“What else do you suggest I should do?”
“But I couldn’t!” I cried. “Mrs. Millard, I couldn’t possibly —”
“In that case you had better put them back in the box. You’ll find it on the chimney-piece.”
I opened the box — and hesitated with the pearls in my hand. Mrs. Millard was sitting at the table, her head was turned sideways and she was looking out of the window — not at me. I had always admired her tremendously but now, quite suddenly, I saw her in a different light: small and pathetic and lonely. She had chosen loneliness because she hated ‘getting involved emotionally’. She was afraid of getting hurt. Freedom was what she wanted but it seemed to me a poor substitute for affection.
I thought of all she had told me about the pearls; she couldn’t wear them; she didn’t want to sell them; she hated to shut them up in prison.
I should have liked to say, “Mrs. Millard, do you really mean it? Do you want me to keep the pearls?” but I knew it would have annoyed her. I stood there looking at her profile and trying to think of something to say, but I could find nothing.
“Have you put them back in the box?” asked Mrs. Millard.
“No, I can t,” I said desperately. “May I change my mind, please?”
“Yes,” she replied.
I fastened the string round my neck and went over to where she was sitting. “I suppose I can say thank you?” I asked doubtfully.
“I suppose you can — just once,” she replied. She was smiling but her eyes were full of tears.
I kissed her and said, “Thank you, I shall wear them always — for you and for him.”
“I’m afraid you’re a sentimental young woman,” said Mrs. Millard. She added, “Go away now — without saying good-bye.”
I went at once — without saying good-bye.
*
Mother was not surprised at the news that Mrs. Millard was leaving.
“I expect she needs a holiday,” said Mother cheerfully. “You need a holiday too. You’re looking quite worn out. It would be a good plan for you to go to Edinburgh and stay with Andrew and Margaret — they’ve asked you several times. As for getting another job, you needn’t worry about that. Look at all the money you’re going to get when The Mulberry Coach is published!”
“That won’t last for ever.”
“But you can write another, can’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” I said.
As a matter of fact I had been toying with the idea of writing a successor to The Mulberry Coach. Already I had several ideas in my head for a novel set in the same period and written in much the same style … but now that Mrs. Millard was leaving Ryddelton it seemed beyond my powers. I knew only too well how much I owed to Mrs. Millard’s encouragement and constructive criticism.
“Of course you can,” said Mother confidently. “You’re tired now, and no wonder, but you’ll feel a different creature after a week in Edinburgh and you’ll have plenty of time to write.”
“Perhaps Cousin Margaret won’t want me —” I began.
“Of course they’ll want you,” declared Mother. “They’re both very fond of you, Jane … Oh, and while I remember you’re to call them Andrew and Margaret.”
“Did they say so?”
“Yes,” said Mother laughing. “They both said so quite definitely. They said now that you were all grown-up there was no need to cousin them! Rather a feeble jape, I thought, but it amused Andrew considerably.”
Mother had said nothing about the pearls (perhaps it was because she was so used to seeing them round my neck that she had forgotten all about them) and now she had another much more important matter to occupy her thoughts: Helen wrote to say she was going to have a baby.
“Not until April of course,” said Mother. “But it’s lovely to think I shall be a grandmother.” She added cheerfully, “Helen is feeling wretched. Her letter is one long moan; you would think nobody had ever been through it before.”
Usually I was shown Helen’s letters but apparently this one was not considered suitable for me to read.
Chapter Seventeen
The house in Murrayfield Gardens was a very pleasant place to stay; it was run in a free and easy manner and guests were not ‘entertained’ against their will. Instead of arranging parties for me, as she had done for Helen, Margaret took me to see the Castle and Holyrood Palace and the Royal Mile. She had read so much about the beautiful old city that her brain was stored with all sorts of facts and fancies: not Guide-Book information but the stuff of romance. Some of the people she talked about were real and others imaginary but Margaret made them all come alive to me. As we strolled up the West Bow she reminded me of David Balfour who had ridden in haste to rescue Catriona from prison … ‘I was in the saddle again before the day, and the Edinburgh booths were just opening when I clattered in by the West Bow and drew up a smoking horse at my lord Advocate’s door’.
Quite near was the dwelling of Deacon Brodie: a respectable cabinet-maker on weekdays; a Deacon of the Kirk on the Sabbath; by night, a thief ‘pickeering among the closes’ lantern in hand.
Margaret had queer little bits of information which never appear in guide-books and she told me that a chest of drawers in the nursery where Robert Louis Stevenson had spent his childhood had been made by the ‘deacon’ with his own hands. It held a curious fascination for the imaginative little boy and haunted his dreams. Later this childhood memory inspired him to write a play about the sinister character … and, more than likely, inspired the story about the double life of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
So we strolled and poked about and enjoyed ourselves hugely in our own peculiar way and Margaret discoursed with some of the inhabitants of The Tall Lands and afterwards translated their remarks into what she teasingly described as ‘Oxford English’.
