Penny Plain Part 28

CHAPTER XVIII

"It was told me I should be rich by the fairies."--_A Winter's Tale._

January is always a long, flat month: the Christmas festivities are over, the bills are waiting to be paid, the weather is very often of the dreariest, spring is yet far distant. With February, hope and the snowdrops begin to spring, but January is a month to be _warstled_ through as best we can.

This January of which I write Jean felt to be a peculiarly long, dull month. She could not understand why, for David was at home, and she had always thought that to have the three boys with her made up the sum of her happiness. She told herself that it was Pamela she missed. It made such a difference knowing that the door would not open to admit that tall figure; the want of the embroidery frame seemed to take a brightness from the room, and the lack of that little gay laugh of Pamela's left a dullness that the loudest voices did nothing to dispel.

Pamela wrote that the visit to Champertoun had been a signal success.

The hitherto unknown cousins were delightful people, and she and her brother were prolonging their stay till the middle of January. Then, she said, she hoped to come back to Priorsford for a little, while Biddy went on to London.

How easy it all sounded, Jean thought. Historic houses full of all things lovely, leisured, delightful people, the money, and the freedom to go where one listed: no pinching, no striving, no sordid cares.

David's vacation was slipping past; and Jean was deep in preparations for his departure. She longed vehemently for some money to spend. There were so many things that David really needed and was doing without, so many of the things he had were so woefully shabby. Jean understood better now what a young man wanted; she had studied Lord Bidborough's clothes. Not that the young man was anything of a dandy, but he had always looked right for every occasion. And Jean thought that probably all the young men at Oxford looked like that--poor David! David himself never grumbled. He meant to make money by his pen in spare moments, and his mind was too full of plans to worry much about his shabby clothes.

He sometimes worried about his sister, and thought it hard that she should have the cares of a household on her shoulders at an age when other girls were having the time of their lives, but he solaced himself with the thought that some day he would make it up to Jean, that some day she should have everything that now she was missing, full measure pressed down and running over. It never occurred to the boy that Jean's youth would pa.s.s, and whatever he might be able to give her later, he could never give her that back.

Pamela returned to Hillview in the middle of the month, just before David left.

Bella Bathgate owned that she was glad to have her back. That indomitable spinster had actually missed her lodger. She was surprised at her own pleasure in seeing the boxes carried upstairs again, in hearing the soft voice talking to Mawson, in sniffing the faint sweet scent that seemed to hang about the house when Miss Reston was in it, conquering the grimmer odour of naphtha and boiled cabbage which generally held sway.

Bella had missed Mawson too. It was fine to have her back again in her cosy kitchen, enjoying her supper and full of tales of the glories of Champertoun. Bella's face grew even longer than it was naturally as she heard of the magnificence of that ancient house, of the chapel, of the ballroom, of the number of bedrooms, of the man-servants and maid-servants, of the motors and horses.

"Forty bedrooms!" she said, in scandalised tones. "The thing's rideeclous. Mair like an inst.i.tution than a private hoose."

"Oh, it's a _gentleman's_ 'ouse," said Mawson proudly--"the sort of thing Miss Reston's accustomed to. At Bidborough, I'm told, there's bedrooms to 'old a regiment, and the same at Mintern Abbas, but I've never been there yet. It was all the talk in the servants' 'all at Champertoun 'oo would be Lady Bidborough. There were several likely young ladies there, but 'e didn't seem partial to any of them."

"Whaur's he awa to the noo?"

"Back to London for a bit, I 'eard, and later on we're joining 'im at Bidborough. Beller, I was thinking to myself when they were h'all talking, what if Lady B. should be a Priorsford lady? His lordship did seem h'attentive in at The Rigs. Wouldn't it be a fine thing for Miss Jean?"

Miss Bathgate suddenly had a recollection of Jean as she had seen her pa.s.s that morning--a wistful face under a shabby hat.

"Hut," she said, tossing her head and lying glibly. "It's ma opeenion that the Lord askit Miss Jean when he was in Priorsford, and she simply sent him to the right about."

