Читать книгу Eliza for Common - Anna Masterton Buchan - Страница 3

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“Well, now let us begin. When we have got to the end of the story we

shall know more than we do at present.”—Hans Andersen.

Jim Laidlaw swung on the piano-stool in the drawing-room of Blinkbonny, Pollok Road, Glasgow, picking out tunes from Songs of the North with one finger.

It was after four o’clock and the short January day was done. Downstairs there were lights and preparations for tea, the drawing-room was cold and fireless, a damp fog pressing close to the window, but Jim sat on, striking notes uncertainly and humming in a rather tuneless voice the chorus of a song:

“Linten Lowrin, Lowrin Linten,

Linten Lowrin, Linten Lee.

I’ll gang the gait I cam again,

And a better bairnie I will be....”

A head came round the half-open door and a voice said—“I say, Jimmie, Mother says you’re to come down.”

Jim paid no attention but began again at the beginning of his song:

“I sheared my first hairst in Bogend

Down by the fit o’ Benachie;

And sair I wrought and sair I fought

But I wan oot my penny fee.”

The boy at the door breathed heavily against the paint for a minute, then, “Come on, Jimmie,” he said. “It’s dreary up here and Eliza’s making hot toast for tea.”

The song finished with a crash of discords. Jim rose and, pushing his young brother before him, left the room.

It was certainly more cheery downstairs in the dining-room, with a good fire, and red and white cups on a white cloth, and a red-shaded lamp in the middle of the table.

Mrs. Laidlaw was seated at the tea-tray, with a large family teapot before her, a woman of forty-eight, with sad blue eyes and heavy, patient lids, contradicted by a wide, practical, humorous mouth. There was nothing in the least unusual about her, but if you had gone round her large circle of friends and asked them what woman of their acquaintance they liked best to visit them, or to whom they would most quickly turn in any time of trouble, they would almost certainly all have answered, “Mrs. Laidlaw.”

Some would have said it as if half-amused that it was so; some surprised at themselves—“Why—I believe—Mrs. Laidlaw”; some quickly and gratefully; but all would have said it.

Her husband, the Rev. Walter Laidlaw of Martyrs’ Church, sat opposite. He had a way of crossing his legs and sitting sideways at table which annoyed his wife. He was doing it now. A tall man, he had rather a long face, greying hair, and amused eyes. A boy, Rob, sat next his mother, an empty chair beside him, and across the table was his sister Eliza, a schoolgirl of sixteen with two long plaits of yellow hair.

Jim slid into the place beside his sister, while Geordie, who had summoned him and followed him downstairs by the way of the banisters, took the vacant seat beside Rob, not, however, without some interchange of courtesies with that worthy.

Rob and Geordie looked as if they ought to be twins, but Rob was fifteen months older than his brother. They were considered by all who had the doubtful privilege of their acquaintance to be, perhaps, the most complete pair of miscreants that ever were bred in a manse. Geordie had freckles and sandy hair and a short nose and looked what he was, whereas Rob was of a most refined appearance, with a singularly gentle smile, but they both fought “like wild water-horses,” as Mary-from-Skye said, with anyone who would fight with them, and generally came in with damaged faces, and coats torn and buttonless.

This afternoon they were unusually silent and subdued, eating steadily, with their eyes on their plates.

It had been a long miserable Saturday in Blinkbonny.

A short time before, Jim had gone up to Oxford to try for a history scholarship and had come home with high hopes. This was the day, a Saturday, that the results were expected to be out, and Jim had arranged with a friend to wire to him if his name appeared on the list of successful competitors.

Always sanguine, the Laidlaws had begun to watch for a telegram from an early hour. Rob and Geordie, giving up their Saturday football, had stationed themselves in the branches of a big elm tree which stood by the front gate and from which they could command the road and be the first to rush and get the news.

But no telegram had come.

Telegraph boys, generally so rife, seemed to shun Pollok Road that morning, so that the watchers in the tree had not even the excitement of sighting them and betting on whether or not they would stop at Blinkbonny; a million pounds was their lowest bet.

Never had the hours of a Saturday so dragged. It was a clammy cold morning, and the old tree was not a comfortable watch-tower—besides, what was the team doing without its leader? Rob captained a football team made up of boys in the near neighbourhood, a team of no reputation it is regrettable to state. Every autumn they started with great intentions, determined to raise money for a new ball and goal-posts, not to speak of jerseys and other things. For this end they collected at the front doors of their parents’ friends, Rob, with his hair beautifully sleeked down and his gentle smile irradiating his face, being spokesman. He was hard to resist, and they yearly raised quite a respectable amount, which, however, was used for no other purpose than to feast the members of this nefarious team. Not that they meant to cheat, but at the committee-meeting called to decide how to lay out the money, discussion usually degenerated into a free fight, and the only thing that restored peace was the idea of a feast.

