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Title: The Proper Place
Author: Buchan, Anna Masterton [Douglas, O.] (1877-1948)
Date of first publication: 1926
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Hodder and Stoughton, undated
   [possibly the first edition]
Date first posted: 28 October 2016
Date last updated: 28 October 2016
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1369

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 Proper Place_

                                  _By_
                              _O. Douglas_




                     _TO ISABELLA CREE, MY FRIEND_




It was a wonderful flute! A note was heard all over the mansion, in the
garden, and in the forest, for many miles into the country, and with the
sound came a storm that roared, "Everything in its proper place!" And
then the baron flew, just as if he were carried by the wind, right out
of the mansion and straight into the herdsman's cottage. But in the
dining-room the young baroness flew to the upper end of the table, and
the tutor got the seat next to her, and there the two sat as if they
were a newly-married couple. An old count, one of the oldest families in
the county, remained undisturbed in his seat of honour... a rich
merchant and his family who were driving in a coach and four were blown
right out of the coach, and could not even find a place behind it, two
rich farmers who had grown too rich to look after their fields were
blown into the ditch. It was a dangerous flute!

Fortunately it burst at the first note, and that was a good thing; it
was put back in the player's pocket again, and everything was in its
proper place.

                                                         HANS ANDERSEN.




                               CHAPTER I


                "This young gentlewoman had a father
                --O, that 'had' how sad a passage 'tis."

                                           _All's Well that Ends Well._

"How many bedrooms does that make?"

Mrs. Jackson asked the question in a somewhat weary tone. Since her
husband had decided, two months ago, that what they wanted was a
country-house, she had inspected nine, and was frankly sick of her task.

The girl she addressed, Nicole Rutherfurd, was standing looking out of
the window. She turned at the question and "I beg your pardon," she
said, "how many bedrooms? There are twelve quite large ones, and eight
smaller ones."

They were standing in one of the bedrooms, and Nicole felt that never
had she realised how shabby it was until she saw Mrs. Jackson glance
round it. That lady said nothing, but Nicole believed that in her mind's
eye she was seeing it richly furnished in rose-pink. Gone the faded
carpet and washed-out chintzes; instead there would be a thick velvet
carpet, pink silk curtains, the newest and best of bedroom suites, a
rose-pink satin quilt on the bed. In one of Hans Andersen's tales he
tells how, at a dinner-party, one of the guests blew on a flute made
from a willow in the ditch, and behold, every one was immediately wafted
to his or her proper place. "Everything in its proper place," sang the
flute, and the bumptious host flew into the herdsman's cottage--you know
the story? Nicole thought of it now as she looked at the lady, who might
reign in her mother's stead at Rutherfurd.

She was a stout woman, with a broad kind face under an expensive hat,
and she stood solidly beside the old wash-stand and looked consideringly
before her.

"We have the twelve rooms where we are," she told Nicole. "Deneholm's
the name of our house in Pollokshields--but, of course, that's including
maids' rooms. Four public rooms, a conservatory off the library, and
central heating. Oh, Deneholm's a good house and easy worked for its
size: I'll be sorry to leave it."

"And must you?" Nicole asked.

Mrs. Jackson laid a fat hand on the towel rail, shaking it slightly, as
if to test its soundness, and said:

"Well, you see, it's Mr. Jackson. He's making money fast--you know how
it is, once you get started, money makes money, you can't help
yourself--and he thinks we've been long enough in a villa, he wants a
country-house. It's not me, mind you, I'd rather stay on at
Deneholm.... D'you know Glasgow at all?"

"Hardly at all," Nicole said, and added, smiling, "but I've often wanted
to see more of it."

Mrs. Jackson beamed at her. "You'd like it. Sauchiehall Street on a
spring morning with all the windows full of light pretty things! or
Buchanan Street on a winter afternoon before Christmas! I've had many a
happy hour, I can tell you, going in and out of the shops. It'll be an
awful change for me if Mr. Jackson carries out his plan of living always
in the country. Shop windows are what I like, and this"--she waved her
hand towards the window with its view of lawn and running water, and
golden bracken on the hillside--"this gives me no pleasure to speak of.
I haven't the kind of figure for the country, nor the kind of feet
either. Fancy me in a short tweed skirt and those kind of
shoes--brogues, d'you call them? A nice fright I'd be. I need dressing."

She looked complacently down at her tight form in its heavily
embroidered coat-frock--her fur coat had been left in the hall--and said
solemnly, "What I'd be like if I didn't corset myself I know not."

Nicole had a momentary vision of the figure of Mrs. Jackson unfettered,
and said hurriedly, "It's--it's comfortable to be plump."

Mrs. Jackson chuckled. "I doubt I'm more than 'plump'--that's just your
polite way of putting it--but what I say is I repay dressing. I'm not
the kind that looks their best in deshabille. See me in the morning with
a jumper and a skirt and easy slippers--I'm a fright. But when I get on
a dress like this over a good pair of corsets, and a hat with ospreys,
and my pearls, I'm not bad, am I?"

Nicole assured her that the result left nothing to be desired, and then,
anxious to break away from such a personal subject, she said, "I do hope
you will begin to like the country if you have to live in it. I think
you'll find there are points about it."

Mrs. Jackson moved towards the door shaking her head dubiously.

"Not me. I like to have neighbours and to hear the sound of the electric
cars, and the telephone always ringing, and the men folk going out to
business and coming back at night with all the news. You need to be born
in the country to put up with it. I fair shiver when I think of the
dullness. Getting up in the morning and not a sound except, mebbe, hens
and cows. One post a day and no evening papers unless you send for them.
Nothing to do except to take a walk in the forenoon and go out in the
car in the afternoon."

"There's always gardening," Nicole reminded her.

"Not for me," said Mrs. Jackson firmly. "I like to see a place well
kept, but touch it I wouldn't. For one thing I couldn't stoop. Now, I
suppose you garden by the hour and like it? Ucha? And tramp about the
hills and take an interest in all the cottages? Well, as I say, it's all
in the way you're brought up, but it's not my idea of pleasure."

Nicole laughed as they left the room together. She began to feel more
kindly towards this talkative and outspoken lady.

"Now I wonder if there is anything more you ought to see. You took the
servants' quarters on trust, you've seen all the living-rooms and most
of the bedrooms. There is another room, my mother's own room, which you
haven't seen. Would you care----?"

"Oh, I'll not bother, thanks, just now. I've enough to keep in my head
as it is, and the time's getting on."

"Tea will be in the drawing-room now," Nicole told her. "We ordered it
early that you might have some before you start on your long drive
home."

"Oh, well--thanks. A cup of tea would be nice. And I'd like to see the
drawing-room again to be able to tell Mr. Jackson right about it. I must
say I like the hall. It's mebbe a wee thing dreary with all that dark
oak, but there's something noble-looking about it too. I've seen
pictures----"

She stopped on the staircase for a minute, studying the hall with her
head on one side, then went on. "Of course, if we bought it we would
need to have central heating put in at once. Mr. Jackson's great for all
his comforts. I see you've got the electric light. Yes--That's the
library to the left, isn't it? Then the dining-room, and the
billiard-room. I'm quite getting the hang of the house now, and I must
say I like it. For all it's so big there's a feeling of comfort about
it--grand but homely, if you know what I mean?... Deneholm, now, is
comfortable right enough, always a nice smell about it of good cooking,
and hot-water pipes, and furniture kept well rubbed with polish, but
when all's said and done it's only a villa like all the other villas in
the road. In our road nobody would ever think to have a stair like this
without a carpet. This'll take some living up to."

Nicole was standing a few steps lower down, looking back at Mrs.
Jackson, and she surprised on the face of that lady an expression
half-proud, half-deprecating. Her bearing, too, had subtly altered; her
head was held almost arrogantly, it was as if she saw herself cut from
her moorings in Pollokshields, sailing as mistress of Rutherfurd in
stately fashion over the calm waters of county society.

Opening the door of the drawing-room, Nicole said, "Is tea ready,
Mother? Mrs. Jackson, my mother. My cousin, Miss Burt."

Lady Jane Rutherfurd rose from her chair by the fire and smiled at the
newcomer, as she held out her hand in greeting.

Nicole knew what it meant to her mother to receive Mrs. Jackson smiling.
It was necessary that Rutherfurd should be sold, and Lady Jane was brave
about it and uncomplaining, but she found the preliminaries trying. She
disliked exceedingly--how could she help it?--the thought of unknown
people going through the house, appraising the furniture, raising
eyebrows at the shabbiness, casting calculating glances round rooms that
were to her sacred. Ronnie's room with the book-shelves made by
himself--they always stood a little crooked--and the cricket-bats and
fishing-rods and tennis-racquets stacked in one corner, the school and
college groups on the walls, everything just as he had left it. And next
door Archie's room--waiting too. And her own room, the big, airy, sunny
room with its windows opening on the view she loved best; and next it
the oddly-shaped Corner Room that had been a sort of sanctuary to the
whole family. When the house was full of people she and her husband had,
with a sort of guilty joy, escaped at times from their guests and crept
to the Corner Room to play with the children and refresh their souls. In
that room had been kept all the precious picture-books that were looked
at only when hands were clean and records unblemished, and the toys, too
good for the nursery--the lovely Manchu doll which had been sent to
Nicole from China; the brass animals from India, the gaily painted
wooden figures from Russia, kings and queens with robes and crowns,
priests with long white beards. The pictures on the walls were all
family portraits, faded water-colours of children long since grown up
and gone away, many of them now finished with their pilgrimage. Four
little pictures hung in a line over the fire-place, the three Rutherfurd
children, each painted at the age of five--Ronnie with his serious eyes
and beautiful mouth, Archie, blue-eyed and obstinate, Nicole,
bright-tinted, a fire-fly of a creature. The fourth was the cousin,
Barbara Burt, who now sat beside Lady Jane and poured out tea.

Barbara's mother had been a Rutherfurd and had married foolishly. Norman
Burt had been tutor to the Rutherfurd boys, a handsome young man with
brains and ambition, but unstable as water. His wife after two years of
misery and anxiety had died, leaving a baby daughter which the father
had been only too thankful to get rid of, so Lady Jane had taken the
child and had never let her feel that she was not as much to her as her
own.

Barbara had only a dim recollection of her father, when he came to
Rutherfurd for yet another loan. He died when she was ten. Her uncle
Walter took her into the Corner Room and told her. He called her "poor
child," and she wondered why. She felt no grief, and was too young to
realise that in that lay the tragedy.

At that time nothing had seemed less likely than that the Rutherfurds
should ever have to leave their home, but the years passed, and the War
came and took Ronnie and Archie and the light from the eyes of their
mother. Lean years came, bringing the need for retrenchment to people
who did not know how to retrench, and now Sir Walter Rutherfurd had been
in his grave three months, and Rutherfurd was in the market.

The most casual visitor, entering the Rutherfurd drawing-room, was
certain to break off any conversation in which he might be engaged, and
let his eyes wander round the place in silence. It was an involuntary
tribute to the spell of the old chamber, a spell compounded of
homeliness and strangeness. Once it may have been part of the great hall
of the fortalice, which was encased in the modern structure like a stone
quern built into a dyke. But about the time when Mary of Scots came to
her uneasy throne, a Rutherfurd clothed the walls with little square
Tudor panels, now dark as ebony with age, and his grandson had imported
some English craftsman--perhaps a pupil of Inigo Jones--who, in place of
the oak rafters, had designed a plaster ceiling, with deep medallions
and a heavy enrichment of flowers and foliage. That was nearly three
hundred years ago, and the plaster to-day had mellowed to a fine ivory.
Later, the Adam brothers had contributed an ornate classical
mantelpiece, whose marble nymphs and cornucopias had, like the ceiling,
a dull ivory sheen. 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 fire-place became the centre and shrine of it.

But it was not the room itself, or even the faded Mortlake brocades of
the old chairs and settees, which most enthralled the stranger. There
was a window on each side the hearth of a more modern pattern, which
served the purposes of light, but the window at the west end was of the
small sunken type of Scottish architecture, and it was in itself a
picture, for in its deep embrasure it framed a landscape. Not the shorn
lawns and the clipped yews of a Tudor garden, which might have consorted
with the panelling, but a long vista of rushy parks and wild thorn
trees, with, at the end, the top of the Lammerlaw, which in August, when
the heather flowered, hung like an amethyst in the pale heavens. That
window was the choicest of the Rutherfurd pictures, but others hung on
the dim panels. All but one were portraits of men. There was a
Rutherfurd 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, pointing with an accusing forefinger to a paper, while
a violent thunderstorm seemed to be gathering in the background. A lean
warrior in shako and coatee held a red Kathiawar stallion by the bridle,
oblivious of the battle that was raging round him. There was a Raeburn,
too, of a Lord of Session, in which plump hands were folded over scarlet
robes, and rosy cheeks were puckered as if at the memory of some
professional jest.

All the pictures but one were of men. That one was framed in the
panelling above the fire-place and gave the room its peculiar character,
as a famous altar-piece makes the atmosphere of the chapel where it
hangs. It was a woman, no longer in her first youth, with a mouth
narrowed a little by pain and disappointment, but with great brown eyes
still full of the hunger of life. It was a replica of the Miereveldt of
the "Queen of Hearts," Elizabeth of Bohemia, and, as sometimes happens
in copies, there was a smoothing away of the cruder idiosyncrasies of
the original, so that what it may have lost as a portrait it gained as a
picture. One saw a woman who had known the whole range of mortal joys
and sorrows. Her eyes did not command, but beguiled, for her kingdom was
not of this world. Her beauty had in it something so rare and secret, so
far from common loveliness, that the thing seemed in very truth an
altar-piece, belonging not to this epoch or to that land, but to the
eternity of the human soul. 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. She herself, was profoundly at ease among the
grim Rutherfurd soldiers and sailors. She had always been at ease among
men, for they must needs follow where she beckoned.

Into the dim beauty of this room came Mrs. Jackson, stepping delicately
over the polished floor on her high heels. She seated herself in the
chair that her hostess suggested as comfortable, and said:

"Well, I'm sure this is very nice, but they'll be wondering at home
where I am! Yes, thanks, I take both sugar and cream and I like it
strong. Servants' tea, they tell me I take, when I laugh at the weak
washy stuff people drink nowadays! But I'll be home before it's dark,
anyway. The extra hour's a blessing when the days begin to draw in."

Mrs. Jackson beamed at her hostess as she accepted a cup of strong,
sugary tea, and Lady Jane said, "I do hope you won't be too tired after
your long afternoon. It is such hard work looking at houses. Other
people's belongings are so fatiguing, don't you think?"

"Not to me," said Mrs. Jackson firmly. She was sitting forward on the
very edge of her chair, her tight figure very erect, a piece of bread
and butter held elegantly. "I'm getting a wee bit tired of it now, but
as a rule there's nothing I like better than a chance to get into
somebody's house and take a good look. Mind, you learn a lot, for
everybody has a different way of arranging furniture and ornaments, and
all that. Just look at this room." She put the last bite of bread and
butter into her mouth and twisted herself round to look. "That cabinet
there... and the screen and that mirror." Her eyes wandered to the
fire-place. "That's a new idea, isn't it, to have a picture put in like
that? Who's the lady?"

"That," said Nicole, "is my Lovely Lady, the 'Queen of Hearts.'"

Mrs. Jackson looked utterly at sea, and Barbara said, "That is a
portrait of Elizabeth of Bohemia."

"Is that so?" said Mrs. Jackson.

Nicole said, "Don't you know the poem about her?" and kneeling on the
fender-stool, looking up into the pictured face, she repeated:

                 "You meaner beauties of the night,
                  That poorly satisfy our eyes,
                  More by your number than your light,
                  You common people of the skies;
                  What are you when the moon shall rise?"

Mrs. Jackson stared at the girl. The light from the dancing flames
caught the ruddy tints in her hair, and her upturned face in the rosy
glow was like a flower of fire.

The two cousins, Barbara and Nicole, were like each other, yet oddly
unlike. Nicole once said, "Babs is consistently handsome. I've only got
moments of 'looks.'" Barbara had very good features, but there was
something buttoned-up about her face, something prim and cold. Her
cousin had no features worth the mentioning, but her eyes laughed and
sparkled and darkened with every passing mood, and she would suddenly
flush into a loveliness which was far beyond the neat good looks of
Barbara.

Barbara was inclined to be heavy, Nicole was light and supple, a
"fairy's child." Nicole was four-and-twenty, Barbara was four years
older. Nicole was all Rutherfurd, Barbara was half a Burt.

If Barbara had knelt on the fender-stool and addressed a picture in
verse, she would have looked affected and felt a fool. Nicole made it
seem a most natural thing to do.

Mrs. Jackson, as I have said, stared, her cup half-way to her mouth.
"Elizabeth of Bohemia," she murmured. "Wasn't she assassinated?" The way
she said "assassinated," with a lilt in the middle of the word, was
delicious, and Barbara, who saw that Nicole, whose sense of the
ridiculous could "afflict her like an illness," was giving way to
laughter, rushed in with:

"That was the Empress of Austria, wasn't it? An Elizabeth too."

"Uch, yes, so it was... Well, I must say I admire your room. Not that
we haven't old furniture, too, we have; Mr. Jackson's great on it, but I
sometimes think our room's more like a museum than a room to be
comfortable in. For one thing, Father doesn't like photos in it. I used
to try and make it more homely, you know, with a photo here and an
ornament there, but he said I spoiled the effect. It's what the man who
arranged it for us called a 'period' room, but what period I never can
mind. I'm never in it except to see that it's kept well dusted, and when
we have people to dinner. I've got a wee room of my own"--she nodded
happily to Nicole--"the morning-room it should be called, but I like to
call it 'the parlour.'"

"I expect," said Nicole, "it's a delightful room. Do have one of these
hot scones."

"Thanks. I don't know if you'd call it a delightful room, but it seems
delightful to me for I've all my things round me, my wee ornaments that
I buy for souvenirs when I visit new places, and photos of old
friends--I've got Andy (that's my boy) at every year of his life--and
the plush suite that we began life with in the drawing-room. Andy says I
like the room because I can come off my perch in it! In a way he's
right. It's not natural for me to be stiff and starched in my manner. I
like a laugh, and I'm inclined to be jokesome, but, of course, I've got
to be on my dignity when we're entertaining people. Such swells as we
get sometimes! That's because Father's connected with all sorts of
public things, and I can tell you I've to be careful what I say."

Mrs. Jackson laughed aloud, and Lady Jane said in her gentle voice:

"You must lead a very interesting life. So varied. I always think
Glasgow seems such an alive place. Babs and Nicole and I once helped at
a bazaar there and we loved it." She turned to her niece. "You remember,
dear, that big bazaar for a woman's hospital? Mary Carstairs had a
stall."

"Oh," said Mrs. Jackson, "_that_ bazaar. I was there! I had the Pottery
stall--along with others, of course.... So you know Lady Carstairs?
I've met her here and there, of course, but I'm not awfully fond of her.
A frozen kind of woman she seemed to me, but I daresay she's all right
when you know her."

"Oh, she is," Nicole assured her. "She's a cousin of ours, so we've had
opportunities of judging. But I know what you mean about the frozenness.
It's a sort of protective barrier she has raised between herself and the
host of casual acquaintances that she is compelled to have. She says
they would overrun her otherwise. The wife of a public man--and such a
very public man as Ted Carstairs--has a sorry time. You must feel that
yourself sometimes."

Mrs. Jackson gave Nicole an understanding push with her disengaged hand.
"Be quiet!" she said feelingly. "Do I not know what it means at big
receptions and things to have people come up and say, 'How d'you do,
Mrs. Jackson?' shaking me by the hand as friendly as you like, and me
with no earthly notion who they are. Of course I just smile away and
never let on, but, as you say, it's wearing, and then there's the
pushing kind that you've got to keep in their places--uch yes....
You'll not have been troubled much with that sort of thing, Lady
Ruth--Lady Jane, I mean."

That gentle lady shook her head. "Indeed no. I've often been so thankful
for my quiet life. With my wretched memory for faces I would be worse
than useless."

Mrs. Jackson leant forward and said earnestly, "Oh, I wouldn't say
_that_. You'd be a great success, I'm sure, in _any_ sphere of life."
She paused, and added, "If Mr. Jackson buys this place--of course, I
don't know whether he will or not--but if he does, I'm just wondering
how I'm to come after you. It'll be an awful drop, you know, from Lady
Jane Rutherfurd to Mrs. Jackson."

She laughed happily, evidently in no way depressed at the prospect,
while Lady Jane, flushing pink at such unusual frankness, hastily
suggested that she might have more tea.

Mrs. Jackson waved away the suggestion, too much interested in what she
wanted to say to trouble about tea. Looking confidentially into the face
of her hostess, she said, "How many servants d'you run this house with,
if it's a fair question?"

"How many? Let me see. There's Johnson, the butler, he has always been
with us, and..." She turned to her niece. "Barbara is our
housekeeper. Barbara will tell you."

"Johnson," began Barbara, counting on her fingers, "and Alexander, the
footman, that's two. And the cook and kitchen-maid, and an under
kitchen-maid, five: three housemaids, eight. Then there's our maid, Aunt
Jane, and Harris. That makes ten in the house, doesn't it?"

"My!" ejaculated Mrs. Jackson. "Ten's a lot. At Deneholm we've just the
three--cook, housemaid, and tablemaid. I don't know if I could bear to
launch out into menservants. For all the time we've had a gardener I've
never so much as given him an order, and I'm not a bit at home with the
chauffeur.... I must say I liked the look of the butler when he let
me in--a fatherly sort of man he looked. D'you think he would stay on
with us and keep us right--you know what I mean?--and the footman, too,
of course."

She looked at Barbara, who said, "Well--I hardly know. As my aunt says,
he has been at Rutherfurd a long time and he may feel himself too old to
begin with new people. Alexander might----"

"Alexander," said Nicole, "is like his namesake, 'hopelessly volatile.'"

"I see," Mrs. Jackson murmured, looking puzzled. "Have you a large
family, Lady Jane?"

Before her mother could reply Nicole broke in, "There are only we three
now."

"Is that so? Well, well. I've only the one son, Andy.... I can't tell
you what I came through when he was away at the War. Father had his
business to keep him occupied, and I couldn't stay in the house. I made
bandages and picked sphagnum moss like a fury, and did every mortal
thing I could to keep myself from thinking.... But he came back none
the worse. It would have killed Mr. Jackson and me to lose Andy."

Mrs. Jackson laid down her cup, arranged her veil, and prepared to
depart.

"Well," she said, standing solidly on the rug before Lady Jane, "I don't
know, of course--Mr. Jackson'll have to see the place himself--but I've
a kind of feeling that it's here we'll settle." She looked round the
room again. "I mebbe shouldn't ask, but will you be taking all the
furniture away with you? That picture above the fire-place, now? You
see, I could never get the room to look the same, and I know Mr. Jackson
would like it like this."

She held out her hand, saying rather wistfully, "He has such high
ideals, you know what I mean.... Well, thank you for that nice tea.
It's been a treat to me seeing you. D'you know what it all reminds me
of? One of Stephen McKenna's novels. He's an awful high-class writer,
isn't he? There's hardly one of his characters but what has a title and
a butler."




                               CHAPTER II


         "The last sad squires ride slowly towards the sea,
         And a new people take the land...."

                                                      G. K. CHESTERTON.

Nicole went out to the hall to see the visitor depart. When she came
back to the drawing-room, "Well?" she said.

"Well," said Barbara, and added, "_I must say!_"

Her cousin laughed. "Yes, 'smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau' or words
to that effect. All the same I like Mrs. Jackson, though I admit at
first I was appalled. The tight figure, the large red face crowned by
the ospreyed hat! I thought '_That_ woman at Rutherfurd!' But in a
little I realised that she wasn't 'that woman' at all. She's a dear, and
simple, and above all a comic. I do love a comic."

Nicole put a log on the fire.

"Wasn't she funny about Mary Carstairs? 'A frozen sort of woman' so
exactly describes her when she is standing at bay, so to speak, before
the advances of the populace. I think myself that it's silly of her. Her
life would be enormously more interesting if, instead of standing aloof
and looking 'frozen,' she would try to like and understand these kindly
people. After all, it's a case of Canute and the waves. They're coming
in like a tide, the new people, and the most dignified thing for us is
to pretend we like it, and to get out of the way as quickly as possible.
Anyway, I'm enormously cheered by Mrs. Jackson. I had a nightmare fear
that Rutherfurd would be bought by horrible 'smart' people. I don't
grudge it a bit to that comic."

Lady Jane laid her hand on her daughter's.

"That's so like you, Nikky," she said. "You never expect to receive evil
things, but if they come you immediately discover in them some lurking
good. That's why you're such a comfortable person to live with."

"I don't believe," said Barbara, "that we'll hear any more of this Mrs.
Jackson. It seems most improbable that people like that could even think
of buying a place like Rutherfurd."

Nicole wagged her head wisely. "Mark my words, in a few days Mr. Jackson
will arrive. I'm not sure that I shall like him, I distrust his high
ideals--wasn't it pathetic the way his wife said, 'He has such high
_ideels_, you know what I mean'?--and he evidently has a correct mind
and knows what to admire, which is so tiresome. Still, he may be a very
nice man, and willing to deal justly and be decent about things. Yes, I
feel it in my bones that the Jacksons are to be our successors."

"It's a mercy you can take it so light-heartedly," Barbara observed
drily, but Nicole did not reply.

Lady Jane sat looking at the fire, not listening to what the girls were
saying. It hurt Barbara to see her.... She looked so wan in her black
dress, so desolate. Barbara thought of her as she used to be, looking
almost a girl in her pretty clothes, with her husband and Ronnie and
Archie always hanging round her. Now she sat there having lost
everything, her husband, her boys, her home, her position. And the worst
of it was no one could do anything to help her. One could not even
think, "Oh, well, in time she will begin to feel quite bright again. In
time she will cease to mourn, and will become one of those contented,
healthy widows that one meets everywhere." She was not like that. It
sometimes struck Barbara with a sharp pang that her aunt was merely
living from habit, that the mainspring of her life was broken. She
wondered if the same thing had struck Nicole.

"Mums," said Nicole, "don't look at nothing. Turn your head round and
try to look interested in my bright conversation."

Lady Jane smiled up at her daughter's down-bent face.

"Why, yes, darling. I'm so sorry I was dreaming when pearls were falling
from your lips. Will you repeat your valuable remarks?"

Nicole bowed with mock gravity. "My words of wisdom are so numerous that
it seems almost a pity to repeat. I was only philosophising.... You
may not realise it, you and Barbara, but we are in rather a romantic
position. Mr. Chesterton would describe us as 'the last sad squires
riding slowly to the sea.' Why to the sea, exactly? I don't know. But,
anyway, novels have been written about such as we."

"Very dull novels they must be," said Barbara. "I don't know how you can
laugh, Nik. It's the most tragic thing that ever happened, that the
Rutherfurds should have to leave Rutherfurd."

"Of course it is," Nicole agreed, "so tragic that the only thing to do
is to try and laugh. Mr. Haynes says we can't afford to live in it, and
our lawyer ought to know. It's the Jacksons' turn now, and we must go
down with the lights up and the flags flying. A Rutherfurd fell at
Flodden, and the name has been respected all down the years, and not the
least honourable were the three Rutherfurds that we knew best---- We've
nothing to be ashamed of. Simply, there is no room any more for our
sort. We are hustled out. We can't compete. Rutherfurd must go to the
successful man who can cope with life as it is now! We must find some
other place to pass our days in. Well, _I_ don't mind."

Nicole got up and went to the fire, her head held high, a certain
swagger in her walk, such as one sometimes sees in small boys who are
shy and homesick and wish to conceal it. Lady Jane was again looking at
nothing, and did not notice the piteous touch in her daughter's
attitude, or she would have replied to that and not to the brave words
she had uttered.

She said, "Youth, my dear, never minds anything, really. It's all part
of the adventure of life. Youth bounds through changes and troubles like
an india-rubber ball, but middle age has ceased to bounce; middle age
collapses like a pricked balloon. I'm fifty-five--more than middle-aged,
getting old--and I don't feel that there is any bounce left in me at
all."

"Oh, my poor little mother," Nicole cried, kneeling beside her to stroke
her hands, "quite deflated, are you? And I don't wonder. Much as Babs
and I love Rutherfurd, leaving it can't be to us what it is to you."

Lady Jane looked at the two girls in a withdrawn way and said, "I leave
everything when I leave Rutherfurd. I don't want to pity myself, or, as
you would say, make a song about it, but Rutherfurd is my life. The
house your father brought me to thirty-two years ago! The house in which
my children were born--where Ronnie and Archie played.... I was
always utterly content in my home, I never wanted to go away. I never
felt it dull even in the dead of winter. In fact, I think I loved winter
best, because nearly all the neighbours went away to Egypt or the
Riviera, and we could draw in together and hug our delicious solitude.
We often laughed, your father and I, at our own unsociableness, and then
our consciences would prick us and we would invite a lot of people to
stay, and ask people to meet them, and work hard to entertain them and
enjoy it all quite immensely. But when the last guest departed what
thankful sighs we heaved! Once more the place was our own. It wasn't
that we were inhospitable so much as that we were so happy alone we
couldn't bear to spoil it."

The very thinking of past happiness, the telling of it, had changed Lady
Jane. Her blue eyes, that looked as if the colour had been washed out
with much weeping, deepened and brightened, a flush that was almost
girlish came into her thin cheeks; she smiled tenderly.

"But, Aunt Jane, you did sometimes go away from home," her niece
reminded her. "I can remember you and Uncle Walter setting off, rather
like two victims mounting the tumbril, to pay visits. We children were
quite pleased to be without you for a little, for we had always a lot of
nefarious schemes in our heads that needed your absence for
accomplishment, but we soon got tired of it and welcomed you back with
joy. Nicole, do you remember when Ronnie locked Johnson into his own
pantry and lost the key? And the day when Mrs. Asprey said Archie might
have one bun out of the batch she was baking if he would go out of the
kitchen, and instead, he took a _bite out of each_!"

"And the strawberry-wine we made," said Nicole, "and the feasts. I don't
think they ever told of us when you came home, did they, Mums?--about
all our ill-done deeds?"

Lady Jane shook her head. "They wouldn't have done anything to spoil my
home-coming.... When we went away on a visit I always looked up the
train we would come home by before we left, and that somehow seemed to
make the time shorter, and anchor me to you all. Of course it was quite
different when we took you all with us, our glorious holidays in
Switzerland... and when we had the fishing in Norway.... Don't let
me grumble. For more than twenty years my life was altogether lovely.
I've had far more than most people. Why, I've no right to complain
though I should never have another happy minute. It's as you say, Nikky,
we must plan what we are to do. The sight of Mrs. Jackson has made me
realise things. Do you think, Barbara dear, you could make me understand
just where we stand? You have got such a much tidier mind than I have,
and I get so confused when Mr. Haynes explains things, though I'm sure
the poor man is most lucid."

Barbara settled herself at her aunt's feet and tried to make her see the
situation so far as the lawyer had made it plain to her, and Lady Jane
fixed her eyes on her instructor like a child anxious to please, but
when Barbara stopped, she sighed.

"It sounds very complicated," she said, "though you do explain very
nicely, Babs dear. Then, what exactly have we got to live on?"

"That depends," said Barbara, "on how things go--on Mrs. Jackson,
perhaps. But you will have quite a good income, and Nicole, of course,
has her own money from Grandfather. What does it bring you in, Nik?
about 500 a year? And I have about the same, so we aren't exactly
penniless, dearest."

"Yes--but--if we have a good income, why need we leave Rutherfurd? If we
lived very simply and spent almost nothing...."

Nicole took her mother's hand and kissed it. "You want both to have your
cake and eat it, my dear. Your income will come largely from the sale of
it. We can't run Rutherfurd on a few hundreds a year. Think of servants'
wages alone! No, I'm afraid there is nothing for it but to leave our
Eden, and the question is, where are we to go? The whole wide world is
before us. What are your ideas on the subject, Babs?"

"I haven't any. So long as I am with you two I don't much care where it
is. What about a flat in London?..."

"A flat?" said Nicole. "Somewhere in Kensington, I suppose? I've got
very little idea of how much money one needs to do things well, but I
fear our combined incomes wouldn't go far in the way of a fashionable
flat. Besides--would Mother like being cooped up in town? I doubt it.
For myself I couldn't stand more than a month or two of London at a
time, and it's not a place to be poor in."

"We might travel for a bit," Barbara suggested.

"We might!" Nicole agreed. She had perched herself on the arm of her
mother's chair. "What about going round the world? I read in the
'personal' column of the _Times_ the other day that a General, a K.C.B.,
was offering to take a party round the world at 950 a head, or
something like that. Can't you see us staggering about Japan with the
K.C.B.!--Babs, Mother smiled. Did you see? Well, you made a very good
impression on Mrs. Jackson, anyway, Mums."

"Nonsense, Nicole."

"Oh, I assure you, as she left she said to me, 'It's been a pleasure to
meet you, and I just love your mother.' After all my unwearied efforts
to be nice to her and show her everything, it was galling to see you
romp in and win her approval with no trouble at all. Why are mothers
_always_ nicer than their daughters? If this deterioration goes on, if
every daughter is inferior in every way to her mother, what of the
future of the British Race? I confess it weighs on me a good deal. But,
seriously, Mums, what would you like to do? Now, don't say you don't
care, you're bound to have some preference."

"I haven't, my dear, you must believe me when I say it. I shall be happy
if you are happy. We must see to it that we go to a place where you and
Babs can have a good time. Nancy Gordon--did you read her
letter?--suggests that we go to them in Somerset. She says the
dower-house is empty, and Tom would gladly let us have it. Nancy lives
in a constant whirl of entertaining, so you wouldn't be dull. Then, Aunt
Constance wants us to go to her at once. She says Ormhurst feels so
large and empty now, that it would be a real kindness to go and help to
fill it. Constance was always my favourite sister.... But,
perhaps--d'you think--we'd better have a place of our own?"

"Yes," said Nicole. "I doubt if it would be wise to plant ourselves on
friends or relations, no matter how willing they are. They might easily
tire of us or we of them. We must make our own niche. I've been
thinking"--she looked from her mother to her cousin with a quick
laughing glance--"I've been thinking that since Mrs. Jackson and her
kind are all rising in the world, they must be leaving vacant places.
Well, why shouldn't we, ousted from our own place, take theirs? Why
shouldn't we become dwellers in a suburban villa, and taste the
pleasures of suburban society? I think myself it would be highly
interesting."

"Interesting!" Barbara ejaculated, but Nicole hurried on. "I don't mean,
of course, that we should go making a fuss about ourselves. The time for
that is past. Pooh-Bah could no longer dance at middle-class
parties--for a consideration. There are none so low now as do us
reverence! You and I, Mums, would get on all right, but Barbara"--she
glanced affectionately at her cousin--"is so hopelessly aristocratic."

Barbara flushed, for she knew that what her cousin said was true. Social
distinctions meant almost nothing to Nicole; to Barbara they stood for
much. Nicole never thought of her position; Barbara gloried in belonging
to Rutherfurd. When they were all children together they had played with
other children about the place. There had been quite a colony of large
families belonging to servants on the estate, and they had had splendid
games. But Barbara had always been the Little Lady from the Big House,
had held herself aloof, allowed no familiarities. Her cousins were
different, their whole hearts were in the play, they had no thought of
themselves. Barbara often felt that Nicole should have been the Burt,
and she the daughter of a hundred earls. To see Nicole playing at
"houses" with a shawl wrapped round her supporting a doll, as she saw
cottage-women carrying their babies, making believe to stir porridge in
a pot while she addressed her playmates in broadest Border Scots! It had
been the summit of her ambition to live in a cottage--a but and ben--and
carry a real baby in a shawl. She startled her mother one day by handing
her a doll and saying, "Hey, wumman, haud ma bairn." The boys were as
bad. Ronnie was found one snowy morning on the roof of the house--he had
climbed out of a skylight--putting out crumbs for sea-gulls. When
remonstrated with by his governess, he replied, "Wumman, d'ye want them
to be fund deid wi' their nebs in the snaw, seekin' meat?"

Sir Walter said Border Scots was a fine foundation for Eton, and so it
proved. The boys came home from school speaking correct English, but
always able, at a moment's notice, to drop into the speech of their
childhood.

"Well," said Nicole, "what d'you say to my suggestion?" Barbara merely
shrugged her shoulders, but Lady Jane was unusually firm.

"Darling, I said I didn't mind where I went; but I do draw the line
here. I'm afraid I can't fill the vacant place left by Mrs. Jackson.
Suburbs are for people who have business in cities: we have none. Why
not a small house in, or near, a country town? I think I should like
that, only--not too near Rutherfurd, please."

"That," said her daughter, "is the correct idea. A country town. A
rambling cottage covered with roses. Delightful Cranford-ish neighbours,
quiet-eyed spinsters and gallant old men who tell good stories. I see it
all."

Barbara wore a most discouraging expression as she said, "I never saw a
cottage that 'rambled.' What you will probably find in any country town
is a number of new semi-detached villas occupied by retired
haberdashers. Cranford doesn't exist any longer--the housing problem
killed it. You're a most unpractical creature, Nik. You don't know how
horrible such a life as you want to try would be. Imagine living always
with people like Mrs. Jackson! Just think how you would miss your
friends--Jean Douglas, the Langlands..."

Nicole shook her head impatiently. "My dear, why will you insist on
saying things that jump to the eye? Don't you suppose I am _full_ of
thoughts about having to leave the old friends? I never loved Mistress
Jean as I do to-night, and the thought of Kingshouse makes me want to
howl like a wolf. The jollities we've had there! And Daddy Langlands,
and Miss Lockhart, and even Tillie Kilpatrick, though, poor dear, she
does paint her face more unconvincingly than any one I ever saw. But
Mistress Jean will be the great loss. To know that there is no chance of
suddenly hearing Johnson announce 'Mrs. Douglas,' and to hear her say
'_Well_,' and then, 'This _is_ nice,' as she settled down beside us."

"Then why not stay where we are known? There are lots of small places
that would suit us, and people would be glad to have us stay, and would
make things pleasant for us."

Nicole turned to her mother. "What do you say, Mums?"

"My dears, I don't think I could remain near Rutherfurd. Let us try
Nicole's plan for a year and see how it works...."

"You mean," said her daughter, "that we should go to a new place and
make a niche for ourselves? _Let's_, Barbara. I'm sure there are places
without semi-detached villas, where we shall be able to cultivate 'high
ideels' like Mr. Jackson.... But you must promise to make the best of
everything--it would be terribly unsporting of you to grumble."

"Oh, very well," said Barbara. "Let's try it for a year. A lot can
happen in twelve months."




                              CHAPTER III


               "It is a sedate people that you see."

                                                     _Glasgow in 1901._

While the Rutherfurds made plans for the future, Mrs. Jackson regaled
her family circle with an account of her expedition to the Borders. They
sat, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson and their son Andrew, in the dining-room of
Deneholm. It was a fairly large room, elaborately decorated, with two
bow windows and a conservatory.

Mr. Jackson and his wife sat at either end of the long oval table, while
Andrew faced the fire-place. There was a reason for that. Behind him was
a picture which his mother did not consider quite delicate. When it had
been first bought and hung, and Andrew was expected home from school,
she had arranged that he must change his seat and sit where he could not
see it. Now he was thirty-two, and unlikely to be affected by any
picture, but he still kept his back to it.

A long shining damask cloth covered the table, and the only decoration
was a tall vase of rather packed-looking chrysanthemums. One felt had
there been a daughter things would probably have been different. No
large white table-cloth for one thing, but a polished table with
embroidered mats: no bleak, tall vase, but a wide bowl with flowers.

Wherever Mrs. Jackson went, though it were only into town in the car to
shop, she gave her men-folk on her return a circumstantial account of
everything that had happened to her. Accustomed to her ways, they were
apt to pay but a cursory attention to her talk.

To-night she was still somewhat breathless from the late home-coming and
her hurried dive into the gown which she described as "a semi-evening,"
but between spoonfuls of celery soup she bravely panted out details.

"Oh, it was a lovely drive," she began. "Not at first, of course, for
there was all that coal district to go through--Hamilton and those
places. But afterwards, the Clyde valley, and round Lanark, and down the
Tweed...." She turned to the parlour-maid, "Another bit of bread,
Mary. Thanks." Then, "... I got an awful fright as we left Lanark; we
very nearly ran over a wee dog."

Mr. Jackson laid down his spoon and wiped his mouth with his napkin. He
was a small man with sandy hair turning grey, and a scrubby moustache.

"What kind of place is Rutherfurd?" he asked.

But his wife was not to be hurried. "I haven't got that length yet," she
said placidly. "We went away down past Peebles--d'you remember, Father,
we stayed at the Hydro there one Easter? Was that before the War, I
wonder? I think so, for Andy was with us, and we met yon people from
Manchester--d'you mind their names? They stayed with us afterwards at
Innellan; the man had asthma.... I don't care much for Galashiels,
it's awful steep about the station yonder, but it's lovely all round
about it. We seemed to go a long way down the Tweed, and, of course, I
had no idea whereabouts Rutherfurd was. In the end we had to ask. We
came to a cluster of cottages--mebbe they called it a village, for there
was a post office--and a man told us it was the first gate-house we came
to, about two miles farther along the road. Sure enough we came to it,
white-washed, with creepers, and an old woman who curtseyed as we
passed. The drive winds, and crosses a stream with bridges about three
times, and there are parks with deer. Deer--fancy! I wondered if we were
ever coming anywhere, then we turned a corner and there was the house."

She stopped dramatically.

"A good house?" asked her son.

"Beautiful. How many houses have I looked at, Father? Nine, is it? and
not one of them was just what we wanted. Two were only big villas--we've
plenty of them in Pollokshields. The old ones were awfully damp and
decrepit. One was built in a hollow and got no sun, and the oldest of
all was nothing to look at--it would have been a waste of money to buy
it.... But Rutherfurd's a place you'd be proud of."

Mary removed the soup plates and presently they were engaged on the fish
course.

"It's a big house," Mrs. Jackson continued as she ate her sole, "but not
overpowering, if you know what I mean. A butler let me in--quite the old
family servant--and I left my coat in the outer hall. Then he took me
through the hall, a place just like a big room, with tables and chairs,
and papers lying, and into the drawing-room. My word!"

"Was it very splendid, Mother?" Andrew asked.

"No, Andy, I don't think you'd call it splendid; because everything in
it seemed to be about as old as the Flood, but it was beautiful in a
queer way. I think you'd like it awfully. And it was all panelled in
squares, and above the fire-place there was a picture let in, a picture
of--well, I declare if I haven't forgotten who it was, Somebody of
Somewhere.... Are you better pleased with these potatoes, Father? I
tried another shop. Not any mutton for me, please, I'll just take some
vegetables. They're quite your way of thinking about furnishing a room,
Father, not a photo anywhere, and I don't think I saw a single
ornament.... Well, I stepped very gingerly over the polished floor
till I found a good high chair, and presently the door opened and in
came a girl. A young thing she looked, not more than two-and-twenty,
with reddy-brown hair. I couldn't tell you whether she was pretty or
not, for her eyes fair beguiled me. She stood for a second and looked at
me and an expression passed over her face that made me feel I had no
business to be sitting there. But it was gone in a flash, and she came
up and took my hand so kind like, and said, 'Mrs. Jackson?' Like that.
D'you know, I never knew Jackson was a bonnie name until she said it.
My! I'd give a lot to speak like yon.... Then she said, 'You've come
to see the house, haven't you? Will you let me show you over?' and off
we went together. She took me everywhere and talked away as if she'd
known me all her life. Sensible talk, too, considering who she is, for
those kind of people are always queer. Just once, when we were looking
at a long row of portraits, I asked who the handsome man was, and she
said, 'That's my great-grandfather. He was mad.'"

Andrew Jackson laughed suddenly, and asked, "What did you say, Mother?"

"What could I say? I just said, 'Fancy!' Like that, 'Fancy!' But imagine
anybody saying a thing like that about a relation."

"Probably she only meant that he was known to be eccentric, a
character."

Mrs. Jackson nodded, willing to think the best of her new friend. "Mebbe
that was it, Andy.... There are twelve large bedrooms and eight
smaller ones--all very shabby; I don't think they can have had anything
papered and painted for ages. I got my tea, too. When we'd seen pretty
well everything, this girl--I didn't know who she was till later--took
me back to the drawing-room. Tea was all ready, as cosy as you like
before a fine fire, and two ladies sitting. One was Lady Jane
Rutherfurd, the mother of the girl--_my_ girl; and the other girl was a
niece--Miss Burt."

"And what," asked her son, "was the name of 'your' girl?"

"Well, Andy, I can't tell you, but it sounded to me like Nee-coal, and
that's a daft-like name. The other was plain Barbara. I didn't like her
much. I knew fine what she was thinking of me. Common. She handed me my
tea as if I was a school treat.... But Lady Jane's a fair delight. I
saw in a minute where the daughter got her pretty ways. But, oh, poor
soul, she did look sad! Of course, I made no remark, but I saw by the
deep mourning that they had had a loss, and I talked away to make it
easier for them. My girl's _awful_ cheery. It would take a lot to
daunton her, but she's young, of course; it's hard for older folk....
I asked them if they'd be taking away all the furniture, but they didn't
say. It would be nice if we could keep it just as they have it, then
we'd be sure it was right.... And, Father, I'd like if you could
arrange to keep on the butler, he gives such a tone to the house. Some
butlers are just like U.F. elders, but he's more like an Episcopal
clergyman, tall and clean-shaved and dignified. There's a footman, too."

Mr. Jackson stared at his wife.

"Good gracious, woman, what are you talking about? You'd think the whole
thing was settled. D'you suppose I'd have any use for a place like that?
A barracks of a place evidently, unsuitable in every way, far too far
from Glasgow...."

"Well," said his wife, calmly stirring the sugar in her coffee, "you're
determined to buy a place in the country and there's no good in
swallowing the cow and choking on the rump. If we're to have a place it
may as well be a place we can be proud of, and we must keep it up in
proper style, butlers and all. Rutherfurd's the sort of place you'd
like, Father, I know that. You might try and arrange to go with me mebbe
the day after to-morrow. I didn't commit myself in any way, I said you'd
have to see it first.... Will we say Thursday?"

Mr. Jackson grunted, and, rising from the table, went off without a word
to his study.

Andrew followed his mother out of the room, but instead of crossing the
hall to the parlour, which was her favourite sitting-room, she began to
mount the stairs.

"Why, Mother, is it not to be the parlour to-night?"

Mrs. Jackson gave a sigh. "No, Andy, I told them to light the fire in
the drawing-room and we'll sit there. If I'm to take up my position at
Rutherfurd, the sooner I begin to practise the better."




                               CHAPTER IV


                  "...In a kingdom by the sea."

                                                       EDGAR ALLAN POE.

When Mr. Jackson went with his wife to see Rutherfurd the place
conquered him. It was not, he complained, the sort of place he wanted at
all; it was far too big, too far from Glasgow, too expensive to keep up,
in fact, all wrong in every way. Nevertheless he entered into
negotiation with the lawyer, and before October was well begun
Rutherfurd had passed from the family who had held it through centuries
into the hands of the hard-headed little business man from Glasgow.

"Mind you," Mrs. Jackson said to Lady Jane, "there's not the slightest
hurry about your leaving the house. Though you stay here over Christmas
we won't mind. Indeed, I'd like fine to have another Christmas at
Deneholm, and there is so much to arrange before we leave Pollokshields
that I don't believe we'll flit till spring. It's a nice heartsome time
to flit anyway--so mind you take things easy."

This was the more unselfish of Mrs. Jackson as she was secretly longing
to get the workmen into Rutherfurd to start operations for central
heating, and to see the paper-hangers make the bedrooms as she wanted
them. But, as she told her husband, she had "both her manners and her
mense," for the Rutherfurds, realising that when a thing has to be done
it were better it were done quickly, decided to leave as soon as they
could find a roof to cover themselves and their belongings.

What they wanted to find was a smallish house in a pleasant village or
country town, which they could furnish with the things they did not wish
to part from, and keep as a _pied--terre_. They might decide to travel
for a time, or pay visits, but there would always be this place of their
own to come back to.

It seemed in the abstract a very simple thing, but when they set out to
find the house the difficulties began. To begin with, they wanted to go
somewhere quite out of reach of their present home. As Nicole pointed
out, "We don't want to decline into a small house in our own
neighbourhood and have all sorts of casual acquaintances feeling that
they have to be kind to us. 'These poor dear Rutherfurds, we _must_ ask
them to dinner'--can't you hear them? Of course, our own friends
wouldn't be like that, but we'd better go where we'll be on nobody's
conscience."

But there seemed to be some insuperable objection to every place they
tried. If they liked a little town, there was no suitable house; if a
suitable house was found, the locality was disappointing, and the
house-agents' advertisements were so misleading. An attractive
description of a house--old-fashioned, well-built, with good rooms, and
garden--suppressed the fact that a railway line ran not many yards from
the drawing-room window, and that a row of jerry-built villas obtruded
themselves almost into the rose-garden.

Day after day the two girls came home discouraged from their
house-hunting. "If ever," said Barbara, "I valued Rutherfurd it is now.
Let's give up this quixotic search for a habitable house, store our
furniture, and set off on our travels. Thank goodness, there are still
hotels!"

They had almost decided to do this when one day by the evening post came
a letter from the helpful Mr. Haynes, enclosing a card to see a house
which he thought they might consider worth looking at. It was in the
town of Kirkmeikle, in Fife, and was called the Harbour House.

"Far enough away, anyway," was Barbara's comment.

"Fife," said Nicole, and, wrinkling her nose, she quoted: "_I never
lik'it the Kingdom o' Fife_."

"Still," Barbara said, "we might go and see the place. What d'you think,
Aunt Jane? Have you any objection to Fife?"

Lady Jane looked up from the book of old photographs she was poring
over.

"Fife," she said. "Your uncle and I once paid a very pleasant visit to
people who lived, I think, near Falkland.... Oh no, dear, I've no
objection.... There are no hills to speak of in Fife, and I seem to
remember that it smelt rather oddly--linoleum, is it? But otherwise, I'm
sure it would be a pleasant place to live."

"Dear contented one," said Nicole, "the smell is confined to big towns
with factories. Kirkmeikle is a little town in the East Neuk, wherever
that may be. I grant the lack of hills, but if we find we can't live
without them I daresay we could always let the house. People love to
spend their holidays near golf-links. I must say the name rather appeals
to me--the Harbour House."

Barbara was studying the lawyer's letter.

"We may have a chance of it," she said, "for evidently Mr. Haynes thinks
it's a house that will not appeal to every one. It belonged to an old
Mrs. Swinton who died in it a few months ago. Swinton's a good name:
probably she was connected with the Berwickshire Swintons.... Well,
shall we start off to-morrow morning? It'll mean leaving by the first
train, and we may have to stay the night in Edinburgh.... I'll see
how the trains go from the Waverley----"

It was a bright autumn morning with a touch of frost when Barbara and
Nicole crossed the Forth Bridge and looked down at the ships, and saw
the sun on the red-tiled houses, the woods, the cleaned harvest-fields,
and the long stretch of shining water.

"It's pretty," said Barbara, almost grudgingly "Living inland I had
forgotten the magic of the sea. There's such a feeling of space, and a
sort of breath-taking freshness!"

"Oh yes," Nicole agreed, gazing down into the sparkling depths, "the
East Coast is fresh and caller, and beautiful in its way. The funny
thing is, I never have been fond of the sea, perhaps because I'm such a
wretched sailor. But, anyway, I prefer the East Coast sea to the West
Highland lochs." She leaned back in her seat and smiled at her cousin.
"Shall I ever forget going out with Morag MacLeod on that awful loch of
theirs? The old boatman warned us not to go for the weather was most
uncertain, and it's a dangerous place, full of currents and things, and
Morag is one of the most reckless of God's creatures. I felt perfectly
certain I was going to be drowned, and the thought filled me with fury,
for I can't imagine a less desirable death than to go down in a horrible
black West Highland loch, with sea-birds calling drearily above one.
Morag, I knew, would save herself, and I could see her bearing my death
so nobly, quoting a lot of stuff with a sob in it. I almost wept with
self-pity as I clutched my coat round me with one hand, and held on with
the other to some part of that frail craft. How I sighed for my own
solid Border glens with no wretched lochs!"

"What about St. Mary's? And the Loch o' the Lowes?"

"Oh, but they're clear and sunny and comparatively shallow, with no
towering black mountains round them."

"Loch Skene is dark enough."

"Yes, but small. You wouldn't think of yachting on it.... I've never
stayed again with Morag, she's too comfortless. I like being in the open
air as well as any one, and there's nothing nicer than a whole day
tramping or fishing or climbing, but in the house I expect comfort. When
I come home I want great fires, and abundance of hot water, and large
soft chairs, and the best of food. One day--have I told you this
before?--No. Well, one day she made me start off with her at nine in the
morning, after a wretched breakfast, half cold, eaten in the
summer-house. It was a chilly, misty morning, inclined to rain, and we
plunged along through bogs and wet heather until we came to a loch where
a keeper was waiting for us with a boat. We fished for hours, then ate
some sodden sandwiches, and bits of chocolate. All the time Morag was
chanting about the joys of the Open Road till I was sick of her. We
didn't catch any fish either. About four o'clock we started for home,
very stiff and wet about the legs, and I thought I could just manage to
live till five o'clock, and tea and a fire. A mile from home Morag
suddenly had an idea--a thoroughly vicious one, I thought. 'We've got
some sandwiches left,' she said, 'let's sit here and eat them. You don't
want to go home and eat hot scones stuffily by a fire, do you?' _Didn't
I?_ I positively ached to, but I'm such a naturally polite creature
that, though I could have felled her where she stood, I only murmured
resignation. Happily I was saved by her father. We met him at that
moment of crisis, and he laughed to scorn the thought of mouldy
sandwiches, and insisted on us going back to tea."

"I should think so," said Barbara. "Morag was always a posing donkey,
and, I should think, no use as a housekeeper."

Nicole shook her head. "None in the world. A comfortless mistress makes
careless servants, and the fires were always on the point of going out,
and the hot water never more than tepid. The only time I was comfortable
and warm all that week was when I was in bed hugging a hot-water bottle.
I was sorry for Morag's father. It's wretched for a man to live in a
badly run house."

She stopped and looked at her cousin. "My word, Babs, you'd be a godsend
to any man as a housekeeper."

"Only as a housekeeper?"

"My dear, no. As _everything_, companion, friend, counsellor,
sweetheart--wife."

They changed at Thornton, and in due course reached their destination.
Kirkmeikle, they found, was a little grey town huddled on green braes,
overhanging the harbour. There was one long street with shops, which
meandered downhill from the station; some rows of cottages and a few
large villas made up the rest of it. The villas were conspicuous and
wonderfully ugly, and the two girls looked at them in dismay. Was one of
those atrocities the house they had come to look at?

Barbara settled the question by stopping a small boy and demanding to
know where the Harbour House was.

"Ye gang doon to the harbour an' it's the hoose that's lookin' at ye."

"Quite so," said Nicole, heaving a sigh of relief, and turning her back
with alacrity on the red villas.

Proceeding down the winding street they came at last to the sea-front. A
low wall, flat on the top, ran along the side of the road, and beyond
that was the sea. At high tide the water came up to the wall, at other
times there was a stretch of firm sandy beach.

A tall, white-washed house stood at the end of the street leading down
to the sea. The front door was in the street, and to the harbour it
presented a long front punctuated with nine small paned windows; the
roof was high and pointed, and there were crow-step gables.

"What a wise child that was," said Nicole. "It is 'lookin' at ye' with
nine unblinking eyes."

"It smells very fishy down here," was Barbara's comment.

"Fishy, yes, but salt and clean.... Have you the card?"

The door was opened by a stout, middle-aged woman with a rosy face and a
very white apron on which she wiped her fingers before she took the card
Barbara held out to her.

"Ay, come in, please, mem. Certainly, ye can see the hoose. I'll tak' ye
through.... No, it's no been empty that lang. Ma mistress dee'd last
July. There's been a gey wheen folk lookin' at it--kinna artist folk the
maist o' them--but I dinna think it's let yet."

As she spoke she led them through rather a dark hall and opened a door.
"The dining-room," she said, and stood aside to let them pass.

Nicole at once went to one of the windows to look out, but Barbara
studied the room, measuring spaces with her eyes.

"Not a bad room," she said. "The sideboard along this wall..."

Nicole turned from the window. "Oh, Babs, do come and look. Isn't that
low wall jolly? Fishermen will sit on it in the evenings, and talk and
smoke their pipes. And the harbour! I like to think of ships coming in
and unloading and setting off."

"Yes, yes," Barbara said absently. "I wonder if that fire-place throws
out any heat. I distrust that kind."

"Let's see the drawing-room," said Nicole.

"Upstairs, mem. Mebbe I'd better go first."

The stair was stone with shallow steps, the bannisters delicate wrought
iron with a thin mahogany handrail. The woman with the snowy apron
pattered briskly across the landing and threw open a door.

"Ye see," she said proudly. "It's bigger than the dinin'-room by a' the
width o' the lobby. Ay, an' fower windows nae less."

