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Title: The Day of Small Things
Author: Buchan, Anna Masterton [Douglas, O.] (1877-1948)
Date of first publication: 1930
Edition used as base for this ebook:
London: Hodder and Stoughton, November 1934
[sixth printing]
Date first posted: 13 March 2017
Date last updated: 13 March 2017
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1411

This ebook was produced by Marcia Brooks, Alex White, Al Haines,
Mark Akrigg & the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.






                                  THE
                          DAY OF SMALL THINGS

                                  _By_
                               O. DOUGLAS

              _Who hath despised the day of small things?_
                           ZECHARIAH, iv. 10.





                                TO ALICE

                               WITH LOVE




                               CHAPTER I


                                           '_Every neighbourhood should_
                                                   _have a Great Lady._'
                                                            JANE AUSTEN.

Mrs. Heggie had a cold which, she felt, might easily go into bronchitis
if she were not careful, and the day was wet, one of those dripping
October days when it is really too close for a fire, but miserably
cheerless without one, a day when polished furniture looks smeared, and
everything feels sticky to the touch.

Mrs. Heggie stood in the window of the drawing-room in Knebworth,
Kirkmeikle, and looked out at fallen leaves on which the steady rain
pattered, at the red tiles of the houses clinging to the brae face
beneath her, at the grey sea with the grey sky resting on it.

Surely, she thought, it was a very long afternoon; only half-past three
now, and it seemed half a day since luncheon.

A pile of books lay on a table and she took up one which had an
attractive paper cover, but after reading half a dozen pages without
getting an inkling what the story was about she gave it up in despair,
and wondering ruefully why every one nowadays was so clever, she lifted
a newly launched illustrated magazine for women. After looking through
the recipes, she began a story with a promising title, but before she
could get interested in it she had lost it, and it was too much trouble
to track the rest of it to its hiding-place among advertisements of
tinned fruits, the latest electric cleaners, and cures for all ills that
flesh is heir to--_Epilepsy and its Treatment_; _My Life was made a
Burden with Superfluous Hair_; _Healthy Legs for All_.

Answers to correspondents on the subject of health next caught her eye,
and she read several. Some were interesting: the delicate child with the
cough (how stupid not to advise the mother to give it cod-liver oil,
_not_ emulsion but the old-fashioned pure oil!): the lady of thirty-two
whose circulation was so bad that her fingers went dead; and the husband
afflicted with nightmares. Odd to write to a paper about one's
ailments!... This woman sounded rather like herself: inclined to be
stout; sixty years of age; acidity; throbbing in the head.... What did
they say to the poor body? _Advised to seek at once the advice of a
qualified medical man._

Mrs. Heggie moved uneasily in her chair. She was not sure that she felt
quite well. Certainly she did have some odd sensations at times,
especially if she had eaten unwisely. Pork, for instance.... Of
course, a little indigestion was nothing: but _was_ it indigestion? 'A
qualified medical man.' In her case that was Dr. Kilgour. She wished he
was not so terribly bracing. He would come in like a blast of east wind,
and before she knew where she was, blow her off to a Nursing Home for an
operation.

Well----. Mrs. Heggie braced herself up. It was best to face the worst.
Almost every one sooner or later had an operation. And wasn't there a
Nursing Home just started in Langtoun? Somebody had spoken of it--yes,
Mrs. Stark. She had said in her definite way, 'My dear, I _enjoyed_ my
illness. I simply wouldn't have dared to be ill in my own house--I can
see the faces of my domestics!--but in this Home I was made to feel
important; a victor. It's a doctor's widow that runs it--a Mrs. Pirrie,
and she is both kind and capable; superintends everything herself. The
cooking and service leave nothing to be desired. A perfect bed, good
home-made food, a fresh rose on your breakfast-tray--what more could you
ask? Oh, I assure you, I stayed on much longer than was necessary simply
because I was happy.'

It had certainly sounded attractive as described by Mrs. Stark.
Convalescence in the Langtoun Home (supposing you were spared to
convalescence) might be rather pleasant. Friends coming in with flowers
and gossip, nurses always about, nice chats with the doctor's widow.
Certainly much more lively than sitting alone in Knebworth with a
cold!... If only some one would come to call, but she could think of no
one who was likely to pay her a visit. Joan was locked into her room
writing poetry. Not that Joan was much use as a conversationalist; she
scorned to talk of people, and her mother cared to talk of nothing else.
It was unfortunate, Mrs. Heggie couldn't help thinking, that Joan was so
circumscribed. It was possible, surely, to care for poetry and art and
yet enjoy a comfortable gossip. There was Nicole Rutherfurd. She was
cultured enough, and yet who was more delightful to tell things to? Her
air of breathless interest was most inspiring, and then she was so
willing to laugh! Mrs. Heggie smiled to herself remembering that laugh,
and thought what a blessing it was that the Rutherfurds would soon be
back at the Harbour House. That very morning, in Mitchell the baker's,
she had seen Agnes Martin, the Rutherfurds' cook, who had said they were
expected directly....

Another hour till tea! If only some one would come in, even a collector
would be better than nothing.

She went again to the window. The rain still slanted down; a long spray
of creeper had been dislodged and hung down in a disreputable way; the
chrysanthemums that yesterday had stood up so gallantly were battered
and spoiled; the leaves were all over the lawn and----What was that
stopping at the gate? The baker's cart most likely, or a van from
Langtoun. Peering through the rain-dimmed pane, Mrs. Heggie was
surprised and excited to see that it was a car, out of which was
stepping a lady in a blue leather coat. A visitor!

Mrs. Heggie moved as swiftly as her bulk would allow, to the bell.

'Bella,' she said breathlessly when the parlour-maid appeared, 'a motor
has stopped. Bring tea in about a quarter of an hour and see that
everything is very nice. Hot toast and the best silver.... There's
the bell.'

All expectation, Mrs. Heggie seated herself in a high chair, and
presently 'Mrs. Jameson' was announced, and following her name came a
woman of about five-and-thirty, with alert grey eyes under a becoming
blue hat.

'Oh,' said her hostess, 'Mrs. _Jameson_! And on _such_ a day!'

As an oasis to a traveller in the desert so was this visitor to Mrs.
Heggie. A newcomer to the district, the purchaser of Windywalls--here
was new country to explore! She beamed and repeated, 'On _such_ a day!'
as she drew forward a chair.

But the visitor would not be pitied.

'Oh,' she said, 'it looks worse than it is, and it's the best sort of
day to find people in. I was sorry to miss you when you called at
Windywalls.'

'Not at all,' said Mrs. Heggie, wondering how long Mrs. Jameson had been
a widow. With her gay colours and cheerful voice she was strikingly
unlike anything of the kind. Widows as she knew them were subdued
things, black or grey or purple; by their demeanour reminding the world
of what they had lost. She herself had never got beyond a little grey or
white in her hat, although her James had been gone fully ten years....
Still, this was a comparatively young woman, times were changing,
and it did not do to be narrow-minded.... 'And how do you think
you're going to like this part of the world? Perhaps you have some
connection with it?'

Mrs. Jameson, smiling pleasantly, shook her head.

'No. I heard by chance of Windywalls, and when I saw it I liked it, and
here I am.'

There were a hundred questions on the tip of Mrs. Heggie's tongue. It
was almost more than she could do to bite them back and merely remark,
'Indeed! Perhaps you play golf?'

'I play, but I'm not much good. No, I didn't come for the sake of golf.
I came because I like the country, and quiet, and a garden, and a sight
of the sea.'

'Oh,' said Mrs. Heggie, and added brightly, 'and pleasant neighbours.
With me it's always more the people than the place.'

The visitor nodded. 'Neighbours certainly count,' she admitted, 'tell me
about the people here. I know no one, for I always seem to be out of
reach when callers come, and yours is the first call I've returned. I'd
be grateful if you'd put me wise about the neighbourhood?'

Mrs. Heggie sat forward in her chair, her broad face beaming, all gloomy
fears were banished; here was a task that her soul loved.

'Tell you about the people? Certainly I will, but--I hardly know where
to begin.'

'Mayn't we begin where we are? What a pretty house this is! Do you live
alone?'

'With my daughter Joan.' She looked deprecatingly at her visitor as she
continued: 'It seems absurd with me for a mother, but Joan writes
poetry. Yes, she's had one little volume published, and people who know
say it's good, but I'm no judge. The only one I could understand Joan
said was poor. Her father, too, was so unlike anything of the kind. He
liked what you might call the practical side of life, and I doubt if he
knew a line of poetry, but you never really know what a family's going
to take to. There's my son George out in China---- But I mustn't wander
away. We were to talk of our neighbours.... Haven't you met _any
one_? Not even the minister?'

'Not even the minister. Ought I to have made a point of seeing him
first?... I dare say I might have seen callers if I hadn't been so
keen to get things on in the garden before the winter's upon us. I'm
afraid I didn't encourage the servants to come and look for me.'

Mrs. Jameson leant back in her chair and smiled at her hostess, who
opened surprised blue eyes as she asked, 'But didn't you _want_ to see
callers? I'd have thought you would have been so interested.... Have
your nearest neighbours called, the Erskines of Queensbarns? They have?
They've made a fine place of Queensbarns, and of course they've heaps of
money to keep it up. There are two girls, and they entertain a lot and
go to London and the Riviera and all that. I remember the Erskines as
quite plain people in Langtoun--I forget whether it was linoleum or
jute--but they not only know how to make money but how to spend it, and
nobody worries that Mr. Erskine's father began at the foot of the
ladder--why should they?... Then the Fentons, Sir Robert and Lady
Fenton.... They have called too? They are one of the real old
families, there have always been Fentons at Balgowrie. The present
people are very pleasant, I believe; quite young and given over to
pleasure. If they're not in London dancing at night-clubs, they're at Le
Touquet or the Lido or one of those places. I constantly see their names
in the papers, and pictures of them in _The Tatler_.... Eh well,
they're young and idle, and Lady Fenton is pretty in the new way.'

Esm Jameson raised enquiring eyebrows, and Mrs. Heggie explained.

'No hair to speak of, and long thin legs, and an unlikely
complexion--_you_ know. I suppose it's the way I was brought up, but it
fairly frightens me to see people given over entirely to frivolity,
never giving a thought to their latter end. Joan says I'm so
middle-class. I am, of course. It says in the Bible, _Not many great,
not many noble_, so it looks as if Heaven was to be more or less
middle-class, and that's a little disappointing too.--Oh, here comes
tea! Nearer the window, I think, Bella, away from the fire.... We
need all the light we can get this dark day, and the fire is almost
oppressive, don't you think so, Mrs. Jameson?... Now, are you quite
comfortable there? I'm so glad to have a visitor; it's more than I
expected--neither sugar nor cream?--for the Bucklers next door are in
Edinburgh, and the people in Ravenscraig have influenza in the house,
and the Lamberts--the minister's people--have chicken-pox, and the
Harbour House is still shut up, and...'

Mrs. Jameson held out a protesting hand. 'Oh, but you're going much too
fast. Do, please, stop and explain as you go along who is who.'

Mrs. Heggie laughed comfortably. 'To be sure they're only names to you.
Well--now, do help yourself--the Bucklers live in the next house,
Lucknow. There are three houses you would notice, on the hill, Lucknow,
Knebworth, and Ravenscraig. Mr. Buckler is a retired Indian Civilian,
and very nice neighbours they are. They had some money left them not
long ago, and are very comfortable. A son and daughter just grown up.
They go to Switzerland for winter sports.'

'That sounds very pleasant.'

'Quite. On the other side is Ravenscraig. It belongs to a Miss
Symington--now Mrs. Samuel Innes. That was a very odd thing.'

Mrs. Heggie stopped and looked thoughtfully into the fire, and Esm
Jameson studying the tightly corseted figure sitting on the edge of a
high chair, wondered at the impression of steepness that she gave.

'Yes, if any one appeared to be intended by Providence for a spinster it
was she. An angular eight-and-forty with long skirts, and buttoning
boots, without conversation, and as dull as ditch-water, that was Miss
Symington.'

'Sounds pretty hopeless.'

'Hopeless! If you had seen her--. Till one day she suddenly appeared a
changed woman. The stretched-back hair loosened and waved, the ugly
clothes replaced by soft pretty things; and not only herself but the
whole house transformed. For all the world it was like nothing so much
as the fairy-tale where the godmother turns the pumpkin into a coach and
the kitchen-maid into a princess!'

'_Dear_ me,' said Mrs. Jameson, 'and who waved the wand?'

Her hostess nodded her head mysteriously.

'Miss Nicole,' she said. 'But of course you don't know who she is
either. It's a long story,' she added happily.

'Tell me.'

And Mrs. Heggie told.

'Three years ago at this very time we heard that the Harbour House had
been taken. You've been down to the Harbour? Then you would notice a
house standing broadside on?'

'Oh,' Esm Jameson laid down her cup. '_That_ house, with the pointed
roof and the crow-step gables and the nine windows looking on to the
sea? A lamb of a house. I wondered who was lucky enough to live there.'

'That's it. Not exactly a house for ordinary people. Most of us would
object to being so near the sea, and the fishy smell, and living
cheek-by-jowl with the poor folk--villas suit us better. But the Harbour
House has always belonged to gentlefolk. Mrs. Swinton, who used to live
in it, was connected with all the old Fife families. I didn't know her.
She didn't call when he built Knebworth and came to live in Kirkmeikle,
indeed she called on no one in the place, she was a lonely, proud old
woman, and there were few to mourn her when she died.... When I heard
the house had been taken by Lady Jane Rutherfurd I expected it would be
the same thing, only more so, but we were neighbours in a way, so I
risked a snub and called. I got no one in, and I thought probably a card
would be left in return and that would be all I would ever know about
the Harbour House, but a few days later I was sitting here alone, Joan
was out somewhere, and who should arrive but Lady Jane Rutherfurd and
her daughter Nicole.'

There was an impressive pause, and Mrs. Jameson felt she was sipping her
tea in a sacramental way, then Mrs. Heggie continued: 'Before that
Kirkmeikle had been the dullest little place. I really sometimes
wondered if I could stand it: just Miss Symington and the Bucklers, the
Lamberts, and Dr. Kilgour and his sister, none of them what you might
call given to hospitality. I used sometimes to say to Joan we could
hardly have chosen a _less_ sociable place to settle in. She didn't
care; a fountain-pen and an armful of books satisfy her, but I do like a
little society.'

'But round about Kirkmeikle there are people,' Mrs. Jameson reminded
her.

'Yes, oh yes, but it wouldn't occur to them to call on us. Not that
we're not perfectly respectable people. My father was a doctor, and my
husband was a linen manufacturer who left me very comfortably provided
for, but then, you see, I'm middle-class inside me, and that seems to be
about the worst thing you can be in these days. Joan flings the word at
me when I venture remarks about her friends' new ways, or the books she
reads. I think Joan is what you call Bohemian, or at least would like to
be, and my middle-classness stands in the way.'

Mrs. Heggie stopped to sigh, and Esm Jameson had a vision of a
gathering of Bright Young People with, in their midst, sitting steeply,
the large figure of her hostess, white frilling framing her rosy face,
her child-like blue eyes looking out on life surprised and puzzled.

'It's like this,' Mrs. Heggie went on, 'if you're to stand out in a
district and make people aware of you, it's not enough to be comfortably
off and willing to entertain. You've either got to be spectacularly
rich, or else out-of-the-way clever and amusing. People like the
Fentons, for instance, have no use for me. I can imagine them saying,
"Mrs. Heggie, who is she? Lives in a villa in Kirkmeikle? Oh"--and
that's enough of me.... Oh, you needn't think I mind. I quite
understand their attitude, but it made it all the more wonderful when
Lady Jane came and made a friend of me. Yes, that's what she did, and
not only of me but of almost every one in the place. She drew us all
together, she and Miss Nicole, and...'

'But, but...' Mrs. Jameson was obviously puzzled. 'Why is Lady Jane
here at all? The Rutherfurds are Border people, and...'

'Oh, I know--' this was Mrs. Heggie's story and she could brook no
interference, 'but Rutherfurd had to be sold--Glasgow people called
Jackson bought it--and Lady Jane and her daughter and niece took the
Harbour House. Of course in a way it was a terrible comedown, and no one
could have blamed them if they had kept theirselves to theirselves, and
simply never looked at any of us; indeed it was no more than we
expected.'

Mrs. Heggie held out her hand for the visitor's cup, filled it,
indicated the cake, and proceeded.

'It isn't, you know, as if the Rutherfurds weren't the real thing. Lady
Jane's father was the Earl of Elleston and her mother was a duke's
daughter; her husband's people were in Rutherfurd long before
Flodden--or was it Bannockburn? I'm awfully unsure about dates--yet Lady
Jane sits and talks to me as if I were her kin.'

'Quite,' said Mrs. Jameson, remembering with an inward spasm of laughter
the lines:

                'There never was a king like Solomon
                Not since the world began;
                Yet Solomon talked to a butterfly
                As a man would talk to a man...'

'And this Miss Nicole,' she said, 'is she young and beautiful?'

'Seven-and-twenty,' said Mrs. Heggie promptly; 'she told me so herself.
_I_ think she is lovely. I've seen better features, more regular anyway,
but there's such a sparkle about her, such a--I don't know the right
word to describe her, but she seems to light up a room: that sort of
person.'

'I see. And the niece, is she also very attractive?'

'Oh, she's quite nice. She doesn't live any longer at the Harbour House.
She married young Mr. Jackson and reigns at Rutherfurd in Lady Jane's
place.'

There was a note of resentment in the speaker's voice that made Mrs.
Jameson say:

'That was surely bad management. It would have been much more suitable
if Miss Nicole had gone back to Rutherfurd.'

Mrs. Heggie nodded. 'So we all thought, but Providence has His own ways
of managing, and it was Barbara Burt that was the chosen one.... But
I'm told she makes an excellent wife, and now there's an heir, so I dare
say it's all for the best.'

In spite of her acquiescence in the ruling of Providence Mrs. Heggie
looked profoundly dissatisfied, and presently she said:

'I'm very sure if Andrew Jackson had only seen Miss Nicole first he
would never have looked at her cousin, but he and Miss Burt were as good
as engaged before he ever set eyes on her. Anyway, I don't believe Miss
Nicole would have taken him.... There was a young man living in
Kirkmeikle when the Rutherfurds came--Simon Beckett; you may have heard
of him? He died in the Everest Expedition. Well, of course I don't know
and I would never think of asking, but he was never away from the
Harbour House that first winter. I didn't see the Rutherfurds after the
news came of his death, they were just going away for some months. When
they came back Miss Nicole was as gay as ever, but I just sometimes
wonder...'

The door opened and she turned her head.

'Oh, Joan! Mrs. Jameson, this is my daughter.' Then, brightly, 'Wasn't
it good of Mrs. Jameson, Joan, to come out this stormy day to cheer us
up?'

Joan shook hands gravely, not committing herself to any opinion about
the visitor's goodness. She was a sallow-faced creature with a rather
unkempt-looking shingled head. It was difficult to understand why such a
fresh-faced mother should have produced such a dingy daughter. Taking
the cup of tea handed to her, she sat down and began to eat bread and
butter, while her mother tried with her eyes to remind her that there
was such a thing as social obligations.

'Joan,' she said at last, 'you know that Mrs. Jameson has taken
Windywalls? I've been telling her all about her new neighbours.'

'You would enjoy doing that,' said Joan dryly.

'I certainly have enjoyed hearing,' Mrs. Jameson broke in. 'It seems to
me that I've been guided to a really interesting neighbourhood.'

'_Interesting?_' Joan's voice expressed amazement.

'Well--isn't the lady who suddenly transformed both herself and her
house rather unusual? And the inhabitants of the Harbour House?'

'Oh, the Rutherfurds! You'll be tired of hearing of the Rutherfurds
before long. But it's not their fault that the world is full of snobs.'

Mrs. Heggie protested. 'It's not snobbishness, Joan, that makes every
one like Lady Jane and her daughter.'

'Isn't it?' Joan took another bit of bread and butter.

'It's just that we can't help it,' her mother went on. 'There's
something in Lady Jane's sweet, sad face and her gentle ways.... I'm
sure Mrs. Jameson will feel the same.'

'I'm sure I shall--if I ever get to know them. Did you say they are away
just now?'

'Expected home any day,' Mrs. Heggie said with great satisfaction. 'And
time too; they've been away three months.'

'Kirkmeikle,' said Joan, 'will live again.'

'No, but really,' Esm Jameson was leaning forward in her chair, 'do
they make so much difference to the place, these Rutherfurds?'

Joan nodded. 'Absurd as it sounds, they do. And not only to my mother
and the other villa-dwellers, but to the shop people and the cottagers.'

'I told you,' Mrs. Heggie broke in, 'I told you that before they came we
were a dull, detached little community, and the Rutherfurds seemed to
link us all together in some strange way. They showed us to each other
in a new light so that we all became better friends. And they do things,
take on responsibilities that no one else would dream of--You know,
Joan, little Alastair Symington--. The nephew, Mrs. Jameson, of Miss
Symington who transformed herself and her house and married at
forty-eight. I don't believe she ever cared for the child, she couldn't
have, when she was willing to give him up. When she was going to be
married and it was obvious that she felt him in the way, what d'you
suppose happened? Lady Jane took the boy, adopted him legally, I
suppose, but I never ask questions. You see, she lost both her sons in
the War, so her heart is soft to wee boys. Alastair was a white-faced,
suppressed little fellow, always dressed in too large overcoats, and now
you would hardly know him for the same boy. And they adore him, Lady
Jane and Miss Nicole.'

Mrs. Jameson laughed. 'I don't blame them. There is something terribly
appealing about a little boy in a too large overcoat.... Well, I must
go. I've greatly enjoyed my first call. Will you please come soon to
Windywalls and let me show you all I've been doing. You will tell me if
you think it's improved--or spoiled?'

'But I've never been inside the house at Windywalls,' said Mrs. Heggie.
'The Drysdales didn't call on us when we built this house. And, indeed,
I don't think I'd have summoned up courage to call on you, if it hadn't
been that knowing the Rutherfurds sort of gave me self-confidence--Yes,
Joan, it's quite true, you needn't laugh.'

'Then,' said Esm Jameson, 'I'm already one of the people who have
reason to be grateful to the Rutherfurds. But do let's fix a day now for
you to come so that I shan't miss you. It's particularly pleasant to me
to have a place to ask people to; I've been out in Kenya, and wandering
about looking for some place to settle for years.... But if I don't
go now you'll never ask me back.'

'Indeed,' Mrs. Heggie assured her, 'I've been more than glad of your
company. I don't know how it is, but I seem to need people. Sitting here
alone this afternoon with the rain falling I'd begun to feel quite ill;
I actually had thought myself into a pain and saw myself taken off to a
Nursing Home! And you just put me right.... Now, when you come into
Kirkmeikle there's always a welcome here. Lunch at 1.15, tea at 4.30.
You'll remember that?'

She patted her visitor's hand, remembering that she was a widow and
young and alone. 'Good-bye, and may you find happiness in your new home.
Better button up your coat before you leave the room. I'd come out to
see you off but I've got a touch of cold on my chest.'

Joan came in from speeding the parting guest, and stood with her back to
the fire watching the servant removing the tea-things.

'You've had a happy afternoon, Mother,' she said.

'Oh well, Joan,' Mrs. Heggie's tone was rather apologetic, 'it's a
pleasure to me to talk, you know that, and I like that Mrs. Jameson,
she's a good listener and an interesting woman, don't you think?'

'She's certainly no fool,' said Joan.

'I wonder what her husband was and how long she's been a widow. She
seems to have no family. English, do you think? I make a point of never
asking questions, but----'

Joan looked at her mother, and her face was lightened by her infrequent
and rather surprisingly pleasant smile.

'But--you'll find out everything in time, won't you, Mother?'




                               CHAPTER II


    '_It is more in our power than is commonly believed to soften
    ills.... Strictly speaking there is but one real evil--I mean
    acute pain. All other complaints are considerably diminished by
    time._...'

                                          LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.

When Rutherfurd was put up for sale and Lady Jane Rutherfurd, with her
daughter Nicole and her niece Barbara Burt, had to seek another home,
the Harbour House in the Fife village of Kirkmeikle had seemed a
heaven-sent refuge.

Away from the Borders, so that they would not be worried hearing of the
doings of strangers in their old home, small enough for their means and
large enough for their needs, a dignified old house with high-pointed
roof and crow-step gables; with its front door to a narrow street, a
little secret garden behind, and nine small-paned windows looking out to
the sea. Sitting in the long drawing-room at high tide it was as if they
were surrounded by water. Nicole said it smelt salt and fresh and, she
might have added, fishy. Certainly not a house for everybody. To many
the large bleak villas at the top of the Brae--Knebworth, Lucknow,
Ravenscraig--would have seemed much more desirable, but the Rutherfurds
being what they were, found in the Harbour House a habitation after
their own hearts, a house to love.

Three years had passed since that October afternoon when Lady Jane had
first seen her new home. Barbara had gone to Edinburgh to travel back
with her, and Nicole, helped by Nature, had staged the scene. The tide
was out, and beyond the low wall that bounded the road before the house,
hard, ribbed sand lay white in the half-light, a very new moon hung
bashfully in a clear sky, and the mast of a sailing ship stood up black
beyond the Harbour.

The hall had glowed with welcome. A great bowl of red berries stood on a
Jacobean chest; sporting prints that had come from the gun-room at
Rutherfurd hung on the walls; the clock, the chairs, the half-circular
table were all old friends. And when Lady Jane had entered the
drawing-room she had cried out with pleasure. The curtains had not been
drawn, for Nicole liked the contrast between the chill world of sea and
gathering dusk outside and the comfort within. The firelight fell on the
old, comfortable chairs, the cabinet of china, the row of pictured
children's faces over the mantelshelf--Ronnie, with his serious eyes and
beautiful mouth; Archie, blue-eyed and obstinate; Nicole, bright-tinted,
a firefly of a creature; and Barbara, their cousin. The tea-table stood
before the sofa, with the familiar green dragon china on the Queen Anne
tray; Lady Jane's own writing-table was placed where the light of the
window should fall on it--It was not Rutherfurd, but it was home.

Three years ago! Nicole was thinking of those years as she sat in her
favourite window-seat, looking out to the sea.

Feeling a hand on her shoulder, without turning, she put her own hand up
and held it.

'Mums--I didn't hear you come in. Sit beside me for a minute and look.
It's just as it was the first time you saw it--a baby moon, a tall mast
in the Harbour, the sea, and the lights beginning to blink. Can you beat
it? And away over there somewhere is Edinburgh, with its high,
mysterious "lands," and the bugles sounding from the Castle Rock, and
the wynds through which Queen Mary rode to sing French songs in
Holyrood. Isn't it wonderful? To come back to it after three months in
England and--oh, but I forgot, you're English, poor darling!'

Nicole put back her head and smiled provokingly up at her mother who
merely said:

'Yes, it's hard to have to labour under that disadvantage! But come and
have tea now. You know you hate it in the least cold.' She gave a glance
at the table. 'I wonder if Effie has everything here to-day?'

'I should think so,' said Nicole. 'She has tiptoed about for the last
quarter of an hour, breathing heavily, and surveying the results of her
labours with her head on one side, and then darting downstairs for
something she's forgotten--a painstaking child.'

'Yes, Mrs. Martin tells me that both Effie and Jessie have the makings
of good servants. I'm glad, but I confess I miss Christina and Beenie.'

Nicole sank into a low chair opposite her mother, remarking, 'Oh, so do
I. It takes me so long to get used to strange faces. Don't you think,
Mums, slaves must have been a great comfort? Slaves can't tell you that
they are wanted at home--like Beenie, or that their "lawd" has now got a
house and can marry--like Christina. You could really settle down
comfortably with slaves! Has Effie forgotten milk after all? Just give
me the merest dab of cream.'

'I'm afraid poor Beenie will have to stay at home now indefinitely,'
Lady Jane said, leaning forward to lower the flame under the kettle.
'Mrs. Martin heard from her that her mother will never be able for much
again, and there are six in the house to cook and wash for.'

Nicole nodded. 'It is hard for Beenie, especially when she compares her
lot with Christina's. You saw Jean Douglas's letter this morning? I left
it on your table. Yes, here it is. She's been to see Christina.'

Nicole leant forward to get the light of the fire to read by. 'This is
what she says: "I climbed up to Shielgreen yesterday--heavenly it was,
golden bracken and flaming trees under a pale-blue October sky--and
found Christina most comfortably tucked away in a fold of the hills. Her
cottage, as she proudly pointed out, was not only two 'ends,' but a
garret, and I explored every inch of it.

'"Christina does credit to whoever trained her. Such a shining little
house for any young husband to come home to in the gloaming! Christina,
neat in a jumper suit and a shingled head"--That's something new,
Mums--"was singing as she ironed 'Elick's' shirts. I saw traces here and
there of what she had learned at the Harbour House--the glass of berries
and red leaves on the dresser, a window open and unobscured by geraniums
in pots, old brass candlesticks polished lovingly. The presents you gave
her were pointed out, and your photographs hang prominently on the wall.
She insisted on stopping her ironing and making tea for me in what she
described as 'ma granny's Britannia-metal teapot!' and produced
excellent home-made scones and butter and honey, also a cake from the
baker's cart, which she kept wrapped in a cheese-cloth in the meal-kist!
She came out to show me the garden all ready for next spring, and she
told me she had some bowls of bulbs put away in the dark, for she 'aye
liked to watch Miss Nicole's bulbs.' I mustn't forget her message to The
Bat. 'Tell Maister Alastair that I've got a burn at the door, and a pool
and a flat stane where I can scrape ma pots, and get silver sand to
scrub ma table white.'--

'"I said 'I needn't ask if you are happy,' and she said in her soft
Tweeddale voice, 'Ay, mem, I'm happy. Elick's a guid man to me, an' I'm
rale content.'... That isn't bad for five miles from a station and
ten from a picture-house!"'

Nicole drank her tea hurriedly and passed in her cup.

'Boiling hot, please, Mums. I let the last get cold.... That's good
hearing about Christina.'

'Excellent hearing. "Elick" is to be envied.... Shielgreen used to be
our favourite picnic place--you remember, Nikky?'

'Of course I remember. Once Archie lost a gold sovereign he had been
given, and we all helped to search. I must have been very small, for the
bracken nearly met over my head. More than twenty years ago! My word,
how old we are, Mums!'

But Lady Jane was not listening. Her thoughts had flown far from the
Harbour House. It was an August day in the south country, and she saw a
long vista of rushy park and wild thorn-trees, the heather flowering,
and Lammerlaw hanging like an amethyst in the pale heavens. She heard
children's voices, and towards her came her husband's tall form in his
old tweeds, Ronnie and Archie at his heels....

She came back from the past, which seemed almost more real than the
present, to reply to her daughter's question as to what she had been
doing all afternoon.

'Oh,' she said, 'I was putting things away, and going over my clothes
with Harris. We shall have quite a lot for Mrs. Lambert's Jumble Sale, I
can see.'

'Have you anything suitable for old Betsy? I thought the shawl she was
wearing this afternoon most inadequate--washed-in and skimpy.'

'You've been to see Betsy?'

'Not only Betsy,' said Nicole. 'I've seen almost the whole population of
Kirkmeikle since luncheon. First, I put my head round Mrs. Brodie's
door. She said, "Mercy! what a fricht!" but showed no other emotion on
beholding me. Two of her nine are now working in the "Roperee," six are
at school, and the "wee horse" was a train when I saw him, shunting up
and down on the flagged path and giving painfully realistic squeals. He
is four, and his mother is looking forward to getting him away to school
and off her hands in another year.'

'Is the "wee horse" four? It seems only yesterday that he was jumping
like a hooked trout in his mother's arms, and she said to him, "Ay, I
ken ye're a wee horse."'

'I remember,' said Nicole, and continued: 'Dr. Kilgour bounded down an
outside stair in the Watery Wynd and proceeded to tell me tersely his
opinion of the household he had just left. He also told me his age, as
he always does, and that of his sister. He's a young and vigorous
seventy, I'll say that for him. He went down the Brae like the east
wind, his voice trailing behind him. I _think_ he was making enquiries
about you.'

'Very unlikely,' said Lady Jane. 'What other people did you meet?'

'Well, I was exchanging the time of day with "Roabert" in the bakeshop
when who should darken the door but Mrs. Heggie! That good lady is
larger than human, but I do think she is glad we are back at the Harbour
House. She gave me such a welcome, and poured out streams of news. How
she gleans it all from such barren soil I know not. She didn't want
"Roabert" to hear, so it was said in a hissing whisper which left both
Roabert and me unenlightened. Then I met the Bucklers walking about with
two dogs. Mr. Buckler said it had been the most wretched summer on
record--did you notice that?--and they are thinking of going to Tenerife
for the winter to get a little sunshine; so that's that. I saw, too, the
people who have taken Ravenscraig; unemployed-looking people, the man
delicate, the woman robust, with a fixed grin. Rather painful people.'

'Did you see the Lamberts?'

'For a second. The children have grown both up and out, and perhaps it
was their increased size that made their parents both look shrunken, or
I may have forgotten how small and thin they always were: I think their
zeal eats them up. I asked them and Mrs. Heggie and her daughter to
lunch on Friday; was that right?'

'Quite right. I'll enjoy seeing them again. But, tell me, how is my
friend Betsy?'

'More crabbed than ever. I knocked at the door before I opened it and
went in saying, "Well, Betsy," trying to be very bright and genial.'

'"It's you," she flung at me over her shoulder, not troubling to look
round. I got myself into her line of vision, and she said, "You're a
great stranger."'

'I pointed out that we had been away for three months and had only just
got home, and that here I was at once on her doorstep. She thawed a
little then and asked for you, and if we had been at Rutherfurd. I told
her that we had, and she said, "Are thae Jacksons aye there yet?" I
reminded her that Barbara was now Mrs. Jackson, and that she had a son
and heir, but all she would say was "Tets," and mutter under her breath.
She was interested, though, to hear of Christina being settled at
Shielgreen. When I told her of Jean Douglas's letter this morning with
the description of the burn at the door, and the flat stone at the pool
for scraping pots, her poor face got pitifully eager. She said, "Eh, I
hope the lassie kens hoo weel-aff she is. What wud I no gie to get awa'
frae that nesty jumblin' sea that's aye stare starin' at me when I gang
to the winday, and see the lang fields o' Tweedside, and the canny
sheep, an' the burns rinnin' an' singin', an' each wee hoose wi' a
gairden--nane o' yer ootside stairs."...I was sorry for the poor old
body, Mother. It's a terrible thing, heart-hunger. Go and see her, won't
you? You are the only one who can really comfort her.'

'We'll comfort each other,' said Lady Jane.

Nicole looked up quickly, crying, 'Mother, aren't you happy then to come
back?'

Lady Jane smiled at her daughter. 'Well--very content anyway, darling.
Happy is too--too rich a word for me now. I had my day of happiness and,
thank God, I realised I was having it. But it's you, Nikky----'

Nicole sprang up from the stool on which she had been crouching by the
fire, and sat down on the arm of her mother's chair.

'You needn't give a thought to me,' she said. 'I'm absurdly pleased with
life. Of course things are different now, but once you accept that fact
it's all right. To you and to me this is the day of small things--. Who
said that? Some one in the Bible, wasn't it? And the small things keep
you going wonderfully: the kindness of friends; the fact of being
needed; nice meals; books; interesting plays; the funny people in the
world; the sea and the space and the wind--not very small, are they,
after all?'

She put her arm round her mother's shoulders.

'It is lovely to have you to myself again, after sitting for months in
other people's rooms. True, they were very charming rooms--though not to
compare with this sea-chamber! Don't you always connect this room with
tea? A room where it is always afternoon. Some rooms are quite obviously
of the morning and breakfast, and others speak of lit candles and
port----'

'It is a dear room,' Lady Jane said, 'I looked forward to being in it
again with you. Let's read Trollope aloud this winter.'

'Shall we? That reminds me there's a box of books from _The Times_. I do
hope there will be something in it that will appeal to Mr. Lambert, and
Dr. Kilgour wants the latest famous trial. That man positively steeps
himself in crime...'




                              CHAPTER III


                               '_And still that sweet half-solemn look,_
                                   _When some past thought is clinging:_
                                      _As when one shuts a serious book_
                                        _To hear the thrushes singing._'
                                                          AUSTIN DOBSON.

Esm Jameson felt that she had been fortunate in securing the property
of Windywalls, for the house was not too large, thoroughly well built
and comfortable, with a southern exposure and a wide view over rich
pasture-lands to the sea. Her friends had told her she was foolish to
saddle herself with even a small property in these troublous times, but
she had wanted a place of her own, and now she had it.

She was sometimes surprised at her own interest, even excitement, over
her purchase. She had often felt old and tired among the throng on board
ship or in big hotels, young things, many of them, mad to taste all they
could in life. She thought her apathy must be due to the background of
sorrow and suffering which she could not forget. For three years her
husband had lain ill, and she could not yet think without almost
intolerable pain of that long-drawn-out losing battle. And when he knew
that he had lost, that life was over for him, still Death would not
come. He lay waiting, his body a wreck, his mind terribly clear....
When first they had met he had been so young and keen and ambitious;
life had been bursting with promise that July day in 1914 when they were
married, but it had held only for him an interrupted honeymoon, a few
months' training, six months' fighting in France--a broken body and
years of suffering.

If only, Esm thought sadly, if only he could have been with her now,
outside on this delectable autumn morning, looking across the fields and
the woods and the red-tiled cottages to the sea. What fun to have gone
together to the stables--Archie had had a passion for horses, and the
hunting here was good; to have pottered together over the new car, to
have planned for the garden. They had never done anything together. If,
she thought, they had even had six months together before catastrophe
overtook them, time to do little things, time to arrange their
wedding-presents, to feel themselves householders; but there had been
nothing but bewilderment, anxiety, pain. Nothing more? Yes, Archie's
unquenchable laughter, his patience, and her own efforts to help him
keep the banner of courage flying to the end....

She walked down the flagged path between the hedges of lavender--how
delicious that would be when summer came--and on the lawn she found the
old gardener gazing discontentedly at the turf.

Esm hardly knew what to make of this servitor of hers. John Grierson
was a legacy from the former owner of Windywalls who had asked as a
special favour that he might be allowed to stay on in his cottage and
potter about in the garden so long as he felt able, but Esm felt that
the old man regarded her as an interloper. He certainly had no manners,
and treated his new mistress as a thing of no account. He listened with
a small sour smile to her suggestions and made no attempt to carry them
out.

It was provoking, but Esm was good-natured and inclined to be more
amused than angry at the old man's perversity. On the few occasions when
she had insisted on her own way he had remarked threateningly:

'Aweel, I'll juist gan' awa',' but nothing further had happened.

'Good-morning, John!' she said. 'Isn't this a glorious morning?'

John made an abortive attempt to touch his hat, and without looking at
his mistress, said: 'There's naething wrang wi' the mornin' but there's
a heap wrang wi' this green. It's a fair hert-break. I look efter it
like a seeck bairn, but there's nae gratitude in't. Ay, an' it's juist
the same wi' that plot doon by the tennis-ground. I plant it oot every
year wi' calcelarys an' ither braw flooers, an' I come in the dark wi' a
lantern an' pick oot the slugs--could mortal man dae mair?--but they
juist dee on me.'

'Oh well,' Esm said, 'I don't care greatly for that plot, anyway. It
might be as well to do away with it. I like masses of flowers, not neat
little ordered rows.... And this turf looks to me very good. A bit
mossy, perhaps. Don't people put sand on in winter?'

John in response merely muttered under his breath, and Esm asked the
whereabouts of the under-gardener, David by name.

'Hoo should I ken? Undaein' some o' ma wark, I wadna wonder! They think
they ken better nor me, him and Tam, me that's been at it near seventy
years! The impidence o' thae young folk! I dinna need to work; I've ma
pension frae ma auld maister; I juist stay on for an obligement to ye,
but if I'm driven to leave this garden that I've wrocht in a' ma days,
an' young David an' Tam get a free hand, I quaiston what'll
happen....'

He shook his head sadly, took another look at the turf, and hobbled
away.

His mistress looked after him rather ruefully. It was the old antagonism
between age and the younger generation. How long would David stand his
carping? It would be better for every one if the old man would make up
his mind to 'gan' awa',' yet it would be hateful to see him leave....

But good days are not so plentiful in October that one can afford to
waste them on small worries. It had been a night of wind and rain, but
now the clear shining had come and the whole landscape lay in a radiance
of pale sunlight; the air seemed washed; beech-hedges framed in gold the
rich black of an early ploughed field; a robin, very young and impudent,
perched on the sun-dial, chirped the beginnings of a song in an assured
way. This was a morning when it was impossible to repine. There would
come days of sweeping rain and wind, days of bitter frost and snow, when
sad thoughts would not be inappropriate; this day was made for cheerful
work. Esm, thankful that she had a job in hand, went off to a neglected
corner of the garden, where, helped by the maligned David, she was
planning a rock-garden. It was absorbing work, and after luncheon she
went back to it, and was blissfully grubbing among mud and large stones
when a servant came out to tell her that callers had arrived and were
now in the drawing-room.

It was not welcome news, and as Esm straightened her back and became
aware of the state of her hands and her boots, she wondered resentfully
why people liked to ruin fine days for their neighbours by inflicting
visits on them. Deciding that she could do nothing towards making
herself presentable except wash her hands, she went into the cloak-room
off the hall, glancing as she passed at the cards which lay on the
table.

Lady Jane Rutherfurd! The Harbour House people! She smiled as she
remembered Mrs. Heggie's infatuation. Now she would see for herself.

They were standing, Lady Jane and her daughter, in the big bow-window
that looked out on the lawn and the sun-dial. They turned as their
hostess came in holding out a rather damp hand and apologising for muddy
boots and gardening clothes, and she, after a quick glance, told herself
that Mrs. Heggie had been romancing; this Nicole was a very ordinary
looking girl.

'How you must dislike us,' Lady Jane said. 'I don't know anything more
exasperating than to be dragged from gardening to see visitors!'

'What were you doing?' Nicole asked, frankly curious. 'We have only a
back-yard, where we live--oh I know, Mums, you've done wonders with it,
but it's still a back-yard--and I've almost forgotten the delights of
gardening.'

'Well,' said Esm, 'I was really only making mud-pies. It's a corner of
the garden that seems to have been considered little more than a
rubbish-heap, and I've a notion to try and make a rock-garden. The
under-gardener is interested in it and does most of the work; I was only
"plowterin' aboot," as old John says scornfully, but I love it. It's
great fun to acquire a garden of one's own. I've tremendous plans for
next spring.... You see, over there hidden by those trees'--they were
all in the window now, looking out--'there's a little stream that winds,
and I'm going to make that part a spring garden. The banks will be
masses of forget-me-nots--just think how lovely the blue will look
through the drooping branches of cherry blossom! and in the grass there
will be clumps of polyanthus, yellow and orange and terra-cotta; and
David says that under the beech-trees wild hyacinths come out by the
thousand.... Oh, and before that, of course, there are snowdrops, and
then the daffys, so we'll go on from January.'

'And the lilac and laburnums,' said Nicole, 'and best of all the red and
white hawthorn, and the copper beeches.... There's no end to the
beauty. What fun you'll have!' She smiled at her hostess, her face
radiant, and Esm Jameson, as she smiled back, owned to herself that,
after all, Mrs. Heggie had been right; there was something amazingly
likeable about this Nicole. Her eyes looked so frankly into yours, there
was such a gaiety and sparkle in her glance, as well as kindness; and
never, she thought, had she seen anything more lovely than the way the
girl's head was set on her shoulders.

'It is good of you to come and see me,' Esm said. 'I heard of you from
Mrs. Heggie.'

Nicole grinned broadly. 'Dear Mrs. Heggie--. Tell me, did she say that
my mother had a sweet, sad face and that I was full of charm? Yes, I can
see she did. Don't you _loathe_ people who are full of charm? You feel
them oozing charm all the time until you long to hit them.... But we
know you too through Mrs. Heggie, so we are quits. We heard all about
your visit. You pleased her very much.'

'Did I? She made a wet afternoon pass very pleasantly for me--Lady Jane,
do sit down and try to be comfortable.' Mrs. Jameson looked
discontentedly round. 'Somehow, I don't feel that I could ever like this
room. Of course, at present it smells of paint, and needs firing and
living in, but I don't think it could ever be a really kind room. These
large windows are so unfriendly, somehow, and that gleaming floor, and
that mantelpiece.... I like the book room so much better--library is
too fine a name for my modest collection; I've been having my meals
there--pigging it, rather, but it _is_ so comfortable.'

'Yes,' Lady Jane said, 'books are so companionable that they make a
solitary meal seem like a pleasant party. I love eating in a library.'

'Come and do it now,' Esm cried. 'I can't bear this bleak room. I don't
feel acquainted with it at all, and tea will be ready in the book room.'

But Lady Jane shook her head, while Nicole explained that they were
invited to tea at Queensbarns.

'Have you met the Erskines yet?' she asked. 'What with rockeries and one
thing and another you've had no time, I expect. They're very friendly
people, fond of getting up things and entertaining their friends. The
Fentons, of course, are almost nearer neighbours, but they are a lot
away--very sociable, though, when they are at home.... You are having
the experience we had three years ago: it's rather fun, I think, meeting
new people.'

Esm laughed. 'I think so too.' She turned to Lady Jane. 'It means a
good deal to me that people should be kind. I'm a solitary woman--. My
husband died after a long illness, from wounds received in the War. I
stayed with a brother in Kenya for a time, but I've always wanted a
place to settle down in and now I've got it. If people are nice to me I
shall be grateful, but I feel it won't be very amusing for them to come
here. I dare say I shall have a certain number of people staying with
me, but I'm afraid I've got rather to like living alone.'

'Ah!' said Nicole, 'that grows on one,' while Lady Jane said in her
grave way: 'Thank you for telling us about yourself. Nicole and I are
solitary too, and, like you, don't mind it much. We are fortunate in
having a small boy to help us along. We have just had to let him go off
to school and are missing him horribly. But we look forward to the
Christmas holidays--. Now, Nicole, we must be off. We are keeping Mrs.
Jameson from her tea--so much needed and so well earned after an
afternoon in the garden. You will come and see us soon, won't you? The
first wet day, perhaps?'

'Yes, please,' Nicole urged. 'The first wet day we shall be in and have
a particularly good fire and nice tea ready for you--. You know where to
find us? You turn round the corner at "Roabert" Mitchell's shop and
straight down the Brae to the foot. D'you drive yourself? Be careful,
then, not to imitate the Gadarene swine....'

Esm Jameson watched her visitors depart in their small car, and then
went back into the drawing-room. The room hardly seemed so bleak now,
there lingered in it something of the personality of the women who had
just left it. Lady Jane's gentle friendliness remained in the mind like
the fragrance of a flower, Esm thought. And Nicole? There was a tiny
green-edged handkerchief lying on the chair she had sat in; it smelt
faintly of geranium, the scent of the leaf when you crush it in your
fingers. She had been dressed in green, Esm remembered, and there came
back to her the echo of the girl's gay laugh, her soft quick way of
speaking, a certain way her eyes had of taking you into her confidence.

'I might be Mrs. Heggie,' she told herself.

It would certainly be amusing to go the first wet day to the Harbour
House.




                               CHAPTER IV


    '_Girl, there were girls like you in Ilion._...'

                                                      HUMBERT WOLFE.

They had expected to miss the small Alastair from the Harbour House, but
they were hardly prepared for the very large hole his going to school
made in their daily life. Alastair had lived most of his short life in
Kirkmeikle, having been sent home from Canada when his father died, to
his aunt, Miss Symington of the villa Ravenscraig. She had given him a
home somewhat grudgingly, and the child had led a dreary existence until
Simon Beckett took rooms next door, and Nicole Rutherfurd came to the
Harbour House. They had both taken an instant liking to the lonely,
small boy in the too large overcoat whom they christened The Bat, and
had tried to make things gayer for him.

When Miss Symington surprised every one--herself most of all--by
marrying Mr. Samuel Innes, a widower with two schoolgirl daughters, it
was obvious that she regarded Alastair as an encumbrance, and when Lady
Jane, urged on by Nicole, proposed that they should take the boy and
bring him up, she, though amazed at such an offer, gladly accepted it.

Since then, for Alastair, the desert places had blossomed like a rose.
His nurse (known as Gentle Annie, owing to her partiality for a song of
that name) went with him to the Harbour House, and when she left--very
reluctantly, though she was going to 'better' herself--a cheerful young
governess took her place and tried to guide The Bat's unwilling feet
along the thorny track of knowledge.

He had still the same Puck-like face and concerned blue eyes, but he had
grown tall and his legs were brown and firm. He was not, perhaps, such a
virtuous child as he had been while an inmate of Ravenscraig, though
Nicole declared that he was much too virtuous for her liking. Because of
his gentleness they had been a little afraid of how he would get on at
school. But Barnabas, a young cousin of Nicole's, and a great friend of
Alastair's, was at the same school, and he seemed to have settled down
without trouble. Rather dirty, oddly spelt letters arrived at intervals
at the Harbour House containing such items of news as: 'I am quite
hapy.' 'A boy gave me a founting pen it won't write but it was kynd off
him....'

A few days after their call at Windywalls Nicole and her mother sat at
breakfast in their dining-room with its white panelled walls, striped
silk curtains, and Hepplewhite chairs. There was something particularly
fresh about morning in the Harbour House, a tang in the salt air, a
feeling of life and activity from the Harbour; fishwives passing with
their creels, cheerily gossiping; fishermen working with their nets.

'Posty!' said Nicole, as that worthy passed the window. 'Dr. Kilgour was
telling me yesterday that this postman's predecessor was a great
character. He was old and lame and amazingly casual. He would sit on the
Green Brae with his letters laid round him, and read all the postcards;
then he would begin his rounds, shouting at one door: "Mistress Speedy,
yer gude-dochter's comin' tae see ye the morn's mornin'," and at
another, "Mrs. Johnston frae Langtoun'll be here to tea this afternoon.
See ye bake." One day he announced to Dr. Kilgour, "There's a caird to
ye from Nice" (which he pronounced to rhyme with mice), "an' there was a
letter but it blawed intil the sea." As Dr. Kilgour was expecting an
important letter he didn't think it was as good a joke as Posty did. But
wasn't it amusing?'

Lady Jane smiled and said, 'Almost too amusing. I'm glad we don't live
in his day.... Here comes Effie with our budget. What a lot! And I
was congratulating myself on having got out of debt with a lot of
people--Yes, there's one from The Bat. His writing hasn't begun to
improve yet....'

Nicole glanced over her share of the letters, and leaving her mother
still engrossed, took Alastair's dog, Spider, for a run. Spider was a
cross between a wire-haired terrier and a Sealyham, with a black patch
over one eye and the disposition of an angel.

It was a bright morning, but earlier there had been an ominously red
sky, and Nicole distrusted the brightness.

'It will be pouring by luncheon,' she prophesied, 'so we'll gather
sunbeams while we may....' Spider evidently agreed and scurried out
of the front door as if escaping from jail. It was an anxious business
taking Spider for a walk; for he had a trick of squatting in the middle
of the road when he saw a motor approaching, which turned his owner's
heart to water. Nicole's own private conviction had been that he was a
surprisingly stupid dog, but this morning when she lost sight of him,
and after calling and whistling wildly, turned round to find him
standing with a distinct smile on his face so close to her heels that
she had failed to notice him, she began to wonder if he were not more
knave than fool.

At luncheon Lady Jane was rather silent, and her daughter asked if she
were still thinking about her morning's letters.

Lady Jane was peeling a pear, and she waited till Effie had left the
room before she said:

'I had a letter from Blanchie this morning. She is terribly worried,
poor dear, about Althea.'

'That's the Gort girl?'

'Yes, her only sister's child. I don't think you ever met Sybil and
Freddie Gort? It was a miserable business. Freddie was a likeable
creature to meet but he made a wretched husband, and Sybil wasn't
without blame either. They were divorced, and this poor child, Althea,
lived between the couple, not much wanted, I fear, by either. When her
mother died last year Blanchie took her to live with her and brought her
out--you remember she wanted you to go up for the coming-out dance?--and
really gave her every chance. I was so pleased about it, for Blanchie
has had rather a lonely life since James died, and Althea might have
been such an interest to her, but the child seems to have got into
rather a bad set and got entangled with some undesirable--Blanchie isn't
very coherent....'

Lady Jane held out several scrawled sheets to her daughter who seemed
rather callous over the tale of woe. She took them, remarking:

'"_Written from bed_," I see it's headed. As St. Paul might say,
_Written from Rome_. Bed always was a very present help in time of
trouble to poor Aunt Blanchie. It's amazing what a defence sheets and
blankets are to some people against fortune's slings and arrows.'

Nicole puzzled over the letter for a minute, then looked up at her
mother and shook her head.

'So far as I can make out, the wretched Althea does what she pleases,
frequents night-clubs and comes in at any old hour, while Aunt Blanchie
lies in bed and weeps. What a situation! Of course she never was fit to
look after a girl. Providence knew that and sent her only boys.'

