“Oh, dear, here comes Miss Milligan, and there’s no means of escape!”
Miss Milligan, fluttered bird-like up to her and stood twittering. “Good morning, Kate, my dear. I am so lucky to have caught you. Now I needn’t go on to The Anchorage, or up to Soonhope, and that will be a saving of precious time, as I must go to the grocer’s for Mamma’s Allenbury’s diet, which I most stupidly forgot to order yesterday, and she will want it at lunch.”
“Can I take a message for you to Mrs. Anstruther? Or Granny?” asked Kate.
“No, no, thank you. It was you I wanted to see. Would you come to tea this afternoon, Kate? It would give Mamma and me so much pleasure. I think she has been feeling a leetle dull lately, and you would cheer her up.”
It was on the tip of Kate’s tongue to refuse, when she thought that having tea with Mrs. and Miss Milligan would surely keep her safe from any adventure. Also she remembered Mrs. Anstruther’s caustic description of ‘Mamma,’ whose greatest interest in life was bullying her daughter. She thought she could read a dim appeal for help in Miss Milligan’s small bright eyes, and heard herself answering: “Thank you. I’m sure I can be spared at Soonhope, and I should like to come very much indeed.”
‘What have I let myself in for?’ she wondered, as, leaving Miss Milligan to turn back towards the grocer’s in Crossgate Street, she went in at the gates of Soonhope.
There seemed to be a good deal of noise going on at the lodge, she could hear voices raised in what sounded like loud, shrill lamentation, mingled with curses uttered in Geordie Pow’s deeper tones. But why was Geordie not up at the garden? Kate stopped, wondering if she ought to inquire into the matter, when the eldest daughter of the house, the fashionable young woman known throughout Haystoun as ‘Mrs Pow’s May,’ and destined to be kitchenmaid at Soonhope, burst from the open doorway wringing her hands, with large tears rolling down her round pink cheeks and splashing unheeded on her newest jumper.
“May! Is anything wrong?” asked Kate in dismay.
“Oh, Miss Kate! Oh, dear! A nawfu’ thing’s happened!” wept May.
“Is it Mrs. Pow? Or has Jimsy fallen into the fire?” asked Kate, all sorts of horrors flashing vividly through her mind.
“Oh, no! It’s my Dadda’s leeks! They’ve been stole in the night!”
Kate, after the first moment of relief and consequent annoyance at having been frightened for nothing, began to appreciate the full extent of the calamity which had befallen the Pows.
“Not his leeks for the Show, May?” she said anxiously.
“Ay! The finest leeks ever ye seen, nane better in the county!” sobbed May, her genteel accent leaving her in this hour of stress. “An’ the Show on Setturday firrst, an’ him sairtain o’ the Firrst Prize!”
Round the corner of the lodge came Mrs. Pow, breathing threats of vengeance, and terrible as a volcano in full eruption. “Thae dirrty thievin’ tinklers o’ Barries! I could burrn the hoose aboot their lugs, the blagyirds!” she proclaimed in trumpet tones.
“Then you know who took the leeks?” said Kate.
“Fine I ken. Whae else wad it be? Barrie’s aye been second tae Pow, an’ black jealous, an’ this year he’s gaun tae be firrst or ken the reason why,” said Mrs. Pow grimly. “C’wa’ you roond tae the back, Miss Kate, an’ see for yersel’.”
Kate threw all thoughts of Lucy and her neat little lists to the winds. With the weeping May at her heels, she followed Mrs. Pow’s stormy progress to the patch of garden behind the house. Here Geordie was discovered, a statue of woe, his whole figure drooping, even the leather straps which secured his earthy trousers below the knee eloquent of loss, staring gloomily into a large hole in the ground.
“Ay,” he muttered in answer to Kate’s murmur of condolence, spoken in a hushed tone, for she felt as if she stood beside an empty grave. “Ay. Three o’ the bonniest leeks ever I grew. Little did I think they were tae gie John Barrie a firrst at Haystoun Show.”
“Can’t you get them back, Geordie?”
He uttered a short sardonic laugh. “Is it get them back? Ae leek’s geyan like anither when it’s in the grun’, an’ I’ve nae trade-mark on mines. Forbye John Barrie’s guid sister’s mairret on the polis-sergeant, an’ if I gaed tae the station he wadna heed me. I was juist mak’ a fule o’ mysel’ for the hale burgh tae lauch at. Na, na, Miss Kate, they’re a lossie. I doot I’ll juist hae tae thole.”
