Читать книгу Taken by the Hand - O. Douglas - Страница 4

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“Finish, good lady: the bright day is done . . .”

Antony and Cleopatra.

Two ladies stood on the doorstep of 14 Park Place, Glasgow. They had not been asked into the house—had not, indeed, expected to be; they were there merely to enquire. First they had parleyed with a maid, then a nurse passing through the hall had been brought to speak to them, and now, satisfied that they had heard all they could hear, they were withdrawing. They were both a little more than middle-aged, stout, comfortable-looking women, obviously well-to-do, with Persian-lamb coats, expensive handbags, and hats of the type known as “matrons” set high on their heads.

In silence they came down the handsome flight of steps from No. 14 and only began to talk when they had got well away from the house.

“Dear, dear,” said Mrs. Murray, the older and the stouter of the two. “Poor Mrs. Dobie! Who would have thought it? Such a healthy woman and so full of life. I don’t think I ever met anyone more ‘on the spot’ as they say. It was a treat to see her get things into shape at a bazaar or anything like that. Just the way she turned herself—so purpose-like. Of course, as a minister’s daughter you may say she was brought up to that sort of thing, but still . . .”

“I’m awfully sorry,” said the younger woman, with a note of genuine feeling in her voice. After a pause she went on: “She was Janie Boyd. I was at school with her, and a wild girl she was, minister’s daughter or no minister’s daughter! The pranks she used to play! And her father such a saint! I’m sure St. Luke’s thought the world of him.”

“Not only St. Luke’s but the whole of Glasgow. He was a good man. . . . Wasn’t Mr. Dobie an elder in St. Luke’s, Mrs. Lithgow?”

“He was. D’you not remember him? A tall man with a beard. His first wife was a Duthie. She had a lot of money. I expect it all went to her only child—Samuel, Sir Samuel now. . . . Mr. Dobie would be sixty when he married again, and Janie Boyd wouldn’t be very young either, thirty-five, mebbe. I never knew why she married him, he was so like a waxwork, and a beard and all, and fussy wasn’t the word. Peggy would tell me that waxworks aren’t fussy, but, well, you know what I mean. But, anyway, Janie seemed quite happy with him. It was wonderful how she managed to keep him contented, and yet get her own way in everything that mattered. But since he died—it must be ten years ago! Fancy!—and she had all the money at her disposal—she’s come out wonderfully. I’d hardly have given her credit for so much organising power. How many things is she president of, I wonder? And it’s always a pleasure to see her on a platform. She not only speaks well but she looks well. I always wondered where she got her hats; they’re so becoming. She’ll be greatly missed. I’m sorry for Be’trice, poor thing.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Murray mournfully, “it’s Be’trice who’s to be pitied. . . . She’s a friend of your Peggy’s, isn’t she?”

“Oh, well, they played together as children, and the two families have always been intimate, but I wouldn’t call them great friends. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Murray, Peggy can’t be bothered much with Be’trice; she says she’s too deprecating. Did you ever? I’m sure if she is it’s a good fault, for most of the girls I know are impudent hussies. I said that to Peggy, but she just laughed. . . . I like Be’trice because she’s so civil, it’s a relief to find a girl pretty-mannered in these days, but perhaps she is a little inclined to be listless and—and unenterprising. She never seems to want to do anything but stay at home beside her mother.”

“Mebbe,” said Mrs. Murray, panting a little with the walk, “mebbe the girl’s shy.”

Mrs. Lithgow turned to give a beaming bow to a passing acquaintance, then said: “Have you noticed, Mrs. Murray, that a very energetic mother has often a tired kind of daughter? Just as a very sort of diplomatic mother will have a disconcertingly honest girl?”

The older woman laughed. “I daresay you’re right. Well, anyway, you’ve got a very satisfactory daughter in Peggy. So clever in the house and yet so good at games, and a fine, upstanding creature! I’m sure you and her father must be proud of her.”

“Oh, we are. I don’t deny it. She’s a good girl, Peggy. And what d’you think? She’s just got engaged! It’s not out, but I’m telling you because you’ve always been so kind about Peggy. Harry Lendrum. Yes, Aitkin & Lendrum. The eldest son. Yes, isn’t it nice? ‘A neighbour’s bairn’ as Granny says; they’ve grown up together. And I’ll have her beside me—that’s the best of it. I hope I wouldn’t have made a fuss, but I’d have been very vexed to let her away to India or Kenya or any of those places—though she’d go like a shot. Nothing dauntons our Peggy. . . . You’re tired, Mrs. Murray: I hope you haven’t walked too far?”