'You see what she suggests?'

Nicole took up the letter and read aloud:

'"My one hope, dear Jane, is in you. The idea came to me suddenly in the
night: an _inspiration_, I am sure. Will you take Althea to live with
you for a little? She would be away from temptation and surrounded by
your wonderful influence. I always say that _no one_ does me so much
good to be with, and dear Nicole would be such a splendid example for
Althea----" Mummie, she _is_ a fool. What a preposterous suggestion!'

'We might think it over!' her mother said mildly.

'_Mother!_ You don't mean to say that you would entertain even for a
moment the thought of having that girl here? Why--why she would simply
shatter us. Have you any notion what the girl of to-day is like? With a
mild Victorian creature like me for a daughter you've been shielded from
the worst.... What would a girl like Althea do here? A restless
creature, probably never happy except when amusing herself, caged in the
Harbour House! And what would we _say_ to her? There was a girl at
Bice's last month; just out, frightfully attractive to look at, but to
speak to--Nothing interested her, not plays nor pictures nor books. She
said she didn't mind games, but the only thing that really amused her
was to wriggle her body in time to the latest tune. I thought I could
talk to any one, but I was beaten that time.'

'Althea doesn't sound uninteresting,' Lady Jane said meekly, 'but she
may be exactly what you describe. Only--she hasn't had much of a chance,
has she? I can't think that either Sybil's friends or Freddie's were
very improving; however--. It's really for poor Blanchie's sake.
Naturally she feels responsible, and it would be such a pity to let the
child ruin her life by marrying some undesirable if it can possibly be
prevented. And with The Bat at school--and you did say, darling, you
wished you had more work----'

'This wouldn't be work, this would be martyrdom,' Nicole said bitterly.

The discussion continued in the drawing-room until Nicole, exasperated,
cried: 'Mums, you really are a provoking woman! You pretend to be
convinced by my unanswerable arguments, but you always return to the
attack--I can't think why you want the creature here....'

About three-thirty Mrs. Jameson appeared, announcing as she entered 'You
said the first wet day, and here I am.'

Lady Jane gave her a kind greeting, while Nicole remarked: 'You are
particularly welcome, because at the moment there are strained relations
between my mother and myself.'

'Yes,' said Lady Jane, 'we've been quarrelling for about two
hours.... Is that where you like to sit, Mrs. Jameson? Won't you be
cold so far from the fire? No?'

'I love a window-seat--and you have three, all looking to the sea: what
riches! Do please go on with your work, Lady Jane.'

'Then take off your coat and look as if you were going to stay for a
while--It's for the seat of a chair. Yes, it is rather a good design.'
Lady Jane chose a thread of silk and asked: 'Have you done any more to
your rock-garden?'

Esm Jameson laughed. 'It would hardly know itself under the name. At
present it is nothing but a mud-puddle with some stones in it. I shall
have to give it up till spring--' She looked round the quiet, pleasant
room full of treasures out of other days, and made a discontented face.
'How this room makes me hate my own drawing-room. All your things seem
to mean something; mine look so accidental, somehow. I expect I haven't
caught the knack yet of making things look homelike. You see, although
I'm thirty-five, this is the first time I've tried my hand at
home-making.'

Lady Jane nodded. 'You have lived abroad....'

'Yes--for about nine years. I married in July 1914. That in itself
explains a lot.'

There was silence for a minute, then Lady Jane said: 'I think you said
you had a long time of nursing.'

'Nearly three years. We were married in July, and we had got a little
house in Westminster that we meant to furnish by degrees, just as we
picked things up. We were always finding treasures and storing them up,
even on our honeymoon we were looking out for old brass and lacquer and
having it sent back... but that all came to an end on August 4th.
After that my husband was in camp training, and I lived in rooms as near
as I could get to him, and in six months he was in France. In 1916 I got
him home, broken.... I was in Nairobi with my brother for some
years--then he married and I travelled about, longing yet dreading to
come back. At last I was driven back by my desire to have a house, a
place to dig myself into. I found Windywalls--and that's all about me.'

'I think,' said Lady Jane, 'this is favourable soil. When we were pulled
up from our home in the Borders we came here and quickly struck root--We
are fortunate, Nicole and I, to have each other.'

'Fortunate!' said Nicole darkly.

Dr. Kilgour walked in with Effie and the tea.

He was a man of nearly seventy, with white hair, a high-coloured face,
and a manner as brusque as the prevailing wind of his native place.

On being introduced to the stranger he said:

'Windywalls? So you're the new tenant! It'll take you all your time to
fill Mrs. Drysdale's shoes.'

'So Grierson the gardener seems to think,' Esm said ruefully.

'Old Grierson's staying on with you? I dare say it would kill him to
leave, though he must hate to see strangers about the place. He's about
the last living example of that loyalty to a family that used to be so
common. Not that he ever let the Drysdales know he adored them, but to
the world outside he boasted late and early. I remember meeting him when
Pat the youngest Drysdale joined up. "Ye canna keep them back," he said,
and the pride and grief in his eyes was almost too much for me. I saw a
lot of him at that time, his wife had a long illness and I was in and
out of the house. When she was getting better she knitted constantly for
lonely soldiers whose names she had been given, and every fortnight they
sent away a parcel. She told me "We pit in socks and comforters, and
cigarettes and sweeties, an' Fawther there pits in a cheery word aboot
killin' Germans."

'"Fawther" was one of the few bright spots in the War. He was, or
pretended to be, enormously confident. The first thing he pinned his
faith to was "The Rooshians." Thousands, he told me, were on their way
through Scotland to France. A cousin of a man he knew saw them knocking
the snow off their boots as they passed through Galashiels in August.
The Rooshians were going to finish the War almost at once. Then it was
the Ghurkas: "thae wee fellays wi' the crooked knives," they were the
men to tackle the Germans. Russia, the road-roller, was the next prop.
"When they get gaun," he said, "I quaiston what'll happen." But Russia
broke in his hand. His sole remaining prop was the Drysdale boys. He
bore Norman's death, but when Pat the baby went, it was too much for
him. "We'll win through yet," I said, trying to cheer him, and I felt as
a country we had reached our lowest, when he answered: "_Faigs, I doot
it._"'

'Oh,' said Esm, 'I'm glad you told me that. I thought he was merely a
cantankerous old man. I'll be more patient with him now.'

'A great fellow old "John Grumblie." Let him go his own way. He's worked
in that garden, boy and man, for nearly sixty years, and it can't be
long now before he goes to give in his account. I think myself he'll get
an abundant entrance.'

All the time when speaking, Dr. Kilgour was devouring, rapidly, scones,
sandwiches, cake, and draining several cups of tea, and he now sprang to
his feet and announced his departure.

'Just like the beggars--eat and go. Good-bye, Mrs. Jameson, hope you'll
like Fife--Miss Nicole, I've got a job for you.... I'll tell you
again. Good-bye, Lady Jane, and thanks for my good tea----' He
disappeared out of the door, still speaking, and in a second they heard
the front door slam behind him.

Lady Jane poured some boiling water from the kettle into the teapot and
said placidly: 'A country doctor has a busy life,' while Nicole
remarked:

'I know no one who gives me such an impression of the shortness of time.
When I meet him tearing about the wynds, or far out on the country
roads, he shouts, "There are twelve hours in the day."... He is
terribly conscientious about his panel patients, and all the poor folk,
but somewhat short with the leisured classes. Can you wonder? His one
great desire is to work at the book he is writing on the town and
district--he is exceedingly learned--and very rarely does he get a few
hours off in the evening. No sooner does he sit comfortably down by the
fire with his books round him than he is called up. His sister says he
always begins by saying flatly, "_I won't go_," but in a little while
she sees him drawing his old boots from their hidy-hole. He sometimes
says, "If I go, it'll be simple colic: if I don't go it'll be
appendicitis."'

'Still, it must be lovely to be busy,' Esm Jameson said, looking into
the fire. 'I envy him more than I pity.'

'But,' said Nicole, 'you must be a contented person or you wouldn't
contemplate settling down in this quiet neighbourhood. Most of your
evenings you'll be alone, except when the Fentons have their house full,
or the Erskines are feeling lively. Every day you'll do more or less the
same thing.'

'Ah, but I love a routine. It doesn't bore me to do the same thing at
the same time every day. And I like to fiddle in the house and play
myself in the garden and read by the fire at nights, but that is only
pleasing myself. I'd love to help a little.'

'It's not so easy to help,' said Nicole. 'One is apt to do more harm
than good. So long as one takes a hand with the local things, and gives
what one can----'

'And,' said Lady Jane in her gentle voice, 'does any bit of work that
comes to one's hand.'

Nicole nodded her head at the guest. 'That remark's aimed at me,' she
said. 'My mother wants me to take on a bit of work.... Let's put it
to Mrs. Jameson, and get her advice--Would you like to take a young girl
of nineteen to pay you a long visit, a spoiled, very modern girl who
will hate the country...?'

Lady Jane demurred at this, but her daughter insisted. 'She's sure to.
Why, she only knows cities--London and Paris--Monte Carlo.'

'I wouldn't like it much,' Esm Jameson confessed, 'but I'm not very
good with young girls; they make me feel shy, they are so
confident--most of them. But you'--she turned to Nicole--'you are young
enough to cope with the modern minx.'

'But why should I? Why should we spoil things for ourselves by bringing
a strange girl into the house? She will never come with my
goodwill....'

Lady Jane smiled at her daughter.

'You sound very firm, Nikky, but I've a hope that you'll be like Dr.
Kilgour and the man in the Bible who "afterwards repented...."'




                               CHAPTER V


                     '_Only one youth and the bright life was shrouded:_
                     _Only one morning, and the day was clouded_....'
                                                          ALICE MEYNELL.

When Mrs. Heggie came to luncheon at the Harbour House, Mrs. Martin, the
cook, took extra pains, for, if one may so put it, Mrs. Heggie was worth
the feeding. Her excitement over a new dish, her appreciation of good
cooking, was highly encouraging to any cook. All the appointments of the
table interested her, and she kept up a running fire of comments and
compliments.

Nicole often said that it would be a much more interesting world if
there were more people in it like Mrs. Heggie, and certainly she gave
spice to Kirkmeikle society. Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, the only other
guests, seemed almost like phantoms against her broad beaming
exuberance. Mr. Lambert was the small shy minister of Kirkmeikle, a man
widely read and deeply learned, much better fitted for a professor's
chair than for his present job. He had no small talk, and it was torture
for him to visit pastorally his flock; he could not remember the numbers
and ages of the different families; it was absolutely impossible for him
to make facetious remarks; he had never been known to relate an
anecdote, and what conversation he had was impeded by a stammer.

It was a painful sight to see the small figure of the minister sunk
sadly in a chair, while a decent man and his wife rubbed hands, damp
with nervousness, on their garments, and tried vainly to think of
something to say beyond, 'Ay, it's cauld the nicht,' or 'Rale mild for
the time o' year.'

It was different, they acknowledged, in time of trouble. Then Mr.
Lambert came as one having authority, and his people were glad of him.

Mrs. Lambert was a fragile slip of a creature with a face like a
wood-anemone, but she had a high heart and worked like a Trojan to help
her husband. And when the door was shut on the outside world the two
were blissfully happy, with their books and their music, and their small
daughters, Bessie and Aillie.

Lady Jane was one of the few people to whom Mr. Lambert found anything
to say, and on this occasion she so inspired him that he conversed quite
volubly all through luncheon on seventeenth-century poetry.

Mrs. Heggie was heartily sick of him, but directly they had moved to the
drawing-room, he looked at his watch, muttering to himself like the
White Rabbit, shook hands with his hostess, and incontinently departed,
without either his wife or his umbrella.

Then Mrs. Heggie got her chance. 'I know,' she said, 'that it's not the
thing to stay long at a lunch-party, but if you aren't going out at
once, Lady Jane, I would like to stay for a little and hear the news.'

'Of course you must stay--As a matter of fact I'm not going out at all
and shall be very glad of your company this rather dreary
afternoon.... Mrs. Lambert, can't you stay a little? It's so long
since we saw you.'

Mrs. Lambert said, 'I'd like to stay. It seems always a long three
months that you are away, though the holiday month comes in to shorten
it. Yes, we had a very nice time. We were in Ayrshire--Ballantrae--quite
lovely and a complete change.'

'And the children?'

'Well, thank you. Bessie has gone to school and Aillie's feeling
terribly left out. We have had to give her a satchel and a lesson-book,
and she pretends all morning that she is doing lessons----'

Mrs. Heggie gave an impatient lurch forward in her chair, and with an
expectant smile on her face, said: 'And _now_ I'd like to hear about the
baby at Rutherfurd.'

'The baby,' said Lady Jane, 'is a dear. Nikky, you might get the
snapshots Barbara sent.'

'Andrew Rutherfurd Jackson--there he is,' Nicole said, handing the
photograph of a very young, very solemn infant to the beaming Mrs.
Heggie. 'Yes, he's a fine fellow, but three months is not the most
interesting age. He merely eats and sleeps and gurgles and is very
virtuous. His nurse says there never was a better baby.'

'And Miss Bar--Mrs. Jackson, isn't she very proud of her son?'

'Very, and over-anxious--. I wouldn't have believed that Barbara would
have been like that. Constantly running up to the nursery and fussing
over him, going pale if he seemed to cry without reason. She is so proud
of him, so thankful for him, that she can't smile about him. I verily
believe poor Babs has had an anxious pain ever since he was born. It's
not all fun having a beautiful little son.'

Mrs. Heggie shook her head in profound understanding.

'The first,' she said, 'is always an anxiety. When there's half a dozen
you take things easier.'

Nicole laughed. 'You're thinking of Victorian families, dear Mrs.
Heggie. In these later days children are few and precious.'

Lady Jane objected. 'Not more precious, Nikky, than each of the six or
eight or ten of the Victorian days.... But it's quite true what you
say, Mrs. Heggie, numbers bring with them a certain placidity. I was one
of nine myself, and I have a picture in my mind of my mother, still
quite young and very pretty, with her whole brood tumbling about her at
a birthday picnic or some such celebration. Accidents constantly
occurred, for there were five wild boys, and I remember the composed way
she received cuts and bruises, and even broken bones: plenty of petting
for the injured one, remedies at once applied, but always a twinkle of
amusement behind the sympathy, which kept us from being too sorry for
ourselves.'

Mrs. Heggie listened almost reverently, remarking with a sigh, 'Yours
must have been a beautiful family circle, Lady Jane.'

'Oh, we were a happy, riotous lot. Looking back I can see so many
pictures: my mother telling us stories on winter evenings, with the
light of the fire glinting on the gold of her hair and her sparkling
ear-rings, my father standing back in the shadow watching her, the boys
roasting chestnuts while they listened. And hot summer days when we took
tea by the lily-pond, and my mother allowed herself to be taken on a
tour of inspection round our different gardens which my father used to
say reminded him of the parable of the sower of the seed, they seemed to
give so little return for the care bestowed and the pocket-money spent
on them. I wish all mothers would fill their children's minds with
pictures. They may be quite happy at school and in the holidays, but
they ought to have more to remember than long days in nursery or
schoolroom; being pulled up about their manners; or dressed up for
evenings at parties or pantomimes. They want intimate pleasures. Parents
must give themselves if they want to mean anything to their children.'

Mrs. Heggie, as she listened, thought of Joan and wondered if she had
failed somewhere in bringing her up. She doubted if Joan had any pretty
mind pictures of her childhood, though she felt she had honestly done
her best as a mother. Perhaps she had not known how to tell stories
well, at least the children had not cared much to listen; the boys had
either been taking things to pieces--they were mechanically inclined--or
playing violent games with other boys; and Joan even as a child had been
slightly scornful of her mother's efforts. Mrs. Heggie supposed it must
be different with children in the higher walk of life: middle-classness
was at fault again.

She listened now, humbly, for she felt very much aware of her own
shortcomings, to a story Mrs. Lambert was telling about Bessie noticing
few men in church and remarking to her mother: 'I suppose religion is
only for ladies and children.'

'How sweet!' she said, then eagerly to Nicole, 'How is Mrs. Jackson,
senior? I expect she's frightfully pleased about the baby?'

'Pleased!' said Nicole. 'That's a feeble word to describe Mrs. Jackson's
state of proud bliss. You would think no one had ever been a grandmother
before. We were all there for the christening, and it was more amusing
than any play to see her manoeuvring to get the baby to herself. She
began at once to call him Andrew, and she addresses him as if he were
about her own age, makes long speeches to him and supplies the answers
herself. It has given her a wonderful new interest in life. First it was
perambulators--she raked through all the Glasgow shops for the very
latest model, had it done up in the shade she thought most suitable,
embroidered a fine cover, and that was that. Then the christening cloak,
the silver quaich, and mugs and spoons; the mass of small woolly
garments--she must have been a boon to bazaars! And this winter, I
expect, she will roam happily through the toyshops, purchasing gigantic
plush animals and jumping-jacks and balls for that poor solemn infant
who doesn't know his right hand from his left.'

'Is that so?' said Mrs. Heggie, awed.

'Nicole exaggerates,' Lady Jane put in, 'but it is a little like that.
Barbara looked rather despairingly at the things that were crowding up
the nursery, for Mrs. Jackson doesn't stop at toys and woollies, she
goes on to furniture. She saw and admired a set of nursery furniture,
white wood painted with characters from nursery rhymes, and that arrived
and looked quite out of place among the other things. It would have been
delightful for a nursery in a bright new flat, but at Rutherfurd--But it
makes her happy, and Barbara has the sense to appreciate the good
intention.'

'Yes, indeed,' Mrs. Heggie agreed, 'she has need to value the kind
interest, for the years take away those that care most, and young Mrs.
Jackson hasn't a mother of her own--though I'm sure you've been more
than a mother to her, Lady Jane.... I remember so well how I missed
my mother when my third was born. I just lay and cried, remembering the
fuss she had made over the other two and the way she had sat at the fire
with the new baby on her lap and said, "My, but you're bonnie."'

Mrs. Heggie wiped away a tear at the recollection, and Nicole tried to
imagine her friend as young, and perhaps, slim. It was difficult to see
her except as trimly upholstered in shining black; but her eyes must
have been the same when she was a child, round and innocent and
wondering.

Mrs. Heggie was enjoying herself immensely, and hoped Mrs. Lambert would
not make a move to go for some time. She broke again into speech.

'Mrs. Jackson's a delightful person. I never forget how much I enjoyed
meeting her when she stayed here. I wish I could see more of her. She
gave me some fine recipes. I've tried them all, and we have them
regularly. Will she be paying you another visit soon, do you think?'

Lady Jane looked vague, and Nicole said: 'I'm going to visit Mrs.
Jackson in Glasgow some day: she has got a wonderful new villa called
"The Borders," built from her own plans, at least she told the architect
what she wanted and saw that he gave it her. I quite long to see it,
though I know I'd hate to live in it.'

'If old houses were only easier to work,' said Mrs. Lambert.

'Some are easy,' said Nicole. 'I know some old houses which have had
electric light and central heating put in and all sorts of labour-saving
devices, and they aren't spoiled at all.'

'But they'll very likely be burned down,' Mrs. Heggie predicted
cheerfully. 'Haven't you noticed it in the papers time and again? With
great loss of life too. That's my great fear about old houses. Now
Windywalls is a nice sort of house, neither too old nor too new, just
settled and comfortable looking--Have you managed to call yet, Lady
Jane?'

'Yes, we called, and Mrs. Jameson came to see us yesterday. Such a nice
woman.'

Mrs. Heggie leant forward. 'Did you hear how long she has been a widow?
She hasn't a _vestige_ of mourning.'

'Her husband died of wounds,' Nicole said. 'I don't quite know when. She
was only married in 1914.... I do hope Mrs. Jameson will like being
here. She is prepared to be pleased, and that is the chief thing. I
wonder if having seen a lot of the world makes it easier to settle down,
or the reverse! Having seen nothing, you want to see nothing; having
seen much, perhaps you want to see all.'

'Well,' said Mrs. Heggie, 'Kirkmeikle and the neighbourhood _is_ very
quiet. I often wonder how you stand it, Miss Nicole?'

'Oh, I like it. But we shall have to try and see more company this
winter, for we are to have a girl staying with us. No, not a relative
exactly: a connection--a what, Mums?'

Lady Jane laid down her embroidery frame to calculate.

'My sister-in-law's niece,' she said. 'She is very young, not quite
nineteen, so we must try and amuse her as best we can. Her name is
Althea Gort.'

'Oh yes,' said Mrs. Heggie. Gort. The name seemed vaguely familiar. She
must have seen it in the papers. 'That will be nice for you, Miss
Nicole.... And how is little Alastair?'

'Oh, very flourishing. He evidently likes school. We shall have a
swaggering young man coming home at Christmas. I feel we've lost our
little boy already.'

'When I think of him,' said Mrs. Heggie, noting with disgust that Mrs.
Lambert was preparing to depart, 'the queer wee fellow he was with his
big overcoat and his wee white face! My heart was sore for him many a
time. Do you ever see Mrs. Innes now?'

And even as she said it the door opened and Effie announced 'Mrs.
Innes.'

(Mrs. Heggie, recounting to an inattentive daughter the events of the
afternoon, said: 'For all the world, Joan, it was like a scene in a
play. Just as I said "D'you ever hear from Mrs. Innes?" in she walked.
As large as life with a Persian-lamb coat and ospreys in her hat! You
could have knocked me down with a feather, and I'm sure it was as big a
surprise to Lady Jane, but she got up, quite kind, you know, but rather
stately and, "Mrs. Innes," she said, "how kind of you to call!" or
something like that.')

Mrs. Innes, once Miss Janet Symington of Ravenscraig, explained that she
had had to come to Kirkmeikle for the afternoon in order to see about
something the tenants wanted. 'A house,' she said rather fretfully, 'is
a great nuisance. Tenants are never satisfied, something is always
breaking; and if you let to a delicate, idle man it's the limit, for he
has nothing to do but find flaws and write to the owner.'

Nicole laughed. 'That is annoying. I shouldn't answer if I were you. Let
him go and find a plumber himself.'

'And let me in for paying great bills! No, indeed. I like to look into
things myself and give my own orders. I'm a practical woman, as my
husband often tells me.'

'How is Mr. Innes?' Nicole asked.

'Oh, he's all right except for a touch of rheumatism. He's a very busy
man and much sought after for public meetings. I'm sure you must often
see his name in _The Scotsman_. He's interested in all good work.'

'And the girls?' Nicole asked. 'It must be cheerful for you having two
grown-up girls at home.'

'But they're not at home,' said their stepmother resentfully. 'Girls are
so independent nowadays. The elder one, Agnes, insisted on learning
typing and shorthand, and has got a very good post in London as a
secretary, and Jessie persuaded her father to let her go in for singing,
and she is studying in London too. It isn't as if they _needed_ to do
anything; they've a good home and a most indulgent father, and I'm sure
I'd be pleased enough to take them about, but they had the impudence to
tell me that Edinburgh was a back number. Yes! What girls are coming to
I don't know. Said they couldn't stand the people that came about the
house--their father's friends, mind you, and mine!... We try to keep
an eye on them as well as we can. We go to London for a week every
little while to see them in their flat, and urge them to let us meet
their friends, but----' Mrs. Innes shook her head, and Nicole, much
interested, asked what the friends were like.

'Oh well--they're not the class of people they've been used to meet in
Edinburgh. They're not solid, if you know what I mean. Journalists and
actors and artists--those kind of people. Not people Samuel has anything
in common with. No church connection, you know. I live in dread of
hearing that Agnes has got engaged to one of them. That would be a blow
to her father, for he's still hoping she'll settle in Edinburgh.' Mrs.
Innes dropped her voice and Mrs. Heggie leant forward, her eyes round
with interest. 'A very good offer; a nice Edinburgh family; the right
age and a presentable fellow; a W.S.'

'What could be nicer,' said Mrs. Heggie with obvious sincerity.

'And how's Alastair?' Mrs. Innes asked. 'I dare say you'll be glad
enough to get him away to school.'

'Hardly that,' Lady Jane said gently. 'We're both living on the thought
of the Christmas holidays. But he sounds happy, and that is all that
matters. We sent him to Evelyn's because I have a small nephew there, a
friend of his, and that made it easier for him.'

'Samuel was hearing that that is a very expensive school he's gone to.
D'you not think it's a pity to bring him up like that? He'll have to
work for his living, remember.'

Lady Jane looked thoughtfully at her visitor for a second or two without
speaking, then rose to say good-bye to Mrs. Lambert and the reluctant
Mrs. Heggie.

'Are you both going? I had hoped you would stay for tea.... Well,
it's very pleasant to be back again. Thank you for coming.'

After a few minutes Mrs. Innes also rose to go, refusing tea, and Nicole
went with her downstairs.

They stood together at the open door, looking out in silence.

Mrs. Innes gave a short laugh.

'It seems odd to be back again--and yet very natural too. Mrs. Heggie
and Mrs. Lambert and everything just the same. And the leaves
falling.... That's how I always think of Kirkmeikle. It gives me a
queer feeling somehow....' She seemed to give herself a little shake.
'Well, I must go if I'm to catch that train. My husband wants me to go
out with him to-night to something or other. He's meeting me at the
Waverley, and we'll have our dinner at the hotel Grill.'

'I'm glad,' said Nicole, 'to see you looking so well and happy.'

'Yes,' Mrs. Innes said in her matter-of-fact voice. 'Taking everything
into consideration, I think I was wise to marry Samuel.... How d'you
like my coat? Yes, a birthday present from my man! Well--good-bye.'

Nicole stood in the hall when the door shut behind her visitor.
Kirkmeikle in October with the leaves falling! That was how she thought
of it too.... It was in an autumn gale that she had first met Simon
Beckett; he and The Bat on the rocks watching the waves!

Three years ago! Three long years ago....

She went back to her mother in the drawing-room.




                               CHAPTER VI


    '..._all the men and women merely players_.'

                                                     AS YOU LIKE IT.

Nicole made no effort to stage-manage Althea Gort's first sight of the
Harbour House, as she had so carefully done for her mother. She cared
little what the girl thought of the house and its inhabitants, in fact
she harboured a secret ashamed hope that she would hate it at sight and
leave at the first opportunity.

Nicole meant to do her best for Althea, she was their guest and as such
must have every consideration. She had herself seen to it that the white
upper chamber looking across the sea had been made to look as attractive
as possible. But she was honestly puzzled as to what they were to do
with the girl. She was eighteen, or was it nineteen? Almost a decade
younger than herself. At that age her life had been overshadowed by the
War, but this child probably lived for pleasure. Lights, crowds,
dance-music, magic of heat and sound, cocktails, lipstick, clothes
constantly renewed--those probably made up the sum of her enjoyment.
What would she do with the decorous round of the Harbour House? Of
course they must get other boys and girls to play with her--Nicole
smiled to find herself forced into the position of maiden aunt! The
Erskines were considered Bright Young People in Kirkmeikle, though
probably they would fall far short in this London girl's eyes. They were
older than Althea, more her own age, she remembered. Lady Fenton would
play with her; she liked to go about with very young girls and be
kittenish; and, anyway, she concluded, if Althea were bored she didn't
need to stay.

The visitor was expected in the late afternoon.

'Much the nicest time,' Lady Jane said. 'She will get tea and go to her
room till dinner, and probably she will go early to bed and we can all
begin and make friends in the morning light.'

Nicole looked doubtful. 'I don't know about the morning light being
conducive to friendship. You're such an optimist, Mums--But I hope it
will be all right. As you say, the worst will be over when we get the
greetings said. _How_ I hate strangers coming!' She leant down to pat
Spider's nose. 'So do you, I know. All right, old man, we'll go for a
run along the sands.... Must I meet her, Mums? Won't Harris do? I'll
tell you what, I'll order a closed car and send Harris.'

'Oh no, darling. Go yourself in the little car, it would be so much more
friendly! The luggage can be sent down later. The child will feel
strange perhaps....'

'_Perhaps_,' Nicole broke in. 'My dear, nothing shakes the composure of
the girl of to-day....'

There was only one passenger from the train that could be the expected
guest, and Nicole went up to a tall young girl with a fur coat over her
arm and a dressing-bag at her feet, and said: 'I expect you're Althea?
I'm Nicole Rutherfurd.... A porter will bring down your luggage if
you'll see if it's all there, and I have my small car here.

'This is Spider.' Nicole made the introduction when they left the
station and found that small black-and-white gentleman occupying the
driver's seat. 'Get down, silly. Jump in, will you, Althea, and put that
rug round you. I expect you find it pretty cold here. Now then...
we've only a very short way to go. What sort of journey had you?
Oh... good.'

Lady Jane was waiting in the hall to kiss and welcome her guest, and
they went at once upstairs for tea.

Nicole took stock of the girl as she made tea and her mother made
conversation, and was amused to find that she was almost exactly as she
had pictured her. Very tall, as so many girls are now, she had long slim
legs, a small pointed face with very dark blue eyes; a golden-brown curl
on each cheek, a string of pearls, ear-rings, a good deal of make-up.
She spoke in a quick, almost breathless, way, and her voice was
pleasant. She had taken off her tweed coat, and sat in a fawn jumper
suit, in a chintz chair with 'lugs,' her legs stretched out before her,
answering Lady Jane's questions.

'And your Aunt Blanchie, how is she?'

'Oh, Blanchie's all right. She's only gone to bed for safety.' She gave
a small mirthless laugh. 'She does hate so to be upset, poor dear. I
expect she's up to-day and preparing to go off to Egypt now that she's
got me shunted.'

Nicole laughed. 'I shouldn't at all wonder. Will you have your tea
there, or sit in at the table? Anyway, make a meal of your tea as we say
in our hearty country way.... This is your first visit to Scotland,
isn't it? No, I'm not going to ask you what you think of it.'

'You would have some time in Edinburgh to-day?' said Lady Jane. 'I envy
you seeing it for the first time.... Do take jam with your muffin.'

'Shall I? Thanks.... I spent the morning sight-seeing. The friend I
travelled with wanted to see the Memorial. It's pretty good, I thought.'

'It's wonderful,' said Nicole. 'The bed-rock coming through the
floor.... And the cold blue windows seem to me so right, all of a
piece with the cold grey city and the cold blue Firth.'

Althea turned to look out of the window. 'Is that,' she asked, 'the
Firth of Forth I'm looking at now?'

Lady Jane shook her head. 'No, that is the real sea.'

'Oh, the Atlantic?'

'No, the North Sea.'

Althea took another muffin. 'I don't think I knew there was a North
Sea,' she announced calmly. 'Where does it go to?'

'To "Norraway ower the faem,"' said Nicole. 'Did you ever hear of the
king who sat in Dunfermline town drinking the blood-red wine?'

''Fraid not. What else did he do besides drink?'

'He sent Sir Patrick Spens over the sea with other Scots lords....
Yes, seas are very confusing. I remember, coming home from India the
Captain asked another girl and myself what sea we were navigating at the
moment. I guessed the Persian Gulf, and my friend said confidently, "The
Baltic."'

'How amusing!' said Althea, and Nicole retired behind the teapot.

Lady Jane took up the burden of the conversation. She had a way, when
things were at all difficult, of talking gently on, not waiting for an
answer, not seeming to expect interest, and Nicole enjoyed her tea in
grateful silence, merely throwing in a response now and then.

Althea ate very fast for about ten minutes, drank three cups of tea in
quick succession, and then, not waiting to be offered cigarettes, she
produced her own case and a very long holder, and changing from the big
arm-chair into Lady Jane's own low chair, she lay back in great ease.

Effie removed the tea-things, and Lady Jane sat down near a light with
her embroidery. Nicole knelt on a window-seat, watching the tide creep
in.

'Wouldn't you like to see your room now?' she said presently.

Althea did not trouble to turn her head. 'I'm all right, thanks. When
d'you dine?'

'Seven-thirty.'

She turned her wrist to the light. 'Half-past five now. I needn't stir
for an age. I think I'll have a sleep! This fire's so jolly warm.'

'_Do_,' said Nicole, politely urgent, and settled herself by the
writing-table to answer letters. As she addressed an envelope she told
herself, with rather grim amusement, that so long as the visitor stayed
she would probably be a better correspondent than ever she had been.
Writing letters and doing embroidery seemed the only way of occupying
the time while these long shapely legs were stretched before the fire,
and this insolent child lay and blew smoke rings. Impossible to settle
down to read with such a disturbing element in the house. Already the
peaceful atmosphere was gone. Even her mother had a dispossessed air as
she sat pulling the thread through the stuff pensively, like a queen in
exile.

Nicole began to reply to an invitation from Vera Erskine.

'Althea Gort has just arrived,' she wrote, 'and I am sure she will love
to go with me to dine with you on Friday. I'm afraid she will find this
quiet place rather dull....' She glanced across at the little made-up
face in the firelight, and added, 'though we shall do our best to amuse
her.'

She wondered if Vera and Althea would get on well together. Vera was a
hearty creature, very keen on hunting, proficient at all games, a
tireless dancer, and ready always to be amused and interested. Well,
that was _something_, anyway, for Althea to do, and they were lunching
the next day at Knebworth--Mrs. Heggie and Althea, that would be
diverting! and going to tea at Windywalls on Thursday. Quite a giddy
whirl! But Althea was hardly the sort of girl to be interested in
strangers, and she probably hadn't the manners to hide her boredom.
Well, it couldn't be helped. Her mother had brought the girl here. On
her head was the success or failure of the plan.

She took up another sheet of paper and began a letter to Jean Douglas,
one of the Rutherfurds' oldest friends on the Borders, and interested in
everything that happened to Nicole and her mother. At the moment she was
shut up at her home, Kingshouse, with a husband suffering from sciatica,
and letters were doubly welcome.

    'Althea Gort came this afternoon. She has the longest legs and
    the shortest skirts on record, and is _very_ pretty. At present
    she is sound asleep in Mother's own chair. I've only known her
    for an hour, but already I see why poor Blanchie gave it up and
    went to bed. I can well imagine that this young woman loose in
    London would be a terror. Happily she can't do much in
    Kirkmeikle, and even Langtoun offers little scope. But what are
    we to do with her? Obviously she regards us, more or less, as
    her jailers, and is as resentful as she can be at being sent
    here.... Mother refuses to meet my eyes, and sits at her
    embroidery looking like Queen Mary in Lochleven!... All the
    same, Mistress Jean, it's not really amusing, for I can see
    Althea will play havoc with our peace. It sounds horribly
    selfish to say so, and to grudge hospitality to a girl who
    hasn't got a home. When you think of it she has never had a
    chance to be a normal nice girl. Both her parents outside the
    pale: unwanted: knocked about from one relative to another, she
    was bound to develop a protective shell. I expect that is why
    she has such casual manners and an air of not caring a fig for
    any one. She feels herself up against the world, poor babe! At
    present, as I say, she is definitely hostile to us, but perhaps
    Mother's disarming gentleness and simplicity will soften her. I
    expect she's afraid I'll come the elder sister or the maiden
    aunt over her. She makes me feel at once very young and quite
    old!...'

It was very quiet in the pretty room: you could hear the ripple of the
water on the sand outside, and the far-away cry of a sea-bird. Nicole
wrote, her mother stitched and stitched, while her thoughts wove other
patterns. Althea, broad awake--her dose had been little more than a
pretence--watched the scene through half-shut eyes.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Later, she came down to dinner such a bizarre figure that Effie, who was
young and unsophisticated, forgot all she had been taught about never
appearing to look at any one, nor listening to the conversation, and
frankly stared. The question which interested her was, would that
brilliant red come off when the young lady drank, or was it water-proof,
wine-proof, and coffee-proof? She had been helping Harris to unpack for
Miss Gort, and never had she seen such clothes, so many aids to the
toilet. She felt vaguely elated to be in the same house as such a
strange and beautiful lady.

When they returned to the drawing-room, Althea went to the piano, and
without being asked, sat down and began to play scraps of one thing and
another, from Chopin to the songs from the latest revue. Lady Jane and
her daughter had perforce to listen: there was no chance of reading or
talking.

After Nicole had gone up with their guest to see that she had everything
she wanted, she came back to the drawing-room and looked reproachfully
at her mother.

'Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Mums? You have need to be. Talk about
ruining a home!...'

'It won't be so bad when we get to know her,' Lady Jane pleaded.

'It'll be worse,' said Nicole, 'much worse.'




                              CHAPTER VII


                      '_She knew what she knew, like a sound dogmatist:_
        _She did not know what she did not know--like a sound agnostic._'
                                                       G. K. CHESTERTON.

Nicole's letter, written from the Harbour House on the night of the
arrival of Althea Gort to her friend Jean Douglas, made that lady laugh
as she read it.

Mrs. Douglas was frankly middle-aged, but very slim and straight and
well-dressed. She wore her grey hair rolled back in a fashion of her own
from her small, high-coloured face: her exceedingly bright blue eyes
kindled very easily to anger, but they were just as liable to sparkle
with laughter, or to melt with sympathy: what no one ever saw in them
was a spark of malice.

'What's amusing you?' asked her husband. He was a large man with a round
red face, an overwhelming admiration for his sprightly wife which he did
his best to conceal, and a trick of taking sciatica which exasperated
the said wife beyond measure. A good husband when well and able to be
out of doors most of the time, she admitted that, but cooped up in the
house he was a nuisance, for he hated cards, read nothing but newspapers
and _The Field_, and did nothing but groan and mope. At present he was
recovering from a bout and was in a complaisant mood.

His wife answered his question obliquely.

'Really,' she said, 'Lady Jane is almost too much of an angel.'

'What's she done now?'

'Done? She's gone and asked for an indefinite visit a girl who is a
niece of her sister-in-law--no relation at all of her own, evidently a
brat of a thing, and poor Nicole has got to entertain her as best she
can. Of course I quite see Lady Jane's point. Alastair, who was Nicole's
care, has gone to school: there isn't much to do in that quiet place, so
she provides Nicole with an occupation, and at the same time helps her
sister-in-law out of a difficulty. I dare say it will work out all
right, but the picture Nicole draws of her mother and herself
dispossessed by this young cuckoo is rather funny.'

Colonel Douglas puffed at his pipe. 'Who did you say the girl was?'

'Oh, you know all about her. Freddie Gort's girl.'

'Oh--Lord, yes. Poor little soul, she can't have had much of an
upbringing.'

'That, of course, was Jane Rutherfurd's reason for bringing her. As I've
said before, she's an angel that woman. She can't bear every one not to
get a chance. She may make something of this Gort girl. She can't be
more than eighteen or nineteen.... I knew her mother, a heartless,
lovely minx. The sister Blanche, Lady Elliston, Jane's sister-in-law, is
quite harmless, if silly. This girl could inherit nothing good from her
father except a pleasant manner, which she seems to have avoided, if
Nicole's first impressions are right.'

Tom Douglas grunted agreement.... 'I knew Freddie Gort in India. In
1902, it would be. Good man at polo: danced well too, and a first-class
shot. I remember....' He went on for quite a long time with his
reminiscences, while his wife looked over the rest of her letters.

When she had finished she said in a brisk voice:

'Well, are you going to venture out to-day?'

'Why not? The sun's shining.'

'But the ground is very damp.'

'Well, I'm not going to roll on it, am I? A walk'll do me a lot of
good.'

'Put on goloshes,' said his wife, without, however, the smallest hope of
seeing her suggestion adopted.

'Good Lord! Aren't my boots thick enough? I wonder you don't want me to
put a plaid round my shoulders and carry a hot-water bag.'

'Oh, very well. But don't ask me to condole with you if you get another
chill.'

Tom Douglas's face got apoplectic. 'How often have I told you that I
never take chills? Sciatica's a thing any one might have. The strongest
suffer from it--From the way you speak one would think it was a sign of
weakness.'

'Whatever it is it makes you disgustingly cross and morose to live with,
so in self-defence I ask you to be careful. You don't really think
you've been a pleasant companion for the last fortnight, do you?'

'I thought women liked to nurse,' her husband grumbled. 'The only poem I
ever learned was something about ministering angels. "_When pain and
anguish wring the brow_..."'

He looked so like a large sulky boy as he stood there, that his wife
could only laugh and, catching the lapels of his old tweed coat, kiss
his aggrieved red face.

'You are an old silly, aren't you? Go away out, then, as long as the sun
shines, but don't stand talking to Daniel in the stable-yard. I'll come
out and look for you if you are too long. Alison Lockhart's coming to
luncheon.'

'Thought she was in Italy somewhere.'

'She is only just back. She rang up last night and asked if she might
come to-day. She says she's coming to get all the news of the
countryside!'

'There's none,' said Colonel Douglas briefly. 'Well. I'll be back in
lots of time. I'm just going to take a look round. When you've been shut
up in the house as long as I have there's a lot wants seeing to....'

Kingshouse was looking rather beautiful that pale, windy, autumn day. It
stood on the banks of Tweed, a plain Georgian house, with wide lawns
sloping up to a beech-wood which, in early spring, was a drift of
snowdrops. Inside were comfortable rooms, well lighted, well warmed,
full of solid Victorian furniture; for Jean Douglas clung to the
Victorian age, insisting that in it she found all the virtues. The round
table that stood in her own sitting-room held Jane Austen and Trollope
and Hardy as the daily bread of her reading: Douglas and Foulis's box
supplied what she wanted of the literature of the day, but as she found
little to admire in the modern novel, she confined herself chiefly to
biography and travel. Once she said to Nicole about a much-praised and
widely read modern masterpiece: 'I've read it, and in a way I've enjoyed
it, but I couldn't let it lie on my table. I'd have hated to see it near
my Bible.'

She was very good friends with herself, and never minded being alone,
but she was keenly interested in her neighbours. A childless woman, she
grudged no trouble where it was a question of giving children pleasure.
The Kingshouse Christmas party had been a landmark to the young
Rutherfurds, and to many others. She found something to be amused at in
almost every situation in which she found herself, indeed, even on the
most solemn occasions there was apt to be a suppressed twinkle in her
eyes.

The twinkle was there this morning as she watched from the window her
husband set off for his walk. He had started as if to go to the garden,
but she suspected he would branch off to the stable-yard and pass the
time of day with Daniel. Daniel had been coachman to the Douglases for
many years, and now, when motors had taken the place of horses, he was a
sort of adviser-in-general to the whole household. No one quite knew
what his job was supposed to be, he did a bit of everybody else's: his
own private opinion was that he held the whole place together. He was
now sixty-five, and fifty of those years had been spent at Kingshouse.
He could not imagine life away from that quiet place beside the Water of
Tweed. Unmarried, he lived alone in a cottage, which he kept as neat and
trig as any on the place. He was great friends with Mrs. Fraser, the
cook (Mrs. only by courtesy), had been so for thirty years, but it went
no further than friendship. He appreciated her as a cook, admired her as
a woman, but distrusted her as a wife. He had gone his own way so long
that the thought of being tied was insupportable.

Servants stayed long at Kingshouse, indeed they were seldom removed
except by marriage or death. Mrs. Douglas's own maid had become
something of a tyrant, if an affectionate and loyal one. Her mistress
often said she trembled before Ellen, and not without reason. The whole
household was an immense amusement to Alison Lockhart, the expected
luncheon guest. On her return from her frequent wanderings she always
reported herself first at Kingshouse.

'How refreshing,' she remarked when the servants had left the room, 'to
come back here, where time stands still. Change and decay are
everywhere--I found a perfect battalion of grey hairs this morning, and
a front tooth is showing signs of having done with me--but you and Tom
never get a bit older, two fresh young folk.... Lawson opens the door
for me as he has done frequently for the past thirty years--what a
blessing not to see a different face every time you go to a friend's
house! Mrs. Fraser goes on making the same delicious pastry and cakes
that she made when I was a child...'

'This cake is specially made for you,' Jean Douglas pointed out, 'so you
must have a bit with your coffee. Yes, I know it will spoil the flavour
of the coffee, but better that than you should hurt Mrs. Fraser's
feelings.'

Miss Lockhart laughed: 'Well--a tiny bit. I know it of old: it's my
favourite cake.... Tell me, how is Ellen? Is she as masterful as
ever?'

'Worse. I wanted to put on a new dress which has just arrived, that you
might pronounce on it, but she wouldn't hear of it and forced me into
this. Declares the new one must be kept for a party!'

'It's absurd, Jean,' her husband put in. 'Put your foot down once and
for all. Say to her...' He paused.

'Yes?' said his wife pleasantly.

'Well, just say you will put on what you please, not what she pleases,
and--what are you laughing at, Jean?'

'Did you see Daniel this morning?'

'Yes, but what's that got...'

'Did you find that he had done what you told him about the bridge?'

Tom Douglas's red face got a shade deeper as he looked steadily into his
coffee-cup.

'Well,' he said, 'he hasn't done _quite_ what I suggested...'

'Suggested,' remarked his wife, 'is good.'

'But,' he finished with dignity, 'I'm not sure that he hasn't improved
on my idea.'

'Handsomely said.' Mrs. Douglas turned to her guest. 'Alison, do tell us
something new and interesting to keep Tom and me from wrangling.'

Miss Lockhart ate the candy-sugar in her spoon (though she did not take
it in her coffee, she liked some to sup) and said: 'Something new and
interesting? My dear, you ask too much. I roam the world in search of
amusement with no success, and come back to find it by Tweedside. Tell
me what's been happening to every one. Remember, I've heard no news for
months.'

Jean Douglas nibbled a salted almond. 'D'you mean to say,' she asked,
'that you didn't notice us in the picture Press? Tilly Kilpatrick was
very much in evidence at Games and Gatherings--you know, reading left to
right. Tom and I inadvertently got in once, but they put "In this group
appear..." so the public were left to guess which was which of the
disreputable-looking crew. Tom was also once mentioned as "the genial
host," which pleased him very much.'

'It did not,' said that affronted gentleman. 'I'd like to know who
writes that trash.' No one enlightened him, and presently he went off to
his study leaving the women to their talk.

'And of course you heard about Barbara Jackson's baby? Oh yes, a boy.
Andrew Rutherfurd Jackson. All things are added unto that girl.... I
mean to go and call there this afternoon. I think Barbara feels that I
only go when Lady Jane and Nicole are there.'

'I'd better go too, perhaps. I haven't been for ages. To tell the truth
I never cared for Barbara. Have the Rutherfurds been back lately?'

'At the end of September. They were all there for the christening. Mr.
and Mrs. Jackson from Glasgow in great form. I will say this, Barbara
behaves very nicely to her mother-in-law, and it can't always be easy.
Nor is it easy for Mrs. Jackson, she must see many things that she
doesn't approve of. Several times I know, she was biting back remarks
that would have given offence; she looked at me as much as to say: "You
and I know what we think--but not a word!" I always did like that little
woman. I asked her if she liked being back in Glasgow, and she said in
that curiously soft Glasgow voice of hers: "Uch, it's all right. Father
and I get on fine: he has his business and I've got my house, and we've
lots of people coming about, but, d'ye know, we miss our county
friends--ucha, we do." I can't speak like her, but Nicole has her to
perfection. They are great friends, Mrs. Jackson and Nicole.'

'How is Nikky?'

'Happy, I think. She has accepted things. I was rather worried about her
for a long time after they left Rutherfurd. She looked radiant at
Barbara's wedding, but when she came back with her mother in the autumn
there was a change in her that I can't explain.'

'You don't suppose she had banked on marrying young Jackson and getting
back Rutherfurd?'

Mrs. Douglas shook her head. 'Oh no. At the wedding she was the
gayest thing possible: not making-believe either. Whether something
happened...'

'Didn't you ask her mother?'

'I did not: nor would you, my dear. Jane Rutherfurd is gentleness
itself, but she can put people in their place in a way I've never seen
equalled. I never risk a snub. Anyway, it was no business of mine, and
Nicole seems to have got over it--if there was anything to get over. I
had a letter from her this morning. They've got a girl Althea Gort
visiting them. You know, Sybil Gort's girl.'

'Bless me!' Alison Lockhart twisted her mouth. She was a plain woman
with a fascinating mouth. 'What is the idea of that? She's not a
relation, is she?'

'A connection by marriage.'

'Of course. Sybil's sister married Jane's brother. Poor Sybil's dead.
She was a pretty creature, but in horsey circles she would have been
described as "a confirmed bolter"--I wonder what the daughter is like!'

'And how she will enjoy Kirkmeikle in November! One hardly knows who to
pity most.... It seems her aunt--Lady Elliston, you know--isn't well
enough to look after her, and asked Lady Jane, as a great favour, to
take her for a little. I wonder what the girl will make of the Harbour
House.'

'If she has any sense she'll love it and realise that to be taken in
there is the best thing that ever happened to her. I don't believe in
many people, but I do believe in Jane Rutherfurd.... By the way, I
hear John Dalrymple's back.'

'Yes.' Jean Douglas poised the spoon on the top of her coffee-cup and
considered it.

'Well?'

'Well what?'

'Oh, don't be absurd. You know quite well he's been devoted to Nicole
since she was a child. I can't think why they haven't been married for
years. Everybody thought after the War he'd settle down at Newby. You
remember he got quite a lot done to the house, and was so much at
Rutherfurd that we expected an announcement any day, instead of which
off he went abroad and the place was shut up. I expect that was Nicole's
fault. Well, that's about eight years ago, a lot of water's run under
Tweed Bridge since then and Nicole's all that older and wiser. Let's
hope they'll settle it up soon. Have they met, do you know?'

Jean Douglas put the spoon back in her saucer and said: 'Not yet, but
Nicole and her mother are coming to Rutherfurd for Christmas. Alison, do
be careful what you say to Nikky, what you say to any one. I'm
_terribly_ set on this marriage coming off. But if Barbara begins to
manage or...'

'Oh. I know her heavy footed way! My dear, I'll be dumb. I'm just as
keen as you are to see a Rutherfurd back on Tweedside.... Is John as
imperturbable as ever? He's good-looking in a sulky way, and Nicole is
the heaven-sent mate for him. A firefly of a creature needs a drab
husband as a background!'




                              CHAPTER VIII


    '..._so genteel and so easy!... always something to say
    to everybody._ That _is my idea of good breeding_.'

                                                        JANE AUSTEN.

Nicole introduced Althea to Kirkmeikle society with a sort of amused
trepidation.

Althea had sighed resignedly when told that she had been invited to
lunch at Knebworth.

'Need we go?' she asked languidly.

'Oh, there's no _need_ about it, but invitations mean more in Kirkmeikle
than in London, and Mrs. Heggie wants to be very kind.'

Althea seemed unimpressed, and when Nicole routed her out of an
arm-chair to dress, she asked peevishly what she was supposed to put on.

Nicole laughed as she followed the girl into her room. The white chamber
smelling of salt air and linen in lavender had suffered a change. The
toilet-table was covered with a multitude of bottles and boxes; powder
was spilt about; a box of paints and a sketch-book, some embroidery
silk, bundles of patterns, two paper-backed French novels and a box of
chocolates without its lid lay heaped in confusion on the writing-table.
The wardrobe door refused to shut, and slippers and shoes tumbled about
everywhere. The room, Nicole knew, was thoroughly tidied every morning,
but in five minutes Althea would wreck any room.

Nicole suggested a coat and skirt or a jumper suit. 'You have so many
nice things,' she said, 'and nobody dresses in Kirkmeikle: not to call
dressing: we are decently covered, that is all you can say.'

When Althea emerged from her room she was the last word in smartness,
and heavily made up.

'She wants me to protest,' Nicole told herself, so she said: 'I was
taught that it was rude to make personal remarks, but I can't help
congratulating you on your appearance. You can't think how thrilled Mrs.
Heggie will be that you have taken trouble to dress for her.'

'I expect,' said Althea hopefully, 'that she'll feel she's got the
World, the Flesh, and the Devil at the table to-day.'

'Very likely,' said Nicole. 'All she knows of the world is culled from
the books she reads. She is a somewhat shocked follower of some of our
more outspoken novelists. She is so believing, poor dear, that it's a
shame to deceive her, but I sometimes feel inclined to try how far her
credulity goes.'

The only other guests, Mrs. Jameson and Mrs. Lambert, were already in
the Knebworth drawing-room when Nicole, in demure grey, and the
exotic-looking Althea were shown in.

Mrs. Heggie had been looking forward to welcome what she described to
herself as 'a bright young girl,' and when she met the cold eyes of
Althea and realised the scarlet lips, she recoiled like a rabbit from a
snake. The Rutherfurds had been a surprise to her in their simplicity
and friendliness; this was what she had always expected the aristocracy
to look like--cold, painted, proud.

She found nothing better to say than 'Well, well,' but, recovering
herself, she introduced Joan, and the two stood looking at each other,
surely the most oddly assorted couple one could see on a day's journey.

Nicole, while appearing absorbed in what Mrs. Lambert was saying to her,
listened with amusement to the conversation.

'This is your first visit to Kirkmeikle?'

'My first visit to Scotland.'

'Oh.... You live in London?'

'Sometimes, when I'm not abroad.'

'Er... Do you... do you _do_ anything? I mean, are you going in
for anything?'

Althea raised her eyebrows enquiringly.

'I mean--are you keen on Art or Music or...'

'No.' Althea's eyes were roaming round the Knebworth drawing-room,
noting the 'quaint' windows, and the 'artistic' door-knobs.

