Читать книгу The Rutherfurd Saga - Anna Buchan - Страница 27

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“How blessed are we that are not simple men.”

The Winter’s Tale.

To say that Mrs. Jackson was disappointed on hearing that Nicole Rutherfurd was unable to fulfil her promise to help with the festivities is a poor, bald way of describing the utter despair that filled that poor lady. As people in moments of peril are said to see all their past life before them, Mrs. Jackson, still clutching the telegram, saw herself alone, unaided, exposed to the full battery of the county. It had been bad enough the thought of it all, the big dinner and the dance, even with Nicole beside her to bear the brunt, to receive, so to speak, the first shock of the encounter. On her would have depended the success or failure of the undertaking. But now—it was more than she could face by herself, and desperately she got on to her feet and went to look for her son.

She found him in the library, smoking a pipe, deep in a book, and, bustling towards him as fast as her high heels would permit, she wailed:

“Andy, she’s not coming!”

Andrew laid down his book, and getting up with his pipe in his hand, said, “Who?”

“Miss Rutherfurd, of course. She’s in bed with a chill and there’s no chance of her being able to travel, and all these people coming—— Andy, I’m nearly demented.”

“It’s a pity, but surely we can manage ourselves.”

“We can not manage ourselves”; and in her despair poor Mrs. Jackson nearly burst into tears. “A bonnie-like mess of things I’d make with no one beside me to tell me what to do! You know quite well that if I can put my foot in it I do it, and I can’t talk. And, oh! the dance! the orchestra and the purveyors. . . . Oh dear, dear, what made me think of trying to entertain? It was you, Andy, that said we should give a dinner to pay back, but the dance was a bit of show-off on my part.”

“Wouldn’t Mrs. Douglas help us?”

Mrs. Jackson dismissed the suggestion with an impatient shake of her head.

“It wouldn’t be the same. With Nicole Rutherfurd beside me playing the daughter of the house I could have faced anything. Andy, could we not send wires to every one that we’ve got something? Influenza or a nervous breakdown. . . . I’m sure I’ve got that right enough.”

Andy thought for a minute. “Isn’t there another Miss Rutherfurd, a cousin? Wouldn’t she come?”

“She’s called Miss Burt, and she’s a stand-offish thing; not a bit like my girl. Besides, she wouldn’t come.”

“You could ask her.”

As a drowning man clutches at a straw, so Mrs. Jackson clutched at this possibility. “You send a wire then, Andy, an urgent wire so that they’ll see things are desperate.—Or mebbe I’d better write. . . . She’d be a lot better than nobody.”

* * * * *

It was now the 9th of March, and Miss Barbara Burt might arrive any minute. Andrew had gone to meet her in the car, much against his own inclination, but spurred thereto by his mother’s eagerness.

“It would never do to let her arrive and find no one but a chauffeur. Besides, you know Father’ll not let Renwick leave the car for a minute, so it would be very awkward. I’d go myself, but I dread the thought of having to talk to her all the way back. It’s nothing to you to talk. I’ve often watched you chattering away like anything.”

Andrew looked slightly dashed at this description of his conversational powers, but he only said, “Well, I don’t expect to ‘chatter’ much to Miss Burt. When does the train come in? All right. I’ll be there.”

When Barbara got out of the train and stood looking about her for a porter to take her luggage to the car which she had been told would be waiting, a voice said, “Pardon me, but are you Miss Burt?” and she saw before her a young man in a light tweed suit, with pleasant grey eyes, and a smile that revealed very white, even teeth. She smiled and nodded. “And you are——?”

“I’m Andrew Jackson. We’re most awfully grateful to you for coming. How is your cousin?”

“Better, thanks, though not fit to travel. She is greatly disappointed, for she had been looking forward to this visit. . . . The cane trunk and the hat-box, and the case. Yes. That’s all.”

Andrew turned to the porter. “Bring ’em along, will you? The car’s outside. I’ll take the dressing-bag.”

They went out of the station, Andrew explaining that his father did not like the chauffeur to leave the car, in case the little wanton boys that abound round a station did it an injury.

“It seems a pity to worry,” said Andrew, “but there it is.”

“What about the luggage? Doesn’t Mr. Jackson object to that?”

“He does, if there’s a lot,” Andrew confessed, “but yours is modest. . . . Is that all right, Renwick? Now, we’re off.”

Barbara had looked forward with much distaste to this enforced visit to her old home, but she had made up her mind that, so far as in her lay, she would do her best to make it a success. She would try never to think about herself and her own feelings, but to enter into the feelings of others. She set Nicole before her as an example, for nobody knew better than Barbara herself that she was not always a social success.

