*
Atty dashed into the room just now, demanding string and rubber bands and scissors, and some glue “or something that will stick things”. (He is constructing a model aeroplane from one of those make-it-yourself boys’ magazines, and his requirements are many and various.)
I told him where he could find what he wanted, adding the hopeful proviso that the ball of string, the scissors and the paste-pot were all to be Put Back when finished with. He lingered for a minute. “If that’s a thank-you for presents letter,” he said. “It’s an awfully long one.”
“I wrote all my Christmas thank-you letters ages ago,” I began smugly, only to remember with a pang of guilt, that I have never thanked you, dear Hugo, for the enchanting native-made wooden animals or the ivory cocktail sticks. How could I be so ungrateful and forgetful? And after hounding Atty to his duty immediately Christmas was over! Please forgive me this time. I shall not be so remiss again. The rhinoceros is adorning Atty’s dressing-table, and the black hippopotamus, the elephant and the giraffe are in a row above the doorway of the dining-room, which has rather a wide ledge. They look very well against the cream-coloured wall, and quite at home.
Miss Marchbanks says it will be an awful job dusting them, she will need to get on a chair every time. She also considers that “the blacks” must have more time on their hands than other folk if they can make these outlandish-looking beasts; and when I have a laddie in the house eating the way Master Atty does, you would have shown more sense if you had sent a good big tinned ham! I am so glad you didn’t! As I pointed out to Aunt Nettie, once the ham had been eaten, I should have nothing to show for my Christmas present, whereas the “outlandish-looking beasts” are there to be looked at for many a long day.
Her reply to that was another sniff. I thought that Miss Bonaly’s sniff of disapproval was the most eloquent I’d ever heard, but Aunt Nettie’s runs it pretty close. I wonder who would be adjudged the winner in a sniffing competition? What a pity we couldn’t have one at the W.R.I. It would be original at least, and a change from the everlasting needlework and jam and knitting!
I put this suggestion to Elizabeth Drysdale, who looked in on her way back from shopping in Ravenskirk. She had Catherine with her, and both the tall pretty creatures were wearing bright waterproof coats with hats to match, Elizabeth’s green, Catherine’s red. They made the dull dripping day cheerful. In this climate of ours I think people ought not to be allowed to go about dressed for wet weather in dreary subfusc brownish-greens and greenish-browns. The average raincoat is a depressant in itself. They were delighted when I admired them. “We feel terribly kenspeckle—or at least, I do. Catherine doesn’t notice when people stare,” said Elizabeth. “But we haven’t been as wildly extravagant as we look. These coats represent the entire family’s Christmas present to Catherine and me—and they really are waterproof besides looking gay.”
“I shall give myself one,” I said. “Even if it has to be all my birthday and Christmas presents to me for the next five years!”
Hearing voices, Atty peered cautiously into the passage.
“Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed in tones of relief. “I thought it was people—”
He advanced, trailing string from his pocket, where, judging by the bulge, he had put the ball of twine, and offered a disgustingly dirty sticky hand.
Neither Elizabeth nor Catherine was over-eager to accept this greeting, and I didn’t blame them. Atty was a little hurt. He said reproachfully that he thought they wouldn’t mind “just a little glue and stuff” when they were used to boys anyhow! He went to wash for tea wearing an air of weary disillusionment and muttering that it was a waste of time.
It is not often that Elizabeth can leave her own house without warning to have tea with me, but on this particular afternoon Lewis and Anthony had gone to Edinburgh and were staying the night. Visits to the dentist were part of their programme, and to Lewis’s tailor—on Anthony’s behalf, not his own. There are few fathers left to-day who can afford a new suit if they have sons to clothe! Or mothers either, for that matter.
“You shock me, Sara,” Elizabeth said solemnly when I told her of my idea for a sniffing competition. “Nobody in Ravenskirk has ever made such a subversive suggestion. I cannot feel that you are an influence for good in the W.R.I.”
“I’d like to liven things up a bit.”
“You would certainly succeed,” said Elizabeth, and began to laugh. “I wonder who would win—at sniffing, I mean?”