'Oh--Are you fond of the Drama?'

The girl let her eyes rest negligently on Joan as she said: 'I like a
good crook play, and I don't mind a revue if it goes fast enough. If you
mean do I like Shakespeare and highbrow stuff, I don't.'

She turned away her head as if, so far as she was concerned, the
conversation was closed.

Joan was rendered dumb: never had she felt so snubbed, so put in her
place, and when she turned and met an understanding gleam in Nicole's
eyes she felt more warmly to that young woman than ever she had done.

Nicole came over and began to talk to her about a book of poems that had
just been published.

'You haven't seen it? Oh, may I send it to you? I bought several
copies--it's only a tiny book. I met the girl who wrote it, Meta Strong,
when I was away; we were staying at the same house and we made friends.
I was so interested to find she knew your book. She may be coming later
to stay at the Harbour House, and I hope you will come and meet her.'

She had soothed Joan's ruffled feelings before luncheon was announced.
She told herself she wasn't going to have Mrs. Heggie's party spoiled by
this unmannerly child, for it was a very high effort in the way of a
party. Mrs. Heggie had taken infinite pains to please her guests. Her
menu was carefully thought out. Every detail of the table was as perfect
as she could make it. Bella, the parlour-maid, had been drilled and
admonished until she hardly knew what she was doing! the cook was
rendered nervous and unsure of herself.

Mrs. Heggie would have told you that she was very 'knacky' about a
table, and to-day she had surpassed all previous efforts. Everything was
pale yellow: the table-mats, the napkins, the glasses, the candlesticks,
the candles. Instead of flowers a large silver dish stood in the middle
of the table filled with artificial fruit. She had seen the same thing
in a friend's house, and thought it very _chic_. Her breast, as she took
her place at the table, swelled with satisfaction. Nobody else in
Kirkmeikle, and not even in Langtoun, she felt sure, had such a colour
scheme. Instinctively her eyes turned to Nicole and met her smile of
congratulations. Mrs. Jameson, unfolding her napkin, was saying how
charming the table looked, to which her hostess replied with a
deprecatory murmur.

Joan envied her mother chatting so happily with Mrs. Jameson and Nicole.
She, poor soul, laboured in conversation with Mrs. Lambert and the
London girl. Mrs. Lambert was willing and anxious to do her best, but
though she liked Joan's poetry, she cherished a nervous fear of the
author of it, who was known to despise more or less everybody in
Kirkmeikle, and wasn't likely to make an exception of the minister's
little, shy, shabby wife, and the mere sight of Althea filled her gentle
heart with horror. She had seen pictures of people like her in
magazines, but had hoped to be spared meeting one in the flesh. The
perfection of the clothes appalled her no less than the painted face and
the cold, unfriendly eyes.

Still, she had accepted this invitation, now that she was here she must
do her best to talk. Joan had evidently come to an end of her
conversation, so she threw herself into the breach and asked in a small
choked voice if the fruit in the middle dish was real.

'Wax,' said Joan, 'or china or something.'

'They are wonderfully natural,' went on Mrs. Lambert, and all three
gazed solemnly at the dish.

'I prefer flowers myself,' Joan said with finality.

'But in winter,' began Mrs. Lambert, 'flowers are so difficult to get in
Kirkmeikle.' She raised her voice and, greatly daring, addressed the
tall girl. 'I'm told that in London the flower shops are most beautiful.
Indeed, the best of everything seems to go to London.'

'Don't you know London?' Althea asked.

'No, I've never been out of Scotland. But we've promised ourselves a
week in London some day and we're saving up for it.'

Althea stared at the small transparent face that was like a
wood-anemone, and said: 'I hope you'll think it's worth the trouble when
you go. It's a pity to look forward to things, they generally turn out
duds.'

'But it's fun to look forward,' Mrs. Lambert insisted. 'I'm not sure
that the looking forward and looking back aren't the happiest bits; one
isn't really _fearfully_ happy at the moment of doing.'

'Is one ever really happy?' said Joan in her hungry voice.

'Yes,' Mrs. Lambert said, with surprising decision.

'You mean you are?' said Althea.

Mrs. Lambert nodded.

'I wonder why?' said Althea, and turned to help herself to a dish that
was being offered.

'Why...' Mrs. Lambert was beginning, when she stopped. Why should she
tell her tale of happiness to listeners who could never understand? So
instead of telling she laughed and said: 'Certainly not because I've got
the things that are generally regarded as essential to happiness.' She
felt quite bold now, unafraid, though she was seeing herself as these
others saw her, a little wisp of a woman with a shabby little husband
who stuttered, and two rather plain little girls; a grey manse in a
garden and a very small salary. 'We've got no money, we wear our clothes
to the bitter end, we get few holidays, and never travel, but we refuse
to be considered miserable. I suppose it's a sort of contrariness.' She
stopped, found the table listening, and blushed.

Nicole was smiling at her, and the lady at Mrs. Heggie's right hand,
whom she had not met before, turned to her saying: 'I'm very much
interested to hear you say that. I'd like to see some statistics about
happiness. But it's really temperament, don't you think? If you're born
with a jealous, striving spirit, you'll be miserable till the day you
die; whereas if you are contented, all other things will be added unto
you.'

'That's true,' said Mrs. Heggie, 'I've noticed it myself.'

'Then you think,' said Nicole, 'that when the fairies come to our
christening we shouldn't desire brains, beauty, wealth, but simply
content?'

'Isn't there such a thing as divine discontent?' Joan said loftily and
evidently feeling that that was what she suffered from. 'If every one
was content, nothing would get done.'

'Well, that's true too,' said her mother. 'Telephones and wireless, and
now this television. I'm told we'll be able to see people's faces when
they're telephoning.'

Nicole groaned. 'What a horrible idea. Imagine seeing the stricken faces
of people who don't want to come and have no excuse when you ask them to
a party!'

Mrs. Jameson, refusing to be side-tracked, went back to her subject and
said: 'Content is not laziness. Content is having a--what is it?--"a
heart at leisure from itself"; where does that quotation come from? And
a mind at ease from petty worries to do great things.'

Mrs. Heggie, while keeping a watchful eye on Bella, smiled kindly at her
guest and said: 'You must be very contented yourself, Mrs. Jameson, to
live happily alone at Windywalls.'

Esm Jameson seemed to be about to say something, then, meeting Nicole's
glance, she merely laughed, and Joan said peevishly:

'I can't understand what makes us stay in this dreary seaside village
through a long winter, when we might be somewhere basking in sunshine.
I'd like to go to Persia and Arabia.'

'I expect you've been reading Gertrude Bell's _Letters_' Nicole said.

Joan nodded. 'What a super-woman! I'd rather have had a day of her life
than my whole existence.'

'Dear me,' said her mother, 'how you young people talk! Do you want to
go to Persia, Miss Gort?'

'Not particularly,' said that damsel. 'It's hot and dirty, and I hate
flies.'

'Bokhara's the place I want to go to,' Nicole said, 'but I'm afraid I've
a morbid liking for Kirkmeikle in winter.'

'Indeed, it's not bad,' said Mrs. Heggie. 'Mrs. Lambert, if you don't
like coffee, could they get you a cup of tea?'

'Does the rock-garden progress?' Nicole asked Esm Jameson, who shook
her head.

'Stuck till spring,' she said. 'I'm looking forward to seeing you
to-morrow, you and Miss Gort.'

She looked at the girl, who was sitting over her coffee, her elbows on
the table, a cigarette in its long holder in her mouth, and looked away
again, without meeting Nicole's eyes.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Though Lady Jane did not care much to go out to meals, she enjoyed
hearing about them, and looked up from her embroidery with a welcoming
smile as her daughter came in.

'Where is Althea?' she asked.

'Gone upstairs. I expect she'll lie on her bed and smoke till tea-time.
I'm afraid she was badly bored; she had the appearance of despising her
company.'

'Poor child!' said Lady Jane. 'Was it a nice luncheon?'

'All yellow,' said Nicole. 'Yes, everything. I do wish you could have
seen it. It was very effective, and Mrs. Heggie was so proud. The food
was yellow too.'

'Nonsense, Nikky.'

'But yes. Listen. Little yellow dishes with some sort of fish souffl;
cutlets--yellowish; potatoes done in browny-yellow balls, _you_ know;
mashed turnips, _very_ yellow; a creamy-yellow pudding, and oranges
filled with jelly; African plums, bananas, oranges--all yellow. I felt
the guests should all have got themselves up to match.... Mrs.
Jameson was there, very neat in tweeds. Mrs. Lambert, dear soul, in her
old fawn things, I as you see me, and that absurd child dressed like a
circus! But I think Mrs. Heggie was rather flattered than otherwise; she
felt she had been dressed for. What Joan thought I dare not think.
Althea was frankly rude to her.... How long are we to stand it,
Mums?'

Her mother drew her needle with its silk thread in and out several times
before she looked up at her daughter.

'It's early days to talk like that, Nikky. Be patient with the silly
child.'

'But I don't see why we should be. No, Mums, you needn't look at me with
these calmly disapproving eyes. In this case we are not our brother's
keeper. It's that lazy Blanchie, who has deserted her post and thrust us
into the position of jailers, who is responsible.... You talk about
"poor child," and she may be young in years but she's got all the wisdom
of the serpent in that sleek little head of hers. In three days I've
only found one good thing about her! She's fond of Spider.'

'Having said that, let's leave the subject,' Lady Jane suggested....
'While you were on pleasure bent I went to see old Betsy. I know her
much frailer since summer. And she's getting gentle, which is a bad
sign. At least, perhaps "gentle" is hardly the word, less pugnacious
anyhow.'

'Was she up?'

'Oh yes: sitting by the fire with her back turned to the window, and the
sea which she dislikes so sincerely. We had a long talk about
Rutherfurd. She says merely to hear the names of the places is like a
drink of water to her. It is rather terrible that her spirit should
still be so keen when her body is so frail: she is almost quite helpless
now. She wraps her poor twisted hands in her shawl....'

Nicole nodded. 'I know. She looks the merest little crumpled wisp, but
when she lifts these wrinkled eyelids her eyes are like a hawk's, so
light and keen. I _wish_ she didn't feel so much--Talking about
helplessness, you remember I told you about a man I met at the Erskines
called Walkinshaw? They've a place, Kinogle, which has been let for some
time. Well, it seems his mother has got that dreadful arthritis and can
hardly move. Mrs. Erskine was telling me about her. Quite a young
woman--the son isn't more than six-and-twenty--she is shut off from
everything. I'm told she's rather glad of visitors, so we might go one
day, don't you think? She won't see us if she doesn't feel able, but I
think she might like a visit from you, Mother. Yours is a consoling
presence so to speak.... What? No, I'm not mocking: it's the truth.'




                               CHAPTER IX


                                     '_Although my life is left so dim,_
                                  _The morning crowns the mountain-rim;_
                                     _Joy is not gone from summer skies_
                                  _Nor innocence from children's eyes._'
                                                          ALICE MEYNELL.

As Esm Jameson dressed for the Erskines' dinner-party she reflected
thankfully that Nicole Rutherfurd was to be there. That would be one
known face, and a friendly one at that. She had not yet met the
Erskines, as she had been in Edinburgh when they made their call, and
they had been out when she returned it. There were two daughters, she
knew, Vera and Tibbie, for Miss Rutherfurd had said she hoped they would
make friends with the girl who had come to stay at the Harbour House,
Althea Gort. Odd little thing that was, with her lovely, impassive face
and unfriendly manners! A changeling at the hearth of Lady Jane and her
daughter.

Esm looked at herself in the glass. She was looking well, she thought:
her face was rounder and she had a healthy colour. The life at
Windywalls suited her. She had been a grey-faced, nervous creature, but
the east winds of Fife were reviving, not to speak of work in the garden
and wordy wrangles with old John Grierson. It was delightful to have a
house of one's own, to order the sort of meals that agreed with one, to
go to bed when one felt sleepy, in short, to have no one to consider but
oneself. And the house was ceasing to be merely a house, with a certain
number of rooms, each filled with so many articles of furniture, it was
becoming a home, acquiring an individuality of its own.

This room, now. She looked round the airy, pleasant bedroom with its
wide window looking over the fields to the sea. There was the bed she
had always wanted, with its slender fluted mahogany pillars and little
valance of chintz. The petticoated dressing-table had glass on the top,
and under the skirt of muslin were drawers to tidy things away in, for
she did not like a littered table. She had found a really lovely old
Persian carpet, with colours as gentle as those of Hassan's treasured
rug. The room was empty except for some chairs, a wardrobe that occupied
the whole length of one wall, and an old walnut table at the bedside,
with a shaded electric light, a stand of books, and a small case of
brown leather which held the photograph of a young man in uniform.

In the years of her husband's illness her sleep had necessarily been
broken, but after, when there was nothing to disturb her, her thoughts
had kept her awake. The bitterness of her pity for Archie--If he had
died in battle she felt that she would have had nothing but pride and
thankfulness in her heart. Pity was wasted on those boys who, knowing
only 'the singing season,' leapt into the great adventure of war, and,
in spite of discomfort and misery and often black horror, laughed their
way through, and died, in the April of their days, willing sacrifices,
their hearts high within them. But Archie----

The War had crashed into their honeymoon, sweeping away all their plans
and hopes, but that had mattered little. Archie had gone without a
second's hesitation, as she would have wished. She would have thought
his love for her a poor thing had it not made him love honour more. But
those long years of helplessness and pain.... There were two things
she would never forget. Once when she had looked at the clock at his
bedside and said 'It's slow,' he had replied 'I keep it slow,' and in
answer to her enquiring glance, 'It's nice to know that it's a little
further on than it seems.'

She had laughed and turned away that he might not see the smarting tears
in her eyes. Archie who had used to complain that time went so fast!...

Another time he had wakened from a sleep with a happy cry of '_Esm_.'
She was beside him in a second, and there would always remain with her
the look in his eyes as he said: 'I must have been dreaming, I thought I
was well again and we were going out for a ride.... I'm sorry to be
such an idiot----'

So, for long, her nights had been a torment. She had often felt she
hated her bed. All the more wonderful now, she found it, to think with
pleasure of bed--to undress slowly, luxuriously, to read some pleasant
book for half an hour or so, click out the light, turn over on her right
side, her mind full of homely things, details of housekeeping, of
garden-making, of half-remembered sayings... and know nothing until
she awoke to morning light. After her weary years she could not get used
to the wonder of it; she never ceased to be grateful. That alone would
have made her love her life at Windywalls, but there were many other
pleasant features. She liked the quiet regularity of it, the few simple
junketings: presently there would be hunting.

She had hardly expected that she would so soon make friends, but in
these last weeks, since the day she called on Mrs. Heggie, events had
moved rapidly. That lady felt already quite an old friend, and the
Rutherfurds--she smiled as she remembered the vague distrust roused in
her by Mrs. Heggie's enthusiasm. But the mother and daughter had been so
unaffectedly friendly that she could not but be grateful. She liked
them: they were candid and simple, and though they were appreciative of
the good points of the people they lived among, they had much too acute
a sense of humour not to be amused by the human comedy that goes on
everywhere.

She had asked Nicole what the Erskines were like, at whose house they
were to dine that evening.

'I think you'll like them,' Nicole had said. 'They're so truly
hospitable, almost as relentlessly so as Mrs. Heggie. Queensbarns was
knocked down and rebuilt by Mr. Erskine's father, a manufacturer of
sorts. It's like a very much overgrown villa, with heaps of bow-windows;
and it's absolutely crammed full of things.'

'Furniture?'

'Furniture, yes, and pictures, great gilt things, seascapes mostly,
rugs, ornaments of all descriptions, mostly Eastern, for the present
owner of Queensbarns has something to do with India--jute, perhaps.
Anyway, there are carved tables covered with brass animals, great bowls
and jars with dragons walking round them; armies of elephants carrying
things on their backs--you simply can't move for them. It would be a
terrible house to have brain-fever in! They have a plethora of
everything. You'd hardly think, would you, that you could tire of
flowers? Well, I never feel as if I want to see a flower again after
I've been to Queensbarns. Not only are the rooms kept filled by careful
gardeners, but conservatories abound everywhere--you constantly find
yourself looking into one.'

Esm had nodded, remarking, 'I know that sort of house.'

'Mr. Erskine,' Nicole continued, 'is rather a boastful little gentleman.
His conversation chiefly consists of relating episodes in which he got
the better of some one. All "I said this" and "I said that"--somewhat
monotonous. Also he loves titles and sprinkles his conversation with
references to such of his friends as have been ennobled. They are very
rich, and take a house in London for the season, and entertain a lot,
and go down very well. Scots people do, don't you think, as a rule? An
aunt of mine got to know them and told them about us when we took the
Harbour House, and they were very hospitable and kind.'

'What sort of age is Mrs. Erskine--forty-ish?'

'Um--fifty-ish, I should say, but very gay and sprightly. She told me
the other day that she felt perfectly at home with the young generation,
and when I asked if some one was a nice girl she replied, "A topping
kid." Yes, poor lamb, it's a pity, but that is how she talks. She is
quite good-looking: buxom, I think, is the word. Her skin is very
tight-fitting, her eyes are like agates, hard and bright, and her
clothes are the very latest from Paris----'

'And the girls?'

'Haven't you met the girls either? Vera's about five-and-twenty, and
Tibbie a year less. Nice, jolly, sensible girls. My cousin, Barbara,
before she married, saw a lot of them. They're keen on everything, and
they work as well--run Guides and get up things for the Nursing. I've
helped them several times with small plays, and tournaments, and such
like, and found them very easy to work with. They've always lots of
people staying with them, and it's a cheerful house to visit.'

But as Esm Jameson gathered up her cloak and bag and prepared to sally
forth she told herself that she would be glad to be safely back in her
own room. She felt shy of going among strangers.

It was amusing, though, to see how correct Nicole's description of
Queensbarns had been.

A flight of steps led up to the massive door which was flanked on either
side by a heraldic animal in bronze. In the inner hall was a figure of
Buddha and some large copper kettles from Tibet. The hall itself, though
large, seemed overcrowded: the tiled floor was covered thickly with
rugs, the walls with trophies of the chase; there were numbers of tables
strewed about, some with papers and magazines, others bearing ornaments.
There was the same plethora about the servants: a butler and two footmen
showed her in, and two maids took her cloak, and pointed to such an
array of hairpins, powder, hand-glasses, and brushes and combs that it
seemed as if a whole chorus were expected.

The drawing-room blazed with lights; the atmosphere was heavy with
flowers; two fires sparkled, and there seemed to be more sofas and
arm-chairs than had ever before been brought together except in a
furniture show-room, but the whole effect was rather cheerful and
inspiriting.

Mr. and Mrs. Erskine welcomed their new neighbour with great kindness,
the daughters came forward with ready smiles; introductions were made
and dinner was announced.

Mrs. Jameson was taken in by the host, Nicole was on his left hand, and
Althea went in with a tall, dark young man. She was looking amazingly
pretty in a rose-red dress. Very little dress, Esm noted, and a great
deal of Althea. Nicole made a striking contrast. She wore a long golden
dress with long, tight gold sleeves, and made Esm think of Verona. So
might Juliet have looked as she lured her 'tassel-gentle' to come again.

Esm enjoyed her dinner: it was long but good, and, as Nicole had warned
her, her host's style of conversation called for no exertion on his
partner's side. In the intervals of watching the other people she made
interested eyes, murmuring at intervals, 'Of course,' 'Oh, that was
excellent!' 'Now that is interesting,' and Mr. Erskine thought, and
afterwards said, that Mrs. Jameson was a really intelligent woman. The
man on her other side was the dark young man, but she got no chance of
speaking more than a word to him, Althea kept his attention throughout.

In the drawing-room, some settled down to bridge, while the girls turned
on the gramophone and danced. Esm watched them happily for a time, and
presently some one said her name, and she found Althea's dinner-partner
beside her.

'We were introduced,' he said, 'but probably you've forgotten. My name's
Charles Walkinshaw.... I'm frightfully interested to hear that you've
come to live at Windywalls, for Pat Drysdale was my greatest friend, and
I spent most of my holidays there.'

Esm looked with interest at the young man. He was tall and very well
made, and his face, though plain, was pleasant to look at. He had a
short enquiring nose, and freckles, and a wide mouth, which at the
moment was extended in a friendly grin.

'If you're a friend of the Drysdales,' she said, 'probably you regard me
as a supplanter, as old John Grierson does.'

'Oh, rather not. By Jove, no--. I know that Mrs. Drysdale was jolly
grateful to you for taking the place off her hands and being so decent
about everything. She told me so herself.--Old John Grumblie doesn't
mean any harm, he only feels a bit sore at all the changes. My word, he
was the terror of our lives when we were small! Used to chase us with a
dog-whip. Of course we did rile him a bit.... Though he called the
Drysdales every name he could think of, and black-guarded them up and
down the place, he couldn't see the sun shine for them really, I always
knew that. But he didn't extend his affection to me--I was always a
_budmash_, with jail as my probable end.'

'Then you and I are in the same condemnation,' said Esm. 'That's
cheering.... Living so much at Windywalls you will know this part of
the country very well?'

The young man grinned. 'You couldn't be expected to know, of course,' he
said, 'but this is my part of the country. Our home, Kinogle, is only
six miles from this. But my father had a job in India for some years
while I was at school, and that is why I went to Windywalls for
holidays.'

'I see. I have a lot to learn yet about the neighbourhood. This is my
first meeting with the Erskines: and I've still a lot of calls to
return.'

'My mother hasn't called on you. She can't go out much; she's got that
beastly sort of rheumatism that cripples you----'

'Oh, I am sorry,' Esm said. 'How dreadful for her.'

'She did suggest,' went on the young man, 'that I should go over and
explain to you, but I thought I'd wait till I met you somewhere; I'm not
much of a hand at paying calls.'

'Oh, what does that matter.... Tell me, has she tried
everything?--but I expect she has.'

'Everything, I think, and at this moment it's what they call arrested.
She's not getting any worse. But she can only sit in a wheeled chair,
she can't turn her head.... She's very cheerful, though. I believe
she feels it most for my father and me.'

'Haven't you sisters or brothers?'

'No. I've got to do the best I can myself.'

'Do you think,' said Esm, 'that I might go and see your mother?'

'I wish you would. It's pretty dull for her, you know, to sit in one
place all the time.... My father and I take in all the news. We are
learning to take notice, for she asks about everything. She likes to
hear what we have for dinner, and if there is a new dish she asks the
cook to try it. She will ask me to-night what every one wore--. It's
rather like one of those difficult games you have to play if you stay
with highbrows.'

'How will you describe the dresses to-night?' Esm asked.

Charles Walkinshaw wrinkled his brows in perplexity. 'That's what I've
been wondering.... Vera and Tibbie, I'll say, wore something scanty,
with tucks.... That sounds rather snappy, I think. Yours is lace,
isn't it? Black lace; that's easy. I like Miss Rutherfurd's dress, that
long, plain gold thing.'

'Miss Gort's is pretty too, don't you think?'

'Yes.' His eyes were fixed on the rose-red figure--as they had been most
of the evening.

Mrs. Jameson changed the subject by asking if her companion meant to
spend much time in Fife.

'Well, I've only been back a few months. When I finished with Oxford I
went on a long tour--round the world more or less. My father wanted me
to do that. I hope to get into Parliament some day, and it's as well to
know something of India, and our Colonies, and all that.'

'Indeed, it is--. And have you a constituency?'

'Well, I've one in view, near home. The present man means to retire
soon, and it seems likely they may try me as a candidate.'

'Unionist, of course?'

'Why "of course"?'

'Oh, I don't know--. You aren't Labour, are you?'

Charles Walkinshaw looked at his companion with his straight glance.
'I'd be Labour to-morrow,' he said, 'if I thought they could do more to
help things, but from what I see--I don't pretend, mind you, to see very
clear or very far--our crowd, the Unionist Party, though they sometimes
seem absolute stick-in-the-muds, do most in the end. And we've got a
leader in Baldwin who has no axe to grind. It seems to me his great
strength lies in the fact that the sooner he stops being Prime Minister
the better he'll be pleased. He doesn't want anything we can give him.
He's doing this job, because it seems at the moment to be his job and
nobody else's, and he'll be mighty thankful when he can pay it down.
It's something to have a leader like that, a bit of Old England.'

'With a dash of the Celt,' Esm reminded him. 'You haven't mentioned
that he's a poet.'

'I suppose he is, in a way,' the young man said thoughtfully. 'Well, he
needs every quality he has for the job in hand.... Things are pretty
rotten round here. Of course you won't have seen many of the places----'

'I've only been to Langtoun.'

'It's all right; prosperous place, but those mining towns--They are
putting up a plucky fight, I can tell you. They have hardly been getting
a living wage for some time, and now that some of the pits are closed,
and thousands idle... it doesn't bear thinking of.'

'But isn't it largely their own fault? These idiotic strikes! They've
pulled down their house with their own hands.'

'That's true in a way, and it's a great sop to our consciences when
we're eating and drinking and dancing to think "Well, if they are
starving it's not our fault; they went on strike, they ruined their pits
and lost their market--" but all the same...'

'Come and dance,' Tibbie Erskine cried, running up to Charles. 'Mrs.
Jameson, I think they want you to play bridge--do you mind? Here comes
Dad to fetch you....'

As Esm walked across the room to join the others she saw Althea look
over her shoulder at Charles Walkinshaw.




                               CHAPTER X


    '_The expulsive power of a new affection._'

                                                    THOMAS CHALMERS.

Lady Jane lived her quiet life in the Harbour House with an air of great
content. She seemed always to be happily occupied; writing letters for
hours together, visiting the people about the doors--Mrs. Brodie with
her brood of nine ('no' that mony if ye say it quick eneuch'), Betsy
Curie, homesick for the Borders--talking in her gentle, kindly way to
the fishwives and sailors; working at her embroidery, thinking long
thoughts; so the days went on. She was the one who looked on, and as
such saw most of the game.

Her daughter looked over her shoulder one afternoon and said, 'Mums,
what _are_ you reading?'

Lady Jane laid down the book. 'Mrs. Heggie kindly brought it for me to
read. It's--a pleasant book.'

Nicole made a face. 'My dear, I've read it.... It's just like having
a long talk with a housemaid. Oh, I admit that's better than having a
talk with a scavenger or a barmaid, but I can't say I enjoyed it. _Must_
you finish it?'

'I think I'd better, and then I can look intelligent when Mrs. Heggie
recalls an episode.... Is Althea feeling better?'

'Yes, she's coming down to tea.'

'Poor child, she must have got a chill.'

Nicole nodded.

The night before she had been wakened by movements in the next room, and
had risen and knocked at Althea's door. She found the girl sitting up in
bed looking the picture of misery. She felt sick, she said, sick and
shivering and miserable. Her disgusted, resentful face amused Nicole,
but she was touched by the frail feeling of the shoulder that she put
her hand on, and by the knowledge that tears were not far distant.

'Where's your dressing-gown?' she asked practically, and retrieving it
from under the bed she wrapped it round the girl. 'I'll heat you a bag
in a few minutes, and get you some hot water--you've got a chill, I
expect. D'you feel very bad?--That's a silly question that doesn't need
an answer: I'll be back in a minute or two.'

She had stayed with her for an hour, and when she seemed better had
tucked her up warmly, and had even dared to lay her cheek for a second
against the tousled head on the pillow. She seemed to need a comforter
so badly.

True, Althea had been as aloof as ever when Nicole had gone in on her
way to her bath to ask how she felt; but Nicole did not mind it,
remembering a lonely girl in tears.

'Do you think Althea is getting reconciled to Kirkmeikle?' Lady Jane
asked presently.

'It would be hard to say. I don't see why she shouldn't be quite happy,
though, of course it must be terribly quiet after the sort of life she
had in London. And then, if she's miserable thinking about the man--Did
you ever hear who he was?'

'No, but Blanchie seemed to think that if Althea were removed from his
immediate neighbourhood he wouldn't be likely to take the trouble to
follow her--that sort of person.'

'I see; and poor little Althea probably realised that too. If she cared
at all it was pretty hard lines.... I don't think he writes, at least
I've noticed how eagerly she looks over her letters and then listlessly
lays them down as if she couldn't be bothered opening them.'

'But surely she must realise that a man so casual isn't worth thinking
about,' Lady Jane said.

'I've no doubt she does, but such realising isn't a bit pleasant, and at
nineteen one hasn't much philosophy. We want, and expect to get what we
want or we feel defrauded. Poor defrauded Althea! I'm really beginning
to feel some slight warmth towards her.... I hope she is going to be
friends with Vera and Tibbie. They're the sort of people who would do
her good; open-air and sensible, full of vitality, and older a bit,
which is all to the good. And there are always lots of people at
Queensbarns. That young Walkinshaw I told you about--we've never called
on Lady Walkinshaw yet; let's go to-morrow as ever was--seemed to get on
very well with Althea when we met him there at dinner. I was just
thinking what a suitable match that would be. He seems the most
thoroughly satisfactory sort of young man, such an honest, good sort,
and I'm told he's devoted to his mother. If a man is kind to his mother
and fond of animals I don't ask much more: those are the fundamentals,
so to speak.'

Lady Jane smiled as she asked: 'But would it be good for the young man
to care for Althea?'

'Yes, there's the rub. If Althea's mind is full of this man--and if she
had any constancy it must be--it would be very mean to encourage Charles
Walkinshaw to come here.... But carelessness kills affection very
quickly, and if the creature can't even cross the Forth Bridge to seek
his lady, she won't care long. I wonder what Althea is like when she is
happy? She doesn't soften much to us, does she? Or do you suppose that
is her natural manner? No wonder Aunt Blanchie went to Egypt!'

'I've seen her,' said Lady Jane, 'talking quite happily to children on
the sands, and Spider always wants to go out with her. Sometimes it
seems to me that she would like to make friends and then she remembers
and draws back.'

Nicole looked at her mother with indignation in her eyes.

'That's all very well, but she's nothing to remember against us. She may
have the right to feel peeved with Blanchie, who, heaven knows, is a
selfish old thing, but we are innocent. Mind you, Mums, I like her
better than I thought possible at first. There's something rather
interesting about that little, still, painted face; tragic, too, when
you think of the age of the thing: and last night when she was seedy
and looked so lonely it came over me that she'd never really had a
mother...'

A hand on the door-knob stopped Nicole's eloquence and sent her to the
window to make remarks about the weather, and Althea came listlessly
into the room. Her face seemed smaller than ever, and she had not
troubled to make up.

Lady Jane rose to kiss her and ask if she felt better, while Nicole
rolled in the most comfortable chair and remarked that tea would soon be
in.

'I expect,' she added, 'that you got a chill on the golf course
yesterday, in the east wind.'

Althea looked at the fire and said: 'Does it matter where one gets a
chill? The main point is that it's there.'

Nicole laughed. 'True, O King! But there is a certain satisfaction in
tracing a cold to its source, at least it's a satisfaction to the people
who have warned you that the wind is in the east and that a warm coat is
indicated. It gives them a chance of saying--"What did I tell you!"'

'I suppose so,' said Althea. She shivered a little, and held out her
hands to the blaze.

'I often wonder,' said Lady Jane, 'what it must be like to have a really
bad illness, when one bad night leaves one feeling a wreck--Althea,
dear, bed is the most comfortable place when one is seedy. I'm so afraid
you get more cold down here.'

'Mother thinks,' said Nicole, 'that with the sea just outside there are
bound to be draughts; but it's a very thick old house, and the windows
fit. See what you feel like after tea, Althea; but it might be a good
plan to go back to bed for dinner.'

It would certainly, Nicole felt, be much pleasanter for her mother and
herself if the child did go back to her own room. To have a limp,
speechless creature lying in a chair was most mournful. It was a relief
when the bustle of Effie preparing tea began; and as they were sitting
down to it Mr. Charles Walkinshaw was announced.

He came in reminding Nicole that she had said he might call, and on
being assured that he was welcome, he shook hands with Althea, and sat
down beside Lady Jane with an air of relief.

'Yes, thanks, both sugar and milk.... It's years since I was in this
room. D'you mind if I stare a good deal? You see, my mother used to come
here a lot and she'll be most fearfully interested to know what it looks
like now.'

'I think your mother isn't strong?' Lady Jane said in her soft grave
tones.

'She's almost a complete invalid; that is, she can't get about for
rheumatism, but she insists that she is really quite well, and that it's
a fine healthy complaint.'

'I suppose you've tried everything?'

'I think so; and it doesn't seem to matter much about the climate or
anything, so when my father came back from India we came home, to
Kinogle. Mother's so happy about it that I believe it's doing her good.
She was so sick of hotels and hydropathics and foreign cures. And here
she can keep house, and take an interest in the gardens; and anyway,
we're together now, the three of us.'

'Oh,' said Nicole, 'how happy your mother must be to have you with her.
It must have been dreadful to be alone and helpless.'

'Fortunately she's got an absolute jewel of a maid who understands that
she doesn't like to be made to feel helpless.... How do you like
being here, Lady Jane?'

'We love it. You know the house well?'

'I used to come here often, with Mrs. Swinton's grandson, Bob. He was
older than me, an awful good sort: he was killed, you know, when he was
nineteen. We used to fish for podleys out there from the rocks and climb
about the ships in the harbour. Mrs. Swinton was a grim old lady.'

'What did the house look like then, do you remember?' Nicole asked.

Charles looked round. 'Much as it does now, I think. You've made it seem
lighter, somehow, but is the furniture not the same?'

'It isn't,' said Nicole, 'but I'm glad we've kept the same atmosphere.
Tell your mother that.--I only wish she could come and see it for
herself.'

'But won't you come and see my mother?' He looked at Lady Jane. 'She
likes to see people. If you'd fix a day and come to lunch, you and your
daughter and--Miss Gort.'

For the first time since he had come into the room he let his glance
linger on that young woman, who smiled patiently when her name was
mentioned.

'Althea,' Lady Jane explained, 'has just come downstairs. She's got a
slight chill and feels rather shaky.--Aren't you going to eat anything,
dear?'

Charles Walkinshaw leapt to his feet and proceeded to carry to the
arm-chair hot scones and plum-cake, and was obviously discouraged to
have them waved away.

'What you want, Althea,' said Nicole, 'is plain bread and marmalade.
That's the best thing when one has no appetite. Effie will bring some
grape-fruit marmalade: it has such a clean taste.'

Nicole spread the bread and cut it into delicate fingers. Charles set it
before Althea on a small table, and presently he found himself in the
chair next her, eating large quantities of food, and talking away to
her, proud when he managed to make her smile.

'You must come again soon,' Lady Jane said, when he got up to go.

'I'll come as often as you'll have me,' said Charles. He was standing
looking down at the embroidery Lady Jane had taken up. 'Is that easy? I
wonder if my mother couldn't do something like that?'

'She might.... Does she knit at all?'

'Sometimes, not very much. But she can write letters.... I'll have a
lot of news to give her to-day. And you will come to lunch, won't
you--all of you?'

It was at Althea he looked last, and Nicole said to herself: 'He's
finished, that young man. If he admired her in insolent health he can't
stand for a moment against that little white face....'




                               CHAPTER XI


    _'I, too, have been young,' said the Moor Wife, 'and that's no
    disease.'_

                                                      HANS ANDERSEN.

An invitation to luncheon at Kinogle followed quick on Charles
Walkinshaw's visit, and the Harbour House party greatly enjoyed the
occasion. They found a delightful old house, an interesting host in Sir
James Walkinshaw, and a hostess who fascinated them.

They had expected to find an invalid much wrapped in fleecy shawls,
wearing, at best, a look of suffering patiently borne, so it was
something of a shock to find, seated in her wheeled chair at the
luncheon table, a lady in a fur-trimmed velvet coat which exactly
matched the blue of her eyes, a lady with golden hair turning silver,
brushed back from a smooth white forehead; a lady with gleaming pearls
and a gay laugh. After luncheon, which was a delightful meal with good
food and good talk, they were shown over the house, which was old enough
to be interesting, and contained heirlooms of value. It was a dry mild
day, and when Sir James suggested that they might care to see what was
outside, Lady Jane said she would like a walk. Althea followed with
Charles, but Nicole said she would go back to Lady Walkinshaw. She found
her in her own sitting-room, a south-looking room with several windows,
cheerful with flowers, and cages of birds, and a bright fire. Nicole
noticed the latest thing in gramophones, and a wireless cabinet, and her
hostess said, observing her glance: 'Yes, it's wonderful what can be
done to keep one in touch. Haven't I much to be thankful for?'

'You are a great surprise to me,' Nicole confessed.

Lady Walkinshaw laughed. 'Did you think I'd wear a grey shawl and huddle
over the fire? That's the picture that jumps to one's mind when one
hears of rheumatism.... I am absolutely helpless, you know, I can't
even turn my head, but I can use my hands. I'm glad they are not
disfigured and I can still wear my rings.'

'You are lovely,' Nicole said, with obvious sincerity.

'Oh, my dear.... I want to look decent as long as I can for the sake
of my husband and Charles, they are so unbelievably good to me. And in a
way I do enjoy life, and I'm tremendously fortunate to have my own home
and a husband who has more or less finished his life-work and can now
enjoy his garden and looking after the place, and a son who can be with
us a lot. I have his future to look forward to.... And people are a
great interest. I do hope you and your mother will come and see me when
you can, and tell me what you do and what you read....'

'Why, of course. It will be a great thing for Mother to have your
friendship. She's happy in Kirkmeikle, but she's away from all her
friends and it's lonely a bit for her.'

'Not for you?'

'Oh, it's different for me, I can be friends with any one.'

'And it's nice that you have a girl friend with you, Miss Gort.'

'Althea. Yes, she's come to us here while her aunt is in Egypt....
It's rather difficult for her; she doesn't understand people like Mrs.
Heggie.'

'Mrs. Heggie?'

'You don't know the Kirkmeikle people?' Nicole laughed. 'That's a pity,
for you would enjoy knowing Mrs. Heggie. She is large and stout with the
roundest, kindest blue eyes, and she wears "matrons' hats"--high and
trimmed, you've seen them advertised?--sitting right on the top of her
head. (I always wondered who wore those things till I met Mrs. Heggie.)
Her great ambition is to know and be able to entertain a great many
people, and she finds herself hindered in it by what she calls her
"middle-classness." I don't know what she means by that, but she is the
most innocent and likeable of women--Her daughter is a poet!'

Lady Walkinshaw's 'Really?' was frankly sceptical.

'Yes, really. It's odd, for to speak to she's very ordinary and rather
dull, but there must be a soaring spirit in her, for her poetry has the
true magic. It's not I who say so, remember, it's the harsh critics.
I'll tell you what, I'll send you her little book.'

'Do; and tell me when you find something really interesting to read: a
solid book that I can bury myself in for preference. Ah, here come the
others. Sit by me here, Lady Jane....'

                 *        *        *        *        *

It seemed to Nicole that time galloped that winter. It was Hallowe'en,
it was the end of November, it was Christmas all in a flash.

Alastair wrote: 'I am coming home on the 18th, three of us. Don't let
Nikky come to meet us becos I want to cross the Forth bridge by mself.
Ronny Macdermid is going to Aberdeen.'

In spite of this command Nicole went to Edinburgh to meet The Bat, and
as she waited on the platform, she saw emerge from a carriage two
dazed-looking small boys, who explained that Ronnie M'Diarmid has left
them at Carstairs to continue his journey to Aberdeen.

Parents claimed the other boy, and Nicole took Alastair into the station
hotel for a wash and a meal before going on. This was great excitement,
and he talked all the way home in the train. Nicole decided that school
agreed with him: he looked well, and he was taller and broader. He would
always be a plain child, with his sandy hair and pale blue eyes, but
there was something oddly attractive about the impish face, and Nicole's
eyes were soft as she looked at him. To have a little boy come home for
Christmas, how good it was! A little boy who would put his hand in hers
and scramble with her round the Harbour, and stamp across the links, and
sit importantly beside her in the car: a little boy to tell stories to
in the firelight, to scrub at bath-time, to tuck up at night. And
Alastair was dear not only for himself, but because he had been Simon
Beckett's playmate and friend. Simon had said: 'Look after The Bat,'
when he went away--Simon, she thought, would have been glad to see him
growing a big strong boy: manly, too, but still with much of the baby
softness in his queer little face.

'Is Spider waiting up for me?' he wanted to know.

'I expect so--and Mums, and Althea. You don't know Althea yet; she's a
girl who's staying with us.'

'What size of girl?' Alastair asked suspiciously.

'A large size: about nineteen.'

He gave a relieved sigh. 'Oh, that's all right. I was 'fraid she might
be a girl who needed to be played with--a little girl.'

'Wouldn't you like a little girl to play with?'

'No,' said The Bat, briefly, and added: 'Ronnie M'Diarmid wouldn't go
into a carriage with a lady--we went in a Men's Only. He calls ladies
hags.'

'What a low, rude boy Ronnie must be! I hope you never talk about ladies
as hags.'

'I don't talk about them at all.... Ronnie won't get to Aberdeen till
about eleven, but he thinks he's got enough money to take his
dinner.... We had lunch in the train: it was three-and-six each, not
counting the lemonade. We gave sixpence to the waiter, and I bought a
paper and some chocolate, so I've only got'--he proceeded to count
coppers carefully--'I've only got ninepence left. Ninepence isn't much
to buy Christmas presents with.'

'Not very much, but you must be due some pocket-money. I haven't given
you any for an age. Your sixpence a week's been mounting up. We'll go
into Langtoun with The Worm, shall we, one day quite soon and make a
tour of the shops--But we're not having Christmas at the Harbour House
this year: we're all going to Rutherfurd. Is that all right?'

'Ye-e-s, Rutherfurd's fine. Kirkmeikle's jolly too, though. Remember
last Christmas when Vera Erskine was a witch with a broomstick?'

'D'you like always doing the same thing at the same time every year?'

Alastair nodded. 'I don't like things different: but I expect
Rutherfurd'll be all right. Can the baby walk yet? I expect he'd like to
see me set off fireworks.'

'He's not six months old yet,' Nicole said. 'Later, I've no doubt Andrew
Rutherfurd Jackson will take an intelligent interest in anything you do
to entertain him.'

'I've got a lot of fireworks,' Alastair went on; 'I swapped the
microscope Mrs. Heggie gave me for them. It wouldn't work anyway. We sat
in the luggage-van to-day and talked to the guard. There was a parrot in
a cage.... I didn't know a parrot could be luggage. It was a very
nice parrot, grey and pink, and it swore. The guard said p'raps a sailor
was taking it home to his mother for Christmas. I don't expect she'd
mind though it swore....'

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was a busy week in the Harbour House. They were due to arrive at
Rutherfurd on Christmas Eve, and before that all presents had to be got
ready and dispatched by post to friends at a distance, and conveyed by
hand to all within reach.

Althea took but a languid interest in the proceedings, said she hated
Christmas anyway, and saw no reason for loading people up with rubbish
on the 25th of December. She had been two months at the Harbour House
and had become part of the household, but they seemed to know her very
little better than the evening she came. She was, as Nicole said,
perfectly docile, went where she was invited, played golf and badminton,
and danced when there was an opportunity. She seemed to get on well with
the Erskine girls, who admired her greatly for her very difference. Her
stillness interested them, and when she did trouble to talk they hung on
her words.

'Sometimes,' Tibbie told Nicole, 'we seem to have really made friends
with her, I mean we feel quite easy and intimate, then suddenly, for no
reason, she goes about a hundred miles away. What does she do to her
eyes? She hoods them like a falcon does--not that I ever saw a falcon.'

'I think,' said Nicole, 'it was the falcon that was hooded, but it
doesn't matter anyway, I know what you mean. Althea has a trick of
making a frozen face.'

'But she's a darling,' said Tibbie. 'I could look at her all day: her
lovely hands and ankles and slim legs, and her _dear_ little face. I
don't mind though she does make me look red and thick and clumsy in
comparison. And isn't poor old Charles absolutely hopeless about her? I
simply don't dare to rag him about it, I'm sure he'd think it sacrilege.
But as for Althea, nobody knows what she thinks. She never babbles like
other girls. It's rather unnatural when you come to think of it.'

Nicole ruffled up Tibbie's always-ruffled locks as she said: 'You're not
unnatural anyway, Tibbie girl. Althea has had such a different
upbringing, and it's made her reserved--I don't mind confessing that I
dreaded her coming, and when I saw her I felt my worst fears were
confirmed. She looked so hopelessly wrong in the Harbour House, one felt
she had only come because she couldn't help it--her aunt was ill and had
to go to Egypt--and that she didn't like the look of Kirkmeikle or
anybody in it; but now I'm bound to admit we would miss her. She is
interesting both in her stillness and her few moments of expansion, and
as you say she's a joy to look at, especially now that she doesn't put
so much stuff on her face.... You and Vera have done a lot for her;
it's good for her to be with you....'

Before the Rutherfurds left, Esm Jameson came over to spend an
afternoon.

'I don't like to think you're going away,' she said.

'No,' said Lady Jane, 'I wish we weren't to be away your first Christmas
in a new place.'

'But the Erskines want you to go to Queensbarns,' Nicole said.

'Yes, they've very kindly asked me, but they'll have a crowd, and I feel
I'll be better at home.... I wish I could fall asleep now and wake
when the New Year has got well started.'

Nicole laughed. 'And so say all of us! If it weren't for The Bat....
If you've got a child in the house it's quite different: you're a child
again in spite of yourself. Why, when I fill Alastair's stocking I wish
_I_ were a nine-year-old with a stocking! Yes, I do. And I'm old enough,
in all conscience.'

'How old are you?' asked Althea, crouching, as was her favourite habit,
on a stool before the fire, a cigarette in one hand, the other
supporting her little smooth head.

'Twenty-seven. I could be Alastair's mother: it's a solemn thought.'

Althea looked into the fire. 'What's the good of being young?' she
asked. 'Quite old people are the happiest. Fat Mrs. Heggie is always
beaming, so are the parent Erskines. Dr. Kilgour looks as if he enjoyed
life....' She turned round and looked at Lady Jane. 'You don't beam,
but you look contented--serene. Nicole----'

'Yes, what of Nicole?' Lady Jane's hand was suspended over her
embroidery as she waited for an answer, her eyes watchful.

'Nicole's very bright,' Althea said demurely.

Lady Jane's needle remained in the air for a minute, while Mrs. Jameson
broke a silence by remarking:

'It has always puzzled me why youth should be considered such a very
happy time. It's like the month of April: at best it's perfect, but as
April is often "uncertain glory," so is the happiness of youth.'

'It's a pity to expect much,' said Althea. 'I believe the Erskine girls
are perfectly happy. They fill their days full with Guides and games,
and country things here, and in London they enjoy balls and theatres and
shops. They'll marry people exactly like themselves and go on being
perfectly pleased.'

'And,' said Nicole, 'when the bright day is over I don't believe they'll
even fear bad dreams. It's an excellent thing to take life lightly.'

'Excellent,' agreed Esm Jameson. 'And it's a comfortable thought that
most people do take it lightly.... Alastair, what are you so busy
with?'

The Bat was stretched on the floor on a sheet of brown paper on which
was a pot of paste and a brush, scissors, pasteboard, and a collection
of pictures cut from magazines. He lifted a flushed face and explained
that he was making calendars. 'You cut out a picture that you liked and
pasted it on a square of cardboard, then you pasted on a small calendar,
made two holes and put a ribbon through to hang it up with.'

'I see. They ought to be very nice.'

'Yes,' Alastair agreed rather doubtfully, 'they _ought_ to be nice, but
my hands get sticky, and the pictures go on crooked, and the white gets
all smudged.' He sighed. 'I don't know how shops can sell calendars so
cheap when they're so hard to make.'

'How many have you made?' Nicole asked.

'Only two, and they haven't got ribbons.'

'Well, wash your hands now and I'll help you after tea. You wanted to
make four, didn't you?'

'Yes. Would Aunt Bice like a Madonna or a Sealyham? I thought that
rabbit one would be nice... I don't know what else.'

'We'll choose good ones--Wash now, sonnie, you're stickying everything,
and here comes Effie. Althea, take an end of this paper, will you, and
we'll put it in the corner in the meantime.... What a sticky mess!
I'm afraid The Bat wouldn't make much of a living as a calendar maker.'

Esm Jameson said: 'I like boys, but they scare me. D'you find him easy
to keep amused?'

'Alastair,' said Lady Jane, 'needs no amusing. I've never heard him say
"What'll I do now?" The days are far too short for all he wants to put
into them. Although he likes other boys he is quite happy alone. And of
course he knows all the sailors and fishermen about the Harbour, so he
doesn't entirely lack male society--' Lady Jane looked over at Althea
and smiled as she added: 'I'm rich this Christmas with Althea as well as
the small Alastair.'

The girl, Esm noticed, did not return the smile, but looked gravely at
Lady Jane, as if weighing her words.

Nicole said, 'You aren't to be quite alone this Christmas, are you, Mrs.
Jameson?'

'I think so. But there are worse things than being alone. And after all,
Christmas is only a day to get through like other days.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

'A day to get through like other days!' The words rang in Nicole's head
as she and Althea went up the outside stair in the Watery Wynd to visit
old Betsy Curle. Was Mrs. Jameson just getting through her days? If so,
she pitied her. She had not asked for confidences, and Esm Jameson had
not offered them beyond telling them that she was a widow and alone, but
to know that was to know enough....

To Betsy Curle, too, Christmas was only a day to get through. She sat in
her little kitchen, unable now to 'do' for herself, dependent on others
for everything, but still looking out on life with the same keen,
unsparing eyes, still commenting on what she saw with the same caustic
tongue.

'Here I am,' Nicole announced, laying the basket she carried on one
chair and pulling another close to her friend. 'And how are you?' And as
she spoke she said to herself--'I'm just like "Fawther" with his cheery
word!'

'Here ye are,' said Betsy, 'an' what's brocht ye noo? Ye hevna lookit
near me for guid kens hoo lang.'

'When you had my mother to visit you you didn't need me. And I've
brought some one to see you--This is Miss Althea Gort.'

'An' whae's she?' said Betsy, peering suspiciously at the girl.

Nicole smiled at Althea as she said: 'I told you the last time I was
here. Miss Gort comes from London and is paying us a visit. She has
never been in Scotland before.'

Old Betsy sniffed. 'It's a peety she's seein' this pairt o't
first....'

'We're all going to Rutherfurd for Christmas, Betsy. I expect Mother
told you.'

'Ay. Winter or simmer it's the bonniest bit on earth. I dinna like when
ye gang awa'. I feel nearer hame when her leddyship's within ca'. I hope
ye'll come back safe--he gangs awa' at an ill time that ne'er comes back
again.'

'There's not much danger about the journey to Rutherfurd,' said Nicole.
'See, now, what I've brought you.'

'They say the wife's aye welcome that comes wi' a crookit oxter, but I'd
raither hae a sicht o' you and yer mither than a present.'

'Betsy, you're getting positively complimentary. This will never do--.
We'll be back just after New Year, almost in time to first-foot
you.... Dr. Kilgour loves to look in and see you--I believe you give
him material for his book, and the neighbours enjoy looking in on you:
and Mrs. Dodds keeps you comfortable, doesn't she?'

'Oh ay--comfortable eneuch: I'm no complainin'. But it's weary wark to
sit and be done for, me that was sae blythe tae dae mysel.' She fixed
her eyes on Althea. 'Ye're a bonnie crater, ye'll mak mony a yin sigh at
their supper. But it'll a' come tae an end, mind that; beauty's juist a
flower that time'll pu'.'

'But sweet while it lasts, Betsy,' Nicole pleaded.

'Puir bit things!' said the old woman.




                              CHAPTER XII


                                          '_E'en so swimmingly appears,_
                                   _Through one's after-supper musings,_
                                   _Some lost lady of old years...._'
                                                        ROBERT BROWNING.

Mrs. Andrew Jackson was an excellent housewife, and when visitors were
expected at Rutherfurd, always saw to it herself that bedrooms were warm
and welcoming, that flowers adorned the dressing-tables, and that
nothing was lacking in the way of writing materials and pillow books.

On the afternoon that the Harbour House contingent was expected she was
going through the rooms prepared for them. Nicole had got her old room,
looking out on the long lawn and away to the Lammerlaw, and Alastair was
in the small room next door. Althea, as a stranger, had a more
impressive chamber, while Lady Jane was to occupy the bedroom that had
always been hers, with the sitting-room next door.

Barbara stood thoughtfully looking round these friendly rooms bright
with afternoon sunlight. Three Christmases ago they had been settling
down in the Harbour House, with Rutherfurd and the old days left behind.
How wretched it had been to leave the old place, wretched for her, and
thrice wretched for her aunt and Nicole, but they, strangely, had made
no fuss, had said nothing. She, with less excuse, had been more vocal.
She confessed to herself that she had not behaved very well about the
change of fortune: she had grumbled at the Harbour House, so near a
neighbour to the sea and the Harbour and to queer, fish-smelling little
houses; she had grumbled about the people in Kirkmeikle; she had
grumbled at the dullness--and then, suddenly, her grumbling had ceased.
She went to visit the Jacksons at Rutherfurd and came back engaged to
the only son.