"How jolly," sighed Nicole, "oh, _how_ jolly!"

It was a long room, rather narrow. Each of the four deep windows looked
out to the sea, and was fitted with a window seat. The fire-place at the
far end of the room had a perfect Adam mantelpiece: the doors were
mahogany.

"Curious shape of room," Barbara said. "I'm not sure that I----"

"Say no more," interrupted her cousin. "This is where I'm going to live.
As soon as I saw it I knew, as you might say, that it was my spiritual
home. I'll sit curled up on one of those window seats every evening and
watch the sun set over the sea. What? No, perhaps I'm not looking west,
but it doesn't matter. Don't carp... I'm sure mother will love this
room. She'll hang her beloved little portraits in a line above that
fire-place; the bureau will stand just here, with the miniatures above
it, and her very own arm-chair beside the table.... We'll be able to
make it exactly like home for her."

"My dear girl, we haven't got it yet."

"Sensible always, Babs dear: that's quite true, we haven't. But I'm
absolutely sure this is to be our home. I knew the house when I saw it.
It seemed to give me a nod as I came over the doorstep. There's no doubt
about it we were meant to come here, and that's why poor Mrs. Jackson
was uprooted from Pollokshields. I'm going off now to wire to Mr. Haynes
to take it at once. It would be too ghastly if those 'artist folk' got
before us--come on, Babs."

"Nonsense," said Barbara. "Don't be so childish. We haven't seen the
bedrooms--much the most important part of a house to my mind. And we
don't know if there is a decent kitchen range and a good supply of hot
water. It's so like you, Nicole, to look out of a window and immediately
determine to take a house."

Nicole, instead of looking crushed, smiled into the eyes of the
caretaker, who, evidently liking her enthusiasm, came to her help.

"Ay, my auld mistress aye sat in this room and lookit oot on the water.
When the tide's in if ye sit ower here ye canna see onything but water,
juist as if ye were on a ship. An' it's a warm room; grand thick walls;
nane o' yer new rubbish, wan-brick thick. I'm vex't that ye've no' seen
the room wi' the furniture in't. The next o' kin took it awa' to
Edinboro' and hed it sell't. It was auld, ye ken, terrible ancient, and
brocht a heap o' siller.... The bedrooms? Ay, fine rooms. There's two
on this landin'--the mistress's room an' the dressin'-room aff, that the
ain maid sleepit in."

They went with her to the room. "Ye see," she pointed out, "it hesna the
sea view, it looks up the brae, but it's a nice quait room, for the
gairden's round it... An' there's a bathroom next the dressin'-room."

"It's all in beautiful order," Barbara said. "The paint and paper seem
quite fresh---- What rooms are upstairs?"

"I'll show ye. There's fower bedrooms an' a wee ane made into a
bathroom. That was dune no' mair nor seeven year syne (an' its never
been used, so it's as guid as new), when the mistress's grandson, wha
should ha' heired it, was hame frae the War. We wanted to hae things
rale nice for him, an' the mistress was aye readin' aboot the dirt in
the trenches, an' she was determined that he wud hae a grand bath o' his
ain the wee while he was hame. Ay, but he only got the use o't the
wance. He was awfu' high aboot it, the laddie, but he never cam' hame
again; an' the property ga'ed to a far-awa' freend that the mistress
kent naething aboot." She opened a door.

"This is the new bathroom."

The two girls looked at the white-tiled walls, the gleaming hot-water
rails, the glass shelves, the large luxurious bath, all spotlessly kept,
then Nicole turned away with a slight shiver. "Poor little boy who liked
his comforts," she said.... "May we see the bedrooms?"

Two of them looked to the sea, two to the brae: all good rooms.

"Now for the kitchen," cried Nicole, "and pray heaven that's as perfect
as the rest." She turned to her friend the caretaker. "You don't mind,
do you? It seems we've simply got to see the kitchen and inquire into
the hot-water supply."

"'Deed ye can see onything in the hoose. I'm prood o' ma kitchen. I've
cooked in't for near thirty years."

"Oh!" said Barbara. "So you were Mrs. Swinton's cook? That explains why
everything is so well kept," and she said it again with more fervour
when she saw the kitchen premises. There was little left except
necessities, but the tables were scrubbed white, the stone floors in the
scullery and laundry sanded in elaborate patterns, everything showing
that there was some one in charge who loved to work.

"It's awfu' bare: ye should hae seen it wi' a' the braw covers and
copper pans, but everything's been sold." She shook her head sadly. "A
body's little hert to wark--but still..."

"And when the house is let," Barbara began, and stopped.

"When the hoose is let, I'll tak a cook's place in Edinboro'. Ye get
awfu' big wages noo-a-days, but I dinna ken hoo I'll like the toon." She
answered Barbara, but she looked at Nicole.

"You'll hate it," said that young woman briskly. "Besides, think how
lonely this old house would be without you. Thirty years, did you say
you'd been here? Why, you must love every stone of it. I don't believe
you could sleep now away from the sound of the sea.... Won't you stay
on and take care of us? I want to hear all about old Mrs. Swinton and
the boy who liked his comforts. You see, we're leaving our home and
coming to a new place, and it'll make all the difference if we feel that
it isn't a stranger in the kitchen, but some one who belongs. By the
way, what is your name?"

"Agnes Martin, mem. I'm no married nor naething o' that kind, but ma
mistress aye ca'ed me 'Mistress Martin': she said it was better for the
young lasses, ye ken."

Nicole held out her hand, and after a moment's hesitation the old
servant took it and shook it awkwardly.

"Then that's settled, Mrs. Martin. You stay with us in your own old
place and I promise you will be happy. There's only my mother and my
cousin and myself. Bar the door, please, to all further seekers; tell
them the house is taken. We're going straight now to the post office to
wire to our lawyer." And seizing the hand of Barbara, who was regarding
coldly her precipitate cousin, and smiling at the old servant, who
seemed bewildered but rather pleased, Nicole left the Harbour House.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Later in the day, Agnes Martin took off her white apron, wrapped a grey
woollen shawl round her shoulders, locked the back door of the Harbour
House, and went to visit, as was her custom of an evening, her old
friend Mrs. Curle. It was only a little way, a step or two round the
corner into the Watery Wynd where stood the outside stair that led to
Betsy Curle's one-roomed house. Agnes Martin turned the handle. "Are ye
in?" she asked.

"When am I ever oot?" was the reply from the woman sitting by the fire.

Betsy Curle was not a very old woman, but for years she had been getting
gradually crippled with rheumatism, and now could do little more than
crawl round her kitchen. Yet everything was spotlessly clean. With her
twisted hands she scrubbed and polished, remarking irritably when
well-meaning people wondered how it was done, that there was no wonder
about it, if a body had the whole day to clean a room it would be a
shame to see it dirty.

"It's you, Agnes," she said to her visitor. "C'wa in to the fire: it's
surely cauld the nicht?"

"Ay, I wadna wonder to see a guid touch o' frost. How are ye?"

"Fine."

It was odd the difference in the speech of the two women. Agnes's sharp
intonation, rising high at the end of each sentence, seemed to have
something of the east wind and the sea in it; Betsy's broad Border
tones, slow and grave, made one think of solemn round-backed hills and
miles of moorland. Betsy had come to Kirkmeikle as a young wife, but the
thirty-five years she had spent there had done nothing to reconcile her
to the place. Home to her was still the village by the water of Tweed.

Agnes took out a grey stocking and began to knit while she recounted the
small doings of the day, which were eagerly listened to, for Betsy took
an almost passionate interest in her neighbours, though she was now, by
reason of her infirmities, unable to keep them under personal
observation.

When various small bits of gossip had been recorded and savoured with
relish, the important news was brought out.

"I'm thinkin' the Harbour Hoose is let then, Betsy."

"D'ye tell me that? Whae tae?"

"Weel--the day, juist aboot denner-time, the bell rang, and there was
twa young leddies standin' on the doorstep wi' a caird to see the hoose.
I saw they werena juist daein't for a ploy like some o' the folk that
comes, they were terrible tae'n up wi' the hoose, specially the youngest
ane. The ither ane was aye for haudin' her back, but she juist gaed a
lauch tae me and never heeded her. A bonnie young thing she was, I fair
took a notion o' her! D'ye ken, she shook haunds wi' me! Ma auld
mistress never did that a' the years I was wi' her."

"Mistress Swinton was a proud body," said Betsy. "She couldna see that
her servants were flesh and blood like hersel'; but she's dust noo, so
we needna remember it against her."

"She was a just mistress to me, and I'd like fine to stay on in the auld
hoose."

"Will the new folk want a cook?"

"Ay, did I no' say that? The young leddy askit me to bide. She said it
wud mak a' the difference if I was there. She says, 'There's only my
mother and my cousin and myself.' It would suit me fine. I like to serve
the gentry, an' I dinna want to leave Kirkmeikle. If I took a place here
wi' Miss Symington they'd ca' me a 'plain cook,' an' ye ken fine what
that means--juist stewed steak wan day and chops the next--but I could
see that thae folk were used wi' a'thing braw aboot them."

"But whae were they?" Betsy asked. "Did they no' tell ye whauraboots
they cam' frae?"

Agnes laid down her stocking and fumbled in her pocket.

"Here, see," she said, handing her friend an envelope. "They left me
that address. Did ye ever hear tell o' that place?"

Betsy, bending down to the red glow from the ribs, read the words on the
envelope, and her poor disabled hands shook.

"Never i' the warld"... she muttered, then turning to Agnes,
"Rutherfurds!" she cried excitedly. "I've kent the Rutherfurds a' ma
days. Rutherfurd wasna faur frae Langhope. It's a _terrible_ braw place;
I used to gang as a bairn to Sabbath-schule trips there, and I mind when
Lady Jane Rutherfurd cam' as a bride.... Ye're mista'en, Agnes, ma
wumman, if ye think the Rutherfurds wud want a hoose in Kirkmeikle."

Agnes knitted placidly. "I d'na ken. Twa leddies cam', in deep black
they were, an' that was the name they gae me, and they said they were
ga'en straucht to the post office to wire to their lawyer to tak' the
hoose. That's a' I ken--mak' a kirk or a mill oot o't, Betsy."

Betsy shook her head. "There maun be something far wrang, but I get nae
news frae Langhope noo that I canna hand a pen.... I maun get Tam to
write. I'll no rest till I ken if it's true. Rutherfurds awa frae
Rutherfurd and livin' cheek by jowl wi' Betsy Curle! The thing's no
canny."




                               CHAPTER V


                "Oh, but her beauty gone, how lonely
                  Then will seem all reverie,
                              How black to me."

                                                     WALTER DE LA MARE.

It was late in the evening before Nicole and her cousin reached home
after their day in Kirkmeikle.

Mrs. Douglas from Kingshouse had been dining with Lady Jane, and was
still there when the girls came in. She was a woman frankly middle-aged,
slim, upright, with white hair rolled back in a style of her own from a
small, high-coloured face. Her eyes were intensely blue, shrewd, kind
eyes, quickly kindled in anger, easily melted to tears. One of the most
striking things about Jean Douglas was her instinct for dress. Her
clothes were perfect in every detail, and whether she was on the top of
a hill with her dogs, or at a Point-to-Point meeting, at a country-house
luncheon party (this is a great test), or in a London ballroom, she
always looked exactly right.

She kissed the two girls with affection, but her words were severe. "You
two stupid creatures, coming home at this time of night! Why didn't you
stay in Edinburgh? I've been scolding your mother, Nicole, for not
insisting, but well I know you're the real culprit. Your mother and
Barbara are dragged at your chariot wheels."

Nicole smiled forgivingly at her friend. "Don't be nasty, Mistress Jean,
when Babs and I are perishing with hunger. We had only a snatched cup of
tea in Edinburgh, and we kept falling asleep in the train, and got so
cold. Johnson," to that dignitary, who had come into the room, "is our
ham-and-egg tea ready? Good. I ordered that as a great treat after our
long day. Come with us, my dears, and watch us eat. We've got heaps to
tell you."

At first they talked of other things. Nicole wanted to know how her
mother had spent the day, asked for all the news from Kingshouse. She
seemed completely to have forgotten the weariness of her long day, and
ate her meal with relish.

"Babs," she said, "don't you think this is the perfectest sort of
meal?... If I had my will I'd always have high tea. We got such a horrid
luncheon at Kirkmeikle--very late, when we had ceased to feel hungry. It
was in a pot-house of sorts, and we got soup out of a tin (I think), and
roast beef that had been hot about an hour before, so couldn't be
described exactly as cold. I felt like St. Paul and the Laodiceans! The
room smelt like a channel steamer, and the table-cloth was damp to the
touch. Kirkmeikle doesn't shine in the way of inns; we would need to
warn people of that. Which brings us to the point--we hope we've got a
house there."

Lady Jane said "Oh!" and gave a faint gasp.

Her daughter caught her hand. "I know. Doesn't it seem to make things
horribly final somehow? I don't think I really believed we were leaving
Rutherfurd until we sent the wire to Mr. Haynes asking him to take the
Harbour House if possible."

"And where is this house?" Mrs. Douglas asked crossly. "I can't tell you
how disgusting I consider your conduct. It's a poor compliment to your
friends that you should want to put the sea--or at least the Firth of
Forth--between us, I mean between them and you."

Nicole spread some jam on a piece of bread and butter.

"Blame me, my dear, me only."

"It's you I am blaming. What's your idea in rushing to Fife?"

"Can't find a house anywhere nearer."

"Nonsense."

"Oh, all right."

"You know very well," Mrs. Douglas went on, "that the Langlands are most
anxious that you should take the Cottage. You couldn't find a more
charming little place, suitable in every way, and you would have all
your friends round you."

Nicole looked at her friend. "Why, Mistress Jean, I never knew you
lacking in imagination before. Can't you see that it wouldn't be exactly
pleasant for us to stay on here and see strangers in Rutherfurd? We must
go to some place where we won't always be reminded.... The
Jacksons----"

"The _wretched_ creatures!" broke in Jean Douglas, so bitterly that the
inmates of comfortable Deneholm might well have wilted.... "But I
flattered myself that the fact of having all your friends round might
weigh against the other. I was mistaken, it seems."

"Now don't be _sneisty_, my dear. You don't suppose we leave you
willingly, do you?... Babs, we must tell about the house. You begin
with the plain facts and I'll add the embroideries later."

Barbara poured herself out a cup of tea and declined to do her cousin's
bidding. "Go on yourself," she said. "When you get too exaggerated I'll
interrupt."

"Starting from the Waverley," Nicole began, rather in the style of a
guide-book, "it is quite a pretty run--I had forgotten how pretty--and
not very long. Kirkmeikle we found to be a funny little steep town of
red-tiled houses tumbling down into the Harbour. I won't disguise from
you that there is a row of atrocious new red villas standing in a line
above the town, and we quailed when we saw them, fearing that our quest
would lead us to them. But no; we were directed down the long winding
street, and at the foot we found a tall white-washed house with
crow-step gables and a pointed roof, and nine windows looking out to the
sea."

"Surrounded," broke in Barbara, "with ordinary fishermen's cottages, and
a strong smell of tar and fish, and small dirty children."

"Why not?" asked Nicole. "I've always wanted to rub shoulders more with
my fellow-men, and now I'll get the chance.... And mother won't mind,
will you, Mums? To my mind it's infinitely preferable to villadom."

"I think it sounds nice and unusual," Lady Jane said; "but I hope you
asked if the drains were all right."

"We forgot," said Nicole, "but I expect they're all right, for there are
two excellent bathrooms fitted up with every sort of contrivance. And
Barbara _insisted_ on hearing about the hot-water supply.... Would
you rather have a bedroom looking to the sea or up the brae, Mums? The
_best_ room, the largest, that is, is on the land side, but we'll decide
that later. The drawing-room is a pet of a room, I know you'll love
it..., and the furniture from the Corner Room will be exactly right for
it.... I planned it all the moment I saw it. The Russian figures will
stand on the mantelshelf just as they do here, and your little portraits
will hang in a row above them. And the old French clock that plays a
tune must be there, and the Ming figures in their own cabinet. They will
be quite in keeping with the Harbour House: all seaport towns are full
of china brought from far places.... Of course, the dining-room
furniture is hopeless, but I was thinking coming out in the train that
the things in the Summer Parlour would be perfect in that sea-looking
room. The Chippendale sideboard and table and chairs, the striped silk
curtains and the Aubusson carpet will make it a thing of beauty."

Mrs. Douglas turned to Barbara. "Nicole's as pleased as a child with a
doll's house."

Barbara shrugged her shoulders. "It _is_ a doll's house."

Nicole protested. "It's so beautifully proportioned that it isn't a bit
cramped. The rooms are all of a decent size, and what can you possibly
want more than a room to feed in, a room to talk and read and sew in, a
room to sleep in?" She turned to her mother again. "You can't imagine,
Mother, what a homelike little house it is. It must always have been
lived in by people with nice thoughts--decent people.... The cook
showed us over, the sort of cook that is born, not made--you couldn't
imagine her anything else, with a round rosy face and a large expanse of
white apron. Thirty years she had served old Mrs. Swinton in the Harbour
House. _Of course_ I told her she must remain with us. Babs thought I
was mad, before we had time to ask for references or anything, but her
face was her reference. Mrs. Agnes Martin. That is your new cook, Mums."
She turned to Mrs. Douglas. "To find a house and a cook both in one day!
That was pretty clever, don't you think, in these degenerate days?"

"I should like to know more about both before I congratulate you," her
friend said cautiously, as she rose to go. "I ordered the car at 10.30
and it must be long past that. Well--I'm glad you seem satisfied."

"Satisfied," said Barbara, with a groan, while Lady Jane sighed.

Mrs. Douglas turned to get her cloak.

"And what," she asked, "is to happen to all the furniture you can't get
into this new house?"

"Oh," said Nicole, with an air of great carelessness, "didn't you know
that the Jacksons are taking over the rooms as they stand?"

"What?" She stood staring at Nicole, who held her cloak. "Those heavenly
old things! But not the portraits surely? Not your Lovely Lady?" She
looked from one to the other of the three women, but no one spoke. "Give
me my cloak, Nicole," and as the girl wrapped her in it she said, with
tears standing in her angry blue eyes, "It was bad enough to think of
you being away, but I never dreamt of you being separated from your
treasures. Nobody knows what Rutherfurd has been to me... not only
because I loved every one of you, but because that room was to me a sort
of shrine. You know," she turned to Nicole, "how the summer sun about
six o'clock strikes through the west window and falls on the picture? I
used to plan to be there to see it.... And now that fat woman tricked
out in silly finery will sit there by the fire, and the shrine is
desecrated, things that were lovely all made common and unclean....
Find my handkerchief, can't you, Nikky? It's in my bag.... What a
fool I am...."

She threw her arms round Lady Jane.

"I'm a Job's comforter, aren't I? Bildad the Shuhite should be my
name!... But I promise you Mrs. Jackson won't enjoy her ill-gotten
gains. She will sit in lonely splendour, I'll see to that."

"No, no," Lady Jane protested. "Indeed, Jean, I want you to be kind to
her as only you know how to be kind. You are far the human-est person in
these parts. Make things easy for her."

"Not I. Things have been made far too easy for her as it is."

"But, my dear," Nicole cried, "if it hadn't been the Jacksons it would
have been some one else--probably very objectionable, pretentious
people. In a way the Jacksons are benefactors. They have saved those
things for Rutherfurd when they might have had to be all scattered
abroad.... _Everything in its proper place_, Mistress Jean. You
remember your Hans Andersen? Out we go, swept by the great broom of
Fate. Exit the Rutherfurds. Enter the Jacksons."

Jean Douglas put both hands over her ears.

"Don't say it, I hate their very name. And how I shall hate them when I
see them in the flesh!"

"No," said Nicole, "I defy you to hate Mrs. Jackson."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Late that night, when every one was in bed and the house very still, a
light figure slipped downstairs into the dark drawing-room.

Quietly she pulled back the curtains and undid the shutters. Outside a
full moon was shedding its ghostly light. How strange and dreamlike it
looked, so distinct and yet so unreal--the wild thorns with their bare
branches, the glimmer of the burn, the lawns like tapestry. Somewhere up
on the Lammerlaw a wild bird cried strangely. Near the house an owl
hooted. Nicole drank in the beauty thirstily. It was as if she were
fixing it on her mind against a time when she would no longer behold it.

Presently she turned and went over to the fire-place.

In the moonlight the picture gleamed palely. The "Queen of Hearts"
looked down on the girl kneeling on the fender-stool. It was nothing to
her that the upturned face was very pale, and wet with tears.




                               CHAPTER VI


                  "Of many good I think him best."

                                             _Two Gentlemen of Verona._

Mr. Jackson bought Rutherfurd practically as it stood. He grumbled
loudly at the sum it cost him, but in his heart he was as well pleased
as the buyer in Proverbs: _"It is naught, it is naught," saith the
buyer, but when he goeth away he boasteth._

The house was what he had always vaguely dreamed of, always desired to
attain to, for he had a real love and appreciation of beautiful things.
He did not try to deceive himself about his own or his wife's fitness
for their position; he knew they might be rather absurd in their new
setting; his hopes were built on his son. Andrew, he determined, would
play the part of the young laird and play it well. There was no need for
him to trouble the Glasgow office much; he must shoot, and fish, and
take to all country sports. His father had a picture of him in his
mind's eye, going about in knickerbockers, with dogs, a member of the
County Council, on friendly terms with the neighbouring landowners. And
of course he would marry, some nice girl of good family, and carry on
the name of Jackson. There was nothing to be ashamed of in the name; it
stood for straightness and integrity. Jackson of Rutherfurd--it sounded
well, he thought.

Mrs. Jackson, though very much excited at the thought of the change, was
beset with fears. She called on all her friends and broke to them with a
sort of fearful joy the news that the Jacksons were about to become
"county." They were all very nice and sympathetic, except Mrs. McArthur,
who was frankly pessimistic and inclined to be rude.

Mrs. Jackson would not have cared so much had it been one of her more
recent friends who had taken up this attitude, but she had known Mrs.
McArthur all her life and had always admired and respected her greatly.

"You're leaving Glasgow, I hear," she said coldly, the first time Mrs.
Jackson went to see her after the great step had been taken.

"Have you heard?" that lady asked blankly. "I came to-day to tell you."

"Bad news travels fast," said Mrs. McArthur, sitting solidly in a high
chair and surveying her friend as if she were seeing her in an entirely
new light.

Mrs. McArthur was a powerful-looking woman with a large, white, wrinkled
face. She belonged to an old Glasgow family and loved her city with
something like passion. Holding fast to the past, she had an immense
contempt for modern ways and all innovations.

"Ucha," Mrs. Jackson began nervously. "Mr. Jackson's bought a place and
we're leaving Glasgow for good. It's a wrench to leave a town where you
were born and brought up and married and lived near sixty years in----
And I'm fond of Glasgow. It's a fine hearty place, and I'd like to know
where you'd find a prettier, greener suburb than Pollokshields."

Her hostess said nothing, so she went on talking rapidly. "And the shops
and all, and concerts and theatres; we'll miss a lot, but still----
Rutherfurd's a fine place and not that awful far away. I really don't
know how I'll get on at all, entertaining and all that, and a butler,
and taking my place as a county lady, but I'll just have to do my best.
If only I'd had a daughter! What a help she'd be now. But it's no good
blaming Providence, and Andy's a good boy to me."

She smoothed down her lap and sighed, while Mrs. McArthur gave a sniff
and said:

"Well, I think you're making a mistake. Some people are fitted for a
country life and some aren't. I'd hate it myself. We go to Millport
every summer for July and August, and the coast's bright compared to the
country, steamers and what not, but two months is more than enough for
me. Indeed, I wouldn't go away at all, if it weren't that I value town
all the more when I get back." She watched a maid put a large plump
tea-pot on the tray before her and covered it with a tea-cosy
embroidered with wild roses, and then continued: "A coast house is bad
enough, but how anybody can buy 'a place' as they call it, a house away
at the end of an avenue, removed from all mankind, dreary beyond
words...." She lifted her eyes to the ceiling in mute wonder, while
Mrs. Jackson cleared her throat uncomfortably.

"Well, but, Mrs. McArthur," she began, "some people _like_ the country,
you know, and----"

"Some people have queer tastes, Mrs. Jackson. Look at the people that
are always going away about the North Pole!"

Mrs. Jackson failed to see the connection, but she murmured, "That's
so," in a depressed tone; then, more brightly, added: "You couldn't call
Rutherfurd cold. Rather sheltered it is, with flowers blooming away like
anything still, and we're putting in central heating---- Can you believe
it, they had done all these years without it? Luckily, there's electric
light."

"There is? Well, I prefer gas myself." Mrs. McArthur looked complacently
round at her incandescent mantles in pink globes, then began to pour out
the tea.... "Will the house need much?"

Her guest, glad of this slight show of interest, responded volubly.

"All the bedrooms need new paper and paint. The Rutherfurds were never
very well-off for their position, and money's been getting scarcer with
them every year. The hall and the public rooms will be left with all the
furniture, just as they are; they're panelled, you know...." She
leant forward impressively. "Mrs. McArthur, would you believe it,
there's no carpet on the stairs."

"Fancy! As poor as all that, are they? It's a good thing you've got a
handsome one to lay down. It's just about two years since you got
it...."

Mrs. Jackson nodded. "Two years past in September. It _is_ rich, isn't
it? I'm awful fond of crimson, and it's a really good carpet, made for
us. But----" she hesitated and glanced deprecatingly at her friend, "all
the same, I don't think we'll put it down at Rutherfurd. It's not the
thing if you've got a fine old staircase--antique, you know--to cover
it."

Mrs. McArthur laid down her tea-cup, and after a moment's pause
addressed her old friend, gazing at her the while as if she had suddenly
observed in her some new and most unpleasing trait.

"I must say I'm surprised at you, Bella Jackson, giving in to that sort
of thing. At your time of life! It's all very well for artists, it's
part of their trade to be daft-like, but I never thought to see you with
a stair like a perpetual spring-cleaning."

"Oh, not as bad as that. You don't miss a carpet, somehow the bare steps
are all of a piece with the rest of the house. You must come and see for
yourself."

"I'll not do that," Mrs. McArthur said with great decision.

"Oh, mebbe you will.... The house is empty now. Lady Jane Rutherfurd
and her daughter and niece have taken a small house in Fife. I'm sorry
for them, I am indeed. It's not very easy to rise in the world, but it
must be worse to come down. I'm going to ask the daughter to visit me.
She's an awful nice girl with no airs at all. I think Andy'll like her,
and she'll be a great help to me, for goodness knows what I'll do when
all the people come to call!"

She sighed as she rose to go, and Mrs. McArthur, remaining seated, said:
"Well, I'm glad I'm not in your place. You'll only regret once leaving
Pollokshields and that'll be all the time. But _wha will to Cupar maun
to Cupar_. I always knew your husband was a climber. Many a time I've
said to myself: 'Look at that wee Jackson worming himself in here and
there, doing public work for his own ends, thinking he'll get a
knighthood out of it....' But you were always an honest soul, Bella,
and to hear you talking about 'the county' and 'Lady Jane' and not
putting on a stair-carpet makes me fair sick. You can tell your husband
from me that a queer sight he'll be as a laird."

She laughed unpleasantly, and rose to her feet, while Mrs. Jackson,
flushed and distressed, meekly held out her hand.

"Well, good-bye. You'll be far too grand to remember me when you're the
lady of Rutherfurd. I'll miss you, and I'll miss Andy. What does he say
about all this?"

But Mrs. Jackson murmured something and fled from the place where so
often she had found rest and refreshment, feeling that she had, in very
truth, been wounded in the house of her friend.

What Andrew Jackson thought of the change no one ever heard. That young
man was not given to confiding his feelings to the world at large. He
was respectful to his parents--oddly so in this disrespectful age--and
if he sometimes did permit himself to smile at them both, no one knew.

He was an ordinary-looking young man, neither tall nor short, with frank
eyes, and a pleasant smile. His mother thought him wonderfully handsome.
In the War he had won a well-deserved Military Cross, and since coming
home to his father's business much of his spare time had been spent
helping with various schemes for the boys and young men of his own city.

Sitting with his mother in her very own parlour one evening before they
left Deneholm for good, he looked round the room, which with all its
ugliness had an air of homely comfort about it, and said, "You've been
happy here, Mother?"

Mrs. Jackson, who was tidying out a large work-basket, looked up at the
question.

Andrew was lying back in one of the shabby red velvet chairs smoking a
pipe, and watching his mother. She loved to sit so with her son. Her
husband was always busy, out at a meeting or a public dinner, or looking
over papers in his own room, but Andrew spent many evenings in "the
parlour."

"Happy, Andy? Yes, of course I've been happy."

She spoke in an abstracted way, her attention obviously still on the
work-basket. Presently she held out a photograph, saying: "It's queer to
come across something you haven't seen for years. It's a school
group.... That's me, that fat one in the front with the curls! Eh, my
my, I couldn't sleep wondering what I'd be like, and I got such a
disappointment...."

Her son studied the faded picture gravely.

"Where was this taken, Mother?" he asked.

"At the first school I was ever at, a private school in Myrtle Park. My
home was in Crosshill, of course. We sat on benches in an upper room and
learned out of wee paper books. There were pictures to help us on, and I
remember getting a rap over the fingers for spelling t u
b--bucket.... I wore a white pinafore. Children never wear pinafores
now. I daresay they're neater, but I don't know--there was something
awful fresh about a clean pinny."

She was disentangling some silks and rolling them neatly on cards as she
talked.

"The master was a queer man. I forget how it came up in the class one
day, but he was talking about servants of God, and he said to me,
'Bella, have you ever seen a servant of God?' I said I had not, and he
told me to come out into the middle of the floor, and he solemnly shook
hands with me and said, 'Now you can say you've shaken hands with a
servant of God.'... But, of course, I was thinking of prophets with
long white beards. Jeremiah, you know...."

"Of course," said Andrew.

"It was a queer Glasgow in those days. Crosshill was like a village, and
there was a long stretch of vacant ground from it to Eglinton Toll.
You'll hardly mind of it like that? And at the foot of Myrtle Park there
were big pools or bogs or something that we could skate on in winter.
And there were only horse-cars going in and out to town, and they didn't
go further than the Park Gate.... I stayed at the Myrtle Park school
till I was ten and then I went to another private school in Kelvinside
till I was seventeen, but I don't think I ever learned much.... I got
engaged to your father when I was twenty. He was a deacon in the church
we went to, and read papers at the Literary Society.... He took to
walking home with me from meetings and dropping in to supper, but it was
long before I could believe he meant anything, for, you see, I wasn't
clever, and he was a promising young man. We weren't married for some
years because, of course, we had to save, but I was awful happy making
my things, and going out with your father to concerts and socials."

She stopped to deal patiently with a very tangled skein, and her son
asked where their first house had been.

"D'you not remember it, Andy? Uch, you must. We left it when you were
six. It was called Abbotsford, a house in Maxwell Road, a semi-detached
villa, just the six rooms and kitchen. We had been married five years
when you came, so I can tell you we were glad to see you. And your
father was getting on well, and in time he bought Deneholm. It seemed an
awful lift in the world to me! We had just the one girl at Abbotsford,
and we started here with three experienced women. My! I was miserable
with them for a while: I always thought they were laughing to each other
when I went into the kitchen, and so they were, mebbe, but I got used to
it; and you've to live a long time after you're laughed at! The
Rutherfurds' butler's staying on with us, that's a comfort, for he'll
keep the other servants in order. He wanted to go with Lady Jane--quite
the old family servant in a book--but they said they couldn't do with
him in a small house. Miss Nicole said to me that it would never do for
them to have a butler in Kirkmeikle, it would be 'trailing clouds of
glory,' though what she meant by that I don't know. It's a hymn, isn't
it? That's the worst of people like the Rutherfurds, you don't know half
they mean; they so seldom talk sense. I can discuss a subject quite well
if people'll stick to it, but when they suddenly fly off and quote
things.... I want to ask you, Andy, d'you think I'll ever be able to
take my place at Rutherfurd?" She did not wait for an answer, but went
on:

"I was seeing Mrs. McArthur the other day and she fairly depressed me.
I've known her so long and she's been such a good friend, and now she
seems to have turned against me. I could see she thought I'd be a figure
of fun at Rutherfurd, and she was quite bitter about your father, said
he was a climber.... I think myself men are quicker at picking up
things than women. I'm sure when your father married me he didn't know
anything about pictures, and old furniture, and the things he cares so
much about now. He was quite pleased with our little house, and worked
in the garden on Saturday afternoons. I sometimes wish that we'd never
got on in the world and that we still lived at Abbotsford."

Andrew knocked his pipe against the fender and put it on the edge of the
mantelpiece.

"I wouldn't worry, Mother," he said, in his quiet voice. "You never
pretend to be anything you're not, so you'll get on splendidly. Nobody's
going to laugh in an unkindly way at you so long as you're sincere. And
it doesn't matter greatly if we do amuse our neighbours. What would
_Punch_ do without jokes about the New Rich? It's better to amuse people
than bore them, any day. You laugh too, Mother--then the laughter won't
hurt you."

"I see what you mean, Andy.... But surely nobody would ever think of
laughing at your father?"

"I suppose not. But the best-liked people are those that you can laugh
at in a kindly way. And no one has more friends than you, my dear."

"In Glasgow--but I doubt there'll be none of my kind near Rutherfurd.
Mrs. McArthur says..."

"Never mind Mrs. McArthur. She's a thrawn old body sometimes."

She still looked at her son with troubled eyes.

"And you're a beautiful speaker, Andy, from being at an English school,
though I whiles wonder how you've kept it, for my Glasgow accent would
corrupt a nation. I doubt Mrs. McArthur's right--but, anyway, I'll
always have you. You've been my great comfort all your life."

"That's nonsense," said Andrew, beginning to smash up the fire.

His mother took the poker from him, for it vexed her economical soul to
see a good fire spoiled.

"No, it's the truth.... Well, well, everything has an end. Somehow, I
never thought we'd leave Deneholm. I wonder who'll buy it, and sit in
this room? Mebbe children'll play here." She looked wistfully at her
son. "I wish you'd marry, Andy. Mind, you're getting on. Thirty-two--and
I never saw you so much as look at a girl."




                              CHAPTER VII


                 "Tush man--mortal men, mortal men."

                                                            _Henry IV._

Kirkmeikle was a very little town, merely a few uneven rows of cottages,
occupied chiefly by fishermen, and the workers in a small rope-factory,
known locally as "the Roperee," half-a-dozen shops, and a few houses of
larger size built a century ago. But, on the top of the green brae,
crowning it hideously, stood three staring new villas.

The large square one, Ravenscraig, was inhabited by Miss Janet
Symington.

It had many large windows hung with stiff lace curtains and blinds of
mathematical neatness. Inside there was a bleak linoleum-covered hall
containing a light oak hat-and-umbrella stand, a table with a card tray,
and two chairs, a barometer hung on the wall above the table. To the
right of the front door was the drawing-room, a large, light, ugly room;
to the left was the dining-room, another very light room, with two bow
windows, a Turkey carpet, and crimson leather furniture. A black marble
clock stood on the black marble mantelpiece, and on the walls hung large
seascapes framed heavily in gilt.

The late Mr. Symington had been a wealthy manufacturer, and profoundly
pious. He was a keen business man, but outside his business his interest
centred in religious work. He gave liberally to every good cause, he was
not only a just but a generous master, and the worst that could be said
of him was that he was a dull man. That he most emphatically was--quiet,
dour, decent, dull. He never opened a book unless it was the life of a
missionary or a philanthropist; he could not read fiction because it was
not true, therefore a waste of time. He had thought highly of his
minister, Mr. Lambert, until, one day, he found that honest man reading
Shakespeare's Sonnets; after that he regarded him with suspicion. To Mr.
Symington life was real, life was earnest, and not to be frittered away
in reading Shakespeare.

His wife had been a delicate, peevish woman, who seldom went out, but
who enjoyed amassing quantities of wearing apparel, more especially
expensive shoes and gloves, which she never wore. She was proud of the
fact that all her life she had never needed to soil her hands with
house-work, and liked to hold them out to visitors saying, "Such
_useless_ hands!" and receive compliments on their shape and whiteness.
She never read anything but the newspapers, and was not greatly
interested even in her children. She died a few months before her
husband, not much lamented and but little missed.

Janet was like her father. She had the same rather square figure and
large head, the same steady brown eyes and obstinate chin. Mr. Symington
had always looked like a lay preacher in his black coat and square felt
hat, and his daughter dressed so severely as to suggest a uniform, in a
navy blue coat and skirt, a plain hat of the sailor brand, and a dark
silk blouse made high at the neck.

There had been a brother younger than Janet, but he had never been
anything but a worry and disappointment. Even as a child David had
resented the many rules that compassed the Symington household, while
Janet had been the reproving elder sister, pursing her lips primly,
promising that she would "tell," and that David would "catch it." At
school his reports were never satisfactory, at college he idled, and
when he entered his father's business he did his work listlessly and
without interest. When war broke out he seemed to wake to life, and went
"most jocund, apt, and willingly." That hurt his father more than
anything. That war should be possible at this time of day nearly broke
his heart, and to see David keen and enthusiastic, light-hearted and
merry as he had never been at home, to hear him say that these were the
happiest years of his life, simply appalled him. When it was all over
David came home with a D.S.O. and the _Croix de guerre_, and a young
girl with bobbed flaxen hair, neat legs, and an impudent smile, whom he
had met in France and married in London when they were both on leave.

For one hectic month all abode together in Ravenscraig, a month of
strained conversation, of long silences, of bitter boredom on the part
of the young couple, and patient endurance on the part of the elder
Symingtons. Then David announced that he could not stand life in the old
country, and meant to try to make a living in Canada. His father, deeply
disappointed but also secretly relieved, gave him a sum of money, and
the couple set off light-heartedly to make their fortune....

Three years later John Symington died, leaving to his daughter complete
control of all he possessed, but this last act of his father's did not
worry David, for before Janet's letter reached the ranch, David also was
dead, killed by a fall from his horse. His widow, liking the life,
decided to stay in Canada, and six months later married one of David's
friends and sent David's son home to Kirkmeikle to his Aunt Janet.

The next villa, Knebworth, was a different type of architecture. It was
of rough-cast and black timber, with many small odd-shaped windows,
picturesque grates with imitation Dutch tiles, and antique door-handles.

Mrs. Heggie lived here comfortably, and, on the whole, amicably with her
daughter Joan. Mrs. Heggie was more than "given to hospitality," she
simply revelled in feeding all her friends and acquaintances. It seemed
impossible for her to meet people without straightway asking them to a
meal. It was probably this passionate hospitality that had soured her
daughter and made that young woman's manner, in contrast, short and
abrupt.

The third villa, Lucknow, was occupied by a retired Anglo-Indian and his
wife, Mr. and Mrs. Buckler. They had two children to educate and had
come to Kirkmeikle because it was quiet and cheap. Mrs. Buckler wrestled
with servants, while the husband played golf and walked about with dogs.

There was a fourth house on the brae, much smaller than the others, more
a cottage than a villa, which belonged to a Miss Jamieson, a genteel
lady, so poorly provided with this world's goods that she was obliged to
take a lodger.

She had been fortunate, she would have told you, to secure at the end of
the summer season a single gentleman, quiet in his habits and most
considerate. He had come to Kirkmeikle because he wanted quiet to write
a book--something about exploring, Miss Jamieson thought. He had been
with her for three weeks and expected to remain till early spring. His
name was Simon Beckett. No one, so far, had made the acquaintance of
Miss Jamieson's lodger except Miss Symington's six-year-old nephew,
Alastair.

That young person had a way of escaping from his nurse and pushing his
small form through a gap in the hedge that divided Miss Jamieson's
drying-green from the road, and, on reaching the window of Mr. Beckett's
room, flattening his nose against the glass to see if that gentleman was
at work at his desk. If he were, Alastair at once joined him, and, with
no shadow of doubt as to his welcome, related to him all the events that
made up his day, finishing up with an invitation to join Annie and
himself in Ravenscraig at nursery tea.

One afternoon in October, a day of high wind, and white-capped waves and
scudding clouds, Alastair was returning with Annie from the shore where
he had been playing among the boats. He was toiling up the hill,
shuffling his feet among the rustling brown leaves and talking to
himself under his breath, when Annie called to him to wait a minute, and
forthwith dived into the baker's shop. It was a chance not to be missed.
Off ran Alastair straight to Miss Jamieson's, walked boldly in at the
front door and found his friend at his desk.

"Hello!" said Mr. Beckett, "it's you."

"Yes," Alastair said, panting slightly from his run. "Annie's in the
baker's. I've run away."

"Shouldn't do that, you know."

"Why not?" said Alastair. "I wanted to see you. She'll be here in a
minute." He looked out of the window and saw Annie already on his track.
She was standing at the gate trying to see into the room.

Simon Beckett looked up from his writing and saw her.

"You'd better go, old man."

"I'd rather stay with you. Miss Jamieson's making pancakes for your tea.
We only have bread and butter and digestive biscuits."

"I'm too busy for tea to-day. Come to-morrow at four o'clock."

He began again to write, and Alastair saw that there was no real hope of
tea, and a story or a game. Still he lingered, and presently asked, "Do
you mind coming out and telling Annie you've invited me to tea
to-morrow?"

The face that he turned up to his friend was the funniest little wedge
of a face, with a wide mouth and a pointed chin and pale blue eyes, the
whole topped by a thatch of thick sandy hair; a Puck-like countenance.

Simon Beckett smiled as he looked at it. "Come on, then," he said,
getting up and propelling Alastair before him, "we'll make it all right
with Annie."

That damsel was not difficult to propitiate. When Alastair had tea in
"the room," she had tea in the kitchen, and Miss Jamieson was known for
her comfortable ways and her good cooking, so she blushed and said she
would ask Miss Symington, and thanked Mr. Beckett in the name of her
charge, calling him "Sir" quite naturally, a thing she had never thought
to do, for she belonged to the Labour Party and believed in equality. As
they were parting, all three on excellent terms, at the gate, Mrs.
Heggie and her daughter passed. Joan would have walked on, but her
mother stopped.

"Well, Alastair," she said, in the loud bantering tone which she kept
for children, "what mischief have you been up to to-day, I wonder!"

Alastair regarded her in hostile silence, while Annie poked him in the
back to make some response.

Mrs. Heggie turned to Miss Jamieson's lodger.

"You're Mr. Beckett, I think? How d'you do? Strange that we should have
never met, but you're a great student I hear. It must take a lot of hard
thinking to write a book. I often say that to Joan--my daughter, Mr.
Beckett--for she's inclined to be literary too.... We would be so
glad to see you any time. Could you lunch with us to-morrow?"

Joan trod heavily on the foot nearest her, and her mother winced but
went recklessly on. "No? Then Thursday; Thursday would suit us just as
well. 1.30. Then that's settled."

"Thank you," said Simon Beckett, in chastened tones. "It's tremendously
kind of you. Yes, Thursday. Good-bye."

"I wonder," said Miss Joan Heggie, coldly, as they walked on, "what
possible pleasure it gives you, Mother, to try to cultivate people who
quite obviously don't want to be cultivated. You absolutely forced that
poor man to come to lunch."

"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Heggie. "I think he's only shy."

"Not he, he's unwilling, and I don't blame him. Kirkmeikle society is
far from enlivening. Oh, here comes Miss Symington. Don't stop, Mother,
for goodness' sake."

But Mrs. Heggie was physically incapable of passing a friend or
neighbour without a few words; besides she was wearing her new winter
things, and was going to take tea with the doctor's sister, and
altogether felt pleased and happy. She shook hands with Miss Symington,
hoped she saw her well, and told her where she was going to tea. She
rather hoped in return to receive a compliment about her new hat and
coat, but none seemed forthcoming, so she said, "Well, good-bye just
now, and do come and see us when you have time.... Could you lunch
with us on Thursday? _Do._ 1.30." (Joan gazed despairingly at the sky.)
"That'll be nice. Mr. Beckett is coming. Good-bye.... Oh, by the way,
did you hear a rumour that the Harbour House is let? Our cook heard it
from the postman. Let's hope it's a nice family who'll be a help in the
place. Well, good-bye just now...."

"Mother, what do you mean by it?" Joan asked as they walked away.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Heggie, "it just came out."

But there was no real repentance in her tone.




                              CHAPTER VIII


              "Lady Alice, Lady Louise,
               Between the wash of the tumbling seas."

                                                        WILLIAM MORRIS.

Jean Douglas insisted on taking Lady Jane to Kingshouse out of the way
of the removal, and Nicole and Barbara, accompanied by two maids from
Rutherfurd, an under housemaid, and a girl who had been "learning the
table," set out for Kirkmeikle to make the Harbour House habitable.

It proved a comparatively easy task. Mrs. Agnes Martin had managed to
chase out the painters in good time, and had every cupboard and floor
scrubbed white when they arrived; the furniture fitted in as if made for
the rooms, and very soon the house took on a look of comfort.

Now, after a week, Nicole, all impatience, was planning for her mother's
coming.

"You'll go to Edinburgh and meet her, won't you, Babs? and I'll be
standing on the door-step to welcome you both. Let's stage-manage it
properly, for there's a tremendous lot in one's first impression of a
new place. You'd better lunch in Edinburgh and come by the afternoon
train--that's much the nicest time to arrive, about four-thirty or five
o'clock." Nicole moved restlessly about the room--they were sitting in
the drawing-room--altering things here and there, while Barbara sewed
placidly.

"We'd better arrange for a car to be waiting at Thornton, don't you
think? The first look of Kirkmeikle from the station is frankly ugly,
and to jolt down here in a mouldy cab would be very depressing. If you
motor you will come through clean harvest-fields, and beside green
links, with glimpses of the sea, and then there would be the Harbour,
and the open door, and inside familiar things everywhere for her eyes to
rest on.... If _only_ it would be the sort of day I want--a touch of
frost and the sky sunset-red, the stars beginning to appear, and..."

"Don't expect it," said Barbara. "Rain and an easterly _haar_ smothering
everything--that's what's most likely to happen."

Nicole laughed. "In that case the house will look all the brighter...
I'm pleased with it, aren't you? Everything has worked out so amazingly
well. Mrs. Martin, for instance. I admit I was rash, but you must own
that she looks like being a woman in a thousand, and is certainly a cook
in five thousand."

Barbara shook her head. "You do exaggerate so wildly. But I must say
she's a good cook, and in these days a cook that will do without a
kitchen-maid is something to be thankful for. And I think she'll be good
with the other servants; she seems to take an interest in them and tries
to make things easy for them."

"I know. She said to me, 'Christina's a rale thorough worker, and Beenie
too: they're baith wise lasses.' It's funny, isn't it, that sharp upward
tilt in the Fife tongue after the slow soft Border? We'll get used to it
in time, as well as to other things. The thing that matters is that
Mother should feel herself at home."

Three days later, when the hired car drew up at the door, the scene was
almost exactly as Nicole had pictured it. The tide was out, and beyond
the low wall a stretch of firm, ribbed sand lay white in the half light;
a very new moon hung bashfully in a clear sky; the masts of a
sailing-boat stood up black beyond the Harbour; somewhere near a boy was
whistling a blythe air. The open door showed a hall glowing with
welcome. On a Jacobean chest stood a great bowl of brown chrysanthemums
and red berries; sporting prints that had been in the gun-room at
Rutherfurd hung on the walls; the clock, the chairs, the half-circular
table, the rugs on the floor were all old friends.

When Lady Jane entered the drawing-room she cried out with pleasure.

The curtains had not been drawn, for Nicole liked the contrast between
the chill world of sea and gathering dark outside and the comfort
within, and from the four long windows in a row could be seen the tide
crawling up the sand under the baby moon. Inside a fire of coal and logs
blazed, and amber-shaded lights fell on the old comfortable chairs, the
cabinet of china, the row of pictured children's faces over the
mantelshelf. 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 from the window fell on it, with all her own
special treasures--the big leather blotter with her initials in silver
which had been the combined gift of her children the last birthday they
had all been together, the double frames with Ronnie and Archie, a
miniature of Nicole as a fat child of three.

Barbara put an arm round her aunt and led her to her own chair.

"Well now, dear, we've got our journeying over in the mean time, and
here is Christina with the tea and we want it badly after our exiguous
lunch. The Club was so crowded, Nik, and the food so bad: everything
finished except stewed steak with macaroni, and tapioca pudding to
follow."

Nicole had been standing by one of the windows watching her mother's
face. Now she came forward to the fire.

"You must have been very late, you foolish creatures. Pour out the tea,
Babs, and I'll hand round the hot scones. See, Mummy, everything baked
by Mrs. Martin! Yes, even that frightfully smart-looking iced cake.
She's a treasure, I assure you, procured by me single-handed, because
Babs was sceptical and cautious."

Lady Jane smiled at her daughter and took a bit of scone.

"Darlings," she said, "what a pretty room! I think our things look nicer
than they ever did before.... These four windows with the seats
looking to the sea--I almost seem to have seen the room before, I feel
so at home in it."

"Then," said her daughter, "we shan't need to butter your paws. Isn't
that what you do to make a cat feel at home?"

"Meaning me a cat! Trust Nicole to think of some absurd thing. No,
there's no need for such extreme measures. I am more than happy to have
my own dear things about me in this funny little sea-looking house, and
my two girls to talk to.... I've all sorts of messages from every
one. Jean's kindness was endless..."

"Tell us," said Barbara.

After dinner in the eighteenth century dining-room with its striped silk
curtains drawn--an excellent dinner, for Mrs. Martin was anxiously
determined to justify the faith Nicole had placed in her--they sat round
the drawing-room fire. Lady Jane got out a strip of lace that she was
making, Barbara knitted a child's jacket: Nicole sat in a low chair with
a book in her lap, a large book with dull brown covers.

Her mother looked curiously at it. "What have you got there, child? It
looks ponderous."

Nicole held it up for her mother's inspection.

"I found it among Father's books and it's going to be a perfect god-send
to me. I hear the sound of Tweed while I read.... It's Sir Walter
Scott's _Journal_. Every night I shall read a bit, it ought to last me
quite a while for there are two stout volumes, and afterwards I'm going
to read Lockhart's _Life_. I've got that too, in the closest print I
ever saw, one fat calf-bound volume presented to Father as a prize in
1888--nearly forty years ago."

"But, Nicole," Barbara began, "you never could read Scott's novels. I
remember Uncle Walter offering you a prize if you'd read through _The
Antiquary_, and you stuck."

"I did. To my shame be it said. But that was only a tale, and this is
true. I shall read bits out to you. It's the sort of book that simply
asks to be read aloud."

Barbara passed her cousin a skein of wool. "Hold that for me, will you,
while I wind?... Most of our time I suppose will be spent in this
way, working a little, reading a little, talking, writing letters..."

"Yes," said Nicole, "I hope so. I do love a routine, doing the same
thing at the same time every day. We shan't ever have to go out in the
evenings now, so we'll have ample time to read and meditate.... I
mean to read all Trollope. I've never had time before to settle to
him.... Isn't it odd to sit here in this little house--we three--and
not know anything whatever about the people who live round us. We who
have always known every one for miles round!"

"Dear," said her mother, "Aunt Constance wants to know if you would like
her to write to friends of hers--Erskine, I think is the name--who live
not very far from Kirkmeikle."

Nicole bounded in her seat at the suggestion.

"Oh, Mother, beg her not to. Think what a disaster! Those Erskines would
feel they had to come motoring over and invite us, and we would meet
their friends, and before we knew where we were we would be in a vortex
and all our beautiful peace smashed."

"Nonsense," Barbara said, impatiently tweaking the wool. "Do hold it
straight, or how can I wind? Of course we want to know the Erskines. It
will make all the difference."

"It's so like Aunt Constance to have friends in every out-of-the-way
nook and cranny!" Nicole grumbled. "I thought we'd be safe here."

Barbara finished winding her ball, and said severely:

"You know quite well that there is no one here we could possibly be
friends with."

"Isn't there, haughty aristocrat? Well, I can't keep myself to myself. I
want to know everybody there is to know, butcher and baker and
candlestick-maker. Yes, even the people who live in the smart villas.
The Erskines would be exactly like all the people we have always known.
Now that we are different I want to know different sort of people."

"How are we different?" Barbara asked sharply.

"We've come down in the world," her cousin told her solemnly.

"Ridiculous! Aunt Jane, isn't she horrid? Surely you don't want me to
make friends with all and sundry?"

Lady Jane laughed. "I certainly think with you that we should get to
know the Erskines, but it's pleasant to live on good terms with all our
neighbours."

"Of course it is," Barbara agreed, "if we stop there, but Nicole never
knows where to draw the line. She gets so disgustingly familiar with
every one--I sometimes think she's a born Radical."

"What a thing to say about the Vice-President of the Tweeddale
Conservative Association! Well, you make friends with these Erskines,
Bab, and I'll confine my attentions to Kirkmeikle. I know I was born
expansive. I can't help it, and really it makes life much better fun.
And, Mums, you will sit here and watch the game, and entertain first
Bab's friends then mine. It will be as entertaining as a circus."

"I wonder," said Lady Jane. "I wonder!"




                               CHAPTER IX


                 "Young fresh folkes, he and she."

                                                               CHAUCER.

Barbara had once said of Nicole, and said it rather bitterly, that she
might start on a journey to London, alone in a first-class carriage, but
before her destination was reached she would have made the acquaintance
of half the people in the train. An exaggerated statement, but with a
grain of truth in it. There was something about Nicole that made people
offer her their confidence. Perhaps they saw sympathy and understanding
in her eyes, perhaps they recognised in her what Mr. Chesterton calls
"that thirst for things as humble, as human, as laughable, as that daily
bread for which we cry to God."

Certainly she found entertainment in whatever she heard or saw, and
never came in, even from a walk on the moors round Rutherfurd, without
something to relate. An excellent mimic, she made people live when she
repeated their sayings, and "Nikky's turns," had been very popular with
her father and brothers. Nowadays her recitals were not quite so gay:
her mother and Barbara laughed, to be sure, but there was something
wanting. However, as Nicole often told herself, the world was still not
without its merits.

It was not likely that in such a small community as Kirkmeikle the
Rutherfurds would be neglected, and, indeed, every one had called at
once: the minister and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert; the doctor and
his sister--Kilgour was their name; Mrs. Heggie dragging her unwilling
daughter; Mr. and Mrs. Buckler, and Miss Symington. But they all called
very correctly between three and four, and found no one in, for the new
inmates of the Harbour House took long walks every afternoon to explore
the neighbourhood.

Barbara took up the cards that were lying one day and read aloud the
names:

"Mrs. Heggie, Knebworth.

"Miss Symington, Ravenscraig.

"Mr. and Mrs. Buckler, Lucknow."

Then, flicking the cards aside, she said: "How ghastly they sound! we'd
better not return the calls for ages; we don't want to land ourselves in
a morass of invitations."

"A morass of invitations," Nicole repeated. "'Morass' is good. Each step
taken, that is, each invitation accepted, leading you on until you get
stuck deeper and deeper in the society of Kirkmeikle.... But what
makes you think they would want to entertain us so extensively? It would
only be tea--and that's soon over."

"Luncheon," said Barbara gloomily; "perhaps dinner."

"Well, even if they did! There are so few of them, we'd soon get through
with it."

"Yes, but we'd have to ask them back."

"Why not?" Nicole asked. "Mrs. Martin would give them a very good
dinner, and Mother would entertain them with her justly famous charm of
manner; and you and I are not without a certain pleasing... I can't
think what word I want."

Barbara shrugged her shoulders. "Personally, I have no desire to impress
the natives. The names of their houses are enough for me.... Aunt
Jane, have you fixed on the pattern of chintz you want? I'd better write
before the post goes."

The next day came a breath of winter. The quiet dry weather that had
prevailed for some time vanished, hail spattered like shot against the
long windows, a wild wind tore down the narrow street and whistled in
the chimneys, while white horses raced up the beach and threw spray high
over the wall.

After luncheon Nicole came into the drawing-room with a waterproof hat
pulled well down over her face, and a burberry buttoned up round her
throat, and announced that she was going out.

"My dear, on such a day!" her mother expostulated.

"I'm 'dressed for drowning,'" Nicole assured her. "I only want to
clamber about a bit and watch the waves. They'll be gorgeous along at
the Red Rocks.... Won't you come, Babs?"

But Barbara, looking at the tumult of water through the streaming panes,
shook her head. "It's a day for the fireside, and some quite good books
have come from the _Times_, and I've work to finish--Do you mind?"

"Not a bit. I rather like to walk by my wild lone.... No, Mums, I
will not take Harris, she's particularly busy to-day tidying clothes.
No, nor Christina, nor Beenie--not even Mrs. Martin. They would tell us
with truth that they had been engaged as domestic servants, not as props
in a storm. I assure you I'll come to no harm. Don't worry. I'll be home
for tea."

In spite of her daughter's reassuring words Lady Jane spent most of the
afternoon looking out of the window, nor was Barbara at all comfortable
with her new novel and her work, and when the early darkness began to
fall and her aunt asked if she thought anything could have happened to
Nicole, she became distinctly cross and said that it was extremely
selfish of people to make other people uneasy with their whims and
fancies. "So like Nicole," she added, "to want to go out and watch
waves. I'm sure we can see more than we want of them from these windows.
I don't know why we ever came to live by the sea.... But I suppose
I'd better go and look for her--restless creature that she is!"

