Читать книгу The Day of Small Things - Anna Masterton Buchan - Страница 5

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‘And still that sweet half-solemn look,

When some past thought is clinging:

As when one shuts a serious book

To hear the thrushes singing.’

AUSTIN DOBSON.

Esmé Jameson felt that she had been fortunate in securing the property of Windywalls, for the house was not too large, thoroughly well built and comfortable, with a southern exposure and a wide view over rich pasture-lands to the sea. Her friends had told her she was foolish to saddle herself with even a small property in these troublous times, but she had wanted a place of her own, and now she had it.

She was sometimes surprised at her own interest, even excitement, over her purchase. She had often felt old and tired among the throng on board ship or in big hotels, young things, many of them, mad to taste all they could in life. She thought her apathy must be due to the background of sorrow and suffering which she could not forget. For three years her husband had lain ill, and she could not yet think without almost intolerable pain of that long-drawn-out losing battle. And when he knew that he had lost, that life was over for him, still Death would not come. He lay waiting, his body a wreck, his mind terribly clear.... When first they had met he had been so young and keen and ambitious; life had been bursting with promise that July day in 1914 when they were married, but it had held only for him an interrupted honeymoon, a few months’ training, six months’ fighting in France—a broken body and years of suffering.

If only, Esmé thought sadly, if only he could have been with her now, outside on this delectable autumn morning, looking across the fields and the woods and the red-tiled cottages to the sea. What fun to have gone together to the stables—Archie had had a passion for horses, and the hunting here was good; to have pottered together over the new car, to have planned for the garden. They had never done anything together. If, she thought, they had even had six months together before catastrophe overtook them, time to do little things, time to arrange their wedding-presents, to feel themselves householders; but there had been nothing but bewilderment, anxiety, pain. Nothing more? Yes, Archie’s unquenchable laughter, his patience, and her own efforts to help him keep the banner of courage flying to the end....

She walked down the flagged path between the hedges of lavender—how delicious that would be when summer came—and on the lawn she found the old gardener gazing discontentedly at the turf.

Esmé hardly knew what to make of this servitor of hers. John Grierson was a legacy from the former owner of Windywalls who had asked as a special favour that he might be allowed to stay on in his cottage and potter about in the garden so long as he felt able, but Esmé felt that the old man regarded her as an interloper. He certainly had no manners, and treated his new mistress as a thing of no account. He listened with a small sour smile to her suggestions and made no attempt to carry them out.

It was provoking, but Esmé was good-natured and inclined to be more amused than angry at the old man’s perversity. On the few occasions when she had insisted on her own way he had remarked threateningly:

‘Aweel, I’ll juist gan’ awa’,’ but nothing further had happened.

‘Good-morning, John!’ she said. ‘Isn’t this a glorious morning?’

John made an abortive attempt to touch his hat, and without looking at his mistress, said: ‘There’s naething wrang wi’ the mornin’ but there’s a heap wrang wi’ this green. It’s a fair hert-break. I look efter it like a seeck bairn, but there’s nae gratitude in’t. Ay, an’ it’s juist the same wi’ that plot doon by the tennis-ground. I plant it oot every year wi’ calcelarys an’ ither braw flooers, an’ I come in the dark wi’ a lantern an’ pick oot the slugs—could mortal man dae mair?—but they juist dee on me.’

‘Oh well,’ Esmé said, ‘I don’t care greatly for that plot, anyway. It might be as well to do away with it. I like masses of flowers, not neat little ordered rows.... And this turf looks to me very good. A bit mossy, perhaps. Don’t people put sand on in winter?’

John in response merely muttered under his breath, and Esmé asked the whereabouts of the under-gardener, David by name.

