Читать книгу Taken by the Hand - Anna Masterton Buchan - Страница 6

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“I will even take my leave

Of you, and pace softly towards my kinsmen.”

THE WINTER’S TALE.

Beatrice was not allowed to leave Glasgow like a knotless thread. Not only did Mrs. Lithgow and Peggy accompany her to the Central Station, but Mr. Lithgow delayed going to his office for an hour, and bought every variety of magazine as well as several daily papers to help to while away the journey for her. Fairlie was waiting on the platform with a carefully prepared luncheon-box, in case, as she said, Miss Beatrice didn’t fancy a big hot meal on the train; and Mrs. Murray, panting a good deal with her early start and the effort of walking the length of the platform, and holding tightly a bunch of violets and a large box of Manson’s chocolates, arrived just before the train started.

“How can I thank you all?” Beatrice said, quite overcome by the kindness shown her.

“Uch, thanks!” said Mrs. Lithgow, “we’ve done nothing. Let us hear from you, my dear; you know how I love letters, and I’ll be interested in everything you tell me. And remember, when you come back to Glasgow there’s always a welcome with us.”

“And with us,” panted Mrs. Murray, “don’t forget that.”

“But I’ve first claim,” said Mrs. Lithgow, “for I was at school with your mother.” Fairlie poured a long, half-whispered story into her nursling’s ear, cried a little, wiped her eyes and said, “But there, we must just hope that everything’ll turn out for the best.”

Mr. Lithgow stood with his watch in his hand. “Off in half a minute,” he announced. “Good-bye, Be’trice. Don’t marry an Englishman if you can help it. What? Oh, not at all, not at all. The kindness was yours in putting up with us; that’s the way to look at it, eh?”

“Good-bye, Bee,” Peggy cried. “See and stand up for yourself.”

“Good-bye! Good-bye!” Beatrice leant out for a last wave and stood for a few minutes in the corridor before going back to her compartment. There was only one other occupant, a woman who was established in a corner, with a neat pile of papers on her knee, and a business-like leather case at her side. She glanced up for a moment as the girl entered, gave a quick half smile, and went back to her papers.

Beatrice’s own side of the carriage presented a distinctly festive appearance, piled as it was with fruits, flowers and chocolate boxes, not to speak of novels and magazines. Where, she wondered, would she find such kindness as in Glasgow? Never would she forget what the Lithgows had done for her. She had thought she would be better left in the Park Place house for a little, among the familiar things and with the servants who had lived with and worked for her mother, but now she saw that Mrs. Lithgow had been wise to insist on her leaving at once. It had done her good, living with the Lithgows; the homely, happy atmosphere, Peggy’s noisy fun, Mrs. Lithgow’s motherly understanding, and Mr. Lithgow’s pressing offers of food and drink, they had all warmed and heartened her, chilled and saddened as she was. She had had to make a great effort, so that it wouldn’t be too difficult for them to entertain her, and she had ended by enjoying herself—almost. There was always now—would always be, she supposed—a queer lonely feeling behind everything, a feeling that accompanied her by day, and at night when she shut her bedroom door became so overpowering that she often had to throw herself into a chair and cry and cry. But when she broke down she took herself severely to task, reminding herself that she was now alone no longer a child but a woman grown, and she must see to it that she got over her silly fear of the largeness of the world, her dislike of strangers, her inclination to shut herself up and hide.

Having put everything tidily on the rack Beatrice opened the morning papers. She was not acutely interested in any of the news, and kept glancing in her companion’s direction. She was interested, obviously, absorbing every word. Forty-five, Beatrice judged her to be, trim, pleasant to look at, with a clever mouth. There was something about the quiet face that was rather fascinating.

Once she glanced up and, finding the girl’s eyes fixed on her, dropped hers quickly.

“She’s afraid,” said Beatrice to herself, “that if she makes a remark it’ll make an opening for conversation, but she needn’t be,” and she sat conscientiously reading every word of the leaders, hoping she looked as intelligent over it as her companion in the other corner.

She had taken off her tight little black hat, the better to cope with the affairs of the world as reported in the press, and the woman opposite, having finished her paper, looked at her, thinking what a pleasure it was to see a pretty girl whose face was left alone. She congratulated herself on having something refreshing to look at through the day’s journey. Was she in black for effect, she found herself wondering, or because she had lost some one? The latter, probably; there was a pathetic droop at the corner of the mouth, and shadows round the eyes. Perhaps she was going to London to take up some job. But a second glance at the girl’s clothes, her fur coat, her dressing-case, decided her against that theory. Well, it was no business of hers. Later on she might make some advances. Meantime, she had work to do and she took a bundle of MSS. from her case and forgot everything except the matter in hand.

