Читать книгу The Rutherfurd Saga - Anna Buchan - Страница 24

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“From you have I been absent in the Spring.”

Sonnets by William Shakespeare.

The days passed, short, stormy, January days melting into February with its hint of spring.

One mild day when the blackbirds were trying their notes, Nicole wrote to her friend Jean Douglas.

. . . This is the sort of day that makes me simply long for Rutherfurd. The snowdrops will be in drifts by the burn-side now. How often I’ve stood under a steel-grey sky, with a north wind blowing, and looked at the brave little advance armies of spring poking their heads through the beech-leaves of a dead October. To-day I’m positively hungry for Rutherfurd. How gladly would I turn the Jacksons out neck and crop, if only I had the fairy whistle! Everything in its proper place I would pipe, and positively laugh to see them scuttle. . . . After that outburst I shall write, I hope, in a better spirit. You see, I can only say it to you. I daren’t breathe a word of discontent here in case of rousing sleeping fires of desire in Mother and Barbara. Poor Babs does miss the old life so badly. Mother never says she misses anything, and is always cheerful and willing to be amused, only—laughter can be sadder than tears sometimes. She still, at times, has an air of sitting so loosely to the things of earth that Babs and I want to clutch at her skirts to keep her with us at all.

Things amble along as usual. I said this morning, “I do wish Mistress Jean would pay us a visit.” The others echoed the wish, only Babs was sceptical about our power to entertain you. But, I think you would be quite well amused.

What fun it would be to get the best guest-room ready for you: to find flowers for it—flowers are a great difficulty here, as the nearest florist is in Langtoun and he sells mostly vegetables!—and to choose books for your bed-table that you would like. And you would lie in bed in the morning and listen to voices underneath your windows, fisher laddies talking their Fife lilt, foreign sailor-men, fish-wives crying “Hawdies, fresh hawdies,” and smell through the lavender of the bed-linen the salt, tarry smell of the harbour.

And what else can I offer you? We would explore the East Neuk, you and I, and I wonder if you know St. Andrews? If not, there are fascinating things to see there. And, of course, you would meet all our new friends—I shouldn’t wonder if Mrs. Heggie made a dinner party for you, and you would enjoy the comedy of that good lady and Barbara. Barbara is always putting Mrs. Heggie in her place, but her efforts are quite lost on the dear soul, for she has no notion what the place is or that she has ever strayed from it. She admires Barbara immensely—licks the hand that beats her, so to speak. She tells me Mother is her idea of a grande dame, but she doesn’t quite understand where I get my democratic ways. Alas, poor Yorick!

Miss Symington you would have to go and see, though, probably, you’d find her supremely uninteresting, with her ugly clothes, and her bleak house, and her still ways. But I think you’d like Dr. Kilgour and his nice funny sister, and it would be most disappointing if you didn’t appreciate my friends the Lamberts. It does make me feel ashamed of myself when I go to the Manse of a morning to take the babies out to find Mrs. Lambert conning over her address for the Mothers’ Meeting while she stirs a milk pudding for the early dinner! Her great cross is having to speak in public, and open meetings with prayer, but she does it, the valiant little person, she does it. I now and again go with her to the Mothers’ Meeting, to help with the singing and play Sankey’s hymns on the harmonium, and to hear her read the Bible is an inspiration. It is no dusty far-away history when she reads it. She is so interested in it herself that she makes it sound like Dumas, and the women sit back with a sigh when she finishes.

She has a small transparent face like a wood-anemone, and I’m always afraid she wears herself out of existence, but you mustn’t think Mr. Lambert is idle. He helps her in a hundred ways, writes his sermons with a baby rolling on the floor at his feet—and very good sermons they are. He keeps the garden, and goes messages and does all the odd carpentering jobs about the house. The only thing his wife cannot get him to do is gush. To her most frantic appeals to be “frank” to some person he can only manage a cold hand-shake and a bald sentence. I’ve seen her turn on him a face half vexed, half amused as she said: “Oh, John, you’re a dry character!”

