Читать книгу The Complete Works - O. Douglas (Anna Buchan) - Страница 14

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"When that I was and a little tiny boy,

With a hey ho hey, the wind and the rain."

Twelfth Night.

The Reverend James Seton sat placidly eating his breakfast while his daughter Elizabeth wrestled in spirit with her young brother.

"No, Buff, you are not to tell yourself a story. You must sup your porridge."

Buff slapped his porridge vindictively with his spoon and said, "I wish all the millers were dead."

"Foolish fellow," said his father, as he took a bit of toast.

"Come away," said Elizabeth persuasively, scooping a hole in the despised porridge, "we'll make a quarry in the middle." She filled it up with milk. "There! We've made a great deep hole, big enough to drown an army. Now—one sup for the King, and one for the boys in India, and one for—for the partridge in the pear-tree, and one for the poor little starved pussy downstairs."

Buff twisted himself round to look at his sister's face.

"Yes, there is. Ellen found it last night at the kitchen door. If you finish your breakfast quickly, you may run down and see it before prayers."

"What's it like?" gurgled Buff, as the porridge slid in swift spoonfuls down his throat.

"Grey, with a black smudge on its nose and such a little tail."

"Set me down," said Buff, with the air of one who would behold a cherished vision.

Elizabeth untied his napkin, and in a moment they heard him clatter down the kitchen stairs.

Elizabeth met her father's eyes and smiled. "Funny Buff! Isn't it odd his passion for cats? Oh, Father, you haven't asked about the party."

Mr. Seton passed his cup to be filled.

"That is only my second, isn't it?" he asked, "Well, I hope you had a pleasant evening?"

Elizabeth wrinkled her brows as she filled her cup. "Pleasant? Warm, noisy, over-eaten, yes—but pleasant? And yet, do you know, it was pleasant because the Thomsons were so anxious to please. Dear Mrs. Thomson was so kind, stout and worried, and Mr. Thomson is such an anxious little pilgrim always; and Jessie was so smart, and Robert—what a nice boy that is!—so obviously hated us all, and Alick's accent was as refreshing as ever. We got the most tremendously fine supper—piles and piles of things, and everybody ate such a lot, especially Mr. Taylor—'keeping up the tabernacle' he called it. I was sorry for Jessie with that little man. It is hard to rise to gentility when you are weighted with parents who will stick to their old friends, and our church-people, though they are of such stuff as angels are made, don't look well on the outside. I know Jessie felt they spoiled the look of the party."

"Poor Jessie!" said Mr. Seton.

"Yes, poor Jessie! I never saw Mr. Taylor so jokesome. He called her a 'good wee miss,' and shamed her in the eyes of the Simpsons (you don't know them—stupid, vulgar people). And then he sang! Father, do you think 'Miss Hooligan' is a fit song for the superintendent of the Sabbath school to sing?"

Mr. Seton smiled indulgently.

"I don't think there's much wrong with 'Miss Hooligan,'" he said; "she's a very old friend."

"You mean she's respectable through very age? Perhaps to us, but I assure you the Simpsons were simply stunned last night at the first time of hearing."

Elizabeth poured some cream into her cup, then looked across at her father with her eyes dancing with laughter. "I laugh whenever I think of Mrs. Taylor," she explained—"ma spouse, as Mr. Taylor calls her. I don't think she has any mind really; her whole conversation is just a long tangle of symptoms, her own and other people's. What infinite interests she gets out of her neighbours' insides! And then the preciseness of her dates—'would it be Wensday? No, it was Tuesday—no, Wensday it must ha' been.'"

Her father chuckled appreciatively at Elizabeth's reproduction of Mrs. Taylor's voice and manner, but he felt constrained to remark: "Mrs. Taylor's an excellent woman, Elizabeth. You're a little too given to laughing at people."

"Oh, Father, if a minister's daughter can't laugh, what is the poor thing to do? But, seriously, I find myself becoming horribly minister's daughterish. I'm developing a 'hearty' manner, I smile and smile, and I have that craving for knowledge of the welfare of absent members of families that is so distinguishing a feature of the female clergy. And I don't in the least want to be a typical 'minister's daughter.'"

