Читать книгу The Proper Place - Anna Masterton Buchan - Страница 9

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“Tush man—mortal men, mortal men.”

Henry IV.

Kirkmeikle was a very little town, merely a few uneven rows of cottages, occupied chiefly by fishermen, and the workers in a small rope-factory, known locally as “the Roperee,” half-a-dozen shops, and a few houses of larger size built a century ago. But, on the top of the green brae, crowning it hideously, stood three staring new villas.

The large square one, Ravenscraig, was inhabited by Miss Janet Symington.

It had many large windows hung with stiff lace curtains and blinds of mathematical neatness. Inside there was a bleak linoleum-covered hall containing a light oak hat-and-umbrella stand, a table with a card tray, and two chairs, a barometer hung on the wall above the table. To the right of the front door was the drawing-room, a large, light, ugly room; to the left was the dining-room, another very light room, with two bow windows, a Turkey carpet, and crimson leather furniture. A black marble clock stood on the black marble mantelpiece, and on the walls hung large seascapes framed heavily in gilt.

The late Mr. Symington had been a wealthy manufacturer, and profoundly pious. He was a keen business man, but outside his business his interest centred in religious work. He gave liberally to every good cause, he was not only a just but a generous master, and the worst that could be said of him was that he was a dull man. That he most emphatically was—quiet, dour, decent, dull. He never opened a book unless it was the life of a missionary or a philanthropist; he could not read fiction because it was not true, therefore a waste of time. He had thought highly of his minister, Mr. Lambert, until, one day, he found that honest man reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets; after that he regarded him with suspicion. To Mr. Symington life was real, life was earnest, and not to be frittered away in reading Shakespeare.

His wife had been a delicate, peevish woman, who seldom went out, but who enjoyed amassing quantities of wearing apparel, more especially expensive shoes and gloves, which she never wore. She was proud of the fact that all her life she had never needed to soil her hands with house-work, and liked to hold them out to visitors saying, “Such useless hands!” and receive compliments on their shape and whiteness. She never read anything but the newspapers, and was not greatly interested even in her children. She died a few months before her husband, not much lamented and but little missed.

Janet was like her father. She had the same rather square figure and large head, the same steady brown eyes and obstinate chin. Mr. Symington had always looked like a lay preacher in his black coat and square felt hat, and his daughter dressed so severely as to suggest a uniform, in a navy blue coat and skirt, a plain hat of the sailor brand, and a dark silk blouse made high at the neck.

There had been a brother younger than Janet, but he had never been anything but a worry and disappointment. Even as a child David had resented the many rules that compassed the Symington household, while Janet had been the reproving elder sister, pursing her lips primly, promising that she would “tell,” and that David would “catch it.” At school his reports were never satisfactory, at college he idled, and when he entered his father’s business he did his work listlessly and without interest. When war broke out he seemed to wake to life, and went “most jocund, apt, and willingly.” That hurt his father more than anything. That war should be possible at this time of day nearly broke his heart, and to see David keen and enthusiastic, light-hearted and merry as he had never been at home, to hear him say that these were the happiest years of his life, simply appalled him. When it was all over David came home with a D.S.O. and the Croix de guerre, and a young girl with bobbed flaxen hair, neat legs, and an impudent smile, whom he had met in France and married in London when they were both on leave.

For one hectic month all abode together in Ravenscraig, a month of strained conversation, of long silences, of bitter boredom on the part of the young couple, and patient endurance on the part of the elder Symingtons. Then David announced that he could not stand life in the old country, and meant to try to make a living in Canada. His father, deeply disappointed but also secretly relieved, gave him a sum of money, and the couple set off light-heartedly to make their fortune....

Three years later John Symington died, leaving to his daughter complete control of all he possessed, but this last act of his father’s did not worry David, for before Janet’s letter reached the ranch, David also was dead, killed by a fall from his horse. His widow, liking the life, decided to stay in Canada, and six months later married one of David’s friends and sent David’s son home to Kirkmeikle to his Aunt Janet.

The next villa, Knebworth, was a different type of architecture. It was of rough-cast and black timber, with many small odd-shaped windows, picturesque grates with imitation Dutch tiles, and antique door-handles.

Mrs. Heggie lived here comfortably, and, on the whole, amicably with her daughter Joan. Mrs. Heggie was more than “given to hospitality,” she simply revelled in feeding all her friends and acquaintances. It seemed impossible for her to meet people without straightway asking them to a meal. It was probably this passionate hospitality that had soured her daughter and made that young woman’s manner, in contrast, short and abrupt.

The third villa, Lucknow, was occupied by a retired Anglo-Indian and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Buckler. They had two children to educate and had come to Kirkmeikle because it was quiet and cheap. Mrs. Buckler wrestled with servants, while the husband played golf and walked about with dogs.

There was a fourth house on the brae, much smaller than the others, more a cottage than a villa, which belonged to a Miss Jamieson, a genteel lady, so poorly provided with this world’s goods that she was obliged to take a lodger.

