Читать книгу The Day of Small Things - Anna Masterton Buchan - Страница 7

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‘Only one youth and the bright life was shrouded:

Only one morning, and the day was clouded....’

ALICE MEYNELL.

When Mrs. Heggie came to luncheon at the Harbour House, Mrs. Martin, the cook, took extra pains, for, if one may so put it, Mrs. Heggie was worth the feeding. Her excitement over a new dish, her appreciation of good cooking, was highly encouraging to any cook. All the appointments of the table interested her, and she kept up a running fire of comments and compliments.

Nicole often said that it would be a much more interesting world if there were more people in it like Mrs. Heggie, and certainly she gave spice to Kirkmeikle society. Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, the only other guests, seemed almost like phantoms against her broad beaming exuberance. Mr. Lambert was the small shy minister of Kirkmeikle, a man widely read and deeply learned, much better fitted for a professor’s chair than for his present job. He had no small talk, and it was torture for him to visit pastorally his flock; he could not remember the numbers and ages of the different families; it was absolutely impossible for him to make facetious remarks; he had never been known to relate an anecdote, and what conversation he had was impeded by a stammer.

It was a painful sight to see the small figure of the minister sunk sadly in a chair, while a decent man and his wife rubbed hands, damp with nervousness, on their garments, and tried vainly to think of something to say beyond, ‘Ay, it’s cauld the nicht,’ or ‘Rale mild for the time o’ year.’

It was different, they acknowledged, in time of trouble. Then Mr. Lambert came as one having authority, and his people were glad of him.

Mrs. Lambert was a fragile slip of a creature with a face like a wood-anemone, but she had a high heart and worked like a Trojan to help her husband. And when the door was shut on the outside world the two were blissfully happy, with their books and their music, and their small daughters, Bessie and Aillie.

Lady Jane was one of the few people to whom Mr. Lambert found anything to say, and on this occasion she so inspired him that he conversed quite volubly all through luncheon on seventeenth-century poetry.

Mrs. Heggie was heartily sick of him, but directly they had moved to the drawing-room, he looked at his watch, muttering to himself like the White Rabbit, shook hands with his hostess, and incontinently departed, without either his wife or his umbrella.

Then Mrs. Heggie got her chance. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘that it’s not the thing to stay long at a lunch-party, but if you aren’t going out at once, Lady Jane, I would like to stay for a little and hear the news.’

‘Of course you must stay—As a matter of fact I’m not going out at all and shall be very glad of your company this rather dreary afternoon.... Mrs. Lambert, can’t you stay a little? It’s so long since we saw you.’

Mrs. Lambert said, ‘I’d like to stay. It seems always a long three months that you are away, though the holiday month comes in to shorten it. Yes, we had a very nice time. We were in Ayrshire—Ballantrae—quite lovely and a complete change.’

‘And the children?’

‘Well, thank you. Bessie has gone to school and Aillie’s feeling terribly left out. We have had to give her a satchel and a lesson-book, and she pretends all morning that she is doing lessons——’

Mrs. Heggie gave an impatient lurch forward in her chair, and with an expectant smile on her face, said: ‘And now I’d like to hear about the baby at Rutherfurd.’

‘The baby,’ said Lady Jane, ‘is a dear. Nikky, you might get the snapshots Barbara sent.’

‘Andrew Rutherfurd Jackson—there he is,’ Nicole said, handing the photograph of a very young, very solemn infant to the beaming Mrs. Heggie. ‘Yes, he’s a fine fellow, but three months is not the most interesting age. He merely eats and sleeps and gurgles and is very virtuous. His nurse says there never was a better baby.’

‘And Miss Bar—Mrs. Jackson, isn’t she very proud of her son?’

‘Very, and over-anxious—. I wouldn’t have believed that Barbara would have been like that. Constantly running up to the nursery and fussing over him, going pale if he seemed to cry without reason. She is so proud of him, so thankful for him, that she can’t smile about him. I verily believe poor Babs has had an anxious pain ever since he was born. It’s not all fun having a beautiful little son.’

Mrs. Heggie shook her head in profound understanding.

‘The first,’ she said, ‘is always an anxiety. When there’s half a dozen you take things easier.’

