Читать книгу Priorsford (Historical Novel) - O. Douglas - Страница 4

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'Women never have half an hour that they can call their own.'

Florence Nightingale.

'Biddy,' Jean said to her husband as they sat at breakfast next morning, 'Biddy, let's get all the plans for your going away made at once, and then we can banish the thought of it, so that the time we have together won't be spoiled.'

'All right, darling. There'll be the deuce of a lot to arrange. . . . Sausage? Bacon? Mushroom omelette? Cold ham?'

'Sausage, please. Yes, a tiny bit of bacon. One thing I know, you won't taste anything so good as sausages made by Mrs. Watts till you get home again.'

Lord Bidborough came back from the sideboard and sat down to enjoy his breakfast, remarking as he unfolded his napkin, 'That's a true word. But to me everything at Mintern Abbas is perfect, so whatever the wide world has to offer me will be second best.'

'Very nicely said, but it's the wrong spirit to go travelling in. Besides, you know you love wandering. Confess that the very idea of taking a steamer ticket thrills you! It always amazes me that you're content to be a stay-at-home. Have I tethered you, Biddy? I haven't meant to. When we were married I made all sorts of vows to myself about being unselfish and letting you go off on expeditions with Tim. It would ill become me to make a fuss and play the martyr now, when I've had nine undisturbed years of you.'

'You're not playing the martyr, blessed child. It's I who feel a martyr. I want to be tethered, as you call it. Taking it all round I suppose I've had about as varied a life as any man could have, but I can say with perfect truth those nine years have been worth all that went before--By Jove, these sausages are good! I must have another.'

'Sausages and sentiment!' Jean mocked. '. . . I've just realised that there'll be no stalking for you this year, poor lad. The children, too, will miss their time in Ross-shire. Pamela is so good to them and they adore the moors and burns at Kinbervie. Biddy, d'you think I should take the children to the seaside after you sail? It would be a melancholy kind of holiday, but it would brace them up after the hot summer.'

Biddy carried his plate to the sideboard, and when he was seated again he very deliberately buttered a bit of toast before he said:

'Jean, I've been thinking, wouldn't it be a good plan for you and the children to spend next winter at Priorsford?'

'At Priorsford?' Jean laid down her cup. 'But--but what about Mintern Abbas? Who would look after everything, the house and the gardens and--Oh, and the Institute, and the District Nurse, and the----'

'I know: that's just my point. They've got far too much into the habit of leaving things to you. It's high time somebody else took a hand. I know quite well if I leave you here all the people round will bully you into doing things--meaning to be kind, I admit. And this place would be a burden to you. I can see you creeping about at night after Simson has retired majestically to rest, trying the fastenings, and looking under sofas for possible burglars. You're scared at night, though you're too proud to admit it, and I'd hate to think of you alone in this big place, listening to the owls hooting. I confess I'd go away much happier if I knew that you and the children were comfortably settled in some place near Priorsford, with Pamela and Lewis within call if anything happened to worry you, and people round that you've known since childhood. There's sure to be some place to let. I'll write to Pamela. Wouldn't you like the children to have a winter in Priorsford? Think of Ninny's delight!'

'Ye--es,' Jean said, 'it would be lovely in many ways--if I didn't feel a shirker.'

Her husband laughed. 'O Great-Aunt Alison! That conscience of yours!'

'If we went to Priorsford,' Jean continued, 'why shouldn't we go to The Rigs? You know we got electric light put in, and it's in perfect order. It would hold the children and myself and Ninny. Of course there would be the boys in the holidays, and----'

'And Miss Barton and her typewriter.'

'Yes. But we might get a furnished house quite near The Rigs and take a couple of maids and Elsie. I don't know . . . but it might be managed.'

'I'd like to think of you in The Rigs; and Mrs. McCosh is a tower of strength.'