"I think," said Mr. Seton dryly, "you might be many a worse thing." He rose as he spoke and brought a Bible from the table in the corner. "Ring the bell, will you? The child will be late if he doesn't come now."

Even as he spoke the door was opened violently, and Buff came stumbling in, with a small frightened kitten in his arms.

"Father, look!" he cried breathlessly, casting himself and his burden on his father's waistcoat. "It's a lost kitten, quite lost and very little—see the size of its tail. It's got no home, but Marget says it's got fleas and she won't let it live in her kitchen; but you'll let it stay in your study, won't you, Father? It'll sit beside you when you're writing your sermons, and then when I'm doing my lessons it'll cheer me up."

Mr. Seton gently stroked the little shivering ball of fur. "Not so tight, Buff. The poor beastie can scarcely breathe. Put it on the rug now, my son. Here are the servants for prayers." But the little lost kitten clung with sharp frightened claws to Mr. Seton's trousers, and Buff, liking the situation, made no serious effort to dislodge it.

The servants, Marget and Ellen, took their seats and instantly Marget's wrath was aroused and her manners forgotten.

"Tak' that cat aff yer faither's breeks, David," she said severely.

"Shan't," said Buff, glowering at her over his shoulder.

"Don't be rude, my boy," said Mr. Seton.

"She was rude to the little cat, Father; she said it had fleas."

"Well, well," said his father peaceably; "be quiet now while I read."

Elizabeth rose and detached the kitten, taking it and Buff on her knee, while her father opened the Bible and read some verses from Jeremiah—words that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. Elizabeth stroked Buff's mouse-coloured hair and thought how remote it all sounded. This day would be full of the usual little busynesses—getting Buff away to school, ordering the dinner, shopping, writing letters, seeing people—what had all that to do with Baruch, the son of Neriah, who lived in the fourth year of Jehoiakim?

The moment prayers were over Buff leapt to his feet, seized the kitten, and dashed out of the room.

"He's an ill laddie that," Marget observed, "but there's wan thing aboot him, he's no' ill-kinded to beasts."

"Marget," said Elizabeth, "you know quite well that in your heart you think him perfection."

"No' me," said Marget; "I think no man perfection. Are ye comin' to see aboot the denner the noo, or wull I begin to ma front-door?"

"Give me three minutes, Marget, to see the boys off."

Two small boys with school-bags on their backs came up the gravelled path. "Here comes Thomas—and Billy following after. Buff! Buff!—where is the boy?"

"Here," said Buff, emerging suddenly from his father's study. "Where's my bag?"

He paid no attention to his small companion and Thomas and Billy made no sign of recognition to him.

"Are you boys not going to say good morning?" asked Elizabeth, as she put on Buff's school-bag. "Don't you know that when gentlefolk meet courtesies are exchanged?"

The three boys looked at each other and murmured a greeting in a shame-faced way.

"Can you say your lessons to-day, Thomas?" Elizabeth asked, buttoning the while Buff's overcoat.

"No," said Thomas, "but Billy can say his."

"This is singing-day," said Billy brightly.

Billy was round and fat and beaming. Thomas was fat too, but inclined to be pensive. Buff was thin and seemed all one colour—eyes, hair, and complexion. Thomas and Billy were pretty children: Buff was plain.

"Uch!" said Thomas.

"I thought you liked singing-day," said Elizabeth.

"We did," said Buff, "but last day they asked me and Thomas to stop singing cos we were putting the others off the tune."

"Oh!" said Elizabeth, trying not to smile. "Well, it's time you were off. Here's your Edinburgh rock." She gave each of them half a stick of rock, which they stuck in their mouths cigar-wise.

"Be sure and come straight home," said Elizabeth to Buff.

"You'd better not come to tea with us to-day, Buff," said Thomas. "Mamma said yesterday it was about time we had a rest."