Rob took another look down the road and yawned, partly with cold, partly with boredom. Geordie, happy for the moment defacing the bark of the tree with his knife, paid no attention to his brother, and Rob slid down the trunk and wandered into the house.

“I’ll ask Mother for apples,” he said to himself, and went upstairs to look for her. Mrs. Laidlaw was not in her bedroom, but Rob walked about the room, touching things, and refreshing his memory about what lived in the little drawers in the bureau.... Evidently his mother was going out, her coat and hat were spread on the bed, and the sight of them set him off on a fresh track. He picked up the hat and put it on. Then he donned the coat, and buttoning the high fur collar round his throat, admired himself in the wardrobe mirror. Would he be able to cheat Geordie? His face wore the serene smile that always meant mischief as he stepped cautiously downstairs. At the dining-room door he remembered about the apples and, assuring himself that if he had made the request it would have been granted, he took two from the dish on the sideboard, hitching up the long coat in order to stow them into his pockets. As he was about to open the front door and assume a mincing, lady-like look for the benefit of Geordie, he noticed in the umbrella-stand his cherished sword which had been lost for nearly a week. Forgetting everything else he gripped it, and shouting “My brand—Excalibur!” hurtled into the front garden.

Mr. Laidlaw, standing at his study-window with his sermon for the next day in his hand, saw what seemed to his short-sighted eyes to be his wife leap with surprising agility from the top of the stone-steps, waving a sword. At the same moment he saw his neighbour, Mr. Dyson, a neat, rabbit-like gentleman, pass the gate and stand, open-mouthed, staring at the spectacle. For a few seconds he stood transfixed, then, averting his eyes, he raised his hat as if a funeral were passing, and went on his way.

Walter Laidlaw grinned broadly. “That wretched boy!” he murmured to himself. “What is poor Dyson to think?” Then he chuckled.

One o’clock came, and the early dinner would have been a silent meal had it not been for Jim, who, affecting high spirits, chaffed his young brothers, while they, feeling it was a spurious gaiety, rolled their heads uncomfortably and kicked each other beneath the table to relieve the tension.

After dinner, “I’m going for a walk,” said Jim. “Anybody coming? You two?”

They agreed and went, tumbling over each other in the doorway, to look for their caps. There was generally one cap missing and each claimed the existing one as his own.

“We’ll walk till tea-time,” Jim declared as they set out.

It was the winter of 1919-20, a year after Peace was proclaimed, and the suburbs had got back their men—such as had survived—and were sinking back into their old comfortable ways. Motor-cars were possible again, and every little while the walkers were warned by a loud hooting that a car was about to emerge from an entrance gate to take its owners for a Saturday afternoon outing. Warmly clad, healthy children walked beside nurses wheeling perambulators; vans delivered provisions for the week-end; peace and plenty reigned.

And Jim’s heart failed him. All these villas, smug and prosperous, seemed to lie like a weight on him, holding him down, making certain that he did not escape from Glasgow to that city of dreaming spires, Oxford.

It would have been idle to remind him that there was culture in Glasgow, brains of the best, splendid traditions; useless to point out that the suburbs of one city were very like the suburbs of another, that in Oxford, too, on a Saturday afternoon vans delivered Sunday dinners to roads and roads of villas, nurses wheeled perambulators, and prosperous, busy men took their wives out in serviceable little cars. To Jim, at the moment, Glasgow represented everything in life that was drab and ugly and uninteresting; Oxford lay in rosy mists, a many-towered Camelot.

Jim was twenty. He had gone to France a month before the Armistice and had been bitterly disappointed not to have got more of a chance, but the training had given him that gravely competent air so familiar to us in the young officers of the War, and made him seem older than his twenty years. He was a fair, clean-looking boy, a purposeful mouth being the most noteworthy thing about him.

He marched on doggedly for a time, then he looked at his wrist-watch and stopped, waiting till his brothers, who lagged some way behind, made up on him.

“Look here,” he said, “it’s a rotten day for a walk. Let’s cut through here and go home by the Park.”

