Susan looked coldly at him. “Even before I knew they were unfit for human food I said it was a shame to have shot them—”
He burst into a roar of laughter, and turned to Oliver. “I hope all the friends you sent them to will like them,” he said agreeably.
Oliver’s jaw dropped. “How the devil did you—” he began.
“Oh, I happened to meet the postman on his way back to Muirfoot. The poor lad’s carrier was loaded with—game. Still and on, they’re handsome birds, and if your friends write before they taste them they’ll be grateful enough!”
Peggy, who was also dining with him, chuckled.
Champagne appeared at dinner, and Jed, perhaps in answer to his guests’ interested glances, said: “It’s not an ordinary occasion, you know. Hogmanay, for one thing. And for another, we’ve a special health to drink to-night.” He rose, looming enormous in his small dining-room, and raised his newly filled glass. “I’d like to propose a toast. The newly engaged couple!”
For a second everyone looked bewildered. Then the scarlet confusion of Peggy, the half-smothered smiles of the discreet elderly parlour-maid and her younger satellite gave them a clue.
“The newly engaged couple!” was drunk with great good will.
“But—but nothing’s settled yet! That is, I’ve never said I—Oliver!” cried Peggy.
Oliver, shamelessly holding her hand, said gaily: “Thank you, Jed! We were wondering how to announce it.”
“What an exciting party,” Susan observed when the exchange of congratulations and good wishes was over, and dinner proceeded. Charles shot her a quick look, and his face took on a determined expression, but Susan’s eyes were on Peggy, who sat, shyly blissful, beside Oliver, and played with her food. Clearly happiness had deprived her of appetite.
“We’ll have coffee in the sitting-room,” said Jed. The parlour-maid, bringing it in, announced that there were some children in the kitchen “waiting to play Galashans.”
“It’s the children from the cottages,” Jed explained. “They come round every year on Hogmanay and act this play of theirs. Galatians is its real name, I believe, but I can’t tell you the origin of it.”
“Oh, do let’s have them in!” said Peggy eagerly, glad to have attention distracted from herself and Oliver.
The little group of children, blue-eyed, tow-haired, and apple-cheeked, wearing their parents’ coats and armed with wooden swords, while one small boy was almost extinguished beneath an aged bowler hat green with age, came into the room with bashful giggles, pushing each other forward. After a number of false starts, and a sternly repressed tendency on the part of the youngest to burst into tears, they reeled off a patter of doggerel verse in broad Scots, impossible to follow. Finally one was slain with the wooden swords, and red with embarrassment and pleasure they retired, each clutching a sixpence, to be regaled with cake and tea in the kitchen.
“They’re not so good as they used to be,” Jed observed. “I remember when I was a boy they acted a lot better, and it was a much finer affair altogether—or seemed so to me. It’s a long time ago, though.”
“Galatians” paved the way for pleasant talk about old customs, old sayings, old songs. . . . Presently they gathered about the piano, where Susan played and the rest sang all the ditties beloved of Charles and Oliver. “Widdicombe Fair” was followed by “Spanish Ladies,” “Rio Grande,” “Sally Brown,” until they were tired.
“Susan will sing us some English songs,” said Charles suddenly. “She knows any number.”
“Oh, Susan, do you sing? Why did you never tell us?” cried Peggy delightedly. “How lovely. I was wishing someone would sing!”
“Dash it, haven’t we been bawling the place down?” Oliver wanted to know. Peggy smiled at him wickedly.
“I said ‘sing’,” she said. “Not bawl. Do sing, Susan!”
Susan, who had been thinking how much pleasanter it was without Mrs. Holden, and wondering if, when she reigned at Reiverslaw, Jed would ever have another party quite like this, was taken by surprise. “Absurd!” she said. “I’ve hardly any voice, and what there is of it is quite untrained.”
But: “Please, Susan!” begged Peggy, like a child asking for a treat, and “I wish you would,” muttered Jed.
“Of course she will,” said Charles firmly.