But even as she got up to go, the door opened and the wanderer appeared,
her wet hair whipped against her face, her eyes bright with battling
against the wind.

"Nicole," cried Barbara, relief in her voice, "you look like the east
wind incarnate! The very sight of you makes me feel cold and blown
about."

"Such fun!" Nicole gasped. "Yes, rather wet, Mums, and more than a
little battered. Give me ten minutes to change. Here's Christina with
the tea----"

They demanded to know, when she came down dry and tidy, where she had
spent two and a half hours on such a day.

"We got so anxious about you that Babs was just starting to look for you
when you came in," her mother told her. "And we had no idea where you
had gone."

Nicole patted her mother's hand and Barbara's knee to show her
penitence, and took a bite of buttered toast.

"It was wretched of me to worry you, but, you see, I've been making the
acquaintance of some of our neighbours."

"On such a day!" cried Lady Jane.

Nicole laughed aloud. "You may say it, Mums, on such a day!... Give
me my tea over here, will you, Babs? Having sat myself down by this
gorgeous fire I must stay hugging it. Thanks! Now this is cosy, and I'll
tell you all about it.... First, you must know, I went to the
Harbour, which was quite deserted except for a boy lounging against the
wall as if it were a summer day. A wave came over the top and nearly
washed me into the water. I had to hold on to a chain."

"Then," cried her mother, "you must have been drenched from the very
beginning. Oh, my dear, that was reckless of you."

"No, no. Salt water never gave any one cold. I gasped and spluttered for
a bit to the evident amusement of the boy and said, 'Oh! _what_ a
storm!' He grinned again, and spat into the water. 'Storrum?' he said.
'It's no a' storrum, it's juist a wee jobble.' Wasn't he a horrid
fellow?... I left the Harbour then, and walked along the shore to the
Red Rocks. It took me about half an hour, for the wind seemed to clutch
at me and pull me back; indeed when I reached the rocks I got down on my
hands and knees and crawled; I thought it would be rather silly to risk
breaking a leg.... The waves were fine. To watch them rush in and
hurl themselves against the rocks so exhilarated me that I found myself
shouting and encouraging them---- It's a good thing you weren't there,
Babs, you would have been ashamed. I was just thinking of coming home
when I suddenly heard, quite near me, a scream which almost immediately
turned into a laugh, and turning round I found a small boy clutching his
hair while his hat soared sea-wards."

"A small boy alone on the rocks?" Lady Jane asked.

"Not alone, Mums. There was a young man with him."

"A young man!" said Barbara.

Nicole's eyes danced. "An extraordinarily good-looking young man with a
delightful voice, and, as far as I could judge among jagged rocks and
gathering darkness and a wind blowing at a thousand miles an hour, some
charm of manner. Aha!"

Barbara made a sceptical sound, and asked what such a being was doing in
Kirkmeikle.

"Ah, that I can't tell you," Nicole confessed; "he didn't confide in me.
The small boy is called Alastair Symington and lives with his aunt at
Ravenscraig. When we call on that lady we may hear more."

"It's a matter of no interest to me," Barbara declared.

"I threw out feelers," continued Nicole, "to find out what he was doing
here. I told him what _we_ were doing here, but he offered no
confidences in return. I think he must be in rooms near Ravenscraig, for
the small boy kept hinting that he would like to go to tea with
him.... You'd like him, Mums, the small Alastair, I mean. He told me
a long tale about the minister, Mr. Lambert, finding a gold comb on the
sands, which he took home with him, and that night as he sat in his
study somebody tapped at his window, and it was a mermaid to ask for her
comb! According to Alastair the minister went with her to the Red Rocks
and had dinner with her--cod-liver oil soup, which, it seems, is
excellent, and a great delicacy--and she asked him what she could do to
show her gratitude. There had been a great storm a little while before
that, and many boats had gone down, and women had lost their
bread-winners, and the mermaid gave the minister gold and jewels from
the bottom of the sea to sell for the poor people."

Barbara looked indignant. "What a very odd sort of minister to tell a
child such ridiculous tales."

Nicole helped herself to strawberry jam, and laughed as she said: "A
very _nice_ sort of minister, I think. Alastair was stumbling along in
the storm looking for another comb. He said he thought it was the sort
of day a comb would be likely to get lost, and he's very anxious to see
a mermaid in a cave. Mums, we must call at once on Miss Symington, if
only to get better acquainted with this Alastair child. How old? About
six, I think. A queer little fellow and most pathetically devoted to
this tall young man. To a boy brought up by women a man is a wonderful
delight. The two escorted me to the door. I asked them in to tea, and
Alastair was obviously more than willing, but the man said they were too
wet, as indeed they were."

"Did you discover the man's name?"

"I did, from Alastair. He is called Simon Beckett."

Lady Jane wrinkled her brows. "Isn't there something familiar about that
name---- Simon Beckett?"

"Aren't you thinking of Thomas  Becket?" Nicole suggested.

"No, no. I am sure I read somewhere lately of a Simon Beckett having
done something."

"Crime?" said Nicole. "He didn't look like a criminal exactly. Isn't
there a Beckett who boxes?"

"I know," cried Barbara. "I know where you saw the name, Aunt Jane. It
was in the account of the last attempt made on Everest, more than a year
ago. You remember? Two men almost reached the top and one died. Simon
Beckett was the one that came back. You remember we read about the
lecture to the Geographical? Uncle Walter was tremendously interested."

"Why, of course.... But this can't be the same man, Nicole?"

"Of course not," Barbara broke in. "What would _that_ Simon Beckett be
doing in Kirkmeikle?"

"_This_ Simon Beckett certainly didn't mention Everest to me," Nicole
said, as she began on a slice of plum-cake.




                               CHAPTER X


                    "O brave new world
                    That has such people in't."

                                                         _The Tempest._

A few days later Nicole and her mother--Barbara had pleaded excessive
boredom at the prospect and had been let off--set out to return their
neighbours' calls.

Nicole carried a card-case which she had unearthed from somewhere, and
was very particular about what her mother should wear.

"The new long coat with the grey fur, Mums; it has such a nice
slimifying effect--not that you need it. What a blessing that we are
sylphs, you and I. Wouldn't you hate to feel thick, and to know that you
had a bulge at the back of your neck?... You really are ridiculously
young, Mums. You could wear your hair shingled, for the back of your
neck is the nicest thing I ever saw, almost like a child's; and your
little firm face is so fresh--only the eyes shadowed a little. And not
one grey hair! How have the gods thus guarded your first bloom, as the
poet puts it?"

Lady Jane, standing before the looking-glass pulling a small hat over
her wavy hair, laughed at her daughter.

"All this flattery because I've consented to go with you and call! Or is
there something more you want?"

Nicole stood beside her mother looking at the reflection in the mirror.

"We might easily be taken for sisters, Mums. In fact, I might be
mistaken for the mother, for there is something stern in my visage that
ages me.... How nice it is that now mothers and daughters can dress
alike--the same little hats, long coats, and unimportant dresses. At one
stage of the world's history you would have worn a bonnet and a dolman,
Madam, and I should have had a sailor-hat tilted up behind (see old
_Punches_) and a bustle. What we have been spared!"

"Come along, then, and get our visits over. I'm ready."

As they mounted the long street that led from the shore to the villas on
the top of the brae, Lady Jane remarked, "I should think every one will
be out this fine day."

Nicole pinched her mother's arm. "Don't say it so hopefully; you're as
bad as Barbara. I want them all to be in.... Do let's speak to this
woman; she's a friend of mine, a Mrs. Brodie."

They were passing a little house, the doorway a few steps under the
level of the street, with two little windows each curtained with a
starched stiff petticoat of muslin, and further darkened by four
geraniums in pots. A large, cheerful-looking woman was standing at the
door, holding a baby, while two slightly older children played at her
feet. She greeted Nicole with a broad smile, and when she said, "Mrs.
Brodie, this is my mother," she gave an odd little backward jerk of the
head by way of a bow. They admired the baby, and Lady Jane asked how
many other children she had.

"Just the nine, no mony if ye say it quick eneuch," and Mrs. Brodie
laughed loudly at her own joke. "Ma auldest's a laddie; he's leevin' the
schule gin the simmer holidays. Then comes three lasses and the twins,
an' thae three." She looked at the two playing gravely at her feet with
a broken melodeon, then she chirruped to the baby, who leapt and plunged
in her arms like a hooked trout.

"Ay," said his mother encouragingly, "I ken ye'rs a wee horse. I ken
fine ye're a wee horse. By! ye're an awfu' ane."

Lady Jane's eyes met those of Mrs. Brodie over the head of "the wee
horse," and she said, "You're a happy woman, Mrs. Brodie, with your
children all about you."

"Ay, I mind ma mither aye said a wumman's happiest time was when her
bairns were roond her knees, an' she gethered them under wan roof when
nicht fell. I'm thrang eneuch, guid kens, but it's hertsome wark."

She nodded to the mother and daughter as they left her, remarking that
they were getting a fine day for their walk.

Miss Symington was in, they were told, when they had rung the bell at
Ravenscraig, at which intelligence Nicole cast an exultant glance at her
mother.

There was no one in the drawing-room, and the housemaid lit the gas-fire
and left them. The room had an unused feeling; no books lay about; in
one of the big bow windows there stood on the floor an aspidistra in a
yellow pot.

"It looks lonely," Nicole said, eyeing it.

Miss Symington came in, apologising for having kept them. She was
dressed to go out, and looked oddly bulky in her coat and skirt and
round felt hat beside the mother and daughter in their slim long coats
and close-fitting hats.

It was obvious at once that if there was to be any conversation it would
have to be made by the visitors.

Nicole, poising her card-case between the tips of her fingers, smiled
gaily into the somewhat unresponsive face of Miss Symington and began to
talk. She and her mother tossed the ball of conversation deftly to each
other, appealing often for confirmation to the shadowy third, putting
remarks into her mouth until that lady began to feel that she shone in
company.

As they were leaving, "You have a nephew," Nicole said.

"Alastair," said Miss Symington.

"Yes, Alastair. He and I made friends on the rocks the other day. Is he
in? I expect he'll be out this fine day?"

"He goes out every afternoon from two to four."

"Perhaps some day you would let him come to tea with us? My mother likes
boys--don't you, Mums?--and Alastair is such a lamb. He must be a great
delight to you."

Alastair's aunt seemed surprised at this assertion.

"I do my best for him," she said, "but I'm afraid I don't understand
boys. I would never think of asking a boy to come to see me for
pleasure."

Lady Jane leant forward, smiling. "Do bring Alastair to tea with us,
Miss Symington, and we'll all try to amuse each other. Which day?
Wednesday?"

"I've a Mothers' Meeting that afternoon."

"Thursday, then?"

"Yes, thank you. We shall be very pleased, though I don't see why you
should be bothered having us. What hour?"

"Oh," said Nicole, "shall we say four sharp, then we'll have time to
play after tea. That's fine."

As they walked down the gravel-path Nicole said, "I'm so glad I brought
the indoor fire-works left from our last children's party. I nearly gave
them away, not thinking that Kirkmeikle might produce a small boy....
Miss Symington's a nice woman, Mums, you think? Very, very well-meaning
and decent."

Lady Jane looked back at the house as they went out of the garden gate
into the road.

"It is odd that a woman can live in a house like that and make no effort
to make it habitable. I wonder if it has ever occurred to her how ugly
everything is. I didn't see one single beautiful thing.... She has
nice eyes, Miss Symington, like clear pools, and I think she is utterly
sincere."

Her daughter nodded. "I know, but she is inarticulate, isn't she? I felt
ashamed of talking so much, but what could I do?... This is
Knebworth. Here lives one Mrs. Heggie, with at least one daughter and, I
daresay, others that we know not of. Quite a different type, to judge
from the house.... Isn't this fun? Let's greet the unknown with a
cheer. An electric bell this time, and, I expect, a much smarter
parlour-maid... I thought so."

She followed her mother and the short skirts and high heels of the maid
through an ornate little hall, complete with a fireplace and ingle-neuk
and red tiles, into the drawing-room. It was a room of many corners and
odd-shaped windows, comfortably furnished, the walls hung with
reproductions of famous pictures. Tall vases filled with honesty and
cape-gooseberries stood about, and a good fire burned on the red brick
hearth. A small book-case fitted into a niche held a selection of the
works of the most modern writers, while on a table lay some magazines.

Mrs. Heggie was seated on a low chair beside the fire, with a
writing-pad on her knee, and a bottle of ink perched precariously on the
rim of the fender. As she rose to greet her visitors paper and envelopes
and loose letters fell from her like leaves in an autumn gale. She was a
tall, stout woman with a round face and an all-enveloping manner.

"Well now," she said, as she held out one hand to Lady Jane and the
other to Nicole, "isn't this nice? and to think I nearly went out this
afternoon! If it hadn't been for some letters that I knew simply must go
to-day nothing would have kept me in."

"But," said Lady Jane, "I'm afraid we are interrupting you--your
letters----"

"Letters," Mrs. Heggie said airily, thrusting her visitors into two
arm-chairs, "they can wait: it's hours till post-time, any way." She
subsided into her own low chair and asked in tones of deep interest,
"And how d'you think you're going to like Kirkmeikle?"

"Very much indeed," Lady Jane replied. "We were lucky to get such a nice
house. You know it, of course--the Harbour House?"

"I don't. The Harbour House is a sealed book to me, and I've always had
the greatest desire to see inside it. There is something about it--the
crow-step gables and long, narrow windows facing the sea--that
fascinates me. I've often tried to see in when I passed! Mrs. Swinton
was a queer woman. She never visited the other people in Kirkmeikle. I
suppose she had her own friends and kept to them, and of course she was
quite right, if that was the way she was made. People are so different.
Now, I'm miserable if I don't know everybody. I don't think I'm a
busy-body, but I do take the greatest interest in my neighbours and
their concerns, and if I can do anything to oblige them I'm just
delighted. Rich or poor, I like people and want to be friends with
them."

"Hurrah!" said Nicole. "I feel like that too. Life is much too short to
be exclusive in. One misses so much."

Mrs. Heggie beamed at the girl. "That's what I always say. You'll find
Kirkmeikle very friendly--what there's of it. I suppose everybody has
called?"

"Let me see," Nicole said gravely: "Miss Symington, Mr. and Mrs.
Lambert, Dr. Kilgour and Miss Kilgour, Mr. and Mrs. Buckler--you and
your daughter."

Mrs. Heggie nodded her head at each name. "That's all," she said. "Are
you returning all the calls to-day?"

"We hope to," said Lady Jane, the corners of her mouth turning up. "We
have just seen Miss Symington and are going on to the Bucklers."

Mrs. Heggie sat forward. "You've seen Miss Symington? She's very nice,
quiet and solid, but very nice. Does a lot of good with her money. She's
very rich, you know, though you wouldn't think so to look at her. She's
like her father: all he cared for was missionaries and evangelistic
meetings. D'you know, every week-end Miss Symington has a minister of
sorts staying with her! She keeps up the Mission-hall her father started
in Langtoun for his workers, and the preacher stays with her. Of course
she isn't quite young; she must be forty-five anyway, and she's so
discreet that it's quite all right, but I always expect to hear that one
of them is going to hang up his hat--as the saying is."

The visitors were silent, not quite knowing what comment to make, and
Mrs. Heggie continued:

"You'll like the Bucklers. Somebody told me that Mr. Buckler had quite a
distinguished career in India, and I must say they are most obliging
neighbours. I'm sorry for poor Mrs. Buckler with her servants. Now,
you'll stay and have tea; I'll ring for it at once so as not to hinder
you. It's early, I know, but you may not be offered it at the Bucklers,
for they have a housemaid who objects to giving tea to visitors unless
they come at tea-time. No? Oh, don't rise. You're not going already?
Joan may be in any minute. She's all I have now. My husband died three
years ago, and two boys in the Argentine. Joan is inclined to be
literary---- Well, if you must go.... When will you come for a meal?
Let me see, this is Monday--Would lunch on Wednesday suit you? Friday,
then? we _must_ fix a day."

"If you don't mind," Lady Jane said in her gentle way, "we won't fix
anything just now. We are still rather busy settling down and would
rather have no engagements yet awhile. Might we, perhaps, propose
ourselves for tea one day? That will be delightful, and you must come
and see us in our funny little house when you can spare time."

"I'll do that," Mrs. Heggie promised heartily, "and you come here
whenever you like. Just run in, you know. I'm always sitting
here--except when I'm out somewhere. And when you feel like accepting
invitations you'll come here first, won't you? I'll give a dinner for
you...."

Half an hour later when Joan came in and asked casually if there had
been any visitors, her mother replied with studied carelessness, "Only
Lady Jane Rutherfurd and her daughter. They were here quite twenty
minutes--the _civilest_ people I ever met. And I didn't ask one single
question, though I'm just dying to know what brought them to Kirkmeikle.
They're charming, perfectly charming."

Joan sat down heavily in a chair. "For any favour, mother," she said,
"give that worn-out adjective a rest. Whenever you ask what sort of
person some one is you're told--'Charming,' and when you meet her she's
nothing of the kind. Charm is not the common thing people make it out to
be."

"Oh well, Joan, I'm not going to quarrel with you about adjectives. You
know far more about them than I do, but when you meet the Rutherfurds
you'll be charmed with them, I know that.... The daughter looked at
your books--what a nice friend she'll be for you...."

Mr. and Mrs. Buckler received their callers with less excitement than
Mrs. Heggie.

Nicole smiled up at Mr. Buckler as he put her into a carved chair with a
brilliant embroidered cushion for a seat, saying: "The East in
Kirkmeikle! I smelt it as soon as I came into the hall."

"You recognise it? You know India?"

"Only as a Paget M.P.--I was out for a cold weather when I first grew
up, just after the War. I went out to an uncle and aunt who happened to
be there.... Have you been home long?"

Mr. Buckler, a thin man with tired eyes in a sun-dried face, drew up a
chair beside Nicole.

"I retired about five years ago," he said; "glad enough at the time to
get away, but looking back at the life now, it seems the best on earth.
Distance lending enchantment! I dare say if I went back I would be
disillusioned. It's not the India I went out to as a boy, and loved.
Things, they tell me, are altering daily for the worse--still it's
India...."

While Nicole and her companion recalled people and places Lady Jane
listened while Mrs. Buckler told her of the trials of a retired
Mem-sahib. She was a pretty, faded woman, with a vivacious manner.

"When I think of my jewel of a _Khansamah_ who made everything go like
clockwork and produced anything you wanted at a moment's notice like a
_djinn_ in a fairy tale, I almost weep. Of course, we're as poor as rats
now and we can't afford really good servants, and I know I ought to be
thankful that at least we have honest women in the house, but, oh, Lady
Jane, their manners! They never think of saying 'Mum' to me, and very
seldom 'Sir' to Ernest. They seem to think it demeans them, whereas, as
I tell them, all servants in good houses say it as a matter of course.
They merely prove their own inferiority by not saying it. But how can
one teach manners to women who don't know what manners mean? It was
quite funny the other day, though vexing. A friend of ours had motored a
long way to see us, and found no one in. Mrs. Heggie--our neighbour next
door--came up to the door at the same time and heard the conversation.
Our friend has a very forthcoming, sympathetic manner, and she said to
Janet, the housemaid, who had opened the door: 'Now, tell me, how _is_
Mrs. Buckler? Has she quite got over that nasty turn of influenza? Is
she out and about again?' Janet stood quite stolid (so Mrs. Heggie
said), then drawled in a bored voice, 'Och, she's quite cheery'!"

Lady Jane laughed. "It was rather funny, wasn't it? and most reassuring,
and after all manners aren't everything: I wouldn't worry about them if
I were you."

"We tried," Mrs. Buckler went on, "to be exceedingly polite to each
other, Ernest and I, to see if that might have a good effect, but it
hadn't. They merely seemed to think we were feeble-minded.... But as
you say, we might have worse trials--and Janet isn't as bad as she was.
The last time we had some people to dinner Janet's way of offering the
vegetables was to murmur 'Whit aboot sprouts?'... But I really don't
mind anything if Ernest and the children are happy."

"You have children?"

"Two--a boy at Oxford and a girl in Switzerland. That's why we live
here. It is cheap and we can pinch in comfort--a contradiction in
terms!... Must you go?"

Mr. Buckler walked down to the gate with the visitors, and as they stood
talking a tall young man came towards them.

"Ah, Beckett, the very man I wanted to see! I heard this morning from
the India Office.... By the way, have you met?... May I introduce
Mr. Beckett? Lady Jane Rutherfurd, Miss Rutherfurd."

"Mr. Beckett and I have met already," Nicole said. "I told you,
Mother--Alastair's friend...."

As they walked away Lady Jane asked if they had done enough for one day.
"It must be nearly tea-time," she said.

"Well," said Nicole, "we haven't time to attempt the Kilgours, but we
pass the Lamberts' house, it's just here, this green gate in the
wall--we needn't stay more than a few minutes. Come on, Mums."

The green door opened into a good-sized garden surrounded by a high
brick wall on which fruit trees were trained. There was a lawn, wide
borders which still held bravely blooming Michaelmas daisies and
chrysanthemums, and plots of rose-trees--evidently a place on which was
bestowed both labour and love.

"'A garden enclosed,'" said Nicole, as they went up the path to the
front door. "And what a pleasant-looking house!"

The manse was a rather long, low house built of grey stone. The front
door stood open and children's voices could be heard. When Nicole rang
the bell a very young servant answered it. She was not more than
fifteen, but her hair was put tidily up, and she wore a very white cap
and apron: her face shone with soap and rubbing.

"No, Mem," she said shyly. "Mistress Lambert's oot, but she'll be in to
the tea aboot half five, and it's that noo. Would ye... come in?"

Nicole picked out a card while Lady Jane said:

"No, thank you--we shall hope to see Mrs. Lambert another time....
Who is this young person?"

A small fat child had trotted out, and now held the apron of the maid
before her as a protection, while she peered at the visitor.

"That's Bessie. She's three," the rosy little maid said proudly, smiling
down at her charge.

"I can skip, but Aillie can't," the baby informed them, and received the
rebuke, "Dinna boast--Aillie canna walk, let alane skip."

The mother and daughter smiled to each other as they let themselves out
of the little green gate in the wall.

"Doesn't she remind you, Mums, of the heroine of Jane Findlater's story?
She's 'terrible bauld and firm.' _And_ so trim and clean. A most
decorous maid for a manse---- Oh, my dear, would you mind? Just one more
place. There's an old woman here--Mrs. Martin told me about her--who
comes from Langhope and wants terribly to see you."

"Yes, but need we go to-day?"

"Well, I'm just afraid she may be looking for us. Besides, it's so
near--the Watery Wynd, the place is called. The first turning. This must
be the place. There is the outside stair that I was told to look for.
'"On, on," cried the Duchess.' Take care, these steps are uneven...."

The short November day was nearly done, and Betsy Curle's kitchen was
dark but for the firelight. She peered through the shadows at her
visitors--"An' whae may ye be?" she asked.

Lady Jane went forward. "I hope you don't mind us coming," she said.
"Mrs. Martin, our cook at the Harbour House, told us you came from our
own part of the world and we wondered if we might come and shake hands
with you. We're still feeling far from home."

Betsy rose to her feet painfully and tried to drag two chairs to the
fire for her visitors.

"Let me," Nicole said. "You sit down in your own chair and tell us how
you have strayed so far from the Borders."

"Ye may say it! Sit whaur I can see ye. I mind yer faither, an' yer
grandfaither, an' yer great-grand-faither!"

"Oh!" Nicole leaned forward, her eyes alight with interest. "My
great-grandfather! Tell me about him."

"He was handsome, like a' the Rutherfurds, and mad! as mad as a yett in
a high wind." She turned to Lady Jane. "I mind fine o' yer leddy-ship
comin' to Rutherfurd--the bonfires and the flags. That was fower and
thirty years syne come Martimas. Ye were but a young lass in a white
goon and a hat wi' feathers, an' they ga'ed ye a bunch o' red roses."

Lady Jane nodded. "I remember both the hat and the roses.... Where
was your home?"

"D'ye mind the white-washed hoose at the edge o' the pine wood afore ye
come to Langhope? Ay, the keeper's cottage. I bade there; ma faither was
heid keeper at Langlands."

"And what brought you to Fife?"

"Ye may ask! I mairrit a jiner. If I hed ta'en ma mither's
advice--'Betsy, lass,' said she, 'there's little sap amang the
shavin's.'... His folk cam' frae Fife, an' efter we'd been mairrit a
wheen years, he got the offer o' a job here. I niver likit it--nesty
saut cauld hole! No' like oor ain couthy country-side. I canna thole the
sicht o' the sea, sae jumblin' an' weet. What wud I no' gie for a sicht
o' the Tweed an' the Lammerlaw! But I'll never get hame noo, an' I canna
see hoo I can lie quait in that cauld kirkyaird. Of course ma man's
there, but it's an exposed place."

"Have you no children?" Lady Jane asked.

"Juist ae son leevin'--an' he's mairrit."

"Oh--but he's good to you, I hope."

"As guid as his wife'll let him be. O, ma guid-dochter's a grand
gear-gatherer. She was a Speedie, and they're a' hard. She's big an'
heavy-fitted like her faither. Handsome some folk ca' her! Handsome,
says I, haud yer tongue! But I'm no' sayin' nae ill o' her, ye ken.
She's welcome to a' she can get. I never grudged naebody naething their
guid wasna' ma ill."

"Well," Lady Jane rose to go, "I hope you'll let us come again. I want
to talk to you about home.... Don't get up. I'm afraid you've bad
rheumatism?"

"Ay, it cam' on me aboot five years syne. I was as soople as an eel till
then.... Hoo's Agnes Martin pleasin' ye?"

"Oh, she's a treasure. And I hope she's happy with us."

"Happy eneuch, I daursay. She's the sense to bow to the bush that gie's
her bield," and Betsy lowered herself slowly into her chair, while her
visitors went down the stairs feeling rather snubbed.




                               CHAPTER XI


                      "This for remembrance."

                                                              _Hamlet._

Though Barbara had professed herself unable to endure the boredom of
calling on her new neighbours, she greeted her aunt and cousin with
interest on their return.

"Well," she said, as she roused the fire to a blaze, and lit the wick
under the lamp for the teapot, "how have you fared, intrepid spirits?"

Lady Jane had left her coat in the hall and stood, looking absurdly
girlish in her straight black dress, her bright hair escaping from under
the close-fitting hat, warming her hands at the fire.

"We've done a good afternoon's work," she said, smiling at Barbara, "and
enjoyed it."

"You haven't had tea, I hope? for Mrs. Martin has baked a very special
cake--a reward for well-doing, I suppose."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Nicole; "I'm hungry. Mrs. Heggie wanted to
give us tea, but Mrs. Buckler didn't offer because of a disobliging
maid. Wasn't it luck we got three out of the four at home?"

"You call it luck?" Barbara said.

"And," continued Nicole, "we've put our first foot in the morass of
invitations you dreaded so. Miss Symington brings her nephew to tea on
Wednesday."

Barbara groaned. "I knew it! The thin end of the wedge.... What are
they like, Aunt Jane? I want your unbiassed opinion and not a
rose-tinted appreciation from Nikky."

Lady Jane sipped her tea contemplatively for a minute, then said:

"Nice people, I think. We called first at the three large villas. Miss
Symington's is most depressingly bleak and ugly, but Miss Symington
herself seems a quiet inoffensive woman. Almost entirely silent, though.
Nicole and I had to talk all the time to avoid embarrassing pauses. Some
people seem to feel no responsibility about keeping up a conversation. I
wonder if it is shyness----"

"Sheer laziness," said Nicole. "I'm sure I'd much rather be silent; it
would be easier than keeping up a bright vivacious flow of talk."

Her mother laughed sceptically and went on. "Then we went to Knebworth,
a type of modern villa that is all right in London suburbs but should
never be seen in Scotland. The bleak Ravenscraig goes better with the
East wind and the sea birds and the high sharp voices of the people----
But it was comfortable and, in a way, pretty, with its absurd ingleneuks
and latticed windows, and Mrs. Heggie herself is a character. She is one
of the people who help to make the world go round. She lifts, and
doesn't merely lean. You couldn't please her better than by using her.
But she's lost in a place like this, her energies need freer scope."

Nicole nodded. "Not only a good sort, but an amusing good sort. She
reminded me a little of Mrs. Jackson.... To-day I felt she was
constrained, and we were strangers, but I should like to be there when
she really lets herself go.... I wonder what the daughter is like. I
expect the books were hers. Evidently a modern young woman, an admirer
of the latest lights. I don't think, somehow, I'll ask her to come and
read Scott's _Journal_ with me."

"The third house," said Lady Jane, "is called Lucknow, and appropriately
enough shelters an Anglo-Indian family...."

"Ah, but, Mother," Nicole broke in, "don't lay that to their charge. It
was christened before they took it--Mr. Buckler told me."

"What are the Anglo-Indians like?" Barbara asked.

"Well, there's always something rather pathetic about retired
Anglo-Indians. I know it's great impertinence to find people pathetic
who in no way desire sympathy, but it must be such a change to come back
from an important position with 'a' thing braw aboot ye,' to live an
unoccupied life in an ugly little villa, among people who take no
interest in the thirty years you have given to the Empire, and don't
want to hear anything about the things that have been more than life to
you. Mrs. Buckler is a nice woman and not nearly so discontented as she
might be. She takes her servant troubles humorously, and she's proud of
her children."

"Why, Mums, have they children? They struck me as being distinctly
childless. I'm glad they have.... I liked Mr. Buckler so much. And,
Babs, we met the young man I told you of the other day, and--wasn't it
silly?--I clean forgot to ask any one if he really is the Everest man."

"But," said Barbara, "you haven't called on the whole population of
Kirkmeikle? There are others, surely."

"We called at the Manse but Mrs. Lambert wasn't at home, but we didn't
reach the Kilgours."

"I must say they sound a dull lot," Barbara said as she poured out tea.

"They're not exciting, perhaps," Nicole confessed. "But, Babs, I want
you to come and see an old woman--Betsy something, who comes from
Langhope. To hear her speak was like a drink of water in a thirsty
land...."

Nicole took a bun and her cup of tea and went and curled herself into
one of the window-seats. She liked peering out at the Harbour in the
dusk, watching the lights along the shore come out one by one.

"I wonder," she said in a little, "how the Jacksons are getting on. Jean
Douglas has never said she has called."

"Too busy, I expect. By the way, Christmas isn't very far away. What are
we going to do about it this year?"

Nicole smiled lazily at her cousin. "Need we do anything about it? Are
'the last sad squires' expected to keep Christmas? We've shed all our
responsibilities, haven't we? I expect Mrs. Jackson will do great things
at Rutherfurd. Do you remember..." She stopped realising that to
recall other and happier days was not wise.

"I must see in time about boxes for my old people," Lady Jane said. "I
wouldn't like them to feel forgotten. The next time you go to Edinburgh,
Babs, you'll see about it, won't you?"

"Yes, Babs, you're our shopper-in-chief. Please get me a selection of
useful articles also.... I believe, Mums, that this wise virgin has
already heaps of presents, all made by herself, stored neatly
away.... Oh, letters!"

Barbara took them from Christina. "Three for you, Aunt Jane, two for me,
the rest for Nikky."

Nicole looked with distaste at her lot. "Bills, I think. I don't believe
I'll open them."

"Isn't that one from Jean Douglas?" Barbara said, and Nicole pounced on
it with the cry, "Now we shall have some news."

A few minutes later Lady Jane looked up from her letters and said,
"Well, Nikky, what does Jean say?"

Nicole handed over the sheets to her mother who began at once to read,
while Barbara, perched on the arm of the chair, looked over her
shoulder.

    "I wish, dear Nikky," so the letter ran, "that I could go with
    this letter across the Forth Bridge, and slip into the Harbour
    House about five o'clock in the afternoon, and find you three
    sitting in the room with the four long windows. I expect I would
    be able to greet everything in the room as an old friend! I
    would take my own chair and draw it up to the fire, and with my
    feet on the fender, listen to all you have to tell me.

    "Tom has been laid up with lumbago which has kept me pretty much
    at home, but on Thursday last I fulfilled my promise and went to
    call at Rutherfurd. I simply hated going. Every inch of the road
    brought back some memory, and to go through the gateway and wave
    as usual to the curtseying Lizbeth, and to know that I would
    find no Rutherfurds at Rutherfurd, made me both fierce and
    tearful, so that I was in no mood to be pleased with the new
    owners.

    "The place is very well kept, leaves most carefully swept up,
    and gravel raked, not a twig out of place, and oh, my dear, how
    beautiful it is! It came back to me with a sort of surprise the
    exquisiteness of the lawns running up to the mouth of the glen,
    the burn with its turf bridge, the bracken-covered hill-sides,
    and the long grey front of the house. No wonder the Jacksons
    coveted it!

    "It was a comfort to have Johnson open the door. His manner was
    perfect--I always admired the artistry of Johnson--chastened
    with regret that times had changed yet subtly exuding loyalty to
    his new employers.

    "The hall, as of course you know, is the same, except that Mrs.
    Jackson has introduced a few little conceits of her own, a
    bronze boy now supports a lamp, another figure holds a tray for
    cards. There are also masses of hot-house flowers, an opulent
    innovation which I resented, and I missed--but what is the good
    of tearing your heart with what I missed, you who will miss it
    'until the day ye dee.'

    "I was shown into the drawing-room. Nothing could spoil that
    gracious room, and Mrs. Jackson, to do her justice, hasn't
    tried. I told you I would hate her, but when she rose to greet
    me in a smart velvet gown complete with a hat covered with
    Paradise-plumes, and an ermine stole, I thought she was about
    the most pathetic thing I had ever seen. She gave me a very warm
    welcome, and as I sat beside her on the sofa she confided in me
    that, except for the minister and his wife, I was her first
    caller.

    "'I wish they'd come,' she said wistfully, 'for the cook bakes
    special things for tea every afternoon, and I dress myself, and
    when nobody comes I hardly know where to look. I'm a wee bit
    afraid of Johnson anyway---- D'you mind telling me, are there
    many people round about to call?'

    "I told her truthfully the names of every one from the Duke
    downwards. She sighed. I fear she finds life rather a burden.

    "The son came in while we were at tea. 'Andy,' his mother called
    him. I like 'Andy.' His manner to his mother was perfect, he had
    an amused, protecting smile on his face as he watched her
    sitting there in her Paradise-plumes and her ermine. He told me
    with the greatest frankness that he knew practically nothing
    about country life, and felt very much in a mist, so I asked him
    to come to Kingshouse and let Tom put him wise about a lot of
    things. Mrs. Jackson and I had a very interesting talk, mostly
    about you people. She wanted to know everything I could tell her
    about you all, and she is pathetically eager to model herself on
    your dear mother. It is funny, but I know you won't laugh. I
    confess that you were right, there is something about Mrs.
    Jackson that melts one's heart. I range myself by her side, and
    I'm going straight away to hustle people up to call. I simply
    can't bear to think of the poor dear dressing up for people who
    don't come, and feeling shamed in the eyes of her
    servants.... Nikky, I can't tell you how I miss you all, how
    every one misses you. Tilly Kilpatrick even, and Alison Lockhart
    twisted that wicked amusing mouth of hers at me the other day,
    and said: 'I'm a worse woman because Jane Rutherfurd has left
    the district.' Tell your mother that though it sounds obscure I
    feel sure it is a compliment. Write to me very soon, and promise
    that you will come for Christmas. It's going to be quite gay,
    two hunt balls, and several private dances, not to speak of
    theatricals at Langlands. Won't you be tempted? A fortnight? Or
    even one week? Please think about it, and tell my dear Lady Jane
    I ask as a great favour that she should add her persuasions to
    mine. She would have Barbara with her and she is a host in
    herself.--All love from      MISTRESS JEAN----."

"Will you go, dear?" Lady Jane asked, as she handed back the letter.

"Is it likely? Leave you and Babs our first Christmas in a strange
place. Why, Mums, there aren't so many of us now that one can go without
being missed. Besides, I'd hate it above everything."

"I thought you were so fond of the Douglases?" Barbara said, as she got
out her work.

"So I am, but--oh, don't let's talk about it. I should feel like a ghost
going back to dance among ghosts. Some day I've promised to go to Mrs.
Jackson, but that's different. Then I wouldn't be going for my own
pleasure...." She looked into the fire with unseeing eyes for a
minute, then jumped up. "Now I'm going to have my hour with Scott's
_Journal_: that takes me back in the spirit to my own country, I don't
want to go back in the flesh."

"Poor Mrs. Jackson," said Lady Jane. "I'm glad Jean likes her. She will
absolutely bully the Jacksons into popularity. Can't you see her?"

"What surprises me," Nicole said, "is that she seems to like the son so
much. Somehow I had the impression that 'Andy'--I like the soft drawl
his mother gives his name--was a sort of suburban _knut_, but he can't
be."

"It's comparatively easy," Barbara put in drily, "to like a young man
with prospects. Indeed, you will find that the Jacksons, vulgar as they
are, will go down very well. People will smile and tell stories about
them to each other, but their cheques for all the numberless causes will
be very acceptable. And, remember, there are a lot of girls in the
district and no superfluity of unmarried men."

Nicole laughed. "That's quite true, Babs. Mums, had you realised what
benefactors we are?"




                              CHAPTER XII


    "It is a gallant child, one that makes old hearts fresh."

                                               _The Winter's Tale._

On the morning of the Thursday that he had been invited to tea with the
Rutherfurds, Alastair and his friend and attendant, Annie, disported
themselves among the boats at the Harbour. It was not usual for them to
be down on the shore in the morning. Generally, Annie "did" the nursery,
and Alastair played in the garden, and then they went for a walk; but
to-day Miss Symington had gone after breakfast to Langtoun, the sun was
shining, and Alastair had begged so hard for the Harbour that Annie had
skirmished rapidly through her work, cast care to the winds, and raced
with him down the brae.

It was exceedingly fortunate, Alastair felt, that his aunt had gone away
that day, for his friend Mr. Beckett had given him a repeater pistol
complete with ammunition (caps), and, also, there was a Norwegian boat
in the Harbour manned by strange-speaking but wonderfully friendly
sailors. He and Annie had been invited on board and had sat in a
fascinating cabin and drunk strong black tea out of gaily-painted bowls.
It was a good thing Miss Symington had been spared the sight, but it had
all been so novel and exciting that neither had ever thought for a
moment they were doing wrong.

Now they were pirates. Alastair was a quaint figure in an overcoat made
for his growth, inclined to be humpy at the back, and a dark grey felt
hat; but if his appearance suggested a lay preacher rather than a law
breaker, his spirit left nothing to be desired. As he stamped about
shouting hoarsely what he fondly believed to be curses, Annie said he
made her blood run cold. That damsel's idea of the behaviour of a pirate
was an odd one. She leant languidly over the side of the boat and sang a
song which she was much addicted to, beginning, "When the spring-time
comes, gentle Annie."

Alastair was firing his new pistol so recklessly after what he called a
"retreating craft," that he did not notice Nicole Rutherfurd until she
leant over and shouted to him:

"I know who you are. You're Paul Jones. He was a tremendous pirate and
he came from these parts."

"Oh?" said Alastair politely. "Would you care to see my pistol? It goes
on firing as long as there are any caps."

"And then what happens?"

"It stops. I'm coming to your house this afternoon."

"You are," said Nicole.

"Yes. I was going to ask you, only Annie wouldn't let me ring your bell,
would you mind if Mr. Beckett came with me rather than Aunt Janet?"

"But--does Mr. Beckett want to come?"

"No," said Alastair truthfully, looking very straight into Nicole's
eyes, "he hates tea-parties, but he might come if he was asked. He says
you can't very well not accept, when ladies ask you. That's why he went
to Mrs. Heggie's."

"I see. And what about your Aunt Janet? Would she rather stay at home
too?"

"She'd stay at home if you asked her to," Alastair said, and received a
prod in the back from Annie, who was struggling with suppressed giggles.
"Give over this meenit," she whispered hoarsely, "or I'll tell yer
aunt." Then, to Nicole, "Please be so good as not to heed him, Miss";
and again to her charge, "Come awa' hame, ye ill laddie."

But Alastair heeded her not, for, walking along the shore, he spied his
friend Mr. Beckett and flew to him like an arrow from a bow.

Nicole and Annie followed, the latter apologising incoherently as they
went.

"Naebody pits the things he says into his heid: he juist oots wi' them
afore ye ken whaur ye are. He's daft aboot Maister Beckett---- Ye see,
he's fair seeck o' weemen, for he sees nothing else. He didna mean to be
impident to you, for he's an awfu' polite laddie. I dinna ken whaur he
gets his manners, they're no' Kirkmeikle anes onyway."

Nicole shook hands with Simon Beckett, and remarked on the freshness of
the morning.

"Yes, too good to work in. The mornings have been so good lately and the
afternoons so bad, that I'm trying the plan of walking in the morning
and writing the rest of the day."

"Oh, you write?" said Nicole with lively interest.

"Not to say write.... I'm doing a job--trying to write an account...
an unholy mess I'm making of it." He looked so embarrassed and
ashamed of himself that Nicole changed the subject by asking him if he
would give them the pleasure of his company at tea that afternoon.

The tall young man looked suspiciously at Alastair, while Alastair
looked out to sea, and Nicole said, "I know it's too bad to ask you, for
like all men I expect you loathe tea-parties, but if you would come and
support Alastair in a household of women you would be doing a
kindness.... Then we may expect you? Why, Alastair, we'll have quite
a party, shan't we? You and your aunt and Mr. Beckett and three of
ourselves--enough to play musical chairs!"

Before four o'clock another man had been added to the party.

Lady Jane, who had taken a liking for Mrs. Brodie, the woman with the
nine children, had gone along with something for the baby and had found
the household in trouble. The eldest boy had been brought in with a bad
cut on his forehead and a broken arm. The doctor was with him, a
clean-shaven elderly man with a weather-beaten face.

Mrs. Brodie was standing near, holding her youngest, the "wee horse,"
under one arm. "Eh my!" she said, wiping her face with her apron, "folk
gets awfu' frichts in this warld. Ye're niver lang wi'oot something--a
family's a sair trauchle. I was juist thinkin' we were a' quat o' the
measles an' here we are again!"

"Wull I dee? Wull I dee?" wailed the patient, a freckled fair boy of
fourteen.

"Not you," said the doctor, "but you deserve to, hanging on carts as
I've seen you do fifty times. If you had dropped off before a motor
instead of a gig where would you have been, I'd like to know?... Now,
then, Mrs. Brodie, he'll do all right if you keep him quiet. Don't let
him sit up on any account. I'll look in again before bedtime. Be
thankful he's got off so easy." He pinched the cheek of the baby.
"That's a fine child. He's the best you've got, and they're not a
bad-looking lot taking them as a whole. Good day to you."

Lady Jane and the doctor went out into the street together. "Which is
your way?" he asked.

"Down here--to the Harbour House."

"Ho! so you are one of the new-comers? My sister called on
you--Kilgour's the name--but she found you out. I think you must be Lady
Jane Rutherfurd?"

"I am, and I'm hoping to meet your sister soon---- What a nice place
Kirkmeikle is!"

"I'm glad you like it. I've lived here all my life and I think there's
no place to compare with it. Are you interested in old things? No one is
about here; like the ancient Athenians they follow after new things, and
they don't know their own old town. I haven't much time, being an
Insurance slave, but there's a spare hour or two nearly every night when
I can shut myself into my den. My sister has an ill will at my craze:
she says I waste both coal and light, but bless me! a man can't live by
bread alone and it's an innocent pastime delving in the past."

"And are you going to give to the world the result of your delving?"

Dr. Kilgour laughed. "Ah, that's another matter. I doubt if any
publisher living would take the risk of bringing out a book that would
only interest a few.... But we'll see. I go off here."

He stopped and held out his hand.

"But we are almost at the Harbour House," Lady Jane said, "Won't you
come in and have some tea before you go on with your rounds? I'm sure
you need it."

Dr. Kilgour hesitated. "I'm afraid my sister would say I wasn't dressed
for company. I've on a terrible old coat, but the thought of tea is
tempting. And I'm very fond of your old house. I knew it well in Mrs.
Swinton's time, for I was her doctor for nearly thirty years."

"Oh, so you knew Mrs. Swinton? She seems to have been something of a
veiled prophet in Kirkmeikle. No one seems actually to have known her."

"Ah well, you see, she didn't visit in Kirkmeikle--she wasn't a woman
who made friends--and she always drove to Aberlour to the Episcopal
Church there. A fine woman in her way, but the most reactionary old Tory
I ever met. She would have turned an ordinary moderate man into a
howling red Bolshevist in ten minutes. And yet you couldn't help
admiring her somehow---- Many a time she ordered me out of the house and
got Barr from Aberlour or Dawson from Langtoun, but she always came back
to me again. And never was a bit abashed to send for me either, that was
the funny thing. Like an old woman here, Betsy Curle, who says: 'I've
tried Barr, an' I've tried Dawson, but I've juist had to fa' back on
Kilgour!' There's a great deal in being used to a doctor; it's natural
to like a change, but when people are really ill they want back their
old one."

Lady Jane laughed as she ran up the steps and opened the door.

"There's more in it than that," she said.... "I think we'll find the
girls in the drawing-room, and tea will be ready shortly. We're having
it early to-day, for Miss Symington is bringing her nephew to see us."

"A party!" said Dr. Kilgour. "I'm being punished for coming out so
shabby. But I might wash my hands at least.... Yes, I know the
cloak-room, thank you."

Tea had to be in the dining-room that afternoon, and the striped
curtains were drawn at the windows, and candles in red shades gave a
festive look to the table. There were crackers too, red crackers, for
this was Alastair's party, and a great iced cake, stuffed not only with
raisins and peel, but with threepenny bits and rings and thimbles.

Alastair had never seen such a table in his life and looked at it with
grave concerned eyes, saying nothing.

"It's either a belated Hallowe'en party or a premature Christmas party,"
Nicole explained, as they took their places. "Hallowe'en we'd better
call it, for we're going to 'dook' for apples. Alastair, are you good at
'dooking'?"

The child swallowed a bit of bread and butter and said, "I don't know.
I've never tried."

"Alastair has hardly ever been to a party," his aunt explained. "There
are so few children of his age within reach that he rarely has any one
to play with."

But Alastair, not liking to be pitied, broke in:

"I've got Annie: she plays, and Mr. Beckett knows heaps of games."

"I don't believe, however," Nicole said, "that Mr. Beckett has ever
'dooked' for apples."

"I haven't," that gentleman confessed. "What exactly is the rite?"

Nicole nodded at him. "Wait and see," she advised.

Dr. Kilgour had already drunk two large cups of tea, and was enormously
enjoying the hot scones and the feather-light "dropped" scones.

"Curious eerie time, Hallowe'en," he remarked; "cold winds, cabbage
runts, red apples, and looking-glasses! You know the superstition that
if a girl looks into the glass at midnight on Hallowe'en, she'll see the
man she's to wed? A farmer's wife near here, I've been told, advised the
pretty kitchen-maid to go and look. The girl came back--'Sic blethers,'
she said, 'I only saw the maister an' his black dowg.' 'Be kind to ma
bairns,' said her mistress, and before Hallowe'en came round again she
was dead, and the kitchen-lass reigned in her stead.... What d'you
think of that, Miss Symington?"

"It's not very likely to be true," Miss Symington said prosaically.

Lady Jane laughed. "It's a good tale, anyway," she said. "Pass Alastair
the chocolate biscuits, Nikky. Babs dear, will you cut the cake...."

Immediately after tea a small wooden tub half full of water was set on a
bath-mat by the careful Christina in the middle of the drawing-room
floor, the apples were poured in, and Barbara stirred them about with a
porridge stick, while Nicole knelt on the seat of a chair, with a fork
in her hand.

She was as serious and absorbed as a child as she hung over the back of
the chair waiting an opportunity to drop the fork among the rosy bobbing
apples. She chose her time badly and the fork slid harmless to the
bottom of the tub.

"No good! Now, Alastair, you see how it should be done--or, rather, how
it shouldn't be done." She knelt beside him on the chair, one arm round
him. "Now--very careful. Wait until they slow down a bit and drop the
fork into the thick of them.... Oh, well done, you _almost_ got one
there: the fork knocked off a bit of skin."

Immensely encouraged, Alastair descended to the floor, and asked whose
turn it was next. "Mr. Beckett's, perhaps?" he suggested.

"Miss Symington first, I think," Nicole told him, "and then comes my
mother and Barbara."

Miss Symington found herself meekly accepting the fork and mounting the
chair. It was a thing she had never expected to do again in this life,
but she dropped it with precision, and it was fished out sticking in a
large apple.

Barbara wiped the apple and presented it to the victor.

"We'll put Mr. Beckett next," Lady Jane said, and Alastair nearly
tumbled into the tub in his anxiety that his friend should succeed: but
he failed.

"It was too difficult," Alastair said loyally, "they were going round so
fast."

"If Barbara wouldn't stir so lustily," Lady Jane complained. "Let them
settle. Now, you see, I've got one."

Alastair secured half-a-dozen apples before he could bear to see the tub
removed, and endeavoured to stow them all about his person for future
consumption.

"Fireworks now," Nicole told him.

"I must go," said Dr. Kilgour. "I've stayed far too long already, but
it's been fun. Thank you for my good tea, Lady Jane.... I'll send you
that book, Beckett, I think it'll interest you."

The fireworks were produced and set off, to the almost solemn joy of
Alastair. Everything was warranted harmless, but the place stank of
brimstone, and when Miss Symington saw confetti bombs explode, and
sparklets shed flying sparks of light in all directions, and fire
balloons ascend to the ceiling, she felt that this was no amusement for
the drawing-room.

She stared in sheer amazement at the almost girlish abandon of Lady
Jane, who was the most reckless conductor of fireworks. "Apply a light,"
she said, without troubling to read the directions, and immediately
applied a light to anything she saw which had an end sticking out. And
these girls, too! working so hard to make a child happy, throwing
themselves heart and soul into his entertainment, not playing down to
him but playing with him, and obviously enjoying it. All this trouble
about a little boy! Miss Symington could not understand it. She had been
brought up to believe that children should be seen, not heard. Alastair
would be past bearing if he were made to feel so important. Mr. Beckett
spoiled him, too; Annie said he played with him for hours, just like
Lady Jane and these girls. They were all quite different from the people
she was accustomed to meet--much simpler and at the same time very
puzzling, full of fervour about things of no moment, and quite off-hand
and careless about really serious matters. Very good to look at, she
admitted, glancing across the room to where Nicole sat cooling herself
in one of the windows. She wore a straight tight black satin dress, with
a soft white pleated ruffle starting from the shoulder and continued all
down one side. The wicked extravagance of a white ruffle! Why, it
wouldn't go on more than once or twice.... And to sit there with the
window open and the night air blowing in on her bare neck!

Simon Beckett crossed the room and stood by Nicole, who smiled up at
him, inviting him to admire the outlook.

"I sit here always after tea," she told him, "and look out at the sea
and the lights.... We do enjoy these quiet evenings. Mother plays
Patience or writes letters, Barbara sews, and I watch the lights when
I'm not reading." She twisted the blind-cord and asked, "D'you write in
the evenings?"

Simon nodded. "At least I try to, but I get so stuffy and restless that
I'm generally glad about nine o'clock to dash out for an hour and tramp
about."

"Is it a novel you're writing?"

"Oh, Lord, no." He looked aghast at the idea. "I'm only putting into as
decent English as I know how, the record of our expedition in the
Himalayas."

"Yes," Nicole said, "I thought you must be that Simon Beckett."

"You see," Simon said apologetically, "there's no one else to do it, or
you may be sure I wouldn't have attempted it."

"It must be fine, though, to have a job like that to do; something
you've _got_ to begin every morning, something that no one else could
do. I envy you."

"Oh, I don't know. I don't suppose it matters much to any one, but I'd
feel a slacker if I didn't do it.... But the worst of it is I'm no
manner of use at writing, I sit for hours over one sentence. I never had
much of a head..."

He stopped and pulled at his tie, then said bashfully:

"I wonder--would it be an awful bore to you--if any time I'm in a worse
hole than usual I came and asked your advice? I'd be awfully obliged if
you'd sometimes give me a hand."

"I'm afraid," said Nicole, with unusual diffidence, "that I don't know
much about style."

Simon laughed aloud. "Style! If I can make it sense I shan't worry about
style."

"In that case we shall feel honoured--I speak for mother, Babs, and
myself--if you will come down some night and dine and talk over any
difficulty. Mother can spell really wonderfully, and Babs is
clever.... To write a book must be far worse than attempting a high
peak."

Simon Beckett groaned. "The next time I go out I'll settle there.
Nothing again will ever induce me to attempt to lecture or write on the
subject."

"Oh, you lecture too?"

"I have lectured twice. But never again. It was an awful exhibition..."

He turned to Alastair who had come up to him, saying:

"What is it, Bat?"

"Aunt Janet says I've got to go home?"

Simon looked at his watch. "By Jove, it's going on for seven o'clock.
Past your bedtime, old man."

"Why d'you call him 'Bat'?" Nicole asked.

"Because," Alastair explained, "my name's too long and he thinks I'm
like a bat. He calls Annie 'Gentle Annie.'"

"Your aunt's waiting for you," Simon interrupted. "Yes, I'm coming too."

Alastair departed reluctantly, comforted, however, by the fact that his
pockets were full of nuts and apples; and Nicole had put into his hands
a box of chocolates and an electric-torch as parting gifts. "So that you
may light them home," she told him, as he trotted away his hand in
Simon's.

He chattered all the way home to his friend, but Miss Symington walked
deep in thought. When she opened her own front door and went into the
hall she stared round her as if she were seeing it for the first time.
After the Harbour House how bare it looked, how bleak. The unshaded
incandescent gas made an ugly light. Before her she saw the hall she had
just left, the soft-shaded lamps, the coloured prints on the walls, the
polished table reflecting the big bowl of bright berries, the chests
with their brass trays and candlesticks and snuffers, the blue and
yellow of the old Chinese rugs, the warm pleasant smell of good fires
and good cooking and well-kept furniture. She sniffed. Her own house did
not smell so pleasantly. There was a mixed odour of hot iron and
something burning in the kitchen range, for the cook had an economical
but unpleasing habit of putting potato-peelings and such things in the
fire.

Miss Symington went into the dining-room. The fire was low, and one gas
burned dully. A green chenille cloth covered the table, and there was an
arm-chair on either side of the fire, and eight smaller chairs were
ranged along the wall under the oil-paintings. Presently a tea-cloth
would be laid corner-wise on the green cloth and her supper set. How
dull it all seemed! She was not a woman who greatly cared for comfort
and good food and pretty things about her, but to-night she felt that
something was lacking.

"You'd better go to bed, Alastair," she said. "Annie will be waiting for
you. D'you like Lady Jane and the two young ladies?"

"Yes, they're kind and pretty and they smell nice!"

Miss Symington was rather scandalised--fancy a child noticing that! but
she merely said:

"Run away to bed."

"Yes." He was collecting all his treasure to show Annie. "Good night,
Aunt Janet."

But Miss Symington did not reply. She was looking at herself in the
mirror above the mantelpiece.




                              CHAPTER XIII


    "This is the flower that smiles on every one."

                                              _Love's Labour Lost._

A few days later when Nicole was coming home from a tramp over the
golf-course, she met Janet Symington at her own gate. They talked for a
few minutes, then Janet on a sudden impulse asked Nicole to go in, and
she went. Janet took her guest into the dining-room, remarking that she
generally sat there.

The daily papers lay on a small table by the fire, along with a Bible
and a pile of hymn-books and a work-basket. Janet motioned Nicole to the
arm-chair at one side of the fireplace and seated herself in the other.
She had wanted to see this girl again, but now that she had got her
seated at her own fireside she found nothing to say.

"I suppose," she began awkwardly, "things will seem strange to you. I
mean to say Kirkmeikle...."

"Strange? Well, I've never lived in a little town before, and it's all
very new and interesting. We enjoy it--mother, Babs, and I. Perhaps I
enjoy it most, for I believe with Mr. Pope that the proper study of
mankind is man! Mother and Babs are more--well, withdrawn. I mean to say
they would be content to sit up in a tower, hardly troubling to look out
of the window, whereas I would want to be down jigging with the crowd in
the market-place."

"Oh!" said Janet. Then, after a pause, "I suppose you will always have
lived a very gay life?"

"Oh dear, no! far from it. You see, when I grew up the War was just
finishing, and my two brothers had been killed, and my father was
beginning to be ill, and there wasn't much thought of gaiety in any of
our heads. Of course, I have had some very good times; my aunts have me
in London for months at a time, and I had a cold weather in India; but
I've lived a great deal quietly at home in the country.... When my
father died we found we couldn't keep up our house--Rutherfurd; and we
were very lucky to get the place sold almost at once; we heard of the
Harbour House, liked it, took it, and here we are! Mine is a very simple
life-story so far, I must really get it coloured up a bit. It's
ridiculous to be twenty-four and to have done so little."