And now was she content? she asked herself.

She had reason to be, she knew that. Andrew was always good-humoured and
accommodating; she had things all her own way. Mrs. Andrew Jackson was
quite a personage in the district. People said of her, 'One of the old
Rutherfurds: yes, wasn't it a delightful arrangement? Very rich and an
only son. The old people were rather--rather, but they had the good
sense to go back to Glasgow, and the son is charming. Of course his wife
has done a lot for him....'

Now that the boy had come her cup did seem full, but there were still
moments when she remembered that she had intended to marry Andrew before
Andrew had thought of marrying her, moments when she remembered his face
the first time he met Nicole, when she had knelt on the fender-stool and
talked nonsense about the picture above the mantelshelf--Elizabeth of
Bohemia, _The Queen of Hearts_, Nicole called her.... Andrew had been
loyal to her, but would he have been loyal had Nicole given him the
slightest encouragement to be anything else? She had not, Barbara knew
that; she was too straight. Besides, all Nicole's thoughts were then
with Simon Beckett, she probably never even noticed that Andrew hung on
her words and followed her with his eyes.

And now she, Barbara, had everything--Rutherfurd, and Andy, and Andy's
son; and Nicole had nothing. She could afford, she felt, to be sorry for
Nicole, and yet it was not pity she felt for her cousin; it was, oddly
enough, envy. Ridiculous: but so it was. Nicole had something--what it
was Barbara could not put into words--that seemed to tip the balance in
her favour, to weigh more than all Barbara's possessions.

If only she could feel that Nicole envied her Andy and Rutherfurd and
the baby, how kind she would try to be to her, entertain for her, see
that she met eligible men.

Others wanted to do that too. Lady Jane's relations were constantly
begging her to go to London and elsewhere and have a good time with
them, but Nicole would not. She stayed there in that little salt-sea
house, actually seeming to enjoy the society of people like Mrs. Heggie
and the like; didn't seem to want anything better. Why, she and her
mother, free as they were, might have had a particularly varied life.
Winter somewhere in the sun, spring in London, Scotland for the summer
and autumn, London again in November. Instead, they had tied themselves
up with a child who had no claim on them: the boy was all right, but he
had relations of his own to look after him: it was quixotic and silly to
take on the responsibility of a strange child....

As Barbara mused she straightened an ornament here, a bowl of flowers
there, smoothed the satin-soft sheets, and when she turned to go, her
step went almost unconsciously towards where her thoughts were always
turning, the nursery of her son.

They would see a difference in him. He was already growing out of the
dresses Lady Jane had made him. For barely five months his intelligence
was amazing. There was no doubt he knew her, and he had a special
chuckle to greet his father. How Andy adored his boy! It sometimes
stabbed her heart to think by what a frail thread they held their child;
a treasure in an earthen vessel.... But that was absurd. Why,
children in slums, with everything against them, grew up, and her little
son would have every care that love and money could give him. He could
be a country boy, and would ride and fish and shoot, grow up strong and
clear-eyed. Eton would be his school as it had been the school of all
the Rutherfurds: so she told herself, forgetting that her boy was not
all Rutherfurd but had both Burt and Jackson in his making....

At luncheon she and Andrew had discussed arrangements.

'I _hope_ it will go well,' Barbara had said, doubt in her tone, 'anyway
it's a real attempt at a family gathering. But I must say I rather
resent the outsiders.'

'Meaning The Bat?' said Andy.

'Well, he has no slightest claim on any of us. Why can't he spend
Christmas with that aunt of his?'

'He's a nice little chap.'

'Oh, I know that.... And this girl! Was there ever any one like Aunt
Jane and Nicole for collecting people?'

'Succourers of many,' her husband quoted, but he did not go on to say
what was in his mind, that Barbara would have found the world a sorry
place if the Rutherfurds had not 'collected' her and given her a home
and affection.

'The girl will be a nuisance,' Barbara went on. 'A boy plays about
outside and hangs round with the keepers, but a girl is always sitting
about, gasping to be entertained. I wonder how Nicole gets on with her.
I gathered she wasn't too pleased about her coming. When you think of
it, it is hard on Nicole, who, after all, is getting on, to have a young
girl always round.'

Andrew Jackson looked up quickly.

'That's nonsense, surely. Nicole is the youngest thing ever.'

'Twenty-seven.'

'Well, that's very young; but no matter how long she lived Nicole and
age would still be apart.'

Barbara gave a little laugh. 'Like Cleopatra, I suppose, and Mary of
Scots. Nicole would be flattered to hear you--' She buttered a bit of
toast and said, 'It'll be interesting to hear what Aunt Jane thinks of
our improvements.'

'You can't expect her to be pleased. I know I'd hate it if I went back
to my own house and found people had been mucking about with it.'

'But it's our house, not her house, and we've improved it immensely. Mr.
Hibbert-Whitson has wonderful taste.'

Andy shook his head. 'Interlopers, that's what I feel we are. You,
perhaps, have some claim to be here, but when Elizabeth of Bohemia looks
at me enquiringly I feel like getting behind the screen. Perhaps the
small Andrew will be able to face up to her--' He gave a little rueful
laugh. 'I'm going up to the nursery now. Coming?'

Late in the afternoon, back to their old house came Lady Jane and
Nicole, unwilling guests in a way, for it would have been easier and
pleasanter to remain in the Harbour House, and yet in spite of
themselves glad to be back, almost welcoming the pain of remembrance. To
Lady Jane it brought back Christmases when Ronnie and Archie had come
home from school and Johnson, the butler, had welcomed them with just
that same mixture of dignity and fatherly affection. Archie had known
nothing but the joy of being back, was exuberant in his greetings,
darting here and there, seeing that everything was as he had left it,
full of talk and laughter; Ronnie quieter, less expansive, not so able
or so willing to show what he was feeling. Ronnie's grey eyes, Archie's
blue eyes; boyish faces; rough tweed arms round her neck--the thought of
them broke her heart. But Alastair was standing there, a little shy and
strange: she put her hand on his shoulder, and he looked up in her face
with eyes that were oddly like Archie's....

'Not in the least tired, dear,' she said in answer to Barbara. 'Johnson,
it's good to see you again. How is your wife?'

'Poorly, m'lady.'

'The old trouble, is it? I'm sorry.'

'If your ladyship could spare time----?'

'Why, of course, Johnson. I'm coming in first thing--Why, Barbara, I
never saw the house look so well.... You've changed something.'

Barbara put her arm through her aunt's.

'D'you like it, Aunt Jane? Andy was afraid you might be hurt; but I knew
you wouldn't mind. You remember it was really rather unworkable, and Mr.
Hibbert-Whitson has done it very cleverly. Perhaps you've forgotten, but
here----'

Barbara was about to enlarge on the alterations, but Nicole broke in
with: 'Mr. Hibbert-Whitson? That's the man who did up Kinogle for the
Walkinshaws. He has a genius for making old houses comfortable. But you
didn't let him loose in the drawing-room, did you, Babs?'

'No,' said Andrew, before his wife could reply.

Nicole gave a quick sigh of relief, while Barbara, half-laughing,
half-angry, mimicked her husband's No. 'No. Because why? _He_ wouldn't
let me.... And Mr. Hibbert-Whitson said it was the chance of his
life.... He has such perfect taste and he adored the room.'

'Then why did he want to spoil it?' Andy asked.

'Oh, he wouldn't have spoiled it,' Nicole said mildly. 'He might even
have improved it--as he has done the hall. It's quite charming,
Barbara--but to touch the drawing-room seems like profanation.' She
turned quickly to Althea, who was standing leaning against a table
watching and listening. 'I told you about it, Althea; it has a picture
of the Queen of Hearts--may we see it now, Barbara?'

But Lady Jane demurred. 'Not now, Nikky. Barbara is going to show us our
rooms.... Such a cavalcade, my dear--. Andrew's parents haven't
arrived yet?'

'We expect them in time for dinner; they are motoring from Glasgow. The
more the merrier.... Nicole, you're having your old room with
Alastair next you. You know your way, Aunt Jane, I'll show Althea where
she is, and then come and see if you are quite comfortable....'




                              CHAPTER XIII


    '_Here's a health and here's a heartbreak, for it's hame, my
    dear, no more._'

                                                         NEIL MUNRO.

Mrs. Jackson, the elder, often remarked to her husband in the seclusion
of their brand-new villa, The Borders, 'There's no doubt living with
in-laws is a strain.'

But one night during the Christmas visit, as the couple went to bed in
the cheerful yellow room which Mrs. Jackson had furnished for herself
when she reigned at Rutherfurd, and which Andrew insisted should remain
unchanged, and always himself alluded to as 'Mother's room,' Mrs.
Jackson said:

'D'you know, Father, I never thought to feel so free and happy in this
house as I've felt this visit. Barbara's real pleasant and agreeable,
and wee Andrew's a treat.'

'He's a nice wee boy,' said Mr. Jackson, who was not in the habit of
making unguarded statements.

His wife sighed her profound agreement, and went on. 'I must say it's a
great satisfaction to see Andy so happily settled. I'll never cease to
regret that it wasn't Nicole--he once said to me that she never would
have looked at him, but I don't believe it; she's the sense to see what
a good fellow Andy is, and, anyway, he might have asked her--but Barbara
does very well. She's a good housekeeper and she keeps her end up with
the country, and I never saw a more careful mother. She's bound up in
that wee fellow, and that's where the two of us can meet on common
ground, so to speak. In the nursery she forgets that I'm a very common
body--who wouldn't be here but for your money, Father--and just thinks
of me as a fellow-worshipper and the baby's grandmother. It would be a
joke if wee Andrew turned out a complete Jackson.'

Mr. Jackson stood with his collar in his hand, an unwilling smile
twisting for a moment his lips, then his face settled back to its usual
gloom as he said:

'Not much chance of that, Mamma; more likely to be all Rutherfurd, and
high and mighty at that.'

Mrs. Jackson, a tight little figure in a purple satin underskirt and
fur-trimmed slippers, was plaiting her hair briskly into pigtails, and
she paused to say over her shoulder:

'Don't you believe it. He's the living image of Andy when he was the
same age. D'ye think I don't mind what my own wee baby was like? I've
got a photo in the album at home that I'd let you see--It's laughable. I
can't see a trace of his mother in him. His nails are yours, Father, and
there's something about his eyes that reminds me of my own mother....
Well, he's had his first Christmas, the laddie! I hope he'll see many a
one and make a good laird of Rutherfurd.'

Mr. Jackson tapped his front teeth thoughtfully with the nail of his
front finger and said: 'I'll have to keep things going. I'm well content
to work and let who likes be country gentlemen.... But it would do no
harm to give Andrew's boy a business training; it would come in handy
for him managing this place.'

'So it would. But there's time enough to think of that.... Isn't she
a queer girl, that Althea?'

'She's thin,' said Mr. Jackson cautiously.

'Thin! And as long as a flag-staff--a poor-looking creature. I can't
make out right who she is, either; or what she is staying with the
Rutherfurds for. Barbara says the mother was Lady Sybil Gort. I've a
kind of notion I've seen that name in the papers, but in what connection
I don't know. You get nothing out of the girl herself, she's a silent
piece. To me she's got a disreputable look. Her lips were a fair
disgrace to-night--I can't see her pretty myself but she's very like the
pictures in magazines, and Nicole says she only needs knowing.... I
don't think Miss Althea would think it worth while to let me get
acquainted with her, and I'm sure I'm not sorry. My life's full enough
without bothering about hoity-toity misses.'

'That's so,' said Mr. Jackson, 'you've about as many engagements as I
have.'

'That's with you, Father, being concerned in so many public things. They
ask me to do things out of compliment to you. I've opened two things
this winter already. I can't say I did it well but I got through. I'll
never make a public speaker! too gaspy and awful apt to get my sentences
upside down; but uch! what does it matter? I don't believe anybody
listens, and anyway, my clothes are all right. They can't say I don't
trouble to dress for them.'

And suddenly, without warning, Mrs. Jackson dropped on her knees and
began to say her prayers, while her husband climbed sadly into bed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Further along the passage Nicole was sitting by her mother's bedroom
fire. Lady Jane was reading a devotional book, while her daughter fed
the fire with fir-cones, which Alastair had brought in and begged them
to use.

Presently she said: 'Mrs. Jackson's more precious than ever, don't you
think, Mums? She's much more important than she used to be, and
presides, she tells me, at meetings and opens bazaars. How I should love
to see her! The effort is evidently colossal, but the satisfied feeling
afterwards makes up. She gave me a vivid description of how she opened
her first bazaar. She said, "I had it all written out, but I lost my
notes and I just told them that. I said 'I made a speech but I've
mislaid it at the moment, so you'll excuse me if I merely remark that
I've much pleasure in being here and the Sale is now open----'" How glad
they must have been of her after the ordinary glib opener with her
ordered little phrases.'

'Indeed, yes. Mrs. Jackson would make any Sale go: I can just picture
her going round each stall and adding purchase to purchase and casting
notes from her purse in all directions.... Going back to Glasgow has
been a great success, don't you think?'

'Oh, great. You see the dear soul from her experience at Rutherfurd
gained a certain amount of aplomb, so to speak, and back in Glasgow she
will have the status of a county lady. She told me so herself with great
amusement.... And then being a grandmother pleases her enormously.
She points out to me rather impishly that the baby has Andy's nose, old
Mr. Jackson's nails, and her smile: never a hint, you will notice, of
Barbara! All the same I think they get on quite well together and
Barbara does little things to please her, like using the silver she and
Mr. Jackson gave her, and pretends not to see the things that offend
her: and of course she enjoys her enthusiasm over the baby.'

Lady Jane looked over the top of her book at her daughter, as she said:

'Alison Lockhart said to me yesterday that Barbara and Andy were very
popular in the place: they take such a good hand with things. And Alison
doesn't say smooth things from choice.'

Nicole laughed. 'She certainly does not. She hasn't that fascinating
twisted mouth for nothing, but she is an antiseptic person, and what she
says of Babs is of value for she never liked her, nor did her justice.
Yes--things have worked out wonderfully, Mums, but...'

'But?'

'Oh, nothing, but it's a queer old world when all's said and done....
The Bat's very happy here, anyway. It's funny to see him doing all the
things we used to do, finding them out for himself--damming the burn,
and making forts and defending them. Old Clay's grandson, Tam, is his
henchman. I like to see them tearing about.... And presently the
small Andrew will be the spirit of youth in the place.... Mums, I
don't like Rutherfurd any more. I wish we need never come back.'

'Why, darling, I thought you rather liked being back, that you had got
used to the changes. You have been so brave all through----'

With the tears wet on her face Nicole laughed. 'Not in the least brave.
Babs says she envies me my faculty of taking things lightly--that's more
like it, but somehow, to-night, when we were all sitting so decorously
in the drawing-room with the Queen of Hearts looking down at us, I
longed for the fairy flute to blow "_Everything in its proper place!_"
What a scurry there would have been! I'm not sure that Andy wouldn't
have remained just where he was, and John Dalrymple--they're rather like
each other, those two. And Alison Lockhart would have remained seated on
that brocade sofa watching everything with her bright hard gaze: Mrs.
Jackson would have accompanied her husband back to Pollokshields: Althea
would find herself in a night-club, poor babe! And Barbara...? I
don't know.'

'And you, Nikky?'

The girl gave a sob.

'Not here, Mother. I don't like Rutherfurd any more. I never want to see
it again. The trail of Mr. Hibbert-Whitson is over it all. The place is
more beautiful than ever, but it's not our Rutherfurd. We're like
ghosts, Mums, you and I, and it's sad to be a ghost.... No, Barbara
is no real blood-kin to us, she's all Burt... it comes out more every
day. I feel closer to Althea, that cold young cynic, and anyway, I wish
we were all back at the Harbour House.'

There was silence for a moment, then Lady Jane said: 'I understand your
feeling about Rutherfurd, but it doesn't extend to old friends, I
hope--to Jean Douglas and Alison Lockhart--to John Dalrymple? You love
the countryside as much as ever, don't you?'

Nicole considered. 'I expect at heart I do, but it hurts to be
here--Only three more days, Mums!'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Barbara sat before the glass in her own room. It was a beautiful room,
for Barbara's taste was good--and it was a satisfied face that looked
back at her from the mirror as she brushed her hair.

Andrew was in his dressing-room, she could hear him moving about, knew
the meaning of every sound: splash of water, he was washing his teeth--a
soft whistling, he was brushing his hair.

'Andy,' she called.

He appeared in the doorway, brushes in hand. 'Yes?'

'Oh, I only wanted to talk about things.... It's been very
successful, don't you think, our Christmas house-party?'

Andy sat down on the arm of a chair as he said: 'I've enjoyed it for
one, and Mother's in great form. I don't think I ever saw her so
interested in outside things. She used to be rather apt to shirk things
and hide behind my father, but now she tells me she's in the full glare
of publicity and appears to glory in it.'

'How nice!' Barbara said absently. She had not called Andrew in to
discuss with him his mother. 'Didn't the dinner go well to-night? Nicole
can be very entertaining when she chooses; she was positively _fey_
to-night, and in that green and silver dress--John Dalrymple couldn't
take his eyes off her. Andy, I do wish Nicole would marry him.'

'Why?'

'Why? Andy, you really are absurd. Because it would be a most suitable
marriage in every way. Newby is such a lovely place, and the Rutherfurds
and Dalrymples have always been friends. John Dalrymple has been in love
with Nicole almost since she was a child. He asked her on her nineteenth
birthday.... What? No, she didn't tell me, but I know. He's been
abroad ever since, and now he means to settle at home. Wouldn't it be
splendid if the engagement came off here and now? What a delightful
finish to our Christmas party.'

'Dalrymple's a good fellow,' Andrew said, 'if Nicole cares for him----'

'Why shouldn't she care for him? I do hope Aunt Jane will get her to see
things sensibly. Nicole's been far too much made of all her life, she's
had things too easy.'

Andrew got up and, standing with a hair brush in either hand in the
doorway of his dressing-room, he said: 'It doesn't seem to me that
Nicole's had things specially easy, all the other way--I'd be jolly glad
to see her get some happiness now, but I'd like to be sure that she felt
it was happiness, that she didn't do it to oblige...'

There was a pause, then Barbara said:

'What touching faith men have in a pretty girl's motives!'

She laughed, but her eyes in the glass were sombre.




                              CHAPTER XIV


                                  '_Here's the garden she walked across_
                                _...Such a short while since...._'
                                                        ROBERT BROWNING.

Barbara felt that she was giving her guests a very full and gay week,
with two dances, two dinner-parties, several tea-parties, and--a village
concert.

It was Althea's first experience of this type of entertainment, and she
was amazed at the fuss and preparation it seemed to require: to see
Barbara and Nicole spend hours superintending the putting up of a stage
in the village hall, devising means of lighting it, and dragging down
curtains from the house to decorate it. And the performance itself: the
wooden seats, the smell of paraffin lamps: the (to her) complete badness
of every item in the programme...!

But to Mrs. Jackson, senior, it was an occasion of infinite importance.
When the party from Rutherfurd filed in to take their places in the
front row of benches (softened by cushions borrowed from the church
pews) she felt proudly satisfied that the Big House was doing itself
justice. She herself was an impressive sight in black and gold, heavily
jewelled; she believed, she said, in giving people something to look at:
Lady Jane, although so meek, always looked somebody: Barbara was quite
the laird's lady--these were the diamond and pearl ear-rings that Andy
had given her on Christmas morning: what had he paid for them, Mrs.
Jackson wondered!

Nicole, gay in rose-colour, was nodding to many friends, and Althea was
looking pretty, but bored--what was she bored for, the monkey?

Father was bored too, she could see that by the way he was tapping his
teeth with his nail, but how well he looked in his new dinner-jacket.
She was glad she had advised him to try a different tailor. Andy had a
nice kind way with everybody, and the people he spoke to seemed to like
him--as well they might, thought his mother.

There was Mrs. Douglas! Mrs. Jackson stood up and waved her friend to
the front. 'Come away, Mrs. Douglas, and sit beside me. Have you not
been able to persuade the Colonel to accompany you?'

'No,' said Mrs. Douglas, smiling greetings round before she sat down.
'Tom draws the line at a village concert. The seats are too narrow for
one thing; and he hates music.'

Althea looked up from the typed sheet of paper that was the programme,
and asked:

'Shall we have _music_ to-night?'

Jean Douglas laughed. 'Improbable, I should think.... Who are the
performers? Oh, they're not bad, and anyway, they're old friends!'

The evening wore on. A robust and cheerful young woman in a tight pink
dress sang of tears and partings; a stalwart young man bellowed defiance
at his foes; a tiny boy played Scots airs on his fiddle and the greater
part of the audience stamped their feet in time to the lilting tunes: a
regrettably vulgar 'comic' raised the spirits and lowered the tone of
the gathering, making Mr. Jackson laugh out suddenly, to his own great
embarrassment.

In the interval Mrs. Jackson craned her neck to see every one round
about her.

'Who are those people behind?' she whispered. 'They're surely
strangers.'

Mrs. Douglas looked cautiously round. 'You mean those two girls with
their father and mother. They live in that house outside Langhope,
"Langhope Towers," they call the house. Brunton is the name. Barbara has
taken them up and wants us all to call, but I haven't yet....'

Mrs. Jackson took another glance at the family in question, and wondered
what had brought them to this part of the world.

Indeed it was difficult to understand why the Bruntons had elected to
make their home in a country place with which they had no ties, for they
were suburban to their finger-tips. The girls adored tennis, and
dancing, and bridge-parties, going into town for shopping and theatres,
and coming back in happy parties.

Accustomed to a chatty, sociable life, they found Langhope deadly dull.
They had expected great things of existence at Langhope Towers, and to
find themselves restricted to the society of the minister, the doctor,
the lawyer, the banker, and the respective wives of those genteel men,
was a heavy blow. That the people round should not call had never
occurred to them, but had they known it, the people round were quite
unaware of the existence of the Brunton family. Langhope called _en
masse_ and at once, but that was all that happened.

Mr. Brunton walked about in the most correct of rough tweeds, with a
dog. Ailsa and Christine walked about with two dogs, or motored
themselves into Edinburgh to shop, or played golf on the nearest course,
and confessed to each other that though _Langhope Towers, Langhope_,
might look smarter on note-paper than _The Neuk, Coniston Road_, it was
enormously duller. Mrs. Brunton was not so much to be pitied as her
husband and daughters, for she had her house to fall back upon. She was
a comely woman with a bright colour and twinkling eyes, who liked
community singing and discussing the Royal Family.

Then, at a local Sale of Work, Barbara met the two girls and heard from
the minister's wife that they were interested in Guides, and very
willing to be useful. Thinking such people deserved to be encouraged,
she called one day at Langhope Towers. She liked the family, who showed
a most proper appreciation of her condescension, and made up her mind
that they should be recognised by the neighbourhood, and as a beginning
invited them all to lunch at Rutherfurd. It was not a particularly
pleasant outing for the Bruntons. Barbara had sometimes an absent-minded
way with her guests, an air of being rather surprised to see them, which
was chilling at the start. Andy Jackson had not a great deal of small
talk. Also, Rutherfurd itself had a sobering effect on Mr. Brunton who
did not feel at home among all the dead and gone Rutherfurds in their
frames, and was only reminded of one anecdote, and that a dull one. Mrs.
Brunton said it reminded her a little of Queen Mary's apartments at
Holyrood, which had always given her the creeps, and to which she
attributed most of the ill-luck that pursued that tragic lady.

Barbara had not been very successful in getting her friends to follow
her lead. Alison Lockhart refused at once, saying that it took her years
to begin to like new people, and she saw no reason for trying to like
the Bruntons.

Jean Douglas demanded to know why she should call.

'Well,' said Barbara, 'it would be kind.'

'I don't see it--. I might call, but if nothing happened after they'd
have the right to feel aggrieved, and I can't be fussing them and having
them here. Tom would hate it. All I'd do by calling would be to get
myself disliked.'

'They are nice people,' Barbara persisted, her face assuming the sullen
look it was apt to wear when she was not getting her own way, 'and
willing to take an interest in things.'

'I don't want them to take an interest in me,' Mrs. Douglas said, and
Barbara, exasperated, thought that her friend behaved sometimes more
like a naughty schoolboy than a responsible middle-aged woman.

As they were leaving the hall after the concert, Barbara introduced her
mother-in-law to her new friends.

'Pleased to meet you,' said Mrs. Jackson cordially. 'Wasn't it a nice
concert? These wee Brownies selling programmes!... You're new to the
place, I hear? I feel for you, remembering what it was like when I came
first.'

Mrs. Brunton and Mrs. Jackson looked at each other and knew themselves
sisters.

'Come to tea to-morrow,' said Barbara, remembering that Jean Douglas and
Alison Lockhart were coming.

There was a touch of royal command in the invitation, but the Bruntons
did not seem to mind that, and at once accepted.

They found Rutherfurd a very different place the second time they
visited it. Barbara, to be sure, having asked them, evidently thought
that nothing more was expected of her, but Lady Jane seemed full of
gentle interest in their opinions, Nicole went out of her way to be
pleasant, and Mrs. Jackson brooded over them like a providence.

It was a very happy afternoon for that lady. Here was she ensconced in
her son's house, grandmother of the beautiful boy in the nursery,
surrounded by dear friends who applauded her witticisms, showing
kindness to a deserving family. In Mrs. Brunton she saw herself had she
come to the neighbourhood unheralded and unfriended, and it not only
gave her pleasure to play the patroness, but she thoroughly enjoyed
having found a listener.

She told her new friend all about her old home in Pollokshields, about
her first coming to Rutherfurd, about the kindness of Lady Jane and her
daughter.

'Mrs. Brunton,' she said earnestly, 'there's nothing so pathetic as to
see the decay of the real aristocracy.'

Mrs. Brunton glanced involuntarily at Lady Jane sitting near the fire,
with her embroidery frame, smiling at something her companion was saying
and looking in the soft light almost as girlish as her daughter; then
her eyes strayed to Nicole perched on the arm of a chair bandying words
with Jean Douglas, gay and alert, and fair like a morning in May.

'Well,' said Mrs. Jackson, aware of some incongruity, 'decay is mebbe
hardly the word in this case, but you know what I mean. And it's
wonderful, mind you, to see how happy Lady Jane and Nicole make
themselves in Kirkmeikle. A house down on the sea-edge--ucha.'

From the old aristocracy it was but a step to the Royal Family, a
subject in which both ladies were thoroughly at one.

'They're an example to the whole country, Mrs. Brunton, that's what I
always say.'

Mrs. Brunton purred agreement. 'Everybody says the King's so affable;
and isn't the Queen _regal_?'

'And yet so motherly! I like to see pictures of her with the little
Duchess. That's a sweet creature, Mrs. Brunton.'

'_Isn't_ she? And the baby! D'you know I think she's a great look of the
Queen.'

'She has, I see it myself, but she has her mother's taking smile--You'll
see _our_ baby in a little. He's a great wee fellow.'

'You must be proud of him, Mrs. Jackson.'

'Proud! I'm sometimes frightened to think how much he means to us all: a
baby's a frail thing to pin all one's hopes to, but indeed we're all
poor creatures when trouble comes--Well, we can only pray that he will
be spared....'

Mrs. Brunton agreed and let her glance wander round the room, at the
walls clothed with little square Tudor panels now dark as ebony with
age, at the plaster ceiling with its deep medallions and heavy
enrichment of flowers and foliage, at the Adam mantelpiece whose marble
nymphs and cornucopias had, like the ceiling, a dull ivory sheen; at the
faded Mortlake brocades of the old chairs and settees; at the pictures
of Rutherfurds--one by Jameson, in black armour and a gorgeous scarlet
sash, another by Allan Ramsay, in a purple coat, a sprigged waistcoat
and a steenkirk cravat. There was a Raeburn too, of a Lord of Session.
All the pictures but one were of men. That one was framed in the
panelling above the fireplace, a picture of a woman no longer in her
first youth, with a mouth narrowed a little by pain and disappointment,
but with great brown eyes full of the hunger of life. It was a replica
of the Mierevelt of the 'Queen of Hearts,' Elizabeth of Bohemia. Looking
down with her wistful, small face above the ivory of the mantelpiece,
she seemed to make the marble nymphs fussy and ill at ease, for her
beauty was rare and sweet and far from common loveliness.

'It's a beautiful place,' said Mrs. Brunton, 'but I'm not educated up to
it. I like lots of things in a room--you know, photos and ornaments and
pretty bits of china.... I doubt I'd never feel at home in a room
like this.'

Mrs. Jackson nodded. 'You'd like our new house, Mrs. Brunton. It's got
everything of the latest; there's not an old thing in it. You see, after
living here for a while I just felt I'd had about enough of antiques.
Hot and cold in my bedrooms. Every labour-saving appliance. Everything's
so fresh and new, it's a pleasure to keep it clean, and the maids seem
to feel that. I've got four real decent girls just now, and they just
arrange the work among themselves and go out when they like. I'm past
bothering about that sort of thing. My! when I think how I used to worry
over servants!... You're well off to have daughters, Mrs. Brunton;
what nice-looking girls they are, so fresh and healthy, and such a fine
colour.'

Mrs. Brunton smiled deprecatingly, and presently asked: 'Who is the
young lady in green?'

Mrs. Jackson glanced at Althea who was sitting a little apart in a
high-backed chair, her hands folded demurely in her lap, watching and
listening.

'That,' she said, leaning towards her companion, 'is Althea Gort: a sort
of connection of Lady Jane's. _Her parents were divorced!_ Ucha. Poor
thing, I dare say she feels it, but she's not a nice type of girl. You
never know whether she'll speak to you or not. And painted--isn't it a
disgrace in a girl of eighteen?'

'A pity,' Mrs. Brunton admitted. 'But she's very distinguished-looking
too. And that's Mrs. Douglas of Kingshouse, isn't it? I've seen her at
meetings: she seems very nice.'

'Oh, she's a jewel. And that's Miss Lockhart next her. She's given over
to horses. A woman of her age! You'd think she'd take to something more
restful. Of course she travels a lot.... The gentleman talking to
Lady Jane is Sir John Dalrymple. My daughter-in-law would like to make a
match between him and Miss Rutherfurd. He's willing, any one can see
that, but I've my doubts about Nicole--Never match-make, Mrs. Brunton,
that's my advice to you; you burn your fingers every time. I know, for
I've tried it.'

When the guests had gone Barbara invited Althea to go with her to the
nursery to see young Andrew having his bath.

She had tried several times to make friends with the girl, but Althea
had remained aggravatingly unresponsive. Barbara wanted to find out why
she was staying at the Harbour House, what she thought of the life
there, and on what terms she and Nicole lived together: this was her
last chance, and she took it.

They went together to the nursery, an airy room gay with white paint and
brightly coloured pictures and rugs.

Althea sat on a white wooden chair and watched Barbara hang rapturously
over the baby, who was puffing and panting in the water like a young
grampus.

'No, don't suck nasty sponge, darling. Mummy'll give 'oo nice fishy to
hold. Oh, Althea, _isn't_ he a darling?'

'Yes, he is.'

'Doesn't even trouble to smile,' thought Barbara angrily; 'these modern
girls!' Aloud she said, 'Are you at all fond of children, or does the
modern girl scorn such emotions?'

'I don't know about the modern girl,' said Althea. 'I like children
quite well when they aren't being sick, or howling.'

Barbara and the nurse, both feeling outraged by such half-hearted
sentiments, continued to lavish endearments on the unconscious Andrew,
while Althea sat and watched them.

When the baby had been taken to the night-nursery and tucked into his
cot Barbara came back and stood fingering the objects on the
mantelpiece. Presently she said:

'It must be a great change to you to come from London to Kirkmeikle?'

'Yes,' said Althea.

'Such a dull little place, isn't it? Mrs. Heggie and the others....
It is just made endurable by the Erskines and the Fentons--Of course the
Harbour House is rather nice in a way, quaint and unusual, but after
_Rutherfurd_--And yet Nicole pretends to like it?'

'Was Nicole fond of Rutherfurd?'

'Fond! My dear, she adored it; she was perfectly crazy over it. That's
why I think it's rather an affectation to protest such fondness for the
Harbour House. But she does take things so lightly, Nicole.'

'Does she?'

'Well, you see for yourself what high spirits she has, and when you
think that she lost two brothers in the War, then her father, then
Rutherfurd! And you know about Simon Beckett? No? Well, as a matter of
fact no one was supposed to know; neither Nicole nor Aunt Jane ever
mentioned the subject to me, which I couldn't help thinking strange
considering I was there and saw the whole thing.'

Barbara paused and looked at Althea who said, 'Really?'

'Yes. When we left Rutherfurd and went to Kirkmeikle Simon Beckett had
rooms there and was writing a book about Everest. He and Nicole made
great friends over Alastair, who lived with his aunt, a tiresome woman
who married later some man in Edinburgh. He was very
good-looking--Simon, I mean, and very charming. I wasn't at all
surprised that Nicole fell in love with him, but just before my own
marriage he went off again on an expedition to Mount Everest and was
killed....'

'I didn't know,' said Althea.

'No, how could you? Why, _I_ was never told anything--but I'm certain
they were engaged before he left.... And that explains why they have
practically adopted Alastair. Simon was fond of him.'

'I didn't know,' Althea said again.

'Of course it was very sad,' Barbara continued, 'but I do hope Nicole's
going to be sensible and take John Dalrymple. It would be such an ideal
arrangement.'

'But if she still cares for----'

'Oh, that's nonsense; she can't. I mean to say faithfulness is all very
well, but what's the use after all? And even if she didn't care greatly,
in marriage there are so many compensations.'

'Are there?' said Althea.

Barbara glanced sharply at her. What an annoying girl this was with her
eternal interrogations.

'Shall we go downstairs?' she said then. 'I expect you are longing to
get back to London?'

'Ought I to be?'

'Well--it would be natural. You don't look much like Kirkmeikle. But
perhaps you've been infected by Nicole's passion for the place?'

'Perhaps,' said Althea.




                               CHAPTER XV


                              '_If music be the food of love, play on._'
                                                          TWELFTH NIGHT.

A few days later the Harbour House got back its inmates, and they were
all glad to be home.

Alastair, lying on the hearth-rug hugging Spider, said:

'Rutherfurd's a lovely place: there's such a lot of room all about and
so many beasts, and the burn, but--I'd rather have this.'

And Althea stretched in an arm-chair, poking with the toes of her
slipper at the wriggling mass of boy and dog, said, 'I quite agree.'

Lady Jane looked up from the letter she was reading.

'My dear,' she said, 'I'm glad to hear you say that, for I hope it means
that you haven't hated it all too badly. This letter is from Aunt
Blanchie suggesting you should join her in Egypt. It seems her friend
Lady Loveday is going out about the 20th and would take you.'

'Oh, Althea, what a lovely chance!' Nicole cried. 'Egypt in January!
When we are listening to the wind skirling through the wynds.'

There was silence for a minute, then Althea said: 'I suppose I must go?
I mean to say, you must have had more than enough of me?'

'Don't you _want_ to go?' said Nicole, coming over and looking in
astonishment at the girl. 'Why, Althea, I've felt so sorry for you
putting in these months here, walking about on cobbled streets, sniffing
bad smells, talking to people who were of no interest to you, deprived
of music and lights and crowds....'

'Why should I want these things more than, say, you?'

Nicole sat down on the fender-stool.

'Well,' she said, 'for one thing you are nearly ten years younger and
you've had a different upbringing. My home has always been in the
country, I've always walked in quiet ways, but you are town-bred. Being
a Scot, cold winds and grey skies are in my blood: you belong to the
warm south. What is my food is your poison more or less.'

'I see,' said Althea. 'I dare say it's true. All the same, in Egypt I'll
envy you the wind in the wynds. Yes, I'll even envy you the conversation
of Mrs. Heggie. It's a morbid taste, I know, but there it is.'

Nicole jumped up. 'Mums,' she cried, 'do you hear that? Actually Althea
_likes_ Kirkmeikle!'

'In that case,' Lady Jane said placidly, 'she mustn't leave us. Althea
dear, I was just realising how much we would miss you. You mustn't go if
you'd care to stay. We welcomed the chance for your sake, not for our
own. Isn't that true, Nikky?'

'Utterly true, Mums.... I feel this to be a proud moment both for us
and for Kirkmeikle. No, I'm not scoffing. There's nothing so pleasing as
to have people agree with one's likes and dislikes. Althea, we now
bestow on you the Freedom of Kirkmeikle--Look at Spider registering
dejection! I'm afraid he can't be entirely glad about our return. The
Bat's embraces must be disturbing to his inside.'

'He likes them,' said Alastair. 'Don't you, 'Pider?' He gazed fondly at
the small white object with the black patch over its eye and, 'I
believe,' he said, 'that Spider's mother is a widow.'

'He has a bereft look,' Nicole agreed, 'but he has his merry
moments--Isn't it nearly tea-time? I seem to be always hungry since
coming back.'

'So'm I,' said Alastair, 'and so's Spider, only he never was away. Dogs
are always hungry if they're not sick. I'll tell you the time on my new
watch--it's twenty past four.'

'Isn't Mrs. Jameson coming?' Althea asked.

'It wasn't quite certain, so we needn't wait after the half-hour--Here
is Effie and the tea, and I smell new scones.'

A minute or two later Mrs. Jameson came in, bright-eyed from the cold,
and explaining that she was late because she had been shopping in
Langtoun.

'It has been so dreary without you--you simply can't think what a
difference it means to have the Harbour House shut up. Kirkmeikle
without you people is like a room without a fireplace.'

'What a very nice way to put it,' Lady Jane said. 'I'm glad you missed
us a little.... You were alone for Christmas, I think?'

Esm Jameson undid her coat as she said: 'Yes, I was, although I had
great difficulty in persuading those kind Erskines that I really wanted
to be by myself. I dined at Queensbarns the next evening and found a
large and very gay party, every one for miles round. The Erskines do
help to keep the world going round--But do tell me, had you a good
time?'

'We had, indeed.... Oh, here is Mr. Walkinshaw!'

'I say,' said that young man, 'are you only just back? Turn me out if
you can't be bothered with me.'

'We came back last night,' Lady Jane told him, 'and we're delighted to
see you. Have you come from golf?'

'Yes. I was lunching with the Fentons and we had a round, then I thought
I'd run down and see if you were back.'

'Take that chair,' Nicole directed him. 'We're all perishing for our
tea.'

Charles Walkinshaw managed to manipulate his long legs under a small
table, and remarked cheerfully between bites of hot scone: 'Somehow I
always think of this room at tea-time.'

'Yes,' said Esm, 'it seems specially meant for the nicest hour in the
day.'

'Well,' said Nicole, 'it is the room where it is "always afternoon"; we
have tea here unless there are too many for these small tables. And I
love our evenings, too, in this room, when it is so quiet you hear
nothing but the water, or a far-away hoot from a ship at sea, or the cry
of a sea-bird....'

'I think,' said Althea, 'that most of us feel more good-natured at tea
than at any other time.'

'Yes,' Nicole agreed, and turning to her mother, said: 'Mums, do you
remember the ploughman at Langhope Mains, who was left a widower with
young children and thought he'd better marry the woman who was keeping
house for him? Mr. Blackstocks, the farmer, told me he met him looking
very downcast at having been rejected....

'"When did you ask her?" he demanded. "At breakfast-time? Man, what
answer did you expect at that time of day? Try her again at tea-time and
see what she says." And sure enough she said "Yes."'

'What a wise man that farmer was,' Esm Jameson said. 'A breakfast-time
proposal would be too bleak.'

'Not to me,' Nicole said boastfully, 'I'm at my best in the early
morning.'

'You are,' said Althea bitterly.

Nicole laughed. 'I know, it's a horrible trait.... How is your
mother, Mr. Walkinshaw? Did she have a nice Christmas?'

'I think she had. A young cousin spent it with us, just home from school
in Paris, and so above herself with delight at being done with it that
you could hardly keep her on the ground. Her people are in India, and
she's not going out to them till next October, so we'll probably have
her a lot with us. It makes an enormous difference having her, for
everything amuses her, and her amusement amuses Mother. She's found
heaps of little things that my mother can do, making flowers and things,
and she tells her endless stories about the girls and governesses and
what she did in Paris. It's jolly nice, I can tell you, for my father
and me to hear my mother laughing and amused. I tell Belinda that we'll
simply tie her up and keep her at Kinogle.'

'Belinda!' said Lady Jane, 'what a delightful old name.'

'It makes one think of Pope,' Nicole said. 'Did he not write about
Belinda pressing her downy pillows...? Is she eighteenth-century
looking?'

Charles took a bun and a lot of jam on his plate and confessed that he
did not know what eighteenth-century looks were. 'She's a pretty
infant,' he said. 'A little thing with a mouth that turns up at the
corners. Now that I think of it she'd look rather well in powder and
patches. We must remember that if there are any fancy-dress things.
She's crazy to dance, of course.... I say, it's jolly to have you
back again!' He looked at Althea for the first time since he had greeted
her on entering the room. 'Had you a very gay Christmas?'

'Oh--quite. It was the depths of the country, you know. But we did go to
a village concert.'

'That,' said Nicole, 'is a most misleading statement, Mr. Walkinshaw.
There were two very enjoyable dances as well as various other small
festivities. Althea was amused that we should take a village concert so
seriously. But I'm sure you will agree that there are few more solemn
things in life.'

'Few indeed! Talking about concerts reminds me there's something I want
to consult you about. I wonder if you and Miss Althea would help me with
a scheme I've got in my head? You know Cowdenden?'

'The grimy little town you pass through going to Langtoun?'

'Yes. As you say it is a grimy place, but there are a particularly fine
lot of young people in it--miners mostly, and they have a struggling
sort of musical society. They practise away at Gilbert and Sullivan, but
they've never money to produce. Times have been so bad for years, and of
course they're worse than ever now, and I dare say most people will cry
out at the thought of spending money in producing--even in the humblest
way--at a time when every penny is needed for bare necessities. But it
would be such a cheer-up for those decent fellows, and something to
interest them. It must be most demoralising to have to loaf all day.
People tell me, "Oh, they like to idle." By Jove----'

Althea looked at the young man and asked:

'How do you know so much about them?'

Charles explained that as prospective Unionist candidate it was his job
to get to know the young people in the district. 'Besides,' he added, 'I
like these fellows apart altogether from their votes. I wonder if you
would come some night to one of their practices and see for yourself
what good chaps they are!'

'But what use would we be?' Althea asked.

'Well, in the first place it's heartening to have some one take an
interest--And then, I thought, if we could get some people to stand in
and help with money they might be able to give a show. If we did it in a
very modest way it wouldn't cost a great deal, and anything we made
could go to local funds. Is that a quixotic scheme, d'you think?'

Nicole at once threw herself into the project.

'What we want is to get as many as possible interested so that we can be
sure of an audience.'

'It would need at least three performances to make it pay,' Charles told
her. 'The scenery and dresses are fairly expensive to hire. I find they
knew all about it from other towns that have tried it. I forget how many
other towns in Scotland produce Gilbert and Sullivan every year.'

'Then,' said Nicole, 'your musical society is quite capable of running
the whole thing? All they want is backing? That should be quite easy.
Cowdenden is within reach of the whole neighbourhood. Let's begin where
we are! Mother, you'll be an honorary member, won't you? You and Mrs.
Jameson?'

Both ladies turned--they had been deep in talk--to ask what was required
of them.

'Nothing much,' Nicole assured them, 'simply a little time and a small
sum of money. Mr. Walkinshaw will explain----'

'Oh, please, you do it,' pleaded the young man. 'I'm no good----'

'That's nonsense, but we needn't argue.... You know, Mums, that ugly
little town we pass through motoring to Langtoun. You said once you
wondered what the people did with themselves when they weren't working.
Well, as you know, there isn't, unfortunately, much work just now to do,
and to cheer themselves the young people run a musical society and study
Gilbert and Sullivan. Mr. Walkinshaw--oh, may I say Charles? the other
is such a mouthful--Charles says they are wonderfully good and so keen,
and he wonders if we couldn't all help them to produce an opera--It's
not a thing they could attempt without backing. I suggest that we get a
good long list of honorary members who will subscribe and promise to go?
Will you be one, Esm? You and Mother and me--and Althea, if we can
persuade her not to go to Egypt.'

'Egypt!' ejaculated Charles. 'You're not going _there_, are you?'

Every one laughed at his tone.

'Does it seem so absurd to you,' Esm Jameson asked, 'that any one
should leave the bleak Fife coast for golden sunshine?'

'Oh, it's not that; Egypt's all right, of course, but--I thought Miss
Althea was settled here for the winter.'

Nicole came to the rescue of the abashed young man.

'And so she is, we hope. She has gone so far as to say she would miss
Kirkmeikle.... Well, that's four members we've got and there must be
heaps in this district if I could think of them. People are generally
quite pleased to support a thing like that.... Will no one have any
more tea?'

'I can't have any more,' said Alastair, 'for I haven't had any yet.'

'Neglected child!' said Nicole, pouring into a cup milk and water with a
dash of tea, 'but if you will lie under the table with Spider....'

'And they've eaten lots, anyway,' Althea remarked.

At that moment Effie announced 'Mrs. Heggie.'

She stood in the doorway like a ship in full sail about to enter the
harbour, murmuring:

'It's too bad, really, coming like this when you're only just
home.... How d'you do, Lady Jane? How d'you do, Mrs. Jameson?'

'I can't get up, Mrs. Heggie,' Nicole cried. 'You know Mr. Walkinshaw?'

'No,' Mrs. Heggie said, as Charles placed a chair for her, 'I don't know
him, but I've often heard of him.'

'Why, of course, he's your Unionist candidate! This is one of your
supporters, Charles--you will vote for him, won't you, Mrs. Heggie?'

'Oh, certainly. Not that I'm much of a politician.... I'm terribly
easily convinced. It's always the side I've heard latest that I believe
in, and of course that's not the idea at all. And I really am a
Conservative, you know?'

'So your vote is safe, whatever your opinions may be?' said Althea.

'Whatever your politics are we want you to become a member of a musical
society in Cowdenden.'

Mrs. Heggie's eyes grew rounder. 'Cowdenden! I didn't know they went in
for music there. It's a dreary looking place. I once had a cook from
Cowdenden, a good cook she was too, but very ill-tempered. She wouldn't
let the other maids bring a friend into a meal, and to keep them I had
to part with her. I was sorry to do it, for she was clean and
economical, and things went like clock-work.'

'That was very trying,' Lady Jane said. 'And I expect you had to replace
her by a good-natured dirty one? I hope you had a very happy Christmas,
Mrs. Heggie? We're in time to wish you all good things for the New
Year.'

'And the same to you,' Mrs. Heggie said earnestly. 'I've been picturing
you all at Rutherfurd. It must have been lovely. I never think it's a
real Christmas unless there's a baby.... But a little trying for you,
dear Lady Jane.... Life gets sad as we go on.... Yes, we had a
nice time. Quiet, of course. I tried to gather all the unattached people
in the place to our Christmas dinner. Dr. Kilgour and his sister and all
the Lamberts--We had it in the middle of the day for the children....
And I've had an old cousin staying, Joan doesn't much care for having
her, but she's old and alone and lives in rooms all the year round, so
it's a change for her to come here....'

'If she's still with you, do bring her to luncheon or tea!'

'Oh no, Lady Jane, thank you. That's not at all necessary. I mean to say
she wouldn't expect such an attention. She's a plain old body and a run
into Langtoun in the car is her idea of a treat. But I'll tell her you
asked her and she _will_ be pleased--What is it, Miss Nicole?'

'Will you, kind lady, pay ten shillings a year to be an honorary member
of Cowdenden Musical Society?'

Mrs. Heggie immediately began to fumble in her bag. 'Oh dear me, yes.
More if you like. I'm heart sorry for the miners, though, of course,
they did----'

'No,' Nicole interrupted her. 'Don't say it was their own fault,
_please_. I'm so tired of hearing that, and it doesn't get anywhere near
the root of the matter....'




                              CHAPTER XVI


                                         '_Bid the players make haste._'
                                                                 HAMLET.

After the orgy of present buying and receiving that prevails in
December, after the family gatherings and the determined
lightheartedness of the so-called festive season, a curious flatness is
apt to pervade the first month of the year.

Then it is that those who had meant to see the winter through in their
own island begin to waver in their determination, and tentatively
enquire about hotel accommodation on the Riviera, or dally with the
thought of a cruise to find the sun.

Kirkmeikle and its neighbourhood was not exempt from this unrest. The
Erskines went off to Cannes, the Bucklers left Lucknow for Switzerland,
and Joan Heggie tried to get her mother to consider the desirability of
spending a few months in Madeira. But that lady held on stubbornly to
Knebworth, giving as her chief reason for refusing to leave, that she
could not bear to be buried at sea.

In vain her daughter pointed out that there was no reason why she should
be buried at sea, that the voyage was a short one, the ship equipped
with every comfort including a reliable doctor, but Mrs. Heggie was
adamant. She was too large, she said, too heavy to be really happy on a
ship; the very thought of a bunk made her sick, and there was always the
smell of oil and cockroaches.

'But think of the sunshine,' Joan pleaded.

'Sunshine's not everything,' said Mrs. Heggie. 'If we haven't much sun
in Kirkmeikle we've other things--good beds and nourishing food and warm
fires. The misery of those foreign hotels! I know them!'

'But that's just what you don't do. You've hardly been anywhere, and it
would do you all the good in the world to see new places and meet new
people and widen your outlook on life.'

Mrs. Heggie sniffed. 'My outlook on life is as wide as I want it to be.
At my age one has made up one's mind about most things, and it would be
very unsettling to have those views changed. I'll stay quietly at home,
thankful that I've a comfortable house to stay in, and kind neighbours.
But you go, Joan. It's a chance when your friends the Colsons are going.
I suppose you'd be quite safe with them? I'll be glad to think of you
happy in the sun. The trip will be my birthday present to you, and I'll
get your room papered and painted while you're away and have it nice for
you to come back to.'

'Well--' Joan shook her head in astonishment. 'You have the oddest ideas
of enjoyment, Mother. I verily believe you think it more amusing to mess
about at home with painters and charwomen than go out into the world and
_live_.'

'Yes,' her mother said placidly. 'I do. Travel _sounds_ very well. What
could be more delightful than these pamphlets about cruises: oranges and
roses and blue lakes? But it's all very different once you start. Oh, I
know. I once went a cruise with your father. The bother about
luggage--what to take and what not to take, and whatever you decide
you're always wrong: the fussing, the arranging, and when you do get on
to the steamer, the queer squeamish feeling that never really leaves you
till you get off again. The way the water sways in your bath.... And
the cold-storage food that always tastes the same; they may call it
anything they like on the menu, but fish, flesh, or fowl, it's all
alike.... And when you land it's pretty dreary work looking at
scenery and churches and picture-galleries!'

'All I want,' said Joan, 'is simply to _steep myself in sunlight_.'

'Well,' Mrs. Heggie said, picking up a dropped stitch in the scarf she
was knitting, 'take care and not bring on a trouble in your skin! I knew
a girl--I don't know whether she's alive now or not, I've lost trace of
her--Agnes Parsons was her name. Have you heard me speak of her? She
married a banker, and had no children. A restless couple they were,
always travelling about. _They_ went off one winter to look for
sunshine, and she got bitten by a mosquito--poisoned, I suppose. Her
face went all black and blue and both eyes were closed, and she came
home from the trip a wreck. That put me off hot climates.... But I
dare say Madeira'll be all right--I'd like you to get some nice new
clothes before you go; people are very smart in these big hotels. And
couldn't you do something about your hair? It's inclined to be endy. I
notice some people can make their hair fit into the shape of their head
very neatly. D'you not think a permanent wave might help yours?'

Joan shook her rather shaggy shingle. 'I don't like the artificial look
of a permanent wave.... I'll need a new dinner-dress, and some other
things--thin things. One so seldom wears real summer clothes in
Kirkmeikle.'

She paused, and then with an effort, for it was never easy for Joan to
be gracious, she said:

'It's frightfully good of you, Mother, to stand me the trip. I'm sorry
you won't come too, but perhaps you wouldn't care much for the Colsons
as travelling companions. They're not your sort.'

'They are not. That time they lunched with us at the hotel in London I
could hardly find a word to say to them. Silly, I thought they were,
calling each other pet names.... And their real names are ridiculous
enough, Hulbert and Delilah! I expect Mrs. Colson's responsible for the
names. Have you any idea what Mr. Colson did when he was alive?'

'I haven't,' said Joan, 'but I think it was some sort of business.'

Her mother nodded.

'Lucky for them that he could leave them so comfortable, for I don't
believe the young man'll ever support himself by his pictures.
_Hulbert_----'

She repeated the name, laughing sardonically, and added: 'Delilah, too.
Why not Jezebel? But they're your friends, and I don't want to say
anything against them. I'm sure I hope you'll enjoy their company.'

Those who were left in Kirkmeikle drew closer together.

Esm Jameson remained at Windywalls, too enamoured of her new home to
think of leaving it. The Walkinshaws, weary of wandering, were only too
happy to stay at home. Althea Gort did not go to Egypt, in spite of many
persuasive letters and cables from her aunt. It was obvious that, glad
as Lady Elliston had been to get rid of the girl, she was now just as
eager for her companionship.