Susan sat down at the old piano, the full skirts of her green dress spreading out round her feet. Her voice was certainly small, but it was true and sweet, and suited the songs. “High Germanie” she sang, and “The Crystal Spring,” and “Searching for Lambs.” . . .
“Sing ‘Greensleeves,’” said Charles softly from where he sat.
“Alas, my love, you do me wrong
To cast me off discourteously;
And I have loved thee so long
Rejoicing in thy company.
For, oh! Greensleeves was all my joy,
And, ah! Greensleeves was my delight!
And, oh! Greensleeves was my heart of goold,
And who but my lady Greensleeves!”
The quaint old words, the minor air planing up and up, to drop at the end almost to a whisper, might have been composed especially for her. When she sang “Greensleeves” she lost her quiet, amused look: to Peggy, and to Jed, she suddenly was Greensleeves herself.
As she rose with a small deprecating smile, Charles seized her by the hand. A strange excitement seemed to possess him, for his eyes shone and the fingers that clasped Susan’s were burning hot. “Congratulate me, please, everyone,” he said. “For Susan and I are also engaged!”
6
Certainly it was an exciting party, too exciting to be altogether a happy one. Susan, even as her astounded gaze left Charles’s face, met a look from Jed that was sharp and sudden as a sword-thrust. It was gone in an instant, and he joined in the chorus of amazed delight which rose from Oliver and Peggy, but Susan knew she had not imagined it.
And: “Why? Why?” she thought. “What reason has he to look at me like that?”
She wished that Charles had chosen another time, a less dramatic manner, of announcing their engagement, particularly as his air suggested a rather desperate satisfaction, a there-I’ve-done-it, instead of the contented happiness shown by Oliver.
They stayed to see the New Year in, but the lightheartedness had gone from the party, though they sang “Auld Lang Syne” with vigour and clasped hands. Susan found herself wondering what sort of a New Year it would be for all of them. Joyful for Peggy and Oliver, and her generous heart rejoiced with them: but for Charles, for herself, for Jed? Impossible to tell yet.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1
The grey February afternoon was passing very slowly; even the steady clocks seemed to lag. Susan was alone at Easter Hartrigg, for Oliver had gone to Edinburgh with Peggy to stay the night with her only wealthy relative, an elderly spinster cousin, who wished to see him for herself before she gave the engagement her blessing.
Oliver, frankly nervous of the approaching ordeal, had gone off wearing a new suit and an expression of resolute cheerfulness. His last words had been: “I never envied Charles as much as I do to-day. Lucky beggar! He won’t have to be vetted by any ancient and crusty relations, because you haven’t any except me, and I know the worst about him already!”
When he had gone a deep silence settled down over the house. Only once was Susan’s solitude disturbed, by a band of tinkers, the lordly males of which strutted up and down before the windows, like two rival gamecocks, playing the bagpipes, while their ladies conducted a loud and impassioned appeal for alms at the back door. Beginning with the customary modest request for “a piece,” which was at once provided, their demands soared from “a pickle tea” through rags and rabbit-skins to garments. Having filched from Oliver’s room a pair of his most ancient and adored grey flannel “bags” to furnish “a pair o’ troosies for ma puir man,” Susan felt that she had done well; but discovered that they were a mere drop in the bucket. “Buits for the bairns” were t
he next requirement, and Mrs. Tinker, her wealth of coarse dark auburn hair, which framed a handsome swarthy face, falling in disarray about her plaided shoulders, continued to plead for those necessities as though Susan had a heart of stone, in spite of repeated assurances that there were no children in the household. Finally, after presenting her with an old tweed skirt and a woollen sweater, Susan lost patience, and told Donaldina to let them know that as there was no more to give them they might as well depart. For some time the pipes wailed and droned on outside, and the non-playing members, ranging themselves in a reproachful row, stared in unblinkingly through the sitting-room windows. But as Susan remained blind and deaf to their presence they lost heart and tramped away, a healthy, dirty and good-looking set of vagabonds as might be seen anywhere.
“A guid riddance!” was Donaldina’s comment as she carried in the tea-tray. “Thae thievin’ tinklers wad hae the sark aff yer back, an’ the bite oot yer mooth, an’ then speir could ye no’ gie them yer skin tae sell!”