Rob and Geordie, who loathed walking on roads, expressed entire agreement, and once their faces were turned towards home things became pleasanter. Jim’s spirits rose as he told the two boys a chapter of the story which had enlivened many a walk for them, a long, continued tale of three young adventurers, whose names, surprisingly enough, were Jim and Rob and Geordie. For this young man was a born teller of stories and was already using his talent to some purpose, having had about half-a-dozen accepted by popular magazines.

As they turned into Pollok Road unconsciously Jim’s steps quickened. The wire from Oxford must have come now: he had given it every chance: probably Eliza would come bounding to meet them waving it in her hand. Rob and Geordie would fain have rushed in first, but some instinct made them hang back and sedately shut the gate before following their brother into the house.

Jim opened the door and paused. No one came running. Eliza was invisible, but through the half-open door of the study he could see his mother darning stockings by the fire.

It hadn’t come.

Whistling cheerily, he hung up his cap and raced upstairs to the drawing-room. There, anyway, he would be undisturbed, especially if he played. None of the Laidlaws were troubled by much knowledge of music, but Jim’s efforts with one finger were generally felt to be past bearing, so he had played over and over again the song he had opened at—

Linten Lowrin, Lowrin Linten

Linten Lowrin, Linten Lee ...

and, hearing him, his mother had sighed wearily over the large hole in the heel of Rob’s stocking which she was mending, and Eliza crept upstairs and stood wistfully outside the door....

And now the curtains were drawn and it was no longer possible to stand and watch the gate, and that, somehow, seemed to make the thing more hopeless.

Mr. Laidlaw bore the brunt of the conversation at tea. He had been in Dennistoun visiting two families and—“It’s quite ridiculous,” he said, “that they should come all that distance across the city to Martyrs’. They must pass at least a dozen churches on their way.”

“Well, Walter,” said his wife, pausing with the teapot in her hand, “I do hope you didn’t put that into their heads. If we don’t get members from a distance where are we to get them? You know quite well that round the church there are nothing but Jews and Catholics. I simply tremble at term-time when I hear of one family and another going out to Newlands or Giffnock ... we can only keep going if people are loyal and stick to their old church.”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Laidlaw peaceably, helping himself largely to black-currant jam, “but we’re working round in a vicious circle.... What excellent jam this is!—Mrs. Houston is a sensible woman. I was sorry for her. She was telling me her son was going to be married, and she said, ‘Sons are but little use; just when ye think they’re going to be a comfort, some lassie snaps them up. Daughters are mair dependable, for they’ve to wait until somebody spiers them.”

Mrs. Laidlaw rebuked Geordie for trying to put a whole cookie into his mouth at once, then nodded at her husband in agreement with his last remark.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been annoyed times without number by young men rushing away and marrying, without a thought for the widowed mother who had slaved to bring them up, whereas the poor, patient daughters bring in their earnings and help in the house as well. Oh, I never commiserate the mother with three or four girls. I tell her she’s a fortunate woman.”

“Now then, Eliza,” said Jim, “you see what’s expected of you. You’re to keep the family.”

Eliza emitted a sound of scorn, while Geordie grinned across at his sister and said, “Elijah’s all right, she’s got the ravens.”

Rob applauded his brother’s witticism as in duty bound, but Mrs. Laidlaw suppressed both her young sons.

“How often have I told you not to call your sister that? It’s irreverent as well as rude, when you think who Elijah was.” Then she turned to her daughter. “But I must say, Eliza, it is rather disappointing how little you make of your opportunities. Here you are, almost seventeen years of age, nearly finished with school, and the only prize you ever got was for needlework—and yet at home you’re a regular bookworm. I can’t understand it—Remember those care-free school days will probably be the happiest you will ever know.”

Eliza looked at her mother sulkily and said, “Then I’m going to have a jolly poor life! You wouldn’t talk about ‘care-free’ days if you were at St. Margaret’s; we’re chivied from morning till night.... I don’t pretend to be clever: I’m not like Jimmie.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake don’t talk as if I were a beastly infant prodigy,” cried Jim. “Cheer up, ‘Liza. You know a dashed sight more about everything that really matters than any other girl in the school, I’m sure of that, and as for supporting yourself and your parents, you won’t be asked. Look at these stout fellows over there”—he pointed to Rob and Geordie, who grinned in an abashed way—“and I expect to do something in the world—even if I have missed this shot at Oxford.”

“You haven’t,” shouted his brothers, while Eliza murmured, “Oh, Jimmie,” and put out a hand, which he avoided.