Miss Symington clasped her hands in her lap. "I'm forty-seven," she
said, "and I'm beginning to think I've done nothing at all."

"Oh, but you," cried Nicole, with her usual swift desire to make people
pleased with themselves, "you are an important person, directing a
household of your own, and with a nephew to bring up--that in itself is
a big job. And you do a lot of good works, I hear."

"I expect you're an Episcopalian, Miss Rutherfurd?"

Nicole, rather surprised, said, "No. The Rutherfurds have always been
Presbyterian, except perhaps before the Reformation, when I was an Irish
rat, which I can scarcely remember."

Miss Symington held on to the first part of the sentence, which had been
sense, and replied to it. "I'm glad of that, for I always feel that a
difference in the form of worship makes a barrier."

"I never thought about it," Nicole said truthfully. "Mother was brought
up in the Church of England. Have you lived alone long?"

"Since my father died four years ago. My mother died two years earlier,
and my only brother died in Canada about the same time as my father."

"Oh." Nicole clasped her hands. "I know what it means... but I always
had my mother. Anyway, you have Alastair. I do envy you him. What we
would give to have a little boy in the house!... And you're rich,
aren't you? That must be rather jolly."

Miss Symington shook her head. "My money has never given me any
pleasure, and I've never found that people have liked me any the better
because of it. Of course, I give systematically to deserving charities."

Nicole stared at Janet, sitting holding the _Scotsman_ between her face
and a by no means too hot fire.

"But how dull!" she said. "I wouldn't give systematically to
anything--not though the Charity Organisation Society clapped me in jail
for not doing it! All the fun of giving is giving where and when you
like, and I don't believe it does the harm they say, anyway." Nicole lay
back in her arm-chair and glowered defiantly.

"Money is a great responsibility," Miss Symington said primly.

"So it is, but if I were you I wouldn't let it weigh on me. Give half a
crown to the next tramp--or five shillings if you want to make a
'gesture' as the papers say--and see if you don't enjoy the look on his
face."

"Oh, I never give to beggars."

Nicole made a face. "I give to every single one," she said, and laughed.
"You see what a thoroughly unsatisfactory person I am--selfish and
sentimental and wayward, everything you're not."

"You're willing to let me have all the virtues but you keep the graces."
Miss Symington smiled and flushed as she spoke, astonished at her own
repartee, then went on, "I quite agree you have everything I
haven't--youth and... I suppose you would call it charm."

Nicole flung out her hands. "Not that, not charm; don't accuse me of
that--I'm so sick of it. 'Charrum--a kind of a bloom on a woman,'
doesn't Barrie call it?"

"Does he? That will be in a play. I never go to the theatre."

Nicole was aghast. "But--oh, but what you are missing!"

"I daresay, but I couldn't sit comfortably in a play-house. I'd be like
the two old ladies in Edinburgh who were persuaded to go, and were
hardly seated when a cry got up of 'Fire', and the one turned to the
other and said, 'And we'll go straight to the Pit because we're on the
Devil's territory--and to think, too, that it's Prayer-Meeting night!'"

Janet's eyes had a slight twinkle as she told the story, and Nicole
cried, "The lambs! But you don't really believe that, do you? That it's
wrong to go to a play?"

"It would be wrong for me.... But to go back to charm. D'you know what
Alastair said of you and your mother and cousin when he got back from
the Harbour House? 'They're pretty and kind and they smell nice.'...
I was brought up to think it wrong to spend much time or money on
my appearance. My mother had a passion for fine underwear and silk
stockings, and we thought it just part of her illness. My father
despised all that sort of nonsense. He gave his time to higher things,
and I've tried to follow out his wishes--about the Mission Hall he
started in Langtoun, and all his other schemes."

"I know you do a tremendous lot," Nicole assured her; "and don't you
have a parson of sorts staying with you every Sunday?"

"Yes. I arrange for a speaker every week for the Hall, and of course I
give hospitality. It's nothing,--only supper on Saturday night, and
there's a fire in the library and they sit there; then Sabbath's a
busy day with services and classes, and they go off on Monday morning.
We often have very good speakers. If you would care to come some
Sabbath?..."

"Yes, thank you, I would.... D'you never go away, Miss Symington?
never take a holiday?"

"Oh yes. I go for a month to Crieff Hydro, every summer. A lot of
ministers go, and it's very nice."

"I see." Hearing steps on the gravel Nicole turned her head. "You're
going to have visitors, I'd better go."

"No, please. It's only Mr. and Mrs. Lambert. I go to their church. Do
stay and see them."

Mr. Lambert was a man of about five-and-thirty, small and thin, with a
whimsical, puckered face. He was afflicted with a slight stammer and had
a funny way when he came to a difficult word of helping it out by giving
little slaps to his trouser-leg. His wife was a slim, dark girl, with a
gentle manner and a frank smile. They both shook hands cordially with
Nicole, and regretted that they had been out when she called with her
mother.

"But I saw your small daughter--and I know something of you, Mr.
Lambert, from Alastair. He told me the story you told him about the
mermaid's comb and the cod-liver-oil soup."

Mr. Lambert looked shy, and stammered when he spoke.

"I sometimes t-t-ell him stories when I meet him on his walks.... I
hope you like Kirkmeikle, Miss Rutherfurd?"

"I do. It's a likeable little town."

"And the inhabitants?"

Nicole appealed to Mrs. Lambert. "What am I to say? Criticism is never
welcome."

"We don't mind it in Kirkmeikle," the minister told her. "We're used to
it. Fife folk are hard critics, so say away?"

Nicole shook her head. "But I've nothing to say. I haven't seen anybody
more than once, and that once they were very pleasant. It's very
difficult, don't you think, to find horrid people except in books? The
worst you can say of most people is that they are dull, and I expect
that is a wise arrangement, for dull people are much easier to live with
than scintillatingly brilliant people."

"Talking of books," said Mr. Lambert, "unless you're a great reader
you'll find it very dull here in the winter. We've a small book-club
among ourselves that's a great help. But you may belong to a library?"

"We get our books from _The Times_. Whenever you want a new book, let me
know and I can order it for you."

"That would be kind," the minister's wife said eagerly, "for sometimes
we wait months before we get a book we're keen about. Indeed, we've only
now got _Page's Letters_--but they were worth waiting for."

"Really, Mrs. Lambert," Janet said, as she knelt down to pick up a coal
that had fallen on the hearth, "I don't know how you find time to read,
with two infants and so much housework."

"Ah, but there's always time to read, odd half-hours, and even ten
minutes aren't to be despised that give you a refreshing page or two to
go on with."

"In that case," said Nicole, "you must only read the best. It would be
too bad to waste those precious snatched minutes on rubbish.... If I
come across anything specially good, may I bring it to you? Just now old
books suit my mood best, and I'm utterly behind with new books."

"Oh, do you read according to your mood?"

Nicole had risen to go, but at Mrs. Lambert's question she sat down on
the arm of her chair and said:

"Yes; don't you? I like contrasts. If I'm having a tremendously gay time
in London I read dull memoirs to recall to myself my latter end! In
India I used to like to sit at the end of the long Indian day and listen
to the monkey-people, and watch the kites swoop down, and hear the
conches from the temple, and read Barrie--all about Jess and Leeby and
the intimate details of the Thrums kitchen. It was like seeing a
minutely painted Dutch interior against the background of the
Matterhorn!"

"And tell me," said Mrs. Lambert, "what d'you read when life is terribly
ordinary, and everything seems to smell of boiled cabbage?"

Miss Symington looked in a surprised way at her minister's wife, but
Nicole laughed and said, "I know--'when nothing is left remarkable.' Why
then, I read of glowing places like the Taj Mahal, and of people like
Shah Jehan. Shah Jehan with his elephants and his peacocks, his queens
and his palaces..."

She stopped. The minister's wife was enthralled, but Miss Symington wore
a doubtful expression as if she feared that this young woman was not
going to prove a very uplifting influence in Kirkmeikle.

"I must go," said Nicole, "for I'm talking far too much. Good-bye, Miss
Symington." She smiled at the Lamberts. "I shan't forget the books," she
promised, and was gone.

Mrs. Lambert gave a sigh as the door shut behind her, and said. "I never
met any one like her. Her voice... and her eyes. She's like warmth
and light. I seem to feel chilly now she's gone."

Her husband shook his head at her. "You're a born worshipper, Jeanie. I
suppose now you'll go home and dote on this Miss Rutherfurd. And she
hasn't wanted for worship, that young woman."

Nicole went home so silent and thoughtful that her mother, in some
alarm, asked her if she felt quite well.

"Oh yes, thanks.... I've been to see Miss Symington."

"What," cried Barbara, "again? You seem to have a morbid desire for that
woman's society."

"No. I met her at her own gate and she asked me to come in, and she's
one of those sincere people who would never think of asking you unless
they really wanted you. We talked---- Do you know"--very solemnly--"I
don't believe any man has ever said anything more intimate to Miss
Symington than, 'A bright day, but rather chilly.'"

"And do you propose to introduce passion into her life?" Barbara asked
drily.

Nicole laughed. "You do make me sound a fool, Babs. You're the best
bubble-pricker that I know---- But don't you think it is very sad for
Miss Symington to have all that money--didn't Mrs. Heggie say she was
very rich?--and get no good out of it?"

"But she does good with it," Lady Jane reminded her.

"Oh, but in such a dull way, just giving large impersonal sums. She
doesn't know how to give, and she doesn't know how to live, and she
doesn't know how to love---- Rather neat that, what? No, but really, I
can't bear to see waste. I looked at that woman to-day and I just longed
to spend some money on her. The house is _awful_--I shouldn't think
there is one single beautiful thing in it. She sits in the dining-room,
Mums, with a green plush cloth on the table and an aspidistra in a
pot--and if there is a soul-destroying thing on earth it's an
aspidistra! She entertains preachers for the week-ends. I can see her
sitting talking so painstakingly to them, telling them what she has read
in the _Scotsman_.... D'you know, she doesn't even realise what a
treasure she has got in Alastair: he's just another thing for her to be
conscientious about. I tell you she doesn't know _how_ to enjoy."

Barbara yawned. "Oh, do let's talk about something else. I'm frankly
bored with the whole population of Kirkmeikle.... I'm tired of solid
worth. Is there anything really wicked in the house that I could read?"

Her aunt laughed. "Poor Babs! But you've found a way of escape to-day."
She turned to Nicole. "Aunt Constance's friends the Erskines called
to-day when you were out. Very friendly people they seem. We are all
invited to Queensbarns next Wednesday."

"Oh, are we?" said Nicole.




                              CHAPTER XIV


    "It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter
    with ease cannot write ill."

                                                       JANE AUSTEN.

A week or two later Nicole wrote to her friend Jean Douglas at
Kingshouse:

    You blame me for not writing, and ask what I can possibly have
    to do except write, but you'd be surprised how full the days are
    and how quickly they pass. Anyway, for me. Barbara still kicks
    against the pricks. Mother smiles her absent smile and accepts
    things as they are, but I think perhaps she hasn't been quite so
    "absent" lately--you know what I mean, present in the body but
    her thoughts not of this world. She is sometimes quite like her
    old self when she is talking to Alastair. I told you--did
    I?--about him. He is a small boy, the nephew of Miss Symington
    who lives in the biggest of the red villas, six years of age,
    plain of face, superficially quite unattractive. You know how my
    heart always did melt to small boys, and there is something
    about Alastair that appeals to me mightily. He reminds me in the
    strangest way of Ronnie and Archie, and I think Mums must feel
    the same, for I've seldom seen her so absorbed in any one as she
    is in this child. He is old enough to begin lessons, but there
    is nobody available in this place to teach him, and his aunt
    doesn't want a resident governess, and--actually--mother offered
    to give him lessons for two hours every morning! So punctually
    at ten o'clock he arrives with his nurse--a large Fife girl,
    quite young and full of common-sense--we call her Gentle Annie,
    because of her liking for a song of that name--whom he admires
    exceedingly. (When we read to him about a beautiful princess, he
    asks, "_As_ beautiful as Annie?").

    Alastair sits at a table with an exercise book and a pencil and
    learns to recognise and make letters and read little words. So
    far his progress is not striking. I heard Mums going over with
    him a n, an, with great patience, then she said: "Now, Alastair,
    tell me what is that word?" and Alastair with the most
    charmingly helpful air said, "I'd tell you in a minute if I
    knew."

    You say you want to know all about the people here. Barbara says
    they are the dullest crowd she ever struck, and indeed they are
    utterly ordinary--what are we ourselves?--and very far from
    exciting, but I like them.

    Mrs. Heggie, who can't see any one without offering hospitality,
    came to tea with her daughter the other day. The daughter was
    calm and collected and condescended to us a good deal, but her
    mother was absolutely simmering with excitement. It seems she
    has always had an intense desire to be inside the Harbour House,
    and she was like a child at her first pantomime. I escorted her
    through every nook and cranny of it--we even visited the
    coal-cellar--and she gasped out admiration at everything she
    beheld. She was so interested in the few photographs she saw in
    the bedrooms, that we raked out boxes of them, and I believe she
    would have sat entranced till bedtime listening to the
    life-histories of people she had never known existed. The
    daughter, Joan by name, dragged her away in the end, evidently
    ashamed of her exuberance. She writes, this girl, but I can't
    quite gather what. She is rather plain, with a long nose and
    chin, and an ugly laugh.

    Miss Symington, Alastair's aunt, is a woman of about
    forty-seven, quite good-looking if she knew how to make the best
    of herself; rich, free to do what she likes; and here she stays
    all the year round in a hideous house, eating badly cooked food,
    wearing ugly clothes, seeing nothing beautiful, hearing nothing
    beautiful, hardly, I think, aware that there is such a thing as
    beauty. What could one do to wake her up?

    Her minister and his wife are so different. The Lamberts live in
    a plain little grey stone house in the middle of a walled
    garden; you enter by a green door in the wall. They have 300 a
    year to live on, and it shows how little money really matters,
    for they are absolutely happy. They have everything that any
    reasonable being could desire, a house where love is, good
    health, good books and a good fire. Also, by a merciful
    dispensation of Providence, they have a small servant called
    Betha, a wise and virtuous child, and she and Mrs. Lambert
    between them cook, clean and look after the two children. Always
    by one o'clock Betha has got on her black dress, ready to carry
    in the early dinner, and when she has washed the dinner dishes
    out she goes to give the two little girls their daily walk. Mrs.
    Lambert makes all the clothes for her babies, besides visiting
    the congregation, presiding at meetings, and reading every book
    she can lay her hands on. Mr. Lambert is rather a pet. He has a
    most engaging stammer and helps out the words by giving himself
    little slaps; but he also has what his wife calls "a dry
    manner," and isn't sufficiently affable to his congregation.
    Small and thin, with a sort of twisted smile, he is like a
    benevolent gnome; but his sermons are excellent, and he is a man
    of wide reading.

    Then there is Dr. Kilgour and his sister. He delves in the past
    and writes of what he finds without hope of it ever seeing the
    light of publication; and his sister collects pretty well
    everything--old glass, china, furniture, brass. Her house is
    like a very nice museum; everywhere you turn there is something
    worth looking at, not the least being Miss Kilgour herself.
    Quite old--seventy, I believe--round and comfortable, with such
    white hair and blue eyes, she is full of funny old rhymes and
    stories of the people who once lived in Kirkmeikle, and the rise
    of the new people in Langtoun. There is a bite in her talk which
    is refreshing; it is so tiresome when everybody says nothing but
    good of everybody else!

    As to men, I've already mentioned Mr. Lambert and Dr. Kilgour.
    Then there is Mr. Buckler, the retired Indian judge, and--Mr.
    Simon Beckett. I've kept him to the last like the bit of icing
    on a cake, for he is no less a person than the Simon Beckett who
    almost succeeded in climbing Everest. You remember Beckett and
    Cullis were together, well on their way to the top, when Cullis
    was killed and his companion had to return?

    We couldn't believe that it was the same Beckett, it seemed so
    utterly unlikely that he should be here; but it appears that
    when he was a small boy he and his brothers came here for
    sea-bathing, and the little quiet town remained in his memory,
    and he thought of it when he wanted a place in which to write in
    peace. For, you must know, he is writing an account of what
    happened on that expedition, thus late in the day because he was
    for long ill and broken.

    I like him for his kindness to the small Alastair, who follows
    him with dog-like devotion.

    Poor old Babs sniffs at the whole of Kirkmeikle, but--thanks to
    Aunt Constance whose acquaintance list I am convinced ranges
    from Kew to Kotmandu--we have got to know one family with whom
    she can feel at home, people called Erskine, who have a place
    about ten miles from this, Queensbarns. They are very pleasant
    people and are full of schemes for amusing us. "What d'you _do_
    here?" one of the girls asked me, and for the life of me I
    couldn't tell her. I could only assure her that I didn't play
    bridge, and that stunned her into silence. Babs and I went over
    and played badminton the other day at Queensbarns: it was very
    nice, but oh! how glad I was to creep back to our own funny
    little house.

    Could you help liking a town that contained a place called _The
    Watery Wynd?_ and another of the name of _The Puddock Raw_?

    I like Kirkmeikle, but I ache all the time for my own
    countryside. D'you remember what the old woman said to Dorothy
    Wordsworth when she told her she lived in a pretty place? "Ay,
    the water of Tweed is a bonny water"... Isn't there a text
    about "Weep not for him who is dead but weep sore for him who
    goeth away...."

    All the same, I'm happy.--Your loving

                                                            NICOLE.




                               CHAPTER XV


    "...as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood...
    I know we dine with four-and-twenty families."

                                                       JANE AUSTEN.

Mrs. Jackson was going to her first dinner-party from Rutherfurd. It had
lain like a weight on her since ever she had got the invitation. She had
gone to bed every night dreading it, and wakened in the morning weighed
down by the thought of it. She was almost thankful that the day had
come--to-morrow would be free from the oppression.

She had kept her fears to herself until, at tea-time on the fatal day
her son had said carelessly, "By the way, aren't we going out to dinner
to-night?" when she could contain herself no longer.

"Oh, Andy," she wailed, "you can say it like that as if it was nothing,
something that had just come into your head, when the thought of it has
been like a nether mill-stone round my neck for a week."

Andrew was helping himself to jam, and he paused with the spoon in his
hand and looked at his mother.

"Nonsense, Mother," he said, "a dinner-party's nothing to you. You
didn't mind them in Glasgow, you enjoyed them."

"Ah, but this is a very different thing. The Glasgow ones were all more
or less official, I knew what I was there for, and all that was wanted
of me, but this----" Mrs. Jackson threw out a despairing hand,--"I
suppose this'll be to meet our county neighbours, and I'm _terrified_. I
know how frozen these kind of people can be, and the way they look at
you."

Andrew laughed. "A few perfectly harmless people hoping for a decent
dinner and not too boring company.... You know you liked the people
who called. Mrs. Douglas----"

"Oh, if it had been Mrs. Douglas's dinner I'd have gone like a bird, but
I've never set eyes on these Langlands. I was in Glasgow the day Lady
Langlands called and she was away when I returned it."

"Well, it's very civil of them to ask us; it's just a pity Father had to
be in London. Don't, for goodness sake, worry about it, you silly wee
body, nobody's worth worrying about. What good cakes these are."

"Yes, oh yes. Mrs. Asprey's a good baker.... Andy, what'll I put on
to-night? I've three dresses laid out."

Andrew considered for a moment. "Well, if you really want my opinion I
like the black velvet one with the funny train best."

Mrs. Jackson's face fell. "I was afraid you'd say black," she said
resignedly. "And I've got a new one I'd like fine to wear, a sort of
tomato-red, a lovely shade and awfully fashionable this winter."

Andrew had a vision of his stout mother swathed in tomato-red, the
cynosure of all eyes in Lady Langlands' drawing-room, and he said
gently, "You must keep that one to cheer us up at home, but you know I
never think you look so well in anything as in black--and black velvet
gives your pearls a chance."

"Well, that's true, but all the same I would have liked to show these
people that I've some smart clothes. I don't know whether they're
dressers in this part of the world or not.... Of course, Mrs. Douglas
is awfully smart. Her clothes are London, I could see that, but to my
mind Glasgow's every bit as good.... Black, you think, and my
pearls?--I believe I'll go and lie down for an hour before I need begin
to dress, and then I'll mebbe not get so flustered and excited. Whatever
will I talk about? Is there anything much in the papers, Andy, except
murders and politics? Oh, if only it was eleven o'clock to-night what a
happy woman I'd be!"

"Not you, you'll be quite sorry the party is over. When you hate the
thought of a thing beforehand you always enjoy it when it comes, and
anything short of the tortures of the Inquisition will seem pleasant to
you to-night!"

She picked up her work-bag and a book she had been reading and prepared
to go upstairs, when a thought struck her.

"But I've never even seen Lady Langlands. Mercy, Andy, how'll I know
which is the hostess?"

"I suppose she'll hold out her hand, won't she, O Manufacturer of
Mountains out of Molehills?"

Mrs. Jackson sighed. "Oh, I daresay... I just hope I'll be given
grace to hold my tongue to-night. I always mean to be perfectly calm and
dignified, and before I know what I'm doing I'm just yattering away.
Uch, Andy, you needn't laugh...."

Exactly at a quarter to eight Mrs. Jackson and her son were being
admitted into the hall of Langlands. Mrs. Jackson's heart, she would
have told you, was in her mouth, but she got a crumb of comfort as soon
as the door opened and it was this--the Langlands' butler could not
compare either in looks or deportment with Johnson. She felt oddly
uplifted by the fact, and was able to leave her cloak, and follow the
butler with something like equanimity, though for days the thought of
the moment when she would be ushered into a gathering of strangers had
almost made her swoon.

There were only about half-a-dozen people in the room when her name was
announced, and she stotted forward on her high heels towards the
out-stretched hand of a tall lady in a soft grey gown who was hastening
to greet her.

"Mrs. Jackson. I'm so glad to meet you at last. I've been so unfortunate
missing you twice.... My husband----"

The next thing Mrs. Jackson knew was that she was sitting on a
comfortable high chair talking to her host, at least, Lord Langlands was
talking and she was making little gasps of assent. She looked round her.
Lady Langlands was talking to Andy, very thin she was, not young, but
striking looking, with a small head like a deer.

"Mrs. Jackson, I don't think you know Mrs. Kilpatrick." Her host was
speaking, and she found herself shaking hands with a young woman with a
bright colour and a fashionable head. Her dress was cut very low and
finished prematurely, revealing a pair of stalwart legs and somewhat
unfortunate ankles, her lips were painted an unconvincing carmine, her
voice was shrill and she spoke with an affected lisp, but she was very
pleasant, and assured Mrs. Jackson that she would have been to call on
her long ago, but her infants had chicken-pox.

"A troublesome thing," said Mrs. Jackson in her comfortable voice that
made one think of warm nurseries and soft little garments and violet
powder. "It's such a long infection. Three weeks, isn't it? I mind
Andy--my son, you know--had been playing with a wee boy who took it, and
we kept him in quarantine, as they call it, for a whole three weeks, and
the day he should have gone back to school there were the spots!--real
provoking. But it's an easy trouble once you get it. I hope your
children are better?"

"Oh, thanks, I think so. Nurse says they're perfectly all right. I
haven't seen them myself for about a week. Tim and I have been away and
only got back to-night."

"Is that the way of it?" said Mrs. Jackson, and with that dinner was
announced.

"We're a man short," Lady Langlands said, "but it doesn't matter, for
we'll walk in just anyhow. Jean, lead the way...."

It was a round table, and Mrs. Jackson found herself between her host
and a small horsey-looking man who, she saw by the name-card, was Major
Kilpatrick, the husband of her vivacious young friend. Having cast one
glance at him she decided that she could do nothing for him in the way
of conversation, so she turned her attention to her host. Her first
remark was somewhat unfortunate. Looking round the room she said, "My!
this is a fine house for a big family."

"Yes," Lord Langlands said, without enthusiasm. The nurseries at
Langlands were empty.... "How do you like Rutherfurd?"

Mrs. Jackson looked him full in the face, gave one of her beaming
smiles, and said, "We like it _fine_. At first, you know, I wasn't sure
about living in the country, always being used with the town, and not
caring much for country sports or gardening or visiting cottages, but
we've settled down wonderfully. Andy, my son over there, has taken to it
like anything and tramps about in knickerbockers quite the country
gentleman. Mr. Jackson, of course, has to be a great deal in
Glasgow--he's in London to-night, that's why he's not here--but he's
quite pleased with Rutherfurd too. Of course, you know the place?"

Lord Langlands laid down his soup spoon. "Walter Rutherfurd was my
greatest friend. We were at school together, and Oxford together, and
his boy Archie was my namesake."

"Is that so? You'll miss them. Ucha! I'm awfully sorry for poor Lady
Jane losing her boys and her husband like that. Indeed, I don't know how
she goes on at all, and yet she's wonderfully bright, too."

Lord Langlands murmured something, and his companion continued.

"Have you heard how they're liking Fife? Fancy having to go to a house
in a street--I understand it's not even a good villa in a garden--after
Rutherfurd! Mind you, some people are tried in this world."

At that moment Lord Langlands' attention was claimed, and Mrs. Jackson
turning her head met the glance of Major Kilpatrick and had, perforce,
to make some remark.

She smiled shyly and said, "Isn't it wonderful weather for the time of
year?"

"Oh, not bad, not bad.... D'you hunt, Mrs.--eh--Jackson?"

"Me?" Mrs. Jackson began to laugh. Was this jerky little man trying to
be funny? "I never was on a horse in my life. You see, I've always lived
in Glasgow, in Pollokshields. D'you know Pollokshields? It's an awfully
nice suburb."

"Oh, I've been to Glasgow," said Major Kilpatrick. "At the Motor Show,
you know, and catching trains and that sort of thing. Bit grimy, isn't
it? What!"

Mrs. Jackson at once rose in arms. "Not a bit grimier than any other big
town. Bless me, its smokiness is just a sign of its prosperity." She
gave a sigh. "It's a fine place, Glasgow. I'm proud, I can tell you, to
belong to it."

"Quite right. By Jove, yes. Stick up for the place you belong to, that's
what I always say. But this part of the world's not bad either, you
know, and Rutherfurd's far the nicest place round about. What times I
used to have there with Ronnie and Archie. It was dashed hard luck that
they had to sell it." Major Kilpatrick ate a few mouthfuls rapidly, and
continued: "Not that it's not jolly nice having you there, you know,
Mrs. Jackson, but the Rutherfurds--well, the Rutherfurds, we all know
them, don't you see?"

"That's what I said myself," his companion assured him. "The first time
I went to look at the place they were so kind and pleasant to me, and I
just said, 'What a down-come from Lady Jane Rutherfurd to Mrs.
Jackson.'"

Major Kilpatrick laughed uncomfortably. "I wouldn't say that. Oh, by
Jove, no, I wouldn't say that.... By the way, does your son hunt?"

"He never has, but he's going to learn. You see, since ever he came home
from the War he's been pretty close kept at it, learning the business,
but now that we've bought a place, Mr. Jackson wants Andy to be more or
less a country gentleman, if you know what I mean? Father's not what
you'd call an old man--sixty-four; that's nothing, when you see pictures
of people quite spry at a hundred--and he's quite able to look after the
business himself--in fact, he prefers it. He has a wonderful business
head, Father has, as sharp as a needle. I think, mebbe, Andy's more like
me, inclined to be dreamy-like. And he likes the country; he's as fond
of that old house as if his ancestors had lived in it for hundreds of
years."

"Is he though? By Jove."

"Yes. I sometimes think it would comfort Lady Jane to know that the one
who'll come after us likes the place so well."

Major Kilpatrick agreed, and in the pause that followed addressed a
remark to the lady on his other side.

Mrs. Jackson sat crumbling her toast and watching her fellow-guests.
Andy was talking to Mrs. Douglas and laughing at something she had said.
His mother decided that he was much the best looking man at the table.
Lord Langlands had a big nose, and stooped, and was rather like some
great bird; Major Kilpatrick was an ugly little man with a comical face;
Colonel Douglas was red-faced and bald; but Andy looked really well in
his white tie and waistcoat, not handsome exactly, but solid and kind
and dependable. He glanced her way and she nodded and smiled to show
that all was well with her.... She liked Lady Langlands, she decided;
she had a grave, almost a sad face, and a gentle manner. Mrs. Douglas
seemed quite an old friend and Mrs. Jackson felt a proprietary pride in
her very smart appearance--how well she put on her clothes. Mrs.
Kilpatrick of the carmine lips she mentally shook her head over, and
thought what a silly couple she and her husband were. The only other
woman present she did not think she liked the look of--Miss Lockhart,
she thought her name was. She nibbled a salted almond and considered
her. She was well dressed and had beautiful pearls, but Mrs. Jackson did
not care for the arrogant look in her face. This lady, she thought, was
probably given to keeping people in their places.

"I was saying, Mrs. Jackson"--her host was addressing her--"that there
is a great deal to be said for seeing the winter through in Scotland.
Only we who have endured hardships can properly appreciate the first
snowdrop, and those who have flown to Egypt or the Riviera haven't the
same right to watch the daffodils. Don't you agree?"

"Oh yes. Yes, indeed," she said, rather confusedly, turning from
watching Miss Lockhart's attractive though rather wicked mouth as she
talked to Colonel Douglas, to the solemn countenance of her host. "I
love the spring days after the dark and cold, and the sight of the
crocuses always reminds me that the spring-cleaning's coming on. I
wonder if you've noticed an advertisement--it's awful clever--a picture
of a great bunch of delphiniums and a bottle of furniture polish? It
fair makes you smell a newly-cleaned room."

Lord Langlands looked slightly surprised. "Eh--quite so," he said. "Are
you going south after Christmas?"

"Oh, mercy, no. We're just newly settled into Rutherfurd. Such a
flitting as we had! I'm sure we'll not want to stir a foot from home for
ages. I'm not fond of continental travel myself. The language, you know,
and the queer food. I'm terrified they give me snails...."

When Mrs. Jackson returned to the drawing-room with the other ladies she
glanced surreptitiously round for a clock. Dinner had lasted so long,
surely it must be after nine, and the car was ordered for ten o'clock.
Only another hour to get through!

"Is that chair comfortable? Do let me give you another cushion," and
Lady Langlands tucked in a cushion behind Mrs. Jackson, while Jean
Douglas seated herself in a low chair beside her and began to talk.

"I want to tell you how nice you look. There is nothing so becoming as
black velvet and pearls.... And how's Rutherfurd? I had a letter from
Nicole the other day; she always asks about you."

"Yon's a nice girl," Mrs. Jackson said earnestly. "I wonder--d'you think
it would be all right for me to ask her to visit us some time? I
wouldn't dare ask the cousin, but Miss Nicole was so kind and helpful,
she made me realise what it must be like to have a daughter. I'd love to
have her if she'd come."

"Then I'd ask her if I were you." Jean laughed a little. "As you say,
Miss Burt is a different matter--though, remember, there's a lot of good
in Barbara, but she lacks something that Nicole has, that touch that
makes the whole world kin. We all liked her, but no one exactly loved
her, whereas Nicole has had all her life a surfeit of love--if such a
thing is possible. It made it hard for poor Babs."

"Ucha. Well, I thought we might be giving a dance later, and Miss Nicole
said she'd help me any time I needed her. But, of course, it might be
trying for her coming back, too."

"Oh, if she refused you would understand why, but---- What did you say,
Tilly? No, this isn't my month to visit the Nursing Home."

The talk drifted away from Mrs. Jackson into a maze of Christian names,
and events of which she knew nothing. They knew each other so well all
these people! She felt a little lonely sitting there, wearing a fixed
smile, and listening to Tilly Kilpatrick lisping out gossip about meets
and dances, and the whereabouts of this one and that, and her thoughts
wandered, and presently she nodded. Lady Langlands' voice saying her
name made her sit very straight, and look incredibly wide awake.

"We are hoping, Mrs. Jackson, that you will take Lady Jane's place in
our Nursing Association. Perhaps you will go with me one day and see
over our little hospital? It is part of our War Memorial, and we're very
proud of it."

Mrs. Jackson nodded amiably. "I'm sure I'll be very glad. I'll do
anything but speak in public--that I _can't_ do, but I'll sit on
Committees, and subscribe money and all that sort of thing...."

"That's the kind of member we want," said Jean Douglas, while Mrs.
Kilpatrick said, "Oh, Jean!" and giggled.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Driving home with her son Mrs. Jackson was a happy woman. The ordeal was
over, and a wonderful plan was in her head. Nicole would come to
Rutherfurd, Andy would love her at sight. Already she heard the sound of
wedding bells. To have a daughter to entertain for her... to hear
Nicole's laughter in the house---- A rosy and golden haze seemed the
future as she peered into it.




                              CHAPTER XVI


              "Be this, good friends, our carol still--
               'Be peace on earth, be peace on earth
               To men of gentle will.'"

                                                       W. M. THACKERAY.

The Rutherfurds had settled down in the Harbour House in a way that
surprised themselves. It seemed almost unbelievable that a bare three
months ago they had known nothing of Kirkmeikle and its inhabitants and
were now absorbed in the little town.

Nicole's desire to know only Kirkmeikle, and Barbara's determination to
know as little of the town and as much as possible of the county, had
resulted in a compromise. People from a distance were welcomed and their
visits returned, and Barbara suffered Nicole's Kirkmeikle friends, if
not gladly, at least with civility. The Bucklers she liked, and the
Lamberts and Kilgours, but Mrs. Heggie and Miss Symington she could not
abide, and marvelled at her cousin's tolerance for those two ladies.

"The appalling dullness of them, their utterly common outlook on life,
their ugly voices and vacant faces, how you can be bothered with them,
Nikky, passes me."

"But it's the way you look at them," Nicole protested. "You expect to
find commonness, so of course you do. I find nothing but niceness in
Mrs. Heggie. Just think what fun she is to feed. I met her the day after
we had had her to luncheon and she went over the whole _menu_ with
reminiscent smacks. 'The grape fruit! delicious: and that new way of
doing eggs... and such tender beef I never tasted... and the
puddings were a dream. I simply couldn't resist trying both, though I
know it was rather a liberty the first time I had lunched with you, and
the whole thing so _recherch_!' Isn't it worth while to have some one
like that to a meal? I think it is. As for Joan Heggie, she is rather
ugly and awkward, but she can write poetry.... Miss Symington
interests me."

"You like them," said Barbara, "because they make a little worshipping
court for you; you shine against their dullness."

But Nicole only laughed, and called heaven to witness that she had a
very rude cousin.

As for Lady Jane she was gently civil to every one who came, but
preferred Mrs. Brodie and her noisy brood, and old Betsy with her talk
of Tweedside, to any of them.

December is a month that, for most people, "gallops withal," and it
seemed to be Christmas before any one was prepared for it at the Harbour
House.

It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and the drawing-room did not
present its usual orderly appearance. White paper, gay ribbons, boxes of
sweets and candied fruits, and crackers for the out-going parcels lay
about on the big sofa, while the long table at the far end of the room
was piled with parcels which had arrived by post. Nicole gazed round her
ruefully, remarking that everything must be packed before luncheon,
whereupon Barbara came briskly to the rescue.

"Say what's to go into each parcel," she said, "and I'll tie them up.
These are the local ones, I suppose?"

"Thank goodness, yes. All the others were packed days ago. I wish I
hadn't gone to Edinburgh yesterday and I wouldn't be in such a state of
chaos to-day! Are you sure you can spare the time?... Well, first a
parcel for Mrs. Brodie from mother; just oddments to make a brightness
for the children. Is there a box to put them in? These gaudy crackers,
sweets, dates, shortbread, and sugar biscuits: a tin of tea for Mrs.
Brodie, and those toys for their stockings. Will they all go in? Good.
That's the only really bulky parcel. You do tie up so neatly, Babs.
Providence obviously intended you for a grocer."

"What about this?" Barbara asked, holding up a large flat box.

"That only wants a ribbon round it and a bit of holly stuck in. It's for
old Betsy; shortbread. I had it made with '_Frae Tweedside_' done in
pink sugar--a small attention which I hope she'll appreciate. Mother is
sending her tea, and other things. The framed print is for the Bucklers,
they haven't many household gods; the Bond Street chocolates are for
Mrs. Heggie, she has such a sweet tooth; the book of Scots ballads for
Dr. Kilgour."

"I can't see that Mrs. Heggie needs anything," Barbara said, as she
wrapped each thing in white paper and tied it with a red ribbon. "It
will only make her insist on us all going to dinner at her house."...
She looked round at the articles remaining and asked, taking up a
Venetian glass bowl with a lid, "Who is this pretty thing for?"

"It is pretty, isn't it? I'm going to fill it with my own special
geranium bath-salts, put it in a white box, tie it with a length of
carnation ribbon and present it to Miss Janet Symington." As she spoke
Nicole looked impishly at her cousin, who said, "Ridiculous! What will
she do with such a present?"

"Nothing, probably, but I'm determined she will have at least one pretty
thing in her possession. Pack it, Babs dear, very gently, with cotton
wool and lots of soft paper.... These are all the things for
Alastair's stocking. He's coming here after breakfast to-morrow to get
the big toy Mums has for him. The Lamberts are having him for early
dinner and tea, so he'll have quite a cheerful day."

"You spoil every one," said Barbara.

"I like spoiling people, but I quite see I'm a horrible trial to you.
You would have liked this house to keep up its reputation for
exclusiveness, wouldn't you, poor pet?... But we're not really
over-run by my new friends. They never come unless they're asked, and we
have quiet jolly times, old Babs, you and Mother and I. I sometimes
think it is almost unbelievable that we can be so happy
after--everything."

Barbara touched her cousin's hand. "I know---- I didn't approve much of
coming here, as you know, but I'm bound to say I think Aunt Jane has
been the better of it. She takes more interest in people and things than
she did. I was really afraid for her before we left Rutherfurd, but now
she is less of a gentle spirit and more of a living, breathing mortal.
It pleases her to have Alastair so much with her, and she likes Mr.
Beckett. D'you notice how she looks at them sometimes--the little boy
and the grown man? I think it hurts her to see them, and yet the
pleasure exceeds the pain. When Alastair plays round preoccupied and
busy, talking to himself, she sees again Ronnie and Archie, for all
little boys are very much alike: and in Mr. Beckett she sees them as
they would have been now."

Nicole nodded. "I'm rather dreading to-morrow for her. One can go on
from day to day, but these special times are difficult.... What do
outsiders matter after all, Babs? It's we three against the
world--though you and I do bark at each other _whiles_!"

After luncheon and a belated post had been discussed, Lady Jane and her
niece settled down to cope with the last of the preparations, while
Nicole set out to deliver parcels.

It was about three o'clock before she started. The frost of the morning
had increased in intensity, so that walking was difficult on the cobbled
stones, and Betsy's outside stair, which had been recklessly washed, was
now coated with ice.

Betsy herself was sitting wrapped in a shawl by the fire. "Come in," she
cried, "I kent yer step. Bring forrit a chair and get a warm. It's
surely terrible cauld?"

"It's a perfect Christmas Eve," Nicole told her, walking over to look
out of the little window. "I can see the moon already, though the sun's
only going down now, and the red tiles have got snow on them, just a
sprinkle. I do like your view of chimney-pots and roofs. It makes me
think of storks, and Northern Lights, and Christmas trees in every
window."

This harmless remark seemed to provoke the old woman. "Gentry," she said
peevishly, "are aye crackin' aboot _views_. I never felt the need o' a
view if I had a guid fire. An' I dinna haud wi' Christmas. It's juist
Papacy. It fair scunners me to hear the wives aboot the doors a'
crackin' aboot Christmas here an' Christmas there. Ye canna blame the
bairns for bein' taen up wi' Sandy Claws an' hingin' up their stockins,
but it's no' for grown folk.... Whae tell't ye that Christ was born
on the 25th o' December? It's no' in the Bible that I've ever seen.
Juist will-worship, that's what ma auld minister ca'ed it, an' he kent.
The verra word's Popish--Christ-Mass."

Nicole left the window and sat down by Betsy.

"Does it matter about all that?" she asked. "Isn't it a good thing that
we should keep one day for kind thoughts and goodwill to all men,
because long ago in Bethlehem a baby was born?"

Betsy sniffed. "Ay, but I dinna haud wi't. It was aye the New Year we
keepit at Langhope. Thae were the days!"

"Did you have presents?"

"Na, we hed nae money for presents, but the bairns dressed up and went
frae hoose to hoose playin' at 'Galatians' and singin'

            'Get up, auld wife, an' shake yer feathers,
             Dinna think that we are beggars:
             We are but children come to play--
             Get up and gie's oor Hogmanay.'

An' we got oatcakes and cheese, and a lump o' currant-loaf, and
shortbreed, and we carried it a' hame in oor pinnys."

Nicole was sorting out parcels from her big bag.

"I don't suppose," she said, "that this shortbread will taste anything
like as good, but it says on it '_Frae Tweedside_.'"

"So it does." Betsy gazed admiringly at the sugar inscription. "It's
faur ower bonny to eat, I'll juist pit it in a drawer." Nicole exclaimed
at the idea, and produced tea, and a warm woolly coat.

"These are from my mother with her best wishes. She hopes to come to see
you very soon."

Betsy sat with her hands on her gifts. "I dinna ken what to say. I'm no'
sed bein' noticed. Naebody ever brocht me things afore, no' as muckle
as a mask o' tea. Lady Jane's kindness is fair nonsense, but ye'll tell
her I'm muckle obleeged."

"Mrs. Martin told me to tell you that she'll be along this evening with
some 'kail.'"

"Ay, weel, it's no' a'body's kail I'd sup. God gies the guid food, but
the deil sends the cook.... But Agnes Martin's a rale guid haund at
kail."

"Well, good-bye, Betsy, and--a Merry Christmas."

"Na, I'm for nane o' yer Christmases. I'll gie you a wish for Ne'er day,
for fear I dinna see ye--'The awfullest luck ever ye kent and _a man
afore the year's oot_.'"

Nicole left her chuckling, and took her perilous way down the slippery
stair to the home of Mrs. Brodie.

Mrs. Brodie was busy cleaning for the New Year and, like Betsy, seemed
to take little stock in Christmas.

"Ay," she said, leaning on her besom as Nicole produced her box, "the
morn's Christmas, but it maks nae odds here. It's juist wark, wark, the
same. The bairns get an orange an' a screw o' sweeties in their
stockins, but that's a' the length we gang. It's rale guid o' yer mither
to send thae things--Jimmie, I'll warm yer lugs if ye dinna let that
alane!--Is she gaun tae gie me a look in wan o' thae days? I like fine
to hae a crack wi' her. Weel, guid day to ye, an' thanks."

Nicole left her parcels at Lucknow and at Knebworth, and then turned
into the gate of Ravenscraig.

Miss Symington was, as usual, sitting in the dining-room, making up the
accounts of one of the many societies she was interested in. There was
no sign of festivity anywhere, not so much as a sprig of holly. To-night
Alastair would hang up his stocking and she would go in on her way to
bed and put some things in, she had these lying ready--a shilling and
some walnuts in the toe, a pair of warm gloves, an orange, and a small
packet of chocolates. _Chatterbox_ would be laid on the breakfast-table,
also a game sent by Mrs. Heggie, and a box of Meccano from the Bucklers.
It was too much for one child, she thought, and she meant to tell him
how many children had nothing but a crust of bread.

She added up columns rapidly as she sat, putting very neat figures into
a pass-book. Then she put the books away and fetched some brown paper
and string from a table in the corner. Nicole came springing in on her
like a gay schoolgirl.

"Am I disturbing you? No, please go on packing. I've been at it for the
last week, and to-day I'd never have got through if Barbara hadn't given
me a hand. She takes time by the fetlock, as my brother Ronnie used to
say, and is always well beforehand."

"These are just a few things that Annie will take out this evening,"
Miss Symington said, cutting the end of a string carefully.

Nicole, watching her, said, "You don't keep Christmas much in
Kirkmeikle, do you? My efforts to be seasonable have been rather snubbed
this afternoon; but Alastair keeps it, I'm sure. Will you put these
things into his stocking, please? They are only little things, but they
may amuse him. And this is for you. You won't open it till to-morrow
morning--promise? Now, I'm not going to stay a moment longer. A very
Happy Christmas to you. No, don't come to the door...."

She heaved a sigh of relief as she left the dreary villa, and stood on
the brae-face looking over the tumbled roofs to the sea, and saw the
lights along the coast begin to twinkle greeting to the stars in the
frosty sky.

"Quite like a Christmas number, isn't it?" a voice said behind her, and
she turned quickly to find Simon Beckett.

"Where are you wandering to, sir? I've been playing 'Sandy Claws,' as
old Betsy puts it.... I thought you would have gone away to spend the
festive season--falsely so called."

Simon turned and walked by her side. "Watch how you go: it's pretty
slippery.... No, I'm not going away. I've only cousins to go to,
anyway, and they don't particularly want me. Besides, it hardly seemed
worth while to go so far just now. I'm keen on getting my job done,
and..."

"How are you getting on? You haven't asked for any advice yet?"

"No--you see I've only now got the rough draft done: I've taken an age
to it. It's when I re-write and polish that I'll be most grateful for
help--only, I hardly like to bother you."

"We'll be enormously flattered and not in the least bothered. You know
that.... I've been at Ravenscraig with some things for Alastair's
stocking. It was all so hopelessly uncheery for the poor lamb. When I
think of our childhood--the fuss that was made, the thrill of the
preparations, the mystery. It does make a difference having a mother, an
aunt given to good works isn't the same at all."

Simon agreed. "I've got a train for him," he said, "with rails. It only
came this morning and I was in a perfect funk that it wasn't going to
turn up in time. He's been fearfully keen to possess one. I hope it'll
come up to his expectations."

"Sure to, trains never fail one---- What are you doing to-morrow?"

"Nothing special. I thought I'd treat myself to a really long walk."

"We're quite alone," Nicole told him. "After your walk it would be a
kind act if you'd eat your Christmas dinner with us--7.30--and
afterwards we'll sit round the fire and talk.... Isn't it jolly
to-night? The moon and the snowy roofs and the lights in the frosty air.
And look at that little steamer, plugging along! Where are you going to,
you funny little boat? Don't you know what night this is?"




                              CHAPTER XVII


                 "Go humbly; humble are the skies,
                  And low and large and fierce the Star;
                  So very near the manger lies
                  That we may travel far."

                                                      G. K. CHESTERTON.

When Alastair had almost finished dressing on Christmas morning, Gentle
Annie suddenly dumped a parcel on the dressing-table, announcing,
"That's ma present."

Alastair looked shyly at it, making no effort to discover its contents.

"Open't. Here! See!" Annie quickly whipped off the paper and disclosed,
on a stand, a round glass globe containing a miniature cottage, which,
when shaken, became surrounded with whirling snow-flakes.

"It's a snow-storm," she declared triumphantly. "It cost one shilling
and sixpence."

"Oh, Annie, how could you afford it?" Alastair asked anxiously.

"Aw, weel, I wanted a strong ane this time. The last I got was a
shilling, an' I brocht it back from Langtoun in aside ma new hat, for I
thocht that would be a safe place, but when I won hame I fand it had
broken, and a' the water and white stuff--I think it's juist bakin'
soda--was ower ma hat."

Alastair shook the globe and produced a most realistic snow-scene.

"Is the snow really only baking soda?" he asked rather sadly.

"Ay, but it does fine. We'll pit it on the mantelpiece for an ornamint,
an' juist shake it whiles, an' then it'll no get broken in a
hurry.... By! but ye're weel off gettin' a' thae things in yer
stockin'.... Dinna brush yer hair till yer jersey's on. D'ye no see
ye pit it a' wrang again?--Noo, rin awa' doon to yer breakfast, like a
guid laddie, and be sure and say 'a Merry Christmas' to yer auntie."

But Alastair, very pink in the face, was thrusting something into
Annie's hand.

"It's my present, a purse. I bought it at Jimmie Nisbet's when I was out
with Mr. Beckett. D-d'you like it?"

"By! it's a braw ane," said Annie. She saw that it was really a tobacco
pouch, but Alastair had bought it for a purse and she wouldn't enlighten
him. "I'll keep ma chance-money in't, and aye carry it when I'm
dressed."

Alastair, blushing with pleasure to hear that his present was valued,
and carrying the contents of his stocking, ran downstairs. He was well
content with the beginning of his day, and ready to enjoy anything that
might turn up.

"Good morning, Aunt Janet," he said; "a Merry Christmas," his eyes all
the time fixed on his place at the breakfast-table. _There were parcels
there!_

"Good morning, Alastair. A Happy Christmas. I hope you're a grateful boy
to-day. Just think of all the poor children who will get no
presents.... No, sup your porridge, and eat your bread and butter
before you touch a parcel."

Miss Symington had never much to say to her nephew except in the way of
reproof, and breakfast was eaten more or less in silence. When they had
finished the bell was rung for prayers, and the servants came in and sat
on chairs near the door, while their mistress read a chapter and a
prayer, and Alastair said the text which Annie had to teach him every
morning. At first she had opened the Bible and chosen a verse at random,
and Alastair had come down and repeated, "_All the Levites in the Holy
City were two hundred, fourscore and four_," or something equally
relevant, until Miss Symington gave her a text-book which she was
working steadily through.

"Your text, Alastair," his aunt said on this Christmas morning, and
Alastair's flute-like voice repeated gravely, "_Remember now thy Creator
in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years
draw nigh, when ye shall say, I have no pleasure in them_."

To Alastair there was no sense in the words, but he liked the sound of
them, the rhythm... _Remember now thy Creator_.... "May I open my
parcels _now_?"

Miss Symington had not much to open. The postman would bring her some
cards and booklets, doubtless. Mrs. Lambert had sent her a tray cloth,
her own work, and Mrs. Heggie--with a thought, perhaps, of Alastair--a
box of candied fruit. And there was Miss Rutherfurd's box. It stood on
the sideboard, a seductive-looking parcel wrapped in white paper and
tied with carnation silk ribbon. What could it be! Surely not
chocolates.... Slowly she untied the ribbon, undid the paper, took
off the lid of the box and lifted out the fragile gilt bowl. She
sniffed. Bath salts--geranium. That was the scent Miss Rutherfurd always
used. Well, really! Miss Symington sat back in her chair and looked at
the frivolous, pretty thing. No one had ever thought of giving her such
a present before. A thought came vaguely to her that the gift was like
the giver, the glow of it, the brightness, the fragrance.

While Alastair played, absorbed, she gathered up the box with the bowl,
and the ribbon, and carried them up to her room.

The window was wide open to the frosty air, the bed stripped, and
airing. She looked round for a place to put her present. The
dressing-table was covered with the silver brushes and mirror her
parents had given her on her twenty-first birthday. There was a large
pin-cushion too, and two silver-topped bottles that would not unscrew.
It looked crowded, and she remembered Nicole's dressing-table when she
had once been taken into her room to see something, a table, old and
beautiful in itself, covered with plate-glass, with nothing on it but a
standing mirror and a bowl of flowers. Everything else, Nicole had
explained, lived in the drawers of the table: it was tidier so, she
thought.

Janet then tried the bowl on the mantelpiece, but decided at once that
it couldn't stand there. It was an ugly painted wood mantelpiece, with a
china ornament at each end and a photograph of the Scott Monument in the
middle, and the Venetian bowl looked forlornly out of its element, as a
nymph might have looked at an Educational Board meeting.

There was a fine old walnut chest of drawers opposite the window. It had
a yellowish embroidered cover on it which Janet whisked off, leaving it
bare. That was better. The wood was beautiful, and the bowl stood
proudly regarding its own reflection in the polished depths.

Janet was surprised at her own feeling of pleasure and satisfaction in
her new possession. After all, there was, she thought, something rather
nice about having pretty things about one. But, the worst of it was that
one pretty thing was apt to make everything else look uglier. That
wall-paper! It had been chosen for its lasting qualities, but she
acknowledged to herself that it was far from beautiful. Suppose the
walls were made cream? It would make a difference... Perhaps when
spring-cleaning time came round she might have it done, though it did
seem ridiculous to fuss about one's own room. A guest-room was a
different matter.... She lifted the lid of the bowl and the light
sweet scent stole out. What had Alastair said, "Soft and warm and
nice-smelling." She supposed many people considered it worth while to do
everything in their power to make themselves and their surroundings
attractive, but in this fleeting world was it not a waste of time? So
soon we would all be done with it. _A few more years shall roll_....
She wondered if Nicole and her mother, among their pretty things, ever
thought of another world, and of the importance of working while it was
day. The shadow of the night that was coming had always lain dark across
Janet's day of life.

The sound of voices disturbed her train of thought. Looking out of the
window she saw her neighbour, Mr. Beckett, standing on the gravel
holding a large box, while his dog, James, leapt on him, and Alastair
ran about giving excited yelps. Janet felt almost ashamed of herself for
noticing how good the young man was to look at standing there in his
light tweed jacket and knickerbockers. He was bare-headed, and the
winter sun turned his fair hair to gold.

"Ask your aunt if you may come in with me next door. My room's the best
place to fix it up in," she heard him say, and went quickly downstairs
to the front door.

"It's a train," Alastair shouted, roused completely out of his habitual
gravity, "a train for me! May I go with Mr. Beckett and see how it
works?"

Janet met the eyes of the tall young man, who smiled boyishly as if he
were as keen on the game as his small companion, and she found herself
telling him, with quite a warm inflection in her usually so colourless
voice, how good he was to trouble about her nephew, and she hoped
Alastair was as grateful as he ought to be.

Alastair, in no mood to study inflections in his aunt's voice, tugged at
his friend's arm, saying, "Come on, then, oh, _do_ come on," but Simon
felt compelled to suggest that perhaps Miss Symington would accompany
them to see the train work.

Alastair's face was anxious until he heard his aunt decline, graciously,
the invitation. She added that Annie would call for him at eleven
o'clock to take him to the Harbour House, and, about twelve, he was
going to the Lambert's.

"My word, Bat, you're having a day," Simon told him.

"I'm afraid he will be spoiled among so many kind people," Janet said
primly.

"Come on, oh, _do_ come on," Alastair insisted, jigging up and down
impatiently, feeling that all this talk was quite beside the mark; so
Simon, with a smile to Miss Symington, allowed himself to be led away.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Evening had fallen on another Christmas Day. Everywhere tired children
were being put to bed, some cross, some dissatisfied, all, more or less,
suffering from over-eating. It is doubtful whether the long-looked-for
day ever does come up to expectations, but no matter how disillusioned
they go to bed, in the morning they are already beginning again to look
forward to that bright day which lies at the end of the long year ahead.

The Rutherfurds, having long since put away childish things and having
no expectations of extra happiness but rather the reverse, had been
surprised to find themselves thoroughly enjoying their first Christmas
in Kirkmeikle. Alastair and the postman had taken up the morning, after
luncheon they had, all three, walked round the links, and finished up at
the Lambert's garden-enclosed house, which was full of all happy
cheerful things, toys and children's voices, music and firelight. Mr.
Lambert had told a wonderful story of pirates in Kirkmeikle, with
Alastair as hero, and they had played games and sung carols.

Now dinner was over, and they were sitting round the fire in the long
drawing-room, drinking their coffee, Lady Jane in her own low chair,
Nicole beside her on a wooden stool with a red damask cushion, Barbara
on the sofa, and Simon Beckett comfortable in a capacious arm-chair.

Barbara wore a dress the colour of Parma violets, Nicole was in white,
with a spray of scarlet berries tucked into the white fur which trimmed
it.

They had been talking animatedly, but now a silence had fallen. So quiet
was the room that outside the tide could be heard rippling over the
sand. A boy passed whistling some popular song, a gay tune with an
undertone of sadness.

After a minute, "Well," said Lady Jane, "what are we going to do to
amuse our guest?"

"Let's play at something," Nicole suggested.

"But what?" asked Barbara.

"Oh, anything," Nicole said lazily. "Just let's make up a game! Suppose
we each tell what strikes us as the funniest thing we know."

"The best joke, do you mean?" Simon asked.

"The best joke, or story, or episode in a play, or something that
happened to yourself. The thing that has remained in your memory as
being really funny."

"Far too difficult," Barbara declared. "I laugh and forget."

"And I," said her aunt, "have such a primitive sense of humour that it's
the most obvious joke that makes me laugh: to see somebody fall over a
pail of water convulses me. But I never can remember good stories, can
you, Mr. Beckett?"

"I seldom remember them at the right moment," Simon confessed.

"I'm glad of that," Barbara said, getting out her work. "I do think
those people are a bore who are constantly saying, 'That reminds me of a
story....'"

"I think you're all very stupid," Nicole said.

"But I do remember one thing, Miss Nicole," Simon said, "one of A. A.
M.'s _Punch_ articles on how to dispose of safety-razor blades. The man
had been in the habit of dropping worn-out blades on the floor, and his
wife protested that the housemaid cut her fingers and dropped blood on
the blue carpet. 'Then,' said the husband, 'we'll either have to get a
red carpet or a blue-blooded housemaid....' I always think of that
when it comes to discarding a razor-blade, and laugh! What is your
funniest thing?"

