Penny Plain Part 14

"She and Mawson have become fast friends. Mawson has asked Bella to call her Winifred, and she calls Miss Bathgate 'Beller.'

"Miss Bathgate spends any leisure moments she has in doing long strips of crochet, which eventually become a bedspread, and considers it a waste of time to read anything but the Bible, the _Scotsman_ and the _Missionary Magazine_ (she is very keen on Foreign Missions), but she doesn't object to listening to Mawson's garbled accounts of the books she reads. I sometimes overhear their conversations as they sit together by the kitchen fire in the long evenings.

"'And,' says Mawson, describing some lurid work of fiction, 'Evangeline was left shut up in the picture-gallery of the 'ouse.'

"'D'ye mean to tell me hooses hev picture-galleries?' says Bella.

"'Course they 'ave--all big 'ouses.'

"'Juist like the Campbell Inst.i.tution--sic a bother it must be to dust!'

"'Well,' Mawson goes on, 'Evangeline finds 'er h'eyes attracted--'

"Again Bella interrupts. 'Wha was Evangeline? I forget aboot her.'

"'Oh, don't you remember? The golden-'aired 'eroine with vilet eyes.'

"'I mind her noo. The yin wi' the black hair was the bad yin.'

"'Yes, she was called 'Ermione. Well, Evangeline finds 'er h'eyes attracted to the picture of a man dressed like a cavalier.'

"'What's that?'

"'I don't rightly know,' Mawson confesses. 'Kind of a fancy dress, I believe, but anyway 'er h'eyes were attracted to the picture, and as she fixed 'er h'eyes on it the _h'eyes in the picture_ moved.'

"'Oh, murder!' says Bella, much thrilled.

"'You may say it. Murder it was, h'attempted murder, I should say, for of course it would never do to murder the vilet-h'eyed 'eroine. As it 'appened ...' and so on ...

"One of the three months gone! Perhaps at the beginning of the year I shall have had more than enough of it, and go gladly back to the fleshpots of Egypt and the Politician.

"It is a dear thing a little town, 'a lovesome thing, G.o.d wot,' and Priorsford is the pick of all little towns. I love the shops and the kind, interested way the shopkeepers serve one: I have shopped in most European cities, but I never realised the full delight of shopping till I came to Priorsford. You can't think what fun it is to order in all your own meals, to decide whether you will have a 'finnan-haddie' or a 'kipper' for breakfast--much more exciting than ordering a ball gown.

"I love the river, and the wide bridge, and the old castle keeping watch and ward, and the _pends_ through which you catch sudden glimpses of the solemn round-backed hills. And most of all I love the lights that twinkle out in the early darkness, every light meaning a little home, and a warm fireside and kindly people round it.

"To live, as you and I have done all our lives, in houses where all the difficulties of life are kept in oblivion, and existence runs on well-oiled wheels is very pleasant, doubtless, but one misses a lot. I love the _nearness_ of Hillview, to hear Mawson and B.B. converse in the kitchen, to smell (this is the most comfortable and homely smell) the ironing of clean clothes, and to know (also by the sense of smell) what I am going to have for dinner hours before it comes.

"Of course you will say, and probably with truth, that what I enjoy is the _newness_ of it, that if I knew that my life would be spent in such surroundings I would be profoundly dissatisfied.

"I dare say. But in the meantime I am happy--happy in a contented, quiet way that I never knew before.

"It is strange that our old friend Lewis Elliot is living near Priorsford, at a place called Laverlaw, about five miles up Tweed from here. Do you remember what good times we used to have with him when he came to stay with the Greys? That must be more than twenty years ago--you were a little boy and I was a wild colt of a girl. I don't think you have ever seen much of him since, but I saw a lot of him in London when I first came out. Then he vanished. Some years ago his uncle died and he inherited Laverlaw. He came to see me the other day, not a bit changed, the same dreamy, unambitious creature--rather an angel. I sometimes wonder if little Jean will one day go to Laverlaw. It would be very nice and fairy-tale-is.h.!.+"

CHAPTER X

"You that are old," Falstaff reminds the Chief Justice, "consider not the capacities of us that are young."

One afternoon Jean called for Pamela to take her to see Mrs. Hope.

It was a clear, blue-and-white day, with clouds scudding across the sky, and a cold, whistling wind that blew the fallen leaves along the dry roads--a day that made people walk smartly and gave the children apple-red cheeks and tangled curls.

Mhor and Peter were seated on The Rigs garden wall as Pamela and Jean came out of Hillview gate. Peter wagged his tail in recognition, but Mhor made no sign of having seen his sister and her friend.

"Aren't you cold up there?" Pamela asked him.

"Very cold," said Mhor, "but we can't come down. We're on sentry duty on the city wall till sundown," and he shaded his eyes with his hand and pretended to peer into s.p.a.ce for lurking foes.

