With much love dear darling Julia and please write soon if it is only a P.C. to say you are all right—and about the room.
Ever yours lovingly,
May
PS. Jeanne said you were a business woman and you made a lot of money with some shares. Perhaps that was the secret—but if that was the secret why did you tell Jeanne? Never mind darling I know lots of things about you that she doesn’t know.
PPS. Peta says I better not speak to the gentleman next door about the dogs in case he is coarse so perhaps I better not. I don’t suppose it will last much longer. What do you think about it? Be sure to write soon.
Although it could not be classed as first-rate in penmanship or erudition, May’s letter possessed the most important characteristic of all letters, for it brought the writer clearly to the reader’s mind. Julia decided she must write to May and tell her everything—everything that had happened. She must explain to May about ‘the secret’ and why she had mentioned it to ‘Jeanne.’ Poor May, the postscript showed she was a little hurt about it. That would never do! Julia reread the postscript more carefully and realised that May was very hurt indeed, so she must write at once . . . and she must tell May to pack up all the things she had left behind and let the room. Julia did not feel very happy about this; it had been a nice safe sort of feeling to know that she had a room in May’s house to which she could return whenever she wanted, but it was not fair to May to keep it indefinitely . . . yes, the room must be let. Then Julia reread May’s post-postscript—and giggled. So like May! So like dear May! In fact the whole letter was so like dear May that Julia could imagine herself sitting in May’s parlour and listening to her chattering. She tried to imagine May here, sitting in Uncle Randal’s study and chattering, but this flight of imagination was beyond her. May in Looking-Glass Country was unimaginable. May sitting in the kitchen talking to Maggie? No, no, no, they would hate each other! They would despise each other! It was a frightful thought.
Fortunately there was no chance of May coming to Looking-Glass Country, so there was no need to worry.
*
3
Julia was now ready to open Stephen’s letter and enjoy it at her leisure:
Gemscoombe,
Devonshire
My dear Julia,
It was so nice getting your letter. I didn’t open it at breakfast (I have breakfast with Father—Mother has hers in bed) but put it in my pocket and came out to a little shelf of rock in the cliff where I used to sit when I was a kid and read Treasure Island and Westward Ho! I’m sitting there now, answering your letter, with the waves lapping on the shore below and the seagulls soaring overhead and screaming and diving into the sea—so you must excuse rather an unconventional kind of letter, Julia. I was a bit disappointed when I saw how short it was—your letter, I mean—but when I read it I understood. I do feel so dreadfully sorry you are having such an anxious time; it is terrible when people we love are very ill. I remember when Mother was very ill and had to have a serious operation I nearly went mad with worry. I didn’t realise that you were so fond of your uncle. As a matter of fact you never mentioned him to me; I’m sure you didn’t, because I should have remembered; but I can see that he means a lot to you and I do hope and pray that the operation will be successful and he will make a good recovery. It is wonderful what a good surgeon can do nowadays and there are all sorts of new inventions like penicillin and oxygen and blood transfusions. I know about them because Mother had them when she was so desperately ill and they saved her life . . . and now, here she is, thank God, as fit as a fiddle! So we must hope that all will go well with your Uncle Randal. I want you to know that I understand and am thinking about you, Julia—and hoping and praying and feeling sorry.
You ask in your letter whether Gemscoombe is so called because precious stones were found in the district, but I’m afraid the name has a less respectable derivation! Still it is interesting so I hasten to tell you that it is an abbreviation of Gentlemen’s coombe. The ‘Gentlemen’ were smugglers of course. You remember Kipling’s poem.
Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson,
Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
There are huge cellars underneath the house where the ‘Gentlemen’ stored their brandy until it could be taken away and distributed, and there is an underground passage leading from the cellars down to the cove—all very nice and convenient. Unfortunately the roof of the passage became unsafe and my grandfather had the door in the cellar blocked up with masonry. So now you know all about it. Last week I went up to London for a couple of nights to see our lawyer about some business and while I was there I called in at the British Museum and asked about sapphires. They had piles of books about precious stones so I found out quite a lot that I didn’t know before. There was one very old book which gave the history of sapphires and all sorts of interesting stories about them. From the descriptions of the stone it seems obvious that our modern ‘blue sapphire’ is in reality the gem which the Ancients called the hyacinthus; there are fascinating legends about it—more than about any other precious stone. For instance the Ancients believed that the hyacinthus possessed magical properties and bestowed health, beauty, riches, honour, good fortune and healing powers upon its wearer. And an old writer called Solinus said, ‘This is a gem that feels the influence of the air and sympathises with the heavens and does not shine equally if the sky be cloudy or bright.’ I like that awfully—don’t you? The early Christians valued it too and made it the symbol of St. Andrew and Heavenly Faith. I spent the whole morning taking copious notes and came home with my head full of blue, blue sapphires! Well, of course we don’t believe in all those queer old superstitions—they are just fairy tales, aren’t they?—so perhaps you will think I’m a bit crazy to send you the sapphire (which I’m doing by registered post). You can send it straight back if you don’t want it or you can keep it as long as you like. I don’t suppose you will want to keep it after you are married. I offered it to you before but that really was crazy—almost unpardonable, but fortunately not quite. You forgave me, didn’t you? This time I’m offering it to you as a loan with no strings attached—absolutely no strings. Of course you don’t believe it has magic properties but perhaps it will remind you that a friend is thinking about you. I hope so anyhow.
The tide is coming up so if I don’t move quickly I shall have to swim . . . besides I want this letter to catch the twelve o’clock post. The sapphire will follow when I can get it sealed up and registered.
YOURS EVER,
Stephen
Julia was smiling as she finished reading Stephen’s letter, but her eyes were soft and shiny. It was such a nice kind comforting letter; he really was a dear and it was lovely of him to think of sending her the sapphire—yes it was lovely. She remembered how beautiful it was. Of course she would not ‘send it straight back,’ she would keep it for a while. (She was not going to be married, but Stephen did not know that.) She would keep it safely until—well, until Uncle Ran was better. Of course all those old superstitions were fairy tales, as Stephen had said, but all the same. . . . And anyhow, thought Julia, it would be comforting to have something so beautiful to remind her that a friend was thinking about her—and praying—and feeling sorry.
Julia read the letter again. In fact she read it several times and every time she read it she liked it better. It was an unconventional kind of letter—as Stephen had said—but that made it all the nicer. It was full of Stephen’s personality; she could almost hear Stephen’s unusually deep voice talking to her; she could imagine him sitting on the shore and the seagulls soaring and diving. Some day when Uncle Ran was better, Julia decided, she must accept Mrs. Brett’s invitation and go to Gemscoombe—it sounded such a lovely place.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The day passed remarkably quickly. Maggie
returned at teatime full of praises for the Westchester Home and for the comfortable quiet room and the ‘wise-like nurse’ that had been allotted to Uncle Randal. She was somewhat worried about the expense of these amenities, but Julia was able to reassure her by explaining that she had arranged all that with Mr. MacTavish.
‘Do you mean you’re paying yourself, Miss Julia?’ asked Maggie in astonishment.
‘Yes, I’ve got enough in the bank—it’s all arranged,’ replied Julia confidently.
The next morning Julia had her breakfast in bed as usual and then went downstairs to dust ‘the room’ (the little task had become part of her daily routine). She chatted to Maggie and to the painters, who already were working busily in Uncle Ran’s bedroom, and went out to do the shopping.
A great many people in the town asked anxiously about Mr. Harburn; everybody seemed to know he had gone to Edinburgh to have an operation. It was obvious that Mr. Harburn was well known and well liked in the little town, not only because of his own delightful personality but also because the Harburn family had been closely associated with Leddiesford for hundreds of years.
Mrs. Brown in the dairy explained this by saying, ‘Well, ye see, Miss Julia, the Harburns are oor ain folk—that’s the way of it. There was mony a sair hairt in Leddiesford when the big hoose was sold to the London gentleman, but that’s what happens nowadays. It was too big for Mr. Randal to live in, himself; it would have been different altogether if he’d been married.’ She wrapped up the butter and put it into Julia’s basket. ‘Mind you it’s a pity,’ she added. ‘It’s an awful pity his marriage never came off.’
Strangely enough the idea that Uncle Randal might have married had never occurred to Julia, but now she began to think about it. He was so attractive, so interesting and so kind, and he must have been very good-looking when he was young. Why had he never married? Julia thought about what Mrs. Brown had said; it almost sounded as if he had been engaged to be married and the engagement had been broken off . . . but perhaps Mrs. Brown had not meant that; perhaps it was just her way of putting it. Julia still found Looking-Glass language puzzling at times.