"I was trying to think," Nicole said, hugging her knees, "but everything
has gone out of my mind. There's one story that always cheers me about
Braxfield, the hanging judge; I think it was Braxfield, but it doesn't
matter anyway. He was crossing a burn in spate, and by some mischance
his wig fell off. His servant fished it out and handed it to him, but
the judge refused it, petulantly remarking that it wasn't his. 'A weel,'
said his servant, '_there's nae wale o' wigs in this burn_.' Don't you
think that's a good story?"

"Very," said Simon, collecting the coffee cups and putting them on a
table. "What does 'wale' mean?"

Nicole dropped her head in her hands. "To think that I've been trying to
tell a Scot's story to a Sassenach! 'Wale' means choice. It's the cold
sense of the answer that makes the story seem so good to me. I thought
you looked a little blank. Like the Englishmen dining at some inn and
waited on by a new recruit of a waiter. They were waiting for the
sweets, when he rushed in and said: '_The pudden's scail't. It was
curds, and it played jap ower the dish and syne skited doon the
stairs._' The poor dears realised that they were to get no pudding, but
they never fathomed why."

"I don't suppose," Lady Jane said to her guest, "that you understood a
word of that? I know it was Greek to me when I came first to
Scotland.... I wish you'd tell me about your writing. How, exactly,
do you proceed?"

"Oh, well," Simon said, lighting a cigarette, "my job would be the
merest child's play to some people. I haven't to invent anything, only
to put down facts.... I thought it would be the easiest thing to
write a simple account, but I'm beginning to think that simplicity is
the most difficult thing you can try for. You'd laugh at the struggle I
have sometimes!"

"But," said Nicole, "it must be great fun when things do go right. Don't
tell me you haven't successful moments when you say to yourself, 'Well,
that's jolly good, anyway.'"

Simon shook his head. "Those moments hardly ever occur. Now and again
when I get past a nasty snag I seize my hat, and walk five miles over
the head of it! No wonder my work doesn't make rapid progress."

"How long does it take to write a book?" Barbara asked. "I mean, of
course, an ordinary-sized book, not a Decline and Fall."

Simon laughed. "I daresay an expert could do it in a few weeks, but it's
taken me months to write the first rough draft--doing nothing else
either, except golf a bit and motor a bit, and walk a good deal. But
what I'm thankful for every day of my life is that my lecturing is over.
However I stood up and jabbered to all those people I don't know."

"It is dreadful," said Lady Jane. "Mine have only been small things like
opening bazaars and flowershows, but I made myself quite ill dreading
the day. But when once I was on my feet and realised that my audience
was not made up of ravening wolves waiting to devour me, but of friendly
people who wished me well, then I was quite all right."

"Women are less self-conscious than men," Simon said. "I felt such a
fool!"

"I wish I'd been there to see you," Nicole told him unfeelingly. "But,
you know, one should always make a point of doing things one simply
hates doing, it's such a lovely feeling afterwards. Besides, it's nice
to look back on heart-diseasy moments; long uneventful days are jolly at
the time, but it's the heart-diseasy moments that really count, as you
know, much better than I do. What a nice old age you'll have!"

"I like that from you, Nikky," her cousin said. "What kind of old age
you'll have I don't know, for at present you live like an old lady,
visiting in the day, and in the evening reading dull books by the
fire.... Well, aren't we going to do anything?"

"Won't you sing, please?" Simon suggested.

"Oh, do, Babs. Sing what you sang this afternoon--'_On Christmas night
when it was cold_.' D'you know it, Mr. Beckett? Such an old carol."

Barbara went to the piano and struck a few chords softly. Lady Jane, as
if drawn by the music, moved close to her.

                "For his love that bought us all dear,
                 Listen lordings, that be here
                 And I will tell you in fere
                 Whereof came the flower delice...
              On Christmas night, when it was cold,
              Our Lady lay among beasts bold...."

Barbara sang the words as if she loved them.

Nicole, in her white frock and her scarlet berries, sat looking into the
fire; her lips were parted and her eyes bright as if she were seeing
pictures in the flames, lovely pictures.

Simon sat forward with his hands clasped between his knees watching
Nicole's face as she dreamed----

"Whereof came the flower delice..." sang Barbara.




                             CHAPTER XVIII


          "Two lads that thought there was no more behind
           But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
           And to be boy eternal."

                                                   _The Winter's Tale._

Two days after Christmas, breakfast at the Harbour House was a somewhat
prolonged meal, for the post, arriving in the middle, brought a letter
which needed immediate discussion.

"Mums," said Nicole, "here's a letter from Bice saying that Jane and
Barnabas have taken scarlet fever. Happily, Arthur has been in the
country with Aunt Constance, so he isn't in quarantine, and he can't go
home, of course, so this is an S.O.S. from Bice asking if she may send
him here for the rest of his holidays. She is very worried, poor dear.
See what she says."

"What a sad thing to happen in the holidays," Lady Jane lamented, taking
the letter, while Barbara, coming back from the sideboard with her
tea-cup, stood staring gloomily out of the window. Nicole, who was
watching her cousin's face, said:

"Quite so, Babs. We're for it, I fear. We'll have to take the child for
at least a fortnight, and cart him back to school at the end of
it.... Personally, I don't mind; boys are always a delight to me,
only I don't quite see what the poor little chap will do in Kirkmeikle."

"How old is he?" Barbara asked moodily. "Twelve, isn't he? If we had
been at Rutherfurd it wouldn't have mattered. He'd have gone out with
the keeper, and there would always have been something to amuse him, but
a boy cooped up here...."

"At an age, too, when women are a bore and a nuisance."

"And," said Barbara, "we haven't seen him for ages. He's probably one of
those frightfully superior schoolboys who despise more or less
everything. I met one at Langlands once and I never felt so shy in my
life. I hardly dared address him, and he only just condescended to
answer me...."

"Ah! not Bice's boy--he wouldn't be like that. Bice herself is such a
simple creature.... Well, Mums, what do you think?"

Lady Jane laid down the letter and began to butter a bit of toast. "Of
course he must come here, poor boy, but I am so sorry for Bice missing
his holidays. When I last heard from her she was planning all sorts of
treats for Arthur's Christmas holidays, and Barnabas, who adores his big
brother, was going back with him to school. Now, I suppose, he will be
weeks late, and spoil his first term... we must wire at once. If they
put him in charge of the guard of the night train we can meet him in
Edinburgh to-morrow morning. Which of you will go?"

"I'd better," Nicole said, as her cousin remained silent. Barbara might
greet him as Miss Murdstone greeted David Copperfield: "Generally
speaking, I don't like boys: How do you do, boy?" "What shall we do with
him, I wonder?"

"Arthur will be quite happy," Lady Jane said serenely.

"Doubtless, but how do you propose to entertain him?"

"Why, he'll amuse himself, Nikky. The harbour, and the rocks, and
golf..."

"Well--I hope so, Mums, but I foresee a strenuous time for us all. You
see, he's pretty old--twelve; almost ready for Eton, and he may have
large ideas. Besides, remember he's coming here, you say, disappointed
of all manner of treats in the way of plays and pantomimes and parties.
However----"

The next night Arthur Dennis was settled in the Harbour House, and as
much at home as if he had been born and bred there. Nicole and he had
arrived with the four-thirty train, having spent most of the day at the
Castle and the Zoo, and after tea Arthur sat answering gravely all the
questions put to him, but otherwise contributing nothing to the
conversation, and when Lady Jane suggested that he might like to unpack
he rose with alacrity and went out, leaving the door open.

"Well?" said Nicole, looking from her mother to her cousin.

"A dear boy," said Lady Jane.

"He has Bice's beautiful eyes," Barbara said, "and what lashes to waste
on a boy!"

Nicole poked the fire. "I like his grave way of speaking," she said,
"and that sweet infrequent smile. He nearly went out of the carriage
window trying to find out how the Forth Bridge is made. I've promised to
take him to see it close at hand. He isn't superior, Babs, and he tells
me he's 'frightfully bucked' to be here. Coming up alone in a sleeper
had been a great thrill. I think you were right, Mums; he'll be quite
happy. Though speechless at present, he talked a lot on the way. He
tells me his chief horror is what he calls 'civilisation,' meaning, I
find, char-a-bancs that popularise remote places. He says, personally,
he can't get far enough away from people and shops. His idea of bliss is
Loch Bervie--forty miles of rough road between you and a railway
station. They spent the summer there last year, you remember? and he got
a taste for solitude---- Dear me, to judge from the noise our whole
staff is helping him to unpack."

The next morning Nicole set out with the guest to climb among the rocks
and watch the sea-birds, for Arthur, it turned out, was deeply
interested in birds.

On their way home they met Simon Beckett striding along as if
celebrating some victory over words. They stopped to talk and Arthur was
introduced--"Arthur Dennis. Driven from home in the holidays by scarlet
fever."

"Rough luck!" said Simon. "What school are you at? No? That's my old
prep. Is Snooks still there? By Jove..."

Nicole stood watching the two eager speakers, well pleased to be
forgotten, realising that here was a solution of the entertainment
problem. If only Mr. Beckett in his spare time would take some notice of
Arthur, what a help it would be!

They strolled home together and Simon was easily persuaded to join them
at luncheon. Nicole managed to whisper to Arthur that this was the
Everest Beckett, and his eyes were large in adoration. Later, when Simon
invited him to go to the golf course with him and have tea at his rooms,
he went, almost dazed with happiness.

"And, Arthur," Nicole said to him, as Simon Beckett was taking leave of
her mother, "if there's another boy to tea, Alastair Symington, be kind
to him, won't you? I know how good you are to Barnabas, and this poor
little chap has no father or mother. Of course, he's much too young for
you, only about six, but Mr. Beckett makes quite a companion of him."

There followed for Arthur a fortnight of complete bliss. There are worse
fates than to be an only boy in a household of women, each of them at
his beck and call. Mrs. Martin cooked only what she knew he liked, and
Christina cared not how muddy his boots were, or how many snowy towels
he wiped half-washed hands on. Beenie tidied up after him without a
word: a smile of approval from the young sultan was all they asked.
Nicole was his very good friend, ready always for fun; Barbara patiently
stitched sails for the boats he made; "Cousin Jane" was the one he liked
best to sit with him after he was in bed and tell him stories of
Rutherfurd, and Ronnie and Archie.

Almost at once Arthur developed a strong affection for young Alastair,
"The Sprat" he called him, and was never so happy as when he had him
trotting at his heels. At the same time he was a frank and fearless
commentator, and did not hide his disapproval of certain traits in the
Sprat's character.

One day Simon Beckett suggested that he would take the two boys to St.
Andrews, show them the places of interest, and give them luncheon at an
hotel, and asked Barbara and Nicole to be of the party. Barbara happened
to be engaged, but Nicole was delighted to accept the invitation.

Simon had meant to go by car, but the boys were both keen on a train
journey, so they set off, crowding into a carriage that already
contained an elderly stout man and his equally stout wife. Nicole and
Simon sat facing each other in the middle and the boys were given the
corner seats.

As there were strangers present Arthur never uttered a word, but looked
out at the dreary winter fields with an impassive face. Alastair, alas!
seemed unaware of how the best people behave when travelling. First he
removed his hat, then he drew from his pocket a mouth-organ and, sitting
hunched up in his seat, began to play on it earnestly.

Arthur stood it for a minute or two, then he leant forward and said,
"Stop that, can't you!" But Alastair, like the deaf adder, stopped his
ears instead and went on playing, his usually pale face quite pink with
exertion, his hair standing up in what Gentle Annie called "a cow's
lick."

"Pan in an overcoat!" whispered Nicole to Simon. "Did you ever see such
a freakish little face?"

Again Arthur leant forward and admonished his friend:

"_Don't behave like a beastly tripper._"

Alastair stopped playing, but still holding the mouth-organ to his mouth
with both hands, said simply, "I am a tripper," and started again. With
a snort of wrath Arthur turned away and devoted his whole attention to
the landscape.

Later, at luncheon in the large and splendid hotel, he resumed the
subject. "Sprat, why d'you like playing a mouth-organ when you're among
people you don't know?" he asked when they were both attacking plates of
roast-beef, Alastair very carefully, for he had only lately been
promoted from a fork and spoon to a knife and fork. "Why _do_ you?"

Alastair held his knife and fork upright, which he had been told not to
do, as he considered the question.

"Because it makes me happy," he said at last.

"But--don't you _mind_ people seeing you play the fool?"

Alastair shook his head:

"Then," said Arthur, "I believe you're Labour."

"Yes," said Alastair.

"What is Labour, Sprat?" Nicole asked him.

"It's what Annie is. There was an Election in Kirkmeikle once, and I
wore a red ribbon to show I was Labour."

"And I suppose," Arthur said bitterly, "that you like char-a-bancs full
of trippers throwing empty ginger-beer bottles about?"

Alastair lifted his head, his eyes the eyes of one beholding a vision.

"How lovely!" he said.

Nicole and Simon laughed, and Nicole said: "Never mind, Sprat, I like
char-a-bancs and trippers and ginger-beer bottles too!"

"I bet Mr. Beckett doesn't," Arthur declared.

Alastair looked wistfully at his friend, who said, "Have some
ginger-beer now, both of you," and the boys were nothing loath.

"Now we must explore," Nicole said, when the excellent meal was over.

"Shall we buy a guide-book?" Simon asked. "Or how shall we manage?"

"Just let's wander down South Street. I was here once as a child and I
remember we went along South Street to the Tower and the dungeons."

"I want to see the dungeons," said Arthur, "don't you, Sprat?"

"Yes," Alastair said firmly. Then--"What are they?"

"Queen Mary's house is somewhere here," Nicole said, as they walked
along the old street. "I've forgotten my history-books but I remember
_The Queen's Quair_. It says that in St. Andrews the Queen lodged in a
plain house where simplicity was the rule, and that the ladies wore
short kirtles, and gossiped with fish-wives on the shore, rode out with
hawks over the dunes, and walked the sands of the bay when the tide was
down. And Darnley came here, that 'long lad.' St. Andrews will always in
a way belong to Queen Mary. I wonder if the story will ever lose its
magic?"

"Never," said Simon, "so long as there are men and women to listen."

Alastair was holding Simon's hand. "Tell me the story," he begged.

Simon looked down at the small face. "I'm afraid, my Bat, it wouldn't
interest you. Mary was Queen of Scotland, but she had been brought up in
France and had learned to love sunshine, and gaiety, and courtly
manners--everything we haven't much of. Then she came to Scotland and
found grey skies, and thought the people rough and unmannerly. And all
round her were enemies, and though she had some loyal friends they
couldn't keep her from making nets for her own feet, and the enemies put
her in prison and in the end they killed her."

"What a rotten shame!" said Arthur.

"But why did they kill the Queen if she was good?" Alastair asked. "She
was good, wasn't she?"

"Perhaps not always," Nicole said, "but she never had a chance." She
turned to Simon. "I'm always being rebuked for my tiresome habit of
quoting things so now I hardly dare to, but do you know the lines Marion
Angus wrote?" and she repeated--

             "Consider the way she had to go,
             Think of the hungry snare!
             The nets she herself had woven,
             Aware or unaware,
             Of the dancing feet grown still,
             The blinded eyes--
             Queens should be cold and wise,
             And she loved little things,
             Parrots
             And red-legged partridges
             And the golden fishes of the Duc de Guise
             And the pigeon with the blue ruff
             She had from Monsieur d'Elboeuf."

"Poor little soul," said Simon. "Queens should be cold and wise. Imagine
her here in this grey place, surrounded by men who wished her ill, she
who loved little things!"

When they reached the ruins of the cathedral, "Who knocked it down?"
Alastair asked.

"Perhaps Arthur can tell us," Nicole suggested, but that worthy shook
his head. "Don't know," he said, "but anyway it wasn't me," a reply
which struck Alastair as the height of wit.

"Now, listen," Nicole said. "John Knox had it destroyed. '_Pull down the
nests_,' he said, '_and the rooks will fly away_.'"

"The old blighter," said Arthur. "What about the poor rooks? They'd have
to build other nests."

"By rooks he meant priests," Nicole explained, "or anyway, papists. Oh,
he was a root-and-branch man this same John Knox. Old Betsy says, 'Mary
was a besom, but auld John Knox was a guid man, and he made a graund job
o' oor Reformation.'"

"John Knox is a friend of Aunt Janet's," Alastair announced. "We've a
picture of him in a long white beard.... Are these all tombstones,
like we have in Kirkmeikle?"

"Yes," said Nicole, reading one here and there. "I've all my
countrymen's passion for a graveyard. I can wander contentedly for hours
and read epitaphs. Just look at this one." She spelt out the name, and
made out that the man who lay here had once occupied the Chair of Logic
in St. Andrews University.... "And his family extends to both sides
of the stone. I make fifteen: how many do you make? Ensigns and
cornets--most of them seem to have gone to India. Well, I do call that a
good day's work--three wives, fifteen children, and a long useful life
teaching logic.... And now it's going to rain so we'd better see the
dungeons at once."

After the dungeons had been gloated over, the rain drove them into a
cinema for an hour before tea. It was the first time Alastair had ever
been in one, and Arthur instructed him. "They're not real people, you
know, they're only pictures."

But even in the cinema Arthur was tried by his friend's too spontaneous
behaviour, for not only did he laugh long and loud at the funny parts,
but he insisted on addressing the actors who were "featured" on the
screen. "I don't like the look of you," he told the villain. Against the
driver who did not stop the train as quickly as seemed necessary when
the hero and his horse lay helpless on the line his rage knew no bounds.
Standing on his feet, with his hands clenched, he muttered against him.
Towards the heroine he felt nothing but disgust. When in the "close-up"
she was shown with large tears in her eyes, he could hardly bear it, and
when the hero clasped her in a close and prolonged embrace, he nudged
Arthur crossly to know what they were doing. "Kissing," hissed Arthur
shamefacedly, adding, "The silly asses!"

One wonders what Miss Symington thought of her nephew's adventures when
he related them on his return--a medley of mouth-organs, beer in hotels,
bottle-dungeons and John Knox, Queen Mary being killed by wicked people,
ladies kissing men, and trains that wouldn't stop though a poor horse
was going to be run over.

Alastair had yet another new experience during these Christmas holidays.

"Nikky," Arthur said to his cousin one night, "the Sprat's fearfully
keen to go to something called a 'Swaree.' He says you get a 'poke' and
'a service of fruit,' and he wants me to go with him."

Nicole laughed. "But, Arthur, have you any idea what a church _soire_
is like? True you get tea and a poke, but after that there are speeches
and all sorts of dull things. I know what has fired the Sprat's
imagination--the service of fruit, but I'm afraid he'd find it very
disappointing."

"I don't think so. Anyway, it'd be fine to come home late. The Sprat's
never been out at night."

"When is it? To-morrow? Well, I'll see what Miss Symington says."

The next morning Nicole went to the Manse to ask for particulars, and
found Mrs. Lambert in the study with clean towels over her arm. "I've
got stuck here," she explained, "when I should be getting the spare room
ready for Mr. Bain of Kirkleven; he's coming for the Sunday School
Social to-night. You see, John has to take the chair, and I'm trying to
give him some useful hints."

"I wish you'd let it alone just now," said Mr. Lambert. "Dear me, girl,
can't you see I'm busy?"

"Yes, but this is your job just as much as the other---- _Please_ don't
go, Miss Rutherfurd. Take that chair by the fire and help me to convince
my husband that a chairman must be both bright and tactful."

"T-terrible!" said Mr. Lambert.

"Terrible indeed," agreed Nicole, "but necessary. I've taken the chair
myself sometimes, and I know how one has to smile and smile and be an
idiot----"

"And whatever you do, John," his wife continued, "be sure and praise Mr.
Lawson, or we won't see the right side of his face for weeks." She
turned to Nicole and explained: "Mr. Lawson is the superintendent of the
Sunday School, a decent man, but dreadfully easily slighted. And talk
about the teachers, John, and say something encouraging about their
work. And when some one is singing, don't just say coldly, 'Miss
So-and-so will sing,' as if she had forced her way in; say something
about how fortunate we are to have Miss So-and-so with us to-night--you
know the sort of thing."

"Yes, yes, girl, I'll remember about Lawson and the teachers, only do
stop now.... Miss Rutherfurd, I wonder who invented Social Meetings;
he did an ill turn to ministers."

"Not to all ministers," his wife reminded him. "Mr. Bain simply lives
for them. He's the best _soire_ speaker in these parts, Miss
Rutherfurd, and we're very lucky to get him to-night."

"Please tell me," said Nicole, "may any one go to-night?"

"Adults ninepence," Mr. Lambert responded gloomily.

"Oh! Does that cover a poke and a service of fruit? Because both
Alastair and Arthur are keen to taste of those delights, and I'm going
now to beg Miss Symington to let Alastair go with us."

"Do come. It would be so cheering to see you there," Mrs. Lambert said,
but her husband only smiled sardonically.

Miss Symington gave the desired permission. Alastair might go with
Arthur and Nicole, and Annie, who would also be at the Social, would
take him home. The show began at seven o'clock, so Lady Jane said
instead of dinner there would be supper at nine o'clock. Nicole tried to
persuade Barbara to join the party but she refused; Simon Beckett,
however, accepted an invitation given by Arthur, and the four started in
great spirits.

The _soire_ was held in the church, which seemed odd to Simon's English
eyes, but Nicole told him that in her opinion it could not hurt even a
sacred building to see a lot of happy children have tea, even though
they did explode their "pokes," when empty, with a loud bang.

The "poke" in question consisted of a cookie, a scone, a perkin, and an
iced cake from which the icing had peeled and distributed itself over
the other contents.

In the choir-seat a table was spread with a white cloth covered with
more choice viands than were provided for the multitude, and at it sat
Mr. Lambert, the superintendent of the Sunday School, and Mr. Bain who
had come to speak. Mr. Lambert wore a strained expression.

When Nicole volunteered to help with the tea, Mrs. Lambert, very busy
with tea-kettles, pointed her to the choir-seat which was doing duty as
a platform. "If you'd take them that tea-pot. There's cream and sugar on
the table; they don't get ordinary ready-mixed _soire_ tea."

Nicole nodded. "I see--'How beautiful they are, the lordly ones!'"

She mounted the platform and was introduced to the two men she did not
know, and gave them tea, and received in turn many fair speeches from
the jokesome Mr. Bain. Simon, meanwhile, helped Mrs. Lambert with the
heavy kettles.

"Boys all right?" Nicole asked as she passed him.

"They seem so, and the way the Bat's wolfing the contents of that bag is
a poor compliment to the tea Miss Jamieson gave him a short time ago."

"Ah, but think how good, how _different_ things taste when eaten out of
a poke, in a hot steamy atmosphere, along with fifty other
children.... I think everybody's about finished eating now. I wonder
what happens next?"

A hymn was given out, an old-fashioned hymn, which the children knew and
sang with gusto, "_When Mothers of Salem_," then Mr. Lambert rose to his
feet. He smiled nervously and said he was glad to see such a good
turn-out of children, and also of parents. Then followed a few sentences
in which Nicole recognised an attempt to follow his wife's advice to try
to be bright. It was galvanised mirth and she was thankful when he
ceased the effort, and gave a very short, very sincere address to the
children. He finished and sat down, and his eyes wandered to where his
wife sat. She was obviously dissatisfied. What message was she trying to
send him? Ah! the superintendent--the teachers: he got to his feet
again: the situation was saved.

A stalwart young woman sang "_The Holy City_," then came the feature of
the evening. Mr. Bain, advancing to the front of the choir-seat, and
rubbing his hands as if in anticipation of his own treat, began. It was
_soire_-speaking in its finest flower. Everything in heaven and earth
seemed to remind the speaker of a funny story and his audience rocked
with laughter.

"Look," whispered Nicole to Simon, "do just look at Arthur and the Bat."

Arthur was sitting looking absolutely blank, evidently thoroughly bored
with Mr. Bain's efforts. Alastair, on the other hand, seemed to
sympathise with the theory that "every chap likes a hand," for he was
applauding vociferously, his face radiant.

"Arthur," said Simon, "evidently believes with Dr. Johnson that the
merriment of parsons is mighty offensive."

The meeting was over before nine o'clock, so they carried Alastair and
Gentle Annie back to the Harbour House for a drink of lemonade, a
beveridge which Alastair's soul loved.

Arthur, who was in great spirits about staying up late and having supper
with Simon Beckett, nudged Alastair and asked, "Did you like it,
Bat-Sprat? Was it fine?"

And Alastair lifted his face from the lemonade glass and said:
"_Fine_.... This lemonade's so nice and prickly."

"You get treats here, Arthur," Barbara said. "A 'swaree' is far before a
pantomime."

"Rather like a pantomime, Cousin Barbara. The chap who kept on being
funny wouldn't have made a bad clown. Silly kind of clergyman, though."

"But tell me," said Lady Jane, "what _is_ a service of fruit? I've been
so anxious to know."

"It was an orange," Alastair said gravely, producing from his pocket a
somewhat shrivelled specimen of that fruit.

"Have mine, Sprat," said Arthur; "mine's a goodlier one."

"_An orange!_" said Lady Jane. "And I expected at the very least bells
and pomegranates!"




                              CHAPTER XIX


    "What's to come is still unsure."

                                                   _Twelfth Night._

Barbara took Arthur back to school, as she professed herself unable to
live any longer without a breath of London air and the sight of her
friends.

It was quiet and strange to Nicole and her mother without the boy. In
the short time he had lived with them he had made a place for himself,
and every way they turned there was a gap.

"Barbara was wise," Nicole said. "It's the people who stay at home who
do the worst of the missing."

She and her mother were sitting in the dusk doing nothing.

Arthur would never have allowed them such a time of idleness. He had
always clamoured for light, in order to go on with whatever particular
bit of business he was engaged on at the moment, which might be anything
from an attempt to make a wireless set to the laborious penning of a
blotted epistle (he was no scholar) to his fever-stricken brother and
sister.

"Yes," Lady Jane agreed, "it was wonderfully nice having a boy in the
house--the sound of his heavy boots on the stairs, the way he had of
knocking up against things, the way he whistled and sang refreshed one,
somehow. There is something stagnant about the air of a house that
contains only women."

Nicole laughed. "My dear, you make the most remarkable statements in
that gentle voice of yours. How angry some women would be to hear you! I
know what you mean, and in a way I agree. No matter how well women get
on together, how much at one they are, there's a lack of vibration, so
to speak. We are too neat, too tidy, too regular in our ways. A man is
like a strong wind blowing through the house; his boots are muddy, and
he smells of fresh air, and pipes, and peat-smoked tweeds. And his views
on life are different, and his voice---- One gets tired of women's
voices, they're so peepy."

Just then, Christina's voice in the dusk announced, "Mr. Beckett."

"How odd," said Nicole, as the visitor found his way cautiously to the
fireside.

"What is?"

"That you should come in at this moment... We were talking, Mums and
I, about men, and agreeing that life is a little stagnant without
them--almost too peaceful. We're missing Arthur, you see---- We'll not
have the lights yet, Christina."

"I'm missing Arthur too," Simon confessed, as he settled himself into a
chair. "He's a fine little chap. He ought to do well at Eton--he has
such a tremendous respect for tradition."

"He has indeed," Nicole laughed. "Can you imagine two boys more utterly
different than Arthur and Alastair? Arthur rather arrogant and
intolerant, as self-conscious as he can be, and with it all a very
decent chap, and Alastair, the friendliest little mortal on earth, not
caring what any one thinks but quite set on his own odd opinions! And
they were such good friends. Arthur adored the Sprat. I don't wonder.
There is something about that fantastic little face and the too-large
overcoat that makes my heart turn to water in the most ridiculous
way.... By the way, we didn't ask have you had tea?"

"Yes, thanks. I'm just back from a long tramp."

Nicole laid cigarettes and matches on the table beside him, while her
mother said:

"Nikky, you've always been a slave to little boys. Providence must have
intended you to be matron in a preparatory school. You would so utterly
have enjoyed comforting them when they arrived homesick, and giving them
a good time when they had measles and mumps."

"Yes, I only wish I had been Alastair's aunt instead of Miss Symington.
Not that she isn't good to him, and she's certainly a far better
instructor for youth than I am, but--a child cannot live by bread
alone."

Simon reached for an ash-tray. "The great lack about Miss Symington," he
said, "is that she can put no glamour into things. Life to her is just
so many days to be devoted to work, meals, and--in strict
moderation--play. Everything is what it seems, and she is merely grieved
when the Bat tries to liven up things by telling her he has found an
elephant's nest in the garden. Whereas, some people can make even a dull
job like supping rice-pudding into a thing of delight to a child....
I remember my mother used to make a quarry in the middle and fill it up
with milk, and tell us a story about it, until it all went down. I can't
imagine Miss Symington telling a story, I can't imagine her 'making
believe.' I daresay all that sort of thing can be carried too far, but
when it's never there at all the child misses a lot."

Lady Jane took up her embroidery frame. "I shouldn't think," she said,
as she chose her various silks, "that your childhood was wanting in
glamour."

Simon turned to her with a smile.

"No," he said. "...There were three boys of us with no sister, but my
mother was so young and jolly we never missed one. She loved to
bird-nest with us, and didn't mind a bit lying for hours in swampy
places, and she rode with us, and played cricket and tennis.... My
mother used to say that she had to be extra kind to me because I was the
middle one. Ralph was important being the eldest, and Harry, as the
youngest, had been petted, but I had to fight for my own hand. The three
of us were pretty near an age, and tremendous friends.... I can
remember getting home for holidays in winter, when mother made toffee
and roasted chestnuts in the school-room, and we tried who could tell
the weirdest ghost story; and spring mornings when we got up at six and
went away through the meadows; and long summer nights in the Highlands
where my father rented a stretch of river.... My mother died in 1916,
when we were all away from her. Ralph was with his ship, I was in the
trenches--Harry had been shot down while flying. She worked too hard and
got pneumonia, but it was really Harry's going, and the anxiety about
Ralph and me that killed her. Father said so."

There was silence for a minute, then Simon said:

"Ralph died at Zeebrugge.... My father was a good deal older than my
mother and after she went he seemed suddenly to become an old man--not
keen and interested any more--just as if he had come to an end of hope.
When the news came that Ralph had gone he just seemed to give it up, and
only lived a month after him--so I'm alone you see, and..."

His voice trailed into silence.

Nicole knelt down to stir the fire. In a little, "We must have light,"
she said. "Can you find the switch, Mr. Beckett?... Dear me, how we
blink! Like owls in the sunlight...."

She got up to pull the curtains, standing for a few minutes to look out.
When she went back to the fireside her mother and Simon were deep in
talk. Simon was speaking:

"I was always very keen on climbing and had done a good deal, and it was
a tremendous chance to be allowed to join the Everest Expedition. And
then, you see, I had nobody to be anxious about me. I suppose I was
lucky not having to feel selfish about leaving people--but that cuts
both ways, for I admit it was pretty beastly to come home and have no
one to tell...."

"And the book?" said Lady Jane. "I'm afraid you must have got very
little done lately, you gave so much of your time to Arthur."

"Oh, you'd wonder! I've begun to rewrite and polish. At present there's
hardly a decently put sentence in it, so I've my work cut out for me."

"Don't they say, 'hard writing makes easy reading?' Probably what you
write will be much pleasanter to read than the outpourings of a facile
pen. I should think that must be the undoing of many writers--the knack
of writing blithely on and on?"

"Perhaps," Simon said; "anyway, it's beyond me. I sit in awe of the
people who can write page after page about nothing. Bare facts baldly
narrated--that's my style!"

He laughed and took a cigarette.

"And when you finish it," said Lady Jane, "will you leave Kirkmeikle?
For in that case..."

"Finished or not, I must leave in March. The preparations for the next
Expedition are being made, and I'm going out before the others. There's
a tremendous lot to do--you'd wonder--both here and out there."

Lady Jane was threading her needle with a strand of bright silk. She
stuck it into the embroidery and leant forward to the young man.

"But--you don't mean that _you_ are going to make another attempt? that
you are going back? Oh, surely not!"

Going back! Simon! Nicole sat very still and said not a word.

Simon looked at Lady Jane gratefully. "It's jolly nice of you to care...
your kindness to me has been wonderful.--Of course I'm going back.
I was desperately afraid I wouldn't be fit enough, but the doctors say
now I'm all right, and Kirkmeikle air has completely set me up....
Odd how reluctant I am to leave the little town----"

The door opened. "Mr. Lambert," said Christina, and the little clergyman
ambled in, a book under either arm.

"I'm not going to stay," he murmured. "Good evening, good evening. I
only came with these books in case you wanted to return them." He looked
at the books as if loth to part from them, and laid them on the edge of
a table, from which they quickly descended to the ground accompanied by
a glass of flowers. "D-dear me! what a mess. Flower vases are awkward
things."

"So they are," said Nicole, springing to the rescue. "The books are
hardly touched; we'll rub them up and they won't be a bit the worse.
Once I put marmalade on _Marius the Epicurean_ and it improved him
vastly, gave him a lovely polish."

"I d-daresay," Mr. Lambert began, "that if Pater..." then he stopped,
for Simon was on his feet saying good-bye. "Wait a moment, Beckett, and
I'll go with you. There's something I want to talk to you about...."

But Simon hurriedly apologised and left.




                               CHAPTER XX


            "From you have I been absent in the Spring."

                                      _Sonnets_ by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

The days passed, short, stormy, January days melting into February with
its hint of spring.

One mild day when the blackbirds were trying their notes, Nicole wrote
to her friend Jean Douglas.

    ...This is the sort of day that makes me simply long for
    Rutherfurd. The snowdrops will be in drifts by the burn-side
    now. How often I've stood under a steel-grey sky, with a north
    wind blowing, and looked at the brave little advance armies of
    spring poking their heads through the beech-leaves of a dead
    October. To-day I'm positively hungry for Rutherfurd. How gladly
    would I turn the Jacksons out neck and crop, if only I had the
    fairy whistle! _Everything in its proper place_ I would pipe,
    and positively laugh to see them scuttle.... After that
    outburst I shall write, I hope, in a better spirit. You see, I
    can only say it to you. I daren't breathe a word of discontent
    here in case of rousing sleeping fires of desire in Mother and
    Barbara. Poor Babs does miss the old life so badly. Mother never
    says she misses anything, and is always cheerful and willing to
    be amused, only--laughter can be sadder than tears sometimes.
    She still, at times, has an air of sitting so loosely to the
    things of earth that Babs and I want to clutch at her skirts to
    keep her with us at all.

    Things amble along as usual. I said this morning, "I _do_ wish
    Mistress Jean would pay us a visit." The others echoed the wish,
    only Babs was sceptical about our power to entertain you. But, I
    think you would be quite well amused.

    What fun it would be to get the best guest-room ready for you:
    to find flowers for it--flowers are a great difficulty here, as
    the nearest florist is in Langtoun and he sells mostly
    vegetables!--and to choose books for your bed-table that you
    would like. And you would lie in bed in the morning and listen
    to voices underneath your windows, fisher laddies talking their
    Fife lilt, foreign sailor-men, fish-wives crying "Hawdies, fresh
    hawdies," and smell through the lavender of the bed-linen the
    salt, tarry smell of the harbour.

    And what else can I offer you? We would explore the East Neuk,
    you and I, and I wonder if you know St. Andrews? If not, there
    are fascinating things to see there. And, of course, you would
    meet all our new friends--I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Heggie made
    a dinner party for you, and you would enjoy the comedy of that
    good lady and Barbara. Barbara is always putting Mrs. Heggie in
    her place, but her efforts are quite lost on the dear soul, for
    she has no notion what the place is or that she has ever strayed
    from it. She admires Barbara immensely--licks the hand that
    beats her, so to speak. She tells me Mother is her idea of a
    _grande dame_, but she doesn't quite understand where I get my
    democratic ways. _Alas, poor Yorick!_

    Miss Symington you would have to go and see, though, probably,
    you'd find her supremely uninteresting, with her ugly clothes,
    and her bleak house, and her still ways. But I think you'd like
    Dr. Kilgour and his nice funny sister, and it would be most
    disappointing if you didn't appreciate my friends the Lamberts.
    It does make me feel ashamed of myself when I go to the Manse of
    a morning to take the babies out to find Mrs. Lambert conning
    over her address for the Mothers' Meeting while she stirs a milk
    pudding for the early dinner! Her great cross is having to speak
    in public, and open meetings with prayer, but she does it, the
    valiant little person, she does it. I now and again go with her
    to the Mothers' Meeting, to help with the singing and play
    Sankey's hymns on the harmonium, and to hear her read the Bible
    is an inspiration. It is no dusty far-away history when she
    reads it. She is so interested in it herself that she makes it
    sound like Dumas, and the women sit back with a sigh when she
    finishes.

    She has a small transparent face like a wood-anemone, and I'm
    always afraid she wears herself out of existence, but you
    mustn't think Mr. Lambert is idle. He helps her in a hundred
    ways, writes his sermons with a baby rolling on the floor at his
    feet--and very good sermons they are. He keeps the garden, and
    goes messages and does all the odd carpentering jobs about the
    house. The only thing his wife cannot get him to do is gush. To
    her most frantic appeals to be "frank" to some person he can
    only manage a cold hand-shake and a bald sentence. I've seen her
    turn on him a face half vexed, half amused as she said: "Oh,
    John, you're _a dry character_!"

    Odd, isn't it, that there are one or two words that have a
    different meaning in Scots? English people mean by "frank"
    honest and open; here "frank" means free: a "frank" manner is a
    forthcoming, gushing manner. "Canny" is another word. It really
    means cunning, but in Scotland it means gentle--"Canny wee
    thing."

    Well! is that all I've got to offer you? Not quite. Barbara will
    want you to know her friends, the Erskines. They are a great
    support to her, and she goes over a good deal to their place and
    meets people she likes, and they come here. Mother and I like
    them very much, but it's difficult taking an interest in new
    people, I find. Babs retorts that I manage to be interested in
    the Kirkmeikle people, but they are different, more human,
    somehow, and pitiful. The Erskines are so sure of themselves,
    prosperous, invulnerable.

    And you might possibly be invited to lunch with Mr. and Mrs.
    Buckler. Their lives have been full of colour and
    interest--thirty years in India--but they haven't brought much
    of either away with them. They are oddly interested in things
    like disrespectful parlour-maids... so after all what does it
    profit a man to see the world?

    I wonder if you stayed a week with us consorting daily with
    Kirkmeikle people, would you say, like Babs, that you were sick
    of honest worth? She says she is driven to Mr. Michael Arlen in
    sheer self-defence. To forget Mrs. Heggie and Miss Janet
    Symington she reads of ladies reclining in slenderness on
    divans, playing with rosaries of black pearls and eating scented
    macaroons out of bowls of white jade!

    This is a long letter all about nothing. Your last letter was a
    joy. Cannes must have been lovely. How could you tear yourselves
    away?--but of course I know that Colonel Douglas is never really
    happy anywhere except at Kingshouse. You will be home now, lucky
    people. Write when you have time and tell me all about
    everybody.

                                                     Your loving
                                                             NIKKY.

Nicole, having finished her letter, sat on at the writing-table, looking
before her. A letter all about nothing indeed! But, somehow, there was
nothing of interest anywhere these days; life was flat and stale, and
Simon Beckett was going away.

Well: Nicole gave herself a mental shake as she put her letter into an
envelope, and straightened the writing things on the table. It must be
the hint of spring in the air that was making her feel foolish and
sentimental; besides it was Saturday afternoon, always a depressing time
somehow, and her mother and Barbara had motored off to have tea at a
distance, and Alastair had gone with Simon, in the latter's car, to
Langtoun, to see a football match. She had preferred to stay at home,
thinking it would be pleasant to have a long afternoon for
letter-writing, but she found she wasn't liking it at all. She would go
out, she decided, and talk to old Betsy for a little, and then walk very
fast round the links and try to walk off this curious depression which
had suddenly enveloped her.

She found Betsy in a distinctly bad humour. Saturday afternoon seemed to
have cast a blight on her spirits also. She had paid somebody twopence
to sand her stair, and was not pleased with the way it had been done.

"And it's juist like everything else," she grumbled. "The folk nowadays
winna work. They dinna ken what work means: them and their eight hours
day! Labourites they ca' theirsels. What they're lookin' for is a
country whaur folk wad be hangit for workin'.... An' the Government's
tae support a'body! Ye'd think to hear them that the Government could
pick up siller in gowpins... Ay, thae folk next door ca' theirsels
Labour, but efter the way the wumman washed ma stair, I'll naither dab
nor peck wi' them!"

"But," said Nicole, "the stair looked to me very clean. I just thought
as I came up how fresh everything was, all ready for the Sabbath
day.... And it's February, Betsy, and almost spring. The last time I
was here it was Christmas."

"Weel, better something lang than naething sune, but I was wonderin'
what hed come ower ye. But her leddyship's awfu' attentive. I div like
tae see her, an' we've sic graund cracks aboot oor ain place. An' she
reads to me whiles, for ma sicht's no' what it was. Sic a bonnie speaker
she is! There's a lot o' folk awfu' queer pronouncers o' words, ye wud
suppose they were readin' the buik upside doon. The man next door came
in and read me oot o' a paper, but losh! I was nane the wiser when he
feenished...."

"You've lots of visitors, Betsy, haven't you? And you take such an
interest in everything that goes on."

"Oh, I dae that, an' though I canna steer ower the door verra little
passes me. There's aye somebody to gie me a cry in an' tell me what's
gaun on. Ye see, I'm aye here, an' folk like a listener.... Did ye
hear that ma son's been lyin'? Ay, it sterted wi' influenzy and syne it
was pewmony. Ma gude-dochter cam' to see me the nicht afore last. She's
that ill at Dr. Kilgour, the dowgs wadna lick his bluid efter the names
she ca'ed him."

"Why?" asked Nicole, startled. "What has Dr. Kilgour done?"

"Oh, when he cam' an' fand Tam sae faur through he gaed her a ragin' an'
said he shuld hae been there lang syne. An' he sterted an' pu'ed down
the winday--she keeps the windays shut for fear o' dust comin' in--an'
he was that gurrl aboot it that he broke a cheeny ornament."

"But your son's getting better?"

"Oh, ay, he is that. Dr. Kilgour's a skilly doctor, but he's offended ma
gude-dochter." Betsy smiled grimly. "An' he tell't some o' the wives
aboot here that they hed nae richt to hev bairns at a', they didna ken
hoo tae handle them. That's true eneuch. I've aften said ye wad suppose
it was broken bottles they hed in their airms."

Nicole laughed as she rose to go. "Dr. Kilgour's not afraid to speak his
mind." She looked out of the little window. "See the sun on the water,
Betsy! You'll admit Kirkmeikle is a nice little town?"

But Betsy shook her head. "I see naething in't. I never cared for a
toon. I aye likit the hill-sides and the sheep. Eh, wasna it bonnie tae
see the foals rinnin' after their mithers, an' the mears stannin' still
to let them sook?"

"Very bonnie. And now I'm going to put your tea ready for you. Mrs.
Martin sent a ginger-bread, and I know you like a bit of country butter
and some cream at a time. These are fresh eggs...." Nicole was
unpacking the basket as she spoke.

"Weel," said Betsy, watching her, "what's guid to gie shouldna be ill
tae tak'. It's sic a thocht to move an' I'm that blind, that whiles I
juist dinna bather aboot ony tea, but a cup'll be gratefu' the noo.
Thank ye kindly, Miss.... Na, na, I manage fine. Agnes Martin comes
in every nicht when she gets the dinner cooked, an' sees me tae ma bed,
an' pits a'thing richt for the mornin'. Ay, I'm weel aff wi' her...."

When Nicole was going up the brae towards the links she met Janet
Symington walking with a man. She immediately found herself wondering
who he could be, and smiled to think she was becoming as inquisitive as
Betsy herself. Then she remembered that it was Saturday. Of course this
was one of the preachers.

He was a tall man with a large soft face, and, evidently, quite a flow
of conversation, for Miss Symington was walking with her head bent
listening attentively. Looking up she saw Nicole and half stopped.
Nicole also hesitated, and presently found herself being introduced to
Mr. Samuel Innes. He held out a large soft hand ("He shakes hands as if
he had a poached egg in his palm," thought Nicole), and uttered a few
remarks about the weather in the softest voice she had ever heard in a
man.

"Mr. Innes is going to speak at the Hall to-morrow night," Miss
Symington said. "It's always a great treat to have him."

"Not at all," said Mr. Innes, while Nicole faltered, "That is very nice.
I hope it'll be a good day."

"There's always a good turn-out when it is Mr. Innes," said Miss
Symington, looking up at her companion with what in any one else would
have been called a smirk.

Mr. Innes repeated "Not at all," and Nicole, making hasty adieux, fled.

"Now I wonder," she said to herself, as she stood a minute looking out
to sea, "I wonder if that gentleman means to hang up his hat, to use
Mrs. Heggie's descriptive phrase.... Mr. Samuel Innes. What a perfect
Samuel he makes----"




                              CHAPTER XXI


    "The only difference between the sentimentalist and the realist
    is that the sentimentalist's reality is warm and beautiful,
    while the realist's is glacial and hideous, and they are neither
    of them real realities either...."

                                                   REGINALD FARRER.

They were apt to linger over breakfast at the Harbour House. It was a
pleasant time of day in the dining-room with its striped silk curtains
and Hepplewhite chairs, more especially when the tide was high and the
water lapped against the low wall, but always pleasant with the feeling
of morning activity all round, voices from the harbour, children
shouting as they went to school, wives having a gossip before they began
their daily round.

The postman came, as a rule, when they were at the marmalade stage, and
they read bits out of letters to each other. It had been so, too, at
Rutherfurd. Something this morning took Barbara's mind back to the old
times when they had all been together in the sunny morning-room that
opened on to the lawns and the brawling burn. Nicole had been a
schoolgirl, swallowing her breakfast and rushing out with her brothers
to get every minute out of the day, while she, in the restraint of new
grown-upness, had sat with her elders sipping her second cup of tea and
listening to Sir Walter reading out bits of news from the _Scotsman_.

There never had been, Barbara thought, a more truly good man than her
uncle, so gentle and magnanimous, so full of humour, such a sportsman.
Often, laughing, they had told him that he was in danger of the Woe
promised to those of whom all men speak well. He was always asked to
take the chair at political meetings that promised to be rowdy, because
he was so courteous, so full of sweet reasonableness that the rudest
were disarmed. She remembered how all his life his first thought had
been his country. In his youth he had been in the Army, and when his
father died he settled down at Rutherfurd, making the ideal landlord.
When war broke out he had at once offered for service, and worked
patiently through the four years at a dull but necessary job at the War
Office, stinting himself of all but the barest necessities when food
became scarce.

He was cheerful till Ronnie and Archie died. After that his laugh was
seldom heard, though he went about among his friends and neighbours with
his old kindly smile, always willing to listen, always ready to help. At
home they had seen the change in him. The big man seemed to have shrunk,
his clothes hung loose on him. He wandered much alone, and the men about
the place shook their heads and told each other, "He's sair failed, the
maister; he's gettin' awfu' wee buik...."

Barbara came back to the present with Christina bringing in the letters.
There were a few for Barbara and Nicole, but most of the budget went to
Lady Jane.

"Why, Mother," Nicole said, "I never saw any one get so many letters.
You might almost be a Cinema Star."

"It comes," said her mother, busily opening envelopes, "of being one of
a large and united family. This is from Constance."

Nicole took up her own letters, looked through them and laid them down
again to go and strew the usual meal on the window-sill for the birds.
She sat half outside the window for a few minutes breathing in the fresh
salt air.

Lady Jane looked up from her letters. "Anything interesting, Nikky?"

"Nothing much. There's one from Mrs. Jackson asking me to Rutherfurd in
the beginning of March. If I can come she means to send out invitations
for a dinner on the 10th, and a dance on the 11th. Heard you ever the
like?"

"It is very kind of Mrs. Jackson," Lady Jane said.

"It is--very. She gives me no information about how things are going
with her, but in a postscript remarks, 'We are liking our new home quite
well.' I must say I call that rather cheek! Liking it quite well indeed!
I feel inclined to say to her what Thomas Carlyle said to the lady who
told him she accepted life. 'My God, Madam, _you had better_.'"

Lady Jane laughed. "I had forgotten that," she said; but Barbara
glowered and asked, "Will you go? Could you bear to go?"

Nicole looked at her cousin thoughtfully. "It won't be easy. In fact...
but, you see, I'm afraid I did promise that I would go and help
her if she wanted me. It's so fatally easy to say something kind when
you are saying good-bye to people you don't expect to come much into
contact with; Mrs. Jackson seems to be depending on me. I know, Babs,
you think I would consult my own dignity if I refused. What do you say,
Mums? Ought I to accept or not?"

Lady Jane gathered up her correspondence. "My dear, you know best
yourself. Mrs. Jackson is a nice woman and she was very considerate to
us. It won't be easy, but it might be kind. You'd be a great help to
her, and you needn't stay more than a few days."

"I might have to stay a week."

"I daresay you would survive it."

"And," said Barbara, "I defy Nicole not to get a great deal of amusement
out of the most unpleasant duty. It's your lucky nature. I don't think I
could go, but I'm not likely to be asked. Naturally they want the more
romantic figure, the dispossessed heiress, golden hair and all!"

"What nonsense, Babs!"

"Great nonsense, my dear, but true... By the way, I've a note here
from Marjory Erskine. She wants us to go over this afternoon. Some
people have arrived unexpectedly whom they'd like us to meet."

"But I can't, Babs, I'm so sorry. I've promised to go to tea with Miss
Symington--a special invitation in writing. I haven't seen her for
weeks. They've had the painters in, and Alastair has said several times
that his aunt was from home. It is unfortunate. I'd have loved a run
with you this fresh good day.... Here comes Alastair with his shining
morning face and his bag on his back, the complete scholar! Well, old
man, is bat still t a b this morning?..."

That afternoon, having half an hour to spare before going to
Ravenscraig, Nicole looked in at Knebworth, and found the Heggies,
mother and daughter, at home.

"This is nice," said Mrs. Heggie, rising large and fresh and rosy, in
her black dress and white frillings, to greet her visitor. "We do see
you seldom! Surely you'll stay to tea?"

"I'd like to," Nicole assured her, "but I'm engaged to drink a dish of
tea with Miss Symington. Invited by letter. I thought it must be a
party, but it can't be if you're not going."

"Oh, it may be, it may be, but _we_'re not invited. In fact, I haven't
been asked inside the door of Ravenscraig since well before Christmas."

"Oh well," Nicole said soothingly, "Miss Symington may perhaps want to
talk to me about something. I expect I'm the party! It's much better fun
when there are several."

"Yes. She hasn't much conversation and it's difficult getting into a
good comfortable talk with her. You've just to ask her how the Girls'
Guild's getting on, and the Mothers' Meetings, and talk about the price
of food and how cooks waste. She's not interested in anything you've
been reading, and she'll not gossip. I must say I like a more varied
'crack'!" Mrs. Heggie laughed.... "And how's Lady Jane?"

"Very well. She's so busy writing letters this afternoon that she
wouldn't stir out to take the air. You see, she has five sisters and
three brothers and numerous nieces and cousins, and they all love her
dearly and write constantly."

"Wonderful!" ejaculated Mrs. Heggie. "It's so unlike all I've ever heard
of the aristocracy!... Joan's glaring at me, but I'm not saying
anything wrong, am I?"

Nicole smiled at Joan, and reassured Mrs. Heggie.

"Of course not. You mean that from novels and the daily papers you would
think the 'aristocracy' were thoroughly debased, engaged all the time in
being divorced, and spending hectic days and nights gambling, drugging,
swindling and dancing at night clubs--all that sort of thing! And, I
suppose, it's true in a way of a certain section, a small but very vocal
section. But you would be amused if you met the members of my mother's
family and their friends. Some, I admit, are not bright and shining
lights, but the majority are quite hopelessly respectable, and full of
'high ideels,' working away obscurely and conscientiously to leave the
world a little better than they found it: husbands and wives quite
loving and loyal; children brought up to respect the eternal decencies;
master and servants liking and respecting each other! Even the people
labelled 'smart' in the picture papers, whose names you see reading from
left to right, are often quite dull-ly respectable. I'm afraid it's
disappointing!"

Mrs. Heggie nodded. "But far better," she said. "Of course I knew Lady
Jane was good, you can read it in her face, but I thought mebbe she was
an exception, for, I'm sure the stories you hear.... And what is Miss
Burt doing to-day?"

"Oh, Babs is off in her little car--I tell her she's like a child with a
new toy--to spend the afternoon at Queensbarns."

"I suppose the Erskines are a very smart sort of people?"

"They certainly dress well," Nicole said.

"I mean that they keep up a lot of style--a butler and all that, and go
to London for the season. They're not what you'd call provincial."

"Perhaps not.... Anyway, they're very kind."

"Oh," said Mrs. Heggie, "they're kind to _you_, naturally. But I'm told
they're a bit stand-offish. Mrs. Thomson--you know, Joan?--they simply
ignored her."

"I don't wonder," said Joan.

"Oh!" her mother protested. "She's quite a nice woman and awfully
willing to be hospitable."

"A pusher and a climber," said Joan.

"Oh well," said Mrs. Heggie, with her usual large charity, "it's only
natural that she should want to better herself, as the servants say!"

"Miss Joan," said Nicole, "do tell me, where do you do your writing? In
some eyrie?"

Mrs. Heggie replied for her daughter. "Upstairs. Joan, take Miss
Rutherfurd up to see."

Joan looked uncertainly at Nicole, who said eagerly, "Won't you? I'd
love to see your workroom."

The two girls went upstairs together, and Joan opened a door, remarking,
"It's not as tidy as it might be. I like to keep it myself."

It was a small room looking to the sea, with the floor stained black and
covered with one or two bright-coloured rugs. The cream walls were hung
with a medley of prints and photographs. A small figure of the Venus of
Milo stood on the mantelshelf. A book-case entirely filled one wall.

Nicole went to it and began conning over the books.

"You've got Raleigh's _Shakespeare_--one of my first favourites. I think
I can almost say it by heart. And what a line of poets--Walter de la
Mare, A. E. Housman.... Do you sit at this table and write solemnly?"

"No. I generally crouch before the fire with a writing-pad on my knee.
But I never write anything worth while, so what's the good of it?"

"Well, I don't pretend to be much of a judge, but your mother let me see
some verses which seemed to me to have a touch of real magic."

"Oh yes, I've got a certain facility in the writing of verses--but
that's not what I want to do. I want to write a book about life, a
strong book, going down to the depths and rising to the heights, a book
that talks frankly--not the pretty-pretty sentimental stuff that my
mother and so many women love to read. I've heard them in book-shops at
Christmas time: 'I want a book, a _pleasant_ book.... Are you sure
this is pleasant all through?'"

Joan sat gloomily in a wicker chair filled with brilliant orange
cushions. Her skin looked dingier than ever against the cushions and the
many-coloured Fair Isle jumper that she wore, and Nicole wondered why
such a wholesome-looking mother should have such an unwashed-looking
daughter.

"If you want to write a book like that, why don't you?" she asked.

"Because I can't," said Joan bitterly. "I don't know whether it's my
upbringing or my subconscious self or what, but no matter how
untrammelled my thoughts may be, when I put pen to paper I become so
moral as to be absolutely maudlin."

She hunched up her shoulders and sat forward, staring hopelessly into
the fire.

"What a book I might write about Janet Symington, for instance, about
all the thwarted forces of her nature going into good works, what a
study I could make of her! But I can't put down what I want to say, my
pen seems to boggle at it."

Nicole giggled, then abjectly apologised. "I'm so terribly sorry, but it
is rather funny, you know.... And I can't help being rather glad that
you don't feel equal to writing such a book, it would be neither
elevating nor entertaining. The sort of books you talk about don't shock
me at all, I enjoy the cleverness with which they're written, but I
finish them with relief and push them away. Isn't it better to try to
write a book that people will go back to again and again?..." She
looked at her wrist-watch. "Good gracious! is that the time?...
Good-bye. Thank you for letting me see your den. Won't you come and see
us soon? Mother would love to talk to you about poetry...."

It had always been dusk when Nicole had gone to tea at Ravenscraig, but
now the days were drawing out and the thin bright light of early spring
lay over everything as she stopped to look at the clumps of snowdrops in
the border, and the grey-green shoots of daffodils, and the first bold
yellow crocus.

But what had happened besides the spring? Surely there was a difference!
The stiffly starched lace curtains had gone from the windows, gone also
the brown Venetian blinds, and in their place were hangings of fine net.
The large sheet of stained glass in the inner door had been replaced by
small leaded panes, and when the door opened she found that the hall had
been changed out of recognition. Instead of the imitation marble there
was a soft grey paper; the wood was painted black, and soft powder-blue
carpets covered the stairs and lay on the tiled hall. An old oak chest
bearing two heavy Chinese lamps had taken the place of the
hat-and-umbrella stand.

Nicole glanced round distractedly, feeling as if she had fallen out of a
dream, inclined to clutch the solid arm of the servant to prove to
herself that she was really awake, but the drawing-room door was being
opened, and she stumbled through to greater surprises.

Was this the bleak room with its gaunt bow-window, its dingy walls hung
with pale water-colours and enlarged photographs, its carpet a riot of
chrysanthemums on a brown ground, its unwelcoming gas fire?