With tea came an unexpected mail, brought up from Muirfoot by the baker’s van, Mrs. Davidson having pressed the letters into his hand, announcing: “There’s twa wi’ the Lunnon post-mark an’ penny-ha’penny stamps, an’ nae doot Miss Parsons’ll be glad o’ them the nicht seein’ the Commander’s awa’ tae Embro.”
“How thoughtful of her,” was Susan’s comment, as Donaldina delivered letters and message without the flicker of an eyelash to denote that there was anything unusual in this procedure.
One of the letters, as Mrs. Davidson no doubt shrewdly surmised, was from Charles. Susan decided to pour out and drink a cup of tea before reading it. Somehow she had lost most of her pleasure in his letters. Since he had gone back to Chatham he had written faithfully, but without the easy, spontaneous friendliness which had always made him such an agreeable correspondent before their engagement.
The other envelope, a long, business-like one, was an offer of a post on his staff from an editor who had always liked her articles. It would entail living in London if she accepted it; it meant a new opening, a fresh outlook. Perhaps this was a way out, for Charles as well as herself. Susan’s tea cooled beside her, scenting the warm air with delicate fragrance, while she thought deeply. Presently she picked up his letter, and taking several closely written sheets of notepaper from the envelope, began to read.
Her method was always the same. First she skimmed through his letters hurriedly, half-dreading, half-hoping to find some expression of a love and passion for which she had no real use, yet which would have made her feel that she was doing the right thing if she married him. Afterwards, when the absence of anything warmer than his usual affection had been ascertained, she read the whole thing carefully, noting what she would answer in her own letter back. It was during this preliminary glance that she found Mrs. Holden’s name mentioned, and at once gave her full attention to the page that followed.
“. . . You remember I was sure I’d seen her before somewhere? And you and Oliver laughed at me, because she obviously didn’t recognize me? Well, I’ve placed it now, not that it matters much. It was a photograph of her I saw. The P.M.O. had it in his cabin, framed in silver, stuck on his table. I don’t know him very well, and the other day, when I was in his cabin again it was only for the second time. Of course I said I’d met her, and he was thrilled to bits. Said he hoped to marry her one day, and all the rest. None of my business, but I can’t help wondering how many men are hoping to marry her now that she’s a widow? It seems a bit rough on Armstrong if he is really keen on her. He always struck me as the faithful sort of chap who’d prize faithfulness in others. This is between you and me, I needn’t tell you . . .
Susan drank some tea, blinked, and read the paragraph again, in case she had made a mistake. But there it was, in Charles’s clear small handwriting. . . . Peggy had said all along that she wasn’t good enough for Jed. Still, if Mrs. Holden was the woman he wanted, it didn’t much matter whether she was good enough or not. People were like that, and love could be very blind indeed where the loved one was concerned. Anyhow, it was no business of anyone’s.
“I wish Charles hadn’t told me,” thought Susan. And then laughed a little. He was so determined to prove himself right, poor darling. . . . She read on.
“I stayed last week-end with the Flemings—you know, the girl was at the Dower House that night we dined there.”
“Indeed I do know,” thought Susan. “Poor child—and poor Charles. And perhaps poor me too? That settles it. I’ll wait until later in the evening, and then I’ll write,” she said aloud. “Both these letters—to the nice editor man who thinks I’ll be an addition to his staff—and to Charles—must be answered before I go to bed, and I’ll sleep in peace with a quiet mind.”
Tara, lying at her feet, thumped the rug with his tail.
2
The weather had changed, the piercing wind which had screamed round the house during the morning had died away, and a deathly hush had fallen over all the countryside. Heavy banks of cloud, rolling sullenly up from behind the Cheviots, and massing in huge pinnacles and towers across the sky, threatened snow before another night passed. In the early twilight the first large flakes began to fall, soundlessly and inexorably, from a dull sky so low that it seemed a hand stretched up must touch it. By the time Susan had dressed for dinner, the world on which she looked when she drew aside the curtains was white as though a great winding-sheet had been laid over it.