‘Hoo should I ken? Undaein’ some o’ ma wark, I wadna wonder! They think they ken better nor me, him and Tam, me that’s been at it near seventy years! The impidence o’ thae young folk! I dinna need to work; I’ve ma pension frae ma auld maister; I juist stay on for an obligement to ye, but if I’m driven to leave this garden that I’ve wrocht in a’ ma days, an’ young David an’ Tam get a free hand, I quaiston what’ll happen....’

He shook his head sadly, took another look at the turf, and hobbled away.

His mistress looked after him rather ruefully. It was the old antagonism between age and the younger generation. How long would David stand his carping? It would be better for every one if the old man would make up his mind to ‘gan’ awa’,’ yet it would be hateful to see him leave....

But good days are not so plentiful in October that one can afford to waste them on small worries. It had been a night of wind and rain, but now the clear shining had come and the whole landscape lay in a radiance of pale sunlight; the air seemed washed; beech-hedges framed in gold the rich black of an early ploughed field; a robin, very young and impudent, perched on the sun-dial, chirped the beginnings of a song in an assured way. This was a morning when it was impossible to repine. There would come days of sweeping rain and wind, days of bitter frost and snow, when sad thoughts would not be inappropriate; this day was made for cheerful work. Esmé, thankful that she had a job in hand, went off to a neglected corner of the garden, where, helped by the maligned David, she was planning a rock-garden. It was absorbing work, and after luncheon she went back to it, and was blissfully grubbing among mud and large stones when a servant came out to tell her that callers had arrived and were now in the drawing-room.

It was not welcome news, and as Esmé straightened her back and became aware of the state of her hands and her boots, she wondered resentfully why people liked to ruin fine days for their neighbours by inflicting visits on them. Deciding that she could do nothing towards making herself presentable except wash her hands, she went into the cloak-room off the hall, glancing as she passed at the cards which lay on the table.

Lady Jane Rutherfurd! The Harbour House people! She smiled as she remembered Mrs. Heggie’s infatuation. Now she would see for herself.

They were standing, Lady Jane and her daughter, in the big bow-window that looked out on the lawn and the sun-dial. They turned as their hostess came in holding out a rather damp hand and apologising for muddy boots and gardening clothes, and she, after a quick glance, told herself that Mrs. Heggie had been romancing; this Nicole was a very ordinary looking girl.

‘How you must dislike us,’ Lady Jane said. ‘I don’t know anything more exasperating than to be dragged from gardening to see visitors!’

‘What were you doing?’ Nicole asked, frankly curious. ‘We have only a back-yard, where we live—oh I know, Mums, you’ve done wonders with it, but it’s still a back-yard—and I’ve almost forgotten the delights of gardening.’

‘Well,’ said Esmé, ‘I was really only making mud-pies. It’s a corner of the garden that seems to have been considered little more than a rubbish-heap, and I’ve a notion to try and make a rock-garden. The under-gardener is interested in it and does most of the work; I was only “plowterin’ aboot,” as old John says scornfully, but I love it. It’s great fun to acquire a garden of one’s own. I’ve tremendous plans for next spring.... You see, over there hidden by those trees’—they were all in the window now, looking out—‘there’s a little stream that winds, and I’m going to make that part a spring garden. The banks will be masses of forget-me-nots—just think how lovely the blue will look through the drooping branches of cherry blossom! and in the grass there will be clumps of polyanthus, yellow and orange and terra-cotta; and David says that under the beech-trees wild hyacinths come out by the thousand.... Oh, and before that, of course, there are snowdrops, and then the daffys, so we’ll go on from January.’

‘And the lilac and laburnums,’ said Nicole, ‘and best of all the red and white hawthorn, and the copper beeches.... There’s no end to the beauty. What fun you’ll have!’ She smiled at her hostess, her face radiant, and Esmé Jameson, as she smiled back, owned to herself that, after all, Mrs. Heggie had been right; there was something amazingly likeable about this Nicole. Her eyes looked so frankly into yours, there was such a gaiety and sparkle in her glance, as well as kindness; and never, she thought, had she seen anything more lovely than the way the girl’s head was set on her shoulders.