Nicole forgot her manners in her astonishment. She left her hostess
standing with outstretched hand, while she stared, and stared again,
gasping at last, "But it isn't the same room; it can't be."

To begin with, it seemed twice the size. The walls were a warm apricot,
the floor was polished, and bare, except for a fine Persian carpet in
the middle, and a much smaller one at the fire-place, round which were
grouped some capacious arm-chairs. The window was hung with curtains of
blue and green and gold, beautiful glittering stuff that made one think
of peacocks strutting in the sunshine. In the middle of the window was a
small divan heaped with cushions covered with rich stuffs.

A grand piano stood in one corner, and the wall opposite the fire held a
long low table with bowls of spring bulbs, above which hung the only
picture the room contained, a glowing Eastern scene of hot sunlight and
dark shadows. There was a long, slim gilt mirror over the mantelshelf,
on which stood four old crystal candlesticks. In place of the gas fire
with its baleful gleam, a fire of coal and logs sent flickering lights
over tiles that gleamed like mother-o'-pearl.

Nicole shook hands with the owner of this room and sustained another
shock, for Miss Symington was exactly the same. That she, too, should
have suffered a change into something rich and rare was, perhaps, too
much to expect, but it was, nevertheless, rather disconcerting to find
her still in a blue serge skirt and a silk blouse and with an
unfashionable head.

She looked rather bashfully at her guest as she said, glancing around
the room, "We've been having some alterations made here, you will
notice."

Nicole sank into one of the arm-chairs and found it supremely
comfortable. "Alterations!" she said. "I should think you have; but,
tell me, was it your own idea, this room?"

"No," said Miss Symington, looking rather affronted. "Could you imagine
me thinking of anything like this?... I don't know how it was, your
house looked so different, but I had no idea how to set about improving
mine, so I went to the best furnishing shop I knew, and they sent a man
to see the house and advise me. He was quite young--he looked like an
artist--and he told me this was his profession, advising people how to
make their houses pretty. Isn't that a queer profession for a young
man?"

"Rather a jolly one, I think. So he thought out this scheme?"

"Yes. He said in this sort of villa there wasn't much to work on, but he
managed to change things a good deal."

Nicole still gazed round the room. "Your young man seems to me a
magician. You like it, don't you? And is all the house changed?"

"I think I like it," Janet said, rather doubtfully, "at least, I think
the rooms that aren't changed look odd. The dining-room is just as it
was. You see, there are the preachers over the week-ends, and they might
not feel at home in this sort of thing!" She waved a hand towards the
new splendour of colour. "Only this room, and the lobbies and stairs,
and my own room and the best spare-room are changed. You must come up
and see them after you've had your tea."

"But--d'you mind me asking?--what made you decide all of a sudden that
the house wasn't just as you liked it?"

Tea had been brought in and Janet was pouring it out in her deliberate
way. She passed Nicole a cup, and in her slightly complaining voice
said, "It was your crystal bowl that started it all."

Nicole poured some milk into her tea and waited for enlightenment.

"On Christmas morning," Janet went on, "I took it up to my room, and it
was so useless and so pretty that my room didn't seem the place for it
at all. It made everything else look dull and ugly. I thought it was the
wall-paper, and I got that changed; then the chintzes looked dingy and
the carpet, and the bed, somehow, was wrong, and the light wood
furniture--then I called in an expert."

She stirred her tea in the genteel way that always amused Nicole, and
sat very straight on the edge of a great comfortable chair. All round
her was beauty and colour, but she was provokingly drab.

Nicole leaned forward. "There's one thing still left to do," she said
coaxingly. "You've made your house beautiful, now give yourself a
chance. Blue serge is very nice, but it's not the most becoming wear for
you. I want to see you in something softer--let me take the place of the
furnishing young man and adorn you!"

Janet Symington flushed, pressing her lips firmly together, and Nicole
cried, "I know what you're thinking, but that seems to me such a
mistake. Would God have troubled to make this world so beautiful if He
had wanted us to go about all sad-hued and dreary? You simply don't know
how much harm is done by good women not knowing how to dress. I remember
as a child, when I helped my mother to entertain Mothers' Unions and
Girls' Friendlies and things like that, wondering why the best
people--meaning the most serious, good people--nearly always had badly
hung skirts! And to-day, when clothes are so easy and so suitable and so
varied, it's conservatism run mad not to wear what other people are
wearing. You would never wear a blouse and skirt again if you knew the
comfort of a little frock. You always look nice and tidy, but I could
make you look so attractive.... Let's go to Edinburgh and have a buy!
It would be such fun...."

                 *        *        *        *        *

About an hour later Nicole burst into the drawing-room at the Harbour
House to find her mother listening to Barbara, who had just come in full
of her afternoon at the Erskines'.

"I was to tell you, Nik, that they were very sorry you couldn't come;
but they quite understood that Kirkmeikle had great attractions."

"I should think so indeed!" Nicole said, squatting down on a stool at
her mother's feet. "Kirkmeikle's the most exciting place I ever struck.
What do you think? When I went into Ravenscraig to-day I found the whole
place changed as if a magician had waved a wand. Mums, you know what it
looked like the first day we went to call? Lace curtains, sprawling
flowery carpet, gas fire! Pouf! Gone. Now, lovely exotic colours,
space--comfort. Some furnishing firm sent a man to advise, and this is
the result. It's all as modern as can be, of course, you know the sort
of villa he had to cope with, but quite beautiful. The staircases are
grey and powder-blue, with black-framed etchings on the walls: the best
bedroom is striped grey and white with pale-yellow silk curtains: Miss
Symington's own room is prettiest of all. _And_ the dining-room is the
same old room--red leather chairs, green table-cover, aspidistra in a
pot--because the preachers mightn't feel at home if it were changed.
Isn't that delicious? Now, Babs," to that young woman, who was standing
with her coat over her arm ready to go upstairs, "tell me if your
Erskines ever do delightful exciting things like that? _Never!!_"




                              CHAPTER XXII


    "Why should calamity be full of words?"

                                                _King Richard III._

In the first week of March Nicole went out one day with Alastair looking
for star-fish at low tide, slipped, and fell into a deep pool. Often she
had done it before and had never been a penny the worse, and this time
she laughed and made her wet shoes "chork" to amuse Alastair, and
continued the search. But a wind came out of the east, a nipping and an
eager air--and Nicole shivered and went home. The next morning she woke
with a sore throat and a cough and a temperature, and it was evident
that Rutherfurd would not see her that week. She admitted it herself,
sitting up in bed, flushed with fever and distress at her own stupidity.

"Who would have supposed that I would take cold?" she croaked, "a thing
I almost never do. And no one would want me for a visitor, coughing and
sneezing and infecting everybody! I must give up the thought of
Rutherfurd, and I hate to fail Mrs. Jackson when all her arrangements
are made.... Babs, won't you go in my place? You would be twice as
useful anyway."

"My dear, I couldn't possibly offer myself."

"No, but send a wire now, and if she writes suggesting you..."

"We'll see," said Barbara.

Mrs. Jackson's letter when it came was a wail of despair. How was she to
cope with her festivities with no one to stand by her to counsel and
direct? What did Nicole suggest? Would Miss Burt think of coming? And
Barbara, after much persuasion, consented to go.

"I'll be a sort of death's head at the feast," she predicted. "You know
I never can be gay to order as Nikky can. And I'll hate the Jacksons
when I see them really installed in our house. I feel already like
Banquo's ghost, or something like that."

"You're not ethereal enough for that," Nicole reminded her, laughing. "I
don't see you flitting spectral fashion.... Oh, don't make me laugh,
for then I cough. You look so nice, my dear. Assure Mrs. Jackson that
you aren't bringing her influenza, that this is only a common chill got
through wet feet in an east wind, and I'm really better already....
Be sure and tell me what you think of 'Andy.'"

Barbara departed in the morning, and after luncheon Nicole announced
that she couldn't stay in bed one moment longer.

"Do let me get up and sit by the drawing-room fire," she begged her
mother. "Bed does me such a lot of harm. It has the same effect on me
that having his hair cut had on Samson. And it's so boring in bed; if I
were up I could find a thousand things to do. And you needn't tell Dr.
Kilgour."

"But you look so comfortable lying there with your pile of books and
these lovely roses--Mr. Beckett must have sent to Edinburgh for
them.... Have you read all the last batch of books that came from the
_Times_?"

"Never looked at them," Nicole said cheerfully. "You don't want to read
new books in bed, they're too wearing. These are all 'tried favourites,'
as we say of puddings."

Lady Jane bent over to read the titles. "_Starvecrow Farm_, surely
that's an old book?"

"Don't you remember it, Mother? The runaway bride and the splendid old
hostess of the inn. I know no book that gives you a more wonderful
feeling of atmosphere. You absolutely live in that comfortable inn among
the mountains, through these November days, and suffer with the girl and
her lover.... And _The Good Comrade_. Why, Mums, you surely haven't
forgotten 'Johnnie' and the stove called 'Bouquet,' and the Dutch
bulb-growers?... Apart from the great books, what a lot of jolly good
books there are in the world!"

"Yes," said her mother, "but to go back to the subject of staying in
bed, I'm afraid you'll feel very wretched up."

"Not in the least. I've no temperature, and I'm not such an unsightly
creature now that the cold has left my head and settled comfortably on
my chest."

Lady Jane ceased to argue, and Nicole rose and dressed herself, adding
as an invalid touch a rose-red satin dressing-gown with slippers to
match, and assisted by Harris carrying things, took her way to the
drawing-room. It was only five days since she had been in it, but she
looked round appreciatively as if she had come back from a long journey,
and settled down in one of the large arm-chairs by the fire with a sigh
of satisfaction. After bed, she thought, what a joy to sit in a chair. A
table drawn up by her side held a flask of eau-de-Cologne, a large
bottle of smelling-salts, a tin of home-made toffee, and Simon Beckett's
roses, as well as her letter-case, in case she should think of working
off some letters.

"Now, Mother, you sit opposite with your work. It is so jolly to have
you there and not feel that I should be begging you to go downstairs and
not bother to sit with me. I do hate being unselfish!"

Lady Jane picked up her work and smiled at her daughter.

"It did seem a most unnatural thing to have you in bed. I hardly ever
remember you being ill. Barbara was inclined to take bronchitis as a
child, but you and the boys were like Shetland ponies. Even when you had
measles and other childish ailments you were hardly ill."

"No. Measles was a very happy time. I remember hot lemonade as one of
the chief joys, and _The Just So Stories_ heard for the first time. I
can feel the thrill of 'the most wise Baviaan,' and the tone of your
voice as you read the delicious snatches of verse:

           ...comes Taffy dancing through the fern,
            To lead the Surrey spring again....

How long ago it seems!"

Nicole turned to tidy a pile of books on a stool, and presently said,
"It does seem queer without Barbara. I always miss her so when she goes.
Three o'clock. She'll just be starting from Edinburgh. They're to meet
her at Galashiels.... D'you know, Mums, I believe Babs will be glad
to be back at Rutherfurd even as things are. She pines for it: it meant
such a lot to her. She felt secure there, impregnable. She will never be
really happy in Kirkmeikle."

Lady Jane put down her work.

"No," she said.... "I can't help worrying sometimes about Barbara.
You are different. You have the gift of taking things as they come, and
finding happiness in little things. I shouldn't be unhappy about you
though you missed what most women crave for most, but Barbara can't make
her own happiness, so to speak, it has to be made for her. It was always
so as a child.... As you say, she misses Rutherfurd--it gave her a
setting."

Nicole clasped her hands round her knees. "What a pity there isn't a
male Erskine needing a wife, or would chtelaine be a more imposing
word? That would be a setting.... I suppose people are like jewels,
dull and lustreless when badly set, glowing and sparkling in their
proper environment---- Why, the sun has come out, Mums. You must go out
and enjoy it. You've been terribly stuck in the house these last few
days. Walk along to the Red Rocks or look in and see Mrs. Brodie. Have
you been to see Betsy lately? She greatly relishes your visits."

Lady Jane looked out at the bright afternoon, then uncertainly at her
daughter. "But are you sure you'll be all right? Have you something to
read?"

"Indeed I have. By the way, have you finished Mr. Beckett's manuscript?"

"Yes, I have."

"Well?" said Nicole.

"Well---- It is good, I think, well told and clear, and written with
more sense of style than, somehow, I had expected. But it's so devoid of
feeling as to be almost wooden. He could have made so much of the final
scene, and he makes nothing.... Of course, there it is.--This is the
man who was there, who did the thing, and he can't talk. Whether would
you have the story from him, or from the professional writer who was not
there, but who can write beautifully about what he has heard, who can
touch the heart and the imagination, thrill you, make the story live?
Remember, I don't say that Mr. Beckett couldn't, if he liked, but he
won't. I may be entirely wrong, but reading, I had the feeling that he
was giving us the bald narrative in case we weren't worthy of anything
else. This was his friend. He won't cheapen his memory by making appeals
to the emotions.--It's the silent Englishman carried to excess."

Nicole nodded. "I see what you mean, and I agree. But I liked it--the
reticence in the telling. I'm so tired of writers that fling themselves
about, emptying themselves of all they ever thought or felt, or being
whimsical and elfin, that a plain, straightforward narrative delights
me."

"It's very refreshing," her mother said, as she put a log on the fire.
"Now don't move out of the room. Shall I tell Christina to keep out
callers?"

"Oh, dear, no. A caller would be rather a treat! And I don't want dry
toast for tea, I want it buttered."

"You're no use as an invalid," Lady Jane told her as she went out.

Just before tea Simon Beckett was shown in. He had been tramping over
the links and brought a breath of the sea and the east wind into the
quiet room. He stood at the door, hesitating--"Christina said you would
see me, but I'm afraid I may give you more cold coming straight in out
of the air."

"Oh, do come in. Of course shake hands. It freshens me to see you. My
head's still fuzzy with quinine, and I seem to smell nothing but
beef-tea made the old-fashioned way, and eucalyptus, but I'm really
quite all right again, and properly ashamed of myself.... What a
humiliating thing a cold is! If people can like you through a cold
they'll like you through anything. I wonder if Cleopatra ever snuffled!"

Simon sat down in the arm-chair on the other side of the fire-place, and
said, laughing, "You're not much accustomed to being ill, are you?"

"I don't think I've ever had a temperature before, and I hardly know
what it is to have a headache. Rude health is what I enjoy, and you're
not much of an invalid yourself," and she laughed, as if the sight of
the robust young man opposite amused and pleased her. They talked
together, and Nicole was conscious of the feeling that she always had in
Simon's company, a feeling of comfort and content, of being able to
dabble in the shallows of talk, knowing they would both be equally at
home in the depths.

Presently she lifted the pile of manuscript that lay beside her on the
table.

"Let's speak about this," she said.

Her companion at once became acutely miserable.

"Oh, I say, don't," he moaned. "You don't know how horrible it is to
have to talk about one's own writing. I tell you what, write me a note
about it: I'd like that."

"But why should I, when there's lots of things in it I want to discuss
with you here and now? You don't know how interesting it is for some one
who can't write to talk to a person who can. I've read so many books I
ought to be a judge, but I don't suppose that follows." She patted the
neatly typed sheets on her lap. "You are no tripe-merchant, my friend."

Simon asked what exactly she meant by that.

"It's a phrase of my brother Archie's. When he thought an author spread
himself too much, and blundered into pits of bad taste and made one hot
with shame, he said, 'Tripe-merchant.' You are almost, if I may say it,
too little of a tripe-merchant."

Simon rumpled his hair miserably. "Say anything you like," he said,
"only get it over quickly."

"Well, my crab about your book is that you make it all sound too easy.
The first part is excellent, couldn't be better. The description of the
going, and the places you passed through, and the people you met, is
delightful. You've got humour, and the human touch. But the actual
climbing, the last arduous bit, the disaster, the coming back, you seem
to me to shirk. You say, for instance, 'We went from camp 5 to camp 6.'
Just like that! A ten minutes' stroll on a pleasant path! The carrying
of a parcel from Tottenham Court Road to Euston Station! a trifle!
Remember, we're not at all an imaginative people, we need to be told
things, to be made to see them, if we are to realise.... And the
disaster--well, reticence there, one can well understand. Still--he was
your friend. Couldn't you have said a little more--or couldn't you bear
to?"

Simon sat forward in his chair, his hands clasped between his knees.
There was a boyish, perplexed look on his face that made Nicole think of
the Bat.

"You see--I had to think of Cullis. He hated advertising. I never met
such a chap for avoiding notice. I didn't want to write the beastly book
at all, but they said I must for I was there, but I'd hate Cullis to
feel that I'd given him away. He was my best friend."

Nicole said nothing, and in a minute Simon went on:

"If only he'd succeeded! Then I shouldn't have minded. But to die like
that when it seemed as if we were going to manage it---- Still, it was a
great end. I like to think of him there among the heights--it was what
he always wanted. And he died satisfied, I think, for he knew we
wouldn't leave it at that. He knew we'd come back.... Lots of people
think that Cullis threw away his life--funny, isn't it?"

"It seems like madness to many," Nicole said.

"But you don't think it madness?"

"No, but I see the tremendous pity of it.... In a war you must fight,
but here you take your life and... Don't you _care_ whether you come
back or not?"

"I?"... Simon cleared his throat. "When I came home ill and
broken-up, all I asked for was to go back and lay my bones beside
Cullis."

The door opened and Christina appeared with the first preparation for
tea, while just behind her came Lady Jane, saying:

"So you _have_ a caller! How d'you do, Mr. Beckett? It was kind to come
and cheer the invalid."




                             CHAPTER XXIII


           "How blessed are we that are not simple men."

                                                   _The Winter's Tale._

To say that Mrs. Jackson was disappointed on hearing that Nicole
Rutherfurd was unable to fulfil her promise to help with the festivities
is a poor, bald way of describing the utter despair that filled that
poor lady. As people in moments of peril are said to see all their past
life before them, Mrs. Jackson, still clutching the telegram, saw
herself alone, unaided, exposed to the full battery of the county. It
had been bad enough the thought of it all, the big dinner and the dance,
even with Nicole beside her to bear the brunt, to receive, so to speak,
the first shock of the encounter. On her would have depended the success
or failure of the undertaking. But now--it was more than she could face
by herself, and desperately she got on to her feet and went to look for
her son.

She found him in the library, smoking a pipe, deep in a book, and,
bustling towards him as fast as her high heels would permit, she wailed:

"Andy, _she's not coming_!"

Andrew laid down his book, and getting up with his pipe in his hand,
said, "Who?"

"Miss Rutherfurd, of course. She's in bed with a chill and there's no
chance of her being able to travel, and all these people coming----
Andy, I'm nearly demented."

"It's a pity, but surely we can manage ourselves."

"We can _not_ manage ourselves"; and in her despair poor Mrs. Jackson
nearly burst into tears. "A bonnie-like mess of things I'd make with no
one beside me to tell me what to do! You know quite well that if I can
put my foot in it I do it, and I can't talk. And, oh! the dance! the
orchestra and the purveyors.... Oh dear, dear, what made me think of
trying to entertain? It was you, Andy, that said we should give a dinner
to pay back, but the dance was a bit of show-off on my part."

"Wouldn't Mrs. Douglas help us?"

Mrs. Jackson dismissed the suggestion with an impatient shake of her
head.

"It wouldn't be the same. With Nicole Rutherfurd beside me playing the
daughter of the house I could have faced anything. Andy, could we not
send wires to every one that we've got something? Influenza or a nervous
breakdown.... I'm sure I've got that right enough."

Andy thought for a minute. "Isn't there another Miss Rutherfurd, a
cousin? Wouldn't she come?"

"She's called Miss Burt, and she's a stand-offish thing; not a bit like
my girl. Besides, she wouldn't come."

"You could ask her."

As a drowning man clutches at a straw, so Mrs. Jackson clutched at this
possibility. "You send a wire then, Andy, an urgent wire so that they'll
see things are desperate.--Or mebbe I'd better write.... She'd be a
lot better than nobody."

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was now the 9th of March, and Miss Barbara Burt might arrive any
minute. Andrew had gone to meet her in the car, much against his own
inclination, but spurred thereto by his mother's eagerness.

"It would never do to let her arrive and find no one but a chauffeur.
Besides, you know Father'll not let Renwick leave the car for a minute,
so it would be very awkward. I'd go myself, but I dread the thought of
having to talk to her all the way back. It's nothing to you to talk.
I've often watched you chattering away like anything."

Andrew looked slightly dashed at this description of his conversational
powers, but he only said, "Well, I don't expect to 'chatter' much to
Miss Burt. When does the train come in? All right. I'll be there."

When Barbara got out of the train and stood looking about her for a
porter to take her luggage to the car which she had been told would be
waiting, a voice said, "Pardon me, but are you Miss Burt?" and she saw
before her a young man in a light tweed suit, with pleasant grey eyes,
and a smile that revealed very white, even teeth. She smiled and nodded.
"And you are----?"

"I'm Andrew Jackson. We're most awfully grateful to you for coming. How
is your cousin?"

"Better, thanks, though not fit to travel. She is greatly disappointed,
for she had been looking forward to this visit.... The cane trunk and
the hat-box, and the case. Yes. That's all."

Andrew turned to the porter. "Bring 'em along, will you? The car's
outside. I'll take the dressing-bag."

They went out of the station, Andrew explaining that his father did not
like the chauffeur to leave the car, in case the little wanton boys that
abound round a station did it an injury.

"It seems a pity to worry," said Andrew, "but there it is."

"What about the luggage? Doesn't Mr. Jackson object to that?"

"He does, if there's a lot," Andrew confessed, "but yours is
modest.... Is that all right, Renwick? Now, we're off."

Barbara had looked forward with much distaste to this enforced visit to
her old home, but she had made up her mind that, so far as in her lay,
she would do her best to make it a success. She would try never to think
about herself and her own feelings, but to enter into the feelings of
others. She set Nicole before her as an example, for nobody knew better
than Barbara herself that she was not always a social success.

Now, carried swiftly along the well-remembered road, she told herself
that things had begun well. She liked this young man with his kind
simple manner and his honest eyes, and she felt flattered that he wasted
no time on the preliminaries of friendship, but plunged at once into
what interested him.

Some remark was made about the countryside, and Andrew said, "I wish
you'd tell me something about your uncle and cousins...."

Barbara turned to him with a very charming smile.

She said, "You've chosen _the_ subject I like best."

"Everywhere I go," Andrew went on, "I hear about them, and every one I
meet has some story to tell me about them. It is rather remarkable, you
know, the affection they seem to have inspired. Sir Walter Rutherfurd is
still a name to conjure with in these parts, and I would very much like
to know wherein lay the secret of his influence. You see, it's
frightfully interesting to me, who, in a way, must follow him. I hope
you don't think this is cheek, but I'm very keen to carry on the
tradition. I'm not saying it'll be easy, for we've everything against
us--we're strangers, city folk...."

"The Rutherfurds were deep-rooted in the soil," Barbara said, leaning
forward to see some familiar landmark.

Andrew nodded. "That's it.... They grew up with all the people round,
their fathers had been friends, their grandfathers, away back..."

"Uncle Walter was the best of all the Rutherfurds," Barbara said. "The
others, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and further back were all
fine men, but some of them were eccentric and queer; but he was the
sanest, most reliable of men. There was something about him so big and
kind and simple. He was austere too, in a way, and absolutely unshakable
about what he thought was right and wrong. And Ronnie and Archie
promised to be very much the same."

"They died young?"

"Twenty and twenty-two. Do you wonder their parents' hearts were broken?
I sometimes think the War killed more fathers than mothers. Perhaps
women's hearts are made to stand more, or perhaps it's because it is
easier for them to speak out what they feel, but I've known several
cases where the mother was able to go on, but the father, saying very
little, just slipped out of life. Uncle Walter did that. It was as if
something had broken that we couldn't mend. We tried to hold him back,
but something far stronger drew him away.... Oh, it hasn't been easy
these last years."

"And giving up Rutherfurd must have been very bad," Andrew said gently.

Barbara had a sudden and almost overpowering inclination to burst there
and then into a flood of tears. She turned and stared unseeingly out of
the window... and they had reached the gates of Rutherfurd before she
felt sure of keeping her voice steady.

When the car drew up at the door Mrs. Jackson stood waiting to receive
them. She wore a smart gown, a hat with ospreys, and an ermine stole,
determined to do full honour to her guest. Enormous fires blazed
everywhere, and hot-house flowers scented the air. "Not a word till
you've had tea," was her greeting, "you must need it badly after such a
long journey. Come right into the drawing-room. There now, sit there. Is
that cushion quite comfortable? Would you like a footstool?"

Barbara, feeling like seventy and decrepit at that, refused a footstool,
but gladly accepted tea, while her hostess poured into her ears details
about the arrangements....

"The dinner I could cope with--we've given dinners before--but it's the
dance. They keep telling me that the men'll do everything, prepare the
floor and put everything right, but I don't know. The question is can
you trust them? Wouldn't it be awful if there wasn't enough to eat, or
if something went wrong with the orchestra? That orchestra! It fair
weighs on my mind. I never had anything to do with them except just
listening, of course, but I've often heard how difficult choirs are to
manage, and I doubt orchestras will be worse.... It's a big
undertaking, look at it any way you like."

Barbara soothed her, and assured her everything would be all right.
"When you go to a good firm they've a reputation to keep up, they won't
fail you.... It ought to be a charming dance. I don't know if there
has ever been a dance at Rutherfurd before. There was to have been one
when I came out, but the War stopped it. Tell me, how have you arranged
about the dancing...?"

Later Mrs. Jackson, having with great wealth of detail described all
arrangements, at last conducted Barbara to her room, and flung open the
door impressively. Barbara almost recoiled.

The room was heated by radiators, but a large fire had been ordered as
well. The walls glowed rosily, the carpet also was pink, and very thick.
A crystal bowl of pink geraniums and maiden-hair fern stood on the
dressing-table.

Mrs. Jackson clasped her hands before her and beamed.

"It doesn't need the fire for heat, but I thought it would be a nice
welcome. I always think a fire's just a friend." She looked round
complacently. "The room's changed a wee bit. I hope you like it. Can you
mind what it was like before?"

_Could she_ "_mind_"? This had been Lady Jane's own room and Barbara
remembered every detail of it. The wall-paper had been white with a tiny
sprig, and on it had hung water-colour drawings of her aunt's old home,
rather vague and amateurish, but treasured by their owner. There had
been a fine four-poster bed with chintz valance round the top. In this
room Nicole and Ronnie and Archie had been born.

Barbara was grateful that Nicole had been unable to come. Aloud she
said, "There is a most wonderful difference. How did you manage to keep
it all pink and get everything to tone so beautifully?"

"I like pink," said Mrs. Jackson, "it's such a cheery colour; and I
wanted a complete change, for it was awful washed-out looking before."

"Nothing had been done for a long time."

"Oh, of course, we quite understood that. Besides, it's far more
satisfactory, I think, to do up a house to suit your own taste, and if
it's been fairly recently done it seems extravagant. I wouldn't dare to
meddle with the reception-rooms, for I'm not sure of myself, if you know
what I mean, but in the matter of bedrooms I could let myself go. Our
own room is yellow. Ucha! Carpet and all. They wanted me to have pale
lemon walls and a grey carpet, and mebbe it would have been more
artistic, but I like something strong. It's not to call orange exactly,
but it's tending that way. I'll let you see it. It's lovely. Then we've
a pale blue room, and two other pink rooms, and two pure white, suites
and all---- But there, you'll see them all to-morrow. Here am I keeping
you standing all this time. Would you like to rest till dinner-time?
Your luggage is all in the dressing-room so as not to litter your room.
Esther'll be unpacking it now. Isn't that a queer name for a
housemaid--Esther? I always think of the King, you know, and the poor
girl going in to beg for her people, and Haman being hung and all that.
Aren't there some queer stories in the Bible? Well--I'll leave you to
yourself for a bit.... I'll mebbe take a rest myself, for what with
all the things I've got to think of, and you coming, I'm real worn out."
She still lingered, then, "Well, ta-ta," she said, with a wave of her
hand, and left her guest feeling both dazed and exhausted.

At dinner Barbara met for the first time the new owner of Rutherfurd. It
was surprising to see such a rich man so thin, and he had an oddly
detached air as if he had no connection with his surroundings. She found
him fairly easy to talk to, but then, as she reflected, a man is always
interesting when he talks his own shop.

After dinner Mr. Jackson went off at once to his own den, and Barbara
talked by the drawing-room fire with her hostess and Andrew. Very soon
Mrs. Jackson's head began to nod, and her son rose and put a cushion
more comfortably behind her head.

"Oh, thank you, Andy." She roused herself to say apologetically to
Barbara, "Was I nodding? Sleep comes on me like an armed man. I must ask
you to excuse me...."

The young people continued to talk for a little, then Andrew asked if
Barbara played the piano.

"I do, but----" She looked towards her sleeping hostess.

"It's all right," he assured her, "it won't disturb my mother. Will you
play for me?"

They went together to the piano, and Andrew produced a pile of music.

"I play these with one finger. They're mostly Gilbert and Sullivan. But
play anything you like. I'm tremendously keen on music...." So
Barbara played what she could remember, and Andrew listened. Presently
she broke into the music of _Patience_ and they sang together "_A magnet
hung in a hardware shop_" and "_Prithee, pretty maiden_."

Mrs. Jackson woke up at intervals and pretended to beat time, only to
doze off again.

When Johnson brought in the tray at ten o'clock he coughed discreetly to
waken his mistress, and she promptly sat up, put on her slippers, which
she was apt to kick off as the evening advanced, and, looking very alert
and wakeful, said in a loud Englishy voice, "What a treat to have a
little music. Andy, you're in luck to-night."

Barbara left the piano and came over to the fire.

"We've had quite a concert, haven't we?" she said, holding her hands to
the blaze. "Your son has a delightful voice; you should make him take
lessons."

"D'you hear that, Andy? It's what I always say, Miss Burt. He had always
a nice voice. I mind when he wasn't more than three, he would sit beside
me and sing, "_Lord, a little band and lowly_" and "_Bonnie Charlie's
noo awa'_," as sweet as sweet. He had golden curls, Miss Burt, though
you wouldn't think it to look at him now, and he wore a wee blue
velveteen suit, sort of made like a sailor but trimmed with lace---- He
was an awful nice wee boy!"

Andrew looked at his mother with a quizzical expression as she retailed
these confidences to their guest, but only said:

"Here's your hot water, Mother--Miss Burt?"

"May I have some hot water?"

"That's right," said Mrs. Jackson, "there's nothing like it, I think, a
glass of hot water every night gives you a wash inside. As my mother
used to say, 'The stomach's an ill dish to clean'--I'm sure I hope we'll
all get a good sleep to-night and be well for to-morrow."




                              CHAPTER XXIV


    "Withal it is a kindly face and belongs to one who is without
    pretensions."

                                                 _Glasgow in 1901._

When Barbara went down to breakfast the next morning at nine o'clock she
found her hostess alone in the morning-room.

"Come away. Did you sleep well? That's right. Mr. Jackson's away to
Edinburgh to some sort of meeting, and Andy's taken him to Galashiels,
so we'll have breakfast cosily together.... I've the hot rolls and
scones and toast down by the fire to keep hot, and I've just this moment
made the tea. Or would you prefer coffee? They're both here, so say the
word."--She patted Barbara into a chair and hovered round her. "Now will
you begin with fish? No? Well then, kidney and bacon." She peeped into
another hot dish: "And here's poached eggs."

"But"--Barbara got up and joined her hostess at the sideboard--"I'm not
going to let you wait on me like this. I expect you were up seeing Mr.
Jackson away and you must want your breakfast. Please sit down and let
me look after you. Everything looks most tempting; what will you have?"

"No," said Mrs. Jackson firmly. "I never take anything but a cup of tea
and a bit of dry toast. I'm no great breakfast hand. Indeed, for all so
stout's I am, I don't make much of any meal. But you're a young thing.
Sit down, and don't mind me waiting on you. I like it. Indeed, I don't
get half enough of it for Father gets kind of irritated if I fuss him,
and Andy waits on me---- I hope you don't mind getting your breakfast in
here. I thought it would be as well to leave the dining-room free all
day. Indeed, I think I provoked Johnson suggesting it should get a sort
of thorough clean-out. But it's always been my way if people are coming
to give the dining-room a good do-out. When I had only the one girl I
did it, and at Deneholm if there was a party on I would say to the
housemaid, 'Give the room an extra good do-out, so that there'll be some
pleasure in making it all nice with flowers and that.'"

"A very good plan," Barbara agreed.

"Of course I could do that in a house like Deneholm, but here it's
different. Can you tell me if the rooms were turned out regularly in
your time? for I can't get any satisfaction about it.... I said to
the head housemaid that I'd always been used to having the rooms turned
out on regular days, and she said, 'Yes, madam,' but for the life of me
I can't tell you whether she meant to do it or not, and you can't always
be asking at superior servants."

"No," said Barbara, "but after all they are your rooms----"

"The bedrooms are done all right: it's the hall and all the reception
rooms. Unless they're done before breakfast they're never done. So I
said very mildly to Johnson that I thought the dining-room and
drawing-room would be the better of a special clean, and I don't think
he liked it."

"But you don't mind Johnson, surely? He's as gentle as a lamb though he
looks like an archbishop. My cousins once locked him into his own
pantry!"

"Fancy that!" Mrs. Jackson looked awed. "How did they dare?... I wish
you'd advise me what to do about the ladies to-night, I mean about
taking off their wraps. Any time we've dined out round here I just left
my cloak in the hall, and never a glass to look into. I don't like that
sort of comfortless way of doing, and yet it's a day's journey to take
them to a bedroom---- Though, of course, it would show them more of the
house."

"Why not put a table into that funny little room that opens into the
library, with a mirror and brushes, and a maid to help?" Barbara
suggested.

Mrs. Jackson looked thoughtful and said, "The very thing! I wonder I
never thought of it, and it's so convenient to the front door. Well--if
we just had the dinner well over we could give our whole minds to the
dance.... There's one thing, I can trust Mrs. Asprey. I needn't give
a thought to how things'll come up, and I'm sure it's a mercy, for
goodness knows I'll have enough to do trying to make conversation with
Lord Langlands. I'll have to go in with him, though he fairly paralyses
any little mind I've got. You know the slow way he speaks, and the sort
of intent way he stares at you while he's speaking? I simply can't meet
that gaze of his, my head jerks in spite of me, and I try crumbling
toast and doing things with my hands or I don't know what I might be
driven to do--scream, mebbe."

Barbara laughed. "I know. It's his solemn way: he's entirely without
humour."

Mrs. Jackson sighed. "I've only really enjoyed myself once out, and that
was at Kingshouse. Mrs. Douglas has a real knack as a hostess. She never
lets any one feel out of it and she makes everything go.... Have
another kidney, my dear. No? A wee touchy cold ham? Well--some
marmalade?"

"Thanks.... But you are beginning to feel at home, aren't you?"

Mrs. Jackson was sitting with her elbows on the table and her cup held
in both hands. "Yes," she said. "Uch, yes. Of course I see fine how the
people about here regret the Rutherfurds and just receive us on
sufferance, so to speak. They're civil, of course, and they make the
best of us, but I see myself what a change it is. Here was Lady Jane
that they all adored, and Miss Nicole, and you, and the house so
pleasant and all their interests in common, and now they come stiffly to
call, and we speak about the weather and the Nursing Association...."

"Oh, tell me, how is that doing?" Barbara cried.

"Oh, fine.... If you've finished, I'll let you see the house. But I'd
better see first about the ladies leaving their wraps."

So Barbara followed her hostess and heard her giving the order.

"In here," she directed Johnson. "A table, you said, Miss Burt? Would
any sort of table do? We could hardly bring down a dressing-table."

"Oh no. Any table--a writing-table: and have you a standing mirror?"

"There's one with two side wings that used to be in my room, but I put
it away because it always gave me a shock to see my profile. It stands."

"The very thing. And hair-pins, and powder, and that sort of thing."

"I'll let you see the glass, it's in the pale-blue room," and Mrs.
Jackson began to pad hastily across the hall to the stairs, followed by
Barbara.

Once upstairs they inspected every room with some thoroughness, Mrs.
Jackson talking busily all the time. It was long since she had had such
a happy, well-occupied morning, and she was agreeably surprised to find
her guest so easy to get on with, so appreciative a listener and so
helpful with sympathy and suggestion.

"This is the pale-blue room. A little cold, perhaps, at this time of
year, but pleasant in summer. I'm very fond of pale blue myself. I
always wanted to have a wee girl to dress in white muslin with a blue
sash.... That's the glass."

"The very thing," Barbara declared. "You can see your head all round,
and that's such a comfort in these days of tidy heads when every hair
must be in place."

"Uch, yes, but I never heed. Yours is very neat.... You were asking
about the Nursing Association."

"Yes. My aunt took a tremendous interest in it, and we had a Sale here
every year."

Mrs. Jackson sat down heavily on a chair, and held up her hands
playfully.

"You don't need to tell me that, my dear. The times I've heard it! The
Committee meetings are a treat. Lady Langlands sits at the head of the
table with the matron beside her and all the members sitting round, and
my! I would just like some of my Glasgow friends to see the way they're
dressed. A Viscountess and all, and you wouldn't give tuppence for all
she's on. A wisp of a scarf round her neck, and the plainest of coats
and skirts, and a bashed sort of hat, and big thick shoes. I wonder her
maid can bear to let her out.... Some of the ladies are real smart,
but all to the plain side--just tweeds and that. But I never heed. I go
in my sables, with all my rings and so on; not being a Viscountess I
can't afford to be shabby."

Mrs. Jackson stopped to chuckle at her own wit, and Barbara said
brightly:

"I know these Committee meetings. Do they bore you badly?"

"Not me! I'm amused.... It came up the other day about the Sale Lady
Jane always had, and what a help it was to the funds, and what could
take its place, and so on. And Lady Langlands looked kind of helpless
and said, 'Couldn't we have an entertainment of some kind? _Tableaux
vivants_, perhaps?' and nobody said yes or no, but they looked at each
other, and I looked out of the window. Goodness knows, I wouldn't mind
writing them a cheque for the amount of the Sale, but I won't be hinted
at. They should ask me straight out to have the Sale, don't you think
so?"

"Well"--Barbara smiled--"it isn't easy to ask, is it? I quite know what
you feel, but it would be noble of you to offer.... Is Miss Cumming
still matron? She was such a nice woman."

"Didn't you know? She's married. Ucha! Married to a widower with five
children but quite well off, and we gave her two silver entre dishes,
small but solid, for a present.... I never speak a word at these
meetings for I never can think of anything intelligent to say.--But I'm
keeping you here all morning, and you'll have letters to write, no
doubt. Lunch is at one fifteen...."

Andrew was in to luncheon, and afterwards he and Barbara went for a walk
up the glen to the farthest shepherd's cottage. It was a fresh March day
and they found it pleasant to stride over the springy turf and leap the
hill burns swollen with February rain.

For most of the way they walked in companionable silence. At the top of
the glen, while they stood looking at the rounded hills crowding round
them, Andrew said, "I think you like walking in silence; I do myself."

"Yes," Barbara agreed. "Walkers should talk only when the spirit moves
them; to try to make conversation among the hills would be ridiculous.
How I love the heather burning! I think of Rutherfurd oftenest in early
spring weather: steely blue skies and burns running full with rain, and
grey smoke hanging on the hillsides."

Andrew leant behind a dyke lighting his pipe.

After a minute, he said, "It must have been a hard job for you to give
up Rutherfurd, I've only lately realised how hard. Your cousin--did she
feel it very badly?"

"Nicole!" Barbara gave a little laugh. "It's so hard to say what Nicole
feels. She doesn't talk much about her own feelings, she's so interested
in other people's.... You say you love Rutherfurd after a few months;
what do you suppose it means to the people who... oh, don't let's
talk about it...."

When they got back they had a merry tea at the end of the long refectory
table in the hall, and then went in to see the dinner-table.

"This is charming," Barbara said. "I do like glass so much better than
silver."

"Awfully fragile, though," Mrs. Jackson reminded her. "We got these lace
mats in Italy."

The long table was bare but for the lace mats. Down the centre were
placed three wide glass bowls filled with pink tulips, and six tall
glass candlesticks with pink shades.

"What are you wearing to-night, may I ask? Black and white? I just hoped
it might be pink to go with the decorations. I'm awfully fond of having
everything in keeping, but with my figure I can't wear pink. Not but
what quite elderly women wear it now, and look well, but they always
tell me that black's best for me. I'm brightened up to-night, though,
with silver embroidery all down the front--beautiful. To-morrow, for the
dance, I'm wearing gold tissue. As I said to Andy there, it would
depress the whole company to see the hostess in black, and besides I
think gold tissue'll look awfully well against all that black oak, eh?
Did I tell you there are three young men coming to stay, friends of
Andy's? I think we'll have more men than girls, and that's a good fault
at a dance. Every house in the district nearly is bringing a party, but
I'm not going to think of it for I get so nervous."

Barbara laid her hand on Mrs. Jackson's arm and said, "You'll be
thoroughly tired before eight o'clock for you've been seeing after
things all day. Come up to your room and let me tuck you up on the sofa
with a book, and you'll be asleep before you know."

"Well--I believe I will. Andy, see that Father doesn't go to the study
when he comes in; send him straight up."

At a quarter to eight they all waited in the drawing-room. The door
opened.... Mrs. Jackson moistened her lips and took a step forward,
while her husband retreated to the fire-place.

After that, Mrs. Jackson was only confusedly conscious of shaking hands
and trying to say things, of watching Barbara being greeted by every one
and going happily from one to another, of realising between the measured
remarks of Lord Langlands that it was an excellent dinner, and that
surely things were going well....

About eleven o'clock they all stood round the fire again, in the
reaction that follows a strain, Mr. Jackson inclined to be mildly
facetious, and his wife happily loosed from bonds.

"Well, that's over," said Andy.

"And well over," said his mother. "I declare I'm quite looking forward
to to-morrow now."

"It only needs a beginning," said Mr. Jackson, beginning to wind his
watch.... "I'm going away to my bed."

"So am I," said his wife, "though I'm too excited to sleep." She trotted
up to Barbara. "Good-night, my dear. You were both an ornament and a
great help. If you don't mind I'd like to kiss you."




                              CHAPTER XXV


    "I should like balls infinitely better if they were carried on
    in a different manner. It would surely be much more rational if
    conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day."

    "Much more rational I daresay, but it would not be near so like
    a ball."

                                                       JANE AUSTEN.

Fortune continued to smile on Mrs. Jackson, and her dance passed off
without a hitch.

The dreaded orchestra arrived, did their work, and departed with
approbation. Everybody seemed happy, the dancers, the bridge players,
and those who looked on. The supper was something to dream of, the
decorations charming and not overdone, and above all there was that air
of jollity without which no party can be called a success.

Barbara thought this was largely due to the hostess herself. She was so
obviously eager that every one should have a good time, so beamingly
happy to see her guests enjoy themselves, so all-pervadingly kind and
cheerful.

Mr. Jackson, on the contrary, added nothing to the gaiety of the
evening. He stood about looking rather dazed, the festive look of the
flower in his buttonhole belied by his face. Melancholy seemed to have
claimed him for her own. He had nothing to say to any one; sometimes he
played a tune on his teeth with the nail of his forefinger (a trick he
had when bored), and every now and then he yawned widely, with no
attempt at concealment.

Barbara owned to herself that never had she enjoyed a dance so much. She
had been made to feel important. Old friends had crowded round her. She
had been conscious of looking her best, of being gay and pleasing,
desired as a partner, a real asset to her hostess.

She and Andrew had not danced much together, but when they passed each
other they had exchanged understanding smiles which seemed to establish
an intimacy that no amount of talking could have done.

Lying in bed the morning after the dance, Barbara thought things over.
She had only been a few days at Rutherfurd, but already Kirkmeikle
seemed far away and unimportant. She stretched herself in her most
comfortable bed, appreciating the fineness of the linen and the lace
that trimmed it, and looked around her. She did so like the space, and
the feeling of the big quiet house worked so smoothly by efficient
servants. She liked to think of the lawns, the gardens, the moorland
that lay all round. It gave her a feeling of being apart, not merely one
of the multitude, which was pleasant.

She had thought she would hate being in a Rutherfurd that belonged to
strangers, that all virtue would have gone out of the place for her, but
to her surprise she found that it was not so. Why it was she could not
tell, but it actually seemed to belong to her now in a way that it had
never done before. The present owners seemed not to matter, to be merely
accidental, and as for their son--he mattered certainly; he seemed to
belong too, to belong to her.

Barbara looked the matter straight in the face. She did not disguise
from herself that her intention was to marry Andrew Jackson. He could
give her what she wanted. All her life Rutherfurd had come first with
her. As a child she had been aware of her own passion, and had sometimes
almost hated her cousins for their light acceptance of such an
inheritance. They had not seemed to care, but she had always
cared.... If she married Andrew it would be hers. The loathed Burt
part of her would pass away and be forgotten. People would say--"Mrs.
Jackson of Rutherfurd--you know, of course, that she was one of the old
Rutherfurds? Yes, so suitable."

And surely it had been meant. Surely it was Fate that had sent her here.
She remembered with complacence that the visit had been none of her
arranging, she had not plotted or planned. She had come to oblige her
cousin, to perform an unpleasant duty, but as soon as she had met Andrew
at the station she had known that her task would be a light one. And on
his side there seemed to be the same attraction. He had walked with her,
and talked and laughed with her, had sought her out, had seemed pleased
at her success with his mother.

But if Nicole had been able to come herself?

Barbara sat back against the pillows and folded her arms.

"What he likes about me," she told herself, "are the Nicole bits."

She had been aware that she was quoting her cousins sometimes when she
talked with Andrew, and it was then that he had looked at her with
bright interested eyes.

"He cares for things in the way she cares for them. In a way I'm winning
him on false pretences, but I don't care. It isn't as if I were hurting
Nicole or defrauding her of anything. She doesn't want him; her whole
thoughts are for Simon Beckett. I believe she'd help me if she knew I
cared so much."

Barbara shook back her hair impatiently. She could rest in bed no
longer. She must get up and be active and not think.

Bathed and dressed, she studied herself in the mirror. She was very
good-looking, with regular features, and clear eyes that looked out from
under straight brows. A handsome, wholesome woman endowed with no
disturbing charm, but eminently fitted to be a good wife and mother, a
competent, dignified mistress of a house. But Barbara sighed as she
turned to go downstairs.

Mrs. Jackson she found in the morning-room reading the _Glasgow Herald_.

"Here you are, as fresh as a daisy," was her greeting. "And everything
tidied up as if there hadn't been a soul here. Entertaining's easy after
all, and very repaying. I'm sure it was a pretty sight, and you looked a
treat, my dear. You were as smart as could be but not overdone, if you
know what I mean. Father was a little upset at the sights some of them
had made of themselves. Hardly clothed, you might say. I'm sure I was
sorry for the gentlemen who had to dance with them. Say what you like,
so much bare skin's not pretty to see. Disgusting, I call it."

Barbara laughed and agreed, and Mrs. Jackson went on happily:

"Did you get your breakfast comfortably? The papers have just come.
Here's the _Herald_. Perhaps you prefer the _Scotsman_? We take both, of
course, but it's the _Herald_ I'm used to: I've read it all my days and
I can't find my way about the _Scotsman_; besides, you miss a lot of
deaths. It's queer, you'd think people would put their deaths into both
papers, but they don't. I suppose for the East the West hardly exist,
and the other way round. Births too, of course, but deaths are more
important, for people are wonderfully touchy about you not
writing.... Well, well. The gentlemen have gone out. Andy's taken his
friends a motor run to see the country. They were sorry you weren't down
in time, but you were quite right to take a long lie.... Mrs. Douglas
made me promise to take you there to lunch to-morrow, and Lady Langlands
wants us on Saturday, and----"

"Oh, but--I'm afraid I ought to go home to-morrow."

Mrs. Jackson raised both hands in protest.

"Never! Never in the world! You came here to do us a kindness, and what
I'd have done without you I don't know. And now you are here you must
stay for a bit and see all your friends that are so keen to see you. And
Andy has lots of places he wants to take you.... I've just been
thinking it would be awfully nice if your cousin, Miss Nicole, could
join you here. The change would do her a lot of good after the nasty
turn she's had, and you'd be so happy together among your old friends.
D'you think your aunt would spare her just for a few days? I'll write
this very minute, and you might write too and urge her, say what an
awful pleasure it would be for us all. Don't you think it's a lovely
plan?"

"A very lovely plan," said Barbara, and if her tone carried no
conviction Mrs. Jackson noticed nothing as, well pleased with herself,
she went off to write to Nicole, leaving Barbara to toy with the
_Herald_.

Andrew and his friends were back in time for luncheon, which was a
somewhat trying meal, for Mrs. Jackson's idea of entertaining young men
was to subject them to a constant stream of light banter, which so
exhausted them that they retired to the smoking-room and there slept
peacefully till tea-time.

Barbara went upstairs to put on her outdoor things. She was standing in
the hall idly looking at a magazine that she had taken from the neatly
arranged selection on a table, when Andrew appeared.

"Oh, you're going out?" he said. "Anywhere particular?"

Barbara laid down her magazine. "No. I just felt I wanted a walk on the
hills. Will you lend me a stick? I didn't bring one."

"Come and choose. May I come with you or would you rather go alone? Tell
the truth, please."

Barbara laughed. "Oh, I'm a horribly truthful person always, I shall
speak 'sad brow and true maid.' If your friends don't need you--how
polite we are--I shall be very glad of your company. To tell you the
truth, I'm terrified of tramps. That's why I asked for a stick, though
it'll only be a moral support: I'm quite sure I could never hit even the
most belligerent beggar."

As they went out Mrs. Jackson came bustling in from a visit she had been
paying to the chauffeur's wife.

"Going for a walk? That's right. It's a cold wind but fine and bright.
I've been to see Mrs. Renwick's baby, and--what d'you think, Andy?--it's
to be called after you."

Andrew looked rather abashed, but his mother was radiant.

"I think it's awful nice. We've never had anyone called after us before.
We must see about a present, something really handsome but useful
too.--Well, see and have a nice walk. T'Ta."

That night as the owners of Rutherfurd were going to bed in their yellow
room, Mrs. Jackson, who had been thoughtfully putting her hair into
curl-pins, said:

"Father, d'you think Andy likes Miss Burt?"

"How should I know?" said her husband, much embarrassed.

"Well, _I_ think he does, and it's not what I intended. Since that first
day that I came to look at Rutherfurd I've had one wish, and that was
that Andy would marry Nicole. That's why I was so anxious to give the
dance--you thought I was daft, I know--it was an excuse to bring her
here and get them acquainted. I was quite sure that Andy, whenever he
saw her, would take a fancy to her like I did. And here----" Mrs.
Jackson threw out her hands.

"Would Miss Burt take Andy?" Mr. Jackson asked.

His wife gave a short laugh. "There's not much fear of that."

"Well, she's quite a nice girl." Mr. Jackson crawled into bed.

"If you've never seen the other one," said Mrs. Jackson, who sat looking
into the fire. "Miss Burt's been all that is kind and helpful, and it
little becomes me to say anything against her, but there's all the
difference in the world between her and her cousin. Miss Burt helps you
because she's there to do it, and it's her duty: Nicole does it as if
she loved it.... Miss Burt thinks in her heart that we--you and me,
Father, not Andy--are the lower orders, but with Nicole there's neither
Jew nor Gentile, as the saying is. It was Nicole I wanted to live here
with Andy.... But mebbe it's not too late yet.... I've written and
begged her to come, and I'm hoping that when Andy sees her...."

Mr. Jackson tapped his teeth with his forefinger in a perplexed way.

"It's hard on Miss Burt," he said.

His wife took off a very ornate dressing-gown and hung it on the back of
a chair.

"So it is," she said, "but somebody's always got to be hurt in this
world."

Mr. Jackson was not satisfied.

"I never thought you were so hard-hearted, Mamma," he remarked.

"I've got Andy to think of," said his wife.




                              CHAPTER XXVI


               "Oh, stay at home, my lad, and plough
                  The land and not the sea.

                Oh, stay with company and mirth
                  And daylight and the air;
                Too full already is the grave
                Of fellows that were good and brave
                  And died because they were."

                                                         A. E. HOUSMAN.

Meantime, at Kirkmeikle, Nicole absorbed in her own affairs had little
thought to spare for the doings of her cousin at Rutherfurd.

On the day of the dance the sun shone brightly in the early afternoon,
and Nicole looking wistfully from the window said she thought she would
go out.

"Only to air myself, Mums. Only where the sun is bright on the sands
road. Oh, _surely_!"

"It's a pity to be rash," her mother cautioned.

"So it is, and selfish in the extreme. If I got pneumonia it would be a
horrid bother for every one. But, still--I feel quite all right. Isn't
it funny how you go about miserably shaky and breakable, and quite
suddenly--you can almost name the hour--you begin to feel yourself
again?--And nobody was ever the worse of fresh air and sunshine."

"I don't know," Lady Jane said placidly, "wasn't it too fresh an air
that gave you the chill? But if you wrap up warmly I expect you'll be
all right. Keep a scarf over your mouth."

But when Nicole shut the front door behind her she had no air of a
muffled invalid. She wore a new spring coat with a bunch of violets
pinned in front, and a becoming little black hat with a white mount
pulled down over her bright hair.

Out on the sheltered sands road it was delicious. She lifted her face to
the mild heat of the March sun, she breathed in the salt air and was
glad. Having walked to the far end of the road she was tempted to go
farther. It was absurd to go back and sit in the house on such a living
day. A little bit along were the Red Rocks and a favourite seat of hers,
a sort of throne hewn out by the waves, which the Bat thought must be
used by the mermaids when they came up to comb their long hair with
combs made of ivory and pearls; she would go there.

How good it was to be out again, to be free of the feverish choked
feeling that a bad cold brings, to feel the sea-wind in one's face, to
watch the gulls sweep over the water, and to know that spring was on its
way, that the winter was over and gone.

Not that it had been a bad winter. She remembered pleasantly the walks
and the games, the merry tea-parties in the Harbour House, the long
evenings when they had read and worked and talked in the room with the
four long windows; the short winter days with frosty sunsets, the red
roofs of the little town, the moon making a silver highway on the sea.
And the people--old Betsy with her passion for the Borders and her
contempt for every other place; Janet Symington, narrow and dull, yet
surprisingly human; kind Mrs. Heggie; harassed, happy Mrs.
Lambert.... How good it had all been! And even as she confessed it
she felt a twinge--ought she to have been so happy? Did it not show a
certain lightness, a lack of feeling? Barbara had not been happy, she
had made that fairly obvious. And her mother? Well, with her mother it
was different; in a way, for her, life seemed finished.

How strange, Nicole thought, to be done with life, not to waken in the
morning wondering what new and glorious thing might be going to happen,
not to expect to meet round every corner Romance. How dull, oh! how
dull, to wash and dress knowing that the day would only hold meals, and
letters with dull domestic news, and conversations about trifles; to
look forward to day after day filled with comfortable commonplaces, a
level plain, with no heights of rapture, no depths of despair.

But then, she reflected, her mother had known it all, the expectations,
the uncertainties, the raptures, the despair. She had had more, perhaps,
of loving and living than most people, more of suffering too, and now
she was serene, as the seas are calm when the storm is over.

Nicole walked slowly with her eyes on the sea, and did not notice Simon
Beckett until suddenly he stood before her.

She looked up into his face and saw there what she had been seeking
unconsciously always.

Neither spoke.

Then Simon took her, as Torquil took his Neuha, by the hand, and they
crossed the rocks to the mermaid's throne. Nicole seated herself and
Simon knelt at her feet.

They whispered each other's names as if they had made a great discovery.

"Simon."

"Nicole."

Then Simon blurted out: "I'm going away. I've just heard; I've got to
leave on Saturday morning."

"And this is Wednesday!" said Nicole.

"And this is Wednesday," Simon agreed.

Nicole sat very still.... "Two whole days together," she said at
last. "Well, that's not so bad. We mightn't have had any. You might have
gone without knowing."

"I've always known."

"Then why in the world didn't you speak? I'm afraid you're a bit of an
idiot, Simon dear."

"Well, but--why didn't you let me see?"

"Ah! it wasn't my place." Nicole dimpled at him as if it were a new
game. "But it's sad to have lost so much time in this little flash of a
life. Was it the day we met here in the storm, when the Bat fell into
the pool, and we could hardly see each other for spray or hear each
other for crashing waves, that very first time that ever we met, that
you...?"

"That very first day," said Simon solemnly.

"Then we didn't really waste any time, did we? Kiss me, Simon."

They sat there oblivious of everything, trying to crush into an hour all
they had to tell each other, in case these flying minutes were all they
were to have together.

And yet it was not much that they said after all. Little more than "_I
love you!_" and again, "_I love you!_"

At last prudence woke in Nicole and they turned to go home.

"Nobody must know," Nicole decreed.

"Not your mother?" Simon was surprised.

"It's because of Mother that it must be a secret. Simon, she's had so
much. I can't have her burdened with this anxiety.... Besides, it's
partly selfishness on my part, it will be easier for me to bear it
alone. I hate pity. I hate to be fussed over. If nobody knows, I can
keep cheerful and talk rubbish all the time, but if people are watching
me----"

Her voice broke and she turned away her head.