Nicole laughed. ‘You’re thinking of Victorian families, dear Mrs. Heggie. In these later days children are few and precious.’

Lady Jane objected. ‘Not more precious, Nikky, than each of the six or eight or ten of the Victorian days.... But it’s quite true what you say, Mrs. Heggie, numbers bring with them a certain placidity. I was one of nine myself, and I have a picture in my mind of my mother, still quite young and very pretty, with her whole brood tumbling about her at a birthday picnic or some such celebration. Accidents constantly occurred, for there were five wild boys, and I remember the composed way she received cuts and bruises, and even broken bones: plenty of petting for the injured one, remedies at once applied, but always a twinkle of amusement behind the sympathy, which kept us from being too sorry for ourselves.’

Mrs. Heggie listened almost reverently, remarking with a sigh, ‘Yours must have been a beautiful family circle, Lady Jane.’

‘Oh, we were a happy, riotous lot. Looking back I can see so many pictures: my mother telling us stories on winter evenings, with the light of the fire glinting on the gold of her hair and her sparkling ear-rings, my father standing back in the shadow watching her, the boys roasting chestnuts while they listened. And hot summer days when we took tea by the lily-pond, and my mother allowed herself to be taken on a tour of inspection round our different gardens which my father used to say reminded him of the parable of the sower of the seed, they seemed to give so little return for the care bestowed and the pocket-money spent on them. I wish all mothers would fill their children’s minds with pictures. They may be quite happy at school and in the holidays, but they ought to have more to remember than long days in nursery or schoolroom; being pulled up about their manners; or dressed up for evenings at parties or pantomimes. They want intimate pleasures. Parents must give themselves if they want to mean anything to their children.’

Mrs. Heggie, as she listened, thought of Joan and wondered if she had failed somewhere in bringing her up. She doubted if Joan had any pretty mind pictures of her childhood, though she felt she had honestly done her best as a mother. Perhaps she had not known how to tell stories well, at least the children had not cared much to listen; the boys had either been taking things to pieces—they were mechanically inclined—or playing violent games with other boys; and Joan even as a child had been slightly scornful of her mother’s efforts. Mrs. Heggie supposed it must be different with children in the higher walk of life: middle-classness was at fault again.

She listened now, humbly, for she felt very much aware of her own shortcomings, to a story Mrs. Lambert was telling about Bessie noticing few men in church and remarking to her mother: ‘I suppose religion is only for ladies and children.’

‘How sweet!’ she said, then eagerly to Nicole, ‘How is Mrs. Jackson, senior? I expect she’s frightfully pleased about the baby?’

‘Pleased!’ said Nicole. ‘That’s a feeble word to describe Mrs. Jackson’s state of proud bliss. You would think no one had ever been a grandmother before. We were all there for the christening, and it was more amusing than any play to see her manœuvring to get the baby to herself. She began at once to call him Andrew, and she addresses him as if he were about her own age, makes long speeches to him and supplies the answers herself. It has given her a wonderful new interest in life. First it was perambulators—she raked through all the Glasgow shops for the very latest model, had it done up in the shade she thought most suitable, embroidered a fine cover, and that was that. Then the christening cloak, the silver quaich, and mugs and spoons; the mass of small woolly garments—she must have been a boon to bazaars! And this winter, I expect, she will roam happily through the toyshops, purchasing gigantic plush animals and jumping-jacks and balls for that poor solemn infant who doesn’t know his right hand from his left.’

‘Is that so?’ said Mrs. Heggie, awed.

‘Nicole exaggerates,’ Lady Jane put in, ‘but it is a little like that. Barbara looked rather despairingly at the things that were crowding up the nursery, for Mrs. Jackson doesn’t stop at toys and woollies, she goes on to furniture. She saw and admired a set of nursery furniture, white wood painted with characters from nursery rhymes, and that arrived and looked quite out of place among the other things. It would have been delightful for a nursery in a bright new flat, but at Rutherfurd—But it makes her happy, and Barbara has the sense to appreciate the good intention.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Mrs. Heggie agreed, ‘she has need to value the kind interest, for the years take away those that care most, and young Mrs. Jackson hasn’t a mother of her own—though I’m sure you’ve been more than a mother to her, Lady Jane.... I remember so well how I missed my mother when my third was born. I just lay and cried, remembering the fuss she had made over the other two and the way she had sat at the fire with the new baby on her lap and said, “My, but you’re bonnie.” ’

Mrs. Heggie wiped away a tear at the recollection, and Nicole tried to imagine her friend as young, and perhaps, slim. It was difficult to see her except as trimly upholstered in shining black; but her eyes must have been the same when she was a child, round and innocent and wondering.