“No, no. I’m just a—wee thing—wheezy. I walk too little. Indeed, Mr. Murray sometimes tells me I’ll soon lose the use of my legs! That’s the worst of a car. I’m awfully pleased to hear about Peggy. I wonder what she’d like for a present?”

“Oh, anything will be acceptable. They’ve got to furnish from the foundation, so to speak.”

“That’s fine. If it’s a widower with a house furnished already, or a bride going abroad, you feel so cramped in your choice, don’t you? We’ll have to think of something specially nice for Peggy. . . . It won’t be for a time yet?”

“In the beginning of the year, we thought, but there’s nothing fixed. Well, here we are at your own door, and I do hope you haven’t felt the walk too far.”

“It’s done me good, Mrs. Lithgow. Now you’ll just come in and have a cup of tea with me. You’re a good wee bit from home yet.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Murray. I’ll be glad of my tea, for I’ve got a great blow this afternoon. Poor Janie Dobie. I can’t get over it at all.”

They went in together, through the hall, up the handsome staircase, to the large and richly furnished drawing-room, where a tea-table stood invitingly near the fire.

Tea was brought up at once, and Mrs. Murray, busying herself at the tea-tray, sighed. “Dear, dear, it seems no time since poor Mrs. Dobie was sitting in that chair you’re in. . . . She always admired that fire-screen, and I said ‘I’ll leave it to you in my will, Mrs. Dobie,’ just for a joke you know. How little I thought. . . . How d’you like your tea, Mrs. Lithgow?”

“Both, please, and a good kitchen cup. I’m old-fashioned, I suppose, but I must say I get tired of the people who say, ‘Two spoonfuls of milk and hot water,’ or ‘Neither sugar nor cream, and very weak. . . .’ Yes, it’s the way we must all go, Mrs. Murray. D’you know, I sometimes find myself wondering why the world was made so full of interesting things and beautiful places, and why we’re allowed to get so fond of each other when we’ve got such a short time in it. And Janie Dobie was enjoying life so heartily. She always did everything with such gusto. I can’t picture her ill and weak. . . . I’ll call again to-morrow and ask to see poor Be’trice. It must be so lonely for her with only strange nurses, though, of course, there’s always Fairlie. She was nurse, you know, and stayed on as sewing-maid, housekeeper, a bit of everything, and she’s devoted to Be’trice. . . . I don’t know of any relations on the Boyd side: Janie was an only child; and I don’t know of any on the Dobie side either, except the step-son Samuel, Sir Samuel. Did you ever meet his wife, Mrs. Murray?”

“Never,” said Mrs. Murray firmly. “Does she come here much?”

Mrs. Lithgow pursed her lips. “She used to come years ago, and she was glad enough to send her children—she has a son and daughter—when she and her husband wanted a holiday on the Continent, but now she’s too busy ascending the social ladder—you see her name and her photograph often in the papers, in connection with charity balls and things—to trouble about the humble connections in Glasgow. I’m told she says Glasgow’s so common.”

“Poor thing,” said Mrs. Murray, quite sincerely. “And will Be’trice have to make her home with her?”

“Well, I don’t know what else she could do. It isn’t as if she was a girl with a lot of spirit and enterprise. At her age—she’s nearly twenty-five—with plenty of money she could give herself a splendid time, travel and see the world, or take up some special work, there’s no end to what she might do. It’s what the girl of to-day’s always asking, freedom to live her own life, but I doubt if poor Be’trice’ll see it in that light. It’s the way she’s been brought up. If she’d been sent to a good school where she’d have got to know all sorts of girls, and got accustomed to the rough and tumble of life, instead of going about with a governess, for all the world like a cloistered nun. I’m sure Janie Dobie meant it for the best, but she didn’t show her usual good sense in bringing up her girl. She taught Be’trice to depend on her for everything—and now what’s to happen?”

* * * * *

Mrs. Dobie lay in her large, comfortable bedroom, surrounded with gifts from her many friends—flowers, books, baskets of fruit. It was the same room she had shared for fifteen years with her husband, and every day of the fifteen years she had wished in her heart that she could get rid of every article of furniture it contained. The first Mrs. Dobie had had a sombre taste in bedrooms, and everything was dark and heavy, and so good that there was no hope of its getting shabby in reasonable time.