Simon looked at her miserably.

"But you see, don't you, that I have to go?"

Nicole turned, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and said gently:

"My dear, I wouldn't say one word to keep you. Of course you must go.
I'd be a poor creature if the first thing I wanted to do to my love was
to clip his wings. I wouldn't love you half as much if you were content
to stay. I'm glad and proud to see you go, only--come back to me, my
love, come back to me. If you don't, well, some of me I suppose would go
on living, but most of me would die."

"Oh, I'll come back all right. I'll be so deucedly careful this time. No
risks for me, only what's got to be done.... The nuisance is, you
won't hear from me much once we've started, but there'll always be the
cables in the papers."

"Oh yes," said Nicole, "there will always be the papers."

When they reached the Harbour House Nicole said, "You'll come in?" but
Simon shook his head, looking at his wrist-watch.

"It's the Bat. I asked him to tea and said we'd play at trains
afterwards. I couldn't disappoint him?"

"No," said Nicole, "you couldn't do that."

"May I come in after dinner? And what shall we do to-morrow and Friday?"

Nicole thought, leaning against the doorway.

"To-morrow I think we should give the Bat a treat. You've no idea how
the child will miss you.--He has never forgotten that day at St.
Andrews. Let's take him somewhere to lunch and give him a good time. He
yearns to see another cinema.... And Friday must be our own day.
Let's go away together somewhere in the car, it doesn't much matter
where, so that we have every minute of the day together. And you'll come
to dinner with Mother and me and we'll talk and laugh, and read bits to
each, and not think of anything. And next morning you'll be gone...."

Nicole went in and had tea with her mother, and Lady Jane said, "You
look much the better for your walk. I was afraid you were staying too
long. Where did you go?"

"Oh, just round the Red Rocks.... I met Mr. Beckett and he told me he
had got his marching orders. He goes to London on Saturday morning.
Won't it be perfectly ghastly without him? The Bat will be inconsolable,
and, Mums, I'm afraid you will miss him badly. We were planning to take
the Bat somewhere to-morrow for a treat; won't you come too?... And I
asked him to dinner on Friday night. That's all right, is it?..."

Later, about six o'clock, when Nicole was sitting alone by the fire
thinking, Miss Symington was announced.

Nicole sprang up to welcome her, for Janet was shy and needed a good
deal of encouragement.

"This is nice.--Come over to the fire and settle into this really
comfortable chair. Why didn't you come to tea? Mother's just gone to her
room to rest before dinner; she will be so sorry to miss you."

Janet was looking extremely handsome in some of the clothes that Nicole
had persuaded her into buying; in fact, it was difficult to recognise
the Miss Symington of the sailor-hat and the pulled-back hair, in this
comely woman in soft browns and fawns, her hair softening her face under
a most becoming hat, but her manner was as stiff as ever, and she said:

"It wasn't convenient for me to come to tea.--Are you better?"

"Quite better, thanks, but I daresay I still look a wreck. It's
refreshing to see any one look as well as you do. I _do_ like your new
hat!"

Janet gave it a little tug. "I feel queer in it, but I'm told it's the
fashion."

Nicole assured her that it was, and conversation languished. Subject
after subject Nicole tried, only to find it dropped by Janet, who seemed
oddly ill at ease.

At last, Nicole said rather desperately, "Well, and how is life with
you?"

To her surprise her companion blushed and, fixing her eyes on the
carpet, said, "I had a proposal yesterday--my first."

Nicole blushed also, in sympathy, and murmured incoherently, "But--how
very nice! And how good of you to tell me.... Did you accept?"

Janet fumbled with her gloves. "It was a letter, and of course that
gives you more time to think. It's Mr. Innes. I think you've met him."

Nicole remembered the rather unctuous gentleman with the soft voice that
she had met walking with Miss Symington.

"Oh yes," she said. "He came to preach, didn't he?"

"Yes. He has been a number of times, but I never thought... that he
thought of me like that. But I did notice when he was here a fortnight
ago that he looked at me a lot more than he ever did before--I was
wearing one of my new dresses, and you had taught me how to do my hair
differently, and I thought mebbe he found me unfamiliar, for I felt very
queer myself. And he did say several times in a surprised sort of way
that I was looking very well. I've known him for several years and we
get on very well together. We never run out of conversation as I do with
the other preachers. But--I don't know.... He's a widower with two
girls away at school, and lives in Morningside. He's got a confectionery
business, but all his spare time is taken up with Christian work. He's a
really good man, and earnest, but I don't know.... The children are a
difficulty, of course...."

"But," said Nicole, "does anything really matter except whether you care
for him or not?"

Miss Symington stared. "You've got to look at it all round," she said.
"You see, it means giving up a lot. My house is a real pleasure to me
now, and I don't know if I'd like Edinburgh. And, remember, I'm nearly
forty-seven, and at that age you don't make changes lightly. The
question is, is it worth while? It's difficult knowing...."




                             CHAPTER XXVII


         "...now I find thy saw of might,
          'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'"

                                                      _As You Like It._

Somewhat to her mother's surprise, Nicole had at once said she would go
when Mrs. Jackson's invitation had come, followed by Barbara's less
impassioned appeal.

"I could go on Monday for a few days, and bring Barbara home with me,"
she said. "Mums, does it strike you that Babs isn't terribly keen on me
going to Rutherfurd?"

"Why shouldn't she be?"

"No reason... Are you sure you would be all right alone for a few
days? I somehow feel I would like to get away just now...."

"The change will do you good," Lady Jane said, "and don't give a thought
to me. I'll be perfectly all right."

Mrs. Jackson was in a state of simmering excitement over Nicole's
coming, though what she expected to happen it would be difficult to say.
To Barbara she was almost overpoweringly kind, guiltily feeling that she
was deliberately doing her an injury.

As for Nicole, her mind was so full of other matters that this coming
back to Rutherfurd--at any other time a most poignant experience--hardly
moved her at all. Sitting in the train, watching the familiar landmarks
come one by one into view, she did not feel herself to be alone. Simon
was with her. To him she turned when again there swam into her ken her
beloved Border hills, his hand she grasped when the links of Tweed among
their green pastures greeted her eyes.

Mrs. Jackson met her, explaining that Barbara had gone with Andrew and
some friends to a Point-to-Point meeting. "And I daresay," she said as
she tucked the rug round her guest in the car, "you'll be glad enough of
a little peace and a rest in your own room before you see any one. I
know what it's like to be recovering from a chill, your legs feel like
brown paper."

Nicole, thinking how Simon would have enjoyed Mrs. Jackson, looked into
the kind, concerned face turned to her and said:

"As a matter of fact, my legs feel more like growing trees than brown
paper. I'm really quite all right.--I was so sorry about failing you,
but I'm sure Barbara was of much more use than I would have been. She's
so splendidly practical."

"She's all that, and a great help she was. Indeed I couldn't have got on
without her at all. Andy laughs and says I always need somebody to stand
beside me and give me moral courage, but I do like somebody who knows
how things should be done and could check me if I was going to make some
big mistake. Johnson is all very well, but you can't just _lean_ on a
butler.--You see, I feel so unsure of myself among all these people."

"You needn't," Nicole assured her. "They all like you so much. I hear
from Jean Douglas and others what a kind, hospitable place Rutherfurd
continues to be."

"Ah, Mrs. Douglas! if they were all like her! She's such a grand
laugher."

"Isn't she? And don't you like her white hair, and her eyes so blue in
her nice open-air face?... And I hear the dance was an immense
success. Everything so well done, and the food divine! You're nothing
short of a public benefactor, and how the girls must have blessed you at
this dull time of year!"

Mrs. Jackson purred like a stroked cat. "Oh, well, I don't know, but
they all seemed glad enough to come.--And how's Lady Jane?"

"Well, thank you. I believe that Kirkmeikle is really rather a good
place for her. She is away from the people who would constantly remind
her of what she has lost, and she takes quite an interest in some of our
new friends. You know, we live right in the town, on the sea-front,
among a huddle of houses occupied by fisher-folk and others, most
delightful, I think, and Mother can go in and out among them. They love
her.--No, that is, perhaps, rather an exaggerated way to put it, for
Fife people are not expansive. Let's say they don't mind her, they
welcome her and tell her all their troubles. And Mother doesn't seem to
mind that there is almost nothing to do in Kirkmeikle. She is the least
restless of women."

"I think she's a noble character," said Mrs. Jackson.

Nicole laughed. "She'd be very much amused to hear it. The thing about
Mother is that she never thinks of herself at all.--Ah, here's
Rutherfurd."

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Jackson nervously. "You'll try not to mind. I know
it's hard to come back like this, but here's Johnson.... I'm sure
you're glad to see Miss Nicole back, Johnson?"

Nicole was out of the car in a moment, shaking hands with Johnson, and
asking for his wife and his son in London. "But I'll be in to see you
and hear about everything," she told him.

"Very good, Miss, thank you. Her ladyship is well, I hope?"

"Quite well, thank you.... I'll leave my coat...."

"Tea's in the drawing-room," said Mrs. Jackson. "Unless you'd rather go
straight up to your room and have it there? No. Well, go right in, I
needn't show _you_ the road."

After tea she insisted on taking Nicole to her room, and when there
remained to talk and tell her favourite some of her troubles in the new
life.

"But you're beginning to feel at home, aren't you?" said Nicole.

"No," said Mrs. Jackson, "that's what I never will be. You see, I can
never be natural: I've to watch myself all the time, for the things I
say, just ordinary things, seem to surprise the people here. And my
voice sounds so queer. They say their words so clear cut, and I say mine
so slushy, somehow. But uch! What does it matter! Andy gets on fine with
them, and that's the great thing. They make a great fuss about him, and
he's asked out a lot, and away to stay and all. But I'll tell you one
thing I've told nobody. When Andy takes a wife, Father and I'll be very
glad to creep back to Pollokshields. Father has no use for the
country--it was just a notion he took to have a place. If Andy's here
that'll please him, and he'll work away quite contented in his office.
People'll laugh at us, I know that. Mrs. McArthur'll say to me, 'What
did I tell you?' but I don't care. I've had about enough of being
'county,' and I must say I'd like to spend my last years comfortably,
not always straining after appearing what I'm not. I'd like a nice new
villa, not too far out for concerts and things, with a bit of a garden
and every modern convenience, so that it could be worked by two
servants. I plan it to myself every night in my bed--but I mustn't stay
here chattering, you'll be fair wearied."

Andrew Jackson and Barbara got back only in time to dress for dinner.
They had had a very good day and came home much pleased with each other.
As Andrew dressed his thoughts were full of Barbara. She seemed to like
being with him as much as he liked being with her. He admired her
warmly, and was contentedly aware of the direction in which he was
drifting.

It was time he married: this was an eminently suitable arrangement, and
he felt perfectly content at the thought of a future spent with Barbara.
If she saw things in the same light, so much the better, but there was
no hurry: things were very pleasant as they were.

Always a punctual person, Andrew found himself downstairs, as he
thought, before any one else. He was just about to turn on the lights in
the drawing-room when he heard a sound. Looking round the heavy screen
that sheltered the fireside from draughts, he saw, kneeling on the
fender-stool, a girl. At first he thought he was dreaming, for the slim
white figure bathed in the rosy light of the fire seemed more a thing of
fire and dew than an ordinary mortal. He leant forward. She was
speaking, addressing the picture, as a lover addresses his mistress. And
what a voice! by Jove, what a voice!--deep, soft, caressing.... What
was she saying?--

             "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?"

Then Andrew realised that this was the expected guest. This was the girl
his mother had so often talked to him about. This was Nicole.

He slipped out of the room and turned over papers in the hall till the
others came down.

Nicole jumped up from her kneeling position and went to turn on the
lights. She had dressed early and been ready for Barbara when she ran in
to greet her on her way to dress, and had come downstairs anxious to
have a short time alone in the room she so loved. The sight of the
picture had made her forget everything.... What a blessing no one had
come in and found her kneeling there talking to a picture! She turned,
as her host and hostess came in:

"Down first!" said Mrs. Jackson. "This is Father," taking her husband by
the sleeve and leading him forward like a reluctant schoolboy.

"Pleased to meet you," he murmured. "Did you come from Fife to-day?"

Nicole said she had, and that it had been a pleasant journey.

"Left your mother well?"

"Thank you, quite well."

"That's right," said Mr. Jackson, and retired from the conversational
arena.

Barbara came in, followed by Andrew.

"Oh, Andy," said his mother, "you haven't met Miss Rutherfurd."

"No," said Andrew, and shook hands gravely.

Dinner was a lively meal, the hostess being in uncommonly good spirits.
"What! no champagne," she cried, when Nicole refused wine. "Uch--you
should try a wee drop. No? Well, champagne's my temptation, and," as
Johnson approached, "I'm going to succumb."

It sounded worse than it was, for she only "succumbed" to the extent of
one glass, but it seemed to inspire her, for she kept the conversation
almost entirely in her own hands, chiefly recalling episodes of her life
in Glasgow: "D'you mind, Andy?... Father, what was yon man's name
that was always making jokes?"... Later on, as they sat round the
fire in the drawing-room, Barbara demurely stitching, the others idle,
Mrs. Jackson looked at the picture above the fire-place and said:

"Who is it again? You remember you told me once, Miss Nicole, but I
always forget."

"Elizabeth of Bohemia."

"Uch, yes, and who was she exactly? I get mixed with these foreign
princesses."

Nicole turned to the son of the house. "Have you got 'Q's' _Studies in
Literature_? You have?--then you must remember what he says about my
Lovely Lady?"

"Only vaguely, I'm afraid," said Andrew. "I tell you what, I'll get the
book and you'll read it to us."

"That'll be nice," Mrs. Jackson said comfortably. "I like fine being
read to, but I nearly always fall asleep."

"No, no," Nicole cried, putting out a hand to stop Andrew. "It would be
too wooden to read you solemnly a long extract. 'Q' talks, don't you
remember, about the certain few women in history who in life fascinated
the souls out of men, and still fascinate the imagination of mankind.
Helen of Troy was one, of course, and Cleopatra another..." She was
sitting curled up in her favourite position on the fender-stool looking
up at the picture, and she now turned smiling to her hostess, and said
with a little confidential air, "What men call enchantresses, but what
you and I would call _besoms_!" Then she continued: "But Joan of Arc was
a third, a saint above saints, and Catherine of Siena--another saint;
and a fifth was Mary Queen of Scots, who was what you will--except a
saint; and that brings him to Mary's grand-daughter, Elizabeth of
Bohemia, and there 'Q' rains out a perfect flood of adjectives,
'wayward, lovely, extravagant, unfortunate, adorable, peerless'--I
forget them all. Then he breaks into Wotton's lines:

                 "You meaner beauties of the night,
                   That poorly satisfy our eyes
                 More by your number than your light;
                   You common people of the skies,--
                   What are you when the moon shall rise?

"Oh," she threw out her arms, "how I adore people who can be really
enthusiastic!"

It was Andrew she addressed, Andrew who was sitting spellbound watching
her, but it was Barbara who replied, looking coolly up from her work at
the rose-flushed face and shining, eager eyes of her cousin.

"For my part," she said, "I see nothing fine, but merely silly, in going
into raptures over a woman who has been dust for centuries," and dropped
her head again over her work.

Nicole laughed and made a rueful face to the picture. "Yes, it's you she
is talking about.... Never mind, Queen of Hearts, you had your day,
for no man came into your range but knelt your sworn knight.--You rode
conquering all hearts, and lifting all hearts to ride with you--to ride
with you 'over the last lost edge of the world.'"

She almost whispered the last words, and clasped her hands tight. It was
not the pictured lady she was thinking of now, it was Simon, her Simon,
who had gone into danger without her. How blessed were they who rode
_together_ over the last lost edge....

She shivered, but in a moment recovered herself, and smiled at Mr.
Jackson, who was looking slightly affronted. He was not accustomed to
the society of young women who sat in unconventional attitudes and
apostrophised pictures.

"Well, I'm sure," said Mrs. Jackson. After a minute she added, "I knew a
girl once--I was at school with her--and she had such a way with men. A
little quiet thing to look at she was, I never knew how she did it, but
men fairly flocked round her." She pulled a cushion into a more
comfortable position for her back and continued meditatively: "And she
made a poor marriage after all, a large bakery business, but not very
steady, so it just lets you see..."

Presently Mr. Jackson slipped away to his own room, Mrs. Jackson fell
asleep, and Nicole and Andrew sat on a sofa and talked, while Barbara
stitched and stitched.

When Johnson brought the tray in, Mrs. Jackson, waking from uneasy
slumber, said, "No music to-night? I've quite missed it.--We've been
having great concerts these last few nights.... Your cousin sings
awfully well, Miss Nicole, and Andy has a nice voice too."

"Oh, why did nobody suggest music to-night?" Nicole cried. "What I've
missed!"

"Oh, we were much better employed to-night," Barbara said coolly.

Nicole looked from one to the other. So this was what had been
happening! She had greatly enjoyed the talk with Andrew--they had only
discussed books and reminded each other of this and that character and
incident--but she had not understood that she was more or less of an
intruder and had probably spoiled the evening for both Barbara and
Andrew.

She felt very contrite as she followed Barbara into her room for a
good-night talk. But Barbara was rather aloof, though asking questions
about her aunt and the household at Kirkmeikle and politely interested
in everything her cousin told her. And when questioned in turn her
replies were cool and crisp. Yes, she had a very good time at
Rutherfurd; the dance had been delightful: the Jacksons everything that
was kind and considerate. No, she did not mean to go home yet. At the
end of the week she was going on to Langlands for a short visit, and
then to the Kilpatricks.

And Nicole presently slipped away to bed rather forlornly, wondering why
she had left the Harbour House and her ever-understanding mother.

Next morning when they were idling over the newspapers Mrs. Jackson
demanded to know what the plans were for the day.

"Would you not like a nice round in the car, Miss Nicole?" she asked.
"You haven't seen this countryside for a while."

"What I'd _like_ to do," said Nicole, "is to go for a really long walk.
Up the Farawa, and down into Langhope Glen and home by the Moor
Road.--If we might have a sandwich with us? We'd be home in time for
tea. Who will come?"

Andrew, throwing down the _Glasgow Herald_, sprang up, and Nicole could
have slapped him for the eager light that was in his eyes. She knew that
though Barbara appeared immersed in the _Scotsman_ she saw it too.

She turned to her cousin. "Barbara, you'll come."

"I'm afraid I can't. I'm going with Mrs. Jackson to make a lot of calls
this afternoon," and Barbara turned to her hostess for confirmation.

"So we are," said that lady in a delighted voice. "So, Andy, you'd
better go with Miss Nicole, she might easily meet a tramp. I'll see
about sandwiches." She bustled out of the room.

Nicole looked thoughtfully at her cousin, whose head was again bent over
the newspaper, and then turned to Andrew:

"Will you come, Mr. Jackson?... I'll go and get ready, for it's a
fairly long walk."

Mrs. Jackson not only saw that they were well supplied with sandwiches,
but begged them to have some sustenance before they started. She had an
idea that if people were more than an hour or two away from the offer of
food they must collapse.

It was a steel-grey day with a high wind rustling the dry heather and
the bent grass, and sweeping the clouds across the sky. Nicole and
Andrew walked together in almost complete silence. Nicole was realising
that Barbara had reason to feel coldly towards her. She had arrived at
exactly the wrong moment, and Andrew, by some evil mischance--she could
not feel herself to blame in the matter--seemed inclined to turn aside
from the path he was on and take an interest in her unlucky self.

Well, she had to put it right somehow, even if it meant a
sacrifice.... No one knew of her love for Simon Beckett, she held her
happy secret warm in her heart, it was like a lamp that lit her days,
but to speak of it seemed like sacrilege. She had not meant to tell a
soul till Simon came back, but now she turned to her companion.

"It's lovely, lovely." She swept her arm around.

"Yes," said Andrew, "but I feel an intruder here. The place is yours,
will always be yours; the fact that we have bought it makes no
difference. We go out and in, but the spirit of the place is yours."

"No. No. I'm _glad_ you're here. I don't know of any one I'd prefer to
be here.--I'm afraid that sounds rather cheek, for what business is it
of mine after all? I believe, really, that it's a good thing we had to
go to make room for you."

Andrew shook his head. "I can't bear to think that we turned you out. I
never realised what we'd done until I went into the drawing-room last
night and saw you kneeling in the fire-light before the picture----"

"What? Did you come in? What a posing idiot you must have thought me!
The fact is--I used to do that as a child. My father taught me Wotton's
poem, and I used to kneel on the fender-stool and say it to the picture.
My Lovely Lady, I called her."

Andrew went on--"I've always been a very prosaic person, but last night
when I heard your voice..."

Nicole broke in--"Did you by any chance feel that we were meant to be
friends? Because I did, whenever I saw you. Your mother had talked of
you so much I seemed to know you quite well. And because I believe we're
meant to be good friends I can't bear you to have that foolish idea of
being a usurper.... I'm going to tell you something that nobody
knows, not my mother, not Barbara. I'm not to be pitied. If we hadn't
left Rutherfurd and gone to our funny little salt-sea house in Fife I'd
have missed the most wonderful thing that ever happened or ever could
happen to me." She stopped and looked away for a minute, then turning
again to Andrew, said: "There I met a man--Simon Beckett. At first he
seemed to me only an ordinary quiet, rather dull Englishman.--No, that's
not true. I tried to tell myself that, for I was ashamed of my own
feelings, but from the first moment I saw him I knew, quite without
doubt, that he was the one man in the world for me, and most wonderful
of all he saw in me the one woman.... He's an explorer, a
mountaineer.--And now he's gone, Andy, he's gone! He sails for India
this week to make another attempt on Everest."

Andrew cleared his throat. Presently he said, "So he is that Beckett. I
heard him lecture once at the Geographical."

Nicole had flushed into one of her moments of sudden loveliness.--"_You
saw him?_" she said, and poor Andrew felt that he had taken on an
entirely new interest in her eyes. "Tell me, was he very bad?"

"Oh--it wasn't much of a lecture, he never let himself go, but I
wouldn't have missed it for anything. Why, just to see him was enough!
This was the man who had been _liaison_ officer between the gods and
mortals... And what a good-looking chap he is!"

"Isn't he?" Nicole laughed softly. "He always said he was such a rotten
lecturer, but you see he was there--I like that idea of yours about the
_liaison_ officer--it was he who left his friend dead and struggled back
alone, so how could you expect him to be eloquent? He could only harden
his poor voice and repeat it like a school lesson."

Andrew nodded, and they walked on, Andrew slightly in front.

Presently he turned and said, "It was most awfully good of you to tell
me this. Thank you. I've always taken a tremendous interest in men who
did that sort of thing--I mean to say, attempted what seemed impossible
heights, went to look behind the ranges. I'd never do it myself, I was
born cautious, but I like to think that there are such men--it seems,
somehow, to make life more spacious.... I wonder if you noticed in
the papers not very long ago the death of a man--an ordinary business
man--who had been on a climbing expedition with some friends in the West
Highlands, and lost his life in an attempt to get a golden eagle's nest?
Wasn't that rather fine?"

"Yes," said Nicole, "it gives one a thrill to think of it. The
commonplace regular life, going backwards and forwards to an office, and
then the wild romantic end. I'm glad you don't condemn it. So many
people can't for the life of them see anything but idiocy in it, a
wilful throwing away of life. Anyway, there it is...."

"Yes," said Andrew, "there it is"; and he sighed.




                             CHAPTER XXVIII


    VIOLA. Ay, but I know----

    DUKE. What dost thou know?

    VIOLA. Too well what love women to men may owe.

                                                   _Twelfth Night._

Barbara was far from happy. She had, to her own rather horrified
disgust, dreaded the coming of Nicole, and what she had foreseen had
almost at once come to pass. Andrew had obviously eyes only for her
cousin, and Barbara did not blame him, she had never suffered from too
good a conceit of herself, and she did not underrate Nicole's charm.
Andrew, she realised, though prosaic enough to look at and talk to, had
hidden depths of romance and poetry, and to these depths Nicole, that
"fairy's child," appealed. And there was no use in blaming Nicole. She
had not willingly enchanted him, she did not want his worship. When
Andrew found that out, Barbara wondered, would he come back to her? She
was very humble now, this Barbara, for the truth had come to her that it
was not Rutherfurd that counted with her, it was Andrew alone.

While she sat in the car as they made their round of calls, and laughed
and chatted to Mrs. Jackson, her thoughts were all the time with the two
who were walking over the hills.... What were they talking about? Was
Andrew going at every step farther from her?

They refused tea when calling, and got home about five o'clock.

"Now I wonder," said Mrs. Jackson, "would they go in somewhere and get
their tea or come home? What d'you guess? Will they be home before us?"

"I guess," Barbara said, as she got out of the car, "I guess that
they're ravenously devouring tea in the drawing-room at this moment."

"You're right, here they are!" Mrs. Jackson cried as she burst into the
room. "Well, what kind of day have you had?"

"Fine," said Andrew, springing to his feet, "and we've eaten all the
tea, so I hope you aren't hungry----" He rang the bell as he spoke.

"Poached eggs and plum-cake," said Nicole. "I feel like the greedy king
in the fairy-tale. But it has been lovely.... Has calling given you
an appetite? Barbara, how disgustingly nice you look." She put up both
hands to her face. "What with the hill winds and the fire and my greed
for tea my face is like a harvest moon! We were too hungry even to wash
our hands or smooth our hair: we just rushed at the food with a cry. Now
I'm gorged I must go and tidy. But tell me first whom have you called
on?"

"Well, we were awfully fortunate about getting people out," said Mrs.
Jackson, "so we got over quite a lot.--I'll not give you this tea, my
dear, they'll be bringing fresh tea in a minute.--The only one we found
at home was Mrs. Scott at the Manse, and she was as kind as could be, I
must say that. She would have us to stay to tea, the maid was in with a
table and a cloth over her arm before we had hardly sat down, but we
said No, quite firmly. She's a good manager, yon woman; I knew it before
the door opened. Such a clean mat and bright scraper, and inside
everything as shining and neat as you like--tasteful too."

Nicole nodded. "Mrs. Scott's a noted manager, and cannot only get
servants herself, but manages to find them for other people....
Wasn't she frightfully glad to see Barbara? We used to go to parties at
the Manse when we were all children."

"She told me that," Mrs. Jackson said. "Oh, she made a great fuss of
Miss Barbara, and they had so many things to talk about that I had
plenty of time to sit and look at the room. It's awfully nice, I must
say, to meet old friends: I quite envied them their talk!"

"I always liked Mrs. Scott," Barbara said, helping herself to bread and
butter, "and I enjoyed our talk. I'm afraid, though, you must have been
bored, Mrs. Jackson. We had so many things to recall. She was telling
me, Nikky, that James is doing extraordinarily well in India."

"I can well believe it. D'you remember how he was always held up to
Archie as a pattern? and poor Archie said bitterly, 'He's so beastly
clever that he's abnormal!' Oh, James will get his 'K' in no time, and
then won't his mother be proud!"

"The only thing," said Mrs. Jackson, "that I don't like about the Manse
is having the churchyard so near. The funerals come past the front
door!"

"Quiet neighbours, Mother," Andrew said.

"Uch, Andy, be quiet--I suppose you get used to it, but I must say I'd
hate to sit there alone on winter nights, thinking of all the graves
outside, and not very healthy either...."

That evening Nicole went to her cousin's room and asked her what dress
she meant to wear. Barbara looked at the bed to see what Esther had laid
out, and Nicole protested, "Not that, I don't like you in that." She
went to the wardrobe and began to pull things about. "This, I think,"
producing a white dress embroidered in black. "Now, let me do your hair.
I haven't done it for ages and I do enjoy it."

"Why this sudden interest in my appearance?" Barbara asked, not quite
sure whether to be pleased or provoked.

"Because, my dear, I didn't think you were looking your best last
night.... I saw some one with her hair done like this and I thought
at the time it would suit you.--Now, that's very nice. Tucking your hair
in like that shows the shape of your head. Do you like it?"

Barbara considered herself in the looking-glass. The new style was a
distinct success, and she said so.

Nicole looked over her cousin's shoulder and made a face at herself in
the mirror. "What a horror I look! I must do something about it." She
yawned. "I'm really very sleepy. It was a gorgeous walk to-day, Babs, I
do wish you had come.... Andrew _is_ a nice fellow. I knew he must be
good and kind and dependable or his dear funny mother wouldn't have
adored him so whole-heartedly, but I also thought he would be very dull.
He's anything but dull. No wonder everybody about here likes him."

"Yes," said Barbara, studying the back of her head in a hand-glass, "he
makes a very interesting companion," and her tone was as light and
placid as if Andrew was nothing to her but the merest acquaintance, but
Nicole was not deceived.

That night Barbara did not feel out of it; rather, though how it was she
did not quite know, she found herself the centre of things. It was easy
for her to be amusing and amused; a becoming flush and a sparkle in her
eyes transformed her. Barbara's looks depended greatly on the mood she
was in. Bored, and feeling unsuccessful, she was a handsome but somewhat
heavy-looking young woman; appreciation lit a lamp in her eyes and gave
a witty edge to her tongue.

She sang, and Andrew hung over the piano. "Sing this, please," he
begged... "you sang it the first night you came.... Don't you sing,
Miss Nicole?"

Nicole sadly shook her head. "Alas, no. Barbara is the only talented
member of our family. Sing '_Lady Keith's Lament_,' Babs, I love your
voice in that; the deep notes make me feel as if I were on a swing!"

She was sitting beside her hostess, keeping her awake by telling her
stories of Kirkmeikle. Mrs. Jackson was immensely interested in Mrs.
Heggie and her daughter who wrote, and in Miss Symington and her house.

"Mrs. Heggie must be a fine hearty body," she said.

"Oh, she is," Nicole agreed. "She's the sort of woman that if you sat
next her on a railway journey and told her your chimney at home smoked
would never rest until she found a remedy for it. You must come and
visit us some day, and then you'll meet every one."

"That would be fine.... I like your mother awful well...."

Nicole left Rutherfurd to go home the day Barbara went to Langlands.
Mrs. Jackson implored her to stay, but Nicole pleaded that her mother
really needed her and that she had to go.

                 *        *        *        *        *

While Barbara was at Langlands Andrew rode over one morning and asked
her to marry him.

They were standing together in the little winter garden opening from
Lady Langlands' sitting-room, looking at a climbing rhododendron, and
Barbara answered nothing for a minute, just went on looking thoughtfully
at the white blooms. Then she turned to him and said, "Are you sure you
want me?"

He flushed a little but met her eyes steadily.

"Quite sure." He took her hand. "I think I could make you happy, and I
shall count myself a very lucky man if you will take me."

"Well..." Barbara let her hand lie in his, and gave a sigh which
ended in a laugh. "You realise, don't you, that in me you would get a
most ordinary unexciting wife, not too costly to wear everyday!..."

Andrew, as in duty bound, protested and added: "Where would you find a
more ordinary workaday fellow than I am? Andrew Jackson, born and bred
in Glasgow, in trade up to the neck, distinguished in no way at all! I
wonder I have the impudence to ask you."

Barbara smiled and said, "Andy." It was enough. He was answered.

                 *        *        *        *        *

That night Andrew told his mother. They were alone, Mr. Jackson was in
Glasgow, and Mrs. Jackson had been nodding over a magazine while her son
pretended to read a book.

"Mother," he said suddenly; "I've got something to tell you. I'm going
to marry Barbara Burt."

Mrs. Jackson stared at her son as if she had not understood him. "But--I
thought, I thought... Oh, I did _hope_ it would be the other one,"
and suddenly, she began to cry.

Andrew threw the cigarette he was smoking into the fire.

"Mother," he said, "it isn't like you to be cruel."

"Me cruel?" Mrs. Jackson sniffed convulsively.

"Cruel to Barbara. What would she feel if she heard you."

"Well, I can't help it. Everything's gone wrong. If only Nicole had come
to the dance and you'd seen her first you'd never have looked at Miss
Burt."

Involuntarily Andrew looked up at the picture.

               You meaner beauties of the night...
               What are you, when the moon doth rise?

He sat down by his mother and put his arms round her shoulders.
"Mother," he said, "you're the best mother ever man had."

"Oh, Andy, I'm not. D'you think I don't see how I affront you at every
turn----"

"And for my sake I want you to be good to Barbara.... And, Mother, I
want you to understand, once for all, that Nicole Rutherfurd would never
have looked at me, so don't worry yourself about what might have been.
And you like Barbara and get on well with her, you know you do."

Mrs. Jackson sighed. "She's all right, but she's a buttoned-up creature
compared to my girl.... I don't know how it is but when I'm with
Nicole I just feel as easy and comfortable as if I were sitting at the
parlour fireside at Deneholm with a daughter of my own beside me. When
I'm with Barbara and kick off my slippers and lose my handkerchief and
specs, and do any of the daft-like things I'm always doing, she wears a
sort of long-suffering expression, but Nicole's down on the floor
picking up my things and laughing, and fitting my slippers back on my
feet, saying, 'There, there,' so comforting like.... But Barbara's
your choice so I'll say no more. It might have been worse. If it had
been one of those half-naked girls that came to the dance..."

She sat up and dried her eyes and smiled at her son.

"Oh, Andy, I hope you'll be happy, my dear. And she's a very handsome
girl to show to our friends. I suppose we'd better send it to the
papers, that is after Father knows, and Lady Jane.... How would you
put it '...to Barbara, daughter of the late Somebody Burt'? We'd
better put 'and niece of the late Sir Walter Rutherfurd and of Lady Jane
Rutherfurd, the Harbour House, Kirkmeikle.' That sounds quite tony...
I wonder what Mrs. McArthur'll say when she reads it in the _Herald_?"




                              CHAPTER XXIX


    "O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?"

                                                _Romeo and Juliet._

Nicole had thought she wanted to get away from Kirkmeikle, but all the
time at Rutherfurd she had pined to be back. She saw the place where she
had known Simon through the haze of her dreams, it was beautified by her
memories, she felt there must be a virtue in it that would help her to
courage and patience.

But going back was not all she had pictured.

It was a day grey with east wind. Edinburgh was at its rawest and
bleakest. The Gardens had a dejected look as if they had ceased to
believe that it could ever be warm and sunny again, even the Castle
seemed a mere dull hulk. At every street corner passers-by clung to the
collars of their coats for the blast was biting.

Nicole had meant to do some shopping and get the afternoon train, but
she felt so discouraged by the prevailing gloom that she was thankful to
escape. She settled herself in the corner of an empty carriage, but
discomfort dogged her steps, for there entered a bronchial lady in a
sealskin coat who immediately demanded that the windows be closed, the
result being a sort of cold frowst.

Nicole stared out of the window. The Firth was sullen and grey. One by
one they passed, the dreary, dripping little stations, then Kirkcaldy
with its tall factories and "queer-like smell," and, at last,
Kirkmeikle. She sprang out and looked eagerly round. There was no one to
meet her, of course; she was not expected till the next train,
nevertheless she felt neglected. A young porter came along kicking at a
stone, and whistling, and she pointed out her boxes and, asking him to
see that they were sent down to the Harbour House, set off walking.

There is something about an east wind on a March day that seems to lay a
weight on the spirits. As she walked down the familiar steep street
Nicole felt supremely sorry for herself. Here she was, alone, Simon
every minute going farther from her, her mother living with her
memories, Barbara engrossed in Andrew Jackson.

As she passed Mrs. Brodie's little house with its steps leading down to
the front door she looked eagerly, but the door was close shut; she was
not even to be cheered by a sight of "the wee horse."

She stole into the Harbour House like a thief in the night, and went
straight to the drawing-room. Here, anyhow, was comfort. The bleakness
of the March day had no power to chill the gentle colours of the quiet
room. Here was peace.

The fire was purring to itself as little flames licked the seasoned
logs. Lady Jane sat at the bureau. She had been writing one of her long
family letters, and had stopped to think for a little, head on hand. A
small glass of deep blue grape hyacinths stood beside her on the bureau,
the three miniatures that never left her were ranged there. On the wall
above were other miniatures, older, much older, with the tremulous look
that such meek little pictures of the past have: the modern ones looked
almost blatant beside them. A small frame with a bit of embroidery in
the making lay on the arm of a chair, the _Cornhill_ open beside it.

Nicole, having opened the door without being heard, stood, holding her
breath in the quiet. How contented the room looked, the very furniture
seemed to like to be there! It was her mother that made it so, she
thought. Some rooms are as restless as their owners, one could not
imagine any one sitting down in them to read or think, or to be "lonely
and happy and good." They seem only meant for sprawling about in with an
illustrated paper, for smoking and drinking cocktails, for light talk
and lighter laughter.

Lady Jane's rooms were sanctuaries, sweet with fresh flowers, gently gay
with choice embroidery and rugs, wise with old books.

"Mother," Nicole said softly.

Lady Jane sprang up, her face suddenly warm with colour, her eyes bright
and expectant. She saw her daughter: "My darling--you!" she cried, and
put her hand to her eyes for a second. "I'm getting old, Nikky, and
wandering. When you spoke just now I thought... your voices were all
so much alike.--But where have you come from? I meant to be at the
station to meet you at six o'clock."

"I know, I know. I ought to have sent a wire. It was such a terrible day
in Edinburgh I had no heart to shop, so I rushed and caught the early
train. And there was a woman in the carriage who loved a frowst, and it
was so sad seeing no one at the station, and I'm dreadfully cold and
it's a mischievous world...."

Ten minutes later, sitting well "into the fire" with a cup of hot tea in
her hand, Nicole gave a long sigh and said, "Mums, I don't believe
there's an ill in the world that a good fire and a good tea can't do
something to lighten. Even when your heart's nearly broken there's a
slight consolation to be found in these two blessed things, and, when
added to them, one has a mother like you, well---- I don't believe I'm
going to take pneumonia after all...."

"That's a good thing," said her mother. "Now, if you're sufficiently
warmed and comforted, perhaps you'll tell me something about your visit.
Your letters were wonderfully unilluminating."

"I know." Nicole looked at the fire. "You see it was rather
difficult...."

Lady Jane looked at her daughter's averted face, and said: "Barbara
seems to have enjoyed her visit."

"Yes, oh yes--Mums, I rather expect we'll be hearing some news from Babs
soon. She and Andrew Jackson have made great friends. I expect Babs will
go back to Rutherfurd as mistress. Funny, isn't it?"

"Very. You liked the young man?"

"Oh, I did, enormously. He's quite one of the nicest people I've ever
met. He's got something of his mother's simplicity, along with very good
brains and excellent taste. He'll make a fine laird of Rutherfurd. Babs
is in luck. And so is he. It'll make all the difference to Babs to have
a house of her own and an assured position.... I've been thinking,
Mums, it can't always have been easy for her living with us. Of course
she adores you quite as much as if you had been her own mother, and
you've never made the slightest difference between us, but when I grew
up I must have been a horrid snag, always in the way. I rather wonder
she didn't hate me--a smaller-natured person would have, for I can see
looking back how often I must have spoiled things for her, but I believe
in spite of everything she is fond of me.--We'll miss her terribly,
won't we, Mums? I do like tart people. Babs was like the cloves in an
apple-tart, she gave things a flavour!..."

"But, Nikky, are you sure of this?"

Nicole nodded. "Quite sure. Barbara, as I told you, went off to-day to
stay with the Langlands. I give Andy--I love the way his mother says it,
'A-andy'--just two days to miss her, to realise where he stands, and to
go over to Langlands and propose. And Barbara, dear thing, knows where
her happiness lies. That I am sure of too. If there was ever in her
heart any feeling of superiority, of stepping down to accept, it is gone
now," she laughed softly. "She looks at Andy as if he were a knight in
armour instead of a little Glasgow merchant!"

Lady Jane stitched for a minute or two in silence, then she said, "As
you say we'll miss Barbara very badly, but I confess, I'm glad to hear
of this. I've often worried about her, and sometimes I've felt that I
wasn't quite fair to you in my efforts not to make her feel out of
it.... It was often hard for her, but I'm glad you never realised it
till now or things would have been more difficult.--Then, will Barbara
settle down at Rutherfurd with the parents?"

"I think not. I believe the elder Jacksons will go back to Glasgow. Mrs.
Jackson will never be really happy at Rutherfurd. She's proud of it but
feels herself entirely alien. She tells me her dream is to get a new
villa in a Glasgow suburb, with two good servants and a little garden,
and 'Father' less busy, and her old friends round her. She says she is
tired of being 'county' and prefers to be suburban. Sensible woman, she
knows what she wants. She really is a dear, Mother. I loved listening to
her stories, and going round the place with her, and hearing her talk to
all the cottage women, taking the deepest interest in all the details of
their cooking and housework and management of their children. They must
be fond of her, I'm sure. And all the people round like her so much."

"Does Barbara get on well with her?"

"Oh yes. Quite fairly well. I think she jars, you know. Babs is
ultra-sensitive and Mrs. Jackson has a somewhat free way of expressing
herself, but I expect it will be all right. They are united in one
thing--love for Andy.... Mr. Jackson is rather like a rat, a nice rat
of course, out of _The Wind in the Willows_ perhaps, a little depressing
to live with I should imagine. If he isn't at work in Glasgow, or buried
in papers at Rutherfurd, he doesn't seem to know what to do with
himself. He's a man 'perplexed wi' leisure.' He keeps tapping his top
teeth with the nail of his forefinger, and answers invariably, 'Is that
so?' Once he broke into an anecdote, but though I laughed immoderately I
couldn't see the point: I doubt if there was one.... And now tell me
your news. What have you done since I left?"

Lady Jane smiled as she pulled a thread through the linen she was
working on.

"Missed you, Nikky dear, mostly. And I've read and walked and sewed, and
written some of my endless letters, and the servants have been most
attentive, almost embarrassingly so--set on, I suppose, by you.
Christina kept making errands into the room every hour, watching me like
a nurse with a mental patient! I was driven to go out more than I would
otherwise have done, in consequence. And the Bat came every day for his
lessons, and once he lunched with me. He's an extraordinarily idle
little boy! If I don't watch him after I've given him a task, he simply
folds his hands and sits: he has no real thirst for knowledge!"

"Has any boy?" Nicole said and laughed.

"And I visited Betsy," her mother went on. "She is at war with her
daughter-in-law. There has been a new baby and Betsy hasn't been invited
to inspect it, and her pride won't let her go unasked. She makes a
virtue of remaining away, and says, 'It's a guid dowg that disna bark
till it's askit,' and adds, 'She'll never hae to soop her floor efter
me.'"

Nicole laughed. "Poor Betsy, she has a saying for every crisis in life.
And 'the wee horse'? I brought him some _gundy_."

"Oh," said Lady Jane, "there has been a crisis in the Brodie household
and Mrs. Brodie had no proverb ready! The poor 'wee horse' took suddenly
ill on Wednesday. I heard about it and went in about three o'clock in
the afternoon to see if I could do anything. I found Mrs. Brodie
white-washing the kitchen ceiling, with all the younger children
_including the invalid_ stacked in the kitchen bed to keep them out of
the dirt! When I expressed surprise that she should have chosen such a
time for such an undertaking, she replied that Dr. Kilgour was bringing
another doctor to consult, and she couldn't let a strange doctor see her
with a black ceiling! There were no bad results, indeed the child had
begun to improve when the two doctors arrived."

"Amazing!" said Nicole, "and what of our friends on the hill? Has Mrs.
Heggie asked you to any meals?"

"None in particular. I met her one day and she asked me to 'any meal I
cared to come to.' Mrs. Buckler's new housemaid goes in and out of the
front door instead of the back, which is causing friction. Miss
Symington I haven't seen. I think Mrs. Lambert must be spring-cleaning.
As I passed the garden-gate yesterday, the little stalwart Betha was
beating chairs furiously... you know, you've only been away for the
inside of a week though it seems much longer. It's a week to-day since
Mr. Beckett went away--I must say I've missed him a lot, I hadn't
realised quite how much his visits meant, how much I looked forward to
them. Things seem a little flat and stale, now that I know I won't hear
Christina announce 'Mr. Beckett.' He once said he felt ashamed to hear
himself announced so frequently and thought he ought to change his name
to create a diversion! I think he liked coming."

"Well," said Nicole, in an even voice, "I knew I liked him coming. He
was almost as much my friend as the Bat's. The poor Bat must be missing
him terribly. I must take him out and devise some sport, but I'll be a
wretched substitute for his beloved Simon. Heigh-ho! I wish nice people
didn't always want to put the thick of the world between themselves and
their friends and well-wishers! and the dull, tiresome ones remain,
sticking closer than a brother."




                              CHAPTER XXX


    "Consider Mr. Collins' respectability, and Charlotte's prudent,
    steady character. Remember that as to fortune it is a most
    eligible match; and be ready to believe... that she may feel
    something like regard and esteem for Mr. Collins."

                                                       JANE AUSTEN.

Wondering much what was happening to Miss Symington, Nicole made an
early opportunity to call at Ravenscraig.

The ten days which had elapsed since their last meeting had made a
decided change on Janet. She carried herself with more importance, as if
the coming dignity of matrimony was already casting its shadow. She
spoke with more weight, was inclined to lay down the law, to treat
Nicole rather patronisingly as a mere spinster.

Events had moved rapidly, and everything was arranged for an early
marriage.

"Samuel says there's no sense in delay," she said with a little
conscious laugh.

"No," said Nicole.

"And the housekeeper's leaving in May anyway. She isn't at all
satisfactory, Samuel says, very lax about the amount eaten in the
kitchen."

"Does that matter?" Nicole asked carelessly.

"Of course it matters. It's not right not to be careful, no matter what
your means may be."

"I daresay not, but it seems a pity to make a fuss and have no end of
unpleasantness.... I'd rather be cheated."

"I don't agree," Miss Symington said, pursing her mouth. "I couldn't be
happy if I thought waste was going on. I've just parted with my
cook--very inconveniently--simply for waste. The woman had no conscience
about dripping."

"Hadn't she, poor soul? Well, well. And have you decided where the
wedding is to be? In Mr. Lambert's church, I suppose?"

"No. We're going to have a very quiet wedding in the Caledonian Hotel in
Edinburgh. Samuel doesn't care for church weddings, he doesn't like
display, and there will only be the nearest relations present."

"Oh," Nicole said, looking dashed. "It won't seem much like a wedding,
will it, in a hotel?"

"Oh, I don't know. A church wedding is such a parade, and with Samuel a
widower and me far from young, it would be quite out of place.--I've
been to see the house and the children."

"Oh, you have? I hope you liked what you saw of them."

"Quite. Quite. I'm not awfully fond of Morningside, and it's just a
house in a terrace.--I'll miss the space we have here, and there's a
basement flat which I don't like, but you can't have everything. I'm
sorry now I was at all the expense of doing up this house. If only I had
known what the future held for me--but Samuel never gave me an inkling
of his intentions, and I never imagined such a thing possible, though I
always admired him.... But Samuel has consented to sell his
drawing-room furniture--it was furnished by his first wife on her
marriage, quite handsomely but without much taste--and I'll put this
furniture into it.... It'll require to be redecorated, of course,
something the same as this I should think." She looked thoughtfully
round the pretty room. "It's been practically unused since the first
wife died, for, of course, there was no entertaining done. All the house
is thoroughly well-furnished and stocked. I suppose I'll need to get rid
of nearly all my things. There's no room for them."

"Why not let Ravenscraig furnished; or keep it as a summer house?"

Miss Symington looked thoughtful. "Well, that's an idea, and it would
let me keep my things. I'll need to think it over and see what Samuel
says. It's a different thing when you've got a man to consult." She
sighed, not unhappily.

"And the daughters?" Nicole asked. "Are they agreeable creatures?"

"Ye--es. Agnes is just finishing school, she's seventeen. Her father's
going to send her for a year to Paris, and then she'll be at home."

"Pretty?"

"Not very. She's a lank kind of girl with a long pale face and an
Edinburgh accent; she seems inclined to lounge."

"Perhaps she has grown too fast, and her spine's weak," Nicole suggested
cheerfully. "Paris ought to smarten her up a bit."

"They've been very carefully brought up," Janet went on, "never been
taught dancing, or allowed to go to the theatre."

"Oh--well, I daresay it's possible to be quite happy without dancing or
going to the play. They'll be allowed to play games, I suppose, and go
to concerts?"

"Oh, I think so, and the circus. My father hated the theatre, but he
said a circus was different--the horses, you know.... The younger
girl, Jessie, struck me as being rather a monkey. She has a dimple, and
a good deal of colour, and I distinctly saw her wink at Agnes behind her
father's back! But she's only fifteen, so I shan't have much to do with
her for a few years, except, of course, in the holidays. But when I saw
those girls, Miss Rutherfurd, and the basement I couldn't help thinking
I'd taken on a good deal."

"I think you have," Nicole told her frankly. "To run a house with a
basement in an Edinburgh suburb, and make a man and two young girls and,
incidentally, yourself happy!"

"Of course," said Miss Symington, "I'm giving up a lot, my own house, my
freedom, and--and----" She looked round vaguely as if in search of
something, and continued. "But there will be great compensations. I'll
be Mrs. Innes. It's only now I realise how much I've always wanted to be
a Mrs.... And Samuel's a highly respected man with a very good
position. And we've exactly the same tastes; I _will_ enjoy going with
him to meetings, and I'll take a real pleasure in seeing that he's
comfortable. I don't believe the housekeeper looked after his clothes as
she should have done, and, of course, the girls were too young to care.
And then I'll have a large circle of new acquaintances, and my life will
be full. I've often felt Kirkmeikle very cramping; the people are so
uninteresting.... I wonder you stand it, for you're young."

Nicole laughed. "But I don't find the people dull," she said.

Janet nodded her head sagely. "It's all very well for you, you've just
alighted here like a bird and will be off again whenever the spirit
moves you. That was what Mr. Lambert said about you when you came, and I
thought it was so true. You look so interested in everything, and seem
so keen, but your real life isn't here at all."

"The difficulty," said Nicole, "is to have a real life anywhere.--But
what I want to know is, _have you got your clothes?_ What will you wear
in the Caledonian Hotel on your wedding day?"

Janet blushed becomingly. "Well, that's what I want to ask you. Samuel
liked the last things you chose for me, indeed, I'll always treasure
that brown dress with the orange, for I was wearing it when Samuel first
saw he cared for me.... He went home, you know, and wrote.--I don't
want to be a laughing stock. Talmage once said that nothing made him
laugh so much as to see a middle-aged woman dressed like a girl, and
I've never forgotten it."

"Who was Talmage?"

"He was a minister, American, I think, who wrote every week in a paper
called the _Christian Herald_."

"Well," said Nicole, "I don't think I care for Mr. Talmage's kind of
humour. If a woman dresses becomingly no one will laugh at her. Of
course, if a middle-aged woman shingles her hair and reddens her lips
and wears skirts to her knees, they might laugh, but the decent ones
would feel more inclined to cry.... What do you think you'd like to
wear yourself?"

"Well," again Janet blushed, "Samuel likes brown in all shades."

"Oh, well that includes fawn and that's quite wedding-like. Why not have
a very pale fawn with long tight sleeves and some embroidery--rather
vivid--with a cloak of the same with a beaver collar for softness, and a
hat repeating the colours in the embroidery, and shoes and stockings and
gloves all in palest fawn."

Janet's eyes shone. "I'd like that. I couldn't think of a single thing
except grey and pink, and grey is so cold, and doesn't suit me....
I'm afraid I'm being very troublesome, but will you come with me to
Edinburgh and explain just exactly what you mean to the dressmaker?
Middle-aged woman as I am she makes me feel like a school-girl and I
just do whatever she suggests, but if you were there to support me----"

"Of course I'll come. Weddings are so interesting, and I love having a
finger in the pie."

She rose to go, and Miss Symington said, "Had you a good time when you
were away? I've been talking away about my own affairs, and probably you
have more exciting things happening to you which you never speak of."

"Epoch-making events!" laughed Nicole. "How is the B---- Alastair?"

"That's another complication," Miss Symington said, looking worried. "It
seems a shame that Samuel should be saddled with the child, and yet he's
rather young to be sent to school."

"He's not seven yet."

"I know. It's very difficult knowing what to do. The house in
Morningside isn't large, and we couldn't spare a room for a nursery, and
yet a child coming to meals and always about is such a nuisance. And I
don't want to take Annie, and yet who would take the child out and look
after him? It would just come on me. Of course I'm fond of Alastair, but
I never did understand him. Samuel's very good about it, and says 'Bring
him along,' but I don't know.. However, it's no use worrying about
it.... Good-bye, just now."

Nicole went home very thoughtful, and finding her mother alone at once
began: "Mums, I'm worried about the Bat."

"Why, isn't he well?"

"Oh, quite, I think, but Miss Symington's marriage is going to change
things for him!"

"I hope so, poor darling. He has a dreary life with her here."

"I'm afraid he has," Nicole agreed; "though she honestly tries to do her
best for him. But, Samuel's house, it seems, isn't large enough to take
in the Bat, and..."

"Samuel?" Lady Jane raised puzzled eyes.

"The man Miss Symington's going to marry--Samuel Innes. I told you about
him. I've just come from Ravenscraig. Mother, she's so changed. She
talks now, quite a lot, and actually simpers. Often middle-aged
marriages are lovely things, intensely happy with a grateful happiness
that is the very innocence of love; but somehow Samuel and his house in
Morningside with a basement and pert school-girl daughters! Poor Janet
Symington! And yet what right have I to call her poor? She is almost
triumphant. She says her life will be so full, and she is looking
forward to going to meetings with Samuel. Isn't life the most laughable,
pathetic jumble? I wonder what Miss Symington's religion really amounts
to! Does she want to do good because Christ died for her, and for His
sake she must be loving and giving, or is it only an inherited fear of a
jealous God Who will send her to Hell if she doesn't heap up, ant-like,
little bundles of good deeds and works of mercy? I don't know. I don't
know. But it's the Bat I care about. Wouldn't it be possible, Mother, if
Miss Symington were willing, for us to take him? He could stay with us
until he was old enough for school, that's all we need say at present,
but gradually he would become our own. Boys mean so much to you and
me...."

There was a silence, then Nicole said:

"Wouldn't you like to have him for your own, Mother, the funny little
Bat? To have a boy to look after again, to see about his clothes and his
tuck-box, and welcome him back for the holidays? Miss Symington never
really wanted him, I think she disliked his parents, and I can't bear to
think of him an unwelcome presence in that Morningside house, with
Samuel and the lank girl that lounges, and the pink girl that winks."

Half-laughing, half-crying, she laid her head on her mother's knee, and
Lady Jane, stroking her hair, said:

"I think it would be an immense comfort to have the Bat--if it can be
arranged. We've lots of room, and time, and everything. The first moment
I saw the child I felt drawn to him, in fact, I can't explain to myself
the curious sympathy there is between us. And he is so small and
solitary in the world. When he gets on that too-large overcoat, and
gravely salutes as he goes away with Gentle Annie, I yearn over him!
And now that his friend is gone for the time being we've more
responsibility... will you see Miss Symington, Nik, or shall I?"

"I think I'd better. I've promised to go with her to Edinburgh to choose
clothes--isn't it good of her to want me to help? I'll have lots of
opportunities. But I don't think she will make any serious objection.
It's a way out of the difficulty for her, and for us---- Oh, Mother,
won't it be lovely? Let's plan now about his room...."




                              CHAPTER XXXI


                    "Oh isna she verra weel aff
                      To be woo't an' mairrit an' a'?"

                                                          _Scots Song._

Events worked out even as Nicole had predicted. Barbara wrote to her
aunt from Langlands saying that she had promised to marry Andrew
Jackson. It was not an ecstatic letter, indeed there was a sort of
gravity about it that made Lady Jane wonder, and hope that Barbara was
not marrying for any but the one reason. She questioned Nicole. "She
cares for him, you think?"

Nicole reassured her. "She certainly cares for him. Rutherfurd matters
to her too, of course, but it comes a long way behind Andrew Jackson.
Have no doubts, Mums. Happiness is rather startling, you know. She would
be but little happy, if she could say how much. When is she coming
home?"

Lady Jane returned to the letter. "Wednesday, she says. I'll write at
once."

"So shall I, but I'll send a wire with our love first thing. Is there a
form there? Christina will fly with it."

Barbara came back and was petted and made much of to her heart's
content, and it was a changed Barbara, softened, warmed, willing even to
see good in Kirkmeikle now that she was leaving it.

"Why, Babs," Nicole cried, "I believe you're quite interested in Miss
Symington's approaching nuptials? You and she seemed to be having quite
a heart-to-heart talk. Own she isn't so intolerable as you used to find
her."

Barbara laughed rather shamefacedly. "I own I was a cantankerous
creature, but it does make such a difference to know I'm only sojourning
here, not tied, not caged. Now I can see all the good points both in the
place and the people. I never would admit they had any, would I?"

Nicole agreed that it was easy to be a sojourner. "Then you haven't to
be consistently pleasant, that's what gives people nervous breakdowns.
But there's something else, Babs. Your whole outlook on life has
changed. Happiness makes people wonderfully kind." And she lightly
kissed the top of her cousin's head as she went out of the room.