*
2
When Julia got home there was a small parcel, heavily sealed and registered, lying upon the hall table. How quickly it had come! She pounced upon it in delight and ran upstairs to her bedroom so that she could open it in private.
The parcel had been so securely fastened that it was quite difficult to open. Inside the brown paper covering was a white box and inside the white box was the little chamois-leather bag which had been made by Mrs. Brett. Julia untied the string and the sapphire rolled out onto her dressing-table and lay there, glowing in the noonday sunshine.
How beautiful it was! It was even more beautiful than she remembered—it was even more like ‘a blue red-hot coal’—but perhaps that was because she had seen it before by lamplight and now it was in the sunshine. ‘This is a gem that feels the influence of the air and sympathises with the heavens and does not shine equally if the sky be cloudy or bright.’ It was shining now with a soft velvety sheen—cornflower blue—quite, quite beautiful!
For some time Julia gazed at it, marvelling that any stone could be so exquisite . . . a tiny thing, not much larger than a good-sized pea, but somehow complete in itself and containing its own glowing light. Would it shine in the dark, she wondered. She felt sure that it would shine in the dark.
The dinner bell roused Julia from her enchantment. She put the sapphire back in the little bag; she found a black ribbon, and fixing it firmly to the string of the bag, tied it round her neck. Fortunately the ribbon was exactly the right length, so the little bag fitted very comfortably underneath her clothes. Indeed there was a little hollow which might have been specially designed for a sapphire in a little chamois bag.
It will be safe there, thought Julia. It’s very valuable, of course, so I must take the greatest care of it.
Having made sure it was perfectly safe and completely invisible Julia went downstairs to have her lunch.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It had been arranged that Julia should visit Uncle Randal in the afternoon, so she went up to Edinburgh in the bus and found her way to the Westchester Nursing Home. She was surprised when she was shown into his room and found he had a visitor. A tall thin man with grey hair and grey eyes was sitting beside his bed.
‘Come in, come in, my dear!’ exclaimed Uncle Randal when he saw her hesitating at the door. ‘I’m glad you came just now. This is a very old friend of mine, Henry Baird. I wanted you to meet him.’
Mr. Baird rose and shook hands with Julia; she was aware of the grey eyes looking at her with keen interest.
Julia liked him (in a way he resembled Uncle Randal, so she was not surprised to hear they were friends), but all the same she hoped he would go away soon, for she wanted a private chat with Uncle Ran. There were all sorts of things she wanted to ask him: whether he was being well looked after; whether he had slept well; whether he liked his ‘special nurse.’ The room seemed comfortable, bright and airy and well furnished.
‘If there’s anything I can do for you while your uncle is laid up you have only to let me know,’ said Mr. Baird.
‘Oh, thank you,’ replied Julia, politely.
‘Yes, just ask him,’ said Uncle Randal. ‘He’ll give you whatever you want.’
Julia was glad to see that Mr. Baird was gathering up some papers which had been lying on the bed and putting them away in a brown leather brief-case.
‘You know all about everything, don’t you, Henry?’ asked Uncle Randal, anxiously.
‘Yes, yes, it’s perfectly simple and straightforward. I’ll get it done immediately.’ He said good-bye and went away.
‘He’s one of the best,’ declared Uncle Randal. ‘We were friends when we were boys. The Bairds had a fine place not far from Leddiesford, so we saw a lot of each other in the old days.’
‘How are you getting on?’ asked Julia anxiously. ‘Are you quite comfortable here?’
‘Very comfortable indeed.’
‘Have you got a nice nurse?’
Uncle Ran chuckled. ‘You mustn’t call her a nurse; she’s a sister. Sister Don is her name. She looks after me like a baby. She’s a bit strict—I’m not allowed to do this and I’m not allowed to do that—but we’re getting to know each other. Now, sit down, my dear, and tell me all the news. I feel as though I’d been away from home for weeks.’
Julia smiled. He had left home only yesterday, so there was not much to tell him except that everybody had been making kind inquiries about him.
‘That’s good of them.’
The Blue Sapphire Page 24