Atty spoke through a mouthful of scone and honey, his voice muffled, but absolute conviction in its tone.
“Miss Bonaly would win,” he said. “Miss Marchbanks isn’t nasty enough. She doesn’t sniff the same way at all.”
It was perfectly true, of course. We had known it all the time but we had forgotten Atty, or thought him absorbed in eating fast so that he could get back to his precious aeroplane.
Catherine answered for us. “I know what you mean,” she said. “Aunt Nettie’s sniff is just disparaging or disapproving, Miss Bonaly’s is sort of malignant—”
“I didn’t mean to be horrid about Aunt Nettie, Atty,” I said apologetically.
“Well, I like her,” he said, very red. “She’s nice. Her face reminds me of a thrush.”
I can’t say I had ever noticed any resemblance, but now that Atty mentioned it, I could see what he meant. Something about the bright beady eyes—in Aunt Nettie’s case peeping through steel-rimmed spectacles—and the way her head shot forward when she saw a bit of fluff on the carpet, was reminiscent of a thrush looking for worms on the lawn.
“Do you call her ‘Aunt Nettie’ to her face, Sara?” asked Elizabeth, when Atty, with a perfunctory “Excuse me, please,” had pushed back his chair and returned to his sticky occupation.
“Good Heavens, no! I wouldn’t dare. I call her Miss Marchbanks and she doesn’t call me anything. I suppose to assert her independence.”
“There’s something thoroughly decent about that woman,” said Elizabeth. “I like her.”
“So do I, and so do her neighbours.”
“Wouldn’t she like to come to the W.R.I.? She would find most of her friends there—”
“I think she is hoping that Madge will join,” I said. “And they don’t like both to be out together. It means leaving wee Helen alone in the house.”
“Do you suppose she finds life very dreary?” This was Catherine.
“No, I don’t think so. She always seems quite happy in a disapproving way. I shall be sorry, really, when Madge comes back. I’ll miss Aunt Nettie’s comments, never to mention the swift quiet way she does her work,” I said.
“I wonder if Madge could come to me, and you could keep Aunt Nettie?” suggested Elizabeth. “My Mrs. Pattison told me only yesterday that she would like to retire. All her family is working now, and she doesn’t really need the money any longer. I know she has kept on over Christmas just to oblige me, but I can’t trade on her good feelings any longer.”
“It would suit me,” I said. “And you would want Madge six mornings a week instead of the three I need her. But—have you thought what Miss Bonaly will say?”
“If Miss Bonaly tackles me I shall tell her I am going to reform Madge.”
“How priggish of you!” I said. “I wish you joy. If you can reform Madge you’re a better man than I am—”
“Yes, yes, Gunga Din. I know I am,” replied Elizabeth even more smugly.
And with a good deal of rather silly laughter, which was very cheering on such a dismal afternoon, she and Catherine went off home to Carmichael.
After they had gone I felt remorseful over poor Madge, who, apart from being of a too complaisant nature, has only really lapsed once, and can hardly be said to be in need of reforming. I wish I could learn to be wise in time rather than sorry too late.
I rang Elizabeth up to tell her, and was rewarded by her laughter over the telephone.
“My dear impulsive quick-spoken Sara!” she cried. “Don’t wor
ry, I know we were both talking foolishly. It meant nothing. But if Madge does come to me, I’ll keep an eye on her.”
I do like Elizabeth Drysdale. She is one of those people who smooth where others make rough; she can speak sharply if need be, but knows when to comfort. There are not so many of her kind about.
CHAPTER IX
FEBRUARY, 1952
Hugo, did the King’s death not come upon you as a stunning blow? It was such an intensely personal loss, the Head of the family leaving us so quietly, so unexpectedly, after the better news we had had of his health only the day before. . . .
I was out when the B.B.C. made the announcement. Even if I had been in the house I should not have heard it, for I am very lethargic about the wireless, which is hardly ever on except during Atty’s holidays. The news was told me by a woman from one of the cottages at the end of our lane. She came out as I passed on my way home from walking Pam, with such a look of bewildered grief that I stopped.