On hearing these words May’s sobs were redoubled, and even Mrs. Pow applied a corner of her apron to eyes which were noticeably dry with fury.
“I’m terribly sorry, Geordie,” said Kate. “I wish there was something we could do.”
“Aweel, there’s naethin’ we’ll can dae but struggle on,” said Geordie in tones of manly resignation. “We’ll no’ say a wurrd o’ this, mind ye”—with a threatening look at his wife and daughter, who had made rebellious noises, for they had looked forward to telling their wrongs. “I’m no’ gaun tae hae the hale toun ken that Geordie Pow canna keep his ain gairden frae robbery.
“Mind ye,” he added, “it’s no’ juist for mysel’ I’m heedin’, but I’m rale vexed aboot it wi’ the maister an’ mistress new hame an’ a’. The fowks used wi’ readin’ i’ the Advertiser that George Pow, Soonhope Lodge, has got a firrst for his leeks, an’ I doot they’ll be wonderin’ whit’s gane wrang. As like as no’ they’ll think I wis keepit that throng in the big hoose gairden that I hadna the time tae grow my ain leeks, an’ that’s no’ richt. An’ this the very year we’d be wishin’ tae hae a’thing at its best. There’ll be mair clash nor ever. Na, it’s no richt ava’.”
“Certainly not,” Kate agreed. “But all the same, Geordie, I don’t see what you can do except keep quiet.”
With this cold comfort she left him, went on up to the house, and spent a long and rather tiresome morning with Lucy’s little lists. It was a very great pity that Lucy made it so difficult for anyone to sympathize with her, when she was undoubtedly in the right. Perhaps it was because she never let it be imagined for a moment that she could have been wrong? Kate was not sure, but she was feeling ruffled and tired when she went back to Mrs. Anstruther’s to put on a hat and collect a pair of gloves before going out to tea with old Mrs. Milligan. She decided to walk along the Loaning behind the houses, and reach The Anchorage by its back door. She could not tell what had prompted her to take this road which passed the small cottage tenanted by the nefarious Barries, but she found herself peering over their garden wall as guiltily as if she were the thief. Certainly it was maddening to see, in a sunny patch of rich black soil, screened from the house by a bank of enormous shaggy dahlias, a large glass bell-jar carefully set over some treasure—in all probability the stolen leeks. Feeling ran high as the date of Haystoun Show approached, and ladies who were rivals in butter-making or ‘jeely’ were frequently not on speaking terms for days before and after the great event of early autumn, and at least one family feud had raged for eleven years over a baking of dropped scones. Choice vegetables had been known to be spirited away overnight to appear as some other competitor’s entry in the cottage gardens’ produce section. But never before had it happened so near home. A clannish feeling of rage, which made her own sister to Mrs. Pow, began to stir in Kate’s heart. Why should these vile Barries get away with it, and laugh in their sleeves at Soonhope?
“They shan’t,” she vowed through clenched teeth. “If I have to steal them back myself!”
There was a moment when she remembered her hope of no more adventures, but it passed almost immediately, for the idea, once formulated, instantly became a plan, which is rather a habit with ideas. Still not quite knowing what had put it into her head, Kate walked on. It was very strange. Only two minutes had passed since she had paused merely to look sadly over the Barries’ wall, and now she was going straight towards the telephone kiosk near Mrs. Anstruther’s back gate, and her intention was to ring up Mrs. Anstruther’s pet nephew and invite him to assist at a burglary. It was an outdoor burglary,
but that wasn’t likely to make it look any better in the eyes of the police-sergeant so inconveniently married to John Barrie’s sister-in-law.
All this was at the back of her mind, for her present urgent anxiety was to see whether she had enough pennies in her pocket for the call. If fourpence was not sufficient, she would take it as a sign; if it were, well, then, it was still a sign. Even as she asked for Robin Anstruther’s number clearly and firmly, and, obedient to the disembodied uninterested voice of the exchange, put her four pennies into the slot, Kate knew that sheer obstinacy would have made her go home and fetch more money if necessary, sign or no sign. It would have been a waste of time for her to have taken the omens in old days; nor did it occur to her that he might be out, a more unfortunate augury still.
