People Like Ourselves (Scottish Historical Novels). Anna Buchan
cup he turned round suddenly and his elbow simply shot it out of her hand, and sent it flying across the table. As it went it spattered everything with weak tea and then smashed itself against one of the candlesticks.
"I wished at that moment that the world would come to an end. There seemed no other way of clearing up the mess. I was so ashamed, and so sorry for my poor Jock, I couldn't lift my eyes, but Mr. Jowett rose to the occasion and earned my affection and unending gratitude. He pretended to find it a very funny episode, and made so many jokes about it that stiffness vanished from the party, and we all became riotously happy. And Mrs. Jowett, whose heart must have been wrung to see the beautiful table ruined at the outset, so mastered her emotion as to be able to smile and say no harm had been done…. You must go with me and see Mrs. Jowett, only don't tell her anything in the very least sad: she weeps at the slightest provocation."
"Tell me more," said Pamela—"tell me about all the people who live in those houses on the hill. It's like reading a nice Cranfordy book."
"But," Jean objected, "we're not in the least like people in a book. I often wonder why Priorsford is so unlike a story-book little town. We're not nearly interested enough in each other for one thing. We don't gossip to excess. Everyone goes his or her own way. In books people do things or are suspected of doing things, and are immediately cut by a feverishly interested neighbourhood. I can't imagine that happening in Priorsford. No one ever does anything very striking, but if they did I'm sure they wouldn't be ostracised. Nobody would care much, except perhaps Mrs. Hope, and she would only be amused."
"Mrs. Hope?"
"Have you noticed a whitewashed house standing among trees about half a mile down Tweed from the bridge? That is Hopetoun, and Mrs. Hope and her daughter live there."
"Nice?"
Jean nodded her head like a wise mandarin. "You must meet Mrs. Hope. To describe her is far beyond my powers."
"I see. Well, go on with the houses on the hill. Who lives in the one at the corner with the well-kept garden?"
"The Prestons. Mr. Preston is a lawyer, but he isn't much like a lawyer in appearance—not yellow and parchmenty, you know. He's a good shot and an ardent fisher, what Sir Walter would have called 'a just leevin' man for a country writer.' There are several daughters, all musical, and it is a very hospitable, cheerful house. Next the Prestons live the Williamsons. Ordinary nice people. There is really nothing to say about them…. The house after that is Woodside, the home of the two Miss Speirs. They are not ordinary. Miss Althea is a spiritualist. She sees visions and spends much of her time with spooks. Miss Clarice is a Buddhist. Their father, when he lived, was an elder in the U.F. Church. I sometimes wonder what he would say to his daughters now. When he died they left the U.F. Church and became Episcopalians, then Miss Clarice found that she couldn't believe in vicarious sacrifice and went over to Buddhism. She took me into her bedroom once. There was a thick yellow carpet, and a bed with a tapestry cover, and almost no furniture, except—is it impious to call Buddha furniture?—a large figure of Buddha with a lamp burning before it. It all seemed to me horribly unfresh. Both ladies provide much simple amusement to the townsfolk with their clothes and their antics."
"I know the Speirs type," said Pamela. "Foolish virgins."
"Next to Woodside is Craigton," went on Jean, "and there live three spinsters—the very best brand of spinsters—the Duncans, Miss Mary, Miss Janet, and Miss Phemie. I don't know what Priorsford would do without these good women. Spinsters they are, but they are also real mothers in Israel. They have time to help everyone. Benign Miss Mary is the housekeeper—and such a housekeeper! Miss Janet is the public one, sits on all the Committees. Miss Phemie does the flowers and embroiders beautiful things and is like a tea-cosy, so soft and warm and comfortable. Somehow they always seem to be there when you want them. You never go to their door and get a dusty answer. There is the same welcome for everyone, gentle and simple, and always the bright fire, and the kind, smiling faces, and tea with thick cream and cake of the richest and freshest…. You know how some people beg you to visit them, and when you go they seem to wear a surprised look, and you feel unexpected and awkward? The Duncans make you feel so pleased with yourself. They are so unselfishly interested in other people's concerns; and they are grand laughers. Even the dullest warm to something approaching wit when surrounded by that appreciative audience of three. They don't talk much themselves, but they have made of listening a fine art."
"Jean," said Pamela, "do you actually mean to tell me that everybody in Priorsford is nice? Or are you merely being charitable? I don't know anything duller than your charitable person who always says the kind thing."
Jean laughed. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid the Priorsford people are all more or less nice. At least, they seem so to me, but perhaps I'm not very discriminating. You will tell me what you think of them when you meet them. All these people I've been telling you about are rich people, 'in a large way,' as Priorsford calls it. They have all large motor-cars and hothouses and rich things like that. Mrs. M'Cosh says Priorsford is a 'real tone-y wee place,' and we do fancy ourselves a good deal. It's a community largely made up of women and middle-aged retired men. You see, there is nothing for the young men to do; we haven't even mills like so many of the Tweedside towns."
"Will people call on me?" Pamela asked. "Is Priorsford sociable?"
Jean pursed up her mouth in an effort to look worldly wise. "I think you will find it sociable, but if you had come here obscure and unknown, your existence would never have been heard of, even if you had taken a house and settled down. Priorsford hardly looks over its shoulder at a newcomer. Some of the 'little' people might call and ask you to tea—the kind 'little' people—but——"
"Who do you call the 'little' people?"
"All the people who aren't 'in a large way,' all the dwellers in the snug little villas—most of Priorsford in fact." Jean got up to go. "Dear me, look at the time! The boys will be home from school. May I have the book you spoke of? Priorsford would be enraged if it heard me calmly discussing its faults and foibles." She laughed softly. "Lewis Elliot says Priorsford is made up of three classes—the dull, the daft, and the devout."
Pamela, looking for the book she wanted to lend to Jean, stopped and stood still as if arrested by the name.
"Lewis Elliot!"
"Yes, of Laverlaw. D'you know him, by any chance?"
"I used to know a Lewis Elliot who had some connection with Priorsford, but I thought he had left it years ago."
"Our Lewis Elliot inherited Laverlaw rather unexpectedly some years ago. Before that he was quite poor. Perhaps that is what makes him so understanding. He is a sort of distant cousin of ours. Great-aunt Alison was his aunt too—at least, he called her aunt. It will be fun if he turns out to be the man you used to know."
"Yes," said Pamela. "Here is the book, Jean. It's been so nice having you this afternoon. No, dear, I won't go back with you to tea. I'm going to write letters. Good-bye. My love to the boys."
But Pamela wrote no letters that evening. She sat with a book on her knee and looked into the fire; sometimes she sighed.
CHAPTER VIII
"I have, as you know, a general prejudice against all persons who do not succeed in the world."—Jowett of Balliol.
Mrs. Duff-Whalley was giving a dinner-party. This was no uncommon occurrence, for she loved to entertain. It gave her real pleasure to provide a good meal and to see her guests enjoy it. "Besides," as she often said, "what's the use of having everything solid for the table, and a fine house and a cook at sixty pounds a year, if nobody's any the wiser?"
It will be seen from this remark that Mrs. Duff-Whalley had not always been in a position to give dinner-parties; indeed, Mrs. Hope, that terror to the newly risen, who traced everyone back to their first rude beginnings (generally "a wee shop"), had it that the late Mr. Duff-Whalley had begun life as a "Johnnie-a'-things" in Leith,