“Eh,” she said. “Have ye heard? The King’s dead. Is it no’ terrible?”
“The King?” I couldn’t believe it. “Are you sure? He was better—he was out shooting for a little yesterday, at Sandringham—”
“It was on the wireless now,” she said sorrowfully. “He just slippit awa’ in his sleep. I’m that vexed for the Queen! And yon poor lassie so far from her home!”
“The Queen? Of course, she is the Queen now,” I said stupidly.
“It’s his Queen I’m meaning. Losing a good man like him will be hard to bear.”
Hard to bear, indeed, I thought, as after a few more words I went slowly up the lane to Piper’s Cottage; hard for all his peoples, and how much, much harder for his very own. . . .
This is the time of year when it seems as if winter will never end, so firmly is the countryside held in its cold grasp. Since I wrote to you last month we have had every possible variety and combination of disagreeable weather which this so-called temperate zone can produce. Days of pelting rain brought the little hill burns down like raging demons of red-brown water, overflowing into the low-lying fields. This was followed by a spell of very hard frost, to the delight of all the children in Ravenskirk, who have been out sliding madly on the frozen floods. The curlers, too, have been in their element, and tremendous day-long battles between rinks from all the villages round have been waged. The deep-toned ring of the stones over the ice could be heard long after the sun set like a huge orange balloon among smoky clouds, and the moon sailed up over the shoulder of hill behind Windy Gans. That particular spell, bitter cold though it was, had a sort of exhilaration for anyone who could keep moving quickly enough for warmth; but the old people suffered and there have been several deaths in the cottages of the village. I feel frightened for Mrs. Keith, who does not take enough care of herself. “I and Louisa have told Madam more times than I could count she’ll take her death skittering out to feed the birds.” Thus Beattie the elderly parlourmaid. “The birds can do for themselves until after you’ve taken your breakfast, I’ve told her. But no! The minute she’s dressed, she’s downstairs seeking the birds’ food, and away out to spread it for them, with no more than a wee wisp of a shawl over her shoulders!”
“What does Mrs. Keith’s doctor say to it?” I asked.
“Is it him? Doctor Braidwood? Madam can do what she likes with him,” quoth Beattie contemptuously.
(I can see another entrant here for my sniffing competition!)
Rather in fear and trembling, for one does not presume to offer advice to Mrs. Keith of Ladymount, I lodged a protest. She heard me out to the end very patiently, and then patted my arm.
“Just let me finish my life my own way, my dear,” she said. “And don’t pay any attention to Beattie’s lamentations. She would keep me in bed, wrapped in cotton-wool, if I let her. I take reasonable care of myself, and I’ll die when my time comes.”
I could say no more—indeed, I found it rather difficult to speak at all.
We have had days of thick clammy mist, when visibility shrank to the nearest hedge, and the little house seemed quite alone, and I the last inhabitant of an unseen world. But the most alarming weather was when wild gales screamed round the house and shouted down the chimneys, and I lay awake in bed listening to it and wondering how ships were faring at sea. How desperately I used to pray for Ivo’s safety when storms added another hazard to the many facing ships on convoy escort. “Preserve them from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy.” It is a long time now since Ivo needed those prayers—nine, almost ten years.
Occasionally, after the wind has raged to a standstill, we have suddenly been blessed with one of those warm spring-like days full of pale sunshine, and brave larks singing above the ploughed fields. It has been like that to-day—I found six aconites flowering under a sheltering bush of lavender, and snowdrops below the front windows. I knelt down at them more closely, hardly able to believe that these tiny frail things could bloom after the bitter cold we’ve been having, and will have again before spring is here. Pam, eager to know what I was doing, came shoving his inquisitive black nose in among the slender green spikes of the snowdrop leaves, and was rewarded by finding his favourite ball, which has been missing since long before Christmas. So we were both pleased, and while I walked round the garden picking a handful of winter jasmine he cavorted on the grass with his ball.