"I wasn't coming," said the outraged Buff.

Elizabeth put an arm round him as she spoke to Thomas.

"Mamma has quite enough with her own, Thomas. I expect when Buff joins you you worry her dreadfully. I think you and Billy had better come to tea here to-day, and after you have finished your lessons we'll play at 'Yellow Dog Dingo.'"

"Hurray!" said Billy.

"And when we've finished 'Yellow Dog Dingo,'" said Buff, "will you play at 'Giantess'?"

"Well—for half an hour, perhaps," said Elizabeth. "Now run off, or I'll be Giantess this minute and eat you all up."

They moved towards the door; then Thomas stopped and observed dreamily:

"I dreamt last night that Satan and his wife and baby were chasing me."

"Oh, Thomas!" said Elizabeth. She watched the three little figures in their bunchy little overcoats, with their arms round each other's necks, stumble out of the gate, then she shut the front-door and went into her father's study.

Mr. Seton was standing in what, to him, was a very characteristic attitude. One foot was on a chair, his left hand was in his pocket, while in his right he held a smallish green volume. A delighted smile was on his face as Elizabeth entered.

"Aha, Father! Caught you that time."

Mr. Seton put the book back on the shelf.

"My dear girl, I was only glancing at something that——"

"Only a refreshing glance at Scott before you begin your sermon, Father dear, and 'what for no'? Oh! while I remember—the Sabbath-school social comes off on the ninth: you are to take the chair, and I'm to sing. I shall print it in big letters on this card and stick it on the mantelpiece, then we're bound to remember it."

Mr. Seton was already at his writing-table.

"Yes, yes," he said in an absent-minded way. "Run away now, like a good girl. I'm busy."

"Yes, I'm going. Just look at the snug way Buff has arranged the kitten. Father, Thomas has been having nightmares about Satan in his domestic relations. Did you know Satan had a wife and baby——?"

"Elizabeth!"

"I didn't say it; it was Thomas. That boy has an original mind."

"Well, well, girl; but you are keeping me back."

"Yes, I'm going. There's just one thing—about the chapter at prayers. I was wondering—only wondering, you know—if Baruch the son of Neriah had any real bearing on our everyday life?"

Mr. Seton looked at his daughter, then remarked as he turned back to his work: "I sometimes think you are a very ignorant creature, Elizabeth."

But Elizabeth only laughed as she shut the door and made her way kitchenwards.

On the kitchen stairs she met Ellen the housemaid, who stopped her with a "Please, Miss Elizabeth," while she fumbled in the pocket of her print and produced a post card with a photograph on it.

"It's ma brither," she explained. "I got it this mornin'."

Elizabeth carried the card to the window at the top of the staircase and studied it carefully.

"I think he's like you, Ellen," she said. "How beautifully his hair is brushed."

Ellen beamed. "He's got awful pretty prominent eyes," she said.

"Yes," said Elizabeth. "I expect you're very proud of him, Ellen. Is he your eldest brother?"

"Yes, mum. He's a butcher in the Co-operative and awful steady."

Elizabeth handed back the card.

"Thank you very much for letting me see it. How is your little sister's foot?"

"It's keepin' a lot better, and ma mother said I was to thank you for the toys and books you sent her."

"Oh, that's all right. I'm so glad she's better. When you're doing my room to-day remember the mirrors, will you? This weather makes them so dim."

"Yes, mum," said Ellen cheerfully, as she went to her day's work.

Elizabeth found Marget waiting for her. She had laid out on the kitchen-table all the broken meats from the pantry and was regarding the display gloomily. Marget had been twenty-five years with the Setons and was not so much a servant as a sort of Grand Vizier. She expected to be consulted on every point, and had the gravest fears about Buff's future because Elizabeth refused to punish him.

"It's no' kindness," she would say; "it's juist saftness. He should be wheepit."

