Penny Plain Part 27

The third act took place on board ship--a ship flying the Jolly Roger--and it was obvious to the meanest intelligence that the word was pirate.

"Very good," said Miss Teenie, clapping her hands; "but," addressing the Mhor, "don't you go lighting any more funeral pyres. Boys who do that have to go to jail."

Mhor looked coldly at her, but made no remark, while Jean said hastily:

"You must show everyone your wonderful present, Mhor. I think the hall would be the best place to put it up in."

The second part of the programme was of a varied character. Jean led off with the old carol:

"There comes a ship far sailing then, St. Michael was the steersman,"

and Mhor followed with a poem, "In Time of Pestilence," which had captivated his strange small boy's soul, and which he had learned for the occasion. Everyone felt it to be singularly inappropriate, and Miss Watson said it gave her quite a turn to hear the relish with which he knolled out:

"Wit with his wantonness Tasteth death's bitterness: h.e.l.l's executioner Hath no ears for to hear What vain art can reply!

I am sick, I must die-- G.o.d have mercy on us."

She regarded him with disapproving eyes as a thoroughly uncomfortable character.

One of the guests sang a drawing-room ballad in which the words "dear heart" seemed to occur with astonishing frequency. Then the entertainment took a distinctly lower turn.

David and Jock sang a song composed by themselves and set to a hymn tune, a somewhat ribald production. Mhor then volunteered the information that Mrs. M'Cosh could sing a song. Mrs. M'Cosh said, "Awa wi' ye, laddie," and "Sic havers," but after much urging owned that she knew a song which had been a favourite with her Andra. It was sung to the tune of "When the kye come hame," and was obviously a parody on that lyric, beginning:

"Come a' ye Hieland pollismen That whustle through the street, An' A'll tell ye a' aboot a man That's got triple expansion feet.

He's got braw, braw tartan whuskers That defy the shears and kaim: There's an awfu' row in Brigton When M'Kay comes hame."

It went on to tell how:

"John M'Kay works down in Singers's, He's a ceevil engineer, But his wife's no verra ceevil When she's had some ginger-beer.

When he missed the last Kilbowie train And had to walk hame lame, There wis Home Rule wi' the poker When M'Kay cam hame."

Mrs. M'Cosh sang four verses and stopped, in spite of the rapturous applause of a section of the audience.

"There's aboot nineteen mair verses," she explained "an' they get kinna worse as they gang on, so I'd better stop," which she did, to Jean's relief, for she saw that her guests were feeling that this was not an entertainment such as the Best People indulged in.

"And now Miss Bathgate will sing," said Mhor.

"I will not sing," said Miss Bathgate. "I've mair pride than make a fool o' mysel' to please folk."

"Oh, come on," Jock begged. "Look at Mrs. M'Cosh!"

Miss Bathgate snorted.

"Ay," said Mrs. M'Cosh, with imperturbable good-humour, "she seen me, and she thinks yin auld fool is enough at a time. Never heed, Bella, juist gie us a verse."

Miss Bathgate protested that she knew no songs, and had no voice, but under persuasion she broke into a ditty, a sort of recitative:

"Gang further up the toon, Geordie Broon, Geordie Broon, Gang further up the toon, Geordie Broon: Gang further up the toon Till ye's spent yer hale hauf-croon, And then come singin' doon, Geordie Broon, Geordie Broon."

"I remember that when I was a child," Jean said. "We used to be put to sleep with it; it is very soothing. Thank you so much, Miss Bathgate ... Now I think we should have a game."

"Forfeits," Miss Teenie suggested.

"That's a silly game," said Mhor; "there's kissing in it."

"Perhaps we might have a quiet game," Jean said. "What was that one we played with Pamela, you remember, Jock? We took a subject, and tried who could say the most obvious thing about it."

"Oh, nothing clever, for goodness' sake," pleaded Miss Watson. "I've no head for anything but fancy-work."

"'Up Jenkins' would be best," Jock decreed; so a table was got in, and "up Jenkins" was played with much laughter until the clock struck ten, and the guests all rose in a body to go.

"Well," said Miss Watson, "it's been a very pleasant evening, though I wouldn't wonder if I had a nightmare about that funeral pyre ... I always think, don't you, that there's something awful pathetic about Christmas? You never know where you may be before another."

One of the guests, a little music-teacher, said:

"The worst of Christmas is that it brings back to one's mind all the other Christma.s.ses and the people who were with us then...."