Presently I went in to put my jasmine into an old pewter mug on the dining-room table, and during the few minutes he was alone, Pam disappeared. The ball was lying on the grass, but the long-legged black dog was gone. When I had whistled and called without result for some time, Aunt Nettie put her face out of my bedroom window.
“If it’s the dog you’re seeking, I saw it away through the hedge to Wallace Cottage,” she observed with gloomy pleasure. Aunt Nettie always alludes to any dog as “it”, thus avoiding the delicate question of sex.
At the moment I was too much concerned over Pam’s escapade to bother about Aunt Nettie’s refinements of speech. My neighbours keep themselves so very much to themselves that I do not like to intrude on them—but I would have to recover Pam before he started to dig their garden for them, an attention which I was sure they would resent.
“She’s seen it!” hissed Aunt Nettie from above. “She’s clapping it!”
I went to the dividing hedge and said through it, “Mrs. Kilmartin, I’m so sorry the puppy has got into your garden. I’ll come round for him, and I’ll have wire-netting put along so that he can’t do it again—”
“I’ll bring him,” her voice replied hastily, and in a few minutes she appeared at the door with Pam under her arm.
To my further apologies she only said in a wistful tone, “He’s very sweet, isn’t he? And so gentle and playful—”
“You don’t have a dog, do you?” I asked, though I knew they did not, and had sometimes wondered why.
Her face at once became blank. “Oh, no, I—I wouldn’t have time to look after one.”
“Mrs. Kilmartin,” I said. “Couldn’t I do your shopping for you sometimes when I’m going to Ravenskirk myself? It wouldn’t be any trouble to me—”
“No, thank you,” she answered immediately. “I couldn’t think of asking you. I can manage quite well. I always have.”
She looked, as usual, pinched and pale and cold. I thought of something suddenly.
“I wonder if you could do with a pheasant?” I said. “A friend gave me a brace just at the end of the shooting, a fortnight ago and I can’t possibly eat them both myself, and they are just right now for cooking. It would really be a kindness if you would take one.”
I was so sure that she would refuse that I almost fell down when she said hesitatingly, “That—that’s very kind of you—but only if you really don’t need it—”
Without more ado I hurried away to fetch the bird—Lawrence Whitburn had brought them, and they were fine big pheasants—and brought it back. She had not come in, of course, though I had asked her to, but stood hoverin
g on the doorstep like a wild creature afraid of being caught.
“Here you are. I hope you and your husband will enjoy it,” I said, handing it over.
“Oh, we will. My husband—Ronald—is fond of game,” she murmured. “Thank you very much. It is kind of you.”
I watched her scurry back to her own house, and went indoors, feeling that at last I was beginning to make a little headway with Mrs. Kilmartin.
About a quarter of an hour later the bell rang furiously, and there was a thunderous knocking as well, which roused Pam to barking and caused Aunt Nettie to peer over the banisters, remarking sarcastically: “Mercy me! Where’s the fire?”
When I had shut Pam in and opened the door, the pheasant I had so gladly given to Mrs. Kilmartin was thrust at me by a haggard man, shabbily dressed in what had once been a very good suit.
“My wife made a mistake. We don’t need this pheasant,” he said abruptly.
“But—” I began, completely taken aback.
“We don’t want it, I tell you!” he said, and this time he sounded really fierce. “We have no need of charity. Take it back, please.”
I got rather angry myself, then. “There is no question of charity,” I said. “If a neighbour can’t give you a bird she doesn’t want without your making such an absurd fuss over it and calling it charity, I don’t know what things are coming to!”
“I won’t accept anything that I can’t return!” he said, pulling himself up straight and glaring at me.
“I don’t see why you should deprive your wife of a pheasant just because you want to be grand about it,” I said.
All of a sudden he collapsed, the wild light went out of his eyes, and he drooped against the door-post limply.
“What am I to do?” he muttered, more as if he were talking to himself than to me. “I’ve told Elise I would bring it back to you—and now what am I to do?”
“Do?” I said. “Take it straight home and pluck it so that Mrs. Kilmartin can cook it for your dinner to-night!”
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