She adored the memory of Elizabeth's mother, who had died five years before, when Buff was a little tiny boy. She adored too "the Maister," as she called Mr. Seton, though deprecating his other-worldly, absent-minded ways. "It wadna dae if we were a' like the Maister," she often reminded Elizabeth. "Somebody maun think aboot washin's and things."

As to the Seton family—Elizabeth she thought well-meaning but "gey impident whiles"; the boys in India, Alan the soldier and Walter the promising young civilian, she still described as "notorious ill laddies"; while Buff (David Stuart was his christened name) she regarded as a little soul who, owing to an over-indulgent father and sister, was in danger of straying on the Broad Road were she not there to herd him by threats and admonitions into the Narrow Way.

Truth to say, she admired them enormously, they were her "bairns," but often her eyes would fill with tears as she said, "They're a' fine, but the best o' them's awa'."

Sandy, the eldest, had died at Oxford in his last summer-term, to the endless sorrow of all who loved him. His mother—that gentle lady—a few months later followed him, crushed out of life by the load of her grief, and Elizabeth had to take her place and mother the boys, be a companion to her father, shepherd the congregation, and bring up the delicate little Buff, who was so much younger than the others as to seem like an only child.

Elizabeth had stood up bravely to her burden, and laughed her way through the many difficulties that beset her—laughed more than was quite becoming, some people said; but Elizabeth always preferred disapproval to pity.

This morning she noted down all that Marget said was needed, and arranged for the simple meals. Marget was very voluble, and the difficulty was to keep her to the subject under discussion. She mixed up orders for the dinner with facts about the age of her relations in the most distracting way.

"Petaty-soup! Aweel, the Maister likes them thick. As I was sayin', ma Aunty Marget has worked hard a' her days, she's haen a dizzen bairns, and noo she's ninety-fower an' needs no specs."

"Dear me," said Elizabeth, edging towards the door. "Well, I'll order the fish and the other things; and remember oatcakes with the potato-soup, please."

She was half-way up the kitchen stairs when Marget put her head round the door and said, "That's to say if she's aye leevin', an' I've heard no word to the contrary."

Elizabeth telephoned the orders, then proceeded to dust the drawing-room—one of her daily duties. It was a fairly large room, papered in soft green; low white bookcases on which stood pieces of old china lined three sides; on the walls were etchings and prints, and over the fireplace hung a really beautiful picture by a famous artist of Elizabeth's mother as a girl. A piano, a table or two, a few large arm-chairs, and a sofa covered in bright chintz made up the furniture of what was a singularly lovable and home-like room.

Elizabeth's dusting of the drawing-room was something of a ceremonial: it needed three dusters. With a silk duster she dusted the white bookcases and the cherished china; the chair legs and the tables and the polished floor needed an ordinary duster; then she got a selvyt-cloth and polished the Sheffield-plate, the brass candlesticks and tinder-boxes. After that she shook out the chintz curtains, plumped up the cushions, and put her dusters in their home in a bag that hung on the shutter. "That's one job done," she said to herself, as she stopped to look out of the window.

The Setons' house stood in a wide, quiet road, with villas and gardens on both sides. It was an ordinary square villa, but it was of grey stone and fairly old, and it had some fine trees round it. Mr. Seton often remarked that he never saw a house or garden he liked so well, but then it was James Seton's way to admire sincerely everything that was his.

Just opposite rose the imposing structure of three storeys in red stone which sheltered Thomas and Billy Kirke. Mr. Kirke was in business. Elizabeth suspected him—though with no grounds to speak of—of "soft goods." Anyway, from some mysterious haunt in the city "Papa" managed to get enough money to keep "Mamma" and the children in the greatest comfort, to help the widows and fatherless, and to entertain a large circle of acquaintances in most hospitable fashion. He was a cheery little man with a beard, absolutely satisfied with his lot in life.