After lunch Beatrice stood in the corridor for half an hour, watching the landscape fly past, and when she returned to her compartment found her companion busily knitting.

As the girl settled herself in her corner the older woman said:

“Do you find the journey long?”

“Oh, no. I like it. I wish it were longer.”

“That doesn’t sound as if you were in any hurry to reach your destination.”

“No,” said Beatrice.

“Personally,” her companion went on, “there’s nothing I enjoy more than a day in the train; it’s such a rest.”

This was a new light on travelling. Beatrice had been in the habit of hearing people make rather a fuss about it. Kind Mrs. Lithgow had urged her that morning to eat more breakfast, “because, you know, you’ve a journey before you,” and she had been sent early to bed the night before for the same reason.

“I daresay it is,” she said slowly, “if you’re busy for ordinary.”

“Well, I am,” said the knitting lady, “very busy indeed. I edit a woman’s magazine, you have it there—yes, that one.”

She smiled at the eager interest in her companion’s face, as she took up the paper. “Why,” she said, regarding it almost with awe, “we’ve always taken this. My mother liked it; she said there was something in it to interest every type of women. And you really—Oh, aren’t you lucky?”

“I don’t know about luck, but I certainly don’t pity myself; it’s work I love, though it’s worrying enough at times.... But everybody with a job just now should be down on their knees thanking heaven fasting. I’m almost ashamed of the good fortune when I see the misery on the faces of men—and women too—who delight to work, and have nothing now to work at. It must be so difficult to keep your self-respect when it seems there is no longer a place for you anywhere. Some are clever and adaptable and can turn to anything and there’s more hope for them, but so many could only do one job really well—and they’ve lost it.... London’s a hard place to live in if you haven’t learned to harden your heart.”

“Have you been long in London? You’re Scots, aren’t you?”

The knitting lady laughed. “That isn’t very tactful of you. How do you know that I’m not trying to bury every trace of my Scots descent? As a matter of fact I was born in Glasgow and educated there, but I’ve been in London for the last twenty years. You don’t speak like the Glasgow born—that’s a fact, not flattery.”

“Don’t I?” said Beatrice. “I’ve lived all my life in Glasgow, except for two years when we were abroad, but I haven’t much ear so perhaps that’s why I didn’t pick up the accent. I didn’t mean that you spoke with any particular accent, simply that your voice was deeper and slower than most English voices.... I expect I’ll be very homesick for the Glasgow accent before long!”

“You’re leaving Glasgow then?”

“Yes. You see—I’ve no one left. There was only my mother and myself, and mother died.” Beatrice finished with a gulp, rather surprised at herself for suddenly confiding in a stranger.

Her companion did not make the mistake of attempting to sympathise. She merely nodded and bent her head over her work.

Presently she said: “It’s hard for you. But you’re young.”

“Does that make any difference?” the girl asked.

The older woman smiled. “I think so. In spite of yourself new interests will claim you. Life is before you.... Have you any near relations?”

“A step-brother and his wife and family; I’m going there now; I hardly know them.”

“But that’s rather interesting; it’ll be fun for you finding out all about them.”

“Fun!” said Beatrice. “Well, I suppose it might be to some people, but the thought of it simply makes me stiff with fright. It sounds too silly and babyish, for I’m twenty-five, but I’ve hardly done anything on my own till now. Mother had me educated at home, and took me herself to the Continent as I got older, so I’ve never had to rough it among other girls. The consequence is I don’t know enough about them to feel at home with them. Perhaps if I’d taken up Guides, as mother wanted me to.... You see mother herself was so splendid that I wanted no one else. I leant on her. She didn’t care how many responsibilities she took on and she failed no one. The people she kept going! Backed them up with her courage! I simply can’t think why God took my mother out of a world where she was so much needed. And only sixty!”

“Did you help your mother in her work?”

“Not much,” Beatrice confessed. “I’m not much good at public work, and I’m shy of poor people. I never think they believe much in my interest. I don’t blame them for I don’t believe in it much myself.”

“Then what are your interests?”

The girl gave a little shame-faced laugh as she said:

“I don’t believe I’ve got any—specially. I was so much a part of mother that her interests were enough for me. She always told me about everything and I liked to listen.... Now, of course, it must be different.”

The older woman was touched by the forlorn note in the girl’s voice, but she said bracingly:

“If you don’t interest yourself in people, no one will be interested in you, and you’ll have a very dull time.”

“Oh,” said Beatrice, looking consideringly at her companion, “I wonder if that was why I was a failure when I went to dances?”

“Who said you were a failure?”

“Does one need to be told? The ill-concealed relief of my partners when they had done their duty and danced with me was enough. I never enjoyed going out because I always came home feeling I had been no success. Mother thought it was because I was shy and that may have had something to do with it, but there was more than that. D’you suppose it was because I wasn’t interested enough?”