She took a drink of tea, with a defiant twirl of her little finger, and pretended not to see the shocked expression on Mawson's face. To Mawson it sounded like sacrilege for anyone to refuse anything to his lordship.

"Oh, Beller! Miss Jean would 'ave jumped at 'im!"

"Naething o' the kind," said Miss Bathgate fiercely, forgetting all about her former pessimism as to Jean's chance of getting a man, and desiring greatly to champion her cause. "D'ye think Miss Jean's sitting here waitin' to jump at a man like a c.o.c.k at a grossit? Na! He'll be a lucky man that gets her, and weel his lordship kens it. She's no pented up to the een-holes like thae London Jezebels. Her looks'll stand wind and water. She's a kind, wise la.s.sie, and if she condescends to the Lord, I'm sure I hope he'll be guid to her. For ma ain pairt I wud faur rather see her marry a dacent, ordinary man like a minister or a doctor--but we've nane o' thae kind needin' wives in Priorsford the noo, so Miss Jean 'll mebbe hev to fa' back on a lord...."

On the afternoon of the day this conversation took place in Hillview kitchen, Jean sat in the living-room of The Rigs, a very depressed little figure. It was one of those days in which things seem to take a positive pleasure in going wrong. To start with, the kitchen range could not go on, as something had happened to the boiler, and that had shattered Mrs. M'Cosh's placid temper. Also the bill for mending it would be large, and probably the landlord would make a fuss about paying it. Then Mhor had put a newly-soled boot right on the hot bar of the fire and burned it across, and Jock had thrown a ball and broken a precious Spode dish that had been their mother's. But the worst thing of all was that Peter was lost, had been lost for three days, and now they felt they must give up hope. Jock and Mhor were in despair (which may have accounted for their abandoned conduct in burning boots and breaking old china), and in their hearts felt miserably guilty. Peter had wanted to go with them that morning three days ago; he had stood patiently waiting before the front door, and they had sneaked quietly out at the back without him. It was really for his own good, Jock told Mhor; it was because the gamekeeper had said if he got Peter in the Peel woods again he would shoot him, and they had been going to the Peel woods that morning--but nothing brought any comfort either to Jock or Mhor. For two nights Mhor had sobbed himself to sleep openly, and Jock had lain awake and cried when everyone else was sleeping.

They scoured the country in the daytime, helped by David and Mr. Jowett and other interested friends, but all to no purpose.

"If I knew G.o.d had him I wouldn't mind," said Mhor, "but I keep seeing him in a trap watching for us to come and let him out. Oh, Peter, _Peter_...."

So Jean felt completely demoralised this January afternoon and sat in her most unbecoming dress, with the fire drearily, if economically, banked up with dross, hoping that no one would come near her. And Mrs.

Duff-Whalley and her daughter arrived to call.

It was at once evident that Mrs. Duff-Whalley was on a very high horse indeed. Her accent was at its most superior--not at all the accent she used on ordinary occasions--and her manner was an excellent imitation of that of a lady she had met at one of the neighbouring houses and greatly admired. Her sharp eyes were all over the place, taking in Jean's poor little home-made frock, the shabby slippers, the dull fire, the depressed droop of her hostess's shoulders.

Jean was sincerely sorry to see her visitors. To cope with Mrs.

Duff-Whalley and her daughter one had to be in a state of robust health and high spirits.

"We ran in, Jean--positively one has time for nothing these days--just to wish you a Happy New-Year though a fortnight of it is gone. And how are you? I do hope you had a very gay Christmas, and loads of presents.

Muriel quite pa.s.sed all limits. I told her I was quite ashamed of the shoals of presents, but of course the child has so many friends. The Towers was full for Christmas. Dear Gordon brought several Cambridge friends, and they were so useful at all the festivities. Lady Tweedie said to me, 'Mrs. Duff-Whalley, you really are a G.o.dsend with all these young men in this unmanned neighbourhood.' Always so witty, isn't she?

dear woman. By the way, Jean, I didn't see you at the Tweedies' dance, or the Olivers' theatricals."