Her confidence was rewarded. “Hullo?” he said, sounding very gruff.
“This is Kate Heron,” began Kate, who suddenly realized that it was not going to be too easy to explain her beautiful idea to him. There was a long pause, then they said “Hullo?” together, and Kate swallowed a longing to giggle.
It sounded in her voice as she said again: “Hullo. Are you still there?”
“Still here. What’s the matter? You sound as if you were trying to confess a crime. Have you murdered my aunt?”
“I haven’t murdered anyone,” said Kate. “If I had, it would have been much more likely to be Lucy than your aunt. But I’m going to burgle a garden tonight, and I want you to help me. Sailors are supposed to be so good at odd jobs.”
“Haven’t you forgotten that I’m a farmer now, not a sailor. And this is really a very odd job. Damned odd. Fishy, in fact.”
“It’s an act of justice,” Kate said solemnly. “And I can’t manage alone. You simply must help me.”
“Suppose I say I won’t?” he asked coolly.
“Oh!” Kate’s gasp of dismay was audible even over the telephone. She was so taken aback that she could think of no argument or appeal likely to move him. “Oh, well, if you won’t, there’s nothing more to be said,” she ended in a flat voice, and hung up the receiver.
As she left the stuffy little kiosk, a smile broke over her face. “Hanging up like that was an unconscious stroke of genius. If he’s as curious as most men, he won’t leave it there.”
4
It seemed so indecorous to be planning a burglary while seated at Mrs. Milligan’s prim tea-table that Kate was hard put to it to restrain her smiles; as a result of which Miss Milligan and Mamma had quite a little argument after their guest was gone, Miss Milligan bravely maintaining that Kate wore a very pleasant expression, while her parent trenchantly observed: “Nonsense, Flora, the girl sat there grinning like a hyena. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a want, mark my words.”
Kate, however, was quite unaware that she had aroused such grave suspicions of her sanity in her hostess’s mind, and continued to listen with only half an ear to current Haystoun gossip, and to smile irresistibly whenever she thought of the leeks. With an effort she brought herself back to Mrs. Milligan’s bedroom, where tea was always served to those persons whom the redoubtable old lady wished to see. It was dark as a cave, heavily furnished with large Victorian wardrobe, chest-of-drawers, dressing-table and washstand, all looming from their corners, and dominated by the huge four-poster, hung with maroon curtains, from which Mrs. Mulligan ruled her little world.
“Yes,” Kate heard her say complacently. “Your grand-mother and I were the beauties of Haystoun in our day, when we didn’t depend on paint and powder to help us, either.”
Startled, Kate looked at her, trying to find traces of bygone beauty in that enormous puffy white face, so reminiscent of unbaked dough, the owlish eyes magnified by round glasses, the cruel hooked nose. Her tiny pursed mouth, perhaps, had been a rosebud?
“You wouldn’t think it to look at me now,” added Mrs. Milligan grimly. “Oh, you needn’t bother to say anything. I have the use of my eyes and can see myself in the mirror, thank you. Jean Anstruther was a handsome young woman, too. I remember her coming here as a bride, nearer sixty than fifty years ago. But she was very sharp-tongued even then, and it’s grown on her. How do you like staying with her?”
Kate murmured truthfully that she liked it very much indeed.
“Do you see much of that nephew of hers?” was the next question in the catechism.
“Not a great deal. Of course he comes regularly to see Mrs. Anstruther on market-days.”
“H’m. I heard he had been in the town pretty often lately,” said Mrs. Anstruther with a meaning look, which Kate returned with an innocent stare.
‘Dreadful old woman,’ she thought, but she was struggling with yawns now, not secret smiles, and felt too sleepy to be indignant. The room was very hot, for a large fire burned in the grate in spite of the sunshine outside, and though Mrs. Milligan and her daughter appeared to bask pleasantly in the heat, Kate suddenly was overcome by an agony of drowsiness. A row of horrible little greenish-yellow bobbles hanging down from the strip of velvet which covered the mantelpiece, wavered before her eyes, now swelling to a monstrous size, now dwindling away almost to nothing. Extraordinary things seemed to be happening to Mrs. Milligan’s voice, for it had sounded no louder than a mouse’s squeak a moment before, and suddenly it was roaring in her ears.
“I suppose he and Andrew Lockhart won’t be so friendly now as they used to be?” it was saying.