After tea Mr. Laidlaw said that he had a sick call to make, and hurried out that he might be back the sooner to his sermon; while the others settled down in the study, as was their custom of an evening.

Jim buried himself in a book. Rob had a Latin exercise to do and sat himself down at his father’s writing-table, tongue protruding and elbows well spread out, to tackle it, while Geordie lay on the floor working at a boat he was making. Mrs. Laidlaw resumed her mending, and Eliza, curling herself up in an arm-chair, seized the opportunity to do nothing whatever. She was at the lethargic age, inclined to stoop and round her shoulders, not caring much how she looked, careless about clothes, having only two passions—Shakespeare and her brother Jimmie.

“The post-office closes at seven,” Rob said suddenly, breaking a silence.

Jim glanced involuntarily at the clock. A quarter to six—more than an hour of hope left! Anything might have kept the wire, he told himself; his friend, Cameron, who had promised to send it, might have been away somewhere till late afternoon; or ill, perhaps; or, again, the results might have been late in coming out.... Was that the sound of feet on the gravel? Yes, the door-bell rang. Jim forced himself to sit still while the two boys tumbled wildly out of the room. Eliza rose and stood with her eyes fixed on the door through which her brothers had vanished. Mrs. Laidlaw sat with her needle suspended, listening.

They heard Mary’s voice asking indignantly what all this fuss was about, the door opened and shut, and then, very gently, Rob and Geordie sidled back into the room, and without a word to anyone went on with what they had been doing.

Hearts, after throbs, ache. Jim sank a little farther down in his chair, and his mother suddenly left her mending and went out of the room, coming back shortly with a small locked box in her hand. Kneeling on the hearth-rug before her eldest son she proceeded to unlock the box and produce a little bundle of papers.

“See, Jimmie,” she said, “I’ve brought all the deposit receipts. Your father and I’ve talked it over and we think we can send you to Oxford for a year anyway, and you could try again for a scholarship from there, couldn’t you?... It seems a pity to waste a year when the War kept you back anyway....” She held out the papers.... “There’s about £200 here.”

Jim flushed hotly and pushed away the proffered papers. Rising to his feet he pulled his little mother (clutching still the tin box) up with him.

“Mother, d’you really think I’d take the money you’ve scraped so hard to gather.... If I go to Oxford I go on my own. With what I can make by writing I should manage quite comfortably. I’m not beaten. They’ve relaxed the rules about age; I’ll try again. But I wish it weren’t such a long journey, it runs away with the deuce of a lot of money.”

Even in moments of emotion Mrs. Laidlaw did not forget her duty.

“Not ‘the deuce,’ Jimmie,” she remonstrated. “Why use that word?”

“Well, the dickens, then....”

The mere talk of ways and means was cheering, and, insensibly, every face brightened. Eliza reminded her brother that she had still the five pounds she had got from Uncle James on her birthday, while Rob and Geordie rushed to make a raid on their joint money-box, only too glad of an excuse to break it open, and no one had time to listen for feet on the gravel, and looked up in surprise as Mr. Laidlaw came into the room wearing his hat and coat, and holding out the longed-for orange envelope.

“I met the boy at the gate,” he said, “and told him there was no answer.... Is it all right?”

Jim tore open the envelope, his face quite white; then he gulped, and in a high boyish voice said, “At Balliol,” and walking to the fire he stood up very straight and put his hands into his trousers pockets.

“Quite so,” said his father, and went out to remove his coat and hat; while Eliza and her mother threw themselves on the proud young man on the hearth-rug. As for Rob and Geordie, their behaviour was that of two prize rams meeting for the first time. They glowered, then bent their heads and butted each other violently, finally rolling over and over on the floor in a sort of ecstasy.

“Look at these idiots,” said Eliza, rather ashamed of having shown emotion.

In a second Jim was down beside them, buffeting them and prodding them, while he chanted triumphantly the chorus that had sounded so dreary a few hours before:

“Linten Lowrin, Linten Lee.

I’ll gang the gait I cam again,

And a better bairnie I will be....”

Mrs. Laidlaw wiped her eyes and smiled at her three sons.

“Well, well,” she said, “now that it’s come I can’t think why you want to go to Oxford, Jim. Isn’t Glasgow good enough? We’ll miss you.”

Jim, with one foot upon his two prostrate brothers, turned a flushed laughing face to his mother.

“I don’t go till next October. Why, it’s nearly a year....”

“Yes, and a lot can happen in a year,” his mother reminded him with a sigh.