His first wife had been a favourite topic with Joseph Dobie. Her portrait hung above the dining-room mantelpiece (a tall woman in a Liberty gown of olive green) and his eyes often sought it at meal-times while he recalled some instance of her philanthropic zeal. Indeed, so much was said of “Isabella’s” excellencies that her successor, half-irritated, half-amused, sometimes felt that it would have evened things a little had she had a first husband whose portrait she could have hung above the drawing-room mantelpiece and whose virtues she could have extolled. But, untroubled by jealousy, Janie Dobie bore no grudge to the dead women either for her excellencies or her taste in furniture; all the same when Joseph Dobie died she wasted no time in reforming her bedroom.

Ten happy years had followed. She enjoyed the importance that her position as Joseph Dobie’s widow gave her. In a small way she blossomed into a personage. Other women recognised in her the makings of a leader. When she spoke she was listened to. When some one was wanted to plead a cause, or preside at a function, Mrs. Dobie’s was often the name suggested. As one of her friends said: “Mrs. Dobie has both common sense and mother-wit, she’s easy to look at, and there’s a sort of cosy you-and-me-ness about the way she addresses people that puts any meeting in a good humour, and then—she’s a good woman.”

When first she realised she was ill Mrs. Dobie had been inclined to be resentful. She, the healthiest of women, who hardly knew what it meant to have a headache or a common cold, who had always pitied half-contemptuously her feebler sisters as they coughed and ached their way through a Glasgow winter! Why, she enjoyed the cold weather, she often said, and always began the winter with eagerness. Summer was all very well and it was delightful at Greenbraes, their house on the west-coast, but how exhilarating to get back to Glasgow in the end of September, back to all her friends and interests, back to a telephone that was always ringing—Mrs. Dobie: Mrs. Dobie; she seemed in request everywhere. Her engagement book was full, she dove-tailed engagements, she had rarely one hour all day to herself, and when people in wonder asked her how it was done, she would laugh, and say with perfect truth, “I like it!”

It was in June that she first began to feel that all was not well with her; she became conscious of a feeling of malaise, something quite intangible yet oddly compelling, and she told her friends that she was “run down,” and smiled wryly as she said it—that she should own to such a thing! And all her friends agreed that what she needed was a real rest. Mrs. Dobie worked far too hard, they said, put far too much of herself into everything she did; no wonder she was tired out. “What about a voyage?” they asked. She ought to get right away from every one and recuperate in new scenes.

Mrs. Dobie listened to them and appeared to be weighing the advantages of this scheme and that, but all the time she was saying to herself, “I won’t go anywhere; I’m too tired to start; all I need is to get into my own comfortable bed at Greenbraes and lie there till I’m rested.” But to her great disappointment she found that she was just as tired in bed.

In the middle of September she came back to the house in Park Place to be X-rayed, and when the result was known she asked only one, question. It was answered truthfully, and she began to set her house in order.

One day she was lying thinking over matters. Having always had a tidy mind and methodical ways she had not now to wrestle with a mass of things left in confusion, but there was some money of her own which she wanted to go where it would be most needed. Beatrice would have more than she could easily spend, the old servants were provided for, but Mrs. Dobie knew of several people to whom a hundred or two would make all the difference in life. She thought of them as she lay there propped up with pillows, and, reaching out to the table beside her for a pencil and block, wrote down some names and addresses.

There was that poor man George Clark with the delicate wife. He had come back from the War to find his little business ruined, and she had interested herself in him, and got him started again. He was working day and night to keep a footing: he deserved encouragement. And the boy with hip-joint disease whom she visited in his eyrie in a gloomy tenement near the river: the doctors said if he were kept in the country he might be cured. And Alice Wilson who had given her youth to an invalid mother, and for long years had kept herself with sewing, she was now in deadly fear that she would break down before she could claim the Old Age Pension—how good to set her free from anxiety. There were others, too . . . she would think of them later, and what was left would go to the Aged and Infirm Ministers’ Fund and the Indigent Gentlewomen.