Sunday was a beautiful day, it was more like late August than early November, and at breakfast Andrew announced his intention of playing truant from church and taking me to Dirleton for lunch. Apparently this was a most unusual dereliction from the path of virtue, and Margaret did not altogether approve, but Andrew pointed out that ever since I came I had been ‘craiking’ to go to the seaside and build sand-castles — and this was the only chance he had of fulfilling my desire.
It was true that I wanted to go to the sea, but the sand-castles were Andrew’s idea; he had been teasing me about them for days.
Andrew added that we would take sandwiches and a flask of coffee and picnic on the shore.
“But you haven’t had a picnic for years!” exclaimed Margaret.
“Surely that’s all the more reason to have it to-day,” returned Andrew smiling, and he added, “It will please the child.”
Margaret smiled too and hurried away to make the sandwiches, for of course if Andrew wanted a picnic he must have it. There was something delightful about their relationship. They appreciated each other’s qualities and enjoyed each other’s jokes.
*
The drive to Dirleton was very pleasant. We saw Dirleton Castle (a magnificent old ruin which had once belonged to a branch of the great family of Douglas); we passed through the picturesque little village with its triangular green and then turned sharply down a narrow lane which wound towards the shore. Andrew told me that in summer-time the place was crowded — but there was nobody here to-day. We left the car at the end of the lane and walked on past a little wood and over the grassy dunes to the sea.
It was beautiful and peaceful. The tide was half-way out and there were black rocks and yellow seaweed. Close inshore, separated from the mainland by a narrow strait, was the curiously-shaped island of Fidra. The sea was blue and the sun was golden and only the faintest breeze stirred the silvery green spikes of the bent grass.
“There,” said Andrew. “It’s all yours, Jane. Go and build your sand-castles,” and he sat down with his back against a convenient rock and took out his pipe.
It was all mine. The words reminded me of the day at St. Mary’s Loch when I had sa
id the beauty was all for us, and Mother had replied that perhaps it was partly for the sheep and the birds. To-day I was sharing the beauty with the soaring gulls and the tiny crabs which lived beneath the seaweed and scuttled away as I approached. I noticed that the tide was going out — so it was safe — and finding a little pool quite near the edge of the lapping waves I put the pearls into it and sat down to dream.
Dreaming was easy. I could dream for hours — not thinking, not wondering, not conscious of the passing of time. I could dream at all times and in all places — and this place was made for dreams. I did not awake until Andrew’s shadow fell across my knees.
“Where are the sand-castles, Jane?”
“They were castles in Spain,” I replied, smiling up at him. “But the real reason I wanted to come to the sea was pearls. Pearls like sea-water and sunshine.”
He stooped over the pool and said, “Not real pearls, surely!”
“Yes, Mrs. Millard gave them to me.”
“Mrs. Millard gave them to you!”
“Yes.”
Andrew was a philatelist and always carried a little magnifying-glass in his pocket, so now he lifted the pearls out of the water and examined them with his lens.
“They’re beautiful!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful string of pearls … but you can’t accept them from her.”
“I have accepted them.”
“You don’t understand,” he declared. “These pearls are too valuable. You can’t accept a present worth hundreds of pounds from a woman like Mrs. Millard. Honestly, Jane, your Mother would be horrified. You must send them back.”
I was silent.
“Your Mother doesn’t know that Mrs. Millard gave them to you, does she?”
“No.”
“You must send them back,” declared Andrew. “We’ll do them up and send them off to-morrow.”
“I don’t know her address,” I said.
It was perfectly true. I had asked Mrs. Millard for her address but she had not given it to me, nor had she left it at the post office for letters to be forwarded. I had thought it a strange oversight on her part, but now I had a feeling that she had withheld her address on purpose so that I could not be induced to return the pearls. I had found on several occasions that if you wanted to know why Mrs. Millard did this — or did not do that — you had only to look at the results of her actions.
“You don’t know her address!” exclaimed Andrew in amazement.
I shook my head.
“But Jane! What an extraordinary thing! You worked with her for months, didn’t you? I thought you were devoted to the woman … and then suddenly she gives you a necklace fit for a queen and vanishes into the blue!”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t she want you to write to her?”
“No.”
“Did you have a row with her, Jane?”
“No.”
“Well, it beats me,” he said with a sigh of bewilderment.
After a few moments he continued, “Of course she’s a bit queer, isn’t she? Your mother was very worried about your going there every day but I managed to soothe her down. I told her Augusta Millard wouldn’t do you any harm.”
“Do you know her?” I asked in surprise.
“I don’t know her — but I know you,” said Andrew smiling, at me in his charming way. He sat down beside me on the rock and went on talking. “I never met the lady but I knew Millard quite well.”
“You knew — her husband!”
Andrew nodded. “He used to live in Edinburgh at one time — everybody knew him — so his marriage caused quite a sensation.”
“Why should it?” I asked.
“Oh, because he was a staid old buffer and she had had such a queer sort of life. She was engaged to a boy who was killed in the war — the First War, of course — and some months after she had an illegitimate child. After that she went completely off the handle and got mixed up with some very undesirable people. There were all sorts of wild stories … Oh well, the least said about that the better. Then she met Millard and married him and he adopted her son. Millard was old and not in good health and people said she married him to give the boy a name but she was a good wife to the old man and looked after him until he died. The boy was killed at Alamein — but I suppose you know all that?”