Peter looked wistfully up at him and hunched himself against the scratched bare knees now blue with cold.

"When the sun touches the top of West Law," said Jean, pointing to a distant blue peak, "it has set. See--there.... Now run in, sonny, and tell Mrs. M'Cosh to let you have some currant-loaf for tea. Pamela and I are going to tea at Hopetoun."

"Aw," said Mhor, "I hate when you go out to tea. So does Jock. So does Peter. Look out! I'm going to jump."

He jumped and fell prostrate, barking his chin, but no howl came from him, and he picked himself up with dignity, merely asking for the loan of a handkerchief, his own "useful little hanky," as he explained, having been used to mop up a spilt ink-bottle.

Fortunately Jean had a spare handkerchief, and Pamela promised that on her return he should have a reel of sticking-plaster for his own use, so, battered but content, he returned to the house, Peter remaining behind to investigate a mole-heap.

"What a cheery day for November," Pamela remarked as they took the road by Tweedside. "Look at that beech tree against the blue sky, every black twig silhouetted. Trees are wonderful in winter."

"Trees are wonderful always," said Jean. "'Solomon spake of trees'--I do wonder what he said. I suppose it would be the cedars of Lebanon he 'spake' of, and the hyssop that grows in the walls, and sycamores, but he would have been worth hearing on a rowan tree flaming red against a blue September sky. Look at that newly ploughed field so softly brown, and the faded gold of the beech hedge. November _is_ a cheery time. The only depressing time of the year to me is when the swallows go away. I can't bear to see them wheeling round and preparing to depart. I want so badly to go with them. It always brings back to me the feeling I had as a child when people read Hans Andersen to me--the storks in _The Marsh King's Daughter_, talking about the mud in Egypt. Imagine Priorsford swallows in Egypt!... As the song says:

"'It's dowie at the hint o' hair'st At the way-gaun o' the swallow.'"

"What a lovely sound Lowland Scots has," said Pamela. "I like to hear you speak it. Tell me about Mrs. Hope, Jean. I do hope we shall see her alone. I don't like Priorsford tea-parties; they are rather like a foretaste of eternal punishment. With no choice you are dumped down beside the most irrelevant sort of person, and there you remain. I went to return Mrs. Duff-Whalley's call the other day, and fell into one.

Before I could retreat I was wedged into a chair beside a woman whom I hope I shall never see again. She was one of those bleak people who make the thought of getting up in the morning and dressing quite insupportable. I don't think there was a detail in her domestic life that she didn't touch on. She told me all her husband could eat and couldn't eat; she called her children 'little tots,' and said she couldn't get so much as a 'serviette' washed in the house. I thought n.o.body talked of serviettes outside Wells and Arnold Bennett. Mrs.

Duff-Whalley rescued me in the nick of time before I could do anything desperate, and then _she_ cross-examined me as to my reasons for coming to Priorsford."

Jean laughed. "What a cheery afternoon! But it will be all right to-day.

Mrs. Hope never sees more than one or two people at a time. She is pretty old, you see, and frail, though she has such an extraordinary gift of being young. I do hope you will like each other. She has an edge to her tongue, but she is an incomparable friend. The poor people go to her in flocks, and she scolds them roundly, but always knows how to help them in the only wise way. Her people have been in Priorsford for ages; she knows every soul in the place, and is vastly amused at all the little sn.o.bberies that abound in a small town. But she laughs kindly.

Pretentious people are afraid of her; simple people love her."

"Am I simple, Jean?"

Jean laughed and refused to give an opinion on the subject, beyond quoting the words of Autolycus--"How blessed are we that are not simple men."

They were in the Hopetoun Woods now, and at the end of the avenue could see the house standing on a knoll by the river, whitewashed, dignified, home-like.

"Talk to Mrs. Hope about the view," Jean advised "She is as proud of the Hopetoun Woods as if she had made them. Isn't it a nice place? Old and proud and honourable--like Mrs. Hope herself."

"Are there sons to inherit?"

Jean shook her head. "There were three sons. Mrs. Hope hardly ever talks about them, but I've seen their photographs, and of course I have often been told about them--by Great-aunt Alison, and others--and heard how they died. They were very clever and good-looking and well-liked--the kind of sons mothers are very proud of, and they all died imperially, if that is an expression to use. Two died in India, one--a soldier--in one of the Frontier skirmishes: the other--an I.C.S.

man--from over-working in a famine-stricken district. The youngest fell in the Boer War ... so you see Mrs. Hope has the right to be proud. Aunt Alison used to tell me that she made no moan over her wonderful sons.

She shut herself up for a short time, and then faced the world again, her kindly, sharp-tongued self. She is one of those splendid people who take the slings and arrows thrown at them by outrageous fortune and bury them deep in their hearts and go on, still able to laugh, still able to take an interest. Only, you mustn't speak to her of what she has lost.