"No, I wasn't there. I hadn't a dress that was good enough, and I didn't want to be at the expense of hiring a carriage."

"Oh, really! We had a small dance at The Towers on Christmas night--just a tiny affair, you know, really just our own house-party and such old friends as the Tweedies and the Olivers. We would have liked to ask you and your brother--I hear he's home from Oxford--but you know what it is to live in a place like Priorsford: if you ask one you have to ask everybody--and we decided to keep it entirely County--you know what I mean?"

"Oh, quite," said Jean; "I'm sure you were wise."

"We were so sorry," went on Mrs. Duff-Whalley, "that dear Lord Bidborough and his charming sister couldn't come. We have got so fond of both of them. Muriel and Lord Bidborough have so much in common--music, you know, and other things. I simply couldn't tear them away from the piano at The Towers. Isn't it wonderful how simple and pleasant they are considering their lineage? Actually living in that little dog-hole of a Hillview. I always think Miss Bathgate's such an insolent woman; no notion of her proper place. She looks at me as if she actually thought she was my equal, and wasn't she positively rude to you, Muriel, when you called with some message?"

"Oh, frightful woman!" said Muriel airily. "She was most awfully rude to me. You would have thought that I wanted to burgle something." She gave an affected laugh. "I simply stared through her. I find that irritates that cla.s.s of person frightfully ... How do you like my sables, Jean?

Yes--a present."

"They are beautiful," said Jean serenely, but to herself she muttered bitterly, "Opulent _lumps_!"

"David goes back to Oxford next week," she said aloud, the thought of money recalling David's lack of it.

"Oh, really! How exciting for him," Mrs. Duff-Whalley said. "I suppose you won't have heard from Miss Reston since she went away?"

"I had a letter from her a few days ago."

Mrs. Duff-Whalley waited expectantly for a moment, but as Jean said nothing more she continued:

"Did she talk of future plans? We simply must fix them both up for a week at The Towers. Lord Bidborough told us he had quite fallen in love with Priorsford and would be sure to come back. I thought it was so sweet of him. Priorsford is such a dull little place."

"Yes," said Jean; "it was very condescending of him."

Then she remembered Richard Plantagenet, her friend, his appreciation of everything, his love for the Tweed, his pa.s.sion for the hills, his kindness to herself and the boys--and her conscience p.r.i.c.ked her. "But I think he meant it," she added.

"Well," Muriel said, "I fail to see what he could find to admire in Priorsford. Of all the provincial little holes! I'm constantly upbraiding Mother for letting my father build a house here. If they had gone two or three miles out, but to plant themselves in a little dull town, always knocking up against the dull little inhabitants! Positively it gets on my nerves. One can't go out without having to talk to Mrs.

Jowett, or a Dawson, or some of the villa dwellers. As I said to Lady Tweedie yesterday when I met her in the Eastgate, 'Positively,' I said, 'I shall _scream_ if I have to say to anyone else, "Yes, isn't it a nice quiet day for the time of year?"' I'm just going to pretend I don't see people now."

"Muriel, darling, you mustn't make yourself unpopular. It's not like London, you know, where you can pick and choose. I quite agree that the Priorsford people need to be kept in their places, but one needn't be rude. And some of the people, the aborigines, as dear Gordon calls them, are really quite nice. There are about half a dozen men one can ask to dinner, and that new doctor--I forget his name--is really quite a gentleman. Plays bridge."

Jean laughed suddenly and Mrs. Duff-Whalley looked inquiringly at her.

"Oh," she said, blushing, "I remembered the definition of a gentleman in the _Irish R.M._--'a man who has late dinner and takes in the London _Times_.' ... Won't you stay to tea?"

"Oh no, thank you, the car is at the gate. We are going on to tea with Lady Tweedie. 'You simply must spare me an afternoon, Mrs.