Althea said, 'If you'll have me I'd like to stay, Aunt Jane.'

'I want you to stay, my dear, but I'm just afraid Blanchie will think me
selfish keeping you.'

Althea sat down by Lady Jane and began to play with the many coloured
silks in her lap.

'Don't worry about Blanchie,' she said calmly, 'she's too thoroughly
selfish to give a thought to any one but herself. All the Careys are
like that.'

Lady Jane was silent, and the girl went on: 'D'you suppose when she
planted me on you she cared whether it was for your happiness or mine?
Not she. I had got myself talked about, she wanted to get rid of me--My
mother was selfish too. As a family I despise the Careys.'

'Althea dear...'

'Oh, I know it's shocking taste to speak like that. You and Nicole never
err in taste--. I beg your pardon, Lady Jane, I'm impertinent.'

She rose, and going over to the fireplace, standing with one arm along
the mantelshelf, she surveyed her companion. Then, 'Be patient with me,'
she said. 'I have improved a little since I came to the Harbour House,
don't you think? Though, of course, I'll never be like Nicole.'

Lady Jane did not ask if she regarded this as a fact to be deplored. She
smiled at the tall girl standing in the glow of the firelight and said:

'Nobody wants you to be like Nicole, we like you as Althea.... I
believe the rain has stopped.... Let's go out and get a blow of salt
air before tea. One feels so un-aired sitting all day in the house.'

'Yes, let's.' Althea dropped on her knees beside the small
black-and-white terrier on the rug. 'And you will come too, my beautiful
Spider, best and loveliest of hounds, wisest and most affectionate of
canine friends.'

'Absurd child!' Lady Jane said as she laid aside her work. 'You're
affronting Spider; remember he's a Scots dog.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Charles Walkinshaw had not allowed his plan about the Cowdenden Musical
Society to languish; with the help of Nicole he had managed to get quite
an imposing list of honorary members, and he had also got promises of
substantial help from his father and one or two others. One evening he
came to dine at the Harbour House, and took Nicole and Althea to see a
rehearsal afterwards. He looked anxious and absorbed all through dinner.
When Nicole said, 'Isn't it exciting to be dining before the play?' he
did not smile.

'I hope you won't think it too bad,' he said rather wistfully. 'Perhaps
I've bucked too much about them.... They may seem to you very rough,
and, of course, they need endless rehearsals....'

'It's _Iolanthe_, isn't it?' Althea said. 'Almost my first favourite.'

'It _is_ jolly. And really, you know--But you'll judge for yourselves.
I'll only put you against them if I over-praise.'

'When shall I expect you back?' Lady Jane asked.

'Not much after ten,' Charles said. 'It's a beastly night, so I brought
the Daimler, chauffeur and all.... It's rather an awful hall they've
got to practise in, but it's expensive hiring places, and this does all
right. Well--shall we go?'

When they reached their destination, a back street in Cowdenden, Charles
hurried them out of the car. 'I'll go first with the flashlight,' he
said, 'for the stairs are broken in places, and it's a regular trap for
the unwary--Hullo, you were nearly down that time. We'll be lucky if
none of the performers break heads or legs before the show comes off.'

'I feel like a conspirator,' Althea said, as she groped her way up the
steep stairs, and she laughed. Nicole, hearing her, thought, 'That's the
first time I've heard Althea giggle like an ordinary girl.'

'Here we are,' said Charles, throwing open a door and letting out light
and the sound of music.

                 *        *        *        *        *

A couple of hours later the girls were back in the drawing-room at the
Harbour House, drinking tea by the fire.

'But where is Charles?' Lady Jane asked.

'Gone home,' Nicole told her. 'We asked him to come in but we didn't
urge him, for it was time he was home and we felt we had had enough of
him for the time being! Men are such innocent things: he was so keen
that we should be impressed by his protgs.'

'And were you?'

'I was. Weren't you, Althea?'

Althea nodded in her grave way. 'They struck me as being wonderfully
good, especially the men. I don't know why it should be, but men as a
rule act better than women. But they all acted as if they were enjoying
it.'

'Oh, they did. Mums, you'd really have liked it to-night. We went up a
very broken and exceedingly dirty stair into a small hall with a piano
and a few chairs and forms. Not very inspiring, but the only place they
can afford. The girls looked so nice in their jumper suits; and such
neat heads! An amazingly high average of looks. I've seldom seen so many
pretty ankles and legs gathered together. Weren't you struck by that,
Althea?... When not required, the young men are apt to stand outside
on the landing, and talk and smoke, but the girls sit demurely sewing or
knitting, and listen. It was frightfully nice to see Iolanthe lay down
her work, pull down her frock, and become a fairy.'

'But,' said Lady Jane, 'I can't quite see--Does Gilbert and Sullivan not
sound rather odd in a Fife accent? How do they manage the libretto?'

Nicole laughed a little. 'Well, that is rather a difficulty, I confess.
Charles very delicately hints now and then that certain words are not
being pronounced in the usual way, and they take it delightfully. As one
man remarked to me with great cheerfulness, "Mine's Fife English."'

'But--' Lady Jane still looked dubious. 'Strephon, for instance? Have
they any one who can play the part properly?'

'Yes!' said Althea. 'By great good luck there is a slim fair boy who can
both sing and act, and what is more, he looks the part.'

'He does indeed,' Nicole agreed. 'A light-foot lad! He and the girl
Phyllis do very well together. Even now in their ordinary clothes they
looked nice, and when they get on the white satin and blue and coral
ribbons of their parts, they will look like Dresden china figures. And
Althea has promised to help them a bit with their dancing.'

Lady Jane looked kindly at the girl as she said: 'There's no one better
fitted, my dear.'

'Oh, I don't expect to be of much use, but they are more likely to take
hints from an outsider than from one of themselves. It's a pity they
couldn't see the D'Oyly Carte Company. Aren't they to be in Edinburgh
before March?'

'That's an idea,' said Nicole. 'We might find out. It would be such a
good thing if the principals could see it.'

'It would certainly make it easier for them,' said Lady Jane, 'but
wouldn't they be apt to copy what they saw? I should think their own
interpretation would be more interesting.'

'Ye-es,' Nicole said doubtfully. 'But you see, they're so new at the
job. It would give them confidence to get a lead.... The
stage-manager has seen _Iolanthe_ done, and tries to convey to them what
struck him about the parts.... It must be terribly difficult to train
a chorus; to get a crowd of untrained people not only to sing in time
and in tune, but to stand and move properly--Althea, I can see that the
poor man looks to you to help him to save the situation.... Oh dear,
I had forgotten what delicious fooling _Iolanthe_ is! The plea of blue
blood, _Spurn not the nobly born_. And the chorus of peers!'

'What were they like, the peers?' Lady Jane asked, and Althea answered
her, 'A good deal better-looking than any peers I ever saw.'

'I dare say,' said Lady Jane. 'Well, it must be good for those young
people to study such witty words and music!'

'Good!' said Nicole, 'I should think so. I hadn't realised it, but
Gilbert and Sullivan are the cure for Communism. To hear those men
singing with such gusto:

                'Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes,
                Bow, bow, ye tradesman, bow, ye masses!

One who sang most lustily, Charles told me, is a leading Socialist, red
as blood, a leveller. But I expect after this when he thunders at
meetings he won't be able to be so bitter, and perhaps will laugh a
little at himself.'

Nicole got up in her vehemence, and stood before the fire. 'Good for
them, yes, and jolly good for Charles Walkinshaw. He and those men are
getting to know each other, learning to understand each other. I never
liked Charles so well as I did to-night, seeing him so eager among those
people, so keen that they should do well, so anxious to help them to do
themselves justice.'

'I believe Nicole's a Socialist,' Althea said, ruffling Spider's woolly
white coat.

'Only so far as every decent person is a Socialist,' Nicole said. 'I'm a
Tory Democrat, if there is such a thing.'

Althea smothered a small yawn. 'I wonder if I shall have a vote next
election!--meantime, what about bed?'




                              CHAPTER XVII


    '_Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?_'

    '_No more but that I know... that he that wants money, means
    or content is without three good friends...._'

                                                     AS YOU LIKE IT.

Perhaps it was because the dining-room in the Harbour House was such a
pleasant morning-room that the Rutherfurds had got into the habit of
lingering there after breakfast, discussing the news the letters
brought.

'Aunt Jane,' said Althea, 'you do get a budget every morning. How is it,
I wonder?'

Lady Jane only smiled, but Nicole said: 'My dear, can you wonder? Mother
has a host of friends, and when any of them are glad they write to her,
if they are sad they write to her, if they want anything, from servants
to sympathy, they write to her. And Mother is one of the few people left
alive who writes real letters, long newsy sheets. I assure you the
recipients bequeath these letters as heirlooms to their descendants.'

'Then you must _like_ to write letters,' Althea said in awed tones.

'Nicole is talking nonsense,' Lady Jane said. 'I only write necessary
letters, and even those sometimes very unwillingly.... To-day I have
a very uninteresting post--chiefly bills. Have you fared better,
Nicole?'

'Mine,' said Nicole, 'seem chiefly invitations. Jean Douglas wants
Althea and me to go to her for the Hunt Ball--we must talk about that
anon. A note from Kinogle asking us to luncheon on Friday--that's the
day we're going to Edinburgh, _and_ an invitation from Mrs. Jackson to
stay with her for a week at The Borders. She says she will not take a
refusal this time.'

'Well,' said her mother, 'why don't you go, Nikky?'

Althea stopped feeding Spider with toast to listen.

'I don't know,' Nicole said slowly. 'I've a sort of reluctance. I like
Mrs. Jackson, but...'

'Why d'you like her?' Althea asked. 'A vulgar old woman! You might as
well go and stay with your cook.'

'Well, for that matter, I can imagine many worse people to stay with
than Mrs. Martin.... But Mrs. Jackson isn't vulgar, she's a comic;
you must learn, Althea, to differentiate between the two.'

'She's got money,' said Althea, 'that's all the difference really
between her and all the thousands of women who live in the rows of
little suburban houses, and do their marketing in bags.'

Nicole laughed. 'Oh, but I assure you, Mrs. Jackson wouldn't mind in the
very least a marketing bag or a little house or anything like that. Why
should she? But vulgarity doesn't necessarily accompany these things.
The vulgarest woman I know is a lovely creature with a pedigree
extending back to the beginning of time. You'd shudder at the things she
says and does. You'd never shudder at Mrs. Jackson, but you'd
laugh--often. She helps every one, she hurts no one, and the more she
makes you laugh the better pleased she is.'

'Then,' said Althea, 'if she's so amusing, why aren't you more pleased
at the thought of visiting her?'

'Here we are back at the beginning! I don't know, unless it is that I'm
still sore about Rutherfurd--and that would be too silly.'

'Andy Jackson struck me as rather nice,' Althea said, 'but all the same
he has no business to be in Rutherfurd, he's not the least like the
place. But of course it's what you see all over now; new people in the
old places.'

Nicole nodded. 'Dear me, yes. We've had our shot, it's somebody else's
turn now.'

Althea looked thoughtfully at her as if trying to make up her mind if
Nicole spoke sincerely, while Lady Jane said, and she sighed as she said
it: 'Oh yes, we have had our shot, Nikky. All I ask is that the new
people will try to establish relations with the people who serve them.
That's apt to be where the difference comes in. There is no link between
them of shared experience. The new people are mostly people who have
made their own money, and they look at everything from a business point
of view, which means that they want their money's worth and have no use
for sentiment.'

'Their money's worth!' said Nicole. 'That's the snag with all the new
rich. Why, look at the Erskines! They're overwhelmingly hospitable,
they'd feed you with their best, they'd even give you their finest brand
of champagne and enjoy seeing you drink it, but ask them for a pound for
some good but obscure cause, and see how they squirm. And yet they'll
give to almost any extent in a public way, feed a multitude at a
Unionist Demonstration, head a subscription list and never grudge it.
Mr. Erskine talked to me all through dinner one night about how he had
managed to beat down a local tradesman and make a few shillings. He
expected me to applaud, but what I really wanted to say was, "My poor
fellow, what d'you suppose is going to happen to that huckstering little
soul of yours when you are done with buying and selling?"'

Althea laughed aloud. 'Poor Mr. Erskine!' she said. 'He wouldn't be in
Queensbarns now if he hadn't beaten down lots of people. But, Nicole,
when you plume yourself on your open-handedness--oh yes, you do!--just
consider how much of it is generosity and how much mere carelessness.'

There was a silence while the two girls looked at each other. Nicole's
face flushed. She turned to her mother and nodding towards Althea said:
'She's a wise child, isn't she, Mums?... Well, Mrs. Jackson has led
us into quite a discussion, but you haven't given me any advice about
her most kind invitation.'

'Don't go,' Althea advised, 'unless you think you'd be amused. To go to
give pleasure to Mrs. Jackson would be a horribly priggish thing to do.'

'So it would,' said Nicole, and laughed.

'Here,' said Lady Jane, 'is another invitation, to dine at Windywalls on
Thursday to meet Mrs. Heggie.'

Althea made a face, and Nicole said: 'What fun! Now Mrs. Heggie will get
an opportunity to put on her new evening dress. She confided to me that
she thought she'd have to go to a Hydro to get a chance to wear it. She
got it in Edinburgh, and it's evidently very smart.'

'Will that be the evening's entertainment?' Althea asked; 'admiring Mrs.
Heggie's new dress?'

Lady Jane looked up from her letters. 'Did I hear you say you were going
to Langtoun this morning?'

'Yes, Mums. Althea's helping me to make an evening dress and we're going
to try to match something. Can we do anything for you? These
silks.... If we can't match them, will the nearest thing do? or would
you rather send to London? Oh, very well... we won't be back till
after one, for we've some calls by the way--What about Spider? Shall we
take him?'

'Of course we'll take him,' Althea said. 'He adores a jaunt in the car,
especially to Langtoun, where he knows all the dogs who take the air
with their mistresses of a morning in the High Street. See, he
understands what we're saying: he's registering satisfaction.'

'He's doing what Effie calls _spurling_ on the carpet. She complains
that he ruins all the carpets.... Mother, I'll get the things for
Alastair's box, shall I?'

'Oh, please, and just ask if Mrs. Martin needs anything....'

When the girls had left the room Lady Jane took up a letter and re-read
it carefully. It was from Jean Douglas, and ran:

    'I've written to Nicole to ask her and Miss Gort to stay here
    for the Hunt Ball, which was put off, you remember, from
    December to the beginning of February. I know quite well Nicole
    won't want to come. I can understand how hard it is for her to
    come back to this neighbourhood, I can see how she shrinks from
    meeting the old friends, all the same I think you will agree
    with me that it is time she got over that, and it is easier for
    her to be at Kingshouse than at Rutherfurd. I've been to see
    Barbara. I told her I so much wanted to have a party for the
    Ball, that I particularly wanted it to be as much as possible
    like old times, and would she mind if I asked Nicole to be my
    guest. She looked offended at first, and said people would think
    it so odd and might imagine there had been a quarrel, and so on,
    but I said a great many smooth things--some of them true--and
    before I left she had got quite used to the idea.

    'It may surprise you, this sudden burst into entertaining on my
    part. I confess it never entered into my head to have a
    house-party until John Dalrymple _asked me to have him and
    Nicole_. So now you know! And, dearest Lady Jane, won't you use
    your influence to get Nikky to Kingshouse?...'

Lady Jane sat with the letter in her hand and looked out of the window.
Spider was having some exercise before departing from Langtoun. On the
long stretch of firm sand he was careering wildly round in circles,
while Althea stood like a circus-master in the middle of the ring,
encouraging him. Nicole, on the low wall, her hands on her sides,
laughed at them both. How carefree they looked, the two girls, laughing
in the winter sunshine.

Lady Jane's thoughts slid back to the past, that past which was almost
more real to her than the present. John Dalrymple, Ronnie, Archie--they
had all grown up together. It had been her husband's dearest wish, and
her own, that Nicole would go to Newby as a bride, and it had been an
end of many hopes when she had sent John away--. Now John had come back,
still, it seemed, faithful to his first love. How ideal it would be!
Newby was almost as full of associations as Rutherfurd; John had been
like her own.... Jean Douglas, kind woman, thought all she had to do
was to give John a chance; but she didn't know what Nicole's mother
knew, that there was something in the way. The face of Simon Beckett
rose before her. No dog in the manger this, those eyes could never be
resentful; but wasn't it just that utter unresentfulness that gave the
old love its strength? Well, time would tell....

                 *        *        *        *        *

On Thursday evening the three ladies at the Harbour House all appeared
in their best clothing, ready to dine at Windywalls. Each seemed rather
surprised at the appearance of the others.

'I call this simply silly,' Althea said, 'dressing up for old Mrs.
Heggie. Why, Aunt Jane, you've actually got on your emeralds! And
Nicole's wearing a dress she should have kept for an occasion.'

'I notice,' said Nicole, 'that you're not conspicuously shabby yourself,
my dear.'

'Oh, this old thing! I thought I might as well wear it out, though it is
too smart.'

When they got to Windywalls they found that they were the only guests,
except for an Irishwoman staying in the house, and Mrs. Heggie. But
their hostess wore her smartest frock, and the dinner was so carefully
thought out, so perfect in every detail, that they knew special pains
had been taken with it.

Mrs. Heggie sat in the place of honour, and, Joan not being there to
look at her disapprovingly, talked to her heart's content. The
Irishwoman, a Miss Barbour from Donegal, middle-aged and jovial,
entirely undamped by the very troublous years she had lived through, was
obviously delighted with her and encouraged her to further efforts. It
was as well that Joan, enjoying sunshine and the cultivated society of
Hulbert Colson in Madeira, was unaware of some of her mother's speeches
that night.

'Oh yes,' she said in reply to some one. 'I'm getting on quite well
without Joan, though of course I miss her. It's a good chance to get her
room thoroughly cleaned. We daren't touch it when she's there! It's as
much as my life's worth to displace a book! But I just told the servants
to carry everything as it was, into a spare room, and got in the
painters. It's all plain cream. I'd have liked to put on one of these
lovely new papers with hanging flowers in the corners, if I hadn't known
Joan would hate it--. But anyway, it's clean from the foundations....
Oh yes, I think she's enjoying herself. She bathes and lies about all
morning. I'm glad I didn't go, for she tells me she never gets anything
for her tea but a stale biscuit. Fancy! Cake seems unknown.'

'Your daughter's with friends?' Mrs. Jameson said.

'Oh yes, from Chelsea. I've only met them once. Their name is Colson.
There's a mother, a widow, about my own age, and a son and
daughter--Hulbert and Delilah. Did you ever hear such names?...
They're all either literary or artistic or both--even the mother. Isn't
it awful when quite elderly people are like that?'

'Awful!' agreed Nicole. 'And do you suppose they sit all the time in the
sunshine, talking about Art? It's a solemn thought.'

'Sometimes,' said Mrs. Heggie, 'they go expeditions: picnics, I expect.'

'I wonder,' said Mrs. Jameson, 'if they ever toboggan down from the top
of the town. Long ago, before the War, when I was a young girl, I went
with a party of friends, on a cruise round by Tenerife and Madeira and a
lot of other places: Lisbon and the Azores. One of the things I look
back on with pleasure was sliding down the cobblestones at Madeira.'

'It sounds dangerous,' Mrs. Heggie said.

'Is that an interesting cruise?' Lady Jane asked. 'We've sometimes
thought of taking it.'

Esm Jameson helped herself to the dish that was being handed round, and
said: 'It ought to be very interesting, but my chief impression seems to
be that it was very stormy at sea and very hot on land; and I don't
think our party--of which I was a very young and unimportant
member--behaved very well. We rather held ourselves aloof from the life
on board, and sat about and invented descriptive names for the other
passengers. A group of sketchily clad young women who had a trick of
standing against the sky-line were _Nymphs surprised while bathing_, and
a small fat man who suffered from the motion of the boat was _The
Seasick Piglet_. It was very rude and not at all witty.... There were
a great many wealthy Lancashire people on board.... I'm afraid we
were deservedly unpopular.'

'I expect,' said Nicole, 'you'd simply have loved it if you'd let
yourself go and been friends with all and sundry. I've always longed to
go on one of those cruises, or better still a Munn's Tour.'

'Awful!' said Althea.

'Lovely!' said Nicole, 'I've watched them at Calais and Boulogne, all
with their labels neatly stuck on their cases, getting into the train
for Rome, and been filled with envy. Probably most of them had saved for
it for years, and how much pleasanter to go with people who are
determined to get every ounce of enjoyment out of everything than with a
party of blas creatures who are only killing time.'

Althea shook her head. 'You might think it fun for one day, but it would
soon become insupportable. Just think how the people would get on your
nerves!'

'Why should they? I'd be more likely to get on theirs.'

Miss Barbour turned to Mrs. Heggie, with a wave of her hand at the two
girls.

'These young things talk away, but it's the older ones that should go
and see the world. Now you and I, Mrs. Heggie dear, would make grand
travelling companions. What do you say to starting off somewhere? You're
free and I'm free. We've got to the time when we need to see life from a
new angle. I've never been to America. Will you accompany me there?'

'Not to America,' said Mrs. Heggie firmly, 'nor anywhere in a ship. As I
told Joan when she spoke about Madeira, I will not be buried at sea.'

'Well now, doesn't that curb us a good deal, for the British Isles are
not very tempting in the winter.'

Mrs. Heggie looked doubtfully at her new friend. She liked her broad,
good-natured smile, and the hint of a brogue that gave such a rollicking
touch to everything she said, but she could not but feel that the lady
was a trifle precipitate. 'I once met a lady in a train,' she said,
'travelling from London to Edinburgh, and she asked me to come and stay
with her and hunt--she was Irish too.'

'It accounts for almost anything,' Miss Barbour said with a chuckle.
'Then you don't regard me favourably as a travelling companion.'

'It's not that,' Mrs. Heggie said earnestly, 'I'm sure you'd be ideal,
for you'd always make the best of things, but the fact is I prefer to
stay at home. I doubt my travelling days are done.... But I'd be more
than pleased if you'd come to a meal with me while you're at Windywalls.
Perhaps lunch would suit you best. I'll arrange with Mrs. Jameson.'

In the drawing-room after dinner they talked and played at games, and
every one was surprised when it was time to go.

Before they left, Esm Jameson said to Nicole: 'I felt it rather unkind
to ask you and Miss Gort to such a dull party. I really hoped to have
two cousins staying with me, rather interesting men, but when they
failed me I thought I'd have no men at all and make it Mrs. Heggie's
party.'

Nicole laughed as she said, 'I'll confess to you I loathe going out to
dinner, time seems to me simply to _crawl_ in other people's houses
between eight and ten. I keep trying to see the clock, and wondering if
it has stopped. But to-night I've never wanted to know the time. It's
been fine, hasn't it, Althea?'

The girl smiled at her hostess. 'It rather looks,' she said, 'as if the
boredom came with the men.'




                             CHAPTER XVIII


                                       '_Give me audience, good madam._'
                                                         AS YOU LIKE IT.

It would have been easier for Lady Walkinshaw simply to have given up,
to have become a complete invalid, keeping to her own room, her
interests bounded by the four walls of it, her daily companions doctors
and nurses. But she saw life as a battle to be fought, and every morning
she buckled on her armour.

No one knew what it cost her to keep that serene face, that gay smile,
to get into the pretty clothes that her men-folk liked, to endure having
her hair done in the way that best became her, to be wheeled in her
chair to her place at table. It kept her up, they said, to attempt
things, but to her every hour was an engagement. The talk with the
gardener, the half-hour with the cook, the luncheon-party, the afternoon
call--if she got through smiling it was a victory, if she let pain and
discouragement become apparent she had been worsted.

She was helped in her battle by the fact that her husband and son did
not realise how hard it was for her. They were 'glad she felt well
enough' to make the effort to be with them in their daily life. And
Belinda, her young niece, frisked round like some happy young animal,
charming to behold, amusing to listen to, and with no thought of any one
but herself. But though Lady Walkinshaw felt that anything was better
than being fussed over, she found it a relief sometimes to relax before
the understanding in certain eyes.

There were visitors who bustled in evidently impatient to be off again;
who said 'Is the pain _very_ bad? No, don't move, _please_,' who sat
just where it was torture for her to look at them, and then, in a few
minutes jumped up saying, 'Now I must rush.' This they called 'cheering
up poor Lady Walkinshaw.' But there were other visitors more acceptable,
who came as to a pleasure, who talked to her as if she were an ordinary
being like themselves and interested in rational things, who told her
when they found a book that pleased them, a new recipe, an interesting
acquaintance.

When Nicole Rutherfurd rang up to ask if she could see her on a certain
afternoon, Lady Walkinshaw said 'Yes' at once. Her husband was in
Edinburgh, Charles in London, Belinda was spending the day with some
friends; it would be pleasant to have the girl to herself. She had seen
a good deal of her, and had heard more from Charles, who spent, she
knew, much time at the Harbour House. Nicole and he seemed good friends
and he was always willing to speak of her: it was the other girl, Althea
Gort, of whom he said little.

His mother, of necessity a great deal alone, utterly impotent to help or
hinder, brooded much on this girl, and listened eagerly to all she heard
of her.

Belinda's opinion had been frankly given after her first visit to the
Harbour House.

'Lady Jane is a darling,' she said, 'but not quite of this world: the
daughter Nicole's _too_ fascinating, but the other girl's a dark horse.'

'Didn't you like her?' her aunt asked.

'Not at first, I didn't. I thought she was a cold, snubbing creature.
But there are nice bits in her. I don't think she's a cat, and her
smile's the prettiest thing I ever saw. I can't think why she doesn't
smile all the time when it makes her so attractive. I don't mean that
she isn't always definitely pretty, she is--but it's a cold prettiness
until it is lit up. You should see old Charles's face when she smiles at
him!! But for goodness' sake don't say I said so.'

Lady Walkinshaw had not thought Althea cold the few times she had spoken
to her. She had seemed to her surprisingly gentle and understanding for
a young girl, and she had rather wistfully wondered how she could become
better acquainted with her.

Nicole arrived in her little car known as The Worm, because so far it
had never turned. She was, she explained, making a round of farewell
visits because she was going away for a fortnight.

'But what will you do without Kirkmeikle?' her hostess asked.

'What, indeed? I become more _thirled_ to it every day--isn't that a
good word? John Grumblie at Windywalls taught it me--and the thought of
leaving it for a fortnight almost breaks my heart.' Lady Walkinshaw
smiled with pleasure at the prettiness of the girl, her face flushed by
the cold wind, her eyes grey as glass under her little scarlet hat.

'Then why go?' she said.

'Well, because one can't always be refusing invitations when people mean
to be kind.... First of all, Althea and I are going to stay with old
friends of ours on Tweedside, for a ball. No, I don't think it will be
very nice. I'm a bit old for balls, but I'm hoping Althea will enjoy it.
It's pretty quiet for her here.'

'But it isn't her first ball?'

'Oh--_no_. Althea's had a London season and she's travelled about a
tremendous lot and seen life. She's barely nineteen, but she's old for
her years. Why, Belinda's only about a year younger and she's a mere
child. It's the difference in the way they've been brought up.'

'Yes,' said Lady Walkinshaw, and added after a pause: 'Althea is your
cousin, isn't she?'

'No, no relation really.'

The woman and the girl looked at each other. Nicole quite realised that
her companion wished to know all there was to know about Althea, to
satisfy herself that she was the sort of girl a mother would like to see
her son marry, and in ordinary circumstances she would have enjoyed the
situation. With a suspicious, worldly-minded woman a fencing-match might
have been quite amusing, but in this case--she looked round the gay room
with its flowers, its fresh chintzes, its twittering love-birds, and her
eyes stayed on the woman in the wheeled chair, who smiled so indomitably
through her pain, whose pretty clothes were about as comfortable as the
hair shirt of a saint. No, she couldn't fence with one so defenceless.

She leant forward, laying one hand on the arm of the wheeled chair.

'Lady Walkinshaw,' she said, 'I expect you know that Charles comes a lot
to the Harbour House and that he seems to be keen on Althea? Remember, I
haven't a notion if she cares for him, but--you must wonder a lot, and
perhaps if I tell you all I know it may make you understand the whole
position better.'

Her companion did not speak, and after frowning at the fire for a
moment, Nicole went on.

'Till last October I had hardly heard of Althea's existence. I knew
vaguely there was such a girl, but my mother has such a host of
relations and connections by marriage that it's difficult to keep track
of them all. Then last October, my mother had a letter from her
sister-in-law, Lady Elliston--Blanchie we call her--asking if we'd have
Althea on a visit. Althea is her niece, her dead sister's child. She had
brought her out and was taking charge of her, and any one less capable
of taking charge of anything you could hardly imagine! She's quite a
decent woman, but that's all, and her sister wasn't even that. She
divorced Althea's father, Freddy Gort, or he divorced her, I really
forget, but anyway, it doesn't matter, for they were both as bad as
could be. So that's poor Althea's short history. Tossed between
worthless parents like a shuttlecock. Can you wonder that she seems cold
and suspicious? Why, she doesn't know disinterested kindness when she
meets it; she's never had a home or family affection or anything.'

Still Lady Walkinshaw said nothing, and Nicole hurried on.

'I don't pretend that I wanted her to come. I pictured an unpleasant
type of the girl of to-day--and when I saw her she was worse than
anything I had imagined! She was obviously furious at having been sent,
and wanted to make the very worst of herself. Her manners! Her little
painted face!... You see, the poor babe had been dragged away from
some man she fancied herself in love with, a low fellow who didn't
trouble to follow her into captivity, who didn't even trouble to write
to her after the first week or so. No wonder we found her difficult--But
now we know her we'd hate to lose her. There's something rather
delightful about her, and--oddly enough--something straight and
scrupulous. She must be a throw-back to some decent ancestor....
Forgive me telling you all this, because you may never need to know
Althea better; as I say, I haven't an idea whether she cares for your
son or whether he cares seriously for her, but I thought you might be
wondering--Oh, have I been officious?'

'No--Believe me, I am very grateful. It isn't easy to be a prisoner when
things are happening. I dare say I'm not more fussy about Charles than
any mother with an only son but'--Lady Walkinshaw laughed a little--'the
hen on the bank with the young ducks has my profound sympathy.... I
sit here and think and wonder--having so little else to do!--and most of
my thoughts are about my boy. It matters so much to a young man the sort
of wife he gets, so much that sometimes one trembles.... I think he
will be lucky if he gets Althea. And I shall count myself lucky. She
would be a much more interesting daughter-in-law, and for that matter a
much more interesting wife, than a petted, indulged young creature who
knew nothing about life and the hard things. Funnily enough, the thing
that struck me about Althea the only time we really had a talk together
was the understanding look in her eyes, as if she knew what suffering
meant--Well now, while we're having tea, tell me something more of your
doings. You are both going to a ball?'

'Yes, and we've both got new frocks: rather divine! We stay a week at
Kingshouse--a place on Tweedside near our old home--and then Althea
comes back to be with Mother, and I go on to Glasgow to visit a friend
of mine, a Mrs. Jackson.... Oh, and we haven't talked about the
Cowdenden Musical Society. I do hope it's going to be a success. How I
wish you could be at the rehearsals. Charles's efforts to correct wrong
pronunciation! There is one girl who will say "audocity"--a lovely word.
But he is delightful with them, a man and a brother; they'll take
anything from him, he has such a nice human way of going into fits of
laughing over mistakes and awkward moments. Althea is really very useful
with the dancing, she dances so beautifully herself.... Isn't it a
blessing Mr. Baldwin is going to give the girls votes before the
election? The Cowdenden chorus of _Iolanthe_ will vote solid for
Charles.'

A few minutes later, when she was leaving, Nicole said:

'I greatly fear I've talked too much and tired you. Please try and not
be the worse of me or Sir James won't let me come back.'

'My dear, I am greatly the better of you. You've given me lots to think
about, and that's what I want. Dr. Roberts keeps saying "Interest
yourself," but it's not so easy. He's profoundly uninteresting himself,
poor man.'

'I wish you had Dr. Kilgour,' Nicole said earnestly. 'He finds life so
thrilling he'd interest you himself, and he'd interest you in all sorts
of people and things.... Oh, have you read this? _Letters of Dorothy
Osbourne?_ It's one of Mother's favourite books, and she sent it to you
on chance. No, you're to keep it, she got that copy especially for
you....'

                 *        *        *        *        *

When Nicole reached Kirkmeikle she looked up at the clock-tower and saw
that, as it was only half-past five, she would have time to look in at
the Lamberts. Leaving The Worm in a side road she went through the green
door in the wall, through the dark wintry garden to the square grey
house. The blinds were not drawn in the study and she could look in on
the fireside scene--the minister in an arm-chair with a book, Mrs.
Lambert mending at a table with a lamp, the two little girls intent on
some game.

'You looked so peaceful,' she said, when the maid had admitted her,
'that it seemed a shame to disturb you.'

Mrs. Lambert pushed aside her work and rose to welcome the visitor,
saying:

'We can put up with a lot of this sort of disturbing.... Move your
bricks a little, Aillie. Sit into this chair, Miss Nicole.... I'm so
glad you've come in now, for it's the hour of the day we enjoy most.
John's congratulating himself on not having to go out to-night. He's
deep in the last book you lent him.'

The little minister came forward, after carefully marking his place in
the book he had been reading.

'I'm afraid,' he said in his hesitating way, 'I'm afraid you've done me
a bad turn, Miss Rutherfurd. I c-can't lay it down. The _very priests of
God are reading comedies, singing the love-songs of the bucolics_.'

For a moment Nicole looked blank, then her face lit up.

'Oh, _The Wandering Scholars_! Isn't it a delicious book? I suppose one
would need to be learned really to appreciate it, but I adore the
richness of it, the plums one can pick out--poems and lovely sentences
that are like balm to remember.' She turned to the minister's wife. 'I
know how precious your time is and it's a formidable work to tackle, but
I believe you'd love it as much as I did.'

Mrs. Lambert nodded. 'Oh, John's been reading bits to me. I sit here
knitting or sewing with my mouth open like a young bird's for the
morsels he gives me. I enjoy them like that much better than reading
them for myself.'

'Of course you do; it's the perfect way of acquiring knowledge.' Nicole
dropped on the floor and began to help the little girls to build their
tower.

'What is it?' she asked, 'the Leaning Tower of Pisa?'

'No,' said Aillie, 'it's the Tower of Babel.'

'I see. Well, Betsy, we'll have to make it strong, for I expect all the
people had a free fight when they found they couldn't understand each
other.'

'That's not in the Bible,' said the small Betsy stolidly.

Nicole smiled up at the children's parents. 'Isn't she staunch?' she
said. 'Mrs. Lambert, I'm so sorry I shan't be at the "Mothers" on
Wednesday; I'm going away for a fortnight. I keep saying, "I'm going
away for a fortnight," in the hope that you'll mourn with me. I do hate
going away.'

'The Mothers will miss you,' Mrs. Lambert said, 'as indeed we all
shall,' while her husband remarked, 'I hear you've been walking in
d-devious paths, Miss Nicole. Jimmy Greig tells me you went to the
Gospel Hall meeting the other night.'

Nicole dusted her hands as she said: 'Oh I did, I did. Jimmy had so
often asked me to go that I was quite ashamed, so last Sunday I managed
to persuade Althea to accompany me in order to keep me in countenance.
It's a nice meeting. I liked the harmonium and Sankey's hymns, but it
was the familiarity of it all that unmanned me. The prayers, you know.
The intimate friendly way that just anybody got up and prayed to their
Maker. Like this--"_O Lord, as Thou knowest, dear Sister Simpson is not
just so well to-day. Lord, make Thou her bed beneath her..._" We
weren't prepared for the _easiness_ of it all.... And there was a man
from Leith who sang solos. Providence had not intended him for a singer,
but that in no way deterred him. He got up and bellowed a hymn
beginning:

             '_I'm one of the sorrows of Satan..._'

'N-no,' Mr. Lambert objected. 'Now you're making fun of it.'

'Oh, but I assure you that was what he sang. Ask Jimmy Greig. Jimmy was
much impressed both by the hymn and the singer--D'you think a meeting
like that does good?'

Mr. Lambert rubbed his forehead perplexedly as he said:

'I wouldn't like to say it didn't. Anyway, it gives great pleasure to
the little band who run it. They seem to crave something--something
warmer than our church service, and this meeting supplies the want. I
sometimes go to it myself when they are in need of a speaker, but I
always feel that my utterances must sound stilted and cold after what
they are accustomed to.'

'I wish,' said Nicole, 'you had seen Althea Gort's face,' and was
promptly overcome with laughter at the recollection. They all laughed
with her, so infectious is uncontrolled mirth, until Nicole, wiping her
eyes, said she must go.

'How is Spider?' Aillie asked.

'Ah, that reminds me, would you and Betsy take him for a run on the
sands when you've time? That would be kind. Well--I suppose a fortnight
will pass!'




                              CHAPTER XIX


    '_It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
    possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife._'

                                                        JANE AUSTEN.

Jean Douglas came in from her morning walk, fresh and rosy with the
frosty air, and feeling somewhat relieved in the mind that the ball was
over, that the house-party had departed, that peace had descended once
again on Kingshouse. She was met in the hall by the butler, who told her
that Miss Lockhart was waiting for her in the boudoir, so there she
repaired, followed closely by her two faithful followers, Gay and Merry.

'_Well!_' was Alison Lockhart's greeting, 'you are an early bird! I came
here before eleven thinking I'd be sure to find you in, and I've been
waiting for an hour. Where on earth have you been?'

Jean Douglas unwound her woollen scarf as she replied: 'On the top of
Laverlaw. I haven't had a decent walk for a week, and I did want to feel
the hill air on my face.... Why didn't you come to meet me?'

'Not I, forsooth! I've read _The Scotsman_ from beginning to end, eaten
some black-striped balls out of that beautiful glass jar--was it a
Christmas present?--and was in the middle of _The Queen_.... Hullo,
Merry, old man. Good Gay, good dog!'

'Put them off the clean chintzes, Alison.'

'Oh, they won't do any harm. How d'you keep them so white and woolly?
They're disgustingly clean and tidy to have come in from a walk. I
believe they have their paws sponged by Donald the footman before they
enter the front door.'

Mrs. Douglas sat down on the large chintz-covered sofa beside her
friend, remarking, 'Your jibes, my friend, leave me untouched. If it's
not a rude question, might I ask what brought you here so early? Was it
merely a desire for company, or had you an ulterior motive? Anyway,
you'll stay to luncheon and see Tom?'

'Thank you, yes. I hoped you'd ask me. The truth is, I suddenly found
myself very tired of the cooking in my own house. There is no element of
surprise in the meals, and there ought to be, for I leave it entirely to
the cook. But she has a stodgy mind, decent woman, which is reflected in
her dishes. The lightness of your Mrs. Fraser's touch will be a welcome
change.'

'I hope you aren't accusing Mrs. Fraser of frivolity because her
souffls and omelettes are so light. But I know what you mean. One
sometimes tires of meals in one's own house, and any change seems for
the better. It's the company, my dear, that really makes the difference.
Eating alone is an unnatural thing.'

'Considering that for the last week I've had eight at each meal--The
last lot left this morning. I don't pretend to grieve. I'm quite willing
to be hospitable, but people staying in the house are a dreadful bore.
It isn't so bad if they're keen on bridge, and will sit planted for
hours, but when they want to be routing about all the time--And young
girls are really the limit--However, it's over, and nothing more can be
expected from me for a long time. Anyway, I'm going off in another
fortnight.'

'Again!'

'Yes, I've got wandering in my blood. All the time I'm away I think how
beautiful my home is and what a fool I am to be missing the loveliness
of each succeeding season on Tweedside, and when I am at home I think of
the swiftness of the passing years and how wide the world is, how much
there is to see while it is still day. I remember that, if I live there
will be long years when I shall be compelled to stay in my own quiet
glen, and that then I shall be glad to think on all I've seen and
done.... This time I've planned quite a far trek--but I'll tell you
about that afterwards, and you'll have the goodness to listen, but what
I want to know now is, _what happened last week_?'

Jean Douglas rose and dislodged Gay and Merry from two arm-chairs, then
leaning one arm along the narrow shelf of the Adam mantelpiece, she
looked down at her friend with a half-rueful, half-quizzical smile, and
said: 'What happened? Nothing: nothing at all.'

Alison Lockhart snorted. 'What? After all your trouble and planning?
Whose fault was it?'

Jean Douglas shrugged her shoulders. 'My dear, I know nothing.'

'But--surely you've _something_ to tell me?'

'Lots, but nothing of importance. Last Thursday Nicole and Althea Gort
arrived, and John Dalrymple came over from Newby. As you know, I asked
two other couples, and a young man for Althea, thinking that that would
throw Nicole and John very much together: as old friends that would only
have been natural. And it all seemed to work out very well. Althea and
her young man got on famously--she has a way with her, that girl, as was
to be expected. The two couples had much in common, and Nicole and John
walked and talked and played together on what seemed the easiest and
friendliest terms. Much too easy and friendly for my liking. She treated
him like a brother. "John, d'you remember this?", jokes from nursery
days; pranks recalled--It was very pretty, and rather terribly pathetic
when one remembered the changes the years had brought....'

Mrs. Douglas's voice sank, and there was silence for a minute, broken by
Alison Lockhart, who said:

'I've been seeing a good deal of John Dalrymple these last months, and
every time I've seen him I've liked him more. He's not easy to know;
that impassive way annoys one often, but he isn't really dull, he has
rather a delicious dry humour, and he's got a good honest heart. He
would be very wrathful if he knew I know, but I heard from my old nurse
in Lowden village that he keeps all the old people in the place in great
comfort: actually writes to them when he is away and visits them
regularly when at home. "Maister John" is a god to the old Newby
servants--I must say I was rather surprised, for he certainly has the
appearance of being aloof and indifferent, don't you think?'

'I've known him since he was in petticoats,' said Mrs. Douglas, as if
that explained everything. 'He's thirty-four now, and it's high time he
was settling down and giving Newby Place a mistress. Well, I've done my
best. When John said good-bye to me yesterday--I need hardly tell you I
asked no questions--he said "Mistress Jean" (that's what Nicole always
calls me and he has adopted it too), "Mistress Jean, you've been
amazingly kind. I can never thank you enough for this week. Whatever
happens, I've had that."'

'Mm--Doesn't sound too hopeful? What of Nicole?'

'Oh, Nikky went off as blithe as a bird to stay with Mrs. Jackson in
Glasgow! It will really be desperately annoying if she turns down John.
Nothing more suitable could be imagined. It's almost absurdly suitable.
It would bring Jane Rutherfurd back to the neighbourhood, where she's
badly needed. I tell her--and it's the truth--that we've deteriorated
without her. It would make Newby Place a centre of hospitality, for
Nicole has all her mother's social gifts, and it would keep Barbara
Jackson in her place, for that young woman is getting quite above
herself.'

Alison Lockhart gave an impatient sigh. 'It will never come off,' she
said, 'you will see, something will happen to prevent it.... Odd,
isn't it, how Barbara Jackson rubs people the wrong way. There's
something so condescending about her affability, and have you noticed
she asks kind questions but never listens to the answers?--her eyes are
looking over your shoulder in case she misses higher game. That is not a
trait that makes for social success.'

'She doesn't look to me a happy woman, in spite of all the possessions
she delights to flaunt. I just hope she makes that decent fellow Andy
happy. Anyway, he has the boy. It's rather pretty to see how his face
lights up when you ask about his small son.'

Alison Lockhart yawned. 'Sorry. I seem to want my lunch.' She looked at
the clock. 'Still half an hour away! How did you think the ball went?'

'Have another striped ball? No, well, perhaps it would spoil your
luncheon--Oh, I thought everything went very well. The decorations were
quite pretty; the supper was good, and it wasn't too crowded. Of course
it would have been infinitely cosier in a private house, but the numbers
were too great. I quite enjoyed it, and Tom found a lot of cronies and
didn't keep fussing to get home. The dresses were pretty, didn't you
think?'

Miss Lockhart stretched her skirt to conceal the fact that Merry had
crawled on to the sofa beside her, and said, 'Some of them. Tilly
Kilpatrick was a sight. One would think that with those stout legs of
hers she would take advantage of the long evening skirts, but no!
Everything possible revealed--poor soul!'

Jean laughed. 'She was quite happy. It seems to me it's the forty-ish
and even the fifty-ish that are keenest about dancing. The very young
tell you they rather prefer a quiet evening at home! I thought Barbara
Jackson looked very well: the line of her velvet dress gave her dignity:
she really is a very handsome woman in an uninteresting way.'

'Oh yes,' Alison Lockhart agreed indifferently. 'I never see her but she
torments me to go and call on those protgs of hers--I forget the name,
Brunton, is it? I told her nothing would induce me when she began again
about them the other night. She's a most tenacious creature when she
gets an idea in her head. Have you been persuaded?'

'I have. I know it was weak of me, but it was less trouble than to keep
on refusing. They're perfectly nice people, but I found conversation
difficult. I can quite see why Barbara has taken them up. They give her
the adulation that she feels is her due, an adulation that's
disappointingly absent in the rest of her neighbours. "Gracious" was the
word Mrs. Brunton used about her. Barbara would appreciate that; there's
a queenly touch about it!'

'Talking about the queenly touch,' said Alison, 'I thought Nicole looked
like a ballad queen the other night. That long parchment-coloured frock
opening over gold lace, and the crystals binding her hair and coming
down on her forehead--fire and dew. She always had moments of great
beauty--But the other girl, Althea, is a _pukka_ beauty.'

'Oh yes, hers is the beauty of feature and line and colouring: it has
nothing to do with temperament. I was really rather proud of my party
the other night. I thought they compared favourably with any
other....'

A barking of dogs was heard outside.

'Here's Tom. Quiet, Gay. No, you're not going out, and Tweed and Yarrow
are not coming in, so there's no necessity to make a fuss. Alison, come
with me while I wash my hands and tidy a bit.'

Miss Lockhart got up and surveyed herself in the mirror. 'Indeed,' she
said, 'a little tidying wouldn't come amiss to me either. I can't help
thinking your mirrors at Kingshouse are very unflattering. When I glance
at myself I'm always surprised to find how plain I'm looking, and at
home I'm quite passable. It's wise to have a flattering glass, for it
sends you out to meet a cold and critical world warmed and cheered,
whereas----'

'Yes, I quite agree,' said Jean Douglas, moving to the door, 'but Tom
likes his meals to the minute, and the gong has gone.'

'Life without a man has its compensations,' Alison remarked, as she
leisurely mounted the stairs, while Tom trumpeted in the dining-room.




                               CHAPTER XX


    '_I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and
    nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, and I laugh at
    them whenever I can...._'

                                                        JANE AUSTEN.

Mrs. Jackson sat behind the breakfast-tray in the dining-room of The
Borders and remarked: 'Well, Nicole'll be here to-day. Isn't that nice?'

Her husband looked up for a moment from the pages of the _Glasgow
Herald_, but did not commit himself to any opinion.

'Thursday this is, till next Thursday. One week. It's little enough for
all I'd like to show her. Let me see, she comes to-day about four, so
after tea we'll look through the house--No, we'll keep the house till
next morning when she's fresh and when she can see it in the morning
light. Tea and a rest and dinner and a good talk--that'll be the first
night. I thought mebbe a theatre on Monday or Wednesday--What's on next
week, Father?'

'Eh?' said Mr. Jackson, again deep in his paper.

'It's the theatre I'm speaking about, but never mind just now. I'm going
into town this morning anyway, and I'll arrange about seats. I think a
box would be best--more exclusive.... To-morrow night we're having
those people to dinner that we've been owing so long. You know--the
Ralstons. It's a chance to have them when Nicole's here to talk to them,
for Mrs. Ralston's not our style, though always quite pleasant. Saturday
I thought we'd go a good long motor-drive and have a quiet evening
seeing it's your night in, Father. Sunday: I'm sure I don't know what we
could do on Sunday. I like my Sunday quiet, but then, of course, I'm
old-fashioned. I believe she'd be quite happy to read. You might order a
lot of new books, for she goes through them like anything. Monday we're
having an evening party, paying off a lot of people for things like
tea-parties and whist drives, you know. Should we try bridge, I wonder,
or just talk and have a little music? I dare say I'd better engage a
pianist and a singer or two anyway. What d'you think?'

Mr. Jackson did not look up, and his wife continued her monologue.

'And then, of course, I must take her all about, for she's never been to
Glasgow before. I do hope it's decent weather and I can take her down to
Gourock, and out to Stirling, and then there's the Rouken Glen and the
Art Galleries and the Municipal Buildings and all the sights. Uch, a
week'll never do it!'

'What's that you're saying, Bella?'

Mr. Jackson had laid down his paper, which he invariably opened and
glanced through when he had finished his first cup of tea. 'You seem
quite excited.'

'Well, I am, and no wonder. Nicole Rutherfurd's coming here to-day, and
I've an awful lot of things to show her. She's never stayed in Glasgow
in her life--fancy that! So it's all new to her. It'll be a fine change
after Kirkmeikle, and I want to give her a real good time.'

Mrs. Jackson came round the table with her husband's second cup, put the
toast within his reach, the butter and the marmalade, and looked
complacently round the room. 'My! what will she think of this house
after that queer old place by the sea? _By_ the sea! It's very nearly
_in_ the sea!'

Mr. Jackson laid a spoonful of marmalade on a piece of toast, and while
munching it, said: 'She'll not likely think much of it. These kind of
people are all for what's old and shabby, and this house is neither the
one nor the other.'

He, too, looked complacently round the room which, truth to tell, was
remarkably like a show dining-room in a furniture warehouse.

'It's handsome,' said his wife, 'and so convenient. Everything made to
our own design. So easy to keep too: that wood needs no polishing to
speak of, and what with vacuum cleaners and one thing and another, the
maids need hardly dirty their hands. Telephones, wireless,
electricity--I'm just afraid we go up in a blaze one of these days.'

'No fear,' said her husband. 'Well, be sure and give Miss Nicole a good
time. It'll be quite a treat for her to see Glasgow; it's a place where
there's always lots going on--Good-bye then. I'll not be in till near
seven to-night; I've all manner of committees.'

He said it in a satisfied voice, not at all as if he were sorry for
himself, and his wife helped him with his coat and patted him on the
back, saying, 'I'm sure I don't know what they'd do without you. The
amount you get through! And all free, gratis, and for nothing too.
Public-spirited, that's what you are. Well, good-bye then. Be sure and
have a good lunch in case you haven't time for tea.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

When Nicole jumped out of the train that afternoon and saw Mrs.
Jackson's welcoming face, she said:

'No wonder the sun doesn't trouble to shine much in Glasgow; you don't
need it when you have such beaming faces!'

'Tuts!' said Mrs. Jackson, pleased but rather affronted. 'We get plenty
sunshine in Glasgow. It's been shining like anything to-day and it only
the beginning of February.... Well, well, and how are you? I needn't
ask, you're blooming. The sea air seems to agree with you.' Without
waiting for an answer she went on: 'And your dear mother? As placid as
ever of course. A wonderful faculty she has of accepting things as they
come! Nothing ruffles her. I'm sure I envy her: there's no patrician
calm about me.... Where's our porter gone? Is that him? Isn't it
queer how difficult it is to know one porter from another? Like shop
young ladies.'

'And waiters,' said Nicole.

'Yes, waiters. Ay, that's our man. No, we don't want a taxi: our car's
waiting--yes, the end one....' Mrs. Jackson turned to her companion
and said: 'I'm so glad we've got our new car in time for your visit.
Yes, it's a beauty, the very latest model, but a wee thing low in the
roof for me. You're meant to crush away down, but I haven't the figure
for that. I do better bolt-upright, and the old-fashioned kind suited
me.'

'It's delightfully comfortable,' Nicole said, sinking into her corner,
'the last word in luxury--Is it far to The Borders?'

'Uch, no. I'll tell you all the places as we pass. We're crossing
Jamaica Bridge. Yes, that's the Clyde.'

'Oh, but how lovely!' Nicole cried.

'Oh, the Broomielaw's a dirty place, but it's very bonnie down a bit.
I'm going to take you down to Gourock and you'll see across the
Firth.... This long street's Eglinton Street. We turn up at the Toll
for Pollokshields. It's a big suburb, roads and roads of villas. It's
mebbe not so smart as out West, but I like it better; the air's fine,
and where we are is very nearly the country.'

'There must be a great deal of money in Glasgow,' Nicole said, looking
at the never-ending line of large comfortable-looking houses each in its
own garden.