She had been fortunate, she would have told you, to secure at the end of the summer season a single gentleman, quiet in his habits and most considerate. He had come to Kirkmeikle because he wanted quiet to write a book—something about exploring, Miss Jamieson thought. He had been with her for three weeks and expected to remain till early spring. His name was Simon Beckett. No one, so far, had made the acquaintance of Miss Jamieson’s lodger except Miss Symington’s six-year-old nephew, Alastair.

That young person had a way of escaping from his nurse and pushing his small form through a gap in the hedge that divided Miss Jamieson’s drying-green from the road, and, on reaching the window of Mr. Beckett’s room, flattening his nose against the glass to see if that gentleman was at work at his desk. If he were, Alastair at once joined him, and, with no shadow of doubt as to his welcome, related to him all the events that made up his day, finishing up with an invitation to join Annie and himself in Ravenscraig at nursery tea.

One afternoon in October, a day of high wind, and white-capped waves and scudding clouds, Alastair was returning with Annie from the shore where he had been playing among the boats. He was toiling up the hill, shuffling his feet among the rustling brown leaves and talking to himself under his breath, when Annie called to him to wait a minute, and forthwith dived into the baker’s shop. It was a chance not to be missed. Off ran Alastair straight to Miss Jamieson’s, walked boldly in at the front door and found his friend at his desk.

“Hello!” said Mr. Beckett, “it’s you.”

“Yes,” Alastair said, panting slightly from his run. “Annie’s in the baker’s. I’ve run away.”

“Shouldn’t do that, you know.”

“Why not?” said Alastair. “I wanted to see you. She’ll be here in a minute.” He looked out of the window and saw Annie already on his track. She was standing at the gate trying to see into the room.

Simon Beckett looked up from his writing and saw her.

“You’d better go, old man.”

“I’d rather stay with you. Miss Jamieson’s making pancakes for your tea. We only have bread and butter and digestive biscuits.”

“I’m too busy for tea to-day. Come to-morrow at four o’clock.”

He began again to write, and Alastair saw that there was no real hope of tea, and a story or a game. Still he lingered, and presently asked, “Do you mind coming out and telling Annie you’ve invited me to tea to-morrow?”

The face that he turned up to his friend was the funniest little wedge of a face, with a wide mouth and a pointed chin and pale blue eyes, the whole topped by a thatch of thick sandy hair; a Puck-like countenance.

Simon Beckett smiled as he looked at it. “Come on, then,” he said, getting up and propelling Alastair before him, “we’ll make it all right with Annie.”

That damsel was not difficult to propitiate. When Alastair had tea in “the room,” she had tea in the kitchen, and Miss Jamieson was known for her comfortable ways and her good cooking, so she blushed and said she would ask Miss Symington, and thanked Mr. Beckett in the name of her charge, calling him “Sir” quite naturally, a thing she had never thought to do, for she belonged to the Labour Party and believed in equality. As they were parting, all three on excellent terms, at the gate, Mrs. Heggie and her daughter passed. Joan would have walked on, but her mother stopped.

“Well, Alastair,” she said, in the loud bantering tone which she kept for children, “what mischief have you been up to to-day, I wonder!”

Alastair regarded her in hostile silence, while Annie poked him in the back to make some response.

Mrs. Heggie turned to Miss Jamieson’s lodger.

“You’re Mr. Beckett, I think? How d’you do? Strange that we should have never met, but you’re a great student I hear. It must take a lot of hard thinking to write a book. I often say that to Joan—my daughter, Mr. Beckett—for she’s inclined to be literary too.... We would be so glad to see you any time. Could you lunch with us to-morrow?”

Joan trod heavily on the foot nearest her, and her mother winced but went recklessly on. “No? Then Thursday; Thursday would suit us just as well. 1.30. Then that’s settled.”

“Thank you,” said Simon Beckett, in chastened tones. “It’s tremendously kind of you. Yes, Thursday. Good-bye.”

“I wonder,” said Miss Joan Heggie, coldly, as they walked on, “what possible pleasure it gives you, Mother, to try to cultivate people who quite obviously don’t want to be cultivated. You absolutely forced that poor man to come to lunch.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Heggie. “I think he’s only shy.”

“Not he, he’s unwilling, and I don’t blame him. Kirkmeikle society is far from enlivening. Oh, here comes Miss Symington. Don’t stop, Mother, for goodness’ sake.”

But Mrs. Heggie was physically incapable of passing a friend or neighbour without a few words; besides she was wearing her new winter things, and was going to take tea with the doctor’s sister, and altogether felt pleased and happy. She shook hands with Miss Symington, hoped she saw her well, and told her where she was going to tea. She rather hoped in return to receive a compliment about her new hat and coat, but none seemed forthcoming, so she said, “Well, good-bye just now, and do come and see us when you have time.... Could you lunch with us on Thursday? Do. 1.30.” (Joan gazed despairingly at the sky.) “That’ll be nice. Mr. Beckett is coming. Good-bye. ... Oh, by the way, did you hear a rumour that the Harbour House is let? Our cook heard it from the postman. Let’s hope it’s a nice family who’ll be a help in the place. Well, good-bye just now....”

“Mother, what do you mean by it?” Joan asked as they walked away.

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Heggie, “it just came out.”

But there was no real repentance in her tone.