It was with something of her old briskness that, having decided this, Mrs. Dobie laid down the pad and pencil. She had forgotten for the moment why she was doing it, and the realisation flooded over her like the shock of a cold wave. Surely it was impossible: she was only sixty. And such a young sixty! The obituary columns were full of people, eighty, ninety, even a hundred. Some one had said not so long ago that ninety now was what seventy used to be, and she had agreed and thought comfortably that she had a long way to go.

And had she not? Doctors were often mistaken; another might take quite a different view of the case, but even as she doubted something told her there had been no mistake. She had the sentence of death in her own body, that healthy body in which she had taken such pride, that had never let her down. . . . She looked round the room with a smile that was a little bitter. Carnations by the dozen, roses, violets, great curly chrysanthemums; so much money spent in these hard times. Well, she told herself, at least invalids were a blessing to the florist, to the chemist, to the doctor, if they were a weariness to themselves!

But how much she had to be thankful for. She was in her own house—that in itself was much; she had good nurses, a doctor she both liked and trusted, and if the days seemed long and the nights troubled and confused, the pain so far was not excessive and her mind was clear. There was really only one thing that worried her greatly, leaving Beatrice: and, lying there, heavy thoughts came to her about her girl. Always a timid, shrinking child, it had been her mother’s instinct to shelter her. But had she done right? Would it not have been better had she hardened her heart and sent the child to school, trusting that the society of other girls of her age would make her a normal, self-confident schoolgirl? One thing she could not regret, that Beatrice and she had been so much together, had meant so much to each other. As a baby she had never given Beatrice over to the rule of a nurse. Fairlie, good soul, had understood and had welcomed her mistress to the nursery at any time. Later, the governess, Miss Taylor (christened “poor Miss Taylor” after the adored instructress in Miss Austen’s Emma), had been content, when necessary, to be the shadowy third in the trio. What happy times they had had all learning together! The long motor tours through foreign countries, the winters in Rome and Florence, when pictures and churches were studied in leisurely manner and enjoyed, not gulped down like a nauseous dose.

Beatrice had loved every minute of those years. It was later, when they had settled down in Glasgow, Mrs. Dobie told herself, that the real mistake had been made. She herself had become so interested in public work that she had not realised what was happiness to her daughter. She should have seen to it that Beatrice was more with other young people, playing games with them, acting, dancing, interesting herself in Guides. But it was so difficult, for the child was bookishly inclined, shy, retiring; it was positive misery to her to be sent out with a laughing band of young people. Having lived her life in a middle-aged atmosphere she hardly seemed to speak the same language as her contemporaries, and certainly did not understand their jokes. She went to dances to please her mother, charmingly dressed and most willing to be pleasant, but she always returned from them with the same plea—couldn’t she stop going to dances? And she seemed so happy at home that the mother had weakly acquiesced, rather proud, perhaps, that she was so all-sufficient to her daughter, when other mothers complained that they hardly ever saw their girls.

But now—when Beatrice no longer had a mother, to whom could she turn? They had so few relations. Samuel, Beatrice’s step-brother in London, was the nearest. Mrs. Dobie had written to him when she realised that her illness was serious, and he had replied very kindly, saying that his house was always open to Beatrice, and he was sure that Betha his wife would do everything she could for her. But Janie Dobie’s heart was not at rest, and as she lay there the tears she would have scorned to shed for herself flowed for her daughter.

The days passed, and the disease which for a time had seemed quiescent now began to develop rapidly. Mrs. Dobie found it difficult to avoid showing her suffering and she tried to arrange, with the help of the nurses, that Beatrice should be as little as possible in the sickroom. But Beatrice was not to be kept out.

“Your Mamma,” said the night-nurse, who was middle-aged and Victorian, “thinks it isn’t good for you to sit so much with her. She’s happier when she knows you’re out taking the air.”

“The air can wait,” said Beatrice. “As if I wouldn’t a hundred times rather be in her room than anywhere else!”

Beatrice was in the habit of reading the newspapers to her mother—the Glasgow Herald and the Bulletin in the morning, The Times when it came in later, but one evening when she was about to begin as usual the patient said:

“I think we won’t bother with The Times to-night; I want to talk to you, darling.”