“Thank goodness Oliver and Peggy are staying in Edinburgh to-night,” she thought.
A blazing log-fire, faithfully stoked by Donaldina, awaited her in the sitting-room after her lonely meal.
The sound of the wind, which had sunk for a time only to rise again with renewed strength, made the warm room doubly pleasant. Susan sat on the fender-stool, a writing-pad on her knee, and Tara, beside her, breathed deep and evenly, his black muzzle hidden by his fore-paws.
It was surprisingly easy to write, this letter to Charles which would break off their engagement, for Susan knew that though he might be sorry and hurt for a time, it would make for his happiness in the end. He would marry the slender nymph Daphne, Admiral Heriot’s cousin, and then he would realize that Susan’s place in his heart was a friend’s, not a wife’s. She pushed the sheet of notepaper into an envelope, addressed it, looked at it for a second with a little, rather wistful smile, laid it aside, and wrote to her pet editor accepting the post he offered. Now all that remained for her to do was to argue the matter out with Oliver, who was certain to want her to continue to live at Easter Hartrigg with him—and Peggy.
“But I won’t. This job will make me independent, and even if I have to pretend that I’d rather live in town,” thought Susan, “I’ll convince him somehow.”
She sat by the fire, hands clasped round her knees, her head a little bent, thinking over the months that had slipped past since, an unwilling pilgrim, she had forsaken her old life to come to Easter Hartrigg. Not quite a year ago she had hated the idea of it; and now she hated much more the thought that she must leave the place she had learned to love, her first settled home since early childhood. Looking back on it, she saw that it had been a good year in spite of difficulties. Oliver was better, when she had feared that a life of semi-invalidism lay before him; he was happy as a laird with twenty pence, even happier as Peggy Cunningham’s future husband. For herself, Susan knew that she could never regret the change which their move had brought about, though she had not gained what her brother had. Love had passed her by, but there was friendship to remember: laughter and tears and pleasant days in plenty. Quiet afternoons at the Manse of Muirfoot, long walks with Tara in all kinds of weather, evenings spent beside the fire with favourite books, even the Miss Pringles’ extraordinary tea-parties; picnics and tramps and talks with dear Charles, so much dearer now that she was not going to marry him. Amazing and ridiculous escapades in Jed Armstrong’s company, which she had unexpectedly enjoyed and thought about with laughter afterwards.
J
ed. . . . Somehow he had dominated the scene from the very beginning, when he had stepped in and routed Mrs. Bald, their first cook. Starting as Oliver’s friend, suffered by Susan solely on that account, he had gradually come to have a place all his own in her life. It was not easy to decide exactly what she felt or thought about him, but she realized now with surprise that she would miss him more than anyone else when she went away. He had recognized at once that she was not the tolerant, unperturbable person she seemed. Even Charles had never thought her anything but serene. . . . Jed knew her as she was, without a word said on either side. . . .
A log fell, and the flames soared, picking out ruddy lights in Susan’s dark hair, gilding the long white arms linked about her knees. She rose and replenished the fire, though it was late, and she had heard Donaldina go up to bed some time ago.
“Ah, well, Tara,” she said with a smile, poking the sleeping dog gently with the toe of her slipper, “it’s a good thing I can always see the funny side of life. ‘Werena my hert’s licht I wad dee.’”
Tara yawned widely, a delicate reminder that it was time to retire; but seeing that Susan had sat down again with a book, he resigned himself to sleeping where he was.
The clock ticked placidly on, punctuated by the wind’s voice shrieking down the chimney, by a sudden rattle of hail at the windows, by the soft sound made when the logs settled in the grate, and still Susan sat half-reading, half-dreaming.
It was after midnight when a sudden deep growl from Tara, startling her so that the book slipped to the floor, roused her to the fact that something other than hail was beating at the window. She sprang up, frightened for the moment. To hear a rapping on the pane at such an hour, when all the house was sleeping, was an eerie business, nor had she even been so reluctant to do anything as she was to cross the room now, and pulling back the curtain, peer out into the snow-laden darkness and see—what?
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