Mrs. Heggie was enjoying herself immensely, and hoped Mrs. Lambert would not make a move to go for some time. She broke again into speech.

‘Mrs. Jackson’s a delightful person. I never forget how much I enjoyed meeting her when she stayed here. I wish I could see more of her. She gave me some fine recipes. I’ve tried them all, and we have them regularly. Will she be paying you another visit soon, do you think?’

Lady Jane looked vague, and Nicole said: ‘I’m going to visit Mrs. Jackson in Glasgow some day: she has got a wonderful new villa called “The Borders,” built from her own plans, at least she told the architect what she wanted and saw that he gave it her. I quite long to see it, though I know I’d hate to live in it.’

‘If old houses were only easier to work,’ said Mrs. Lambert.

‘Some are easy,’ said Nicole. ‘I know some old houses which have had electric light and central heating put in and all sorts of labour-saving devices, and they aren’t spoiled at all.’

‘But they’ll very likely be burned down,’ Mrs. Heggie predicted cheerfully. ‘Haven’t you noticed it in the papers time and again? With great loss of life too. That’s my great fear about old houses. Now Windywalls is a nice sort of house, neither too old nor too new, just settled and comfortable looking—Have you managed to call yet, Lady Jane?’

‘Yes, we called, and Mrs. Jameson came to see us yesterday. Such a nice woman.’

Mrs. Heggie leant forward. ‘Did you hear how long she has been a widow? She hasn’t a vestige of mourning.’

‘Her husband died of wounds,’ Nicole said. ‘I don’t quite know when. She was only married in 1914.... I do hope Mrs. Jameson will like being here. She is prepared to be pleased, and that is the chief thing. I wonder if having seen a lot of the world makes it easier to settle down, or the reverse! Having seen nothing, you want to see nothing; having seen much, perhaps you want to see all.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Heggie, ‘Kirkmeikle and the neighbourhood is very quiet. I often wonder how you stand it, Miss Nicole?’

‘Oh, I like it. But we shall have to try and see more company this winter, for we are to have a girl staying with us. No, not a relative exactly: a connection—a what, Mums?’

Lady Jane laid down her embroidery frame to calculate.

‘My sister-in-law’s niece,’ she said. ‘She is very young, not quite nineteen, so we must try and amuse her as best we can. Her name is Althea Gort.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs. Heggie. Gort. The name seemed vaguely familiar. She must have seen it in the papers. ‘That will be nice for you, Miss Nicole.... And how is little Alastair?’

‘Oh, very flourishing. He evidently likes school. We shall have a swaggering young man coming home at Christmas. I feel we’ve lost our little boy already.’

‘When I think of him,’ said Mrs. Heggie, noting with disgust that Mrs. Lambert was preparing to depart, ‘the queer wee fellow he was with his big overcoat and his wee white face! My heart was sore for him many a time. Do you ever see Mrs. Innes now?’

And even as she said it the door opened and Effie announced ‘Mrs. Innes.’

(Mrs. Heggie, recounting to an inattentive daughter the events of the afternoon, said: ‘For all the world, Joan, it was like a scene in a play. Just as I said “D’you ever hear from Mrs. Innes?” in she walked. As large as life with a Persian-lamb coat and ospreys in her hat! You could have knocked me down with a feather, and I’m sure it was as big a surprise to Lady Jane, but she got up, quite kind, you know, but rather stately and, “Mrs. Innes,” she said, “how kind of you to call!” or something like that.’)

Mrs. Innes, once Miss Janet Symington of Ravenscraig, explained that she had had to come to Kirkmeikle for the afternoon in order to see about something the tenants wanted. ‘A house,’ she said rather fretfully, ‘is a great nuisance. Tenants are never satisfied, something is always breaking; and if you let to a delicate, idle man it’s the limit, for he has nothing to do but find flaws and write to the owner.’

