Penny Plain Part 22

Beautifully managed, you see."

He smiled lazily at his sister, who cried:

"The same casual old Biddy! What about dinner?"

"Mayn't I feed with you? I think Miss Bathgate would like me to. And I'm devoted to stewed beef and carrots. After cold storage food it will be a most welcome change. But," turning to Jean, "please forgive me arriving on you like this, and discussing board and lodgings. It's the most frightful cheek on my part, but, you see, Pam's letters have made me so well acquainted with The Rigs and everyone in it that I'm afraid I don't feel the need of ceremony."

"We wouldn't know what to do with ceremony here," said Jean. "But I do wish the room had been tidier. You will get a bad impression of our habits--and we are really quite neat as a rule. Jock, take that rug back to Mrs. M'Cosh and put the sofa right. And, Mhor, do wash your face; you've got it all smeared with black."

As Jean spoke she moved about, putting things to rights, lifting cushions, brightening the fire, brushing away fallen cinders.

"That's better. Now don't stand about so uncomfortably Pamela, sit in your corner; and this is a really comfortable chair, Lord Bidborough."

"I want to look at the books, if I may," said Lord Bidborough. "It's always the first thing I do in a room. You have a fine collection here."

"They are nearly all my father's books," Jean explained. "We don't add to them, except, of course, on birthdays and at Christmas, and never valuable books."

"You have some very rare books--this, for instance."

"Yes. Father treasured that--and have you seen this?"

They browsed among the books for a little, and Jean, turning to Pamela, said, "I remember the first time you came to see us you did this, too, walked about and looked at the books."

"I remember," said Pamela; "history repeats itself."

Lord Bidborough stopped before a shelf. "This is a catholic selection."

"Those are my favourite books," said Jean--"modern books, I mean."

"I see." He went along the shelf, naming each book as he came to it.

"_The Long Roll_ and _Cease Firing_. Two great books. I should like to read them again now."

"Now one could read them," said Jean. "Through the War I tried to, but I had to stop. The writing was too good--too graphic, somehow...."

"Yes, it would be too poignant.... _John Splendid_. I read that one autumn in Argyle--slowly--about two chapters a day, making it last as long as I could."

"Isn't it fine?" said Jean. "John Splendid, who never spoke the truth except to an enemy! Do you remember the scene with the blind widow of Glencoe? And John Splendid was so gallant and tactful: 'dim in the sight,' he called her, for he wouldn't say 'blind'; and then was terrified when he heard that plague had been in the house, and would have left without touching the outstretched hand, and Gordon, the harsh-mannered minister, took it and kissed it, and the blind woman cried, 'O Clan Campbell, I'll never call ye down--ye may have the guile they claim for ye, but ye have the way with a woman's heart,' and poor John Splendid went out covered with shame."

Jean's eyes were shining, and she had forgotten to be awkward and tongue-tied.

"I remember," said Lord Bidborough. "And the wonderful descriptions--'I know corries in Argyle that whisper silken' ... do you remember that?

And the last scene of all when John Splendid rides away?"

"Do you cry over books, Jean?" Pamela asked. She was sitting on the end of the sofa, her embroidery frame in her hand and her cloak on, ready to go when her brother had finished looking at Jean's treasures.

Jean shook her head. "Not often. Great-aunt Alison said it was the sign of a feeble mind to waste tears over fiction, but I have cried. Do you remember the end of _The Mill on the Floss_? Tom and Maggie have been estranged, and the flood comes, and Tom goes to save Maggie. He is rowing when he sees the great mill machinery sweeping down on them, and he takes Maggie's hand, and calls her the name he had used when they were happy children together--'_Magsie_!'"

Pamela nodded. "Nothing appeals to you so much as family affection, Jean, girl. What have you got now, Biddy? _Nelly's Teachers_?"

"Oh, that," said Jean, getting pink--"that's a book I had when I was a child, and I still like it so much that I read it through every year."

"Oh, Jean, you babe!" Pamela cried. "Can you actually still read goody-goody girls' stories?"

"Yes," said Jean defiantly, "and enjoy them too."

"And why not?" asked Lord Bidborough. "I enjoy _Huckleberry Finn_ as much now as I did when I was twelve; and I often yearn after the books I had as a boy and never see now. I used to lie on my face poring over them. _The Clipper of the Clouds_, and _Sir Ludar_, and a fairy story called _Rigmarole in Search of a Soul_, which, I remember, was quite beautiful, but can't lay hands on anywhere."