There was a pause while she rallied her failing strength—then, “Beatrice,” she said, “we must think what you are to do. . . . I’m not getting better. No,” as the girl protested, “one knows oneself, and my mind would be easier if we decided on a plan. . . . Would you care to stay on in Glasgow? This house and the furniture go to Samuel; Greenbraes is yours—but you never cared much for Greenbraes; besides, it’s too lonely in winter. We have so few relatives; no one who could come and live with you. . . . What do you think of going to London with Samuel? I know . . . I know . . . we’ve got out of touch with Betha—I blame myself for that. I was too taken up with the work I was trying to do; I neglected your interests. Forgive me, darling.”

“Forgive!” said Beatrice, staring at her mother with misery in her eyes. How small and grey her face had grown even in the last few days. Other people’s mothers, she thought resentfully, went on living to any old age. And her mother had been like a girl, almost; a big happy girl, with her rosy face unlined, her brown hair with hardly a grey thread, her erect carriage. It had been so delightful to have a mother who did the work and the talking, leaving her to dream. Beatrice quite realised that she was an anomaly in this age of competent young women. She liked to look on at life, and the very thought of driving a car, or gliding, or indeed doing anything on her own, terrified her. But what was to happen to her if she lost her bulwark? If this mother so big and strong and dear was going to leave her she was lost indeed—But this was not a time to think of her own plight; she must try to calm her mother’s fears.

Janie Dobie had drifted away for a minute in a half doze, and when she opened her eyes Beatrice was smiling at her.

“You’re not to worry about me, Motherkin. What you’ve got to do is to set your mind on getting well. Here comes Nurse to get you ready for the night. While she’s removing the flowers—how many offerings to-day, Nurse? Oh, film stars haven’t a look in with you, my dear—let me smooth your forehead and perhaps it will make you more inclined to sleep. When I used to get hot and nervous and off my sleep, you would come up after dinner to the night nursery and stroke my hair, and sing Rothesay Bay until I forgot all my troubles. Do you remember?”

The girl lay on the bed with her left arm under her mother’s head while with her right hand she softly stroked her brow, and the nurse walked backwards and forwards, carrying out the flowers to a table on the landing.

When she had tidied the room and put on a “standing” fire, she came to the bed with a basin of water and a sponge to freshen her patient before she began another night. Beatrice slipped carefully from the bed and bent and kissed her mother. “Good-night, precious. If you’re not sleeping let me come and have a cup of tea with you. May I, Nurse? I often wake about two and lie for an hour or so.”

“You’re too young to lie awake,” her mother told her. “Shut your door to-night and never give a thought to me till morning. We have very comfortable nights, haven’t we, Nurse? Run away now, dear, and listen to the wireless. Have you an interesting book? Good-night, good-night.”

The nurse looked after the girl.

“It’s lonely for Miss Dobie,” she said. “I was one of six myself.”

“Have you sisters? Three. How rich you are. If only my girl had a sister!”

“Yes,” said the nurse, “it would make a difference. Not,” she added, “that my sisters have ever done anything for me. We had all to go out and fend for ourselves, earn a living the best way we could. But we like well enough to meet at a time; blood does count for something. Is that comfortable? There’s quite a touch of frost in the air to-night: I hope it doesn’t bring the fog.”

She turned off the lights and went in to the dressing-room to arrange things as she wanted them for the night. The servants had brought her up sandwiches and cake, and she had a kettle and teapot and little pan, so could make tea or heat soup when she pleased. She was sorry for the handsome, kindly woman who lay dying next door; sorry, too, for the girl who would soon be left alone, but she had a comfortable chair, a good fire, an exciting book, and some of her favourite chocolates, so life at the moment, she told herself, wasn’t too bad.

* * * * *

Mrs. Dobie lay still, watching the firelight, till a sound made her raise her head.

Fog on the river!

How often she had lain in bed and heard through the misty night the hoarse hooting of some ship. It had always given her a vaguely excited feeling . . . ships bound for far-away ports going down the Clyde; stars hanging like lamps in tropical skies; life; adventure; wonderful things she was missing.

Again from the river came the distant sound.

The sick woman heard it, but the drug she had been given was taking effect, and she only thought drowsily that everything was going on—ships sailing, men working, boys and girls rejoicing in their youth. . . . What was it she had to think of? Beatrice—she must plan for Beatrice. But she was so tired, too tired to plan, too tired to pray, almost too tired to care. . . . “Surely” she thought, as she turned her head on the pillow, “surely some one will take her by the hand. . . .” Then she slept.