“Most of it,” I said, not altogether truthfully. And yet I did know most of it. I knew the most important part. I knew about the boy who had been killed at Mons; the boy who had said, “With all my worldly goods I thee endow,” and had given her a string of pearls and a son.
I wondered why he had not given her his name — there must have been some reason — but to me it seemed that their marriage was more real than many marriages which take place in church.
Half-way through Andrew’s story I had almost stopped him, but now I was glad I had heard it all. It was a bald bare story but I could fill in the details only too easily. My eyes were wet and I had to keep on blinking them for a few moments before I could see.
*
Andrew and I had lunch together, sitting in a grassy hollow amongst the dunes. The pearls were round my neck — all wet with sea-water. I saw Andrew glance at them from time to time but he said no more about them. We were friendly and companionable; I thought then that Andrew was one of the nicest people I had ever met and I have not changed my mind.
After a little he began to talk about Mother and to ask all sorts of questions about our life at Timble Cottage. He wanted to know whether it was a success and whether we were happy and what we did with ourselves all day.
“You don’t think she misses London?” he inquired anxiously. “She had so many friends in London — and such a gay life — you don’t think she finds it a little dull?”
“Mother is never dull,” I told him. “And nobody could be dull living with Mother. She makes her own fun, you see. Even peeling potatoes is fun when we do it together.”
“Peeling potatoes! That doesn’t sound a very amusing occupation.”
“It is — with Mother.”
“There’s nobody like Anna,” he said.
For a few moments there was silence. I looked at him sitting on the grass, gazing away over the sea and munching a sandwich. His large feet were stretched out towards me — like the feet in an amateur snapshot which often appear twice their normal size.
“Andrew!” I exclaimed. “Were you ever in love with Mother?”
“Well, of course,” he replied, smiling rather sadly. “I’ve always been in love with Anna — all my life. When I was twenty-one I was crazy about her. You all talk about Helen being ‘beautiful’ but she’s not a patch on Anna. Beauty isn’t skin deep whatever they may say. Anna at eighteen was as lovely as an angel — and as good.”
“Why didn’t you marry her?”
“My dear girl, I hadn’t a penny! I was an undergraduate reading law. How could I say a word? Then Harcourt appeared and walked off with her under my nose.”
There was a vague look in his eyes. I think he had forgotten me for the moment and was just remembering byegone days.
“I only saw her twice after she was married,” he continued. “Once when she came to Edinburgh for a wedding and once when I went to London on business. I called to see her in the morning and she was just going out, but she put off her engagement and I stayed to lunch. She was just the same as always — friendly and natural and kind — then Harcourt came in and she changed into a different person. I asked them to dinner at the Savoy but Harcourt thanked me politely and declined — without consulting Anna. Harcourt didn’t like me and he made it pretty obvious. I suppose you couldn’t blame him.”
Andrew took out his pipe and filled it carefully. “I came home the next day,” he said. “It was better to come straight home. If I had stayed in London I might have gone to Wintringham Square again — and what was the use? I was a fool to go and see her at all. I came home feeling as miserable as a side jackdaw. It took me ages to get over it and settle d
own.”
“Have you got over it?”
“No,” said Andrew gruffly. He took out a match and lighted his pipe.
“Why don’t you marry her — now?”
“For Heaven’s sake!” he cried, gazing at me in amazement.
“Have you never thought of it?”
“Of course I’ve thought of it! I’d marry her to-morrow! Anna hasn’t thought of it, that’s the trouble. I’m perfectly certain the idea has never crossed her mind.”
I was silent.
“Jane,” he said. “Listen to me, you extraordinary child. If I plunge in and — and ask her she would think I’d gone off my head. And, don’t you see, it would spoil everything. She treats me like a brother — and she needs me. She really does need me.”
It was true.
“She would think I had gone off my head, wouldn’t she?” repeated Andrew.
He was looking at me searchingly but I was determined not to say another word. Perhaps I had said too much already. I knew Mother liked him — immensely — but I did not know whether the idea of marrying him had ever crossed her mind.
It was not until I had noticed his enormous feet that the idea had crossed my mind.
We were rather silent on the way back to Edinburgh. Andrew was thinking — and so was I. As a matter of fact I was wondering what on earth had possessed me to rush in where angels might well have feared to tread … and I was wondering what I should do if Mother married Andrew.
Mother and I were happy together, we got on perfectly, there was no discordant note. I had never been so happy in my life as I was now, alone with Mother, at Timble Cottage. Perhaps I had started an avalanche — I could not tell — but if so, and if the avalanche wrecked my life, I should have nobody to blame but myself.
*
The next morning when I went down to breakfast Margaret was having the meal alone; she explained that Andrew had gone to Ryddelton on business.
“I expect it’s something to do with having the house painted,” she said as she poured out the coffee. “I suggested he should tell you he was going but he went off early and didn’t want to disturb you. What would you like to do to-day?”
Anna and Her Daughters Page 14