Bella Bathgate's voice was heard talking to Mrs. M'Cosh at the door: "I dinna believe in keeping Christmas; it's a popish festival. New Year's the time. Ye can eat yer currant-bun wi' a relish then. Guid-nicht, then, and see ye lick that ill laddie for near settin' the hoose on fire. It's no' safe, I tell ye, to live onywhere near him noo that he's begun thae tricks. Baith Peter an' him are fair Bolsheviks ... Did I tell ye that Miss Reston sent me a grand feather-boa--grey, in a present? I've aye had a notion o' a feather-boa, but I dinna ken how she kent that. And this is no' yin o' the skimpy kind; it's fine and fussy and soft ... Here, did the Lord send Miss Jean a present?... I doot he's aff for guid. Weel, weel, guid-nicht."

With a heightened colour Jean said good-night to her guests, separated Mhor from his train, and sent him with Jock to bed.

As she went upstairs, Bella Bathgate's words rang in her ears dismally: "I doot he's aff for guid."

It was what she wanted, of course; she had told him so. But she had half hoped that he might send her a letter or a little remembrance on Christmas Day.

Better not, perhaps, but it would have been something to keep. She sometimes wondered if she had not dreamt the scene in the Hopetoun Woods, and only imagined the words that were constantly in her ears. It was such a very improbable thing to happen to such a commonplace person.

Her room was very restful-looking that night to Jean, tired after a long day's junketing. It was a plain little upper chamber, with white walls and Indian rugs on the floor. A high south wind was blowing (it had been another of poor Mhor's snow-less Christma.s.ses!), making the curtains billow out into the room, and she could hear through the open window the sound of Tweed rushing between its banks. On the dressing-table lay a new novel with a vivid paper cover. Jean gave it a little disgusted push. Someone had lent it to her, and she had been reading it between Christmas preparations, reading it with deep distaste. It was about a duel for a man between a woman of forty-five and a girl of eighteen. The girl was called Noel, and was "pale, languid, pa.s.sionate." The older woman gave up before the end, and said Time had "done her in." There were pages describing how she looked in the mirror "studying with a fearful interest the little hard lines and markings there beneath their light coating of powder, fingered and smoothed the slight looseness and fullness of the skin below her chin," and how she saw herself going down the years, "powdering a little more, painting a little more, touching up her hair till it was all artifice, holding on by every little device...."

A man had written that. What a trade for a man, Jean thought.

She was glad she lived among people who had the decency to go on caring for each other in spite of lines and wrinkles--comfortable couples whose affection for each other was a shelter in the time of storm, a shelter built of common joys, of "fireside talks and counsels in the dawn,"

cemented by tears shed over common sorrows.

She smiled to herself as she remembered a little woman who had told her with great pride that, to celebrate their silver wedding, her husband was giving her a complete set of artificial teeth. "And," she had finished impressively, "you know what teeth cost now."

And why not? It was as much a token of love as a pearl necklace, and, looked at in the right way, quite as romantic.

"I'd better see how it finishes," Jean said to herself opening the book a few pages from the end.

Oh yes, there they were at it. Noel, "pale, languid pa.s.sionate," and the man "moved beyond control." "He drew her so close that he could feel the throbbing of her heart ..." And the other poor woman with the hard lines and marking beneath the light coating of powder, where had she gone?

Jean pushed the book away, and stood leaning on the dressing-table studying her face in the gla.s.s. This was no heroine, "pale, languid, pa.s.sionate." She saw a fresh-coloured face with a pointed chin, wide-apart eyes as frank and sunny as a moorland burn, an innocent mouth. It seemed to Jean a very uninteresting face. She was young, certainly, but that was all--not beautiful, or brilliant and witty. Lord Bidborough must see scores of lovely girls. Jean seemed to see them walking past her in a procession--girls who had maids to do their hair in the most approved fashion, constantly renewed girls whose clothes were a dream of daintiness all charming, all witty, all fitted to be wife to a man like Lord Bidborough. What was he doing now, Jean wondered. Perhaps dancing, or sitting out with someone. Jean could see him so clearly, listening, smiling, with lazy, amused eyes. By now he must be thankful that the penny-plain girl at Priorsford had not s.n.a.t.c.hed at the offer he had made her, but had had the sense to send him away. It must have been a sudden madness on his part. He had never said a word of love to her--then suddenly in the rain and mud, when she was looking her very plainest, m.u.f.fled up in a thick coat, clogged by goloshes, to ask her to marry him!

Jean nodded at the girl in the gla.s.s.

"What you've got to do is to put him out of your head, and be thankful that you have lots to do, and a house to keep, and boys to make happy, and aren't a heroine writhing about in a novel."

But she sighed as she turned away. Doing one's duty is a dreary business for three-and-twenty. It goes on for such a long time.