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Beaumont and Fletcher

By the end of April the workmen had all gone, and Kitty’s possessions were piled in a shining, clean flat.

It was an intoxicating sight to the owner, and Kitty rushed from one object to another, exclaiming over each.

The men had laid the carpets, and put the glass and china into cabinets and cupboards. Now they wanted to know where the pictures were to be hung, and Kitty, almost dazed with excitement, tried to bring her mind to the subject.

“The Raeburn above the sideboard in the dining-room,” she decreed, and, as the men looked about in a puzzled way, “this one,” she said, hauling out the portrait of a young man in a stock. “It’s my great-great-grandfather when he was nineteen,” she explained to Isobel. “Doesn’t he look a lamb? He became a judge in the Court of Session. It’s the only family portrait I’ve got, except the water-colour drawings of my father and mother; they’ll hang in the drawing-room.”

“And the Peter Scott in the book-room,” Isobel prompted.

“Yes, and the mountains—Kinchinjinga and the Matterhorn and the Canadian ones. The Medici prints will go to the bedrooms. Will you look at the Infante Don Balthasar Carlos? Aged not more than six, and such a man, with his feathered hat, and long boots, and plump curveting steed! ... That picture of Holyroodhouse and the two water-colours of Mull on this wall.” (They were in the drawing-room now.) “The Queen Anne mirror above the mantelpiece, with my parents on either side—pale gilt frames on the turquoise walls!”

Isobel studied the pictures of Mull, and Kitty asked, “What about the turquoise walls? Do you really like them or would you have preferred cream? Honestly now.”

Isobel took time to consider and said, “Honestly, I like them better than I expected, but I’ll reserve judgment until the room’s finished. While the men are hanging the pictures, shall we find places for some of the books? You’d rather do that yourself, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, I must, or I wouldn’t know where to find anything. The nuisance is so many of them are numbered—the Pentland Stevenson, for instance, but there are long rows of Hardy and Meredith that can be put in in any order. (They’ve both slumped badly in value, poor dears!) There are first editions of all Conrad’s works, and that’s Barrie in green morocco—I can’t think why. I’m sure Jess wouldn’t know herself in such a grand dress. And Sir Walter so shabby in faded cloth! That pile of blood-red books are, appropriately enough, murder trials; terribly interesting if you have the nerve to read them.”

“Here are beautiful vellum-bound books.”

“Yes, Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, from the Medici Society. They go into the glass bookcase. But it’s not the imposing vellum that are the really valuable ones. Some of the grubbiest-looking little books are worth their weight in platinum. Mr. Johnson has in his safe one or two that Rob treasured above everything. But I like ordinary books best, in open shelves, close to my hand, that I can browse amongst. This bookcase between the fire and the window is to be my special one. Jane Austen will go in here, and The Mill on the Floss, and Middlemarch, and—and——”

Kitty grappled on the floor with books for a few minutes, then said, “I must lay the different authors in piles as I find them, before trying to put them into shelves. You’d think they’d been stirred round and round, fiction, poetry, history, fairy-tales!”

“As long as you know what you ought to have,” said Isobel. “I’ll cope with the complete editions, they’re easy.”

She finished several shelves, and turning round to ask if they were right, found that her companion, instead of getting on with the job in front of her, had succumbed to temptation, and was deep in The Golden Age.

She dropped the book on hearing Isobel’s ejaculation, and said apologetically:

“It’s so long since I saw it, I’d forgotten how good it was. There should be four Kenneth Grahame’s: Pagan Papers, The Golden Age, Dream Days, The Wind in the Willows. If you come across any, heave them over.”

“I will,” said Isobel obligingly, adding, as she fitted in tall volumes with care, “Everything Kenneth Grahame wrote was perfect of its kind. Many writers achieve perhaps one—or two—very good books, and then mysteriously decline and become quite different.”

“It’s because they try to be versatile,” said Kitty. “You don’t see any fat red Thackerays over there, do you? I’ve got Vanity Fair and Esmond——” She began to turn over leaves.