Nicole laughed. ‘That is annoying. I shouldn’t answer if I were you. Let him go and find a plumber himself.’

‘And let me in for paying great bills! No, indeed. I like to look into things myself and give my own orders. I’m a practical woman, as my husband often tells me.’

‘How is Mr. Innes?’ Nicole asked.

‘Oh, he’s all right except for a touch of rheumatism. He’s a very busy man and much sought after for public meetings. I’m sure you must often see his name in The Scotsman. He’s interested in all good work.’

‘And the girls?’ Nicole asked. ‘It must be cheerful for you having two grown-up girls at home.’

‘But they’re not at home,’ said their stepmother resentfully. ‘Girls are so independent nowadays. The elder one, Agnes, insisted on learning typing and shorthand, and has got a very good post in London as a secretary, and Jessie persuaded her father to let her go in for singing, and she is studying in London too. It isn’t as if they needed to do anything; they’ve a good home and a most indulgent father, and I’m sure I’d be pleased enough to take them about, but they had the impudence to tell me that Edinburgh was a back number. Yes! What girls are coming to I don’t know. Said they couldn’t stand the people that came about the house—their father’s friends, mind you, and mine! ... We try to keep an eye on them as well as we can. We go to London for a week every little while to see them in their flat, and urge them to let us meet their friends, but——’ Mrs. Innes shook her head, and Nicole, much interested, asked what the friends were like.

‘Oh well—they’re not the class of people they’ve been used to meet in Edinburgh. They’re not solid, if you know what I mean. Journalists and actors and artists—those kind of people. Not people Samuel has anything in common with. No church connection, you know. I live in dread of hearing that Agnes has got engaged to one of them. That would be a blow to her father, for he’s still hoping she’ll settle in Edinburgh.’ Mrs. Innes dropped her voice and Mrs. Heggie leant forward, her eyes round with interest. ‘A very good offer; a nice Edinburgh family; the right age and a presentable fellow; a W.S.’

‘What could be nicer,’ said Mrs. Heggie with obvious sincerity.

‘And how’s Alastair?’ Mrs. Innes asked. ‘I dare say you’ll be glad enough to get him away to school.’

‘Hardly that,’ Lady Jane said gently. ‘We’re both living on the thought of the Christmas holidays. But he sounds happy, and that is all that matters. We sent him to Evelyn’s because I have a small nephew there, a friend of his, and that made it easier for him.’

‘Samuel was hearing that that is a very expensive school he’s gone to. D’you not think it’s a pity to bring him up like that? He’ll have to work for his living, remember.’

Lady Jane looked thoughtfully at her visitor for a second or two without speaking, then rose to say good-bye to Mrs. Lambert and the reluctant Mrs. Heggie.

‘Are you both going? I had hoped you would stay for tea.... Well, it’s very pleasant to be back again. Thank you for coming.’

After a few minutes Mrs. Innes also rose to go, refusing tea, and Nicole went with her downstairs.

They stood together at the open door, looking out in silence.

Mrs. Innes gave a short laugh.

‘It seems odd to be back again—and yet very natural too. Mrs. Heggie and Mrs. Lambert and everything just the same. And the leaves falling.... That’s how I always think of Kirkmeikle. It gives me a queer feeling somehow....’ She seemed to give herself a little shake. ‘Well, I must go if I’m to catch that train. My husband wants me to go out with him to-night to something or other. He’s meeting me at the Waverley, and we’ll have our dinner at the hotel Grill.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Nicole, ‘to see you looking so well and happy.’

‘Yes,’ Mrs. Innes said in her matter-of-fact voice. ‘Taking everything into consideration, I think I was wise to marry Samuel.... How d’you like my coat? Yes, a birthday present from my man! Well—good-bye.’

Nicole stood in the hall when the door shut behind her visitor. Kirkmeikle in October with the leaves falling! That was how she thought of it too.... It was in an autumn gale that she had first met Simon Beckett; he and The Bat on the rocks watching the waves!

Three years ago! Three long years ago....

She went back to her mother in the drawing-room.