Now, carried swiftly along the well-remembered road, she told herself that things had begun well. She liked this young man with his kind simple manner and his honest eyes, and she felt flattered that he wasted no time on the preliminaries of friendship, but plunged at once into what interested him.

Some remark was made about the countryside, and Andrew said, “I wish you’d tell me something about your uncle and cousins. . . .”

Barbara turned to him with a very charming smile.

She said, “You’ve chosen the subject I like best.”

“Everywhere I go,” Andrew went on, “I hear about them, and every one I meet has some story to tell me about them. It is rather remarkable, you know, the affection they seem to have inspired. Sir Walter Rutherfurd is still a name to conjure with in these parts, and I would very much like to know wherein lay the secret of his influence. You see, it’s frightfully interesting to me, who, in a way, must follow him. I hope you don’t think this is cheek, but I’m very keen to carry on the tradition. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, for we’ve everything against us—we’re strangers, city folk. . . .”

“The Rutherfurds were deep-rooted in the soil,” Barbara said, leaning forward to see some familiar landmark.

Andrew nodded. “That’s it. . . . They grew up with all the people round, their fathers had been friends, their grandfathers, away back . . .”

“Uncle Walter was the best of all the Rutherfurds,” Barbara said. “The others, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and further back were all fine men, but some of them were eccentric and queer; but he was the sanest, most reliable of men. There was something about him so big and kind and simple. He was austere too, in a way, and absolutely unshakable about what he thought was right and wrong. And Ronnie and Archie promised to be very much the same.”

“They died young?”

“Twenty and twenty-two. Do you wonder their parents’ hearts were broken? I sometimes think the War killed more fathers than mothers. Perhaps women’s hearts are made to stand more, or perhaps it’s because it is easier for them to speak out what they feel, but I’ve known several cases where the mother was able to go on, but the father, saying very little, just slipped out of life. Uncle Walter did that. It was as if something had broken that we couldn’t mend. We tried to hold him back, but something far stronger drew him away. . . . Oh, it hasn’t been easy these last years.”

“And giving up Rutherfurd must have been very bad,” Andrew said gently.

Barbara had a sudden and almost overpowering inclination to burst there and then into a flood of tears. She turned and stared unseeingly out of the window . . . and they had reached the gates of Rutherfurd before she felt sure of keeping her voice steady.

When the car drew up at the door Mrs. Jackson stood waiting to receive them. She wore a smart gown, a hat with ospreys, and an ermine stole, determined to do full honour to her guest. Enormous fires blazed everywhere, and hot-house flowers scented the air. “Not a word till you’ve had tea,” was her greeting, “you must need it badly after such a long journey. Come right into the drawing-room. There now, sit there. Is that cushion quite comfortable? Would you like a footstool?”

Barbara, feeling like seventy and decrepit at that, refused a footstool, but gladly accepted tea, while her hostess poured into her ears details about the arrangements. . . .

“The dinner I could cope with—we’ve given dinners before—but it’s the dance. They keep telling me that the men’ll do everything, prepare the floor and put everything right, but I don’t know. The question is can you trust them? Wouldn’t it be awful if there wasn’t enough to eat, or if something went wrong with the orchestra? That orchestra! It fair weighs on my mind. I never had anything to do with them except just listening, of course, but I’ve often heard how difficult choirs are to manage, and I doubt orchestras will be worse. . . . It’s a big undertaking, look at it any way you like.”

Barbara soothed her, and assured her everything would be all right. “When you go to a good firm they’ve a reputation to keep up, they won’t fail you. . . . It ought to be a charming dance. I don’t know if there has ever been a dance at Rutherfurd before. There was to have been one when I came out, but the War stopped it. Tell me, how have you arranged about the dancing . . . ?”

Later Mrs. Jackson, having with great wealth of detail described all arrangements, at last conducted Barbara to her room, and flung open the door impressively. Barbara almost recoiled.

The room was heated by radiators, but a large fire had been ordered as well. The walls glowed rosily, the carpet also was pink, and very thick. A crystal bowl of pink geraniums and maiden-hair fern stood on the dressing-table.

Mrs. Jackson clasped her hands before her and beamed.

“It doesn’t need the fire for heat, but I thought it would be a nice welcome. I always think a fire’s just a friend.” She looked round complacently. “The room’s changed a wee bit. I hope you like it. Can you mind what it was like before?”