Elizabeth looked out at the prospect somewhat drearily. It was a dull November day. Rain was beginning to fall heavily; the grass looked sodden and dark. A message-boy went past, with his empty basket over his head, whistling a doleful tune. A cart of coal stopped at the Kirkes', and she watched the men carry it round to the kitchen premises. They had sacks over their shoulders to protect them from the rain, and they lifted the wet, shining lumps of coal into hamper-like baskets and staggered with them over the well-gravelled path. What a grimy job for them, Elizabeth thought, but everything seemed rather grimy this morning. Try as she would, she couldn't remember any really pleasant thing that was going to happen; day after day of dreary doings loomed before her. She sighed, and then, so to speak, shook herself mentally.

Elizabeth had a notion that when one felt depressed the remedy was not to give oneself a pleasure, but to do some hated duty, so she now thought rapidly over distasteful tasks awaiting her. Buff's suit to be sponged with ammonia and mended, old clothes to be looked out for a jumble sale, a pile of letters to reply to. "Oh dear!" said Elizabeth; but she went resolutely upstairs, and by the time she had tidied out various drawers and laid out unneeded garments, and had brought brown paper and string and tied them into neat bundles, she felt distinctly more cheerful.

The mending of Buff's suit completed the cheering process; for, in one of his trouser pockets, she found a picture drawn and coloured by that artist. It was a picture of Noah and the Ark, bold in conception if not very masterly in workmanship. Noah was represented with his head poked out of a skylight, his patriarchal beard waving in the wind, watching for the return of the dove; but the artist must have got confused in his ornithology, for the fowl coming towards Noah was a fearsome creature with a beak like an eagle. Aloft, astride on a somewhat solid cloud, clad in a crown and a sort of pyjama-suit, sat what was evidently intended to be an angel of sorts—watching with interest the manoeuvres of Noah and the eagle-like dove. And as Elizabeth smoothed out the crumpled masterpiece she wondered how she could have imagined herself dull when the house contained the Buffy-boy.

The writing-table in the drawing-room showed a pile of letters waiting to be answered. Elizabeth stirred the fire into a blaze, sniffed at a bowl of violets, and sat down to answer them. "Two bazaar circulars! and both from people who have helped me.... Well, I must just buy things to send." She turned to the next. "How bills do come home to roost! I wish I had paid this at the time. Now I must write a cheque—and my account so lean and shrunken. What an offence bills are!"

Very reluctantly she wrote a cheque and looked at it wistfully before she put it into the envelope, and took up a letter from a person unknown, resident in Rothesay, asking her to sing in that town at a charity concert. "I heard you sing while staying with my sister, Mrs. M'Cubbins, whom you know, and I will be pleased if you can stay the night——" so ran the letter. "Pleased if I stay the night!" thought Elizabeth wrathfully. "I should just think I would if I went—which I won't, of course. Mrs. M'Cubbins' sister! That explains the impertinence." And she wrote a chill note regretting that she could not give herself the pleasure. An invitation to dinner was declined because it was for "Prayer-meeting night." Then she took up a long letter, much underlined, which she read through carefully before she began to write.

"Most kind of Aunts.—How can I possibly go to Switzerland with you this Christmas? Have I not a father? also a younger brother? It's not because I don't want to go—you know how I would love it; but picture to yourself Father and Buff spending their Christmas alone! Would you not come to us? I propose it with diffidence, for I know you think in Glasgow dwelleth no good thing; but won't you try it? You know you have never given it a chance. A few hours on your way to the North is all you ever give us, and Glasgow can't be judged in an hour or two—nor its people either. I don't say that it would be in the least amusing for you, but it would be great fun for us, and you ought to try to be altruistic, dearest of aunts. You know quite well that Mr. Arthur Townshend will be quite all right without you for a little. He has probably lots of invitations for Christmas, being such a popular young man and——"

The opening of the gate and the sound of footsteps on the gravel made Elizabeth run to the window.

"Buff—carrying his coat and the rain pouring! Of all the abandoned youths!"

Buff dashed into the house, threw his overcoat into one corner, his cap into another, and violently assaulted the study door, kicking it when it failed to open at the first attempt.

"Boy, what are you about?" asked his father, as Buff fell on his knees before the chair on which lay, comfortably asleep, the little rescued kitten.