Jean nodded. 'I'd like it to be The Rigs myself. It was nice of you, Biddy, to think of such a plan--but don't let's talk about it any more just now. We'll enjoy this summer day as if no black cloud were coming over our particular bit of sky. Are you fairly free? Could we do something with the children? . . . Here's a letter from Pamela. Isn't it odd that, when we are parched for want of rain, they are drowned out? She says they might just as well be in Lincolnshire for all they see of the hills! Mist to the doorstep. It is bad luck. And they've got such a large party, rather heavy in hand, I gather. Pamela says--where is it? Oh, yes. "At present there is nothing to report but rain; it's like living in the middle of a wet sponge; everything squashy and dripping. Even the most ardent sportsmen are daunted, and show a tendency to sit about in the house. . . . The women aren't so bad. The wise ones stay in their rooms till luncheon, but the girls have a nasty trick of coming down to breakfast and hanging on my hands most of the day. In despair I suggested theatricals, a performance for the Nursing Association, and they have embarked on 'Quality Street,' chosen because there are several female parts--the female being always more ready for impersonation and acting than the male--(which sounds like a sentence from an eighteenth century novel)--and because Daphne Morris has played 'Phoebe' before. Fortunately I came across trunks of old dresses in the attics, and they are happily rummaging among them. Would it were September and you dear people here! I wouldn't care then whether it rained or snowed or blew--!" Pamela will be disappointed, Biddy.'

'Yes, and I'm sorry to miss Kinbervie, but, after all, that's a small part of the missing.'

Jean turned to her letters. 'I see they've sent the plans for the addition to the Cottage Hospital. They could be getting on with the work, couldn't they, even if----What is it, Simson?'

'Mrs. and Miss Marston in the library, your ladyship. They will not detain you more than a few minutes.'

Simson removed his portly presence, walking delicately as one long accustomed to slippery oak floors.

'Institutes,' said Jean resignedly. 'When I lunched at Lovell on Tuesday we talked for two hours on the subject. Mrs. Marston must have thought of something fresh to say.'

'But why should Mrs. Marston rise betimes and disturb people's breakfasts to talk about Institutes? Don't go till you've finished.'

'Oh, I finished long ago. I was just idling. Coming?'

'Lord, no, I'm taking Peter out riding at ten. Get rid of your visitors and come and see us start.'

Mrs. Marston was a woman of fifty who would have been strikingly handsome if her head had not been a trifle too large for her body. Her daughter Sara, a perfectly nice girl, was handicapped by a bad manner. She was very good-looking, though Lord Bidborough, who shrank from her supercilious stare, said she made him think of Buffalo Bill and the Wild West, and christened her for his own satisfaction, Rain-in-the-face.

Mrs. Marston gripped Jean's hand with enthusiasm, and spoke rapidly in a high clear voice.

'How are you? Forgive this shamefully early call. No. No breakfast, thank you. Sara and I are on our way to London. An absurd place to go to in this heat, but Jemmy has chosen to arrive there this afternoon, and we couldn't have him un-met after three years' absence, could we? . . . My dear, how lovely this room is. Those flowers! And such a business-like writing-table! You have one side and your husband the other? Isn't it perfect, Sara?'

Sara, after a brief greeting, had begun to march about the room, staring at water-colour drawings of the three children ranged along the ledge of a bookcase, and pulling out a book here and there. She made no response to the remark addressed to her by her mother, who continued:

'What I came to say was that after you had left the other day it occurred to me that it would be rather a scheme if our Institute joined yours for the October meeting, seeing you are having a special speaker. I know our people do love to come here, and it would be a nice beginning of the Session for them. I shall be away for October myself, so it would fit in very well. . . . And then, didn't you go in for the acting competition last year? I wonder if you would come over and give us some hints? Or let us come and see you? It would be such a help. You are all so talented at Mintern Abbas, and Chipping-on-the-Wold has a lot to learn. Now please say yes, and Sara and I'll rush off and leave you in peace. No, positively I mustn't sit down.'

'Please do,' said Jean, 'until I explain. Since I saw you on Tuesday we've got news that changes all our plans. My husband has to go abroad for the winter with an invalid friend: I may go to Scotland with the children, and I'm afraid the Institute'll have to look after itself. Luckily, there are several members quite capable of taking charge.'

Mrs. Marston sat down suddenly. 'Oh,' she said, and again, 'Oh.' Then, 'This is bad news. I wish I'd never promised to be President. I was leaning on you, my dear.--Sara, isn't it dreadful? Lady Bidborough's going to be away all next winter in Scotland!'

Sara turned her piercing gaze on Jean and said:

'Scotland in winter sounds pretty foul. But it can't be worse than Chipping-on-the-Wold. Get up, Mother.'

Her mother rose obediently. 'I'm dreadfully discouraged,' she murmured. 'Of course it isn't your fault, and sick friends are so selfish, but you shouldn't be so helpful, really you shouldn't. Yes, Sara, I'm coming--Oh, could you write me out the names of some one-act plays? Nothing about dream-pedlars or Jacobites: something really funny without being low--you know the sort of thing I mean: suitable to a village audience.'