“He? Robin Anstruther? Why not?” Kate heard herself ask stupidly, and was instantly wide awake, for Mrs. Milligan replied.
“Well, it must have been a blow to him when Mrs. Fardell ran off with Andrew. Everybody knew that Robin Anstruther would have given his eyes out of his head to be in Andrew’s shoes. He was silly about the woman.”
Kate pulled herself together. This was gossip with a vengeance, and somehow it seemed to threaten Robin, tearing a veil from a dark secret place in his life for curious eyes to peer at. She mustn’t listen to another word. “I didn’t know that. But I can assure you that he and my cousin Andrew are very good friends,” she answered casually, and rose, pulling on her gloves. “I ought to be going now, Mrs. Milligan. It is much later than I thought, and I’m sure you must be tired.”
“Tired? Not at all,” Mrs. Milligan was annoyed both by the implication and the cutting short of interesting chat. “I leave that to you young people, and to old maids like Flora. Flora is always tired.”
Restraining an almost ungovernable desire to slap the soft shapeless cheek nearest her, Kate said good-bye, and thankfully left the room, full of pity for Miss Milligan.
She seemed to be rather proud of her terrible parent than otherwise. “Mamma is so full of life,” she said to Kate in the hall. “It is a great trial to her to be bedridden, far more so for a person of her active nature than it would be for me, my dear Kate. I always remind myself of that.”
Kate felt that she would have to spend all the time reminding herself. ‘I begin to understand why some people are murdered,” she thought, as she set out on her walk home through the town. “I’d put a good pinch of arsenic in Mrs. Milligan’s arrowroot without a qualm.”
She went the longest way round, by the oldest streets, past tall houses with queer roofs bulging out into unexpected windows, or caving in with age and neglect, with odd little outside stairs, half-ruinous, lived in by the poorest of Haystoun’s population, teeming with overcrowded life, slum-dwellings fit only to be pulled down, yet so beautiful in decay that Kate hated to think of their destruction. Beside the river, screened from the street by a high wall, the remains of an old castellated building which had once belonged to Bothwell was slowly falling to pieces. Not for the first time Kate pondered the curious lack of perception shown by Mary of Scotland in her choice of husbands: that inane two yards of foppish arrogance Darnley and the swaggering bravo Bothwell to whom she had mistakenly turned for strength. Between them and her own temperament she had brought disaster upon herself, a not uncommon fate of impulsive women even in these modern days. As witness
Mrs. Fardell. . . . Kate’s thoughts swung to Robin, whose unlucky love had been shot at her like a cannon-ball by Mrs. Milligan. Now she knew why his voice changed when he spoke of Elizabeth Fardell; and she had worked up a fine pity for him, bound to the enchantress who had not cared about him, by the time she reached The Anchorage, where she found him leaning over the gate, an ancient pipe between his teeth, puffing clouds of more or less fragrant smoke on the still air.
“Well,” he began teasingly, his manner anything but love-lorn. “You’ve kept me waiting here long enough, young woman. Miss Milligan must be a damn’ sight more amusing than she used to be.”
“Oh,” said Kate innocently. “Were you waiting to see me? How sweet of you.”
“About this burglary—”
“I thought you weren’t going to have anything to do with it?”
“I want to hear what you’re up to. Then I’ll tell whether I’m going to have anything to do with it or not.”
“Suppose I don’t need your help any more?” suggested Kate provokingly, but he was not to be drawn.
“Don’t tell me Miss Milligan’s offered herself as your accomplice,” he said.
The picture of Miss Milligan digging up leeks in someone else’s garden at midnight made Kate laugh.
“That’s better. You don’t look well with your nose in the air,” he said. “Now come on and let’s have this plot of yours.”
“Won’t Mrs. Anstruther wonder where we are?” asked Kate, as she started walking with him down the road.
“Not she. Don’t start developing a criminal’s conscience before you’ve committed the crime. I told her I was going to post letters.”
“And I’m coming with you to lick the stamps?”
“That’s it. Am I going to hear about this burglary or am I not?”
“Well,” began Kate, “it’s really more like poaching than burglary.” Breathlessly she told him the story, breathlessly waited for him to speak. They were standing outside the Post Office now, and he dropped a bundle of letters through the yawning brass-bound slit before he answered.
Yoked with a Lamb Page 11