“Well, you weren’t playing the game, were you? What have we got to be interested in except each other and the way life deals with us? If you think of it—that’s what all the books are about more or less.”

“But a pretence of interest wouldn’t be very convincing?”

“But why shouldn’t it be real? Train yourself to be interested. Realise that it’s more a lack in yourself than a want of appreciation in other people that makes you less popular than you might be. Realise that in standing aloof, keeping yourself to yourself, you miss a lot. And—forgive this flood of advice, but you did ask for it—now that you are alone it’s very important for yourself to get all you can out of living. Though you are alone that’s no reason why you should be lonely. You must make a niche for yourself.”

“Where?” Beatrice asked. “In Portland Place among my step-relatives?”

“You don’t know much about them, you said?”

“My step-brother I know best. He’s a member of Parliament, a knight, a successful business man. He tried to be kind when he came to—to the funeral. His wife I hardly know at all. She seems a very busy person, important enough to have photographs of herself in papers and magazines. The children used to come and stay with us down the Clyde, dear little people they were, but much more sophisticated than I was—a big girl with pigtails. I shudder to think what they are like now. The girl is twenty, and something of a beauty; the boy is at Oxford. So you see, it’s rather an alarming house to enter.”

But Beatrice found her companion determinedly cheerful.

“Oh,” she said, “it seems to me you’ll have a very good time, meeting all sorts of people and going about with your step-sister and her daughter. I know exactly how you are feeling at the moment. It doesn’t seem so very long since I came up to London, a very shy, backward girl. But with me it was needs must; I had my living to make and couldn’t afford to give way. At first I endured tortures, and do even now, when I have to meet some one whose opinion of me and my work is of importance, but I’ve learned to look calm and assured and that is half the battle. Go through the world giving and expecting courtesy and ignoring rudeness and malice. Not that you’re likely to meet with malice. You look as if it should be roses all the way with you. You’re a silly child to get it into your head that you are unattractive. Why, my first thought when you came into the compartment to-day was—No, having given you such a dose of good advice (I believe I must have been meant for a school marm) I won’t spoil the effect with sweetmeats.”

Beatrice blushed, and laughed shyly, as she said, “I think you’re more of a mother-confessor than a school marm. At least I never had the slightest impulse to confide in anybody, and think how I’ve talked to you to-day, a stranger.”

“But wasn’t it partly because I was a stranger? Now, what about tea? Let’s go in together. D’you ever knit jumpers? It’s fascinating work, and this is rather a good pattern....”

It was getting dark when they got back to their compartment after tea and all Beatrice’s fears returned as she realised that in another hour they would be in London. How she envied her companion, calmly putting away her work and papers! No wonder she looked quiet and happy. She knew what she was going to. Meeting her glance Beatrice said desperately, “I wish I were going to a job!”

“Why, what would you do with a job?”

“I’d be independent,” said Beatrice, thinking of her step-sister, who would probably want to decree what she should do.

“Oh,” said her companion, imagining she had been mistaken in the signs of affluence about Beatrice, and deciding in her own mind that Sir Samuel had made the money, and was kindly supporting his young step-sister. “No one who has a comfortable home should try for a job. Jobs are for people who can’t live without them.”

Beatrice was about to explain that it was the job, not the salary that she wanted, but the older woman at that moment handed her a card. “I’m always at home,” she said, “on Sunday afternoons. If you should ever have an hour or two to spare I’d like very much to see you and to hear how things go with you. Don’t forget.”

“I’m not likely to forget,” said Beatrice. “I know almost no one in London and it would be a great treat to see you again.”

She looked at the name on the card as she put it away safely in her bag; Miss Jane Naesmyth, and thought that it suited her companion well.

“I’ll look forward to seeing you,” said Miss Naesmyth. “Here we are! Will you be met?”

Beatrice had never thought of anything else. She or her mother had always gone to the station with the car and brought home any expected guest. But she told herself London was different. Probably the car would be engaged, and Betha and Elaine too, and they would expect her to take a taxi. It would be easier for her, really, than looking about for people she didn’t know by sight.

“Oh,” she said lightly, “I don’t suppose so. It’s so easy with lots of porters and taxis.” But she could not help peering round her as she followed the porter from the luggage-van, and presently she spied in the crowd the large, satisfied face of her step-brother. He was looking very impressive in a tall hat, and coat with a fur collar, and greeted Beatrice with urbanity, complimenting her on having got out her luggage with such celerity and pointing out his waiting car.

As they got in Beatrice saw her fellow passenger pass with a porter to a taxi, and over her shoulder she gave Beatrice such an encouraging smile that the girl drove away warmed and heartened.