When the door had closed behind her visitors, Jean ran out to the garden to have a minute with the children before she interviewed the housekeeper. It was not her first sight of them, for she always took the nursery on her way down to breakfast. It made, she said, a good beginning for the day, the sight of the three small figures with the morning sun on their gilt heads, supping porridge vigorously, in a nursery from which, Peter boasted, you could see the young crows in their nests when the wind was singing Rock-a-bye baby to them.

She was in time to see Peter start off proudly with his father, mounted on a mild pony that could not be persuaded to curvet.

'Take care, my dears,' Jean cried. '. . . You'll find me in the library, Biddy. . . . Alison, you will soon be going out with Daddy, too.'

The child shook her head. 'Ponies have such slippy backs,' she said.

As Jean turned to go into the house she was told that the rector's wife wished to see her and was waiting in the hall. She sighed when she heard it, for Mrs. Turner, with the air of desiring above everything not to be a nuisance, was apt to put off much time.

'No, thank you,' the lady said to an invitation to come to the library. 'I won't think of coming further. I know how busy you are in the morning, but there was something I thought I ought to discuss with you, something that has worried me a good deal; in fact I have lost sleep over it; and I said to Herbert this morning while we were at breakfast: "I'll go and consult with Lady Bidborough," and he said, "I would most certainly".'

The Turners were a childless couple with a comfortable private income, who spent their own time worrying about trifles, and Jean's heart sank when she heard that she was to be consulted, for she knew it would be a lengthy business.

'Do sit down,' she said, 'and tell me what's worrying you.'

'No,' said Mrs. Turner firmly, 'I won't sit down. If I once sat down I might be tempted to sit too long.'

Her large earnest eyes were fixed on Jean's face as she said: 'I always think it is a crime to waste people's time, for I know how precious the hours are to me. Herbert said only yesterday that he did not know how I got through so much, but I told him it was simply because I map out every hour and never waste a minute. Yes. Breakfast at 8.30, then prayers: see cook: correspondence: flowers: visiting, and so on. Then when evening comes I can fold my hands--don't you think there is something very sweet and pathetic in the expression to fold one's hands?--and feel that rest is sweet at close of day to workers. . . . Herbert has just gone off on his bicycle to Woodford to see dear old Amelia. You know she was cook with us for long, and so interested in everything--the dear dogs and the church services. I could even leave her to do the flowers. But she began to get a little peevish, poor dear: old servants are so apt to develop tempers, I can't think why, for housework is so soothing. At times she was quite rude to me. Yes, everything I said seemed to irritate her; wasn't it sad? I would have borne with her, but Herbert said "No." It was demoralising, he said, for Amelia herself, and bad for my nerves.' Mrs. Turner smiled wistfully. 'I used to get so upset when I received a snappish answer to a kind question, and she was just eligible for an old-age pension, so we got her a dear little cottage at Woodford which happened to fall vacant--so providential. . . .'

She stopped.

'Yes,' Jean prompted. 'You wanted to discuss something. . . .'

Mrs. Turner glanced round the hall and, lowering her voice, said, 'It's Mrs. Hastings.'

'Mrs. Hastings,' Jean reflected. 'Isn't that the nice woman who has come to the cottage by the ferry? I think she'll be a great help to the Mothers' Union.'

'But can we allow her to help, dear Lady Bidborough? She is not a widow as we supposed: I've found to my great regret that she is living apart from her husband. Of course, I have mentioned it to no one but Herbert: you know what he feels about the sanctity of marriage?'

Jean felt that at least she could guess, and a spasm of inward laughter seized her as she thought of that gentleman's decent, cod-like countenance.

It was with great difficulty that she persuaded the rector's wife that it was the kindest as well as the wisest thing to say nothing.

'You see,' she said, 'we don't know the circumstances nor what the poor woman has had to bear.'

'But is it right to pass it over? Is it not our duty to make it known?'

'I don't know,' said Jean, 'but it doesn't seem to me that it's ever anyone's duty to make things harder for another. I think if you were specially kind to Mrs. Hastings----'

Mrs. Turner brightened: she liked to be kind.

'Yes,' she said, 'and Herbert might make a special point of preaching on the sanctity of the home, and the duty a wife owes to her husband. She might, who knows, see things in a better light. . . . I am so glad I came to you, Lady Bidborough. Now I must fly back to my neglected household.'