'Uch, yes--though, mind you, we've been hard hit these last years. You
wouldn't think it going through the shops and seeing crowds of
well-dressed people, and all the lovely cars and fine houses out West,
but works are standing idle that used to be busy, and there's no doubt
there's a good deal of privation. I'm not one of those who say the men
don't want to work. People speak as if the dole was a fortune! It must
be desperate for decent couples who've held their heads up, to see their
wee bits of things disappearing, and the children needing things they
can't give them. I often lie awake at nights and think about them--. You
see, though Mr. Jackson has been so successful and we live in style and
all that, we're plain people, indeed it's not so long since we were
working people. My own father rose from being a workman to a master, so
did Mr. Jackson's. It's just the way of the world, some rise and some go
down. I wasn't envious when I was down, and I hope I'm not proud when
I'm up--. Well, well, how I do run on. And I was thinking you'd come
from Kirkmeikle, forgetting you've been at Kingshouse--what took you
there when there's always a room for you at Rutherfurd?'

'Oh well--Mrs. Douglas is such an old friend, and she made a particular
point of us going for the Hunt Ball. It was put off, you remember, from
Christmas week? But we lunched one day at Rutherfurd and got all sorts
of messages for you, and a kiss from the small Andrew.'

'Bless him! Did you know a difference on him? Has he grown any?'

'In five weeks! But they did tell me how much he had put on--so many
pounds, or would it be ounces? Anyway he's a picture of a baby, and was
most urbane to me when I held him for a bit. He's a real Jackson.'

'You see it too? You tell Father that, he will be pleased.... We're
getting near our place now.'

'Why, you're quite in the country.'

'Yes, and yet so near town that it's nothing to run in for a play or a
concert.' Mrs. Jackson was sitting looking out, and she now cried:
'There!' and Nicole found that they were in a short, perfectly-kept
drive, approaching a large, many-turreted red house, and she pulled
herself together for her task of admiring, to the satisfaction of her
hostess.

As they entered the front door, 'See,' Mrs. Jackson said, '_marble_!'

'So it is! How cool it looks and clean!'

'And don't the red rugs look cosy on it? These were all made to order,
and the stair-carpet too. The man said to me, "Believe me," he said, "in
forty years there won't be a bit of difference on them." "Mebbe not," I
said, "but there'll be a difference on me." He _laughed_.... I'm
awful fond of red carpets, they're so cheery.... I keep magazines on
the table there, like Rutherfurd, but Father and I never sit in the
hall. I don't see much sense in it, and it's apt to untidy things and
give people a bad impression of the house.... You see, it's all as
compact as you like; the dining-room here, the pantry, and then through
to the kitchen; on this side the drawing-room and Mr. Jackson's own
room, and the billiard-room. But you'll see it all later, there's plenty
of time, and you want your tea just now. Come away and get your hat
off.... You see they're very easy stairs? I insisted on that. And this
conservatory gives the landing a nice finish, don't you think? The
flowers give the same red-and-white note as the red rugs and the marble,
though hyacinths are not as successful in that way as geraniums....
If you're a bit stout and short of breath the flowers give you an excuse
to stop and rest on your way upstairs! We've just the four bedrooms (of
course with dressing-rooms), just enough to take in Barbara and Andy and
the boy, but we've _three_ bathrooms, not to mention the one for the
maids. Beauties--marble floors and tiled-you'll see. Father just said,
"We'll have a small house but it'll be perfect!" And it is. Hot and cold
in every bedroom: fitted-in wardrobes, and cupboards galore, and the
very latest in spring mattresses. The maids' rooms are just as nice, and
the kitchen's a fair treat! A sitting-room, too, for the maids to
entertain their friends, and a wireless; the plumbing perfect and the
pipes all copper. But here I go on talking and you wearying for your
tea--. This is your room: I thought of you when I chose the things for
it, and hoped you'd often sleep in it.'

She stopped, expectant of raptures, and Nicole did not disappoint her.

There was much to praise. Never had Nicole walked on softer, more
opulent carpets, or seen a more inviting bed, with its rosy eiderdown
and curtains. Mrs. Jackson turned back the sheet and showed pale-pink
blankets bound with broad satin ribbon. 'Aren't they a conceit?' she
said. 'I saw them in a shop in Bond Street, and I just said to myself,
"The very thing for the pink room," and there they are! Of course I
don't know how they'll wash.'

'Wouldn't it be safer to send them to the cleaners? They are so
beautifully soft and light. And the embroidered curtains! Did you get
them in Bond Street too?'

'Yes, all the wee tasty touches, but everything else in Glasgow; the
furniture and carpets.' She looked round and added, 'and very nice they
are!'

Nicole often said that she hated to stay with people for she was always
either cold, or bored, or both, but with Mrs. Jackson she was neither
the one nor the other. She delighted in that lady's comments on life,
and enjoyed going with her to see fresh places and hearing her tales of
people. Mr. Jackson she found quite unexpectedly interesting when he
suddenly broke into talk about his own city, for which he had obviously
a deep, if almost an ashamed, affection. She enjoyed, too, meeting the
Jacksons' friends.

On the Friday morning Mrs. Jackson said: 'We're having a couple to
dinner to-night, a Mr. and Mrs. Ralston. I've been waiting for your
visit to ask them, for they're not my style at all. Clever, you know.
Mr. Ralston's very learned, I'm told, though he's in business: I'm not
sure that it's not tobacco; but so old-established that it hardly counts
as business--you know what I mean. And his wife is very tall and--oh, I
don't know, you'll see for yourself. I'll away to see cook just now, for
I'd like everything to be very perfect. We dined there one night, and
there was something very tip-top about it. I'll ask your advice later
about what to wear. I'm depending on you to get me through this evening,
mind that!'

When evening came they waited in the drawing-room for the expected
guests. Nicole had wiled her friend away from a much ornamented green
satin, and had coaxed her into a black velvet gown, greatly against that
lady's own wishes.

'The green's quite new,' she wailed. 'I was keeping it for an occasion;
and I'm so dingy in black.'

'Dingy!' said Nicole, 'with your pearls, and your lovely white shoulders
and arms! Keep the green for some big reception: this velvet is perfect
for a small dinner.'

'Oh well--' Mrs. Jackson was not convinced, but she gave in. 'But you'll
make yourself smart, won't you? You see the Ralstons are never likely to
see you again, and I'd like you to look your best to-night.'

So Nicole put on the parchment-coloured silk with the gold lace, and
bound the crystals round her forehead to please her hostess. She knew
she would have to work hard this evening, for she had some experience of
the way Mr. Jackson relapsed into almost complete silence when strangers
sat at his board; his wife, on the contrary, when unsure of herself and
awed by her company, was apt to babble.

She began at once, when the door opened to admit the expected guests.
'How d'you do, Mrs. Ralston? How d'you do, Mr. Ralston? Chilly, isn't
it? This is Miss Nicole Rutherfurd who's staying here. I don't know if
you ever heard that we bought a place on the Borders? Well, it was Miss
Rutherfurd's home we bought. Our son lives there now, you know. Uch,
married, yes, to a cousin of Nicole's there, and they've got a fine wee
boy. But Miss Rutherfurd lives in Fife....'

The stream of talk went on while Nicole shook hands with a very tall,
youngish woman and her husband who was much shorter and had a smooth,
egg-like face; it eddied round them, washed over them, and it was with a
sensation of relief that, at last, Nicole found herself seated at the
round table in the dining-room between her host and Mr. Ralston, neither
of whom seemed inclined to utter a word.

Mrs. Jackson was flapping out her napkin, and asking Mrs. Ralston a
stream of questions, to make her forget, no doubt, that her host seemed
to have forgotten his duty, and also, Nicole knew, because she would
rather make conversation with the wife than try to tackle the husband
who was her rightful partner.

Nicole looked at him. He seemed to be enjoying his grape-fruit, so she
began a gentle sort of monologue which called for nothing much in the
way of response, about the interest of first beholding a great
industrial centre like Glasgow, her hopes of seeing something of the
beauty of the Clyde; and went on to compare the East and West Country.
It was all delivered in a voice soft as 'doves taboring upon their
breasts,' and Patrick Ralston, beginning to feel soothed and
comforted--he had hated the idea of driving miles to dine with a couple
like the Jacksons--got interested, and presently he was doing all the
talking and Nicole had only to murmur a comment now and again and look
appreciative, and had time to observe the other members of the party.

'Five's an awkward number,' Mrs. Jackson was saying. 'I should have had
another man, but to tell you the truth, I couldn't think of one that
would fit in. Not that we don't know lots of young men, nice hearty
fellows they are too, but you see with Miss Rutherfurd--Well, I didn't
know how they'd _mix_, if you know what I mean.'

The eyes of Mrs. Ralston met Nicole's across the table, and the light of
laughter shone in them for a second.

'I think we're very comfortable as we are,' Mrs. Ralston said. 'May I
tell you how I love your house? I had no idea we were to see anything so
original and charming.'

Mrs. Jackson beamed. 'Well, you see, it's quite _new_. Mr. Jackson
really designed it himself, and he knew just what he wanted.'

'Hot and cold in every bedroom,' said Mr. Jackson, helping himself in a
resigned way to vegetables.

'A wireless in the maids' sitting-room,' added his wife.

'Copper pipes everywhere,' said Mr. Jackson.

'Splendid,' said Mrs. Ralston. 'You'll make us sadly dissatisfied with
our own house, with its basement and other evils.'

'Oh, Mrs. Ralston, I thought your house was awfully uncommon that night
Mr. Jackson and I dined with you. I'm sure you needn't envy any one.'

'Needn't I? Well, I do. Do you know whom I envy? Every one who has got a
small place in the country. Quite a small place in the real country.
I've been looking for one for years, but when I like a neighbourhood and
its people, there's nothing available, and if I find a suitable place
somebody I simply can't bear is sure to have settled near. It's very
trying.'

'So it is,' Mrs. Jackson agreed. 'We bought a place in the country, I
was telling you'--she glanced at Nicole--'Rutherfurd. But we got very
tired of it. When our son married we were real glad to get back to
Glasgow. I don't think you belong to Glasgow, Mrs. Ralston. English,
aren't you?'

'Oh dear, no. I'm a Scot, born and bred.'

'Fancy! It was just the accent I was going by. Miss Rutherfurd's half
English, but she can talk the broadest Scotch, can't you, Nicole?'

At this moment, Mr. Jackson was heard to remark without apparent
relevance, 'Life's never the same after you get a plate.'

He looked searchingly at Mr. Ralston as he spoke, and that gentleman
said stiffly as if it were no affair of his, 'Indeed!'

'And I always know false teeth when I see them,' Mr. Jackson went on.
'You can't cheat me with them,' he added, with a little wistful smile.

'Well, I'm sure, Father, that's a poor boast,' said his wife, hotly
ashamed of such a topic of conversation being introduced at her
table.... 'Will we make a move, Mrs. Ralston, and leave the gentlemen
to their cigars?'

It is to be presumed that Mr. Jackson talked more when left alone with
his guest, for it was quite a long time before they joined the ladies in
the drawing-room.

Nicole did not feel the time drag, for she was enjoying her talk with
Mrs. Ralston. She liked everything about her, the long, slim figure in
its clever grey draperies, the interesting face that ought to have been
plain but somehow wasn't, the pretty hands, the voice which made her
think of champagne, so light it was and golden. She was hearing from her
of Glasgow life.

'Of course,' her new friend told her, 'it's very possible to get badly
bored with Glasgow. A course of gentility is the best cure for that; a
few weeks with the ultra-refined, the persistently highbrow, and you
come back gladly to the frank naturalness of your own city. I don't
really belong to it, so I can speak without prejudice. My husband's
people have been here for centuries, and I used to like to hear my
mother-in-law tell of the Glasgow she dimly remembered. Her family and
her husband's belonged to Glasgow, their fortunes were bound up with the
city's, their grandfathers had sent laden ships from the Broomielaw.
Yes, the old Glasgow sounded so delightful.... Mrs. Jackson has gone
to sleep. Don't let's disturb her.'

Nicole looked undecided. 'I think I'd better wake her,' she said. 'She
wouldn't like to think she had slept....' She raised her voice. 'Your
dress is Paris, isn't it?' She drew her chair nearer her sleeping
hostess. 'We're talking clothes, Mrs. Jackson. I'm telling Mrs. Ralston
that I'm sure her dress is from Paris.'

Mrs. Jackson sat up with a little start. 'Oh yes,' she said, 'Paris, of
course.'

'And,' said Mrs. Ralston, 'I am telling her "No such thing." This dress
was made in Glasgow. Yes, indeed it was. Didn't you know that Glasgow
had frightfully good shops, Miss Rutherfurd?'

'Well, I had always heard so, but that frock's so clever.'

Mrs. Jackson was now thoroughly awakened. 'I don't think much of Paris
gowns myself. It was a queer thing, once we were motoring through
England and we stopped for the night at a town--I don't even remember
the name of it, but I saw a neat little shop with a French name and I
went in. I found the woman made dresses, and I just took a notion to get
one. She said one fitting would be enough, and when she was fitting me I
asked what she was doing in a little English town, and her French, and
she told me she had married a gentleman in the Post Office.... She
said she would post the dress to Glasgow in a fortnight, and it came to
the day!'

'And wasn't it a success?' Mrs. Ralston asked.

'Uch, it fitted all right, but it was all lined with red silk! I don't
care for French taste....'

Before they left Mrs. Ralston asked Nicole if there was no chance of
their meeting again before she left, but Nicole shook her head
regretfully.

'I rather think Mrs. Jackson has filled up every moment. But I'll always
remember this evening with pleasure, and some day you might find
yourself near Kirkmeikle.' She added, 'I'll like to think that Mrs.
Jackson has got you to support her sometimes when she attends functions.
Give her a kind look when you can. She's shy and people scare her,
though perhaps you'd hardly think it. She and I are friends, and she
tells me things.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Mrs. Jackson told her friend many things in that week, but the most
important was kept for the last night.

They were together in Nicole's bedroom, and Mrs. Jackson was deploring
the girl's departure.

'I'm glad,' she said, 'you've had a happy time, and the sooner you come
back the better pleased we'll be. And, mind you, I'm speaking for Father
too--Yes, I must say I'm enjoying this part of my life. There was a time
before we went to Rutherfurd when I almost felt that I had lost Father.
He seemed so taken up with business that he had neither time nor
patience for me, but now, whether it's Andy being away or what, I don't
know, but anyway, he makes quite a companion of me.'

There were grateful tears in her eyes as she sat on a high chair, one
hand on either knee, and Nicole bent down and kissed the kind, comical
face.

'I'm glad,' she said.

'Thank you, my dear. And there's another thing that's making me very
happy, though I'm almost afraid to speak about it. It seems far too good
to be true, and I'm not letting myself count on it, or even mentioning
it to a soul, for it would be an awful begunk if it didn't happen, but I
know you'd never breathe it to anybody....'

She paused, and then in tones of almost solemn joy she said: 'Listen,
_Father's likely to be made a knight_.'




                              CHAPTER XXI


    ...'_Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt
    not...._'

                                                        THE TEMPEST.

The Musical Society of Cowdenden took more time than Nicole and Althea
had bargained for. All that Charles had asked was that they should show
an interest by now and again attending a rehearsal, but one night every
week found the girls in the dirty little hall in the back street.
Generally they went alone in The Worm, for Charles found his time more
and more engaged with political work, but it was surprising how often he
managed to arrive before the end of the practice. All three took an
intense interest in the coming production.

Althea had turned out a most competent dance instructress. It seemed to
Nicole little short of miraculous the order she had produced out of
chaos. Her rather tired smile and languid manner concealed much energy,
and her patience was boundless. 'It's rather fun,' was all she said,
when Nicole suggested that the rehearsals were absorbing much of her
time, 'and it isn't as if I were one of the world's workers. If these
girls can do it after blacking grates all day, surely I can.'

And Nicole told her mother, 'You'd be surprised, Mums, how the girls
obey her slightest wish. She never makes a fuss of them, when they've
tried their hardest and look to her for commendation she merely gives
that weary little smile.... I think they like her, indeed I'm sure
they do, but she's a puzzle to them as she is to me. Most young girls
are rather like champagne, frothing over, bubbling about their own
successes, with bursts of ardour about this and that; bursts of giggles
and silliness--but Althea's still, like a deep pool.'

'I'm glad,' said Lady Jane, 'that the child is interested in this.
Anything is good that takes her out of herself.'

'Yes, and working with Charles is good for her; he's so frank and
cheerful and on the surface (I don't mean that he hasn't depths as
well), and I'll tell you another thing that's good for her--Belinda
being at Kinogle. Charles is quite frankly amused and delighted by
Belinda and her ways. I don't wonder, she's as charming in the house as
a Persian kitten.'

'But you think it is Althea he really cares about?'

Nicole nodded. 'I'm sure of it. But I hope he won't ask her for a long
time, until she's had time to forget the other man. What a cruel thing
it is to take away a girl's self-esteem.'

'But won't Charles's adoration restore it?'

'It ought, but perhaps she won't allow herself to believe in it.' Nicole
gave an amused grin. 'Aren't I talking just like a maiden aunt? But,
really if you think of it, it's a perfect arrangement. They're so suited
to each other. Charles's exuberance would be curbed by Althea's calm,
and she would be warmed by his enthusiasm. And Lady Walkinshaw's
helplessness would bring out all that's gentle and kind in Althea. It's
the feeling that she has no real home, no real niche, that hurts the
child--But there's absolutely not one single thing we can do to help
things on. We must fold our hands and wait, my dear.'

'I'm no believer in match-making,' Lady Jane said. 'There is something
rather revolting to me in planning and plotting about such things.' She
looked at her daughter rather wistfully as she added, 'Perhaps I've
failed in my duty....'

Nicole took her mother's hand and kissed it.

'You don't know how grateful I've been for your adorable reticence. It's
almost the nicest thing about you. When I see some mothers--But let's
struggle out of this morass of sentiment.... You will come and see
_Iolanthe_, won't you? I'd like you to come behind the scenes and be
introduced to some of the performers.'

'I'd like that too. I seem to know them quite well.'

'The clothes are to arrive to-day: they're to try them on to-night, so
the excitement is intense. Most of them have never dressed up
before.... I think there should be good houses all three nights. It's
a pity so many people are away, but every one who is at home has
promised to be there, and Mrs. Heggie tells me that there's quite a
large contingent coming from Langtoun and, as she puts it, "They're all
five-shilling people!" We had to make the rest of the seats very cheap,
for money, alas! is scanty in Cowdenden.'

Lady Jane sighed, for, like Mrs. Jackson, she too lay awake at night and
thought of the hardships of her fellow-men.

'Can it possibly pay itself?' she asked.

'Oh, we'll see that it does. Of course the hiring of costumes and
scenery is very expensive, but Sir James is going to help with that. We
hope to have something over after the performance to lay aside as a
nest-egg, they're so keen, I'm sure they'll want to go on.'

'Of course I must see it,' Lady Jane said. 'The last time I saw
_Iolanthe_ was at the Savoy, I think, in 1908. We were on our way to
Switzerland, and we took the boys. You were only a little thing and were
left at the hotel with Nannie. I think perhaps it was rather beyond
Ronnie and Archie too, but your father was in ecstasies over it. Dear
me, that's a long time ago!'

It was a hectic evening that of the dress rehearsal, what with clothes
that went astray and clothes that were misfits, scenery that arrived
damaged, and properties that failed to arrive at all. It was not
surprising that tempers gave way under the strain. The janitor of the
town hall, which had been hired for the occasion, quarrelled with the
stage-manager of _Iolanthe_. He complained to Nicole: 'That chap's
chippin' at me. As if I didna ken hoo to pu' up a curtain an' pu' it
down again withoot his interference! I dinna haud onyway wi' thae
theatricals. Pentin' their faces an' lettin' on they're lords an' what
not! Fairies tae! This'll dae an awfu' harm in Cowdenden. They're licht
enough as it is, what wi' pictur-hooses an' dancin', an' whist-playin'
at the Bible Class Social, but this'll fair pit them ower the edge. Ay,
it's a peety when ye think on't. Here's the ministers in the place
tryin' their best up to their lichts tae keep the folk in the Narrow
Way, an' they get the legs ca'ed frae under them by an opery.'

'It's perfectly harmless,' Nicole protested, but the janitor shook his
head.

'All is vanity, as Solomon said, an' he kent what he was speakin'
aboot.'

Feeling rather dejected, Nicole looked round at the scene. It certainly
did look rather odd. Peers were wandering about hugging coronets (one
complained to another as they passed her, 'Aw here, I've lost ma
breeks'); fairies got into the way, principals trotted about chattering
vaguely.

'Nikky,' said Althea, coming up with a bundle of things in her arms,
'it's absolute chaos. They seem to have forgotten all they've learned:
they don't recognise their positions on the stage.... For goodness'
sake come and take hold with me.'

Out of a crowd of performers oddly unfamiliar in their make-up, peers
and fairies, all confused by new surroundings, dazzled by the
unaccustomed footlights, awkward in their new costumes, order had to be
brought.

Between despair and helpless laughter the two girls and Charles and the
stage-manager wrestled, and the performance was got through somehow.

When the curtain had fallen on the last scene they all looked at each
other rather disconsolately.

'Well,' said Charles, 'that's that. You saw where you failed to-night,
and I've no doubt you'll watch all these points to-morrow. Remember,
please, people are paying to see a good performance, not a dud, so it's
your very best we want.'

'Phyllis' (who had stuck twice) complained to Nicole, with large tears
standing in her eyes, that her dress was so tight that she could hardly
breathe, much less sing.

Nicole comforted her, told her how sweet she looked, and that an inch in
the waist would make all the difference. They all seemed to need a
heartening word, and Charles said, with his encouraging grin, 'A bad
dress rehearsal always means a successful performance. You'll see,
to-morrow night it'll go with a bang, only--don't rush it, say your
words correctly and distinctly, and whatever you do, keep a grip of
yourselves.'

But even Charles was rather dejected, and accepted gratefully Nicole's
invitation to come in and have some coffee.

'Pretty awful,' he said in reply to Lady Jane's question about the
performers. '_Pretty_ awful! If they don't find themselves before
to-morrow night the show'll be a fiasco. They seemed so well up in it at
the rehearsals, but to-night they'd forgotten everything they'd been
taught, fumbled about in the most uncertain way, sang flat, missed their
cues, went back to their original pronunciation which we thought we'd
cured them of--It _was_ awful, wasn't it, Miss Althea?'

That young woman seated on her favourite fender-stool, munching a
sandwich, shook her head.

'You'll see,' she said, 'they will go through with it to-morrow night
without a hitch. To-night'll steady them and put them on their mettle.'

'I believe Althea's right,' said Nicole. 'If they had done well to-night
they might have been filled with vain-glory and got careless; now they
know they must put every ounce of themselves into it--But a lot will
depend on the audience. We must see that the points are taken up. A few
in the front rows applauding vigorously and laughing intelligently at
the right places can do a lot. Of course really to enjoy Gilbert and
Sullivan you want to know every note of the music and every word of the
libretto.... Did you hear the janitor, Althea? He was very stern with
me, and said the harm we had done, morally, to Cowdenden by producing
_Iolanthe_ was incalculable!'

'Oh, surely not!' said Lady Jane, 'anything less harmful--"Sweet airs
that give delight and hurt not...."'

'On the contrary,' Nicole went on, 'he said that they had been "light
enough" before, but this would simply push them over the edge--That's
you, you see, Charles! With the best intentions in the world you've
corrupted a whole town.'

'And to no purpose,' said Charles, 'if the show's a dud.'

'Quite a Gilbertian situation,' said Althea, handing her empty
coffee-cup to the young man.

Althea proved a true prophet. From the moment that the curtain went up
on an obviously palpitating chorus of somewhat substantial fairies to
the grand finale of Peers and Peris, the performers went with vigour and
accuracy. The principals, one and all, played well, and the audience was
quick to take up the points, and generous in applause.

Quite a number of 'the five-shilling people' met later for some slight
refreshment in the Harbour House.

'It was fine,' said Mrs. Heggie. 'Tea, please, I wouldn't sleep a wink
if I took coffee--I enjoyed every minute of it. D'you mean to tell me
that those were all Cowdenden people, all those peers and pretty girls?
I wouldn't have known them from real actors. And such fine English
accents.'

'Well,' said Charles, 'I wouldn't say too much about the accents.' He
turned to Althea, 'Did you hear "audocity"?'

Althea smiled. 'It's always the way. In the strain of performing in
public they're apt to go back to their original pronunciation. The girl
would probably have stuck if she'd tried to get it right.'

'Anyway, it was lovely,' said Mrs. Heggie.

Nicole appealed to Mr. Lambert. 'You don't think, do you, that a
performance like that could do any one harm--morally, I mean?'

Mr. Lambert blinked. If addressed suddenly he always looked dazed, like
an owl in daylight.

'I d-don't see how it could,' he stuttered, 'it's such delightful fun,
and there's more than a little wheat among the chaff. No, I think it is
calculated to do the p-performers good rather than harm.'

Althea turned to Charles, who was beside her, and said: 'I'm glad they
have the other two nights. I hate to think of them folding away their
pretty clothes and going back to their workaday things. They do love
doing it.'

Charles nodded. 'And you helped them enormously. I do think it's worth
while, don't you? It'll be all over in another couple of nights, but
they'll have the memory of it. They've been kings and queens of a golden
land for an hour or two! They've got the music in their minds, and the
charming words; they've had all the fun of working together--and
team-work's good for us all; and they're already looking forward to
another show next year.'

'Yes,' Althea agreed, 'it's been well worth while. I think we all
enjoyed working together....'




                              CHAPTER XXII


                                            '_And what wad ye do there,_
                                           _At the bush aboon Traquair?_
                          _A long dreich road, ye had better let it be._
                                                                   
                                        _They were blest beyond compare_
                                   _When they held their trysting there_
                        _Amang thae greenest hills shone on by the sun:_
                                             _And then they wan a rest,_
                                             _The lownest and the best,_
                               _I' Traquair kirkyard when a' was dune._'
                                                   JOHN CAMPBELL SHAIRP.

One Sunday evening Mr. Lambert made a sudden descent upon the Harbour
House.

It was about eight-thirty, and they were finishing dinner, when Effie
announced that the minister was in the drawing-room.

Nicole, leaving her coffee, hurried upstairs and found the little man
perched on the edge of a chair, nervously smoothing his felt hat which
he had laid on his knee.

He let it drop as he rose to shake hands and apologised for coming at
such an odd hour.

'B-but I c-couldn't put it off,' he explained. 'I p-promised Mrs.
Curle.'

'Mrs. Curle,' repeated Nicole. 'Of course--how stupid of me! Mrs. Curle
in the Watery Wynd. We know her best as Betsy.... She isn't ill, is
she? I saw her a few days ago.'

'She took suddenly ill last night--a heart attack, and she is fretting
herself into a fever about something she wants to say to your mother. I
suggested that I might do as well, but she treated the suggestion with
the scorn it no doubt deserved.'

Nicole smiled, well able to reconstruct the scene, and said: 'I hope the
poor dear isn't seriously ill?'

'Well--she made Dr. Kilgour tell her just how ill he thought her. It
seems another attack like this would probably be the end.... Illness
has done nothing to subdue the vigour of her tongue, and I simply dare
not return without saying I have seen Lady Jane and got a p-promise from
her.'

'Here is Mother--Mums, poor old Betsy is ill and wants to see you very
particularly.'

'They can't quiet her,' Mr. Lambert said. 'She has already told Dr.
Kilgour that he is an idiot, and she thought even less highly of me, and
when I tried to p-pacify her'--he helped out the word with little pats
on his knee--'she says that there is something that she can only say to
you, Lady Jane, and she can't rest till she says it. M-may I tell her
that you will see her to-morrow?'

'Why, no, Mr. Lambert, I'll go to-night. It may help Betsy to sleep.
It's only a step. Get me a cloak, Nicole, please.'

'Yes. I'm coming with you, Mother. I'll wait outside the door and Betsy
won't know I'm there.'

Mr. Lambert trotted before his companions over the cobblestones and up
the steps of the outside stair. 'Be careful here!' he advised, 'there's
a broken place, and the rail is shaky too. The p-place is a trap on a
dark night....'

Betsy's single room was lit by a small oil lamp placed on a table near
the bed, beside a drinking-cup containing some nourishment. A kettle
sang on the hob and a woman was moving about, but as the minister
entered she threw her shawl round her head and, saying 'Aweel, then,
Betsy, I'll awa' the noo, but I'll be back or it's lang,' made her way
out.

The old woman lay high on the bed, propped up with pillows. She seemed
unaware of what was going on, but when the minister went up to her she
opened her eyes and said: 'Is her leddyship here?'

Lady Jane came forward. 'Yes, Betsy, I'm here.'

'That's a' richt,' Betsy gave a satisfied sigh and said to the minister,
'Will ye gang awa' noo, sir?'

Mr. Lambert obediently withdrew, and Nicole went with him to the
stair-head.

'I've been dismissed,' he said, 'but I'll return shortly and take you
and your mother home.'

'Indeed you won't. Surely two able-bodied women can be trusted to find
their own way home! You must be tired after your long day, and I know
how your wife looks forward to Sunday evening--so return at your peril!
No, really, Mother would be truly sorry if you waited. Good-night, and
thank you.'

Nicole went softly back to the kitchen and stood at the door in the
shadows. She did not want to listen, but on the other hand she did not
think Betsy would mind if she did overhear.

Her mother was sitting holding Betsy's hand, and the old woman was
speaking earnestly, breathlessly:

'In ma Bible,' she was saying, 'it's oor family Bible, an' ma faither
made a leather cover for it an' keepit a' sorts o' papers in the flap,
birth-certificates and marriage-lines--It's a fine place tae hide
onything, for folk dinna fash the Bible muckle thae days.' She gave a
grim chuckle and for a moment choked for breath.... 'There's twae
five-pound notes. I've been scrapin' for years an' Dr. Kilgour changed
ma bawbees into notes for me. Mebbe he guessed what it's for--I dinna
ken. _Is't eneuch, think ye?_ I ken it taks a lot to cairry a corp.'

'Yes, yes,' Lady Jane said hurriedly, 'I'm sure it's enough. I hate to
think that you denied yourself to save....'

'It was a _pleesure_....' There was triumph in the weak voice. 'Ma
gude-dochter thinks that when ma time comes they'll cairt me tae their
cauld kirkyaird, and hap me awa' an' hae dune wi' me. She little kens
I'm gaun tae traivel back tae ma ain countryside.' She raised her voice
anxiously: 'They'll no mak' nae objections, surely, tae me lyin' aside
ma folk? It's no like a toun graveyaird whaur ilka inch counts. There
used to be walth o' room at Langhope Shiels, an' it canna hae changed
that muckle.'

'I'm sure there will be room.'

There was a silence for a minute, then Betsy spoke again.

'The Book says, ye maun leave faither and mither and cleave tae yer
husband. I'm leavin' mine lyin' here.... Ay, but folk are made
different an' ma ain countryside and ma ain folk were aye mair tae me
than ma man.... "There's little sap amang the shavin's," ma mither
said when I mairret him--him bein' a joiner to trade--an' Tam was aye a
dry stick, though it ill becomes me to speak ill o' the deid '--her
voice sank to a whisper--'_me that's sae near them!_'

Nicole felt a coldness come over her as she watched the scene--the
yellow face on the pillow, with the dark sunken eyes, her mother's face
white in the shadow, the light from the lamp falling on her delicate
hand with its gleaming rings: the fire whispering to itself: outside the
beat of the sea and the crash and blatter of the March wind.

'Try and sleep now, Betsy,' Lady Jane was saying.

'Ay, I'll sleep now.... Ye'll see t'it that they tak me straight back
to Langhope Shiels, and Mr. Lambert'll mebbe say a prayer ower me afore
I stert.... As near ma mither as ye can get me.... I kent ye wad
understand. I couldna lie in Kirkmeikle, me that belongs to Tweedside.
The sea wadna let me sleep.'

'Sleep now.' Lady Jane was stroking her shoulder and hushing her like a
child.

Betsy gave a small, tired smile. 'That minds me o' ma mither when we
were bairns an' no-weel. "Sleep, ma dearie, an' ye'll be better gin
mornin'."... She was a brave body, ma mither, an' feucht awa' a' her
days wi' a big family an' little means, but at the end--she was eighty,
mind ye--she was vexed tae gang. She said she had likit her life rale
weel.... But she was aye amang her ain folk; her hert was at rest;
it's frettin' wears a body oot.'

There was a step on the outside stair, and Nicole found herself put
gently to one side, as Dr. Kilgour in his Highland cloak stalked into
the kitchen.

As he stood warming his hands, he gazed under his bushy eyebrows at his
patient lying there with a look of triumph on her face.

Nicole noticed how gently he took Betsy's hand. It interested her, for
she had wondered how the brusque doctor comported himself in a
sick-room.

'Well, Betsy,' he said, 'you're a wonderful woman. We all obey you, even
when you make us leave our own firesides on a Sunday night.'

Betsy replied with a satisfied sigh. 'Her leddyship's gaun tae pit
a'thing richt. I've got the better o' the sea noo.'

The doctor shook his head at that. 'Tuts, woman, you haven't the sense
to appreciate your mercies. I could lie content nowhere out of the sound
of the sea. What's about Tweedside that it draws folk back not only in
life but in death?... But you're better to-night.'

'Ay, I'll mebbe no dee yet, so Tam's wife needna plan whaur she'll pit
ma bits o' things in her hoose.... Ma gude-dochter's a gude
gear-gatherer. She was a Speedie, ye ken, an' they're a' hard.... But
she's welcome tae onything o' mine. I'll hae got a' I want afore she
taks what I've dune wi'.'

The woman in charge came back, and Nicole took the opportunity to make
her presence known.

'I'm sorry you're ill, Betsy,' she said, 'but you mustn't talk about
leavin' us.... If you lie still and take Dr. Kilgour's horrid bottles
and Agnes Martin's good soup you'll soon be all right.'

'Mebbe.' Betsy's tone was enigmatical. 'Tak her leddyship hame. It was
rale forritsome o' me to send for her. I dinna ken hoo I hed the
impidence.'

Lady Jane laid her hand on the wrinkled hand that lay on the coverlet.
'Good-night, Betsy. Thank you for sending for me. I'll be round first
thing in the morning. Come, Nicole.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Betsy rallied, and for three days was her old sharp-tongued self, but on
the evening of the third day she turned her face to the wall and died.

Dr. Kilgour came to the Harbour House at breakfast-time. The March sun
was flooding the little dining-room, with its white-panelled walls and
Hepplewhite chairs and striped curtains. A blue bowl of daffodils stood
on the round table, which was covered by a checked blue-and-white
breakfast cloth: there was a cheerful morning smell of coffee and
sizzling bacon.

The door opened and Lady Jane came in. She walked quickly up to the
doctor and 'Is it Betsy?' she asked.

Dr. Kilgour nodded. 'She got away at the turning of the tide. Very
peacefully. I've seen many a one resigned to go, but I don't think I
ever saw any one so welcome death. She shut her eyes as I've seen a
bairn do on Christmas Eve--determined to sleep to bring the morning
nearer. And mind you--' Dr. Kilgour pulled his eyebrows together and
glared at his companion as if daring her to find anything sweet or
touching in what he said--'Mind you, I don't believe that she cared
about Heaven or anything like that. Her one idea was to get back to
Tweedside to lay her dust beside her kin.'

Lady Jane smiled while tears stood in her eyes.

'Dear Betsy! We needn't worry about her motives, the God who made her
understands.... She was a good woman and a loyal friend and I'll miss
her greatly--. Nicole,' as her daughter came into the room, 'Betsy has
got away.'

The girl stopped short. 'I'm glad,' she said after a moment, 'at least
I'm more glad than sorry. She did so hate Kirkmeikle and her
daughter-in-law and the inquisitive neighbours, and now she's done with
them all and nothing can vex her any more.... Dr. Kilgour, you must
have some breakfast. Do you take coffee? We'll get tea in a minute.'

'Bless you, girl, I had my breakfast an hour ago. I must be off. I knew
you'd want to hear about Betsy.'

'Before you go,' Lady Jane said, 'we must arrange things.... You know
I promised Betsy she would go home? I'll wire to Andy to make all
arrangements at Langhope Shiels--I know he won't mind the trouble--but I
don't know how to manage at this end. I suppose there is an undertaker?'

'That'll be all right,' Dr. Kilgour assured her. 'I'll see about
everything and let you know trains and so forth.'

'I must go with Betsy,' Lady Jane said, 'and see her laid beside her
mother.'

'Oh, Mums!' Nicole protested, 'it's such a long journey.... Still, if
you want to go, I'll go with you.... I don't expect the son will
think of going, his wife won't let him. He's a weak soul. "Young Tam,"
his mother always called him, though he must be about fifty.'

Langhope Shiels churchyard was beautiful beyond words that March day
when Betsy came home. Snow-drops still lay in drifts among the graves,
while celandines were vividly yellow and green in the withered grass.
The whins and heather were burning--these sacrificial fires of spring!
Wisps of white smoke drifted across the blue hills, and Tweed ran silver
in the sunshine.

Nicole, standing beside her mother, took in the whole scene, the almost
unbearable beauty of the spring day in these uplands, the coffin covered
by a great cross of daffodils, the little group of mourners, the
minister reading the Bible, the grey headstones that seemed to be
leaning forward to listen.... She read the names on the stone nearest
her:

           'JOHN SANDILANDS, TENANT FARMER OF LANGHOPE MAINS
                     ...HIS WIFE, ELLEN...
                     THEIR DAUGHTER, JESSIE...'

That must have been long ago, she thought, for the farmer she had known
in Langhope Mains was a decent man called Blackstocks, who had lost his
two sons in the War.... There was a grave marked only by a jelly-pot
with some snowdrops.... She looked up and found John Dalrymple's eyes
fixed on her. Andy must have told him, and he had come out of respect.
How like him! Looking so morose, too, in his funeral blacks! And Andy
too, so serious! What a decent, kind soul he was, incapable of grudging
the time spent in attending the burial of an unknown old woman. Betsy
would have been proud, _was_ proud, Nicole felt, for she could not rid
herself of the idea that her old friend was watching the
proceedings....

_In sure and certain hope of a blessed Resurrection...._

They stood, the little group, with bowed heads, listening. What were
they thinking of, Nicole wondered? Were they hearing at their backs
Time's winged chariots hurrying near, and thinking great swelling
thoughts of eternity? Or were they merely grateful that they were still
in this warm kind world and would soon be at home drinking tea and
discussing the price of beasts at the market?

It was soon over, and as they turned to go she heard an old man say to
his companion: 'Ay, she's been dacently pit awa'. Her leddyship an' twae
lairds, nae less!... I hevna seen Betsy thae forty years. Efter she'd
been mairret to Curle for a while she gaed awa' aboot Fife.... She
was a wiselike wumman when I mind her. Weel, she's awa', an' it's the
road we maun a' gang. What did ye tell me they wanted for the coo,
Elick?'

They hobbled away discussing temporal things, and Nicole turned to find
John Dalrymple at her side.

'Hullo, John, it's nice to see you--. Did Andy tell you about Betsy?'

'Yes. I saw Jackson yesterday, and he happened to mention that you and
your mother were coming. And then I heard that your old friend had two
nephews at Newby Place; they're here to-day.... She must have been a
loyal old woman to be so keen to come back and lie by Tweed--Oh, here is
Lady Jane.'

'Why, John, this is very pleasant. No, we're not staying, alas! Barbara
is giving us tea, and Andy is motoring us to Galashiels and we'll soon
be home. I wish we had time to go to Newby--But when are you going to
pay us a visit?'

'When you ask me.'

'There's nothing for John to do at Kirkmeikle,' Nicole broke in, 'he'd
be bored to death.'

'I don't believe he would,' said her mother, 'he could always play golf.
But anyway, John, you must come to us in September wherever we are on
holiday. You will? That's a promise. Yes, Andy, I know we have very
little time.'

'Good-bye, Nicole,' said John, 'till September.'

'Good-bye, John,' said Nicole.




                             CHAPTER XXIII


                                        '_We, in our dreams, behold the_
                                                       _Hebrides._'...

Easter brought The Bat back to Kirkmeikle, and Spider, who had begun to
lose his figure, padded many miles on his woolly white legs behind his
master. There never was a busier boy than Alastair; he went all day from
one ploy to another, absorbed in his own inventions.

'That child,' said Nicole, 'grows more Puck-like every day. Did you ever
see anything so quaint as those tilted eyes and that mouth? And
impudent!'

'Oh no, Nikky,' Lady Jane protested, 'Alastair is never pert. I detest
pert children.'

'Well, I don't know what you call pert, but when he brought in those
primroses that "Roabert" sent to you this morning, and you said,
"Darling, how lovely!" and kissed him, didn't I hear him remark
resignedly, "If you must kiss some one, couldn't you kiss Roabert?"'

'Oh well!' Lady Jane laughed. 'I should have remembered that boys detest
being kissed.... But I do wish there were more children here for him
to play with. There's a shocking dearth of boys, in fact the only
children about are the small Lamberts. They are dear little girls, but
so gentle they let Alastair lord it over them. When they came to tea
yesterday they had to crouch on the floor most of the time while he
strutted about like a cock in a farmyard. He was Sir Patrick Spens, he
explained to me, and they had to do that because of "_O lang, lang may
the ladies sit!_"'

'I expect,' said Althea, 'that he thought it was a good way of keeping
them quiet, while he played in his own way. And you needn't pity the
Lamberts, Aunt Jane. Their mother tells me they adore Alastair's games.
They would rather be neglected by him than fussed over by anybody else.'

'Anyway,' said Nicole, 'he'll have Barnabas for the summer holidays and
that'll mean six weeks' bliss for both.'

'Yes,' Lady Jane said, 'I can't but think it fortunate that Barnabas's
parents are going on that long trip. I love having the boy.... Dear
me, how untidy my silks are; I must put them right before I go any
further--The question is, where are we going to spend the summer? We
went south last year. Shall we go north this year? What do you say,
Althea?'

Althea turned--she was watching a Norwegian ship that had come into the
Harbour--'I?' she said. 'Shall I be here?'

She looked straight at Nicole as if trying to read what was in her mind,
and Nicole replied with obvious sincerity:

'Well, I hope so. Having wintered us, you must summer us. And Blanchie
is always heavily booked for the summer months, so we needn't worry
about neglecting her. What a blessing that these new friends she met in
Cairo have kept her so contented all these months! Otherwise she might
have suggested coming here!'

'Nikky!' said her mother reprovingly, 'we would be glad to have had
Blanchie here.'

Nicole looked sceptical. 'Mmm... only moderately glad, I think.
Personally, I can't imagine anything more terrible than a visit from
that dear lady. She is delightful in her own setting, I grant you, but
perched on the rocks of Kirkmeikle she'd be a complete failure. Can't
you hear her plaintive "But, Jane darling, so _triste_, is it not? No
brightness, no variety; always the sea." Can't you see her picking her
way over the cobbles in the Watery Wynd--? And, a thousand times more
difficult than her mistress, the superior Hopkins! Imagine her pained
surprise when she was introduced to what we are pleased to call shops in
Kirkmeikle, when she found no servants' hall in the Harbour House, no
bridge of an evening (Mrs. Martin has a horror of playing cards and sees
no reason why people should not amuse themselves in their leisure
knitting a stocking!), no picture-house nearer than Langtoun, no theatre
nearer than Edinburgh! I think if Blanchie ever did come here it would
be a short visit: Hopkins would see to that. She would find that the sea
air did not suit her lady's health and they'd depart thankfully
together.'

Lady Jane looked admiringly at her tidy silks as she said:

'Hopkins has her faults, but she's a faithful creature and Blanchie
would be lost without her.'

Althea suddenly spoke vehemently. 'Hopkins is lazy and greedy and
desperately jealous. If I took the trouble to think of her I'd hate her.
She's been a beast to me always, and Blanchie listened to her
tale-bearing....' She stopped as if ashamed of having shown so much
feeling, shrugged her shoulders, and finished: 'So you see I don't care
much to go "home." Anywhere else, north or south, would please me.'

'Well,' said Nicole in a very matter-of-fact tone, 'you haven't seen the
north--that's a very good reason for us choosing it this summer. It
would be fun to go somewhere that is new to us all.'

That afternoon, when Esm Jameson came in as she often did, for tea
after a round of golf, she was asked for her advice.

'You see,' Nicole explained, 'we generally either stay with cousins in
England or join with them in taking a place in Ross-shire, but this year
they've gone a long voyage, so we are on our own. We don't want a big
place, nor too far out of the way, but we'd like some fishing, and if
possible, some rough shooting for the boy cousin who will be with us.
But I'm afraid such a place is almost impossible to get.'

Esm Jameson nibbled a scone, and thought. Presently she said, 'What
about the Island of Mull? It's a longish journey and that puts people
off, but it's quite easy to reach, and there are some delightful small
places to be had there. In fact,' she waved her scone excitedly, 'I
rather think I know of one.'

'Cheers!' cried Nicole, while Spider barked in sympathy.

'Yes, friends of mine had it last year and took it again for August and
September, but the last I heard they were doubtful of being able to go.
Of course they may have sublet it. Shall I write and ask?'

'Let's wire,' said Nicole, 'we can't afford to lose a minute. Dictate to
me, please, and Effie will fly with it.'

'And now,' said Esm, when the business was done and Effie accompanied
by Alastair and Spider had flown, 'may I finish my tea in peace?'

'Poor dear, you may,' Nicole said graciously. 'I'm sorry, but the matter
was urgent. I like the thought of the Island of Mull.'

'Mull,' said Lady Jane vaguely, 'I'm afraid I don't quite know where it
is.'

'Just across from Oban,' Esm told her. 'Nothing of a sail. I've never
been there, but I'm told the island is lovely--lochs and mountains and
heavenly colouring.'

'And rain,' said Nicole. 'They all go together, don't they?... Don't
you think, Mums, it sounds the sort of place we want? And it would be
new to us all, which is such fun--Where are you going this summer,
Esm?'

'Well--I don't know. I'm so stolidly satisfied at Windywalls that I
can't be bothered making any plans. My rock-garden grows apace. John
Grumblie actually begins to take an interest in it, in fact it's rather
embarrassing, for we daren't disregard his advice! I find that both he
and David are so much more keen on stones than plants that it's more
rock than garden. My spring garden, too, is beginning to show what some
day it may be.'

'The snowdrops under the beech-trees were lovely,' Lady Jane said.

'Yes, and now the daffodils are beginning, and soon the wild hyacinths
will be out. Mrs. Erskine was very kind sending me.... I _knew_ I had
something to tell you. Vera Erskine is engaged. Yes. Her mother wrote to
me about something and mentioned it by the way.... I expect she will
be writing all details to you. She seemed pleased--a Mr. Marshall, I
think that was the name--a very pleasant young fellow, she said.'

'Now this is thrilling,' said Nicole. 'It will be such fun for the
Erskines. Can't you see Mrs. Erskine flinging herself into the
preparations? The question is, will the wedding be here or in London?
They could make more of a splash in London with bishops and decorations,
but there would be more real interest here.... Vera's a nice girl: I
hope she's very happy.'

At that moment the afternoon post was brought in.

'A letter from Mrs. Erskine,' said Lady Jane.

'And I've one from Vera,' Althea cried, 'so now we'll know.'

While the letters were being read another visitor arrived--Mrs. Heggie.

As usual she was apologetic about coming, murmuring, 'Now don't let me
disturb you--No, I've had tea, thanks. I just came in for a few minutes,
it was such a lovely evening for a walk, and I hadn't seen any of you
for some time.'

Nicole put her into a high chair and assured her that she had come at a
most fortunate moment.

'We've just heard that Vera Erskine is engaged, and letters have come
giving details. Isn't that exciting?'

Mrs. Heggie's face glowed, news was the breath of life to her. 'Miss
Vera Erskine! That's the older one, isn't it? A handsome girl: I've met
her here. Well, well....'

Althea laid down her letter.

'Happy?' asked Nicole.

Althea nodded. 'Quite definitely: the wedding is to be in London in June
and she asks me to be a bridesmaid. There are to be eight, and two
train-bearers. She says she always meant to marry so as not to miss
anything in life, but it adds greatly to the fun of it that she cares so
much for Basil. She says he is rather plain, and an only son;
twenty-eight, and a little bald, keen on games and dancing and likes the
country--Now that I think of it I've heard Vera speak often of "Basil."
She's known him some time.'

'It all sounds very suitable,' Lady Jane said, laying down her letter
and taking up her work. 'Mrs. Erskine says the young man is all they
could desire in a son-in-law.'

Lady Jane smiled at Mrs. Heggie, but she could not help wishing she had
chosen some other time for her visit. It was nearly six o'clock, and at
that hour Lady Jane liked to put away her work and go to her own room
and sit for a little by the window, very quietly with her hands folded
in her lap. This was the time she and Walter had always spent together
in her little sitting-room at Rutherfurd, talking over things, planning
for the children, laughing over their wild ways and their odd sayings,
and this hour she still kept for thinking....

'I wonder,' said Esm Jameson, 'if he has a job or if he's a gentleman
of leisure?'

'Basil sounds leisurely, somehow,' Nicole said, and Althea remarked,
'Blanchie had a Sealyham called Basil, a most engaging creature.'

'It would be better, though, if he had some business or profession,'
Mrs. Heggie said earnestly. 'It somehow seems to me so unnatural that a
man shouldn't go away every morning and work. I can't bear to see a man
come to breakfast in his slippers, a young man, I mean. Of course
retired men have earned their slippers so to speak. And it's much nicer
for the wife too, she can get on with her housekeeping, and do her
shopping in peace. But of course, my ideas are old-fashioned, as Joan is
always telling me.'

'They're very sound ideas, I think,' Nicole said. 'An idle man must be a
horrid bore. Let's hope that if Basil is a gentleman of leisure, at
least he'll be keen on golf and anything that keeps him outside. Vera
will make a charming bride.... Will you be her bridesmaid, Althea?'

'Not I,' said that young woman.... 'No, Aunt Jane, I promise you I
won't be ungracious. I think it's very sweet of her to ask me, and I'll
invent some excuse that will be sure to carry conviction, but I won't go
to a crowded London wedding.'

Mrs. Heggie shook her head. 'Well, well, girls have changed since my
day. I would have thought it would be the greatest treat. I always
wondered if Mr. Charles Walkinshaw wouldn't make a match with one of the
Erskine girls: neighbours and very friendly, as they are--but some one
was telling me he's likely to marry that pretty little cousin who stays
so much at Kinogle. Is that true, d'you think?'

There was silence for a moment, then Nicole said:

'Don't you think it's the sort of rumour that would be almost bound to
be circulated? Not that I know anything about it. Charles has been away
for the last few weeks, so we're rather out of acquaintance--That
reminds me I've got a book Lady Walkinshaw wants. Don't let me forget to
take it to her to-morrow.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

Althea laughed more and talked more that evening than was usual with
her. When she slipped off to bed rather early, Lady Jane looked after
her, saying:

'The child really seems to be happy here, Nikky.'

'Yes,' Nicole agreed. 'She's beginning to be happy--though I hardly
think this has been one of her cheeriest evenings.'




                              CHAPTER XXIV


                             '_How could such sweet and wholesome hours_
                             _Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers?_'
                                                         ANDREW MARVELL.

One May day the family from the Harbour House went out to lunch at
Windywalls and see the garden. That part of the world is late in waking
from its winter sleep, spring comes slowly up that way, but by the end
of May it is decked like a bride, and Esm Jameson was enchanted with
her new possession. Proud, too, of the changes she had wrought. The
hollow through which the burn ran at the foot of the wide sloping lawn
was blue with forget-me-nots; a mist of wild hyacinths shone through the
snowy blossoms of the wild cherry as she had planned, and beds had been
made and filled with polyanthus, pale yellow and oranged terra-cotta.
Laburnum, and lilac, and copper beeches shone glorious against a
background of firs.

Old John Grierson was now more or less reconciled to the new order of
things. He had put in a bad winter with rheumatism and other ills, and
had found his new mistress both kind and thoughtful. She was not, and
never could be, like his old mistress, still--she had points, as he told
Dr. Kilgour.

'Mistress Jameson hes a'thing to learn aboot a gairden, an' that keeps
her humble.... I'm no as souple as I once was, but she says I'm worth
mair than ma wages for advice, an' I'm sure that's true. I'll say this
for her, she's no aye worryin', she kens a gairden's an endless job,
needin' baith time an' understandin', siller, tae--she never grudges
that. Oh ay, we micht hae got waur--ane o' thae hen-heided females,
screechin' like a pea-hen, never puttin' in but aye wantin' oot.... I
whiles think I'd like to tell the Mistress that things is gettin' on no
that bad; she was sweir to leave me an' the gairden.'

The visitors had heard so much of the old gardener, both from Esm and
Dr. Kilgour, that they were delighted to meet him in the flesh.