‘It is good of you to come and see me,’ Esmé said. ‘I heard of you from Mrs. Heggie.’

Nicole grinned broadly. ‘Dear Mrs. Heggie—. Tell me, did she say that my mother had a sweet, sad face and that I was full of charm? Yes, I can see she did. Don’t you loathe people who are full of charm? You feel them oozing charm all the time until you long to hit them.... But we know you too through Mrs. Heggie, so we are quits. We heard all about your visit. You pleased her very much.’

‘Did I? She made a wet afternoon pass very pleasantly for me—Lady Jane, do sit down and try to be comfortable.’ Mrs. Jameson looked discontentedly round. ‘Somehow, I don’t feel that I could ever like this room. Of course, at present it smells of paint, and needs firing and living in, but I don’t think it could ever be a really kind room. These large windows are so unfriendly, somehow, and that gleaming floor, and that mantelpiece.... I like the book room so much better—library is too fine a name for my modest collection; I’ve been having my meals there—pigging it, rather, but it is so comfortable.’

‘Yes,’ Lady Jane said, ‘books are so companionable that they make a solitary meal seem like a pleasant party. I love eating in a library.’

‘Come and do it now,’ Esmé cried. ‘I can’t bear this bleak room. I don’t feel acquainted with it at all, and tea will be ready in the book room.’

But Lady Jane shook her head, while Nicole explained that they were invited to tea at Queensbarns.

‘Have you met the Erskines yet?’ she asked. ‘What with rockeries and one thing and another you’ve had no time, I expect. They’re very friendly people, fond of getting up things and entertaining their friends. The Fentons, of course, are almost nearer neighbours, but they are a lot away—very sociable, though, when they are at home.... You are having the experience we had three years ago: it’s rather fun, I think, meeting new people.’

Esmé laughed. ‘I think so too.’ She turned to Lady Jane. ‘It means a good deal to me that people should be kind. I’m a solitary woman—. My husband died after a long illness, from wounds received in the War. I stayed with a brother in Kenya for a time, but I’ve always wanted a place to settle down in and now I’ve got it. If people are nice to me I shall be grateful, but I feel it won’t be very amusing for them to come here. I dare say I shall have a certain number of people staying with me, but I’m afraid I’ve got rather to like living alone.’

‘Ah!’ said Nicole, ‘that grows on one,’ while Lady Jane said in her grave way: ‘Thank you for telling us about yourself. Nicole and I are solitary too, and, like you, don’t mind it much. We are fortunate in having a small boy to help us along. We have just had to let him go off to school and are missing him horribly. But we look forward to the Christmas holidays—. Now, Nicole, we must be off. We are keeping Mrs. Jameson from her tea—so much needed and so well earned after an afternoon in the garden. You will come and see us soon, won’t you? The first wet day, perhaps?’

‘Yes, please,’ Nicole urged. ‘The first wet day we shall be in and have a particularly good fire and nice tea ready for you—. You know where to find us? You turn round the corner at “Roabert” Mitchell’s shop and straight down the Brae to the foot. D’you drive yourself? Be careful, then, not to imitate the Gadarene swine....’

Esmé Jameson watched her visitors depart in their small car, and then went back into the drawing-room. The room hardly seemed so bleak now, there lingered in it something of the personality of the women who had just left it. Lady Jane’s gentle friendliness remained in the mind like the fragrance of a flower, Esmé thought. And Nicole? There was a tiny green-edged handkerchief lying on the chair she had sat in; it smelt faintly of geranium, the scent of the leaf when you crush it in your fingers. She had been dressed in green, Esmé remembered, and there came back to her the echo of the girl’s gay laugh, her soft quick way of speaking, a certain way her eyes had of taking you into her confidence.

‘I might be Mrs. Heggie,’ she told herself.

It would certainly be amusing to go the first wet day to the Harbour House.