Jean walked with her visitor to the door, thinking what a decent soul she was after all, and regretting that she had so often found her tiresome and her Herbert dull.

'I wonder,' she said, 'if Mr. Turner likes grouse. He does? Then I'll send down a brace. They came from Scotland yesterday, the first of the season. . . . There's a chance that we won't be at Mintern Abbas this winter. . . . I think you've met our great friend Major Talbot? Yes. He has been very ill for months, and the doctors think that the only chance for him is a long voyage and a winter in sunshine. There is no one to go with him except my husband. . . . I may take the children to my old house in Scotland. It is a turn-up, isn't it?'

The rector's wife was aghast. 'What dreadful news! What shall we do? Mintern Abbas means so much to us all.'

'You will manage beautifully,' Jean assured her. 'I'll try not to put more on you than I can help. We'll arrange for speakers for the Mothers' Union and the Institute before I go, and make plans for the Christmas festivities. . . . I want you to be my almoner.'

Mrs. Turner's troubled face lightened a little.

'Of course,' she said, 'I'll do my best, but how we shall miss you and the children and all the cheerful bustle of this house! It keeps us all interested and alive. I don't really see how I can face having no one to come to for advice.'

Jean, looking about sixteen in a white frock belted with green, laughed aloud: 'You make me feel so old,' she protested. 'When I go back to Priorsford no one will think of asking me for advice: they'll give it me--and I'll feel young again!'

'It's quite true, dear Lady Bidborough, quite true. You are really only a girl and we all lean on you. I was saying so to Herbert only the other night. . . . What Herbert will think of this news I simply don't know. I'm afraid it will quite spoil his lunch,' and shaking her head, Mrs. Turner departed.

That morning, one thing after another cropped up demanding attention, and it was nearly luncheon-time before Jean was free.

'Anyway,' she thought, 'I'll have Biddy to myself for lunch,' and, remembering that she had said she would do the flowers herself, she seized a basket and scissors and ran out to gather them. But about a quarter past one Simson came stepping delicately among the roses to announce that Her Grace the Duchess of Malchester and Lady Agnes Chatham were in the drawing-room. 'In the drawing-room, m'lady,' said Simson impressively. He only put the fine flower of the county into that sacred apartment: the library or the boudoir were good enough for ordinary callers.

Jean handed Simson the roses she had cut and went off to wash her hands, feeling rather out of patience with the world at large.

The Duchess of Malchester was a round, little woman with a soft voice and a merry laugh. She was consistently pleasant to every one, but as her circle was enormous and she had no memory for faces, she seldom knew to whom she was talking.

She kissed Jean affectionately as she said:

'It is really too bad of us to descend upon you like this, but the fact is Agnes and I have simply run away. Yes. You see this is our month for entertaining relations, and the house is packed with them--both sides; and they're all taking the opportunity to tell us home-truths--So ungrateful, isn't it? Last night, after dinner, my sister-in-law--Jane Dudley, you know--who doesn't play bridge, made me sit beside her while she tore poor Agnes to pieces. At breakfast this morning--my dear, they all come down for breakfast!--an aged aunt on my father's side criticised me severely. We didn't know who would attack us at luncheon so we made off to find refuge with you.'

'We came to you, Jean,' Lady Agnes said in her soft deep voice, 'to have our feathers smoothed down: you're better at smoothing than anyone I know--Hullo, Biddy!'

Lord Bidborough remarked, after greeting his guests, that he thought they had a houseful of visitors.

'It's because of them we're here,' the girl told him cheerfully. 'We've just been explaining to Jean that the house is full of relations who all think they've a right to be rude. We thought we might just stand them at dinner if we'd had a rest from them at luncheon, and I said: "Let's fly to Jean." You've got rid of your lot?'

Jean laughed suddenly. 'I like,' she said, 'the note of true hospitality in that remark! We have got rid of them: in other words, we have parted regretfully from our delightful and delighted guests.' She nodded at Lady Agnes as she added. 'They were, you know.'

'But they weren't relations,' Lady Agnes insisted.

'No, but relations don't terrify us as they do you. We can count all ours that matter on the fingers of one hand.'

Jean held out her hand and ticked each finger off. 'Pamela and Lewis, Davy, Jock, Mhor. Five.'