Odd, isn’t it, that there are one or two words that have a different meaning in Scots? English people mean by “frank” honest and open; here “frank” means free: a “frank” manner is a forthcoming, gushing manner. “Canny” is another word. It really means cunning, but in Scotland it means gentle—“Canny wee thing.”

Well! is that all I’ve got to offer you? Not quite. Barbara will want you to know her friends, the Erskines. They are a great support to her, and she goes over a good deal to their place and meets people she likes, and they come here. Mother and I like them very much, but it’s difficult taking an interest in new people, I find. Babs retorts that I manage to be interested in the Kirkmeikle people, but they are different, more human, somehow, and pitiful. The Erskines are so sure of themselves, prosperous, invulnerable.

And you might possibly be invited to lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Buckler. Their lives have been full of colour and interest—thirty years in India—but they haven’t brought much of either away with them. They are oddly interested in things like disrespectful parlour-maids . . . so after all what does it profit a man to see the world?

I wonder if you stayed a week with us consorting daily with Kirkmeikle people, would you say, like Babs, that you were sick of honest worth? She says she is driven to Mr. Michael Arlen in sheer self-defence. To forget Mrs. Heggie and Miss Janet Symington she reads of ladies reclining in slenderness on divans, playing with rosaries of black pearls and eating scented macaroons out of bowls of white jade!

This is a long letter all about nothing. Your last letter was a joy. Cannes must have been lovely. How could you tear yourselves away?—but of course I know that Colonel Douglas is never really happy anywhere except at Kingshouse. You will be home now, lucky people. Write when you have time and tell me all about everybody.

Your loving

Nikky.

Nicole, having finished her letter, sat on at the writing-table, looking before her. A letter all about nothing indeed! But, somehow, there was nothing of interest anywhere these days; life was flat and stale, and Simon Beckett was going away.

Well: Nicole gave herself a mental shake as she put her letter into an envelope, and straightened the writing things on the table. It must be the hint of spring in the air that was making her feel foolish and sentimental; besides it was Saturday afternoon, always a depressing time somehow, and her mother and Barbara had motored off to have tea at a distance, and Alastair had gone with Simon, in the latter’s car, to Langtoun, to see a football match. She had preferred to stay at home, thinking it would be pleasant to have a long afternoon for letter-writing, but she found she wasn’t liking it at all. She would go out, she decided, and talk to old Betsy for a little, and then walk very fast round the links and try to walk off this curious depression which had suddenly enveloped her.

She found Betsy in a distinctly bad humour. Saturday afternoon seemed to have cast a blight on her spirits also. She had paid somebody twopence to sand her stair, and was not pleased with the way it had been done.

“And it’s juist like everything else,” she grumbled. “The folk nowadays winna work. They dinna ken what work means: them and their eight hours day! Labourites they ca’ theirsels. What they’re lookin’ for is a country whaur folk wad be hangit for workin’. . . . An’ the Government’s tae support a’body! Ye’d think to hear them that the Government could pick up siller in gowpins . . . Ay, thae folk next door ca’ theirsels Labour, but efter the way the wumman washed ma stair, I’ll naither dab nor peck wi’ them!”

“But,” said Nicole, “the stair looked to me very clean. I just thought as I came up how fresh everything was, all ready for the Sabbath day. . . . And it’s February, Betsy, and almost spring. The last time I was here it was Christmas.”

“Weel, better something lang than naething sune, but I was wonderin’ what hed come ower ye. But her leddyship’s awfu’ attentive. I div like tae see her, an’ we’ve sic graund cracks aboot oor ain place. An’ she reads to me whiles, for ma sicht’s no’ what it was. Sic a bonnie speaker she is! There’s a lot o’ folk awfu’ queer pronouncers o’ words, ye wud suppose they were readin’ the buik upside doon. The man next door came in and read me oot o’ a paper, but losh! I was nane the wiser when he feenished. . . .”