Jean looked at him gratefully, and thought to herself that he wasn't going to be a terrifying person after all. For his age--Jean knew that he was thirty-five, and had expected something much more mature--he seemed oddly boyish. He had an expectant young look in his eyes, as if he were always waiting for some chance of adventure to turn up, and there were humorous lines about his mouth which seemed to say that he found the world a very funny place, and was exceedingly well amused.

He certainly seemed very much at home at The Rigs, fondling the rare old books with the hands of a book lover, inspecting the coloured prints, chaffing Jock and Mhor, who fawned round him like two puppy dogs. Peter had at once made friends with him, and Mrs. M'Cosh, coming into the room on some errand, edged her way out backwards, her eyes fixed on the newcomer with an approving stare. As she told Jean later: "For a' Andra pit me against lords, I canna see muckle wrang wi' this yin. A rale pleasant fellow I tak' him to be, lord or no lord. If they were a' like him, we wudna need to be Socialists. It's queer I've aye hed a hankerin'

after thae high-born kinna folk. It's that interestin' to watch them. Ye niver ken whit they'll dae next, or whit they'll say--they're that audacious. We wud mak' an awfu' dull warld o' it if we pit them a' awa to Ameriky or somewhere. I often tell't Andra that, but he said it wud be a guid riddance ... I'm wonderin' what Bella Bathgate thinks o' him.

It'll be great to hear her breath on't. She's quite comin' roond to Miss Reston. She was tellin' me she disna think there's onything veecious about her, and she's gettin' quite used to her manners."

When Pamela departed with her brother to partake of a dinner cooked by Miss Bathgate (a somewhat doubtful pleasure), Mhor went off to bed, and Jock curled himself up on the sofa with Peter, for his Friday night's extra hour with a story-book, while Jean resumed her darning of stockings.

Her thoughts were full of the sister and brother who had just left.

"Queer they are!" she thought to herself. "If Davie came back to me after a year in India, I wouldn't have liked to meet him in somebody else's house. But they seemed quite happy to look at books, and talk about just anything and play with Jock and Mhor and tease Peter. Now I expect they'll be talking about their own affairs, but I would have rushed at the pleasure of hearing all about everything--I couldn't have waited. Pamela has such a leisured air about everything she does. It's nice and sort of aloof and quiet--but I could never attain to it. I'm little and bustling and Martha-like."

Here Jean sighed, and put her fingers through a large hole in the toe of a stocking.

"I'm only fit to keep house and darn and worry the boys about washing their ears.... Anyway, I'm glad I had on my Chinese coat."

CHAPTER XV

"Her gown should be of goodliness Well ribboned with renown, Purfilled with pleasure in ilk place, Furred with fine fashion.

Her hat should be of fair having, And her tippet of truth, Her patclet of good pansing, Her neck ribbon of ruth.

Her sleeves should be of esperance To keep her from despair: Her gloves of the good governance To guide her fingers fair.

Her shoes should be of sickerness In syne she should not slide: Her hose of honesty I guess I should for her provide."

_The Garment of Good Ladies_, 1568.

Jock and Mhor looked back on the time Lord Bidborough spent in Priorsford as one long, rosy dream.

It is true they had to go to school as usual, and learn their home lessons, but their lack of attention in school-hours must have sorely tried their teachers, and their home lessons were crushed into the smallest s.p.a.ce of time so as not to interfere with the crowded hours of glorious living that Lord Bidborough managed to make for them.

That n.o.bleman turned out to be the most gifted player that Jock and Mhor had ever met. There seemed no end to the games he could invent, and he played with a zest that carried everyone along with him.

Mhor's great pa.s.sion was for trains. He was no budding engineering genius; he cared nothing about knowing what made the wheels go round; it was the trains themselves, the glorious, puffing, snorting engines, the comfortable guards' vans, and the signal-boxes that enchanted him. He thought a signalman's life was one of delirious happiness; he thrilled at the sight of a porter's uniform, and hoped that one day he too might walk abroad dressed like that, wheel people's luggage on a trolley and touch his hat when given tips. It was his great treat to stand on the iron railway-bridge and watch the trains snorting deliriously underneath, but the difficulty was he might not go alone, and as everyone in the house fervently disliked the task of accompanying him, it was a treat that came all too seldom for the Mhor.

It turned out that Lord Bidborough also delighted in trains, and he not only stood patiently on the bridge watching goods-trains shunting up and down, but he made friends with the porters, and took Mhor into prohibited areas such as signal-boxes and goods sheds, and showed him how signals were worked, and ran him up and down on trolleys.