Lady Agnes looked across the table at her mother, crying:

'Oh, Mums, aren't they lucky? We've got aunts and grand-aunts, and uncles and grand-uncles, all full of proper family feeling, all determined to spend some time every year under the family roof-tree. They look and dress like ordinary mortals, but they might have come out of the Ark so far as their ideas go. Nothing must be changed at Malchester. Though their own houses are quite modern and comfortable they resent any change there. We had positively to fight for electric light and central heating--hadn't we, Mums? And old great-uncle John patrols the house in a dressing-gown every night, scared to death in case we go up in flames. I got the fright of my life when I met him at midnight in the Picture Gallery: I thought it was the family ghost.'

Lord Bidborough looked across at the Duchess. 'Does this romantic miss frequent the haunted gallery at midnight?'

That comfortable lady merely shrugged her shoulders, smiling. She was enjoying her lunch and her company.

'Tell me, Jean,' she said, 'when do you go to Scotland? Is it the very beginning of September?'

Jean looked at her husband.

'Alas!' she said, 'our plans are altered. Biddy is going abroad, and I am taking the children to Scotland for the winter.'

Lady Agnes laid down her knife and fork. 'What!' she said. 'That's my last out-post gone! Jean, are you and Biddy going to separate. . . . And I banked on you two.'

'Really, my dear!' her mother warned her, 'you go too far. Jean--what has happened, my dear?'

'Biddy, you tell this time,' Jean cried. 'I seem to have been recounting it all morning.'

'What a nuisance,' said the Duchess, when things had been explained. 'I quite see that you can't very well do anything else, but still. . . And I was relying on you, Jean, to take Agnes out next winter and let me be lazy at home.'

'And I thought you'd help with the play we're doing in October,' Lady Agnes said; 'there's a perfect part for you. Oh! and my ball in December! It's too bad, Jean.'

'I shall miss you all sadly,' Jean said.

'I wonder!' Lady Agnes munched a salted almond and studied her hostess. 'Biddy, I think you're rash to let Jean go back to Priorsford. She loves it too well. . . . And there's something so very nymph-ish about her, I'd never be surprised to find her becoming the shade under the beech-tree or whatever it was the girl became in the story.'

'Most unlikely,' said the Duchess comfortably. 'Though I'm selfishly sorry we're to lose you for a winter, I think Jean will be greatly the better of getting away from us all for a little. I hope you will get a rest from responsibilities, my dear.'

Her daughter scoffed. 'Not she! The Priorsford people--horrible creatures I'm sure they are--will have "the face ett off her." Are you going back to The Rigs? Really, Jean? Well, I'm coming to stay with you whether you ask me or not. Yes, I'm determined to see Priorsford with my own eyes, and Mrs. McCosh, and Bella Bathgate.'

Jean nodded. 'Of course. We'd love to have you. But don't come expecting too much, and be disappointed. I'd hate anyone who didn't appreciate Priorsford.'

When the luncheon guests had departed others arrived for tea, and it was not till dinner was over that the husband and wife could finish their morning talk.

'Wasn't I right, Jean, not to leave you here? As Agnes puts it, elegantly, the neighbours would have "the face ett off you!" You're too popular, my girl.'

Jean was leaning back in a chair by the wide open window enjoying the evening air that came in sweet with a thousand scents.

'Not so much popular,' she said lazily, 'as soft. It's easier for me to do things than refuse, and people have found that out--I've written to Miss Janet Hutton, Biddy, to ask if there's a furnished house to let for the winter near The Rigs. I didn't want to trouble Pamela when she is away. Besides, Pamela really doesn't know much about Priorsford. She and Lewis keep themselves very much to themselves in their green glen at Laverlaw. . . . Did you ring up the steamer people?'

Lord Bidborough came over and sat on the window seat.

'They can give us the accommodation we want on a ship sailing on the 25th September--the Duchess of Inverness or something. I've written to Tim sending him all details--he'll be in a fever until things are settled.'

'Oh, Biddy, it makes it so dreadfully definite, a fixed date. As Ninny says "a set time soon comes."'

Biddy nodded gloomily. 'I'm wondering why I ever considered going. To leave you with so many responsibilities--the children, two places to run, and all your own money to worry about! If anything happens, if you're too worried, cable, and I'll come as quick as I can be brought.'

Jean patted his hand reassuringly. 'Don't let's be silly,' she said. 'Just think of soldiers and Indian civilians and other people who spend their lives parting from their best beloved! I've been reminding myself all day how little I have to complain about. Indeed, I won't cable for you. You're quite capable of trying to fly home from Australia and arriving with a dunt.'