“Here’s Pendennis,” said Isobel, after a few minutes. But Kitty had found another treasure. “It’s Goody Two-shoes,” she cried, “and here’s The Will-o’-the-Wisps are in Town, A Flat Iron for a Farthing, and Jackanapes—all my meek little books go together. The next shelf should be modern poetry, but the poets are buried at present. Isobel, did you ever, by any chance, hear of a writer called Margaret Veley? I think she must have written round about 1880. I don’t possess a word she wrote, but when I stayed as a young girl in the Scottish Borders, I found her books in an uncle’s library, a thin volume of verse, and a novel called For Percival. I’d give a lot to find them again, especially the book of poems. One—A Japanese Fan, it was called—I learned by heart, but that’s all I have of her.”

Isobel shook her head. “I don’t think I ever heard of those books. I wouldn’t be likely to, for in my aunt’s library poetry was conspicuous by its absence. It was her husband’s library, really, and mostly consisted of law books, lightened here and there by history and travel. The books I possess are my own choosing, books I liked and wanted to have.”

In a couple of hours the shelves were full, and the floor more or less cleared, and the two women stood back to admire the result of their efforts.

Kitty was delighted. “Nothing,” she cried, “furnishes a room like books. Already I feel at home here.”

“It is delightful,” Isobel said warmly. “I like your blue carpet, Kitty, and that big sofa. What a jolly winter room it’ll be, as well as a cool summer one. Let’s see if the men are ready to hang your wild geese.”

They found the drawing-room practically finished, the curtains up, the pictures hung, the furniture placed, even the rugs laid, and, after putting some touches here and there, Kitty asked:

“D’you like it, Isobel? Is it a room that strikes you as pleasant when you come in?”

Isobel looked round at the graceful furniture, the old china in the cabinets, the soft glow of the Bokhara rugs, and said:

“An exceedingly pleasant room, Kitty dear. Of course, it’s a drawing-room, a room for company, for one’s best clothes and prettiest manners, a formal room. For ordinary, I’d much prefer your book-room, it’s an any-time-of-the-day room; this is for tea drinking and after-dinner talk—a noisy sherry-party would be quite out of place.”

“There shan’t be any,” Kitty promised, her eyes wandering round her room. “I so much prefer a tea-party, all women, from choice, with everything of the finest, china, thin Georgian teaspoons, round complacent teapot, delicate sandwiches, wafers of bread and butter, small light cakes, with talk to match.”

Isobel straightened a Dresden china pot-pourri jar, and asked:

“What kind of talk?”

“Well,” said Kitty, “certainly nothing rude or ugly. The present state of the world would not be mentioned, nor gas-masks. I saw a wise man said the other day that what the world wanted was to get back to the time of the horse, for that was the proper rate of speed. He thought the combustion engine at the bottom of all the present misery and unrest—too rapid travelling, submarines, aeroplanes. I do so agree, don’t you? We’d talk of books, of course, and plays, and—oh, lots of things.”

“And where’ll you find guests for such a tea-party? Wouldn’t bridge-playing, cocktail-drinking females find it dull?”

“Not for a change. Jessica Irwin, I know, would love it. She and I had many a genteel tea-party in old Hampstead days, as well as many a cheerful mixed gathering with Rob and his friends. I expect I’ll get to know the other people in this place, the retired couple (unless they are also retiring), and the old lady downstairs.” She looked at her wrist-watch. “It’s almost time for Mrs. Auchinvole to pay her promised visit of inspection. Am I very untidy?”

“Considering everything, no,” said Isobel. “There’s a smudge on your nose. Let me——Here’s a comb.”

“What’ll I do if she turns me down after all?” Kitty asked nervously.

“Start on a round of registries. But she won’t. Your last was a very successful interview, and she seemed pleased to come.”

“Oh yes, and she had no uniform complex at all; said she’d never think of wearing anything but a dark dress in the afternoon, and seemed positively to like an apron—said it was a ‘freshener.’ Of course, she feels that she’s quite out of the ways of domestic service, but—there’s the bell.”

“I’ll open the door,” said Isobel, “and bring her in here. You will be discovered seated on a high chair.”

