Читать книгу Priorsford (Historical Novel) - O. Douglas - Страница 8

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'. . . with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school.'

As You Like It.

Two days after their arrival in Priorsford Peter and Alison made their first acquaintance with school.

They came down to breakfast looking rather over-awed, and started on their porridge in silence, but Peter, who was never quiet long, began as if continuing a recent conversation:

'Of course it isn't a real school or Alison couldn't go to it; I'm going to a real school when I'm nine! this is mostly girls.'

Alison looked anxiously at her mother as she asked:

'What'll they do when they find I don't know anything?'

'Why, darling, they don't expect you to know anything: you're going there to learn.'

'She can't even say her alphabet,' said Peter, and added boastfully, 'I can say it backwards.'

'He can say it backwards,' echoed Alison dismally.

'It won't do him much good,' her mother assured her. 'They've got new ways of teaching, and I don't know that they pay much attention to the alphabet now. I know children aren't taught as we were taught: a b ab, s o so. You'll be able to tell me about the new ways.'

'Mummy,' Peter said, dealing with an egg, 'what's the teacher like?'

'There are two teachers. Miss Main has been keeping school since ever I knew her, and her hair is quite white, and she's very wise. She's taught more boys and girls than she can remember, but I don't expect any of them have forgotten Miss Main. Although she's so clever she's very patient and won't expect too much from little girls who are only five. As a matter of fact, you'll probably be taught by Miss Callard, who helps Miss Main. She is so young that I'm sure she hasn't forgotten her first day at school, and her face is round and pink and sweet. Somehow, she made me think of nice things to eat, or is it that her name recalls "butter-scotch"? Anyway, I know you'll like her. . . . There are twelve girls and three boys at school just now, beginning at five and ending at ten. I saw them all running about in the garden yesterday. They get out at eleven for ten minutes, and morning school finishes at a quarter to one. Elsie will fetch you home and you won't go back in the afternoon. . . . Run up now, and wash your hands and get your coats on. I'll take you myself this morning, and you'll be able to show Elsie the way to-morrow.'

It was a fine morning, with a touch of frost in the air: mist lay in the valleys, but the hill tops were sharply clear against the pale blue of the sky. The trees in their burning autumn beauty were reflected in Tweed's quiet waters.

'Look,' said Jean, laying a hand on Peter's shoulder, 'aren't these peaks beautiful, piercing up behind the roundbacked hills? They're called the Shielgreen Kips, and some day we'll go there, perhaps when Jock comes, and Mhor: they love the Kips.'

'That's the Tweed,' Peter said. 'It's rather a small river, isn't it?'

'It's a lovely river,' Jean cried jealously. 'Peter, you're almost as bad as the American who called it "a creek." I'd rather have the man who declared, with no regard for the truth, that it was as wide as the Hooghly at Calcutta.'

'Oh, I like it,' Peter hastened to protest. 'Jock told me it was the best river in the world, and he's going to take me to fish in it some day. . . . Barty says that in America the rivers are so big you can't see to the other side of them. Silly sort of rivers they must be!'

'Well,' said Jean tolerantly, 'America's such a huge place--gigantic mountains, rolling prairies, houses and hotels sky-scraping--so I suppose they've got to have rivers to match. . . . But I've seen Tweed big enough. When a thaw comes suddenly, and the snow melts on the hills and the rain pours, then Tweed comes roaring down in spate, carrying away sheep and gates and trees, and when it gets to Priorsford it sometimes floods out all over the place. I've seen swans swimming on Tweed Green and people rescued from top windows!'

'Oh, I hope it does it soon,' said Peter.

'I hope not. It's very poor fun for the people who get all their belongings ruined with water and mud.'

'It can't get to The Rigs,' Alison said comfortably, 'so it doesn't much matter.'

Jean, amazed at the heartlessness displayed by her offspring, felt she ought to improve the occasion with a homily on thought for others, but they had reached the gate of the school, and Alison's hand had tightened on hers.

They went up to the door of the pretty creeper-covered house, and rang the bell.

'To-morrow,' Jean told the children, 'you'll go in at the back with the others, but this morning I want to introduce you to Miss Main.'

They were shown into a drawing-room containing some fine old furniture and many portraits of dead and gone Mains. They had no reason, these dead men, to feel ashamed of their descendant. The same spirit that had kept them going through the Indian Mutiny and the Crimean War was alive in Miss Agnes Main. She taught and trained these children with all the care and energy she was capable of. It was her job and she did it. People said it was absurd that a brilliant scholar such as she was should so waste her time, but Miss Agnes did not consider her time wasted.

She was very small, with delicate colouring and snow-white hair: very gentle in her voice and ways--but a terror to evil-doers!

She greeted Peter and Alison affectionately, telling them that she had taught their mother and their uncles.

'Don't give us away, please, Miss Agnes,' Jean begged.

Miss Agnes shook her head, smiling. 'I'm like the sundial,' she said: 'I only record the sunny hours. It's funny, when a pupil, even one of the worst, leaves, you forget all the stupidity and inattention and mischievous ways and only remember that he was a queer wee boy and oddly likeable. You'd be surprised, too, how many of them come back, grown men from the far parts of the earth, and stand sheepishly and say, "You won't remember me, I was----" But now, what about these young people?'

