Читать книгу The Complete Works - O. Douglas (Anna Buchan) - Страница 25

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"Sir, the merriment of parsons is very offensive." Dr. Johnson.

When Mr. Seton had gone, and taken Stewart Stevenson with him, Elizabeth and Arthur sat on by the fire lazily talking. Arthur asked some question about the departed visitor.

"He is an artist," Elizabeth told him. "Some day soon, I hope, we shall allude to him as Mr. Stewart Stevenson the artist. He is really frightfully good at his job, and he never makes a song about himself. Perhaps he will go to London soon and set the Thames on fire, and become a fashionable artist with a Botticelli wife."

"I hope not," Arthur said. "He seems much too good a fellow for such a fate."

"Yes, he is. Besides, he will never need to think of the money side of his art—the Butter and Ham business will see to that—but will be able to work for the joy of working. Dear me! how satisfactory it all seems, to be sure. My good sir, you look very comfortable. I hope you remember that you are going to a party to-night."

"What! My second last evening, too. What a waste! Can't we send a telephone message, or wire that something has happened? I say, do let's do that."

Elizabeth assured him that that sort of thing was not done in Glasgow. She added that it was very kind of the Christies to invite them, and having thus thrown a sop to hospitality she proceeded to prophesy the certain dulness of the evening and to deplore the necessity of going.

"Why people give parties is always a puzzle to me," Arthur said. "I don't suppose they enjoy their own parties, and as a guest I can assure them that I don't. Who and what and why are the Christies?"

"Don't speak in that superior tone. The Christies are minister's folk like ourselves. One of the daughters, Kirsty, is a great friend of mine, and there is a dear funny little mother who lies a lot on the sofa. Mr. Johnston Christie—he is very particular about the Johnston—I find quite insupportable; and Archie, the son, is worse. But I believe they are really good and well-meaning—and, remember, you are not to laugh at them."

"My dear Elizabeth! This Hamlet-like advice——"

"Oh, I know you don't need lessons in manners from me. It will be a blessing, though, if you can laugh at Mr. Christie, for he believes himself to be a humorist of a high order. The sight of him takes away any sense of humour that I possess, and reduces me to a state of utter depression."

"It sounds like being an entertaining evening. When do we go?"

"About eight o'clock, and we ought to get away about ten with any luck."

Mr. Townshend sighed. "It will pass," he said, "but it's the horrid waste that I grudge. Promise that we shan't go anywhere to-morrow night—not even to a picture house."

"Have I ever taken you to a picture house? Say another word and I shall insist on your going with me to the Band of Hope. Now behave nicely to-night, for Mr. Christie, his own origin being obscure, is very keen on what he calls 'purfect gentlemen.' Oh! and don't change. The Christies think it side. That suit you have on will do very nicely."

Mr. Townshend got up from his chair and stood smiling down at Elizabeth.

"I promise you I shan't knock the furniture about or do anything obstreperous. You are an absurd creature, Elizabeth, as your father often says. Your tone to me just now was exactly your tone to Buff. I rather liked it."

* * * * *

At ten minutes past eight they presented themselves at the Christies' house. The door was opened by a servant, but Kirsty met them in the hall and took them upstairs. She looked very nice, Elizabeth thought, and was more demonstrative than usual, holding her friend's hand till they entered the drawing-room.

It seemed to the new-comers that the room was quite full of people, all standing up and all shouting, but the commotion resolved itself into Mr. Johnston Christie telling one of his stories to two clerical friends. He came forward to greet them. He was a tall man and walked with a rolling gait; he had a stupid but shrewd face and a bald head. His greeting was facetious, and he said every sentence as if it were an elocution lesson.

"Honoured, Miss Seton, that you should visit our humble home. How are you, sir? Take a chair. Take two chairs!!"

"Thank you very much," Elizabeth said gravely, "but may I speak to Mrs. Christie first?"

She introduced Mr. Townshend to his hostess, and then, casting him adrift on this clerical sea, she sat down by the little woman and inquired carefully about her ailments. The bronchitis had been very bad, she was told. Elizabeth would notice that she was wearing a shawl? That was because she wasn't a bit sure that she was wise in coming up to the drawing-room, which was draughty. (The Christies as a general rule sat in their dining-room, which between meals boasted of a crimson tablecover with an aspidistra in a pot in the middle of the table.) Besides, gas fires never did agree with her—nasty, headachy things, that burned your face and left your feet cold. (Mrs. Christie glared vindictively as she spoke at the two imitation yule logs that burned drearily on the hearth.) But on the whole she was fairly well, but feeling a bit upset to-night. Well, not upset exactly, but flustered, for she had a great bit of news. Could Elizabeth guess?

Elizabeth said she could not.

"Look at Kirsty," Mrs. Christie said.