It was quite half an hour later that Kitty came into the book-room where Isobel was still arranging books, and flinging herself on the sofa announced, “For better or worse, Mrs. Auchinvole is mine.”

“She looks a dear,” said Isobel. “Did she like the flat?”

“Well, I doubt if she admired my drawing-room.”

“ ’Ome don’t seem ’ome without a h’aspidistra,” Isobel quoted.

“But what was more to the purpose, she thought highly of the kitchen and her own bed-sitting-room. The gas-fire specially appealed to her. We didn’t dwell too much on the subject of cooking. What she can do—or can’t do—will be revealed in time, but I can see that she’s keen on housework. She looked with real housewifely eye on the new paint. She looks a fresh, wholesome creature. I do hope she’ll be happy here. She did say that it would be a treat to have a place of her own—at present she has to share a room with two nieces. I asked her if she cared for reading, and she said, ‘Not just that awfully much,’ she likes to sew and knit, and enjoys films and shop windows. All the rest I’ll find out in due time. I shan’t expect perfection, neither must she.”

Isobel said, “My only fear is that you’ll spoil her. But that’s better than the other way.”

Kitty went on, “She says ‘Madam,’ which is rather surprising. At least she said it once, when she came in. When her first shyness wore off I could see her quite settling down for a nice confidential chat, so I got up and said I was sure she’d like to see her own room and the kitchen.”

“Oh yes, but once you’ve listened to the complete story of her life, that’ll be that. You can keep clear of it afterwards.”

“I daresay. I don’t want to seem uninterested or unkind, and I’ll certainly listen with patience—sympathy, too, I hope—to one recital, but she must understand she’s a working house-keeper not a companion.”

“So she will,” Isobel said soothingly, “and I know you won’t ever let her feel herself snubbed; that rankles. When is she coming?”

“I said Tuesday. Two or three days longer with you at Queen’s Court will be very pleasant. Really, it’s difficult to see how I can possibly get on without you, Isobel. You’ve been my rod and my staff so long. You’ll come and see me every day, won’t you?”

“Love to—as long as I’m in London.”

Kitty looked inquiringly at her friend, who went on, “I don’t seem to like the thought of the Queen’s Court without you. I suppose it’s seeing all your nice things and realising what fun it is to make a home that has made me dissatisfied with my homeless condition. I’ve got a sort of feeling that I’d like to settle down too, not in London, though, somewhere in the country, and make a place for myself.”

“Oh!” Kitty’s tone was flat. “I always thought of you as being near.... But that’s sheer selfishness on my part. You’re right, you know. You ought to have a place of your own. Where would you go?”

“I thought Scotland.”

“Oh, my dear, right away from me! I thought you didn’t care much for your native land.”

“I don’t know it. My idea is to go away now, next week, and stay some weeks somewhere, and see how I like it.”

“Where, I wonder?”

“It’s all the same to me, Highlands or Lowlands, but I think on the whole I’d rather be in the Lowlands. My people were Lowland, and I don’t think I’ve much feeling for far islands, and seals, and sad Hebridean songs.”

Kitty laughed. “I believe you. Neither have I, really. I’m Edinburgh, cold, east-windy Edinburgh, with nothing of the Gael in me. Isobel, you should go to the Borders. The country there’s as beautiful as there’s any need for, and the people are hard-headed but kindly. I believe I know just the place that would suit you—a village called Glenbucho. Some far-off cousins of mine—Veitch is their name—live there, or lived, perhaps, for they may be all gone—in a jolly old white-washed house. The old laird must be dead now, but there was a son, a red-haired little boy called Gideon! I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll write to the parish minister and ask if there are any rooms to let. He’ll be sure to know.”

“No, don’t,” Isobel cried, rather alarmed at her friend’s precipitate ways. “I must think it over first. It’s just an idea at present. Tell me more about the place before I decide.”

“I don’t know much,” Kitty confessed, “which isn’t surprising, seeing that it’s more than twenty years since I was there; but I can tell you lots about the Borders, if that’ll interest you. Did you ever read Jean Lang’s Land of Romance? It’s somewhere here. I’ll rout it out.”