“You’ve lots of visitors, Betsy, haven’t you? And you take such an interest in everything that goes on.”

“Oh, I dae that, an’ though I canna steer ower the door verra little passes me. There’s aye somebody to gie me a cry in an’ tell me what’s gaun on. Ye see, I’m aye here, an’ folk like a listener. . . . Did ye hear that ma son’s been lyin’? Ay, it sterted wi’ influenzy and syne it was pewmony. Ma gude-dochter cam’ to see me the nicht afore last. She’s that ill at Dr. Kilgour, the dowgs wadna lick his bluid efter the names she ca’ed him.”

“Why?” asked Nicole, startled. “What has Dr. Kilgour done?”

“Oh, when he cam’ an’ fand Tam sae faur through he gaed her a ragin’ an’ said he shuld hae been there lang syne. An’ he sterted an’ pu’ed down the winday—she keeps the windays shut for fear o’ dust comin’ in—an’ he was that gurrl aboot it that he broke a cheeny ornament.”

“But your son’s getting better?”

“Oh, ay, he is that. Dr. Kilgour’s a skilly doctor, but he’s offended ma gude-dochter.” Betsy smiled grimly. “An’ he tell’t some o’ the wives aboot here that they hed nae richt to hev bairns at a’, they didna ken hoo tae handle them. That’s true eneuch. I’ve aften said ye wad suppose it was broken bottles they hed in their airms.”

Nicole laughed as she rose to go. “Dr. Kilgour’s not afraid to speak his mind.” She looked out of the little window. “See the sun on the water, Betsy! You’ll admit Kirkmeikle is a nice little town?”

But Betsy shook her head. “I see naething in’t. I never cared for a toon. I aye likit the hill-sides and the sheep. Eh, wasna it bonnie tae see the foals rinnin’ after their mithers, an’ the mears stannin’ still to let them sook?”

“Very bonnie. And now I’m going to put your tea ready for you. Mrs. Martin sent a ginger-bread, and I know you like a bit of country butter and some cream at a time. These are fresh eggs. . . .” Nicole was unpacking the basket as she spoke.

“Weel,” said Betsy, watching her, “what’s guid to gie shouldna be ill tae tak’. It’s sic a thocht to move an’ I’m that blind, that whiles I juist dinna bather aboot ony tea, but a cup’ll be gratefu’ the noo. Thank ye kindly, Miss. . . . Na, na, I manage fine. Agnes Martin comes in every nicht when she gets the dinner cooked, an’ sees me tae ma bed, an’ pits a’thing richt for the mornin’. Ay, I’m weel aff wi’ her. . . .”

When Nicole was going up the brae towards the links she met Janet Symington walking with a man. She immediately found herself wondering who he could be, and smiled to think she was becoming as inquisitive as Betsy herself. Then she remembered that it was Saturday. Of course this was one of the preachers.

He was a tall man with a large soft face, and, evidently, quite a flow of conversation, for Miss Symington was walking with her head bent listening attentively. Looking up she saw Nicole and half stopped. Nicole also hesitated, and presently found herself being introduced to Mr. Samuel Innes. He held out a large soft hand (“He shakes hands as if he had a poached egg in his palm,” thought Nicole), and uttered a few remarks about the weather in the softest voice she had ever heard in a man.

“Mr. Innes is going to speak at the Hall to-morrow night,” Miss Symington said. “It’s always a great treat to have him.”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Innes, while Nicole faltered, “That is very nice. I hope it’ll be a good day.”

“There’s always a good turn-out when it is Mr. Innes,” said Miss Symington, looking up at her companion with what in any one else would have been called a smirk.

Mr. Innes repeated “Not at all,” and Nicole, making hasty adieux, fled.

“Now I wonder,” she said to herself, as she stood a minute looking out to sea, “I wonder if that gentleman means to hang up his hat, to use Mrs. Heggie’s descriptive phrase. . . . Mr. Samuel Innes. What a perfect Samuel he makes——”