It was arranged that the marriage would take place very quietly in the
beginning of June in the Rutherfurd church, and afterwards at
Kingshouse. Jean Douglas insisted that it should be so.

    "After all," she wrote, "Fife is a _fremt_ place, with which you
    have no links, whereas there isn't a soul in this countryside
    that won't be interested. You must all come to me for at least a
    week before. Thomas says that he can see that my fingers are
    itching to get started, and I must say I do like to manage
    things. Of course I know you will want a quiet wedding, but you
    must have all your oldest friends. It's a most satisfactory
    marriage. Andrew Jackson is a thoroughly good sort, and Barbara
    will make the best of wives. I went to see Mrs. Jackson
    yesterday. She said she was very pleased--as well she might be!
    But I thought her rather quiet and dull. I daresay she feels
    giving up her only son. And she and her husband are going back
    to Glasgow, so she told me. Probably a wise step, but I can't
    help feeling sorry. I shall miss her. I've got a sincere liking
    for her, and I could listen for hours to her conversation. I
    shall miss her, too, at the Nursing Meetings. It always cheered
    me to meet her shrewd eyes and exchange a furtive smile; she and
    I shared many jokes.... By the way, I've just heard that the
    Bothwells are giving up their delicious little house: it would
    be so beautifully perfect for you and Nikky. Leave your old
    Harbour House and your sea-mews and come back to your own
    country-side.... But of this more anon----"

It was all arranged about the Bat. Miss Symington had protested, had
taken council with Samuel, and finally accepted Lady Jane's offer. If
she had qualms about it she salved her conscience with the assurance
that she was really doing a good turn to poor Lady Jane. "And the keep
of a child doesn't amount to much," she told herself, "and father left
him enough to pay for his education, so he won't be much expense."

She told Alastair one morning at breakfast.

"You know, Alastair," she said, "that I'm going to be married to Mr.
Innes and live in Edinburgh?"

"Yes," said Alastair, polite, but uninterested.

"And Lady Jane has kindly asked you to come and live with her."

Alastair's hand holding a bit of bread and butter was suspended in
mid-air while he fixed his eyes on his aunt's face.

"To live? To take my pyjamas and my tooth-brush and sleep at the Harbour
House, not come back here at all?"

"No, of course you won't come back here. This house will be shut up."

"And Annie?"

"Yes, Annie's to go with you, though you're far too big a boy to have a
nurse---- Where are you going?"

Alastair was scrambling from his chair. "I'm going to tell Annie," he
said.

"Nonsense, you haven't finished your breakfast.... Are you so glad to
be going to the Harbour House that you can't wait?"

"Yes," said Alastair.

"Aren't you sorry to leave me and leave Ravenscraig?"

Alastair got rather pink and said "Yes" without much conviction.

"Run away then," said his aunt, and to herself she said rather bitterly:
"Unfeeling, like his father before him."

Miss Symington had decided recklessly to defy superstition and be
married in May. Samuel wished to attend the General Assembly of his
church, so it was on the last day of the sitting of that august body
that Janet stood up in the Caledonian Station Hotel to become Mrs.
Innes.

It was an exciting time in Kirkmeikle with preparations for two
weddings, and it is doubtful if Mrs. Heggie had ever been quite so
happy. All barriers went down before her kindly interest, and she
trotted--no, that is not the word to describe this large, hearty lady,
rather she sailed, like some old-fashioned vessel with all sails set,
between Ravenscraig and the Harbour House, inspecting each present as it
arrived, gloating over the soft stuffs and fine lace of the two
trousseaux.

Miss Symington's presents were rather scanty, for she had few friends
and fewer relations, but Samuel and his connections had risen to the
occasion, and Janet was more than satisfied. Her expression became
positively smug, so much so that Mrs. Heggie, calling one evening at the
Harbour House on the chance of seeing anything that was to be seen,
said:

"I never in my life saw anybody so changed as Miss Symington."

"Changed?" Lady Jane lifted her eyebrows questioningly.

"In every way," said Mrs. Heggie. "A year ago you wouldn't have seen a
duller or more dejected figure. I used often to say to Joan that she was
a typical old maid. Always neat and tidy, you know, but just a person
you looked at once and then looked away. And her conversation! It wasn't
there! Fond as I am of tea-parties, I quite dreaded going to tea with
her. I had to bear the whole brunt of the conversation. Not," Mrs.
Heggie chuckled, "that that was any real effort to me, for I'm a great
talker, but you can understand it wasn't very interesting. And her house
was as depressing as herself. With all her money I don't think she ever
had a luxury. Luxury! She was so busy looking for waste that she hardly
gave the household proper food. Of course she did give away a lot to
deserving charities, and worked away herself on all sorts of committees,
and went to meetings, but, I may be wrong, it never seemed to me that
she did it for the love of it. It was all duty with Miss Symington, and
duty's a cold thing. I never heard of her being a comfort to any one in
trouble, or doing an impulsively kind thing, and perhaps at heart she's
still the same, but what a difference on the outside! You could have
knocked me down with a feather the first time I went to call after I saw
the workmen had left, and the curtains were up. Joan said the
drawing-room reminded her of _Hassan_--that's a play, you know--and Miss
Symington herself with her hair brought forward over her ears (I
couldn't have believed she had such pretty, soft hair for she wore it
scraped back, indeed she always reminded me of the man who shaved his
beard, saying, 'A' face that wull be face!'), and a dress of soft brown
with some colour about it to warm it! I tell you I almost forgot my
manners and said, 'My dear, what have you done to yourself?'--It was
like a transformation scene. I wonder what put it into her head. Joan
says she must always have been in love with Mr. Innes and that this was
a last effort to attract him--but I don't know. Joan writes, you see,
and literary people have queer notions about things, besides, Miss
Symington was too nice-minded to want to attract.--What do you think,
Miss Rutherfurd?"

That young woman was sitting in one of the window-seats showing Mrs.
Lambert a beautiful book which had just come for Barbara, between
intervals of listening to Mrs. Heggie's conversation. Barbara, in
another window-seat, was sewing a fine seam.

"Oh," said Nicole, "to my way of thinking there's nothing actively
immoral about trying to make oneself attractive, but you'd be safer to
ask Mrs Lambert." She turned to her friend. "What do you think?"

Mrs. Lambert's face flushed as she said:

"I think it's only right for every woman, young or old, to look as
attractive as possible, but, dear me! it's terribly difficult when
you're busy all day and at night simply long to tumble into bed. For
making yourself attractive takes time, hair brushing, and attending to
your hands, and keeping your skin smooth. And in the morning one is so
apt to twist up one's hair anyhow and run, when there's the breakfast
waiting to be made, and the children to bath and dress, and the whole
house depending on you to freshen it up for the day! But deliberately to
make oneself attractive for an object doesn't seem to me quite nice, and
I don't believe Miss Symington ever had such an idea. I think she was
immensely surprised herself when Mr. Innes asked her to marry him."

"What kind of man is he?" Lady Jane asked.

"Quite a personable man to look at," Mrs. Heggie said, and Mrs. Lambert
put in, "John says he's a good man."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Nicole, "for 'John' ought to know: he's a
very good man himself. D'you know what I'm going to start in
Kirkmeikle?--a society for speaking ill of our neighbours. It's
perfectly ridiculous the way every one says only nice things about every
one else, and _thinks_ them, too--that's the worst of it. It's so
_dull_."

Mrs. Heggie laughed appreciatingly. "You'd like our old cook. She
smooths her apron and begins. 'I suppose...' and tells you the most
terrible tales of every one. And there's not a word of truth in them,
that's the best of it."

"Or the worst of it!" said Nicole.

"Oh, I don't know," Mrs. Heggie said. "I don't like to have to think ill
of anybody." Then in a stage whisper.... "Any more presents, Miss
Burt?" and Barbara in her new kindness and patience smiled at her and
offered to take her up to see what had come lately.

"Let's all go," said Nicole, and they all went.

A large unoccupied bedroom had been given over to Barbara for her
dresses and presents, and very delightful it looked that evening to the
visitors, with the spring sun pouring in through a west window on tables
stacked with offerings.

Among many rare and lovely things there was the usual pile of
silversmith's boxes containing tea-knives and spoons, toast-racks and
sugar-sifters, ink-pots and paper-knives, mustard and pepper-pots
complete with salt-cellars.

"What you're going to do with them all, Babs, I know not," Nicole said,
"because it isn't as if you were starting a house. Rutherfurd's stocked
with everything."

Barbara shook her head. "Most of them will remain in the silver chest,
I'm afraid."

"It's extraordinary," said Lady Jane, "how one's mind goes when one
starts out to buy a present. There are so many things to give, but
everything at the moment is forgotten, and I can think of nothing but
silver candlesticks or an inkstand--and I hate both, and always use
glass candlesticks and ink-pots. But you've been lucky, Barbara, getting
so many really charming things. Show Mrs. Heggie the old Waterford
glasses you got to-day, and the painted tray, and the lovely lace
dinner-set, and the lacquer table."

Mrs. Heggie gloated over everything, patting the things for pure
pleasure.

"I do like my Kirkmeikle presents," said Barbara. "I mean to use your
tea-caddy every single day, Mrs. Lambert. See how beautifully it goes
with this tray and the Worcester cups! And your present, Mrs. Heggie,
just speaks of comfort."

"Like Mrs. Heggie herself," put in Nicole.

The present in question was an eider-down quilt, large, thick, lustrous.

"It's a homely sort of gift," Mrs. Heggie said, as she proudly eyed her
offering displayed over the end of the bed, "but useful."

"_Very_," said Barbara. "This Chinese panel is from the Bucklers. Isn't
it a nice splash of colour?"

"Everything's perfect," sighed Mrs. Heggie, "but are we not to have a
chance of seeing Mr. Jackson himself?"

"Oh, I hope so," Lady Jane said, "but we've been meeting in Edinburgh as
a half-way house. Andrew is very busy just now, as you may suppose. I
met him for the first time last week and was delighted with my new
nephew.... Shall we go downstairs now?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was a beautiful day, Janet's wedding-day, very clear and golden, and
as Nicole walked towards the Caledonian Hotel from her Club where she
had been lunching, she thought that never did Edinburgh look so well as
on a bright May afternoon.

It was the last day of the Assemblies and Princes Street was full of
black-coated figures hurrying to catch trains that would take them back
to their different homes. Some were well dressed, with glossy silk hats,
and walked importantly, looking as if they had flourishing congregations
and were frequently mentioned in the _British Weekly_ as outstanding
preachers. Some looked rather shabby and careworn; these Nicole judged
to be men who had a hard row to hoe, and she hoped they had warm, kind
homes to go back to, and understanding wives to give them a welcome.

One man she noticed in particular, a thin little man with a
travelling-bag in one hand, and several parcels in the other, parcels of
which she thought she could guess the contents. The flat one was a book
from Andrew Elliot's for the minister himself, the oblong parcel in
white paper was Ferguson's Edinburgh rock for the children, and the
thick package was cake from Mackie's, good rich cake that his careful
wife would put away in a crock, and which would come out to grace
several tea-parties. Nicole looked very kindly at the little hurrying
figure, and amused herself picturing the reception he and his parcels
would get when they arrived at home.

Nicole was invited alone to the wedding, indeed it was rather a
concession that she was there at all, for only relatives were supposed
to be present, but Janet had made a point of her being there.

"I'll feel safer," she said, "if I know you're there. It's not as if I
know Samuel's relations at all intimately, and I know they'll be there
to criticise. When I come into the room I'll look at you, and if you
give a nod, I'll know I'm looking all right."

Nicole was prepared to enjoy everything, and when she was taken to a
large room half-full of people she looked about at once for some one she
knew. She found they were all strangers to her except Mr. and Mrs.
Lambert, who were at the other end of the room. With them was Alastair,
resplendent in a new white man-of-war suit, but wearing a subdued
expression.

No one seemed quite to know whether they ought to behave as if they were
in a church or not, but the social atmosphere was so chilly that to warm
it Nicole began at once to talk to the people on either side of her,
though she had never seen them before, and they evinced no desire to
become better acquainted with her.

Some one at the piano broke into a wedding-march, and the two ministers,
with Samuel and his best man, moved into position, and Janet came in on
the arm of her uncle, an aged and confirmed hypochondriac who lived in
complete seclusion, but who had been forcibly resurrected for the
occasion by his strong-minded niece.

The eyes of the bride sought her friend, and Nicole gave her a radiant
nod, and indeed Janet had never looked so well in her life. Samuel, in a
frock-coat, seemed to think so, for his smile was more unctuous than
ever.

Mr. Lambert, looking acutely miserable, assisted by the bridegroom's
minister, married them, and the short, unadorned service was soon over.

"It doesn't take long to do a great deed," a chinless young man remarked
solemnly, and Nicole laughed suddenly.

Seeing that there was no chance of getting near the bride and bridegroom
yet awhile, she made her way to where the Lamberts were sitting and soon
had Alastair supremely happy drinking lemonade through a straw.

Mr. Lambert had gone to look for tea for his wife, and appeared with a
cup which was mostly slopped into the saucer.

"John's no use at a wedding," Mrs. Lambert said sadly. "Just look how
Mr. Robson is making everyone laugh!"

She cast a rebuking glance at her husband who said stiffly, "I see no
p-point in being facetious at a wedding."

"Well, if you can't be facetious, be useful, and get Miss Rutherfurd
some tea." But Nicole thought it wiser to make her own way to the
buffet, and there she enjoyed an excellent meal.

She shook hands with the newly-wed couple and was introduced to the
stepdaughters. They talked for a little, and she liked them, they were
good laughers and quite unaffected, and she felt that unless Janet erred
grossly the household at Morningside should go fairly smoothly.

The bride moved up to Nicole. "Well?" she said.

"Splendid. You look quite, quite charming, and everything has gone off
so well. They have done things nicely, haven't they? Such good cakes and
ices!"

Janet looked round complacently. "Quite. Quite. And it's such a blessing
it's a good day. A nice-looking lot of people, don't you think?
Practically all Samuel's relations."

"Yes, and I like your stepdaughters. Give them a good time, Miss--_Mrs._
Innes!"

Janet nodded. "I'll do my best for them, you may be sure. I'm going to
change now. We're leaving about four--_motoring to Crieff_," the last in
a hoarse whisper.

When the bride and bridegroom departed amid a little genteel throwing of
confetti and many good wishes, Nicole stood looking after the departing
car. "I _hope_ they'll be happy," she thought, "and anyway, they've done
us a good turn." She held the hand of the Bat and smiled down at his
small upturned face on which content lay like a sunbeam. He was going
back that very night to the Harbour House. Gentle Annie was there
already with all his belongings, and it seemed to the child that life
was now going to be like a fairy-tale come true.




                             CHAPTER XXXII


    "You to your land and love and great allies."

                                                  _As You Like It._

The Harbour House was in a state of pleasant turmoil until the wedding
was over.

To Alastair it seemed as if Paradise had opened its gates to him. There
was no time to think of lessons, so he and Gentle Annie spent hectic
days flying backwards and forwards to the Post Office with parcels and
telegrams, and two days of pure bliss helping the man who came from
Edinburgh to pack the precious things safely. Alastair was hopelessly at
sea about the reason for the preparations, and when he heard Christina
talk of "Miss Barbara's bridegroom" he said, "Oh, so she's going to
marry Mr. Innes too?" the word "bridegroom" suggesting to him only the
frock-coated Samuel.

"I daursay no," said Christina, tossing her head in an affronted way.
"Miss Barbara's mairryin' a braw young man."

An anxious frown puckered Alastair's brow. "But, Christina," he said,
"where'll we find him? Will he be walking about?"

Christina laughed. "Oh, she's fand him richt eneuch!... Eh, I'd like
fine to gang to Rutherfurd to see the weddin'!... It's sic a bonnie
wee kirk, an' a' green an' quait aboot it; an' the windays are clear, a'
but the big yin at the end, an' ye can see the sheep feedin' on the
knowes sae canny-like. I dinna like thae stained-gless windays!"

Alastair looked interested. "Church can't be so bad," he said, "when you
can see out, not so like being in prison.... Tell me more about
Rutherfurd."

"Och," said Christina, polishing a glass--they were together in the
pantry--"I'm nae guid at describin' things. Ye'll see it for yersel',
for I heard Miss Nicole sayin' that Mistress Douglas hed askit ye to
Kingshouse. It's a braw bit, I can tell ye, ye've naething like it aboot
here.--But it's a' different yonder. The roadsides are fu' o' flowers,
buttercups, and ragged robbin, and crawfit, an' they smell sae bonnie.
And on the hill-sides ye find wee yella pansies, an' thyme, an' heather
bells, an' whiles"--she nodded her head at the Bat--"an' _whiles_ ye git
a deil's snuff-box."

"Ooh! What is it, Christina?"

"They're brown things juist like wee bags, an' when ye squeeze them
stuff like snuff comes oot."

Alastair drew a long breath, and presently asked, "And is there a sea?"

"Na" Christina pursed up her lips and shook her head. "There's nae sea,
but we can easy dae wantin't, we've sic fine burns gaun joukin' through
the heather and loupin' ower linns. Whaur ma hame is there's a burn
juist at the back door, an' a brig, a wee wudden brig wi' steps up an'
doon, an' there's a muckle flat stane whaur ma mither kneels when she
taks oot the pots an' pans to scour them in the pool. An' mony a time
I've guddled under the stanes--ye ken ye lie doon on the bank an' pit
baith yir haunds verra cautious roond a stane, an' whiles ye catch a
troot."

"Yes. Arthur catches trouts with a fishing-rod: he told me. They're like
poddlies, aren't they?"

"Poddlies! Na. They're a faur higher breed o' fish. They've brown backs,
an' they're speckled wi' red and white, an' the big yins lie in the
pools an' lauch at ye, but the wee yin's are easy catch't, bein'
innocent."

Christina put the silver forks and spoons carefully into the baize-lined
basket and Alastair sat watching her.

"Christina," he said, "why did you leave your home at Rutherfurd?"

"Deed... I whiles speir that masel! But ma mither said, 'Gang wi' her
leddyship, Christina,' an' then, ye see, I was betterin' masel. An' I
like Kirkmeikle no' that bad, and her leddyship and Miss Nicole tell us
a' the news they hear aboot hame, an' there's auld Betsy Curle aye gled
to crack aboot it--but I wadna settle here. Na. Ma laud's at Rutherfurd.
He's a mole-catcher."

Alastair gasped. The fascinating and unusual things they did in that
wonderful place that was called Rutherfurd--guddling, and mole-catching,
and looking for "deil's snuff-boxes"!

"Ay, an' when we've gethered eneuch we'll get mairrit--aboot the New
Year I wad like it to be, I've aye a notion to be mairrit then--an' live
in a wee hoose beside a burn. I ken the yin I want, an' it'll mebbe be
empty when we're ready for't."

"And is there a flat stone for you to kneel and scrape your pots?"

Christina laughed. "Ye're a queer bairn. Ay, I'll see to that, for I
maun keep a'thing terrible clean. I'll hae nae siller forks an' spunes
an' tea-pots, but I'll scrub ma tables white, an' aye hae a tidy
fireside an' a warm denner for ma man."

"It'll be lovely, Christina; and will Barbara do that when she's
married?"

Christina laughed in rather a shocked way, and sketched for Alastair the
sort of life "Miss Barbara" would lead, with motors and balls and troops
of servants.

To Alastair it sounded deplorably dull.

"She wont have half such good fun as you'll have, Christina. But I don't
suppose there are many mole-catchers to marry... Could I be a
bridegroom, Christina?"

"Oh ay, some day."

"Then I'll marry Annie."

"Ye'll change yer tne or then, ma man!" Christina said, as she folded
away the dusters. "Awa' noo an' find Annie, for I'm gaun to lay the
lunch."

When everything was more or less packed and they were ready for the
removal to Kingshouse for the wedding, Barbara went with Nicole after
tea one evening to pay farewell calls.

"Isn't it odd," she said as they mounted the brae, "how quickly a place
takes hold of one? Only eight months ago we had never heard of
Kirkmeikle or any of its people, and now we're bound to them by ties of
kindness and sympathy--they _have_ been decent to me at this time."

"My dear," Nicole reminded her, "eight months ago we had hardly heard of
the Jacksons, and now----"

It was odd to see Ravenscraig shut up, and Barbara expressed a hope that
all went well with Mr. and Mrs. Innes at Crieff.

Nicole laughed. "I do hope so. I can't think why that sober and
well-reasoned union should seem to me so farcical. I do wonder how that
household will work!"

In the Knebworth drawing-room Mrs. Heggie archly asked Nicole when they
were to have the pleasure of presenting her with a wedding present.

"Surely," she said, "you're not going to let Miss Symington beat you, as
I tell Joan."

Joan sat with a disgusted face, in a window, looking down at the sun on
the pansies that filled a plot just beneath her, and to change the
subject, Nicole turned to her and said:

"I was just thinking as we passed Ravenscraig that you should write a
story about Miss Symington's marriage, or rather about the household
after the marriage; Samuel and his two daughters and the house in
Morningside with a basement. Wouldn't it make an interesting study, Miss
Heggie?"

"It ought," said Joan. "But why don't you try it yourself, Miss
Rutherfurd? You must have gained such an insight into the lives of villa
residents in the last few months that you should be quite competent to
do it.... It would be rather interesting if we both did it, and I'm
quite sure no one would recognise it as the same household. Yours would
be such a sweet picture of family life, you would throw a glamour and a
charm over these exceedingly ordinary people and transfigure even the
basement. Mine would be a merciless study: I would enjoy doing it. I
wouldn't leave a rag on Samuel, and I'd lay bare the barren recesses of
Janet Symington's soul."

Mrs. Heggie clicked with her tongue in a shocked way and murmured--"Did
you ever hear the like?" Nicole laughed aloud.

"I believe that's a very true picture of what my attempt would be.
Somebody once told me that I was meant to be satirical but that I
varnished all my statements over with so many coats of the milk of human
kindness that they became without form and void! But I don't believe in
your 'merciless study' either. You know and I know that Samuel is no
villain, but a decent dull man, a little puffed up with conceit about
his gifts as a speaker, but honestly striving to do some good. His wife
is a good sincere limited woman----. Let live. What's the good of being
clever and merciless? But I admit that may be sour grapes on my part,
for I couldn't be either if I tried!"

"And this is really good-bye?" said Mrs. Heggie, who was much more
anxious to discuss details of the wedding than to talk of cleverness.
"When d'you go?"

"To-morrow!" said Barbara, "to-morrow as ever was. I can hardly believe
that I'm really leaving Kirkmeikle for good and going back to my old
home. It will be nice having the few quiet days at Kingshouse before the
wedding, and it won't mean such a rush for my aunt; but it has been a
business deciding what is to be sent to Kingshouse and what will go
direct to Rutherfurd. I'm quite prepared to find we've confused
everything and that my wedding gown and my cousin's dress will arrive
here after we've left."

"Oh, I hope not. What's Miss Nicole to wear?"

"Blush pink, and a very pretty head-dress of pink rose-buds, and roses
in her hand--I wanted her to look like a rose at my June wedding."

Mrs. Heggie nodded agreement. "And I'll mebbe see the dress later on...
What about the cake?"

"The cake? Oh, it's going straight to Kingshouse. We're having an extra
tier to please Andrew's mother. She wants all the people on the place to
have a good slice, and she and Mr. Jackson are giving a supper and dance
on the night of the wedding at Rutherfurd."

"Very nice. You're evidently fortunate in a mother-in-law, and I hear
from Lady Jane that the parents are leaving the place to you young
people at once. That's very wise, I think, and unselfish. What? Are you
going already? It was good of you to spare the time---- Well, I can only
wish you health and happiness...."

There was something wistful in her face which made Nicole say, "I wish
you had been coming to the wedding, Mrs. Heggie, but I'll tell you every
single detail when I get back, and take snapshots for your special
benefit of the happy pair."

As they made their way to Lucknow Nicole said:

"I rather think that Mrs. Heggie and her daughter are inclined to get on
each other's nerves to-day. Poor Mrs. Heggie would so love to have a
daughter who was going to be married, a nice, pretty, come-at-able
daughter, who would sit beside her and make _crpe-de-Chine_ camisoles
and talk about really interesting things like clothes and weddings and
cooks, and instead, she has the plain-faced Joan who affects to despise
men and shuts herself up in a room and writes. And Joan, I am sure,
realises this, and feeling that she falls short, gets bitter, and talks
nonsense about 'merciless studies.' She doesn't like me much ('I don't
blame her,' as the Bat said when I told him that Mrs. Fred Erskine had
three little boys and no little girls!), and suspects me of taking an
interest in Kirkmeikle people in order that I may laugh at them, which
doesn't worry me at all, it's too far from the truth.... Now for the
Shield and Buckler!"

Having received the parting blessing of the Bucklers, the Kilgours, and
the Lamberts, Barbara thankfully turned her steps homewards, but her
cousin begged her to tarry for a minute at Betsy Curle's.

"Five minutes, Babs, not a moment more. And she's so old and frail and
crippled, and it would be such a joy to her."

But Betsy betrayed no sign of considering the visit a joy.

Her little room, which seemed cosy enough on a dark winter day, was
stuffy and dark to come into from the shining June day outside, and she
herself sitting crippled and helpless by a handful of fire, wrapped in a
grey woollen shawl, seemed to belong to a different sphere to the two
happy-eyed girls in their light summer frocks.

"I've come to say good-bye, Betsy," Barbara said, bending to her. "You
know that I'm going to be married and going back to Rutherfurd."

"...Gaun back to Rutherfurd! It's guid to be you. I'll never gang
back to Rutherfurd----"

Nicole broke in. "Nothing but marrying and giving in marriage, Betsy.
First Miss Symington, now my cousin."

"Ay, I doot there wadna be muckle competeetion for Miss Symington, rich
as she is. Never mairry for money, ye'll borrow it cheaper--that's a
true sayin'."

"Why, Betsy, I don't believe you ever saw Miss Symington."

"I've heard plenty aboot her onyway, clippit cratur! Nae servant wud
bide wi' her she was sae suspicious, oh--ay----"

"Well now, I want you to say something very nice to Miss Burt."

Betsy fixed her dim eyes on Barbara. "I wish ye weel, Miss Burt, but I
wish a Rutherfurd hed been gaun back to Rutherfurd----"

Nicole hastily broke in: "You can't possibly say anything against
Kirkmeikle in this weather, Betsy... It isn't cold and it isn't dirty,
and just look at the sea to-night!"

"I dinna want to look at it," Betsy said. "I tell ye I dinna like it. It
wasna for naething the Book said that the wicked were like the sea."

"Like a _troubled_ sea, Betsy; to-night it's like the sea of glass
mingled with fire.... Oh, Babs, I do hope we get a day like this next
Wednesday. Rutherfurd kirk is perfect when the sun comes through the end
window! You know it well, Betsy?"

"Rutherfurd kirk," said Betsy to herself, then to Nicole, "But ye'll no
mind what it was like afore they spiled it? Na, it was lang afore ye
were born. I sat in a sate under the poopit, an' the precentor, auld
Jimmie Hislop, aye haunded ma faither his snuff-box afore the sermon
sterted. An' in thae days they took up the collection in boxes wi' lang
handles, an' ae day Dr. Forman forgot an intimation aboot some
collection, an' he got up efter to gie it oot. Adam Welsh, the beadle,
was pokin' the box up the pews sae pushin' like, until the auld Doctor
got fair provoked, and he cries, 'Stop, Adam, that's just what I'm
talking about.' ...Aye, they spiled the kirk when they took oot a'
the auld straight-backed sates an' pit in new wide yins. Tam Moffat, the
shepherd, awa' up Harehope Glen, he juist cam' the yince efter the
alterations. 'I canna find ma sate,' he said; 'it was in that sheugh by
the poopit an' it's gane,' an' oot he walkit."

The two girls laughed, and Barbara said:

"But, Betsy, Rutherfurd kirk is still bonnie. You'll wish me well when I
stand there next Wednesday, won't you?"

Betsy looked at the bright face bent to hers, and smiled a little
grudging smile. "Ay," she said, "I wull that, but ye're gettin' a lot o'
this warld's guid, an' mind--a full cup's ill to cairry!"

                 *        *        *        *        *

The sun did shine through the end window in Rutherfurd kirk when Barbara
stood up beside Andrew Jackson. It fell on the bride tall and straight
and beautiful in her wedding gown, on Nicole's rose-crowned head as she
stood with serious eyes, listening to Mr. Scott's precise voice as he
talked of the duties of the married state, on Lady Jane dreaming of days
that were gone, on the Bat enjoying the rapturous present.

Though Nicole looked so intent it is doubtful if she heard a word the
minister said. She was imagining another wedding, a quiet ceremony in a
bleak little church by the sea, with no guests to speak of, and no
parade. John Lambert to marry her, a few friends round her who really
cared, and were glad in her happiness--then to go away with Simon. She
crushed the roses in her hands as she thought of it. Would it ever be?

It was the prettiest of weddings. Every one said so. A young and happy
couple in a perfect garden, in June sunshine--it was roses, roses all
the way.

And it was all so beautifully managed. When Jean Douglas entertained
there was no crowding, no dull waiting, no luke-warm tea or tepid ices.
There was an abundance of little tables placed in the shade, with steady
chairs to sit on, the sandwiches were of every variety, and all
appetising, the cakes fresh and crisp, the strawberries were abundant,
the cream sweet, the sugar within every one's reach. And as always
happened at Kingshouse, people found the people they most wanted to talk
to miraculously beside them, so that there was that look of content on
the faces of the guests that makes any gathering a success.

Mrs. Jackson was resplendent. Andrew had not had the heart to restrain
his mother on this occasion, and for once she felt herself really smart.
Her dress, which she would have told you was of 'champagne shade,' was
most wonderfully embroidered. Over it she wore a coat also of
'champagne,' and a large hat covered with paradise plumes. Her shoes,
which were of the same pale shade, were so tight that her feet seemed to
bulge out of them; she carried a bouquet of orchids.

Mrs. Douglas and Nicole saw to it that every possible attention was paid
to her. The Duke, who happened to be paying one of his infrequent visits
to the neighbourhood, had ten minutes conversation with her on the lawn
and Mrs. Jackson was happily aware that she was the cynosure of all
eyes.

When the guests were beginning to depart, Nicole missed her friend, and
after some searching found her in a corner of the deserted drawing-room.
She had last seen her smiling bravely and waving her bouquet after the
newly-married couple as they drove away, but now dejection was in every
line of her and Nicole saw that large tears were rolling over the
flushed face, tears that she was making no effort to deal with. And as
Nicole looked, a deep depression that she had been grappling with all
day rose up and conquered her so that she went up to the fat homely
figure, so smart in 'champagne shade,' and, laying her head on the broad
bosom, she too began to cry. Mrs. Jackson's arms went round her and she
at once roused herself to try and comfort.

"There, there. Don't you cry, my dear. You're my girl, and always will
be.... Never you mind. There's good fish in the sea.... You'll be
the next bride, and my! you'll be the bonnie one!"

But Nicole shook her rose-crowned head, and said, "Who knows?"

Then they both sat up and mopped their faces, and laughed a little.

"I don't like weddings," said Mrs. Jackson, sniffing. "I sometimes think
a funeral's cheerier, but what can you say? People will always
marry.... And this is a sort of end of things to me, if you know what
I mean. It's the end of Andy as my boy, the end of our life together.
Father and I'll just be left like two paling stabs!"

"What nonsense!" Nicole said. "Andy will be more to you than ever,
you'll see. Barbara would never want to take a man away from his mother.
And you will pay them long visits and see that they do things as you
would like them done. And they'll visit you in your new house...."

"Well, we've got a nice house. Here, listen, will you come and stay with
us some time? That would be something to look forward to."

"Indeed, I'd love to. And you'll give tea-parties for me, won't you? and
show me all the sights? Oh, believe me, dear Mrs. Jackson, I know very
well what you must be feeling just now, but you'll look back on this day
as one of the happiest days of your life."

Mrs. Jackson straightened her hat, gave her face a rub with her
handkerchief, and said, "Mebbe I will. I'm sure I hope so. Now, I must
find Father and go away home."

"Come and say good-bye to Mother first. She will want to see you, I
know"; and having deposited Mrs. Jackson beside Lady Jane, Nicole went
to look for Mr. Jackson and found him wandering lonely as a cloud. She
also collected Jean Douglas, so that when the couple drove away back to
Rutherfurd they were tucked into their car by friendly hands and sent
away a good deal comforted.




                             CHAPTER XXXIII


            "Farewell:
             If we do meet again, why, we shall smile."

                                                       _Julius Caesar._

Nicole sent her own account of the wedding to Simon:

    I feel that I am scattering bread on the waters when I write
    these letters, and when I watch them slide down the brass maw of
    the post-office I wonder if it is possible that they will ever
    reach you. But, anyway I must go on, for writing to you is my
    one comfort.

    We have just got home again, all the excitement of the wedding
    behind us. The nicest thing about the wedding-day to me was that
    that very morning I got a lovely thick letter from you, from
    Darjeeling. I should like to have done what all well-conducted
    young women in novels do, worn it next my heart. But I think
    that could only have been successfully done when people filled
    their clothes, or, to be exact, had clothes to fill! In the wisp
    of a dress I wore as bridesmaid--blush pink, Simon, with roses
    round my hair!--there was nothing to hold a letter in its place
    next my heart, it would simply have slipped through and got
    lost; but anyway, I thought of you all the time.

    It really was a very pretty wedding. Barbara never in her life
    looked so well, and I was proud to stand behind her and
    contemplate the grace of her bearing. And Andrew Jackson looked
    so nice, and listened with such a serious good face to Mr.
    Scott's homily. I'm afraid I didn't listen much. I was thinking
    if it had been our wedding-day--Simon--Simon.

    All our old friends were there, and Jean Douglas had spared no
    pains to have everything perfect. I was so thankful Providence
    seconded her efforts by sending a good day.

    Mrs. Jackson was gorgeous in apparel, and seemed in tremendous
    spirits, very jocose--embarrassingly so--and quite the life of
    the company. But towards the end I missed her, and discovered
    her alone in the drawing-room crying quietly. I was so sorry for
    her--or was it only that I was sorry for myself?--that I sat
    down beside her and we mingled our tears!

    We are settled in the Harbour House until August, when we go to
    Lochbervie, away up in the North, where Bice Dennis has a small
    place. It will be fun for the Bat to be with Arthur again, and
    there is a smaller boy, Barnabas, who will make an excellent
    companion for him. Alastair--he prefers to be called "The Bat"
    because it was your name for him--is really in great form. I
    think you would know a lot of difference in him. He has lost
    that repressed look (indeed he is getting quite upsetting!) but
    he still has the small concerned face and anxious blue eyes. He
    and I are reading just now all sorts of books on mountaineering,
    Whymper's _Ascent of the Matterhorn_, and Sir Martin Conway's
    books, trying to bring ourselves a step nearer to you! The Bat
    has almost decided to adopt mountaineering as his profession in
    life, but he is also allured by the thought of being a
    mole-catcher. Christina's "lad," he tells me, is a mole-catcher,
    and he regards it as an ideal life.

    It is a queer Kirkmeikle now with Ravenscraig shut up, and no
    tall figure going in and out of Miss Jamieson's. Looking back on
    last winter it seems to me that I ought to have been ideally
    happy. You were here. I saw you nearly every day. You sat in
    this room and we talked. I can't think why I wasn't down on my
    knees, thanking Heaven fasting.

    Do you remember that day we were in St. Andrews with the two
    boys? I think of that day so often. Why is it that some days
    shine out like gold among dross? The sea was grey, and the sky
    was grey, and we stood among grey ruins and looked at
    tombstones. Then we sat together in a cinema and laughed at the
    Bat. Not very much to remember perhaps, but I was happy, happy.

    Your letter from Darjeeling cheered me a good deal. I had been
    dwelling too much on the grim side of the Expedition, on the
    danger, the hardships, and had forgotten how much fun there must
    be in it. All you tell me about the porters, and the humour and
    the cheerfulness of every one heartens me. It is a great
    adventure. I am counting that when this letter reaches you the
    attempt will have been made. Perhaps you will be in Darjeeling
    on your way home....

It was an odd life Nicole lived at this time, filling in the hours with
small domestic cares--she had taken on Barbara's housekeeping, visiting,
helping Alastair with his lessons and playing with him, while all the
time her mind was filled with thoughts of the Expedition that would now
be wending its way towards the eternal ramparts of snow where Everest
waited.

Barbara wrote very happily from Venice. They were having a leisurely
trip and did not mean to be home before August.

Mrs. Jackson was having Rutherfurd swept and garnished preparatory to
leaving it. The new villa which she had christened--surprisingly--"The
Borders" was now ready for them. She wrote that it had every known
comfort and labour-saving device, and was furnished straight out of
Wylie and Lochhead's show-rooms. Everything was as new and as
bright-coloured as possible. "Because," said Mrs. Jackson, "there is
always Rutherfurd to show that we have taste; here we go in for pure
comfort." She had renewed her interrupted friendship with Mrs. McArthur
who, glad at signs of returning sanity, had been graciously pleased to
hold out an olive branch in the shape of an invitation to stay with her
while the furniture was being put in "The Borders."

"And I know now," Mrs. Jackson said to her husband, "what the Prodigal
Son felt like, even to the veal, which we had three days running. And I
never could abide veal--calves are such nice wee beasts."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The _Times_ began to print despatches from the Everest Expedition. The
sight of the large type heading brought Nicole's heart to her throat,
and it was always some time before she could steady her voice to read
them aloud to her mother and the Bat.

One morning a letter came from Simon describing the beginnings of the
journey. It finished with: "I feel oddly happy, a care-free happiness
that I haven't felt since I was a boy setting off with my father and
brothers for a long day on the moors. Since the War I have felt so old,
but I've suddenly been able to recapture if not the 'first fine careless
rapture,' at least something remarkably like it. And this time I'm
enjoying every bit of the way, savouring it, appreciating the beauty,
and I feel confident as I never did before. Your face is with me always.
I see it painted on the darkness as I lie in my tent at night, and in
the day you seem to walk before me, just a little way before me, looking
back and smiling, as you used to walk on the rocks at Kirkmeikle. God
grant that we walk there again together."

That afternoon the _Times_ was laid as usual on the oak chest in the
hall. Nicole, coming in, carried it upstairs to read in the
drawing-room, but her eagerness would not wait and she opened it as she
went up the stairs. Yes, there was the large-type heading. She began to
read and stopped. _Beckett_ her eyes saw. Then--_Disaster--Beckett
dead_.

She folded the paper carefully and laid it on the back of a sofa.

She was surprised to find herself standing upright for she felt bowed
like an old woman. What had happened to her? Then the knowledge that
Simon was gone pierced her heart like a sword, and in her pain she ran
to the window for air. She looked down at her hands which unconsciously
she had been twisting together and said to herself, "That must be what
people do when they talk about wringing their hands. I'm wringing my
hands for Simon." She felt numb now, with that merciful numbness which
comes for a little after the first sword-thrust. Hardly knowing what she
did she went downstairs and out of the house. The sea was lying blue and
still. Over the rocks she went to the seat that was like a throne, where
she and Simon had gone hand in hand. What had he said in his letter this
morning. _God grant that we walk there again together._ Poor Simon. Poor
Nicole. They would never walk anywhere together again. It was very sad,
she knew, but it seemed far away from her as she sat idly picking up
little stones and throwing them into the shining summer sea.

How long she sat there she did not know. A step behind her on the rocks
made her leap to her feet, every pulse in her body bounding, a wild,
unreasoning hope in her heart. She half-turned, and was confronted by
Mr. Lambert.

"This is a good place to enjoy a perfect evening, Miss Rutherfurd," he
said, seating himself beside her.

She looked at him in silence for a minute, and when she spoke he hardly
knew her voice, so jangled and harsh were the sweet notes of it.

"I've just read in the papers that Simon Beckett is dead." The words as
she said them seemed to chill her very soul, and she shivered violently.

"But--are you sure? It wasn't in the morning papers."

"It may have been in the late editions." The _Times_ gets the news
first. But what does that matter? She turned impatiently and looked at
him. "It's true, I tell you."

Mr. Lambert was staring at her, his funny little puckered face quite
white, tears in his eyes. Was _he_ crying for Simon when she had not
shed a tear?

"Dear me," he said. "Dear me."

Presently he began to speak, as much to himself as to his companion.

"I had a great liking for Beckett, and a great respect. I couldn't help
envying him his chances. It's a great end...."

"What was the use of it?" Nicole asked wearily.

Mr. Lambert shook his head. "I don't know. How can we judge with our
small scale of values. I only know that high endeavour such as this
keeps the ordinary man from feeling that life is nothing but a sordid
struggle for bread and butter, a sort of game of Beggar my Neighbour. It
makes one think better of oneself and every one else. Each one says in
his heart, 'Perhaps it is in me to do this great thing, given the
opportunity,' and the very hope that we might act greatly makes us not
so small."

His voice died away thoughtfully and the two sat looking out to sea
together.

The human, halting, little man vaguely comforted Nicole, his voice
seemed to melt a little of the ice that was round her heart.

Suddenly she asked, "Do you suppose God means anything by it at all?"

The minister was silent for a minute, then he said:

"Some day you will answer that question yourself. I don't dare to try."

"Tell me one thing, do you honestly believe that there is another life,
where we shall know each other again?"

"I can only give you Christ's own words, _I go to prepare a place for
you_."

"How glibly you say it! It's your job, of course, to preach that, but
you're a good man and you wouldn't lie to me. Tell me, _Does Christ
really mean anything to you?_"

The minister took off his shabby felt hat and held it in both hands as
he said, "I am His joyful slave, and He is my Lord and my God."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Dusk was beginning to fall when Nicole stumbled into the Harbour House,
into the arms of her mother.

"Simon is dead, mother. I loved him, but I didn't tell you..." Then
the tears came.

And Lady Jane cried, "My dear, my dear, do you think your mother didn't
know?"




                             CHAPTER XXXIV


                  "Nae living man I'll love again,
                   Since that my comely knight is slain;
                   Wi' ae lock of his yellow hair
                   I'll chain ma hert for evermair."

                                           _The Border Widow's Lament._

It was October again in Kirkmeikle.

The ill-fated attempt on Everest was long since forgotten except by the
few. For a day or two the papers had been full of it, and some people
had preached the gospel of high endeavour, and the value such gallant
attempts had in giving prestige to Britain among nations that did not
hesitate to call us effete, others blaming such reckless throwing away
of life. But it mattered little what anyone thought or said to Nicole as
she battled among waves of despair that seemed as if they must overwhelm
her. In time, because her heart was high, she won her way through to
quiet waters and a measure of peace.

She and her mother, with the Bat, had been away for three months, first
in Ross-shire, then in Surrey, and had just got back to the Harbour
House.

On their way from the South they had spent a couple of nights at
Rutherfurd, and found Barbara reigning there in great dignity, a most
calm and confident young matron. Andrew made a rather subdued husband.
Barbara knew so very well what was best for him and told him so with
such firmness that, liking a quiet life, he nearly always acquiesced. It
was odd to see her so entirely head of the house. She talked of "my"
house, "my" car, "my" gardeners, until Nicole longed to make a face at
her and beg her to desist.

They had two days at Rutherfurd, and every minute was planned out for
them. Lady Jane, who would have enjoyed wandering about the place, and
going quietly in and out among her old friends in the cottages, was told
at breakfast:

"I knew, Aunt Jane, that you would want to go to Langlands, so I rang up
and suggested ourselves for luncheon to-day. Then I thought we would go
on to tea at the Kilpatricks, and it seemed such a good opportunity to
work off some of the people I owe, so I've asked some people to dine.
Andrew, you have a meeting at St. Boswells, you remember, at twelve
o'clock. I think you'd better lunch there and come on to tea at the
Kilpatricks."

"But must I go to Langlands?" Nicole asked rebelliously.

Barbara looked surprised and said in her cool, crisp voice, "Of course
you must do just as you like, but it wouldn't be very polite to such old
friends as the Langlands to disregard their invitation."

"But it wasn't so much an invitation on their part as a suggestion on
yours--however, perhaps I'd better go. To-morrow I'll visit my old
haunts."

"Yes," Barbara said, as she helped herself to marmalade, "you will have
time for a nice walk to-morrow morning. We're going to Kingshouse to
luncheon, and--I do hope you won't mind, Aunt Jane--I promised to take
you to tea with the people who have bought Greenshaw. They've heard so
much about you and Nicole they begged me to bring you. They're really
not bad sort of people, very new and terribly rich, but not too
obtrusive, and frightfully appreciative of Rutherfurd--I suppose that is
what softened my heart to them. _Must_ you go on Thursday?"

"I'm afraid we must," said Lady Jane.

"But why? There is nothing to hurry you back, surely?"

"We've been wandering for quite a long time, and I confess I'm longing
to get back to our own little house. It's odd with what affection I
think of it."

Barbara turned to her husband. "Think of it, Andrew, hurrying back from
this to a tar-smelling, east-windy Fife village! I feel rather
aggrieved. I can't understand it."

"Oh, I can," said Andrew, who was helping himself at the sideboard.
"Naturally Lady Jane longs for her own place, and all her own things
round her, and I thought the Harbour House the jolliest place I'd seen
for a long time."

"Ah, but you should see it in winter," said Nicole. "Then you would say
it was jolly, when the waves come rolling in, and the spray dashes
against the windows, and the wind howls round the steep roof and
whistles down the chimneys, and the logs burn blue, and we are all so
close together, the little houses and ourselves. Your mother is coming
to see us some day. I think she'll like it."

"Oh yes," said Barbara; "looking back it seems quite nice, but of course
it was cramped," and she looked round her own spacious dining-room and
sighed contentedly.

Nicole had a few words alone with Andrew before dinner on the evening
before they left. They were standing under the picture of the "Queen of
Hearts," and Nicole looked up at it and smiled.

"My Lovely Lady! How long ago it seems since I was at Rutherfurd last.
So much has happened--you and Barbara settled here...."

Andrew took a step nearer her. "Perhaps you won't like me speaking of
it, but I wanted to tell you how sorry I was when I saw..."

"Yes... Simon didn't come back."

"It's awful for you," Andrew said, and as he said it remembered
Barbara's words when she saw the news in the papers. "_Poor Simon
Beckett_," she had said. "_You knew he was a great friend of Nicole's?
Yes, it is sad for her, but Nicole manages to take everything so
lightly, she will soon forget._"

"Oh, I'll get through somehow," Nicole said. Then she put out her hand
and grasped his. "Thank you, Andy."

As they set off next morning in the train to Edinburgh Nicole looked
across at her mother and said, "Matrimony doesn't always improve people,
does it, Mums?"

"Not always," Lady Jane said, and they let the subject drop.

Nicole had both yearned for and dreaded the return to Kirkmeikle, but
once back she wondered how she had been able to stay away so long. To
her it was a place apart, this place that had known Simon. Here they had
walked, and talked, and laughed; here they had loved and parted: to this
little sea-looking town on the green brae had Simon's thoughts turned at
the end.

And the Harbour House had lost nothing of its spell. Mrs. Martin, with
Christina and Beenie, had on their return cleaned it from garret to
basement so that it shone a welcome. And the Bat and Gentle Annie were
glad to be back. Visiting was all very well, but this was home.

Mrs. Heggie had arrived almost at once to give them the news. She began
before she was well into the room. "Ravenscraig's let--a family has
taken it for a year. Sherwood is the name. Three servants, and
nice-looking people; I'm longing to call and ask them to a meal, but
Joan won't let me. She says I've got to give them time to settle down
before I rush at them with invitations. Perfect nonsense I call it. It's
always nice to give people a welcome early, don't you think so, Lady
Jane?"

"I do indeed. And how is your daughter?"

"Quite well, thank you, but she's shingled her hair." Mrs. Heggie shook
her head. "Not all I could say would prevent her, though her face isn't
the right shape. A little round face with small features is all right
shingled, rather pretty and boyish--but Joan's long chin and long nose,
well, well--however, she's in great spirits. You knew, of course, that
the Bucklers had some money left them--yes, isn't it nice?--and they're
wintering in Italy! Well, they've had the good fortune to let Lucknow, a
really good let Mrs. Buckler told me, to people called Beatson, a
brother and sister, and the brother writes and the sister paints! You
can imagine how pleased Joan is! She's just been panting for some one
like that to be friends with. I think myself they're rather
peculiar-looking, almost Jewish, and Joan says they're modern of the
moderns, and I can't say that appeals to me either, but you can't have
everything, and Joan thinks she's found kindred spirits and I'm glad to
see her pleased.... Well, I needn't tell you I'm glad to see you
back, and I'm not the only one; we've missed you terribly. Mrs. Lambert
was just saying to me that she woke so cheery the other morning and
couldn't think why till she remembered that you were expected back."

"How are the Lamberts?" Nicole asked. "I heard they were having a good
holiday."

"Yes, and they're well, and settled down to their winter's work. Have
you heard anything of Miss Symington--Mrs. Innes, I should say."

"I had one letter," said Nicole, "from North Berwick, where they had
gone as a family."

"Ah, but I've seen her," said Mrs. Heggie triumphantly. "I met her in
Princes Street one day last week. How she has changed."

"Changed?" said Lady Jane. "In looks or what?"

"Looks and everything. She's very well dressed now, and carries herself
with such assurance. I used to try to be kind to her when she was Miss
Symington and so dowdy and uninteresting, but I was quite amused at the
way she condescended to me when I met her. Oh, Mrs. Innes is very well
pleased with herself, I can tell you. And how is the other bride, Miss
Barbara?"

"Most flourishing," said Nicole, and laughed, as if at something she had
remembered. "We've just come from visiting her. Barbara had always a
genius for managing a house, and she has everything perfect. I wish you
had been with us, Mrs. Heggie, you are so appreciative about
nicely-cooked food and pretty table appointments, and everything as it
should be. And Andrew got her some lovely clothes in Paris, and she is
looking so well, an absolute model of a young wife in every way. Isn't
that so, Mother?"

"Quite so," said Lady Jane. "It is all most satisfactory."

"Well, I'm glad," Mrs. Heggie said, as she rose to go. "Here we are
beginning another winter, and it seems no time since last October when
we were all wondering about you. A lot has happened too. I don't mind
pleasant changes like people getting married, but I'll always regret
poor young Mr. Beckett, and you saw such a lot of him; it must be a sad
loss to you...."

It was a night or two later, about six in the evening.

Nicole was playing with the Bat, his good-night game. He had a regular
performance which he went through every evening. He had tea in the
drawing-room, after which he switched on the lights. Then came a story
from Lady Jane either read or told, and a game with Nicole, a quiet game
it was supposed to be, but even Halma or Tiddley-winks can be made quite
exciting played with spirit.

"Now then," said Nicole, "you've beaten me fairly. Put away the table,
Gentle Annie will be here in a minute."

Alastair groaned. "I wish it never came night. Why can't it always be
morning?"

Nicole laughed. "Everybody hasn't your passion for early rising, my
Bat-like one. In fact I think it would be rather a good plan in winter
if we only rose twice a week."

"Now, that," said Lady Jane, looking up from the letter she was trying
to write, "is a really attractive idea. Rise, say, on Mondays and
Fridays."

"Yes," said Nicole, "and the rest of the time we would lie in bed and
nourish ourselves with water-biscuits, because, of course, there would
be nobody up to light fires or cook. What a lot we would save in coals
and light and food and clothes!"

Her mother protested. "Look at the child's face! Don't send him to bed
with such a nightmare thought. Here is Annie. Run along, darling, the
sooner you fall asleep, the sooner morning will come."

"But it's so jolly here," Alastair sighed. "I've got six whole pennies
in my pocket, Aunt Jane." He jingled them for her benefit, and added
meditatively: "Jackie Coogan, poor fellow, is so rich that he can't
carry his pennies in his trouser-pockets."

He looked seriously into Lady Jane's face, and she bent down and kissed
him, saying, "Yes, but even boys with six whole pennies must go to bed.
I'll be up to say good-night."

Alastair caught Nicole's hand. "Come and see me bathed."

"All right, but run now. I'll be up before your dressing-gown's on."

The bath over, and Alastair safely tucked up and kissed and blessed,
Nicole said to her mother as they came downstairs together:

"Poor little Bat, though he sleeps like a top the night seems endless to
him, dividing him from another happy day. I can remember too feeling
that sleep was a terrible waste of time."

They entered the drawing-room and found that the careful Christina had
tidied away all traces of Alastair's play, and made the fire bright, and
laid the papers and the letters from the evening post on the bureau. The
curtains were not drawn, for she knew Nicole's love for the lights on
the sea-front. The two women sat down together by the fire still talking
of the child that they had taken into their keeping.

"Arthur is keen that he should go to his own old school beside
Barnabas," Nicole said. "He told me very seriously that he and Barnabas
thought highly of the Bat, and believed that Evelyn's would be the very
place for him. It's the child's courage that impresses them. They're
afraid but make themselves do things, but the Bat doesn't seem to know
what fear is. And no matter how much he has hurt himself he only grins,
so Arthur tells me. Miss Symington had no good to tell of his parents,
and it is difficult to understand how the unstable David Symington and
his impudent war-flapper of a wife could have produced such a grave,
fearless little spirit. He must be a hark-back to some remote ancestor,
probably a Covenanter. Now that I think of it, the way the Bat has held
on to the fact that he's a Liberal in the face of all the arguments and
persuasions of Arthur and Barnabas, whom he so admires and desires to
please, shows quite the covenanting spirit! 'If I had money,' I heard
him say one day, 'I'd buy the House of Commons and fill it full of
Liberals.' Arthur intimated rather coarsely that he was going to be
sick.... Yes, the Bat's a big extra. Simon's little Bat."

"I've been wondering," said Lady Jane in a little, "what we ought to do
this winter. Shall we go abroad after Christmas? The only thing is that
neither of us care for the noisy, smart places, and the quiet places are
so full of unattached women. It's quite all right for me, but not much
fun for a girl like you."

"Oh, I don't know. At present I'm taking what almost amounts to a morbid
interest in unattached women. I look at all the spinsters that I meet
and wonder what story attaches to each. What a lot of different types
there are! I like best the solid, quiet, dependable ones--those the
world simply couldn't do without. The worst type is the persistently
bright and vivacious, the arch old-young women who hint at many sighing
lovers in the past. If ever you see me getting like that, Mother, for
any favour stop me. But I've got about fifteen years to study the art of
becoming the perfect spinster--you're not really a spinster till you're
about forty in these days, are you? I may learn to wear my rue with a
difference!"

"Ah, my darling, don't talk like that. Time heals. You can't tell now
what you may feel later on...."

Nicole shook her head. "It's not a thing to talk about, but one knows
oneself. When I saw Simon's name, and '_dead_,' something seemed to
snap. It's absurd, of course, to talk of broken hearts--perfectly
healthy normal people's hearts don't break--but all the same something
finishes. I don't believe that if you had been twenty-four instead of
fifty-four when Father died that it would have made the slightest
difference. We're born steadfast, you and I. It's not a thing to be
either proud of or to deplore. It just happens so. I'm not going to pose
as any sort of a heroine. After all, the love between a man and a woman
isn't the only thing in life by any means. I must fill my life with
other things, that's all. What would you like best to do this winter?"

"I want to do just what you want."

"Mother, if it is ever my painful privilege to write your epitaph, d'you
know what I'll put? _She never made a fuss._ And I can't imagine a nicer
thing to have said about one."

Lady Jane smiled rather sadly as she picked up her work and said, "Ah,
my dear, my life is finished, and it has been a very good one, but I
can't bear to think that you..."

Nicole left the armchair in which she had been sitting, and curled up on
the rug beside her mother.

"Honestly, Mother, I don't need pity. They were pretty bad, these
endless summer days when beauty was everywhere and I walked alone in
desolate places. I was bitter and broken, and there seemed nothing ahead
but the same dry misery, but gradually I began to realise things a
little. Simon has gone on ahead and I'm left, but he's still my Simon.
Sometimes I feel rather like a sentry waiting for the dawn. It isn't,
you know, as if we could give our souls their discharge. We've got to
stand steady through the night, and fortunately, fortunately, Mums, the
night is not without stars. It's a wonderful world for compensations. I
couldn't live if I were always sad--_Werena ma hert licht I wad dee!_
D'you remember how angry I used to make Barbara with my stupid gladness?
Well, that sort of fizzy light-heartedness is gone, but I'm acquiring a
sort of still happiness which is probably more enduring. I'd be the most
ungrateful being on earth if I moped and whined when I've so much to be
thankful for."

Lady Jane laid her hand on her daughter's head.

"My darling, you make me very thankful too. I never spoke, but I knew
how hard these past months were for you, and now to hear you say that
you can still be happy..." She stopped, and then said slowly, as if
the words were coming back to her one by one. "_To the supremely happy
man all times are times of thanksgiving, deep, tranquil and abundant for
the delight, the majesty and the beauty of the fullness of this rolling
world._"

Nicole nodded. "Yes, all times are times of thanksgiving--and everything
is in its proper place. And if the square peg is in a round hole it's
for some good reason."

"And what is your proper place, my Nikky?"

Nicole looked up at her mother and smiled her impish smile.

"Where I am, of course," she said. "And very nice too!"

                                THE END






[End of The Proper Place, by Anna Buchan (O. Douglas)]