Elizabeth looked across to where Kirsty sat beside a thin little clergyman, and noticed she looked rather unusually nice. She was not only more carefully dressed, but her face looked different; not so sallow, almost as though it had been lit up from inside.

"Kirsty looks very well," she said, "very happy. Has anything specially nice happened?"

"She's just got engaged to the minister beside her," Mrs. Christie whispered hoarsely.

The whisper penetrated through the room, and Kirsty and her fiancé blushed deeply.

"Kirsty! Engaged!" gasped Elizabeth.

"Well," said her mother, "I don't wonder you're surprised. I was myself. Somehow I never thought Kirsty would marry, but you never know; and he's a nice wee man, and asks very kindly after my bronchitis—he's inclined to be asthmatic himself, and that makes a difference. He hasn't got a church yet; that's a pity, for he's been out a long time, but Mr. Christie'll do his best for him. He's mebbe not a very good preacher." Again she whispered, to her companion's profound discomfort.

"I am sure he is," Elizabeth said firmly.

"He's nothing to look at, and appearances go a long way."

"Oh! please don't; he hears you," Elizabeth implored, holding Mrs. Christie's hand to make her stop. "He looks very nice. What is his name?"

"Haven't I told you? Andrew Hamilton, and he's three years younger than Kirsty."

"That doesn't matter at all. I do hope they will be very happy. Dear old Kirsty!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Christie, "but we can't look forward. We know not what a day may bring forth—nor an hour either, for that matter. Just last night I got up to ring the bell in the dining-room—I wanted Janet to bring me a hot-water bottle for my feet—and before I knew I had fallen over the coal-scuttle, and Janet had to carry me back to the sofa. I felt quite solemnised to think how quickly trouble would come. No, no, we can't look forward——Well, well, here's Mr. M'Cann. Don't go away, Elizabeth; I can't bear the man!" Again that fell whisper, which, however, was drowned in the noise that Mr. Christie and the new-comer made in greeting each other. Mr. M'Cann was a large man with thick hands. He was an ardent politician and the idol of a certain class of people. He boasted that he was a self-made man, though to a casual observer the result hardly seemed a subject for pride.

He came up to his hostess and began to address her as if she were a large (and possibly hostile) audience. Mrs. Christie shrank farther into her shawl and looked appealingly at Elizabeth, who would fain have fled to the other side of the room, where Arthur Townshend, with his monocle screwed tightly into his eye, was sitting looking as lonely as if he were on a peak in Darien, though the son of the house addressed to him a condescending remark now and again.

Mr. M'Cann spoke with a broad West Country accent. He said it helped him to get nearer the Heart of the People.

"Yes, Mrs. Christie," he bellowed, "I'm alone. Lizzie's washin' the weans, for the girrl's gone off in a tantrum. She meant to come to-night, for she likes a party—Lizzie has never lost her girrlish ways—but when I got back this evening—I've been down in Ayrshire addressin' meetin's for the Independent Candidate. What meetin's! They just hung on my lips; it was grand!—when I got back I found the whole place turned up, and Lizzie and the weans in the kitchen. It's a homely house ours, Miss Seton. So I said to her, 'I'll just wash my dial and go off and make your apologies'—and here I am!"

Here indeed he was, and Elizabeth wanted so much to know why he had not stayed at home and helped his little overworked wife that she felt if she stayed another moment she must ask him, so she fled from temptation, and found a vacant chair beside Kirsty.

Archie Christie strolled up to speak to her; he rather admired Elizabeth—'distangay-looking girl' he called her in his own mind.

"Frightfully clerical show here to-night," he said.

Elizabeth agreed; then she pinched Kirsty's arm and asked her to introduce Mr. Hamilton.

It did not take Elizabeth many minutes to make up her mind that Kirsty had found a jewel. Mr. Hamilton might not be much to look at, but goodness shone out of his eyes. His quiet manner, his kind smile, the simple directness of his speech were as restful to Elizabeth after the conversational efforts of Mr. M'Cann as a quiet haven to a storm-tossed mariner.

"I haven't got a church yet," he told her, "though I've been out a long time. Somehow I don't seem to be a very pleasing preacher. I'm told I'm too old-fashioned, not 'broad' enough nor 'fresh' enough for modern congregations."

Elizabeth struck her hands together in wrath.

"Oh!" she cried, "those hateful expressions! I wonder what people think they mean by them? When I hear men sacrificing depth to breadth or making merry-andrews of themselves striving after originality, I long for an old-fashioned minister—one who is neither broad nor fresh, but who magnifies his office. That is the proper expression, isn't it? You see I'm not a minister's daughter for nothing!... But don't let's talk about worrying things. We have heaps of nice things in common. First of all, we have Kirsty in common."

