Get up, auld wife, an’ shake yer feathers,

Dinna think that we are beggars:

We are but children come to play—

Get up and gie’s oor Hogmanay.’

An’ we got oatcakes and cheese, and a lump o’ currant-loaf, and shortbreed, and we carried it a’ hame in oor pinnys.”

Nicole was sorting out parcels from her big bag.

“I don’t suppose,” she said, “that this shortbread will taste anything like as good, but it says on it ‘Frae Tweedside.’ ”

“So it does.” Betsy gazed admiringly at the sugar inscription. “It’s faur ower bonny to eat, I’ll juist pit it in a drawer.” Nicole exclaimed at the idea, and produced tea, and a warm woolly coat.

“These are from my mother with her best wishes. She hopes to come to see you very soon.”

Betsy sat with her hands on her gifts. “I dinna ken what to say. I’m no’ üsed bein’ noticed. Naebody ever brocht me things afore, no’ as muckle as a mask o’ tea. Lady Jane’s kindness is fair nonsense, but ye’ll tell her I’m muckle obleeged.”

“Mrs. Martin told me to tell you that she’ll be along this evening with some ‘kail.’ ”

“Ay, weel, it’s no’ a’body’s kail I’d sup. God gies the guid food, but the deil sends the cook. . . . But Agnes Martin’s a rale guid haund at kail.”

“Well, good-bye, Betsy, and—a Merry Christmas.”

“Na, I’m for nane o’ yer Christmases. I’ll gie you a wish for Ne’er day, for fear I dinna see ye—‘The awfullest luck ever ye kent and a man afore the year’s oot.’ ”

Nicole left her chuckling, and took her perilous way down the slippery stair to the home of Mrs. Brodie.

Mrs. Brodie was busy cleaning for the New Year and, like Betsy, seemed to take little stock in Christmas.

“Ay,” she said, leaning on her besom as Nicole produced her box, “the morn’s Christmas, but it maks nae odds here. It’s juist wark, wark, the same. The bairns get an orange an’ a screw o’ sweeties in their stockins, but that’s a’ the length we gang. It’s rale guid o’ yer mither to send thae things—Jimmie, I’ll warm yer lugs if ye dinna let that alane!—Is she gaun tae gie me a look in wan o’ thae days? I like fine to hae a crack wi’ her. Weel, guid day to ye, an’ thanks.”

Nicole left her parcels at Lucknow and at Knebworth, and then turned into the gate of Ravenscraig.

Miss Symington was, as usual, sitting in the dining-room, making up the accounts of one of the many societies she was interested in. There was no sign of festivity anywhere, not so much as a sprig of holly. To-night Alastair would hang up his stocking and she would go in on her way to bed and put some things in, she had these lying ready—a shilling and some walnuts in the toe, a pair of warm gloves, an orange, and a small packet of chocolates. Chatterbox would be laid on the breakfast-table, also a game sent by Mrs. Heggie, and a box of Meccano from the Bucklers. It was too much for one child, she thought, and she meant to tell him how many children had nothing but a crust of bread.

She added up columns rapidly as she sat, putting very neat figures into a pass-book. Then she put the books away and fetched some brown paper and string from a table in the corner. Nicole came springing in on her like a gay schoolgirl.

“Am I disturbing you? No, please go on packing. I’ve been at it for the last week, and to-day I’d never have got through if Barbara hadn’t given me a hand. She takes time by the fetlock, as my brother Ronnie used to say, and is always well beforehand.”

“These are just a few things that Annie will take out this evening,” Miss Symington said, cutting the end of a string carefully.

Nicole, watching her, said, “You don’t keep Christmas much in Kirkmeikle, do you? My efforts to be seasonable have been rather snubbed this afternoon; but Alastair keeps it, I’m sure. Will you put these things into his stocking, please? They are only little things, but they may amuse him. And this is for you. You won’t open it till to-morrow morning—promise? Now, I’m not going to stay a moment longer. A very Happy Christmas to you. No, don’t come to the door. . . .”

She heaved a sigh of relief as she left the dreary villa, and stood on the brae-face looking over the tumbled roofs to the sea, and saw the lights along the coast begin to twinkle greeting to the stars in the frosty sky.

“Quite like a Christmas number, isn’t it?” a voice said behind her, and she turned quickly to find Simon Beckett.

“Where are you wandering to, sir? I’ve been playing ‘Sandy Claws,’ as old Betsy puts it. . . . I thought you would have gone away to spend the festive season—falsely so called.”

Simon turned and walked by her side. “Watch how you go: it’s pretty slippery. . . . No, I’m not going away. I’ve only cousins to go to, anyway, and they don’t particularly want me. Besides, it hardly seemed worth while to go so far just now. I’m keen on getting my job done, and . . .”

“How are you getting on? You haven’t asked for any advice yet?”

“No—you see I’ve only now got the rough draft done: I’ve taken an age to it. It’s when I re-write and polish that I’ll be most grateful for help—only, I hardly like to bother you.”

“We’ll be enormously flattered and not in the least bothered. You know that. . . . I’ve been at Ravenscraig with some things for Alastair’s stocking. It was all so hopelessly uncheery for the poor lamb. When I think of our childhood—the fuss that was made, the thrill of the preparations, the mystery. It does make a difference having a mother, an aunt given to good works isn’t the same at all.”

Simon agreed. “I’ve got a train for him,” he said, “with rails. It only came this morning and I was in a perfect funk that it wasn’t going to turn up in time. He’s been fearfully keen to possess one. I hope it’ll come up to his expectations.”

“Sure to, trains never fail one—— What are you doing to-morrow?”

“Nothing special. I thought I’d treat myself to a really long walk.”

“We’re quite alone,” Nicole told him. “After your walk it would be a kind act if you’d eat your Christmas dinner with us—7.30—and afterwards we’ll sit round the fire and talk. . . . Isn’t it jolly to-night? The moon and the snowy roofs and the lights in the frosty air. And look at that little steamer, plugging along! Where are you going to, you funny little boat? Don’t you know what night this is?”