He shook hands with some condescension, and when Lady Jane, after
congratulating him on the beauty of the place, remarked that they had no
garden to speak of at the Harbour House, he said kindly:

'Well, ye're spared muckle anxiety.' He stopped to mop his brow with a
red handkerchief, and continued: 'Mony a nicht I loss ma sleep ower
frost an' rabbits, no to mention slugs.... Oh ay, it's no a bad
gairden: I've devoted fifty-eight years o' ma life to't, for I cam here
a laddie o' sixteen. Changes? Haud yer tongue! Naething but changes, an'
_aye for the worse_.... Ay, it's the truth. Juist tak thae lawns, we
used to scythe them and keep them like velvet. Then they startit
lawn-mowers an' a pony--no hauf as guid as the scythe. Noo, if ye
please, it's a motor machine tuff-tuffin' aboot the place, makin' the
horridest stink. Oh ay, an' rock-gairdens an' every known thing....
Weel, I'll sune be done wi' it, an' I never heard there were ony
gairdens whaur I'm gaun, although we ken the Almichty likes them fine,
for ane o' the first things He did was to make a gairden an' walk in't
in the cool o' the day. The mistake He made was pitten Adam and Eve
in't. Adam himsel mebbe wadna hae dune muckle ill, but...' The old
man looked round at the four women and, judging that discretion was the
better part of valour, merely shook his head, remarking:

'It's ower late in the day to fash aboot the Gairden of Eden.'

'Well,' said Lady Jane soothingly, 'anyway there's no serpent in this
Paradise.'

'Is there no?' said John Grumblie darkly, and hobbled away.

'Now, what did he mean by that?' asked his mistress. 'Is it me or David,
or perhaps poor Tam? When we cross him he always harks back to the old
days, poor dear!... Now here is my much-talked-about rock-garden. No,
it's not bad, is it, for a beginning? and of course the burn is a
tremendous help. There's simply no end to what you can do with a burn. I
can see that it'll keep me happily employed for years. She looked at her
wrist: 'Why, it's after the half-hour. I shouldn't have waylaid you and
brought you to the garden first. You must be fainting for your
luncheon.'

They walked up the sloping lawn to the house, still talking about
gardens.

Lady Jane said: 'I enjoy hearing people talk of gardens, and I enjoy
reading about them. You know _Autumn Crocuses_?'

Esm nodded. 'It's one of my bedroom books. Only very special books find
a place there.'

'D'you remember the story about the pansies?' Althea asked. 'The garden
the sick lady came back to always makes me think of Mrs. Heggie's, with
all the rambler-roses and the pergolas... such a hot little garden!'

They were seated round the table in the cool dining-room with a great
yellow bowl of polyanthus to look at, enjoying cunningly prepared
grape-fruit, and still they talked of flowers.

'Just now,' said Esm, 'my bed book is _Elizabeth's German Garden_. I
haven't read it for years, and I'm adoring it. I love her "happy
struggles and failures," and the gardener who gave notice regularly on
the first of every month! When I finish it I'll begin the _Solitary
Summer_, then _Elizabeth in Rgen_, then _Frulein Schmidt_.'

'And stop there?' said Nicole. 'I think you're right: these books finish
a period.... I do like living with a writer till I become soaked in
the atmosphere she--or he--creates. How much do you read at night? Only
a chapter or two? Then these books will keep you happy all the summer
nights; and talking of summer plans, we've arranged to take Ardmore for
August and September. Mother liked the sound of it--didn't you, Mums?'

Lady Jane finished helping herself to salmon, and said: 'It sounded most
desirable, and your friend Mrs. Wolsley has been so kind giving us all
manner of details, just the little things that are so important.'

'I'm glad,' said Esm, 'The Wolsleys adore Mull; they've gone every year
for about five years: first to a place on the coast, and then to this
house, Ardmore, which seems to be on a fresh-water loch. It's a good
many miles from the place you land, but it's quite a good road, and once
or twice a week vans actually call, I'm told, from Tobermory. And I dare
say you could get things sent over from Oban; there will be a Store too,
I expect, in each village.'

'The house sounds all right for size,' Lady Jane said. 'Seven bedrooms
and good servants' accommodation: two living-rooms and a billiard-room.
Plainly furnished, Mrs. Wolsley says, but quite comfortable, and what
more do we want? The plainer the better. I can imagine nothing more
miserable than looking after other people's treasures. The billiard-room
will be a great help on bad days. Mrs. Wolsley says there is a boat on
the loch, and a gillie, a very good man, who can be trusted with the
care of boys. That is a real comfort. I should never know a moment's
peace if they were out alone.'

'Barnabas can swim, and The Bat is learning,' Nicole reminded her, but
Lady Jane insisted, 'If the loch is any size they would never reach the
shore. No, the gillie is the best thing I've heard about the place.'

'It seems so cheap,' Nicole said, 'for a decent house and good fishing.'

'That,' said Esm, 'is why the Wolsleys go there. They say that the
great point about Mull is that it's not fashionable. There are no great
grouse moors to bring the very wealthy, and it's too far out of the way
for business men to travel back and forward to, so it's unspoiled. They
find it a splendid place for their three boys, no end of things to do,
and a glorious free life.'

'I can imagine how Alastair will love it,' Lady Jane said, smiling at
the thought. 'He has fished a little at Rutherfurd, but with Barnabas
and a gillie and a boat he will feel himself a man among men.'

'And we'll take the little car, Mums, and drive you about to see all the
new place, and Althea and I'll walk and climb hills and explore--what
fun!'

'Did Betty Wolsley tell you that she only took from London the cook and
chauffeur and her own maid? She said she found it quite easy to get
local girls who made excellent parlour and house maids?'

'I know,' said Nicole. 'Mull sounds like the Islands of the Blessed,
with trained domestic servants on tap! And Mrs. Wolsley kindly offers to
send names and addresses.'

'We are really immensely obliged to your friend,' Lady Jane said. 'I
have written, of course, but will you please tell her how truly grateful
we are for all the trouble she has taken. And you too, my dear.' She
touched Esm's hand and smiled at her. 'You have been so helpful.'

'Not a bit, but don't any of you get drowned in the loch, or I'd feel
horribly responsible--By the way, are you going to the Erskine's
wedding?'

'Only Nicole,' said Lady Jane. 'Althea didn't want to be a bridesmaid,
and it would take more than a wedding to tempt me to London. Are you
going?'

'No, oh no, but I've got rather a nice present for Vera, at least I hope
she'll like it.'

'May we know what it is?' Althea asked.

'I went on the plan of doing to others as you would have them do to you
and got her one of those models of sailing ships. An old one, a real
beauty. I'd like to keep it for myself: there's a place in the hall
where it would look just right.'

'Keep it then,' Nicole advised, 'and send her something out of a
silversmith's. Unless Basil has a taste for such things it'll be rather
thrown away, I fear--wouldn't you say so, Althea?'

Althea considered. 'Yes, I think Vera has inherited her mother's taste
in furnishing. What about some personal thing?'

'Such as?'

'Well, Aunt Jane and Nicole are giving a chain of lovely amber, and I've
got her a jade pendant.... I had to spend more than I wanted to, for
my conscience wasn't quite easy about refusing to be a bridesmaid.
That's how one's sin finds one out!'

Esm Jameson laughed. 'How true! But I think I'll keep my lovely ship
and send a hat-brooch or something. I hear from Mrs. Heggie--though what
her source of information is I don't know--that there are to be hundreds
and hundreds of guests, so there will also be a wilderness of presents.
There is really something rather distasteful about these large
weddings.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Nicole said. 'The crowd after all is only a
background. To the bride it's the few intimates round her that
matter--The Erskines with their lavish hospitality must have an enormous
circle of acquaintances who will all expect an invitation. It's a funny
thing the social game!'

'I wonder,' said Lady Jane, 'if we may see through the house to-day?
I've always wanted to explore Windywalls inside and out, but there never
has been time before.'

Her hostess rose with alacrity. 'How kind of you to ask!' she said.
'Nothing gives me so much pleasure as personally conducting a party
through my domain. Let's begin at the top and work down, and I won't
spare you so much as a cupboard.'




                              CHAPTER XXV


                                 '_...The time will bring on summer,_
                      _When briars shall have leaves as well as thorns,_
                                            _And be as sweet as sharp._'
                                              ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

'It's a very odd thing,' said Mrs. Heggie, 'how quickly the summer
flies. Before you realise it's here we've got to the shortest day, and
after that, no matter how good the weather is, you've an uneasy feeling
that we're posting back into winter.'

She was sitting on a solid chair--her weight did not permit her to use a
canvas one--in the middle of the lawn at Knebworth, looking over the top
of her delphiniums to a sea that was almost as blue.

'This is only the second party I've had this summer,' Mrs. Heggie went
on, 'and I bought all those new garden things to be ready.'

Joan looked round at the orange glasses and jugs, at the bright cushions
and rugs, and her mother added:

'I forgot about the rambler-roses when I got them. I'd have been better
with rose colour.'

'Green is always the safest choice,' said Joan.

Mrs. Heggie and her daughter were waiting for the guests to arrive to a
tea-party, and Joan was making no effort to conceal her boredom at the
prospect.

'Who are coming?' she asked, lolling back in her chair and displaying
unexpectedly stout legs.

Her mother mentioned the names of a few Langtoun ladies, and added Mrs.
Lambert from Kirkmeikle.

'I had the others,' she said, 'the Rutherfurds and Mrs. Jameson and the
Dundases from St. Andrews, that lovely day a fortnight ago. That was a
very successful party.'

'This isn't one of your higher efforts,' Joan suggested.

'I don't know what you mean, Joan. They are all people I'm fond of and
glad to see. Indeed I'm looking forward to this party very much, for
there will be no strain about it. I mean, we're all the same sort of
people who have been brought up in the same way and look at things from
the same standpoint. Sometimes with Lady Jane and the others I feel a
little confused. Out of my bearings--is that the expression? But--Oh,
here comes Mrs. Lambert. Come away, my dear. First comers get the choice
of the best seats. Is Mr. Lambert well? And the children? That's good.'

Mrs. Lambert looked round and remarked on the gaiety of the scene.

'Yes,' said Mrs. Heggie, 'it's pretty enough, but I was just saying to
Joan that the summer's hardly here before it's away.'

'I know.' Mrs. Lambert gave a small sigh. Summer in Kirkmeikle is only a
glimpse and winter is so long and real.'

'I escaped it last year,' said Joan, 'and I mean to do the same again.
What it means to bask in sunshine and know that all you poor creatures
are starving under a pall of fog and cold!'

'Perhaps you may be able to persuade your mother to go with you next
winter,' Mrs. Lambert said.

'She will never do that,' said Mrs. Heggie, rising to greet three other
ladies who were making their way across the lawn. 'Mrs. Lambert, you've
met my friend, Mrs. Stark from Langtoun, and her sister, Miss Grant, and
Mrs. Burnett who is staying with Mrs. Stark?... Yes, well we've been
discussing wintering abroad, and I was just saying nothing would induce
me to leave my home. I don't really mind the winter. It's dull sometimes
and I could do with more people dropping in for a meal or a chat, but
anything's endurable when you're in your own home. It's the utter
weariness of living in hotels and having nothing to do. Of course you
can talk to the other people, but that's dull work. If you play bridge I
dare say it's bearable, or if you write books or paint you'd be driven
to work out of sheer ennui.'

'I suppose,' said Mrs. Lambert in her small, gentle voice, 'that it must
be tiresome to have nothing to do, but it would be very pleasant to try
it for a change.'

Mrs. Heggie looked with understanding sympathy at the fragile little
woman, as she said: 'I wonder when you had a rest, my dear! So long ago
that you can't remember it?'

Mrs. Lambert flushed as if she feared she had been found complaining.
'Oh,' she said, 'summer's a very easy time for us. No meetings and a
month's holiday. We're going to Speyside for August.'

'But it's no holiday if you take your burdens with you.'

'Burdens?'

Mrs. Heggie laughed good-humouredly.

'Oh, I know what you're thinking. But what you need is to get away by
yourself and never to have to give a thought to a house or a meal or a
child. Speyside is lovely, and a fine change from Kirkmeikle, but if Mr.
Lambert's taking the services you'll be in the manse and it'll be a
strain all the time, keeping the children from kicking the paint and
destroying the furniture, then getting it all cleaned up at the end; and
your own house to be freshened up when you get home--what kind of
holiday is that?'

While Mrs. Heggie had been talking, maids had brought out tea and put a
table conveniently near each guest, and carried round eatables while
their mistress filled the cups.

Mrs. Lambert was dumb before such a flood of facts, but Mrs. Heggie was
not to have it all her own way. Mrs. Burnett, who had come with Mrs.
Stark, leant forward with her cup in her hand and said briskly:

'A very good holiday indeed. Forgive me butting in, but I'm a minister's
wife myself, and I know all about it. We couldn't have had a holiday at
all when the children were young if my husband hadn't preached for a
house--and grand holidays we had. Manses aren't as a rule so handsomely
furnished that you have cause to be nervous,' she grinned cheerfully at
Mrs. Lambert as she spoke, 'but once--once my spirit was nearly broken.
It was a seaside manse owned by rather a pernickety couple with one
child, a boy. They had private means, so the house was very well
appointed, china and glass that it would have been difficult to replace,
and that kept me nervous. I had six children, four of them boys, and all
of them full to the brim of original sin.' She stopped to eat a scone
and drink off her first cup of tea, and while her cup was being
replenished she went on:

'It's always been my boast that we left a house as clean as we got it,
indeed, sometimes we left them a good deal cleaner than we got them, but
we came lamentably short with the M'Andrews' manse. This only boy of
theirs had beautiful and expensive toys, such as our boys had never seen
or imagined, great things that couldn't be locked away. We made rules
about touching them, but one day, in some cupboard, they discovered
something that no rules had been made about--an aeroplane or parachute,
or something of that kind. Away they rushed with it, climbed a high
wall, and let themselves go. In a second the thing was wrecked, and one
boy had a broken arm and another concussion.'

'Dear, dear,' said Mrs. Heggie with great enjoyment, 'did they get all
right?'

'Oh yes, in a few days they were ready for more mischief--It was very
wet weather, and they were constantly in and out of the house, which
accounted for some of the damage, but most of it was sheer ill-luck.
There was a Chippendale sideboard----'

'Yes?' Every one listened breathless.

'Those things are too delicate for a family,' the strange lady said
resentfully, 'such spindley legs.'

Mrs. Lambert's eyes grew large with horror. 'You didn't----'

'Yes, smashed a leg. I think myself it was worm-eaten, but there's no
doubt Johnnie was a clumsy fellow. Then Jessie knocked Robert's head
through the stained-glass panel in the front door. How she did it I
don't know, for the thing was all leaded in squares, and I can't tell
you what we didn't pay to have it replaced. But we did keep the glass
and china whole until the night before we left. Some people were coming
to supper, the table was all laid, when the littlest boy threw a
ball....'

Groans burst from the audience while Mrs. Burnett proceeded to make a
very good tea, which she doubtless felt she had earned. Mrs. Stark
looked encouragingly across at Mrs. Lambert, remarking: 'Mrs. Burnett's
was a particularly riotous family, and you have only two gentle little
girls.' She turned to her friend and 'Did you ever get the same manse
twice?' she asked.

Mrs. Burnett seemed amused at the question. 'Of course we did; we were
great favourites, I assure you. Sam can preach, you know.'

Every one, it seemed, had a story to tell about letting houses, and in
the riot of talk that followed no one noticed a tall girl in white come
across the lawn, till Mrs. Heggie, looking up, cried in a happy fluster,
'Why, it's Miss Nicole!'

'I told the maid I'd find my way out to you,' Nicole said, 'but I didn't
know you had a party. I hope I'm not interrupting horribly?'

'Not at all. I don't think you've met my friends.' She named the three
friends, adding, 'Mrs. Burnett has been telling us her experiences of
houses she has been in in the summer--very entertaining.'

'I wish I'd heard them,' Nicole said, turning to smile at the big
bright-eyed woman who looked fit to cope with any situation. 'We've no
experience at all of living in "letting" houses, but we've taken one
this summer.'

'I heard that,' said Mrs. Heggie. 'In Mull, isn't it? I know nothing
about that part of the world, but I've heard it's very wet.'

'You've probably heard aright,' said Nicole, who did not seem cast down
by the prospect, 'but nobody minds rain in the West Highlands.'

'Not a bit,' said Mrs. Burnett, 'we were in Tobermory one August, it
rained the whole time, but that didn't matter for the children were
never out of the water anyway.'

'We're about fifteen miles from Tobermory,' Nicole said.

'Is it a nice house?' Mrs. Heggie asked.

'We hope so, but we've never seen it, it's a pig in a poke. But whatever
the house is like we'll have lovely surroundings, lochs and mountains.'

Mrs. Heggie shook her head. 'I hope the kitchen range will be all
right,' she said. 'That's more important than a view when all's said and
done.'

Nicole laughed and said, 'I wonder,' while Joan remarked that so far as
she was concerned kitchen ranges need not exist, so little did she care
what she ate.

'Well, Joan,' her mother reminded her, 'there's no one makes a bigger
fuss when the bath water isn't boiling hot,' but Joan looked out to sea
and pretended not to hear.

'Once in Arran,' said Mrs. Burnett, 'I had to cook on an open fire
without a vestige of a boiler: every drop of water had to be boiled in a
pot. But we managed beautifully. When you're young you can put up with
discomfort, but I confess that now I'm beginning to feel I'd like to
take things easy.'

'What about servants?' Mrs. Heggie asked Nicole; 'are you taking your
own?'

'Mrs. Martin is going--quite wants to go: and Harris, too, is eager to
see a new part of the world, but Effie and Jessie will have their
holidays, and we are to get local girls to do the housework.'

'I see.' Mrs. Heggie turned to look after her other guests, and Nicole
found herself alone with Joan.

They talked together of Madeira and of Joan's friends the Colsons. From
the Colsons it was only a step to poetry, and Nicole was amazed at the
way her companion's face lightened and beautified when something
interested her. Kirkmeikle regarded Joan as both dull and difficult, but
Nicole realised in those few minutes, as she had never done before, that
in Kirkmeikle Joan felt herself in prison: she realised what a different
creature she must be amid other surroundings, in more congenial company,
and she felt sorry for both Joan and her mother.

Nicole got up to go in a few minutes, saying: 'I really came to tell
your mother about Vera Erskine's wedding--I wonder, could you both lunch
with us to-morrow? We so seldom see you. I know, of course, you have
your work, but if you could spare an hour or two it would be a real
pleasure to us.... No, don't trouble your mother just now when she's
so engaged. If we hear no word we'll expect you both at one-thirty.'

Outside the garden-gate Nicole met Charles Walkinshaw who stopped the
car and suggested he would drive her home.

'I haven't seen you for ages,' he complained, 'you always seem to be
out. I've called thrice with no luck.'

'We met last at the wedding,' she reminded him.

'So we did. That was a great show. Why did Miss Althea not go?'

'I forget what reason she gave.--How is your mother?'

'Pretty much as usual. She likes to be out in the garden in this
weather. All yesterday afternoon she sat among the roses. She declares
being out is worth the effort--but it is an effort.'

Nicole nodded. 'She is a very gallant woman, your mother. I wish Joan
Heggie knew her. I somehow feel that your mother would be able to do
something for Joan.'

'Joan Heggie? Is that Mrs. Heggie's forbidding daughter? She writes
poetry, doesn't she?'

'Yes, good poetry--Why, here we are already. Come in, won't you?'

Charles was obeying with alacrity when Nicole said: 'Mother and Althea
have gone to St. Andrews. I'm afraid they won't be home much before
dinner.'

'Oh--D'you know I think I'd better be getting home? It's later than I
thought it was.'

Nicole stood on the doorstep and smiled at the young man, cheerfully
malicious.

'Shan't we see you, then,' she asked, 'before we go away?'

'Aren't you to be here for the summer?' Charles asked blankly.

'Didn't you know? We've taken a little place in Mull.'

'_Mull!_' The dismay in his voice softened Nicole's heart.

'Do you know that part? I tell you what--why not come and see us there?
Come and spend a week with us.'

'I say, d'you really mean it? Wouldn't Lady Jane and Miss Althea mind? I
mean, wouldn't I be a nuisance?'

'You'll be a great help, if you don't mind a household of women and
children, and no sport to speak of. Well, that's settled. We'll write
and let you know time and steamer and so forth. But come to luncheon one
day next week and say good-bye.... What about Wednesday?'

Charles drove off with a satisfied look on his face, while Nicole, as
she went into the house, said to herself, 'John Dalrymple expects to be
asked. He and Charles will come together and entertain each other,' and
she, too, wore a satisfied look.




                              CHAPTER XXVI


                                   '_I should have then this only fear,_
                                  _Lest men, when they my gladness see,_
                                 _Should hither throng to live like me._
                                             _And so make a city here._'
                                                         ABRAHAM COWLEY.

It was arranged that Lady Jane, accompanied by her maid Harris, and Mrs.
Martin, the cook, would go by train to Oban, while Nicole and Althea,
with Barnabas and The Bat, would make the journey by road in The Worm.

'If you stay the night at the station hotel,' Nicole said to her mother,
'we'll all arrive in time to cross with you in the boat at one-thirty.'

Lady Jane suggested that it would be as well if she and her
fellow-travellers went straight across the same day.

'It's a Wednesday,' she said, 'so the boat leaves at half-past five,
which would just give us time.'

But her daughter would not listen to such a plan.

'I'd hate to think of you arriving alone in a strange house....
You'll be all the better of the night's rest, and Harris would like to
see Oban; she collects picture-postcards and little china dishes....
All the luggage must go with you: we can only take things for the night.
Althea and I'll take turns at driving, and I just hope we don't land The
Worm in Loch Awe or any other deep water.'

'I can _almost_ swim,' said Alastair.

'I could rescue myself,' said Barnabas, 'but--' measuring the two tall
girls with his eye, 'that would be all----'

'Nothing else would be expected of you,' Althea assured him. 'As a
matter of fact I'm rather an accomplished swimmer myself, and I could
even manage Nicole.'

'Don't, please, talk as if I were a behemoth,' Nicole protested. 'I only
weigh eight and a half stone, and I'd promise not to cling round your
neck.'

'The way to rescue people,' said Barnabas, 'is first to fell them, then
grip them by the hair.'

'Brutal child! Let's hope your victims aren't shingled.'

'Let us hope,' said Lady Jane's gentle voice, 'that such desperate
remedies will not be required. But do, please, try to arrive in good
time. I don't want to have too much time in Oban with Mrs. Martin and
Harris.'

'But there are heaps of shops, Mums. Chalmers has delightful things. You
might occupy yourself buying Althea and me jumpers if you have time to
put off--. I don't suppose we'll need anything but the countriest of
clothes at Ardmore? Tweeds and woollen stockings will be the only wear.
Like Kirkmeikle, only more so. I wonder if there will be tennis and
neighbours....'

'What shall we take for evening?' Althea asked.

'Oh, any little frocks.'

'I like you to look nice in the evening,' Lady Jane said.

'That we _always_ do, tactless one!' her daughter replied. 'But
half-soiled dance dresses would look horribly out of place in a bare
shooting lodge. To be clean and neat is our ideal.'

'Like Spider,' said Barnabas, who adored that small dog. 'He'll come
with us in The Worm, won't he, Nikky? He'd feel it dreadfully if he were
sent in charge of women--I'm sorry, Aunt Jane, but there's nothing of
the lap-dog about Spider.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

All things worked together for good with our travellers and the party at
the station hotel, for at eleven o'clock The Worm drew up at the door
and there was time for every one to see the shops: the boys being
particularly eager to lay in a stock of fishing-tackle and sweets.

The sun shone and the sea had hardly a ripple when, after lunching
heavily at the hotel, they meandered down to the Mull boat, where their
luggage had preceded them.

Althea drove The Worm on to the boat, anxiously watched by the boys;
Mrs. Martin and Harris sat in the saloon clutching their hand luggage,
while Lady Jane stood watching the gulls as they dipped and swooped
about the boat. Presently the two girls joined her, and the boys ran up
at intervals to tell of new marvels they had found.

'The luggage is all right,' they announced. 'It's down on the lower
deck, and there's a cow tied up beside it.'

'A cow!'

'Yes, a nice brown cow. It's eating Althea's hat-box now.'

They rushed away but came back presently to ask if they might have money
to take the tickets.

'We won't take first-class ones,' they said, 'steerage is much cheaper.'

'But Mrs. Martin and Harris are sitting now in the saloon.'

'Well--' reluctantly, 'that'll be two firsts, but the rest of us should
go steerage, it's much _nicer_.'

At the first stopping-place they watched the ferry-boat come out and
take off passengers and row away back towards the jetty, and the green
knoll on which stood a white-washed inn and a church and a manse, all as
simple as a child's drawing.

Their own landing-place had a pier of sorts, and intense excitement
prevailed while The Worm was being induced to land. It proved so
refractory and developed so unexpected a spirit, that Nicole said its
name would be there and then changed to 'The Sheik.'

'The brown cow gets off here too,' said Alastair solemnly.

'It's a great day for the Isle of Mull,' Althea remarked.

At last they were all landed, and Nicole breathed a relieved sigh.
'That's that,' she said, 'and now to see if anything has turned up for
the luggage. That lorry----'

She came back announcing that all was well. The lorry and the Ford car
were both for their party.

'It's only about six miles. I'll take you, Mums, and Althea; the others
will go in the Ford. We'll let them go first to show the way. Now, _is_
that all our luggage?'

'It looks a lot,' said Lady Jane, but Harris was able to say with
absolute certainty that the whole pile belonged to them. Presently
Spider, who had been throwing himself about in transports of
self-importance, was packed into the Ford, along with the boys and the
two slightly bewildered women.

Nicole cried, '_"On, on," said the Duchess!_'

'We'll see Ardmore first,' shouted Barnabas as the car he was in
bucketed away.

They drove through the village, where they saw a hotel, a post-office, a
general store, a baker's shop, a hall and two churches, out to a smooth
road running between very green fields, backed on one side by steep
mountain sides, and little copses of rowan-trees and larches, over
narrow hump-backed bridges, until they stopped at a gate which the boys
had leapt out to open. The rough drive was about half a mile long, and
after a second gate had been opened and shut, they drove across a wide
expanse of turf and found themselves at the door of a low rambling
white-washed house.

The Ford had hardly stopped when the boys flung themselves out, almost
knocking over the elderly woman who stood on the doorstep, and who began
to explain very rapidly that she was the caretaker, and would be glad to
show them everything before she retired to her sister's house in
Tobermory. She also said that the two young girls were waiting--Morag
Campbell and Ellen M'Wharrie--and tea would be ready whenever they
wanted it, for the kettle was boiling this minute.

Mrs. Martin was thrust forward to deal with the situation, and she and
Harris followed the caretaker into the kitchen, while the others stood
and looked round.

The house stood on a promontory running into the loch which was
surrounded by high mountains rising steeply from the shore. A clump of
pine-trees sheltered the house at one side: a tall fuchsia hedge hid the
out-houses: the jetty was only a few yards from the front door.

'It's rather like a chapel,' Althea said, 'with that wide arched
doorway. What is the Latin, Barnabas?'

That youth spelt it out--'Something about "_Small house--much peace_,"'
he said, turning to follow Alastair who had made for the jetty.

'They will never be out of the water,' Lady Jane said prophetically.

'Never!' Nicole agreed. 'I hadn't realised that we are practically on
the loch: we've water on three sides of us. But isn't it lovely! The way
the mountains come down on either side, and the sweep of heather and
bracken. Obviously no garden. I rather like that. A garden would be out
of place on this wind-swept promontory. The only decoration is the
fuchsia hedge!'

'Where are we to get vegetables?' her mother asked.

'Where, indeed! By post from Oban, I should think. But perhaps we may be
able to buy them at the cottages we passed.... Let's explore the
house. Come, boys, and choose your rooms. There's no hurry to get out
the boat.'

They found a wide hall with the dining-room on the right-hand side, then
two shallow steps leading to the drawing-room and the billiard-room.
There was one large bedroom next the dining-room, and upstairs six other
bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Two of the bedrooms were small, with chests of drawers filling them
almost entirely, and these the boys claimed for their own.

'But why?' asked Nicole, 'they don't look anywhere; they're miserable
rooms. Have the big one with the two beds.'

But the boys were firm, and it transpired that the two rooms were
connected by what Barnabas called 'a burglar run' made by the roof of
the billiard-room, and that was the attraction.

'The downstairs room is really the best,' Nicole said, 'and ought by
rights to be yours, Mother, but I don't like the thought of you sleeping
on the ground floor. A kelpie might come in from the loch, or a
water-horse.... We'll keep it for visitors.'

'Won't a kelpie be as likely to attack a visitor?' Althea asked, while
Lady Jane remarked that Nicole's hospitality did not go very far.

'Quite far enough,' Nicole retorted. 'Visitors must take the rough with
the smooth, so to speak. There are three rooms looking on to the loch
and one looking up Ardmore. Who wants which?'

'If no one else wants it,' Althea said, 'I'd like the Ardmore one. There
are waterfalls rushing down the mountains that will make a most lulling
sound at night. Besides, it's not so exposed to the elements. I like the
things to remain on my dressing-table, which they won't do with winds
blowing in from the loch.'

'Take it and welcome. Mother, you have the one with two beds: it seems
bright and sunny.... We're none of us far from each other, which is a
blessing. The bathrooms are the isolated points. They have evidently
been built on, with the billiard-room.... Oh, Harris, how do you find
things?'

'Quite comfortable, miss, thank you. Mrs. Martin's satisfied with the
kitchen range, and there's a servants' hall, and nice bedrooms. There's
a post-office two miles away, besides the village we landed at, and
carts come once or twice a week from Tobermory, so we're not exactly cut
off from civilisation as you might say. Is this your room, miss?'

'No, this is Miss Althea's, mine is across the passage.'

'And her ladyship's, miss?'

'Is that Harris?' Lady Jane called. 'Tell her to get tea before she
thinks of beginning to unpack. Oh, Nicole, come here--look at this
book-case full of all the books I like best; books of my girlhood that I
always meant to read again but couldn't lay my hands on. I shall have a
feast.'

'There's a book-case in each room and one on the staircase,' Nicole
said. 'It's a wonderful rich house for books. _What's that?_ Oh, it's
the gong for tea. But what a tocsin!'

Later they discussed what could be done with the drawing-room.

'It needs flowers, for one thing,' Althea said.

'There are no flowers, and no flower-glasses so far as I can see,' said
Nicole.

'Branches of rowan would help, stuck in these blue jugs, and wild
flowers. Let's make a complete rearrangement of the furniture. It's a
big room and a light one, with these two gigantic windows, surely we can
make something out of it.... This big old sofa before the fire? A
writing-table for Aunt Jane in this window looking out on the loch.'

'There are no end of tables,' Nicole said. 'I counted four
writing-tables in the billiard-room, one in each window; and there are
at least two in my room and two in Mother's, and we don't need more than
one.'

'Well, then, we can each have a writing-table.... And the round table
had better stand just behind the sofa, for we shall need the lamp on it
in the evening. And small steady tables on each side of the fireplace
with two other lamps.... That's a horribly shabby hearth-rug. I saw
one in the downstairs bedroom that would be much better. Then shall we
draw those arm-chairs up to the fire?--that makes an oasis.'

Althea moved about remaking the room, while Nicole watched her with
interest.

'Let's go through the house,' she suggested, 'and bring everything
pretty we can find into the drawing-room, for this is where we'll spend
most of our time. I can't say I admire the walls much. Those salmon
painted on them--As a record of sport obtained, they're all right, but
they seem to me to fail as decorations.'

'Would the people who own it object, d'you suppose,' said Althea, 'if we
continued the scheme of decoration? Painted mountains for a background
and water? The salmon look so stark alone.'

'That boat is very well done,' Lady Jane said, studying the sketches
done on the distempered wall. 'The figures are so alive. I wish we knew
what they all meant.... I expect happy young people did them long
ago.... Where are the boys, Nicole, my dear?'

'They've gone on the loch with Dugald M'Lean. Oh yes, he looks
thoroughly reliable--Mother, I think we should write for some cheap
flower-glasses, and Mrs. Martin's got quite a long list of things that
are necessary in the kitchen, small things, you know, like apple-corers
and so forth. Shall I write?'

'Yes, darling.' Lady Jane was standing in the window, looking over the
loch now shining in the peace of a perfect August evening. She turned,
and it seemed as if the peace were reflected in her face as she said:

'No matter how bad the weather may become, though it mists and rains and
blows, we've seen it once look its perfect best.'




                             CHAPTER XXVII


                     '_... Summer's lease hath all too short a date._'
                                         SONNETS BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

There followed a halcyon time. True, there was nothing much to do, but
time hung heavy on no one's hands. They fished in Loch Ard in the
morning, came in ravenous for luncheon, went out in the afternoon to
Loch-na-Keal to find the exquisite little shells, yellow and blue, that
abounded there, or took The Worm round the island, choosing some
delectable place to make tea in.

It sometimes rained, but rain in Mull matters little, it is a gentle
beneficent rain. But if it got too bad there was the drawing-room fire
and books, and billiards if people could be persuaded to play.

The boys enjoyed Dugald more than anything. He spoke to them as man to
man, he told them the legends of the countryside, he taught them the
Gaelic names of the birds and beasts, he made ships for them to sail on
the loch, so that they had quite a navy in the backwater by the jetty.

Lady Jane wrote endless letters at her own writing-table in the
drawing-room, but often she sat, not writing, but simply looking at the
water with its fringe of bright green turf, and thinking.

The days went past so quickly that it was September before they realised
it. They had had no visitors except some friends from the South who
happened to be yachting near, or going on to stalk, and they were only a
night or two at a time, but in the first week of September they expected
John Dalrymple and Charles Walkinshaw. It was Nicole's plan that they
should come together.

'Best to have them together,' she said, 'and they can support each
other, and also entertain each other. They will fish, I hope, and we've
been promised at least one day's stalking for them.... We might go to
Iona one day. Oh, a week will soon pass.'

'We would have been much happier without them,' Althea said.

'Ungrateful creature!' Nicole retorted. 'Haven't they been asked simply
and solely to amuse you? _I_ don't like having men staying in the house,
they're always on one's mind. Of course it's different if there's a man
in the house to arrange ploys for them and take them out, but I shan't
know another really comfortable happy moment until they go.'

Althea laughed and advised Nicole not to worry. 'Mrs. Martin'll feed
them well,' she said. 'They can fish or walk or stalk all day: there's
always hot water for baths, and a good fire in the billiard-room: what
more could they want? They'll be quite happy. Men are easy things to
entertain: women are a very different matter--. Where are the boys?'

'They've gone to the top of the loch with Dugald and Spider and their
lunch. What a blessing they've both got so keen on fishing, it keeps
them outside, happily amused for hours at a stretch, and they do really
catch fish--Alastair was pulling in quite good trout the other night,
and Barnabas got a salmon--it's a splendid life for them. Perhaps it's
more Dugald than the fishing that fascinates them. He teaches them so
much, and they love him for appreciating Spider. He calls him, they tell
me, "The Captain, the wee game captain." It's funny to hear Barnabas
trying to speak like Dugald. It's The Bat who is the real mimic. He can
not only speak like people, in some curious way he can make
himself--just for a second--_look_ like them. He's an imp beside stolid
Barnabas, but they are very good friends.'

'They are one,' said Althea, 'in a dislike for all forms of learning,
but Barnabas likes Alastair to tell him stories while he's hollowing out
a boat or laying railway lines. Have you seen the railway and siding he
has made? It goes from the garage to the jetty. It is wonderful to be
made out of nothing, frightfully neat: that boy must be some sort of
engineer when he grows up. Alastair will play for hours, shunting up and
down, or being a non-stop express, while Barnabas rings bells and pulls
signals.'

'Oh,' said Nicole, 'that explains the interest in Gamage's catalogue,
and sundry hints about the lack of funds to buy necessaries! I expect
they want rails, and all sorts of gadgets--. Barnabas is a great
playboy, but he doesn't like to be observed. And how he hates strangers!
The Bat would go off quite happily to those parties and picnics that
they are invited to if he got any encouragement from his friend.'

Lady Jane turned round from her letter-writing and said:

'Are you talking about Barnabas? That's a funny boy. He tells me he
hates "civilisation," and his one thought is to get away from the haunts
of men. A lecturer had come to the school, and describing some wonderful
place in Canada, said that if some enterprising person built a good
hotel there it might soon become a popular resort. Barnabas looked into
my face and said so earnestly, "Aunt Jane, was that not a _foul_ thing
to say?" This, he thinks, is the best place he ever was in, for he can
look round for miles and see nothing but heather and water. I mildly
suggested that it would be better for the island if there were more
houses and more people, but he refused to see it.'

Nicole laughed, but said: 'It is sad to see those empty cottages. I
wonder why the people are going away. Can't they live on the land?'

'Perhaps,' Lady Jane said, 'there are too many deer forests--I don't
know. Is anybody going to the post-office before luncheon? I need
stamps, and hadn't you better wire to John, and Charles Walkinshaw, at
Oban to get off at Craignure instead of coming on to Salen?'

Nicole looked up from collecting the books and magazines which the boys
were apt to spread over the sofas and chairs and even the floor. 'I'll
go to the post-office with pleasure, but d'you think we need wire? They
may as well come on to Salen and we'll send M'Cunnisty's car to meet
them. The Worm would certainly turn at such a load.... Are you
coming, Althea? We've just time before luncheon if we take the short cut
through the nut-wood.'

Althea looked up from the magazine she was reading to the wind-swept
loch, and said: 'It's very blowy. Why not take The Worm?'

'My girl, you'll lose the use of your legs altogether if you don't walk
more. It's lovely in the wind.... Are these all the letters, Mums?
Two postal orders for twenty shillings each--Yes.' Nicole stuffed
letters and money into the pocket of her tweed coat; and said 'Come on,
Althea. This is almost the last walk we'll get in peace. After to-morrow
those men will always be on our minds.'

'There's something so truly hospitable about Nikky,' Althea said, as she
went to get a coat, and Nicole turned to her mother, saying: 'You know,
Mother, I _am_ getting inhospitable, it's quite true. At Rutherfurd
visitors came and went most of the time; we entertained as a matter of
course, but living our quiet life in one small house, I find myself
apprehensive about entertaining. I remember that cold weather I was in
India, on tour with Uncle Nigel, we met a man--he came to dine--who told
me he had been almost sick with fright about coming among his own sort
of people: he lived in some out-of-the-way place, meeting only a few men
and rarely a white woman. I was sorry for him at the time, but I'm
sorrier now, for I understand better what he felt. To-day I can see no
light in life because two harmless men are coming to stay! How did we
come to ask them, Mums? And probably the poor creatures are just as
badly bored at the prospect as we are, and are wondering at this moment
why they ever accepted--Anyway it's kind of the Glenulva people to take
them stalking, and... Yes, I'm coming, Althea.'

                 *        *        *        *        *

In spite of Nicole's forebodings nobody looked either bored or
apprehensive after dinner that evening, as they sat round the
drawing-room fire. The room was much more habitable now. There were
flowers, for Dugald M'Lean's mother had a cottage with a garden full of
old-fashioned, sweet-smelling flowers, and every day he brought a
nosegay of pansies and mignonette and sweetpea to Lady Jane; there were
piles of new books and magazines; branches of rowan and bracken hid the
worst parts of the walls: the chairs were worn but comfortable, and
there was always a bright fire burning on the hearth.

They were talking lazily, Lady Jane had many questions about old friends
for John Dalrymple to answer, while Althea fenced verbally with Charles,
and Nicole laughed at them both.

'What would you like us to do to amuse you, John?' she asked presently.

'Do I look as if I needed amusing? What do you do when you are alone?'

'Why, nothing; just read, and talk or don't talk, and presently go to
bed.'

'And very nice, too,' said John. 'Why attempt anything else?'

'Seeing it's your first night I feel we ought to make some sort of
effort. Charles, what about an intellectual game? We have one, a very
searching one, which some one sent us.... If you all play I'll read
the correct answers out of the book.'

Charles groaned, and Althea protested. 'I'll not play that game again,
it stripped me of every atom of self-confidence.'

'Give me a pack of cards,' said Charles, 'and I'll teach you a game
called "_Thank you, Darling_." It is warranted to break the ice in the
stiffest house-party.'

No one looked enthusiastic and Lady Jane said: 'I'm afraid we haven't
card minds: I'm a fool at bridge.'

But Charles assured her that for this game no skill was required, merely
good manners, and being given a pack of cards he began gravely to
instruct them in the rules.

'First of all, the cards are given names. Spades are "Spadicums,"
diamonds "Finklesteins"--but I'll tell you as we go along. The King is
always "Papa," the Queen "Mamma," and when you get a card from any one
you must say "Thank you, darling." That's the point you see, "Thank you,
darling." It puts every one on an intimate footing at once.'

'I don't think it does,' John protested. 'It must absolutely prostrate
shy people.'

After some more instructions Charles dealt the cards.

'I shall never learn this,' John Dalrymple said with conviction. 'It's a
game for a master mind.'

'I'm glad to hear you say it,' Lady Jane told him. 'I never heard
anything more confusing.'

'Perhaps,' said Althea, 'the confusion is more in the explanation than
in the game.'

'Cruel!' murmured Charles, pausing in his task of dealing the cards. 'I
think there's a mistake here--How many cards have you, Dalrymple?'

That gentleman counted patiently, and said he had twelve.

'Does your mother play Patience, Charles?' Lady Jane asked.

Charles turned a puzzled frown on his hostess.

'Yes,' he said vaguely. 'Oh yes. I mean No, she doesn't. How many cards
have you, Nicole?'

'Eleven.'

'Oh, you can't--count again.'

'How is Mrs. Heggie?' Nicole asked, bending down to pat Spider who,
having made a cushion of her feet, lay fast asleep on the rug.

'How should I know? _How is Mrs. Heggie?_ What a question to ask a man
struggling to teach unskilled players a game.... There's a card lost
out of this pack.'

'The boys had it,' Althea said carelessly, 'and they're capable of
losing any number, or perhaps Spider ate it.'

'Does it matter anyhow?' Nicole asked. 'I thought this was only a
friendly game--We don't pretend to play cards seriously, you know.'

'Thank you for telling me,' said Charles.

'Come and look at the loch in the moonlight,' Nicole said, consoling
him. 'I like to stand in this window at night: we never pull down the
blinds--How odd it seems, this little lighted room with little humans
talking and laughing, in the midst of the blackness and the bigness of
mountain and loch!'




                             CHAPTER XXVIII


                                  '_...annihilating all that's made_
                                 _To a green thought in a green shade._'
                                                         ANDREW MARVELL.

These September mornings at Ardmore seemed to Nicole about the most
perfect things she had ever known. When she woke on the morning after
the expected guests had arrived the sun was shining in at her window, so
that she had to lean out at once and savour the delight of it--the loch
like a silver shield, the scarred peaks with wisps of white mist
floating round them, the little woods of rowan with here and there a
flaming branch, the lap of the water against the jetty, the smell of
wood smoke and frying bacon, Spider trotting round the house, Barnabas
and The Bat looking incredibly clean and well brushed, Dugald carrying a
lobster and a bunch of garden flowers--What a jolly time the morning
was! Bath-water running, knocking at doors, tinkle of tea-cups, every
one astir for the new day.

'We're going to Iona to-day. We are, aren't we, Nikky? It's a good day,
and Aunt Jane said, the first good day.'

The Bat was anxiously studying the faces of the company, for
corroboration of his statement. 'We are, aren't we?' he repeated.

'It's a lovely day,' Nicole admitted, 'we'll see what Mother says.'

'How far is it?' John Dalrymple asked, coming back from the sideboard
with a plateful of sea-trout in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

'Brown bread?'--Nicole offered a piece--'or toast?... Let me see,
it's about thirty-five miles to the Ferry, and then you cross in a
motor-boat. Would you care to go? None of us have seen Iona. It might be
rather fun--Good-morning, Mums. It seems you promised the boys to go to
Iona the first good day.'--Nicole waved her hand to the glory
outside--'So what about it?'

Lady Jane smiled a greeting to every one and sat down in her place.

'Yes, please, a little porridge--No, John, thank you. I don't take
sugar: I may be English but I haven't that on my conscience. Nor
cream.... It is a perfect day. Well, who cares to make the
expedition?'

'The question is,' said Nicole, 'how many we can pack in. We can hire
two cars, so we needn't take The Worm--it's beginning to show signs of
encroaching age anyway--How many is that? I suppose we may take it that
Althea will go, and Charles? Where are the lazy creatures?'

'Spider _must_ go,' said Barnabas.

Protests arose from Lady Jane and Nicole. 'You know he hates long
journeys--he'll be a nuisance,' but Barnabas pleaded:

'He loves a jaunt. It breaks his heart to be left at home. I'll hold him
in my arms all the way and he won't be sick.'

'Oh, all right,' said Nicole, 'it's your affair--. Now I must whirl down
and engage the cars. Who'll come with me and open gates?'

'Me,' said The Bat.

'Why should you go?' John Dalrymple asked, getting up, napkin in hand.
'I'll take The Worm to the village.'

'Sit down, both of you,' Lady Jane commanded, 'and finish your
breakfast. It's absurd of Nicole to rush off like this. What does half
an hour matter?'

'It may simply mean that the cars are taken by some one else,' Nicole
said, and the eager watching faces of Barnabas, The Bat, and Spider all
registered dejection.

The door opened and Charles came in.

'Anything happened?' he asked after greeting his hostess.

'Hurry up with your breakfast,' said Nicole.

'Why? It's bad for the digestion to bolt food. Have you never heard
that?'

'But we're going to Iona,' The Bat told him--'Nikky's finished now. Aunt
Jane, may we go and get out The Worm?'

They rushed, colliding with Althea in the doorway.

'You take porridge?' Charles asked her as she came over to the
sideboard.

'No, thanks--what's all the fuss about?'

Nicole put her head in at the window. 'Shall I say ten o'clock? It'll
take us about two hours to get to the Ferry, so we won't be in Iona till
nearly one.'

'What about luncheon?'

'There's a hotel there. I think we'll be sure to get something.' Nicole
withdrew her head and Lady Jane said: 'I think she is too optimistic. It
would be as well to take sandwiches and be independent.'

'Sandwiches make such a dull lunch,' Althea said.

'If you eat a large enough breakfast,' said Charles, 'you won't want any
lunch.' He surveyed Althea's plate. 'A square inch of toast and a
spoonful of marmalade won't take you far.'

'I hate breakfast,' said Althea, looking pettish. 'In fact, I'm not a
morning person at all. Not like Nicole, who positively prances. She does
so irritate me with her glorious morning face.'

Nicole's mother laughed sympathetically. 'I know,' she said. 'Some of us
are never happy until the day gets properly aired, so to speak; we're
only half alive in the morning, but Nicole...'

'Welcomes the unknown with a cheer,' said Charles poetically. 'Miss
Althea, you should have lived in a French memoir, in a silken
bed-chamber discreetly curtained from the light with scented beaux
coming in to pay you compliments.'

Althea turned to John Dalrymple, remarking with a backward look at
Charles, 'He's quite a wit, isn't he? But, Aunt Jane, are we really
going to Iona? What is there to see?'

'A cathedral, I think, and--what is there at Iona, Charles?'

'Celtic crosses,' said Charles, 'and the graves of Scottish kings.'

'How cheerful!' said Althea. 'We'll have a long happy day, won't we?'

By ten o'clock they had started; Lady Jane in the first car with Althea
and John Dalrymple: Nicole following with Charles and the boys and
Spider.

It was a drive of great beauty, skirting the loch side for miles,
running under great headlands, mounting winding roads, until they could
look down and see far below them a panorama of little crofts, emerald
green patches of pasture, shining waters with islands floating like a
mirage in their misty blue. They ran through tiny clachans, each cottage
with its stack of peat, across wide moors, along a rocky coast road,
until they came to the village and the ferry. There they all got out and
stamped about while they waited for the motor-boat to come across.

'Lucky it's so calm,' Nicole said. 'I just hope I won't disgrace
myself.'

'Nikky, you couldn't be sick on a motor-boat, could you?'

'Barnabas, I'm capable of being sick on any craft, but I think I'll be
all right to-day, for I can see the place I'm going to.'

'It seems the Oban steamer calls just now for two hours, so I'm told
Iona will be overrun with people,' Lady Jane said calmly.

'Which means,' said Charles, 'that we won't get any lunch. First come,
first served: they'll have eaten everything.'

'Oh,' said Alastair, 'and Spider so hungry'; while Barnabas produced
some toffee from his pocket, remarking that it had got melted a bit with
being sat on but was still very good.

'How did this boat know to come for us?' Alastair asked.

'The people telephoned across,' said Althea.

'_Did_ they?' There was deep disappointment in his tone.

'Why, how did you think it came?'

'I thought it just came,' Alastair said.

'Like Lohengrin's swan?' suggested John Dalrymple.

When they landed at the jetty they found Lady Jane's information had
been only too correct. The whole place swarmed with people, dogs and
visitors staying on the island, tourists from the steamer. It was so
unlike the peaceful isle of their imagination that the party stood and
looked at each other in a dazed way.

'More like a Liberal Demonstration than anything else,' Charles said,
surveying the swaying mass.

'Look at Spider,' said Barnabas proudly. 'He's made four friends
already.'

'Put on his lead,' Althea advised, 'or he'll be off with them.'

'Hadn't we better find the hotel,' Lady Jane said, 'and see about
luncheon. Ask some one, John.'

John went off and accosted an old man with a beard, returning with the
information that the hotel was only a little distance away.

They straggled towards it, up the village street, past a grocer's shop,
past booths with tempting displays of jewellery and beaten brass
articles, and when they reached the hotel, which was gaily washed in
colour, Nicole was sent forward to make enquiries. The harassed but
still courteous landlady explained that the hotel was packed, the guests
were even now sitting down to lunch, there was no room and nothing to
spare for casual comers.

'There are seven of us and we're all hungry,' Nicole said, and the
landlady so far relented as to say that if they came back about two
o'clock there would be a ham-and-egg tea ready for them. Nicole thanked
her with a chastened air and went back to her friends.

'Any hope?' her mother asked.

Nicole surveyed the group, remarking, 'What tramps you look! Something
in your attitudes... a slouch: something vaguely supplicating. Even
you, Mums... and of course Barnabas and The Bat and Spider----'

'Why these insults?' Althea asked; 'we want to know about luncheon. Can
they take us in?'

Nicole shook her head. 'House full! They are busy eating now, you can
hear them. But as a great concession, the landlady says that any time
after two we may have a ham-and-egg tea.'

John Dalrymple emitted an awed ejaculation which made Nicole giggle.

'Don't you think,' said Lady Jane, 'that bananas and biscuits from that
shop we passed would be nicer? And we could eat them outside. What a
blessing the sun is shining!'

'Biscuits and bananas,' Nicole pointed out, 'would be all right if we
were sure of a good tea, but we cross again at four and we won't be home
till seven. This would be a portmanteau meal, lunch and tea in one--Come
and let's look at the jewellery, they make lovely things.'

They all trailed away, and passed an hour looking at the handiwork
displayed, and making various purchases which were to be kept until they
called for them on their way back to the boat.

Shortly after two they again presented themselves at the hotel, and were
admitted to the dining-room. It was a wooden annexe which smelt strongly
of past meals, and was still hot and stuffy from the last, but they
thankfully took their seats at the end of a long table and were each
presented with a heaped plate of ham and eggs. Strong tea, new bread,
and mixed biscuits completed the meal which was eaten with hilarity,
though, towards the end, a note of almost too complete satiety crept in.

'Another biscuit, Barnabas?' Charles suggested.

'No, thank you,' said Barnabas, and added: 'I don't think I'll ever want
anything to eat again.'

'D'you feel like that, too?' said Althea. 'Alastair, please don't begin
chewing toffee. Let's go out and walk. Couldn't we get round to the
other side of the island where there are fewer people?'

'We must see the cathedral,' Lady Jane said, and presently they went out
and looked at it, and were much impressed by its dignified simplicity
and beauty. Then they walked across wide downs, and climbing down to the
shore, found a long stretch of pure white sand, such sand as they had
never imagined, and marvellous green water shading into deep blue. Not a
soul was visible, and with a whoop Spider and the boys dashed across the
tempting whiteness followed by Althea and Charles, while Nicole skimmed
like a sea-bird down to the water's edge.

'Why, John,' Lady Jane said, 'this is fairyland. Leave me to dream.'

John spread the coat he carried on a flat rock.

'Is that all right?' he asked.

'All right, thank you. Go with the others, John. This is the place and
the weather to make us children again....'

Towards four o'clock, as they went reluctantly towards the jetty, it was
found that Spider was lost. The boys went back to look for him, while
the others waited. The crowds were gone now, and the village was sunk in
afternoon peace.

'Just think,' said Nicole, 'how wonderful this must be in winter and
early spring when there are no tourists, no tramp-like people wandering
about demanding ham-and-egg teas, just the white-washed cottages with
their little gardens, and the people who belong. Imagine that bay on a
frosty afternoon with the sun going down behind the islands, and the
green and rose sky meeting the blue-green water, and the shining white
sand. Nothing could be too wonderful to happen.'

The boys came back, hot and dusty, dragging the recovered Spider.

'We found him in the nunnery,' Barnabas announced.

'Disgraceful fellow,' said Charles. 'How did he get in?'

'You don't need to get in,' The Bat explained. 'It was once a nunnery,
now it's only some grey stones and green grass and flowers.'




                              CHAPTER XXIX


                                                     '_Still so cruel?_'
                                      '_Still so constant, lord...._'
                                                          TWELFTH NIGHT.