So absorbing did this topic prove that they were both quite aggrieved when Mr. Christie came to ask Elizabeth to sing, and with many fair words and set phrases led her to the piano.

"And what," he asked, "do you think of Christina's choice?"

Elizabeth replied suitably; and Mr. Christie continued:

"Quite so. A fine fellow—cultured, ye know, cultured and a purfect gentleman, but a little lacking in push. Congregations like a man who knows his way about, Miss Seton. You can't do much in this world without push."

"I dare say not. What shall I sing? Will you play for me, Kirsty?"

At nine o'clock the company went down to supper.

Mrs. Christie, to whom as to Chuchundra the musk-rat, every step seemed fraught with danger, said she would not venture downstairs again, but would slip away to bed.

At supper Arthur Townshend found himself between the other Miss Christie, who was much engrossed with the man on her right, and an anæmic-looking young woman, the wife of one of the ministers present, who when conversed with said "Ya-as" and turned away her head.

This proved so discouraging that presently he gave up the attempt, and tried to listen to the conversation that was going on between Elizabeth and Mr. M'Cann.

"Let me see," Mr. M'Cann was saying, "where is your father's church? Oh ay, down there, is it? A big, half-empty kirk. I know it fine. Ay, gey stony ground, and if you'll excuse me saying it, your father's not the man for the job. What they want is a man who will start a P.S.A. and a band and give them a good rousing sermon. A man with a sense of humour. A man who can say strikin' things in the pulpit." (He sketched the ideal man, and his companion had no difficulty in recognising the portrait of Mr. M'Cann himself.) "With the right man that church might be full. Not, mind you, that I'm saying anything against your father, he does his best; but he's not advanced enough, he belongs to the old evangelicals—congregations like something brighter."

Presently he drifted into politics, and lived over again his meetings in Ayrshire, likening himself to Alexander Peden and Richard Cameron, until Elizabeth, whose heart within her was hot with hate, turned the flood of his conversation into another channel by asking some question about his family.

Four children he said he had, all very young; but he seemed to take less interest in them than in the fact that Lizzie, his wife, found it quite impossible to keep a "girrl." It was surprising to hear how bitterly this apostle of Freedom spoke of the "bit servant lasses" on whose woes he loved to dilate from the pulpit when he was inveighing against the idle, selfish rich.

Two imps of mischief woke in Elizabeth's grey eyes as she listened.

"Yes," she agreed, as her companion paused for a second in his indictment. "Servants are a nuisance. What a relief it would be to have slaves!"

"Whit's that?" said Mr. M'Cann, evidently not believing he had heard aright.

Elizabeth leaned towards him, her face earnest and sympathetic, her voice, when she spoke, honey-sweet, "like doves taboring upon their breasts."

"I said wouldn't it be delightful if we had slaves—nice fat slaves?"

Mr. M'Cann's eyes goggled in his head. He was quite incapable of making any reply, so he took out a day-before-yesterday's handkerchief and blew his nose; while Elizabeth continued: "Of course we wouldn't be cruel to them—not like Legree in Uncle Tom's Cabin. But just imagine the joy of not having to tremble before them! To be able to make a fuss when the work wasn't well done, to be able to grumble when the soup was watery and the pudding burnt—imagine, Mr. M'Cann, imagine having the power of life and death over the cook!"

Arthur Townshend, listening, laughed to himself; but Mr. M'Cann did not laugh. This impudent female had dared to make fun of him! With a snort of wrath he turned to his other neighbour and began to thunder platitudes at her which she had done nothing to deserve, and which she received with an indifferent "Is that so?" which further enraged him.

Elizabeth, having offended one man, turned her attention to the one on her other side, who happened to be Kirsty's fiancé, and enjoyed snatches of talk with him between Mr. Christie's stories, that gentleman being incorrigibly humorous all through supper.

When they got up to go away, Kirsty went with Elizabeth into the bedroom for her cloak.

"Kirsty, dear, I'm so glad," Elizabeth said.

Kirsty sat solidly down on a chair beside the dressing-table.

"So am I," she said. "I had almost given up hope. Oh! I know it's not a nice thing to say, but I don't care. You don't know what it means never to be first with anyone, to know you don't matter, that no one needs you. At home—well, Father has his church, and Mother has her bronchitis, and Kate has her Girl's Club, and Archie has his office, and they don't seem to feel the need of anything else. And you, Lizbeth, you never cared for me as I cared for you. You have so many friends; but I have no pretty ways, and I've a sharp tongue, and I can't help seeing through people, so I don't make friends.... And oh! how I have wanted a house of my own! That's not the proper thing to say either, but I have—a place of my own to polish and clean and keep cosy. I pictured it so often—specially, somehow, the storeroom. I knew where I would put every can on the shelves."