'Alison hasn't learnt anything yet,' said Alison's mother, 'she's only five. Peter has done lessons regularly for a year with the rector at home. I think he's got a good deal of miscellaneous information, but you'll find that out for yourself. It's a great delight to me, Miss Agnes, to think that you will start them. . . . But I must not take up your time. . . No, I'll let myself out. Good-bye, Miss Agnes. Good-bye, darlings. We'll hear what school's like at one o'clock.'

It was only a little after nine o'clock, so Jean went for a walk. She went up through a narrow lane bordered with high beech hedges, climbed a dyke, and came out on the hill side.

Beneath her lay the town with Tweed running through it like a shining highway. A blue haze from smoking chimneys hung over it: cheerful morning sounds came up to her. . . . All round were fields cleared of the harvest, and woods and hills and valleys. . . . 'There's no place like it,' Jean told herself, with a kind of surprise.

At ten o'clock she sauntered into The Neuk to find Miss Barton busy at her desk. She jumped up and wanted to know if the children had gone happily to school.

'Alison,' she said, 'was rather worried last night, and even Peter had tremors. But of course it's only the first plunge. To-morrow they'll feel as if they'd been going to school all their lives.'

'Yes,' said Jean, 'and it'll be so good for them doing things with other children. Peter's apt to get bumptious, and Alison is touchy, but I'm hoping school will do a lot for them. Miss Main is so interesting; you must meet her. . . . Well, how are things going here?'

'Quite well, I think, Lady Bidborough. Marriot goes down early to The Rigs and stays all day, and the other two keep this house, and help Marriot when she needs them. It's a holiday for them, really. They're quite excited exploring the place, and town is a treat to them after the heart of the country. There are constant entertainments of one kind and another in the evenings.'

'Priorsford was always a whirl,' said Jean. 'I'm glad you think things are going to go smoothly. . . . Is there much for me to see, Barty?'

Miss Barton laid several documents before her, saying, 'Would you decide about these, please.'

Jean read through the topmost letter. 'It's a sad case,' she said.

'They're all sad cases,' said Miss Barton.

'How many can we help?'

'Three out of the six.'

Jean sighed as she took up the next letter.

'It's so trifling,' she said, 'so temporary, what we can do, but I suppose it helps. The ex-officers with children, out of work, and savings gone, aren't so hopeless! There's always the hope that things will take a turn and trade improve, and it's only a case of keeping their heads above water till then. It's the women who break my heart, the women who love the comforts and prettiness of life and who, in old age, are left stranded in a world grown bleak and unfriendly. To be young and poor isn't so bad, but to be old and poor and ill. . . . Barty, I'm haunted by the thought of winter coming on, and poor souls, many crippled with rheumatism, not daring to light a fire (when a good fire is one of the few comforts left in life) and hating to let anyone know how poor they are. . . . Couldn't we help all these cases, Barty?'

Miss Barton shook her head inexorably. 'We've already exceeded--I don't think you need worry too much about these cases. They sound very pathetic, I know, but if you saw the people you'd probably find them very complaining, ungrateful and far from attractive.'

'Oh, I dare say.' Jean sat with her chin in her hand pondering over the sad details on the paper before her.

Presently Miss Barton said: 'I've one or two cases here that it might be as well to see personally. . . . Edinburgh isn't very far from Priorsford?'

'A little over twenty miles. We might all go in on Saturday--that would be a good enough day for the purpose, wouldn't it? I'd like Peter and Alison to see the Shrine, and Saturday's their only day. I envy your seeing Edinburgh for the first time. No, forget I said that. Go to it as to any other large city, expecting nothing but tall tenements and ugly streets and railway stations.'

Miss Barton smiled, and presently said, 'There's this woman in Glasgow. I think I'd better go and see her: there's something about her letter that I'm not sure of.'

'You demand truth in the inward parts, Barty. These are terribly searching eyes of yours, and you never soften.'

'I've no use for sentiment,' said Miss Barton, 'and there's a sickening amount of it in the world. The number of slushy people----' She nodded towards a daily paper on the table. 'There's a murder trial going on just now: all the sympathy is for the murderer: not a thought for the soul he sent into the darkness.'

'Oh, I'm with you there. If a man in his right senses deliberately murders a fellow-creature he ought to die, if only to discourage others from attempting to do likewise! All the same'--Jean's eyes grew dark with feeling--'it's awful to think of the murderer, perhaps coming handicapped into the world, bred in misery, knowing nothing but evil in life, going violently out of it. The only comfort is that his soul goes back to God Who made it, and Who knows why.'

There was a moment's silence, then Miss Barton said: 'Well, is that arranged for Saturday? Could we be in Edinburgh about eleven? I shall have to see this Mr. Paterson in his office, and offices close early on Saturdays.'

'Of course. We can start directly after breakfast. I do hope it will be a day like this. Take a walk this afternoon, Barty: it's lovely on the hills.'

'Yes, thank you, Lady Bidborough.'

'I had promised myself I'd show you the walk over Cademuir to-day, but I've been summoned to see my oldest friend--Mrs. Hope. She lives in that white-washed house standing in the woods by Tweedside. Look, you can see the chimneys from this window. She is very old now, and frail, and can't see many people, but her daughter telephoned last night that I might go this afternoon for a little. But we'll have our walk another day.'