It was, on the whole, a good week of weather that Lady Jane's guests
spent in the Isle of Mull, and she could not but feel that it had been a
most successful one. The men had had some good sport, and the picnics to
Calgary Sands and other places had been enjoyed by every one; indeed
there had been no weary hours in the house or out.

On the last day of their stay they discussed at breakfast what they
should do.

'What about fishing the top of the loch with Dugald?' Nicole suggested.
'Neither of you has got a salmon yet, you know. And we would meet you at
the empty shepherd's cottage for tea.'

'Will the Empty Shepherd give us tea?' The Bat asked, and was advised by
Barnabas not to be a young idiot.

'It is sad that you must go to-morrow,' Lady Jane said. 'We shall miss
you both dreadfully. You're going home, Charles?'

'Yes. I've got to appear at the Langtoun Horticultural Show, worse luck!
The sorrows of a candidate!'

'Have you much of a chance?' John asked.

'Not an earthly! Labour is very strong, as you can well imagine in what
is largely a mining district.'

'You can't blame them,' Nicole said, 'if they vote for the man who
promises most. The promises are heartening at the moment, and memories
are wonderfully short.'

'I don't blame them,' Charles said, 'who could? It seems to me many a
good man will take a toss at next election. In their hearts the people
respect and trust Mr. Baldwin, but they've had this Government for a
long time, and changes are lightsome. Labour will probably get its
chance, then the wheel will come full circle again--Meantime, I suppose
I must go on grinning at Horticultural Shows!'

'Good man,' said John, 'you're one of the props of the country.'

'It's all very well for you,' grumbled Charles.

The men did as they were bidden and went off with Dugald to the head of
the loch, and at three o'clock the others followed them. Nicole went
with the boys, who were anxious to row her in the boat, while Althea
walked with Lady Jane along the shady path by the side of the loch and
watched their progress.

'They don't row very steadily,' Lady Jane remarked, as she took a long
step over a marshy bit.

'The Bat _will_ stop and argue,' Althea said. 'Odd how damp this place
always is. I expect it's the steepness of the hillsides. Dugald was
telling us that in winter you can't see the loch for flying spindrift.
Rather wonderful it must be. And the caretaker stays in Ardmore entirely
alone! Just imagine that lonely house with its empty rooms, and the wind
howling round it, and that one little old woman sitting in the kitchen.
Can you understand any one being able to stand it?'

Lady Jane was picking her way on boulders over a wide shallow burn. When
she reached the other side, she said: 'I don't think it should be
allowed. Suppose she took ill, it might be days before any one
knew.... I must say I love Ardmore. I shall always look back with
pleasure on this time--And I think our visitors have been happy, don't
you, Althea?... John doesn't say much, but----'

'He does not,' Althea laughed, 'he's just about as conversational as a
post. I asked Charles if he spoke to him when they were out together,
but he rather snubbed me; said it was so like a woman to expect people
always to be talking, and had I never heard of a companionable silence
and so forth.'

'John was a silent small boy,' Lady Jane said; 'I think because he was
so much alone. He liked to come over and play with Nicole: he was like a
kind old Nannie to her and obeyed her slightest command. Ronnie and
Archie adored him, of course. He was a few years older than they were,
and they looked up to him and admired him. They were so keen to get into
his regiment when they were old enough to join up, but that couldn't be
managed.'

She looked across the shining water at the black boat which was going
neither straight nor steady.

'Now I'll sing,' they heard Nicole say, 'and you'll try to row in time.'

            '_Row, brothers, row, the night comes fast,_
            _The rapids are near, and the daylight's past._'

The result of this effort was that the oarsmen became convulsed with
laughter and lay helpless on their oars.

'Sillies!' came Nicole's voice across the water, and undeterred by
failure she again broke into song. '_Oh Shenandoah..._'

'That's a lovely thing,' said Althea humming the words.

'Yes,' Lady Jane agreed, 'but not quite suitable for a West Highland
loch. Ah, that's better,' as the strains of '_Speed, bonnie boat, like a
bird on the wing_' came to them. 'They are speeding a little now.'

Althea leapt on to a boulder and waved her scarf in the air, shouting
encouragement. She made an attractive picture in her tweed skirt and
jumper, with her hair flying; a study in russet and orange that went
well with the September hillside, and Lady Jane watching her realised
what a change had come over the girl. The silent, listless Althea with
the discontented little made-up face was gone. This was a joyful
creature, young-eyed, with freckles on her nose and a healthy tan on her
cheeks. It had come so gradually that she had not consciously noticed
the change. But, looking back some months, and realising how unlikely
then it would have seemed that Althea should ever be interested enough
in anything to laugh and shout, made her see the magnitude of it.

They walked on and Althea said: 'Tell me more about Rutherfurd and your
children--. Were you very happy?'

'Very happy. I think there could have been few happier. We were so
contented to be together, so pleased with our home and with each other,
we envied no man anything. Indeed, perhaps we were a little selfish in
our happiness. I never could bear to have large house-parties. What
would have been the use? Our simple ways would have bored people who
needed a lot of amusing--But we had loads of relatives, who came and
went--you know something of that large clan, and all our neighbours were
our very good friends, people like Jean Douglas at Kingshouse, and
Alison Lockhart, and the Langlands; and there were lots of small
gaieties.... We would probably have had to smarten ourselves up and
entertain in earnest as the boys grew up, but the War was waiting for
them when they left school, and afterwards we never had the heart.'

'Then had Nicole no fun? Didn't she come out like other girls and go to
balls?'

'Oh yes, she came out and was presented by one of my sisters and had a
London season. Then she went out to another aunt in India for a cold
weather. She said she enjoyed it all, but she was glad to get home. Her
father's health began to fail about that time and she didn't leave home
again. He seemed to cling to her.... You will hardly remember the
War, child?'

Althea shook her head. 'Eight can't remember much about things that
happened outside. Nicole would be sixteen when it stopped. Too young to
have the fun, the glory, or whatever it was they got out of working in
the War--nursing, driving a car or what not, but old enough to realise
it. Hard luck!'

Lady Jane said nothing, and they walked in silence through the wood at
the bend of the loch. When they got out into the open again they saw the
two men, with Dugald, the gillie, watching the progress of the boat.

Charles came to meet them, loud in welcome, announcing that they had a
fire made all ready for the kettle.

'We're eaten alive by midges and perishing for tea,' he added.

'Have you caught anything?' Althea asked sternly.

'Dalrymple got a salmon: I only caught a few trifles, but I've drunk
everything drinkable. Why won't they hurry with that boat?'

'Here they are,' Lady Jane said soothingly. 'Be nice to them, for it
must have been hard work for the little boys rowing in this heat.'

When the boat grounded the exhausted mariners threw themselves on the
turf and examined with much self-pity their blistered palms, while
Dugald put the kettle on the fire, and John Dalrymple helped Charles to
lay out the cups and unpack the eatables.

'Listen to Spider panting!' said Nicole. 'You'd think he'd done all the
work. Now I have a right to pant. I sang to cheer the rowers.'

'We heard you,' said Althea. 'We weren't particularly cheered.'

'You didn't need cheering, walking coolly and quietly along while we
laboured----'

'Sandwiches, Lady Jane; tomato, cucumber, banana; which will you have?'
Charles held out a selection on a paper plate and added: 'If the kettle
doesn't boil soon I shall go mad. I'm frothing at the mouth now.'

Alastair studied him anxiously and said: 'You aren't really, but why
don't you drink out of the burn? Tea'll only burn your mouth.'

'Besides,' John pointed out, 'one small kettle won't do much for you, it
has to go round us all, remember.'

'No,' said Charles, looking scornfully at the kettle; 'six
breakfast-cups of scalding tea is what I want.'

'Unrestrained creature!' Althea said, helping herself to a cucumber
sandwich. 'It's odd how one's idea of people change as one gets to know
them better. If you, Charles, had not paid this visit I dare say I'd
have gone on thinking of you as an earnest young politician with his
country's best interests at heart. Now it seems to me your ambition is
to clown.'

Charles groaned in bitterness of spirit, while John Dalrymple remarked,
'You don't seem very popular, my lad,' but Nicole rushed to his defence.

'These young people,' she said, looking scornfully at Althea, 'so
serious about things of no consequence, so fatally flippant about what
really matters, they can't understand that even the greatest must
unbend. The kettle's boiling now, Charles. Make the tea, and we'll fill
it up again for the second cups....'

Tea was nectar, lying there on the flower-starred turf with the cool
lap-lap of the loch at their feet. After every one had eaten their fill,
Barnabas and The Bat finished what was left--even to the lumps of sugar.

They sat on afterwards in the scented warmth, loth to leave.

Barnabas, burrowing his nose into the turf, said: 'I wish I knew all the
names of the things that grow here, like bog-myrtle and bog-asphodels
and meadow-sweet and sundew and bracken and sweet-fern...'

'I'd rather know the names of the birds,' Alastair said. 'Look, Dugald,
there's a heron-crane.'

'Are you sure it's not a "Scotish gull"?' Althea asked.

Alastair rolled his head in an abashed way and every one smiled, for the
night before he had shown them with pride a poem he had composed,
beginning:

                   '_Would I were a Scotish gull_
                   _Flying o'er the Sound of Mull._'

'Never mind, sonnie,' Nicole said, comforting him, 'perhaps Althea can
spell Scottish, but I'm pretty sure she couldn't make any sort of poem.'

Charles rowed Lady Jane and Althea home, the boys stayed to fish with
Dugald until supper-time, and Nicole and John Dalrymple walked round by
the loch side, Spider accompanying them. They walked almost in silence,
and Nicole with some relief in her tone said as they came in sight of
the jetty and the road leading through the little pine-wood to the
house, 'How easy walking is, compared to toiling in a boat; and what a
perfect evening to walk in.'

'Let's walk on,' said John, 'round the moor road to Loch-na-Keal. We've
loads of time.'

Nicole hesitated for a second, then nodded agreement. Spider had been
pursuing thankfully his homeward way--he had had an exhausting day--but
when he saw his chief man friend going on, after one regretful look
towards the good meal that he knew awaited him, he meekly turned and
trotted after him.

'He wouldn't have come for me,' Nicole said, 'you were always the dog's
idol, John.'

'It sounds a lofty destiny!'

'I think it's rather a nice thing to have said about one.... Listen
to those buzzards--mewing like cats.'

John bent down to pat Spider, saying, 'Did the buzzards want a little
black-and-white dog?'

They stood by the shore of the loch and Nicole made a feint of looking
for tiny shells, yellow and white and blue.

'I thought of decorating the lid of a box,' she said, 'as they used to
do long ago. Mother says...' Then she saw her companion's face and
was silent.

'Nicole,' said John, 'I asked you to marry me years ago, nine to be
exact, and you sent me away. I asked you again at Kingshouse in February
and you told me to wait....'

Nicole stood very still, holding her hands tightly together. When she
spoke her voice was so low that he had to stoop to hear it. 'John,' she
said, 'you're more to me than almost anybody in the world, you're my
oldest, dearest friend, so you must know how I hate to hurt you....
Oh, John, _don't look like that_.--I was weak that night at Kingshouse,
the very fact that I didn't know might have shown me I never could; I
was braver and more sincere when I was eighteen and sent you
away--Putting my feelings out of it altogether it would be so unfair to
you.'

John Dalrymple shook his head as he said with a wry smile. 'My dear,
don't worry about that. I'd take you thankfully on any terms. Is
there--I've no right to ask, but is there some one else?'

'No one, John, no one in this world.... D'you mind sitting down? I
want to tell you something....'

They sat down looking into the sunset but seeing nothing of its beauty,
John listening patiently while Nicole spoke, brokenly, with long and
painful pauses.

'...you were away when we left Rutherfurd and went to Kirkmeikle. It
was odd going to a strange place leaving all our friends, the people we
had been brought up amongst, and becoming quite a different sort of
person. Barbara hated it, naturally, and it must have been awful for
Mother, so I had to pretend I liked it. And afterwards, when I got to
know these people and the place, I did like it--without any pretence.
There was a man who had taken rooms in Kirkmeikle to get peace to write
a book, a climber and explorer--Simon Beckett. He had been in the first
Everest Expedition. I think almost the first time we saw each other we
knew--Love is like that, John; you just know without any doubt--but
Simon was rather a speechless person and nothing was said until he was
going away again. Then he told me.... We had only three days
together, John, three days together as engaged people--that's all. But
he's still my Simon.... Death is supposed to loose all ties; but if
you don't want the ties loosened? You don't stop loving people when they
die any more than you stop loving them when they cross the sea--If I
thought there was no life but this, then I dare say I'd be glad to warm
myself at a fire of affection--and yours, John, is so warm and kind--but
I believe that some day I shall go to Simon. Yes, I believe he's waiting
for me just on in front, not wearying, happy in the work he's been given
to do, and when I'm fit I'll go to him.... Perhaps this sounds like
fantastic nonsense... but it keeps me going, and--Oh, John, forgive
me.'

'It's all right, my dear.... I've always loved you and always will,
but there is nothing more to be said. We'd better be getting back.'

He helped her to her feet and they stood for a minute in silence. The
light was beginning to leave the loch and the Greeban Rocks were dark.
Close to the shore there stood a low thatched cottage before which a man
was playing the pipes. A girl stood in the doorway with a baby in her
arms, its tiny head pillowed on her cheek: she tapped her foot to the
beat of the music----

It seemed to Nicole that she would remember every detail of that scene
so long as life lasted.




                              CHAPTER XXX


                    '_But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,_
                    _And thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man's love._'
                                                         AS YOU LIKE IT.

The two men left after breakfast the next morning to catch the steamer
at Craignure.

'It's not much use,' Nicole told them, 'getting on at Salen and
wriggling back and forwards. Better to get your breakfast in comfort,
and you can keep your mind in perfect peace about catching the boat, for
you will see it puffing along beside you most of the way.'

Barnabas said, 'I wonder how the boatmen know when to take out the
ferry-boat to meet it. It's so neat the way they just hit it.'

'Or rather, don't hit it,' said Althea. 'A collision on the high seas
would be tragic.'

'It's beastly that you're going away,' Barnabas went on, 'it spoils
everything.'

'Indeed!' Lady Jane said, 'you will leave a great blank. We shall be
quite glad to leave ourselves, in another week. You'll need a day or two
at home before school begins, boys.'

Groans broke from Barnabas and The Bat, and Charles said: 'Why aren't we
all "Scotish gulls"?'

'It's easy for you,' Barnabas told him, 'you haven't to go back to
school.'

John was standing by the sideboard supping his porridge, and Althea,
regarding him, said:

'I've wanted dreadfully to know, and this is my last opportunity to ask
why do you eat your porridge standing? Does it taste better like that?
Or is it perhaps some sort of rite?'

John laid down his plate and considered.

'I really don't know,' he said, 'I've always done it. Rather absurd when
you come to think of it----' He helped himself to bacon and mushrooms
and took his place at the table.

'Here's your napkin,' said Alastair. 'I used it to kill a wasp--d'you
mind?'

'Disgusting child!' Nicole said, 'why didn't you take your own....
Don't use that, John. I'll ring for another.'

'No, don't trouble. A dead wasp's a harmless thing. Move along, Scotish
Gull, and let me in.... Yes, it's a miserable business having to
leave Ardmore this lovely morning.'

Again Barnabas raised his voice in protest. 'It's all right for you, you
can go anywhere you jolly well please: not like Bat and me.'

'Don't pretend you're not quite happy at school,' Nicole said. 'You know
you'd be very sorry if you heard you weren't going back to Evelyns----'

'Oh well,' Barnabas admitted, 'it's not bad perhaps, as schools go.'

'We all like to grumble,' Lady Jane said cheerfully, 'even if it's only
about a crumpled roseleaf.'

'We'll all get a sight more than that to grumble about before life's
done with us,' Charles prophesied gloomily.

'Yes,' said Barnabas, 'a revolution might come any moment and we'd be
shot in batches.'

'How pleasing!' said Althea.

'I don't believe Aunt Jane'd be shot,' Barnabas went on, 'but you'd be
about the first to go, Althea. You look so dashed condescending, they'd
_enjoy_ shooting you.'

'I wouldn't be shot,' Alastair boasted, ''cos I'd be one of the
revolters.'

'What will you do to-day, Barnabas?' Nicole asked.

'Dunno. Fish probably--can we have our lunch out and poached eggs for
tea? Here's the car. Catch Spider, Bat----'

                 *        *        *        *        *

When the good-byes were said and the car had disappeared from view,
Nicole left Althea outside wrestling with the boys and Spider, and
followed her mother into the drawing-room.

Lady Jane sat down at her writing-table and at once began to write,
while Nicole moved restlessly about the room. She lifted a book, read a
sentence or two, and laid it down, she shifted the things on the
mantelshelf, then she went to the window and stood for a long time
looking out at the road across the field over which the departing car
had gone.

At last she said, twisting the blind cord as she spoke: 'Mother, I'm not
going to marry John.'

Lady Jane's hand paused, poised over her letter. She was surprised at
the blank disappointment that swept over her like a wave. She thought
that she had schooled herself to count on nothing; but the hope had been
there, stronger than she had realised. It would have been so
perfect.... But it was not to be----

'You don't want to get rid of me, do you, Mother?'

The defiant note had gone out of the girl's voice, now it was pleading.

'Oh, my dear, is it likely? But I want you to remember that we can't
always be together.... John could give you so much--and he's such a
good fellow, Nikky.'

'John is everything that's dear, he's everything except--except the
right man.'

'Then there's nothing more to be said.'

'But you understand, don't you, Mums?'

'I understand, darling,' and Lady Jane sighed as she said it.

Nicole laid her head on her mother's lap and sobbed:

'Oh, it's all such a _waste_.... And I feel such a selfish beast
about you, Mother. I know what it would mean to you to have John as a
son----'

After a few minutes she sat up and dried her eyes. 'Well, that being
finished with we must just go on. I'm going for a walk, Mums, a long
walk: don't be surprised if I don't turn up for any lunch. I'll take a
biscuit in my pocket----'

Lady Jane sat on at her writing-table after Nicole left her, but she
wrote no more letters that morning.

                 *        *        *        *        *

When the two girls went up to bed that night Althea followed Nicole into
her room and stood looking out at the loch, and the stars above the dark
shadowy mountains.

'I don't like windows opening out like this,' she said, 'aren't you
afraid of kelpies coming in from the loch?'

Nicole laughed. 'I did think one had got me the other night. I woke to a
perfect tempest; the wind had risen suddenly and that little window over
there had burst open, making a tremendous draught. I couldn't get the
candle to light, and that tall flower-glass on the dressing-table had
been blown over and I heard the water dripping on to my best slippers.
Something had to be done, so I lay under the bed and lit the candle,
then I had to lean out and get hold of the window. I nearly overbalanced
and something caught my arm and seemed to be trying to pull me out--It
was only a spray of honeysuckle, but at the moment it felt very queer
and eerie.'

'Horrid!' said Althea. She was looking at some faded photographs in
battered leather frames that were ranged along the mantelpiece, but she
made no remark about them, and began to speak of Kirkmeikle and the
people there.

Presently she said: 'Lady Walkinshaw will be glad to get Charles back.
She must miss Belinda. It seems she's gone with some friends to the
Dolomites.... How still it seems to-night without men's voices! Men
make such a difference in a house.'

Nicole agreed. She had taken off her dress, wrapped herself in a
pale-blue dressing-gown, and now began to brush her hair vigorously, and
as she brushed she said:

'I'm very fond of Charles Walkinshaw: you're a lucky girl, Althea.'

The girl stared, and gave a short laugh. 'Oh, Charles,' she said airily,
'he's quite amusing to wile away the time with.'

Brush still in hand, Nicole sprang to her feet and faced the astonished
Althea. Her face was white and her eyes blazing as she said: '_You
little fool!_ How dare you speak like that! Don't you know that you may
be throwing away the best thing life has to offer you. Don't throw it
away; you may never get the chance to pick it up again.' She turned and
sat down again at the dressing-table. 'I beg your pardon, Althea, I
don't know what made me break out like that.'

Althea moved to the door, looking somewhat shaken.

'Anyway,' she said, laughing rather uncertainly, 'I've seen you really
angry and that's something.'




                              CHAPTER XXXI


    '_...Some have greatness thrust upon them._'

                                                      TWELFTH NIGHT.

October again in the Harbour House!

Nicole had taken the two boys back to school, and had spent a few days
in London, seeing friends and plays, and buying clothes; and now she and
her mother and Althea had settled down for another winter.

They were in the drawing-room late one afternoon, Lady Jane trying the
embroidery, which she had just finished, on the seat of an old chair,
and admiring the result.

'It does look rather nice, don't you think, Nikky? I almost think I'll
do a piece for that other chair as well.'

'But it's such a big undertaking, Mums!'

Lady Jane smiled. 'It keeps my hands occupied, my dear--Where is
Althea?'

'Golfing, I think. She's getting quite keen on the game.'

Nicole took up two letters which had come for her by the afternoon post
from Mrs. Jackson and Barbara.

She opened first Mrs. Jackson's, which showed signs of having been
written in haste; the writing ran about unevenly, and there was a
breathless look about the undotted i's and the unstroked t's. She read
aloud:

    'MY DEAR MISS NICOLE,--What do you think, Father's to get his
    Knighthood after all! I was a wee bit afraid it wasn't coming
    off, and thankful I was I hadn't said a whisper to a soul except
    you. But we heard to-day that it's all right. It will be
    announced when the scheme Father has helped such a lot with is
    completed. I can hardly believe it. I've pictured it to myself
    so often you'd think I'd be used to the idea by this time, but
    now that it's come I'm fair knocked out. Sir Andrew and Lady
    Jackson, I get quite red in the face when I think of it.
    Father'll carry it off well, he has a lot of natural dignity,
    but I doubt I'll give myself away many a time. But what does it
    matter? There's many a queer ladyship going about in these days!
    Anyway it'll add a great interest to life--What a queer thing
    human nature is! No sooner do you reach what seemed an
    impossible goal than you look beyond it--I'm just thinking if it
    had been a baronetcy wee Andrew would have been Sir Andrew
    Jackson of Rutherfurd.'

Nicole stopped to remark, 'The gods will destroy Mrs. Jackson: to reach
an almost impossible goal and to look beyond is impious....'

    'Well, there it is. I want you and your dear mother to know the
    very first. It ought to be in the papers about the beginning of
    November. I just hope people won't laugh, but I expect they
    will. I sometimes feel like laughing myself when I think of
    it.... You might ask your mother if I should be presented at
    Court, and I would be much obliged for a few hints on behaviour.
    I can ask you what I can't ask any other body.'

'I'm very glad,' Lady Jane said, then, wonderingly, 'but imagine wanting
to be a knight.'

'Oh, I don't know, there's a great thrill about it. It's really terribly
nice for Mrs. Jackson--she will so thoroughly enjoy it all.... Have
you any hints to give her?'

'I shouldn't think so, but I must send her my congratulations. I'll
address an envelope now. My memory's so bad I'll forget otherwise.--Any
other letters?'

'One from Barbara,' Nicole said, but she did not read this letter aloud.
It was brisk and complacent.

    'DEAREST NICOLE,--I've been meaning to write for ages, but
    really my life seems to get fuller every day. They have elected
    me President of the Nursing Association which, of course, means
    a lot of work, but I am glad to do it, for I feel it is most
    important. Lady Langlands, dear soul, was not very efficient,
    and it was high time new blood was introduced. I had some
    difficulty at first with the executive--several old members
    resigned--but now everything is working smoothly and they are
    all in my pocket. All except Jean Douglas and Alison Lockhart. I
    fear they will try and thwart me in my attempts to reconstruct.
    I do dislike Alison Lockhart with her twisted smile and caustic
    way of speaking! I thought her ageing fast the last time I saw
    her. I've got my friend Mrs. Brunton on to the executive. She is
    so practical and sensible, and, of course, she'll back me up
    always. I've also been put on the committee of the County Appeal
    for Cripple Children. I simply _had_ to accept for, as they
    said, who was better fitted to plead for their cause than a
    young mother. My dear, the boy is _too_ beautiful, _so_ large
    and placid. He can stand by himself, but I don't encourage him
    to try to walk for he is a heavy fellow and we must keep his
    legs straight--Did I tell you that on his first birthday Andy
    gave me a second string of lovely pearls? It was _rather_ sweet
    of him, wasn't it? And I liked the idea of giving it to me on
    the boy's birthday. Andy is, like me, very busy--County Councils
    and Education and things, indeed I was telling him the other
    night we saw very little of each other, for he has often to give
    up the evening and sit late over papers.

    'We are looking forward to quite a cheery winter. Tilly
    Kilpatrick has a young cousin with her--such a pretty girl. We
    dined with them the other night to meet her. John Dalrymple was
    there and seemed, for him, quite impressed. I shouldn't wonder
    if that was Tilly's idea in having the girl here. It would be an
    excellent "down-setting" for her, and nice for the neighbourhood
    to have a mistress at Newby Place.'

Lady Jane looked up and asked if Barbara had any news.

'Oh, nothing much. She seems very well pleased with life. The boy
continues to flourish, and she has been made President of the Nursing,
and other blushing honours----'

Presently Lady Jane folded up her work and went out of the room, and
Nicole sat on in the window-seat looking out. The days were drawing in,
it was grey dusk now, and the lamps were lit outside; she could see them
all along the coast. The ships in the Harbour looked ghostly, and the
sea was a whispering shadow----

The door opened and Althea came in. She looked round the firelit room,
and seeing Nicole in the window, crossed to her.

Her tight-fitting cap framed a face flushed with fresh air and exercise,
her curls were beaded with mist.

'You smell of fresh air and sea-mist,' Nicole said. 'Have you been all
this time on the links?'

'More or less.' She sat down in the arm-chair. 'Where's Aunt Jane?' she
asked.

'Gone up to her room--did you want her?'

'No. It's you I want. I've got something to tell you, and I don't know
how to say it--It's about Charles.'

'My dear--you needn't say it. I _am_ glad. That's the best news I've
heard for many a day. I'd hug you if I didn't know you hated that sort
of thing.'

'Well,' Althea said soberly, 'I'm glad you're pleased, and if it turns
out a failure you're largely to blame. Oh yes, you are. Don't you
remember your winged words in the Isle of Mull when you thought I was
treating Charles lightly?'

'As if you cared anything for my remarks!'

'As a matter of fact, I do.' Althea looked gravely at Nicole's amused,
sceptical face as she sat half-turned towards her. 'It's a year now
since I came to the Harbour House, and when I realise how I looked on
things then and how I look on them now, well--I suppose it's partly the
atmosphere of the place and partly Aunt Jane, but it's mostly you.'

The girl folded her lips together as if, looking back a year, she
remembered bitter things.

Presently she went on: 'I must have seemed a little beast. I meant to be
one so that you'd get rid of me at the first opportunity. You see--but
of course you don't see, how could you? brought up in a real home with
the sort of mother you've got, and a father and brothers, all of you
loving each other frightfully, all happy together--I'm not saying it by
way of excuse, but I never knew what a home meant until I came
here.... I don't think I could have been an attractive child--I saw
too much. I resented being caressed in public and neglected the rest of
the time. It's awful to be the child of divorced people, something to be
fought over, a nuisance to be got rid of. If they had sent me to a good
school and let me remain there, but my parents kept quarrelling about
that, and I was always being removed. Sometimes my mother would use me
as a chaperon, and I stayed with her in Paris and Monte Carlo. I
heartily disliked my mother.... It wasn't so bad being with my
father, at least he was always good-natured and pleasant.... When
they died, as you know, Blanchie took me, wept over me, introduced me to
the world as "poor Sybil's child," and waited for me to develop evil
tendencies. Naturally I did, at least I defied her and went my own way,
and made friends with the wrong set, and was attracted by one of the
least worthy of that set. I knew he was no good--though I was only
eighteen life had taught me quite a few things--but he had endearing
ways, and--Oh well, it doesn't matter now. Aunt Blanchie cried and said
what was to be expected from my father's daughter, then she took to bed
and thought of the brilliant plan of planting me on you, while she went
to sun herself in Egypt. I was furious, not only because I hated being
banished, but because I knew that no one, least of all the man I was
silly enough to care about, would give a thought to me once I was gone.
Also--I didn't like what I'd heard of you.'

'So,' said Nicole.

'Yes. Blanchie was always talking in her fulsome way about her dear
sister-in-law Jane Rutherfurd--so sweet, so good, so unselfish. And she
talked _at_ me about her niece Nicole. "My dear, such a refreshing
change from the girl of to-day: so full of charm; so _good_ to her
mother; so gay and yet so really _deep_, you know."'

Nicole laughed appreciatively as her aunt's tones were faithfully
reproduced, and said, 'Well, and you found it all true, didn't you?'

Not heeding her Althea went on: 'I thought I knew exactly what you'd be
like. Bright. I hate bright people, they take the life out of everything
by their determination to find sparkle in dull things, and when I came
here I thought you were like that. Your appreciation of Kirkmeikle, of
the people--Mrs. Heggie and her like, seemed to me an affectation. And
your sympathy and kindliness. Then we went to Rutherfurd, and Barbara
talked, and I realised that your content had been hard won, that life
hadn't been all fair going for you, that your tolerance, your
tenderness, wasn't mere sentimentality. I found that you really were
pitiful--_pity full_.... I'm telling you this by way of asking your
pardon, of saying thank you. You and your mother have given me my
chance. You took me in and behaved as if I were a welcome and desired
guest, even my appalling behaviour didn't put you off, and now, well, it
sounds a sloppy sort of thing to say, but I think I know what a ship
feels when it reaches harbour, after just escaping being wrecked.'

The girl turned to the end window and stood looking out into the
gathering darkness. In a minute or two she came back to Nicole.

'That's all about me,' she said, 'but what about poor old Charles? What
sort of bargain is he getting?'

Nicole held out her hand and took Althea's. 'A very good bargain.
Charles is a lucky man. He deserves a good wife and he's getting one.
For goodness' sake, don't get an inferiority complex. You haven't had
the life or the upbringing of the ordinary girl, but your experience
will make you a much more interesting, understanding companion.'

'I wonder,' said Althea.

'Of course it will. You've learned to hate crookedness, so you care more
about straightness than most people; you've seen the selfishness of sin
and you value goodness; having known cruelty you prize kindness. And
it's frightful luck for Lady Walkinshaw getting you for a
daughter-in-law. You will make life altogether a different thing for
her--Let's go and tell Mother.'




                             CHAPTER XXXII


    '_So they were married and lived happy ever after and never
    drank out of an empty cup._'

                                 THE ENDING OF ALL TRUE FAIRY TALES.

The news of Althea's engagement made a loud splash in the quiet pool of
Kirkmeikle society. It flung Mrs. Heggie into a tumult of sympathetic
excitement, and she drove her daughter to the verge of distraction by
her sentimental outpourings on the subject.

'But you never liked the girl,' Joan reminded her.

'No...' Mrs. Heggie admitted, 'she seemed distant and hard, but Love
is the great softener.'

Joan closed her eyes in a sickened way. 'It sounds,' she said, 'like
bath-salts! It amazes me how the average woman can gush to any time over
engagements and babies.'

'Well, I'm sure, it's a harmless pleasure. And there is something very
touching somehow about Love's Young Dream: the mutual trust and the
confident happiness, when there's never really any saying what will
happen.' She shook her head. 'I'm sure, Joan, as a poet, you shouldn't
belittle love.'

Joan laughed in an unamused way. 'Goodness knows I've no desire to do
such a thing. It's the old imperious "god of the fatal bow," even where
it seems most placid and respectable. I dare say this Gort girl isn't
bad at heart--how she'd hate to hear me say it!--and young Walkinshaw is
quite a likeable creature. They'll have a jolly time together, if the
girl has the sense to take an interest in what interests him.'

'I hope,' said Mrs. Heggie, 'that she'll take an interest in poor Lady
Walkinshaw! She must be a great sufferer, and so uncomplaining.... It
matters so much to her to have a sympathetic daughter-in-law.... I
hope she'll be a sunbeam in the house.'

Althea refused utterly to listen to her aunt's advice about having the
wedding in London, and read aloud with malicious pleasure that lady's
outpourings on the subject.

'"Of course, darling, the wedding will have to be at St. Margaret's, and
where would the reception be but in _this_ house?--My dear sister's only
child! The young man sounds all that is _suitable and nice_, and I am
glad he is Scotch, for I always feel that there is something rather
particularly steady about Scotchmen--perhaps because their manners
aren't always very good. I think you should have at _least_ six
bridesmaids, and Betty's babies would make darling pages with their
curls, in pale yellow satin Georgian suits, and perhaps two _tiny_ girls
in dresses to the ground and blue ribbon sashes. But we can discuss
_all_ that when you come. Do wire when I may expect you, there is _so_
much we must talk over if the wedding has to be soon, and I hear the
young man is most _suitably_ impatient...."'

'Well,' said Nicole, 'is that how it is to be done?'

'It is not.' Althea's tone was very decided. 'Nothing would induce me to
have a London wedding, and Charles hates the idea as much as I do. We've
made up our minds to be married in Mr. Lambert's church without any
fuss, at least as little as possible. Of course Aunt Blanchie must be
invited, but I think you'll find she will be prevented at the last
minute from coming. She loves a _tamasha_ if she may arrange it all
herself, but she wouldn't discompose herself so far as to come to Fife
to see me married. But that won't matter, for all the people I care for
will be there.'

What was perfectly obvious was that there was no point in delay: Charles
wanted his wife, Lady Walkinshaw wanted her daughter-in-law, and it was
decided that the wedding would take place in the second week of
November.

'And where will you honeymoon?' Tibbie Erskine asked. 'It's too early
for Switzerland, so I don't know what you could do. Vera said it was
such a blessing to have something to do on a honeymoon. She went to the
Lido, so that was all right; where you bathe and bask and watch people
you can't be bored.'

'We're going to Paris,' Althea said, 'to be trippers. Charles is keen on
French history, and we're going to spend a fortnight pyking about in old
Paris. And we want to see some cathedrals that we're particularly fond
of. Amiens and Rheims and Chartres--above all, Chartres. Then we're
coming back to Kinogle for the winter--also for the spring and the
summer and the autumn, and so on for ever and ever. At least I hope so.'

'My dear,' said Tibbie solemnly, her eyes round with surprise. 'You
_mustn't_ give in to Charles like that. You'll be simply bored to death
shut up at Kinogle with poor Lady Walkinshaw. Charles is a dear, but
he's got a simply merciless sense of duty--he'll drag you round the
district doing political things, if you're not careful.'

Althea laughed, and it was a happy little laugh, as she said: 'Does it
sound so appalling to you, Tibbie? To me it sounds quite attractive.'

'Oh, well----' Tibbie shrugged her shoulders.

It was a busy, bustling time in the Harbour House, and a happy time,
because no one was sad or sorry about the wedding; no one was being left
behind. Charles would take his bride to Kinogle, where Lady Walkinshaw
was looking forward eagerly to having a daughter.

'I want one for keeps,' she told Nicole. 'Belinda's a darling, but she
belongs elsewhere.'

(As a matter of fact Belinda was taking her curls and her smile and her
merry blue eyes to India. She was joining her parents there, after the
wedding was over.)

'Althea and I shall get on well, I think. I may not always approve, but
I shan't say a word. If a roast fowl is tough, I hope I'll be given
grace to keep from saying "Don't you think it would have been better
boiled?"--and that sort of thing. Althea is a capable young woman, and
she will take charge. It'll be a tremendous interest to have her, and I
shall be so grateful, not only for myself but for my old Jim who is far
too much tied to an ailing wife. Of course I won't for a moment expect
the child to shut herself up here with me. I don't want to build on it,
but if Charles does get into Parliament they will be a lot in London,
and that will make a full, busy life for both of them--How are the
preparations going? Althea came over yesterday and described all her
dresses. After she was gone I was thinking over things, and I wondered
if I might suggest something. I expect you are having a show of the
presents--could we have it here? We have lots of room, and it would be a
way of entertaining all the people who can't be asked to the wedding.'

'But are you able for it? Wouldn't the fuss and arranging be a
nuisance?'

'I'd enjoy it,' Lady Walkinshaw said with conviction. 'I can't go to the
wedding very well, and this would make me feel less out of it. And then
think what fun for me to meet all the people you've told me about--Mrs.
Heggie, and the Lamberts, and Dr. Kilgour.'

'I think it's a lovely idea,' said Nicole. 'How pleased Mrs. Heggie will
be!--Oh, and I'd like you to meet my friend Mrs. Jackson, I don't
believe she'd think twice about motoring from Glasgow for such an
occasion.... May I ask her?'

'Ask anybody and everybody. What fun to give a party again! I don't
believe my day is quite done after all!'

                 *        *        *        *        *

The party at Kinogle came off two days before the wedding and was such a
success that Althea said to Charles as they sat with Lady Walkinshaw
after the guests had departed:

'Our little show the day after to-morrow will be a mere anti-climax!'

It was a real house-warming. Cars and charabancs blocked the drive, for
the company was large and very varied, Charles having friends in every
walk of life. There was a band and a sumptuous tea, and the display of
wedding-presents was more interesting than such shows generally are, for
the presents were as varied as the company.

Nicole took care that Mrs. Heggie was shown all over the house, and
enjoyed a ten minutes' talk with her hostess. Her other friend, Mrs.
Jackson, had accepted the invitation with alacrity, and arrived in her
car at the Harbour House on the day of the party in time for luncheon.

Her first words were: 'Have you seen the papers? No? Well, _it's in
it_.'

Nicole, after a moment's bewilderment, leapt to it. '_Lady_ Jackson,'
she cried, and kissed her old friend heartily.

Her new ladyship swallowed hard, and said: 'Oh, well--there it is. Let's
hope we won't disgrace it.... Yes, Lady Jane, thanks, I'm very well.
Uch no, it's nothing at all to motor from Glasgow, I enjoyed it fine.
Yes, we've good news from Rutherfurd; Andy writes to me about every day.
Wee Andrew's coming on well--I wonder what they're thinking to-day when
they open the paper... _Sir Andrew Jackson_. Doesn't it sound
well?--And here's the bride. I must say, Miss Gort, happiness becomes
you, you look a different girl. Stouter, too. I remember thinking when I
saw you at Rutherfurd you were awful thin.'

'She's wearing one of her trousseau frocks,' Nicole pointed out. 'Don't
you think it's very successful?'

'Lovely! So simple and yet such a style about it.'

Lady Jackson was so appreciative that Althea offered to take her
upstairs after luncheon and show her the rest of her things.

'They're all lying ready to be packed,' she said. 'All the presents have
gone to Kinogle, so an empty room could be spared for clothes. I think
the wedding-dress is rather nice....'

'We must start punctually,' Lady Jane warned them, 'and be there not
later than three. How are we going, Nikky?'

'Well, I wondered if Mrs. Jackson--let me call you that for
to-day--would take us in her so large and comfortable car?'

'I should think so indeed,' was the hearty response. 'You just tell the
chauffeur when you want him--and I'm not in any hurry home, for Father's
had to run up to London to-night.'

At a quarter to three Effie came into the drawing-room and announced
very distinctly in her demure voice:

'Lady Jackson's car.'

The visitor started, as if for the moment she had forgotten her
elevation, then she looked round at her companions, and a broad
gratified smile spread itself slowly over her face.

'Lady Jackson,' she said. 'Fancy!'

                 *        *        *        *        *

The wedding itself was quiet and very simple. Althea had wanted to be
married in her going-away things, but at Lady Jane's special desire she
wore a bridal dress of white, soft thick satin that fell in folds to her
feet. Belinda followed her as bridesmaid in a dress as golden as her
curls.

The little church was bright with chrysanthemums sent from Kinogle and
Windywalls; Mrs. Lambert herself played the organ, and Mr. Lambert
hardly stammered at all as he said a few wise simple words to the young
couple.

After the ceremony they drove straight out to Kinogle to Lady
Walkinshaw, and later in the afternoon set off for their honeymoon like
two happy children.

                 *        *        *        *        *

There is always a flatness after excitement, like the dullness of the
thaw after sparkling frost, and Nicole was conscious of a certain
dreariness as she followed her mother to the drawing-room after dinner
on the day of the wedding. But as she saw the bright fire Effie had put
on, the chairs drawn invitingly up before it, and Spider on the rug with
an absurd bow of ribbon fastened to his collar, her spirits lightened.
The room was delicately gay with fresh chintzes, and filled with the
spicy smell of chrysanthemums; new books and papers were everywhere; a
'woman's litter of significant souvenirs' lay about, relics that had
memories.

Lady Jane gave a little thankful sigh as she settled down with her work.

They talked of the wedding--'Did you see Mrs. Brodie?' Nicole asked,
'sitting at the back, glowering? She is very suspicious of the ways of
"the gentry," and only lent her countenance on this occasion because she
believes in you--. We must take some bridescake for "the wee horse" and
the others. Which reminds me, Alastair and Barnabas will be eagerly
awaiting a large consignment! I'll pack it to-morrow--Don't you miss old
Betsy at this time, Mums? She would have had something amusing to say.'

'Yes,' Lady Jane said, 'I miss Betsy greatly. When I pass the Watery
Wynd there's always a pang at the thought of the shut door....
Nicole, I wish Blanchie had made an effort to come. I'm afraid the child
was hurt, though she said it was what she had expected.'

Nicole shook her head. 'I don't think anything could really have hurt
Althea to-day: she was wrapped round in happiness. As for Charles!--I
rather think, Mother, that marriage will be one of the stars in your
crown. It seems to me pretty well ideal, and it was you that made it.
You brought Althea here--against my will, let it be remembered!--and as
she says herself, you gave her a chance. I don't know what would have
been the end of her if she'd been left to Blanchie.'

'It makes me happy that you think so. So often when one tries to help
one only makes a mess of things. She did look charming to-day coming
down the aisle of the little church to Charles.'

'Oh, _didn't_ she? Mrs. Heggie was weeping with sentimental pleasure.
What a thrill that decent woman gets out of a wedding!'

'Nikky, I'm afraid you will miss Althea dreadfully!'

Nicole was sitting on the fender-stool with a large box of chocolates in
her lap. She picked out a hard one and bit it as she said cheerfully,
'Why, no, Mums. She's going to be so near. It will be fun having her
come in and out--I was glad Joan Heggie came to the wedding. I'm going
to try to be a lot nicer to her than I've been; there are heaps of
things I could do to make life pleasanter for her. And Esm Jameson,
Mother. I think to-day brought things back to her. As Charles watched
Althea come up the aisle I suddenly got a glimpse of her face....
Perhaps it's rather impertinent to want to be kind to people, but there
are a lot of women in the world who need comforting--Why, Mums, you're
beginning a new bit of work!'

'Yes,' Lady Jane said, looking at her array of bright-coloured silks and
wools, 'and like Mrs. Heggie and a wedding, I get quite a thrill out of
it.'

Nicole nodded. 'I know. I'm beginning to read right through Sir Walter,
and I'm getting a thrill out of that--Why, Spider, my patient dear, are
you still wearing that absurd bow! Althea insisted on tying it on--Did
you ever see anything more incongruous than his little sober
black-and-white face and that garish ribbon! Lend me your scissors,
Mums; it's got knotted.'

Spider lay down again on the rug and fell asleep; the flames purred,
licking at the logs; Nicole sat with the box of chocolates on her knee,
thinking.

Presently she looked up at her mother and said with a little laugh: 'A
new bit of work, old books to read--small things, Mother!'

Lady Jane smiled at her daughter.

'Small things, my Nikky, but certainly not to be despised.'




                             CHAPTER XXXIII


                                   '_A great while ago the world begun,_
                                  _With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,_
                                 _But that's all one, our play is done,_
                            _And we'll strive to please you every day._'
                                                          TWELFTH NIGHT.

Jean Douglas stood at a window in her boudoir and looked out at the
November landscape.

'The leaves will soon all be down,' she said to her husband who was
standing behind her filling his pipe.

'And a good thing too! A day or two of high wind after this frost, and
there would be some use in tidying the place. It's labour lost just
now.--I see an account in _The Scotsman_ of Miss Gort's wedding. That's
a sound stroke of business: clever of Lady Jane to bring it off!'

'Tom!' said his wife, 'you've a low common mind, and you know I don't
like you to smoke a pipe in this room----'

'Oh, all right: I'm just going out----'

Jean Douglas stood twisting the cord of the blind.

'Funny that John Dalrymple has never been to see us. The last time he
was here was in September, before he went to Mull to stay with the
Rutherfurds. He was going to pay other visits after that, but he's sure
to be back long ago.'

'Oh yes, he's back. I saw him yesterday. He sent a message to you, by
the way. By Jove, I forgot that! He's going away again. You know he had
some job, I never quite knew what, but he gave it up a year ago and
meant to settle at home. Well, it seems they want him to come back, so
he thinks he'll let Newby Place on a long lease.... I know. I told
him it seemed a pity just when he'd got settled down and was taking an
interest; but John's obstinate, always was.'

'This is Nicole's work,' Jean Douglas said.

'Eh? Did he want Nicole? That's a pity, now.'

'A pity! I'm _bitterly_ disappointed.'

'Still,' Tom Douglas puffed his forbidden pipe, 'you can't expect people
to marry to oblige you. I suppose Nicole had her reasons, didn't care
for him or something.'

'If she'd any sense she would care for him. Men like John Dalrymple
aren't to be picked up every day.'

'My dear Jean, I don't think you're quite fair to----'

His wife whirled round on him. 'Of course I'm not fair. I'm far too
sorry for John to be fair to Nicole.'

Tom Douglas looked bewildered. 'I can't see that it matters as much as
all that. I'm sorry John is leaving the neighbourhood, but, after all,
we did without him before. He's going back to a job that interests him,
and if he wants to marry there are girls in plenty. I like Nicole: it
would have been pleasant to have had her at Newby, but seeing it's not
to be, why worry?'

'Thomas!' said his wife, 'you're a philosopher, but don't stay out in
the damp or you will get a bout of sciatica, and then there will be
precious little philosophy in you. And I warn you that my temper is very
brittle.--Bless me, is that the time! I must hurry and dress. I promised
to go to tea at Rutherfurd....'

As the car was going through the Kingshouse gates Alison Lockhart
appeared on foot, explaining that she was on her way to call at the
house.

'And I'm on my way to Rutherfurd,' Jean Douglas told her, 'invited there
at four-thirty; dressed, as you see, in my best.'

'I'd better go with you, uninvited and in a woollen scarf. I dare say
Barbara will give me a cup of tea though I did help to thwart her the
other day at the Nursing.'

'Jump in, then,' Jean said, and when they were comfortably settled under
the fur rug, and the chauffeur had resumed his seat, she added, 'I'm
really quite glad of your company, for my thoughts are no pleasure to
me.'

Alison Lockhart looked at her friend enquiringly.

'Tom has just told me that John Dalrymple is going away, taking on his
old job, and means to let Newby on a long lease. Of course you know what
that means?'

'I suppose that Nicole has turned him down--Poor Jean! And you were so
hopeful. These best-laid schemes... Well, I suppose that finishes
it--the Rutherfurds will never be back now. You haven't seen John?'

'No. I think he might have come to see me instead of sending a message
by Tom. After all, I've known him all his life.'

'And he knows you!' said Alison. 'I expect he didn't want to hear Nicole
criticised even by you--I see the Gort girl is married.'

'Oh, that's come off all right. I might have known from Nicole's letters
that this is what had happened, not that she has said anything, but
there was an undernote of apology in them--No, the Rutherfurds will
never be back now. And we must endure the sight of Barbara queening
it--Here we are. Pray Heaven I hold on to my manners!'

They had tea in the hall (after Alison Lockhart had apologised for her
presence and her woollen scarf), and even the most prejudiced person
would have admitted that it was a charming setting for a most personable
young couple. Andy said little, as was his wont, though when his wife
laughed about the knighthood bestowed upon his father he spoke with some
vigour, declaring he was proud of it. Barbara herself was in high
spirits, and full of talk about what she meant to do.

'This hall now,' she said: 'don't you think it's tremendously improved?
Mr. Hibbert-Whitson did it--such _wonderful_ taste. I'm determined that
some day he will do the drawing-room, but Andy is _so_ obstinate--' She
looked across at her husband, pouting a little, prettily.

Jean Douglas's blue eyes flashed. 'But it would be sheer sacrilege,' she
said. 'Who is this Hibbert-Whitson that he should be allowed to lay
hands on the Rutherfurd drawing-room?'

'It was always a place of enchantment,' Alison Lockhart remarked
soothingly. 'I can remember how even as a child it laid its spell on me.
You wouldn't change it, Barbara.'

'Oh,' said Barbara, 'it isn't that I don't appreciate the beauty of the
room; it's because I do that I want it made quite perfect.'

'And I,' said Andy, 'want it to remain as it is.'

'So now we know,' his wife laughed. '...Won't anybody have something
more to eat? No more tea?--The cigarettes, Andy.'

'Let's go into the drawing-room,' Andy suggested. 'We haven't been
sitting there lately, I don't know why.'

'We use it when we've people staying,' Barbara said, as she led the way.
'There's something a little eerie about it unless it's well peopled.'

It seemed to Alison Lockhart that as she entered the allurement enfolded
her. She noticed how, by some queer trick of perspective, the room
seemed to slope down towards each end as if the roof were a shallow arch
so that the fireplace became the centre and shrine of it. It was the
picture framed in the panelling above it that gave the room its peculiar
quality, the picture of Elizabeth of Bohemia, called the Queen of
Hearts.

As if drawn by an unseen hand they all gathered round the picture, and
the eyes of the Queen of Hearts looked down on them, not commanding,
rather beguiling.

Jean Douglas said softly, half to herself: 'Do you remember how Nicole
used to kneel on this stool and repeat Wotton's lines,

                '"You meaner beauties of the night,
                  That poorly satisfy our eyes...
                You common people of the skies,
                  What are you when the moon shall rise?"'

'Yes,' said Andy.

'Why,' said Barbara, 'you didn't know Nicole when she was a child, Andy,
how could you remember?'

'I couldn't, of course.'

'Well,' said Barbara, looking round, 'you see what I mean about the
room--. This would all remain as it is, of course (that picture looks as
if it needed cleaning), but Mr. Hibbert-Whitson thinks...'

But what that gentleman thought was obviously of no interest to her
companions in spite of the polite attention they gave her, and Barbara
dropped the subject, and seating herself on one of the old settees
covered with faded Mortlake brocade, began a sprightly conversation
about the doings of her neighbours.

Several matters were touched on, then she said: 'And Tilly Kilpatrick's
giving a dance in December. It's for her pretty young cousin, Betty
Beauchamp, who has been so much with her. There's a rumour that she may
remain in this countryside--at Newby Place.'

'Probably spread by Tilly herself,' said Jean Douglas dryly. 'Why, John
Dalrymple has belonged to Nicole since they were children.'

'But when a man is given no encouragement,' Barbara insisted, 'you can't
blame him if he goes elsewhere.... And Betty is _very_ young and
_very_ pretty.'

'Well,' said Alison Lockhart, 'I for one don't believe it. Loving Nicole
is a whole-time job; something to lose youth for, to occupy age--' She
stopped suddenly, looking rather startled, and asked: 'Did I say that
myself?'

'Not quite,' said Andy, smiling. 'At least Robert Browning once said
something rather like it. But, anyway, I don't think there's any truth
in the rumour, for Dalrymple tells me he's letting Newby Place on a long
lease.'

'_Oh!_' said Barbara, evidently thinking rapidly. 'Well--that may be
rather a good thing if pleasant people take it. We do need some fresh
blood in the county, and I must say I welcome changes.... I had a
letter to-day from Aunt Jane describing Althea Gort's wedding. It seems
to have been quite charming, and Nicole had taken no end of trouble. She
is so good at that sort of thing. It looks as if Providence had cast her
for the rle of maiden aunt.'

She laughed as she said it, and Jean Douglas moved quickly away to the
fireplace, that no one might see the hurt, angry tears that sprang to
her eyes.

A maiden aunt, Nicole--while meaner beauties...! Half-remembered
words came to her mind.... _There was a lady once, 'tis an old story,
who would not be a queen, that would she not, for all the mud in Egypt._

Realising that some one was beside her, she turned and found herself
looking into Andy Jackson's eyes. He understood, she saw that.

Together they looked up at the pictured face above them, and Jean said:
'I wonder what she thought of life! She suffered, you can see that from
her mouth, but I dare say she found things to make up.'

Andy nodded.

'Life,' said Jean, 'is full of compensations.'

Just then the door opened, and the nurse came in carrying the heir of
Rutherfurd.

Barbara ran forward, prettily eager, and came back with him in her arms.

'Isn't he a great fellow?' she cried with pride.

The child, seeing his favourite playmate, held out his arms, and when
Andy had taken him, he laid his fat, pink cheek lovingly against his
father's lean brown one.

'Good little chap,' said Andy. 'Kind little chap.'

To Jean's annoyance tears again forced themselves to her eyes, while
Alison Lockhart, turning to Barbara, said with a bright, congratulatory
smile:

'How _like_ the child is to his grandmother!'






[End of The Day of Small Things, by Anna Buchan (O. Douglas)]