She rubbed with her handkerchief along the smooth surface of the dressing-table. "Every spring when I polished the furniture I thought, 'Next spring, perhaps, I'll polish my own best bedroom furniture'; but nobody looked the road I was on. Then Andrew came, and—I couldn't believe it at first—he liked me, he wanted to talk to me, he looked at me first when he came into the room.... He's three years younger than me, and he's not at all good-looking, but he's mine, and when he looks at me I feel like a queen crowned."

Elizabeth swallowed an awkward lump in her throat, and stood fingering the crochet edge of the toilet-cover without saying anything.

Then Kirsty jumped up, her own bustling little self again, rather ashamed of her long speech.

"Here I am keeping you, and Mr. Townshend standing waiting in the lobby. Poor man! He seems nice, Lizbeth, but he's awfully English."

Elizabeth followed her friend to the door, and stooping down, kissed her. "Bless you, Kirsty," she said.

She was rather silent on the way home. She said Mr. Christie's jocularity had depressed her.

"I suppose I may not laugh," Mr. Townshend remarked, "but I think Fish would have 'lawffed.' That's a good idea of yours about slaves."

"Were you listening?" she smiled ruefully. "It was wretched of me, when you think of that faithful couple, Marget and Ellen. That's the worst of this world, you can't score off one person without hurting someone quite innocent."

They found Mr. Seton sitting by the drawing-room fire. He had had a harassed day, waging warfare against sin and want (a war that to us seems to have no end and no victory, for still sin flaunts in the slums or walks our streets with mincing feet, and Lazarus still sits at our gates, "an abiding mystery," receiving his evil things), and he was taking the taste of it out of his mind with a chapter from Guy Mannering.

So far away was he under the Wizard's spell that he hardly looked up when the revellers entered the room, merely remarking, "Just listen to this." He read:

"'I remember the tune well,' he said. He took the flageolet from his pocket and played a simple melody.... She immediately took up the song:

'Are these the links of Forth, she said;

Or are they the crooks of Dee,

Or the bonny woods of Warrock Head

That I so plainly see?'

"'By Heaven!' said Bertram, 'it is the very ballad.'"

Mr. Seton closed the book with a sigh of pleasure, and asked them where they had been.

Elizabeth told him, and "Oh, yes, I remember now," he said. "Well, I hope you had a pleasant evening?"

"I think Mr. Christie had, anyway. That man's life is one long soiree-speech. And I wouldn't mind if he were really gay and jolly and carefree; but I know that at heart he is shrewd and calculating and un-simple as he can be. But, Father, the nicest thing has happened. Kirsty has got engaged to a man called Andrew Hamilton, a minister, a real jewel. You would like him, I know. But he hasn't got a church yet, although he is worth a dozen of the people who do get churches, and I was wondering what about Langhope? It's the nearest village to Etterick," she explained to Arthur. "It's high time Mr. Smillie retired. He is quite old, and he has money of his own, and could go and live in Edinburgh and attend all the Committees. It is such a good manse, and I can see Kirsty keeping it so spotless, and Mr. Hamilton working in the garden—and hens, perhaps—and everything so cosy. There's a specially good storeroom, too. I know, because we used to steal raisins and things out of it when we visited Mr. Smillie."

Mr. Seton laughed and called her an absurd creature, and Arthur asked if a good store-room was necessary to married happiness; but she heeded them not.

"You know, Father, it would be doing Langhope a really good turn to recommend Mr. Hamilton as their minister. How do I know, Arthur? I just know. His father was a Free Kirk minister, so he has been well brought up, and I know exactly the kind of sermons he will preach—solid well-reasoned discourses, with now and again an anecdote about the 'great Dr. Chalmers,' and with here and there a reference to 'the sainted Dr. Andrew Bonar' or 'Dr. Wilson of the Barclay.' Fine Free Kirk discourses. Such as you and I love, Father."

Her father shook his head at her; and Arthur, as he lit a cigarette, remarked that it was all Chinese to him. Elizabeth sat down on the arm of her father's chair.

"You had quite a success to-night, Arthur," she said kindly. "Mr. Christie called you a 'gentlemanly fellow,' and Mrs. Christie said, speaking for herself, she had no objection to the Cockney accent, she rather liked it! And oh! Father, your friend Mr. M'Cann was there. You know who I mean? He talked to me quite a lot. He has been politic-ing down in Ayrshire, and he told me that he rather reminds himself of the Covenanters at their best—Alexander Peden I think was the one he named."

Mr. Seton was carrying Guy Mannering to its place, but he stopped and said, "The wretched fellow!"

The utter wrath and disgust in his tone made his listeners shout with laughter, and Elizabeth said:

"Father, I love you. 'Cos why?"

Mr. Seton, still sore at this defiling of his idols, only grunted in reply.

"Because you are not too much of a saint after all. Oh! don't turn out the lights!"