Could she “mind”? This had been Lady Jane’s own room and Barbara remembered every detail of it. The wall-paper had been white with a tiny sprig, and on it had hung water-colour drawings of her aunt’s old home, rather vague and amateurish, but treasured by their owner. There had been a fine four-poster bed with chintz valance round the top. In this room Nicole and Ronnie and Archie had been born.

Barbara was grateful that Nicole had been unable to come. Aloud she said, “There is a most wonderful difference. How did you manage to keep it all pink and get everything to tone so beautifully?”

“I like pink,” said Mrs. Jackson, “it’s such a cheery colour; and I wanted a complete change, for it was awful washed-out looking before.”

“Nothing had been done for a long time.”

“Oh, of course, we quite understood that. Besides, it’s far more satisfactory, I think, to do up a house to suit your own taste, and if it’s been fairly recently done it seems extravagant. I wouldn’t dare to meddle with the reception-rooms, for I’m not sure of myself, if you know what I mean, but in the matter of bedrooms I could let myself go. Our own room is yellow. Ucha! Carpet and all. They wanted me to have pale lemon walls and a grey carpet, and mebbe it would have been more artistic, but I like something strong. It’s not to call orange exactly, but it’s tending that way. I’ll let you see it. It’s lovely. Then we’ve a pale blue room, and two other pink rooms, and two pure white, suites and all—— But there, you’ll see them all to-morrow. Here am I keeping you standing all this time. Would you like to rest till dinner-time? Your luggage is all in the dressing-room so as not to litter your room. Esther’ll be unpacking it now. Isn’t that a queer name for a housemaid—Esther? I always think of the King, you know, and the poor girl going in to beg for her people, and Haman being hung and all that. Aren’t there some queer stories in the Bible? Well—I’ll leave you to yourself for a bit. . . . I’ll mebbe take a rest myself, for what with all the things I’ve got to think of, and you coming, I’m real worn out.” She still lingered, then, “Well, ta-ta,” she said, with a wave of her hand, and left her guest feeling both dazed and exhausted.

At dinner Barbara met for the first time the new owner of Rutherfurd. It was surprising to see such a rich man so thin, and he had an oddly detached air as if he had no connection with his surroundings. She found him fairly easy to talk to, but then, as she reflected, a man is always interesting when he talks his own shop.

After dinner Mr. Jackson went off at once to his own den, and Barbara talked by the drawing-room fire with her hostess and Andrew. Very soon Mrs. Jackson’s head began to nod, and her son rose and put a cushion more comfortably behind her head.

“Oh, thank you, Andy.” She roused herself to say apologetically to Barbara, “Was I nodding? Sleep comes on me like an armed man. I must ask you to excuse me. . . .”

The young people continued to talk for a little, then Andrew asked if Barbara played the piano.

“I do, but——” She looked towards her sleeping hostess.

“It’s all right,” he assured her, “it won’t disturb my mother. Will you play for me?”

They went together to the piano, and Andrew produced a pile of music.

“I play these with one finger. They’re mostly Gilbert and Sullivan. But play anything you like. I’m tremendously keen on music. . . .” So Barbara played what she could remember, and Andrew listened. Presently she broke into the music of Patience and they sang together “A magnet hung in a hardware shop” and “Prithee, pretty maiden.”

Mrs. Jackson woke up at intervals and pretended to beat time, only to doze off again.

When Johnson brought in the tray at ten o’clock he coughed discreetly to waken his mistress, and she promptly sat up, put on her slippers, which she was apt to kick off as the evening advanced, and, looking very alert and wakeful, said in a loud Englishy voice, “What a treat to have a little music. Andy, you’re in luck to-night.”

Barbara left the piano and came over to the fire.

“We’ve had quite a concert, haven’t we?” she said, holding her hands to the blaze. “Your son has a delightful voice; you should make him take lessons.”

“D’you hear that, Andy? It’s what I always say, Miss Burt. He had always a nice voice. I mind when he wasn’t more than three, he would sit beside me and sing, “Lord, a little band and lowly” and “Bonnie Charlie’s noo awa’,” as sweet as sweet. He had golden curls, Miss Burt, though you wouldn’t think it to look at him now, and he wore a wee blue velveteen suit, sort of made like a sailor but trimmed with lace—— He was an awful nice wee boy!”

Andrew looked at his mother with a quizzical expression as she retailed these confidences to their guest, but only said:

“Here’s your hot water, Mother—Miss Burt?”

“May I have some hot water?”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Jackson, “there’s nothing like it, I think, a glass of hot water every night gives you a wash inside. As my mother used to say, ‘The stomach’s an ill dish to clean’—I’m sure I hope we’ll all get a good sleep to-night and be well for to-morrow.”