People Like Ourselves (Scottish Historical Novels). Anna Buchan
By the way, what do I owe you?"
And Peter Reid went away exceeding sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
CHAPTER III
"It is the only set of the kind I ever met with in which you are neither led nor driven, but actually fall, and that imperceptibly into literary topics; and I attribute it to this, that in that house literature is not a treat for company upon invitation days, but is actually the daily bread of the family."—Written of Maria Edgeworth's home.
Pamela Reston stood in Bella Bathgate's parlour and surveyed it disconsolately.
It was papered in a trying shade of terra-cotta and the walls were embellished by enlarged photographs of the Bathgate family—decent, well-living people, but plain-headed to a degree. Linoleum covered the floor. A round table with a red-and-green cloth occupied the middle of the room, and two arm-chairs and six small chairs stood about stiffly like sentinels. Pamela had tried them all and found each one more unyielding than the next. The mantel-shelf, painted to look like some uncommon kind of marble, supported two tall glass jars bright blue and adorned with white raised flowers, which contained bunches of dried grasses ("silver shekels" Miss Bathgate called them), rather dusty and tired-looking. A mahogany sideboard stood against one wall and was heavily laden with vases and photographs. Hard lace curtains tinted a deep cream shaded the bow-window.
"This is grim," said Pamela to herself. "Something must be done. First of all, I must get them to send me some rugs—they will cover this awful floor—and half a dozen cushions and some curtains and bits of embroidery and some table linen and sheets and things. Idiot that I was not to bring them with me!… And what could I do to the walls? I don't know how far one may go with landladies, but I hardly think one could ask them to repaper walls to each stray lodger's liking."
Miss Bathgate had not so far shown herself much inclined for conversation. She had met her lodger on the doorstep the night before, had uttered a few words of greeting, and had then confined herself to warning the man to watch the walls when he carried up the trunks, and to wondering aloud what anyone could want with so much luggage, and where in the world it was to find room. She had been asked to have dinner ready, and at eight o'clock Pamela had come down to the sitting-room to find a coarse cloth folded in two and spread on one-half of the round table. A knife, a fork, a spoon lay on the cloth, flanked on one side by an enormous cruet and on the other by four large spoons, laid crosswise, and a thick tumbler. An aspidistra in a pot completed the table decorations.
The dinner consisted of stewed steak, with turnip and carrots, and a large dish of potatoes, followed by a rice pudding made without eggs and a glass dish of prunes.
Pamela was determined to be pleased.
"How right it all is," she told herself—"so entirely in keeping. All so clean and—and sufficient. I am sure all the things we hang on ourselves and round ourselves to please and beautify are very clogging—this is life at its simplest," and she rang for coffee, which came in a breakfast-cup and was made of Somebody's essence and boiling water.
Pamela had gone to bed very early, there being absolutely nothing to sit up for; and the bed was as hard as the nether millstone. As she put her tired head on a cast-iron pillow covered by a cotton pillow-slip, and lay crushed under three pairs of hard blankets, topped by a patchwork quilt worked by Bella's mother and containing samples of the clothes of all the family—from the late Mrs. Bathgate's wedding-gown of puce-coloured cashmere to her youngest son's first pair of "breeks," the whole smelling strongly of naphtha from the kist where it had lain—regretful thoughts of other beds came to her. She felt she had not fully appreciated them—those warm, soft, embracing beds, with satin-smooth sheets and pillow-cases smelling of lavender and other sweet things, feather-light blankets, and rose-coloured eiderdowns.
She came downstairs in the morning to the bleak sitting-room filled with a distaste for simplicity which she felt to be unworthy. For breakfast there was a whole loaf on a platter, three breakfast rolls hot from the baker, and the family toast-rack full of tough, damp toast. A large pale-green duck's egg sat heavily in an egg-cup, capped, but not covered, by a strange red flannel thing representing a cock's head, which Pamela learned later was called an "egg-cosy" and had come from the sale of work for Foreign Missions. A metal teapot and water-jug stood in two green worsted nests.
Pamela poured herself out some tea. "I'm almost sure I told her I wanted coffee in the morning," she murmured to herself, "but it doesn't matter." Already she was beginning to hold Bella Bathgate in awe. She took the top off the duck's egg and looked at it in an interested way. "It's a beautiful colour—orange—but"—she pushed it away—"I don't think I can eat it."
She drank some tea and ate a baker's roll, which was excellent; then she rang the bell.
When Bella appeared she at once noticed the headless but uneaten egg, and, taking it up, smelt it.
"What's wrang wi' the egg?" she demanded.
"Oh, nothing," said Pamela quickly. "It's a lovely egg really, such a beautiful colour, but"—she laughed apologetically—"you know how it is with eggs—either you can eat them or you can't. I always have to eat eggs with my head turned away so to speak. There is something about the yolk so—so——" Her voice trailed away under Miss Bathgate's stolid, unsmiling gaze.
There was no point in going on being arch about eggs to a person who so obviously regarded one as a poor creature. But a stand must be taken.
"Er—Miss Bathgate——" Pamela began.
There was no answer from Bella, who was putting the dishes on a tray. Had she addressed her rightly?
"You are Miss Bathgate, aren't you?"
"Ou ay," said Bella. "I'm no' mairret nor naething o' that kind."
"I see. Well, Miss Bathgate, I wonder if you would mind if Mawson—my maid, you know—carried away some of those ornaments and photographs to a safe place? It would be such a pity if we broke any of them, for, of course, you must value them greatly. These vases now, with the pretty grasses, it would be dreadful if anything happened to them, for I'm sure we could never, never replace them."
"Uch ay," Bella interrupted. "I got them at the pig-cairt in exchange for some rags. He's plenty mair o' the same kind."
"Oh, really," Pamela said helplessly. "The fact is, a few things of my own will be arriving in a day or two—a cushion or two and that sort of thing—to make me feel at home, you know, so if you would very kindly let us make room for them, I should be so much obliged."
Bella Bathgate looked round the grim chamber that was to her as the apple of her eye, and sighed for the vagaries of "the gentry."
"Aweel," she said, "I'll pit them in a kist until ye gang awa'. I've never had lodgers afore." And as she carried out the tray there was a baleful gleam in her eye as if she were vowing to herself that she would never have them again.
Pamela gave a gasp of relief when the door closed behind the ungracious back of her landlady, and started when it opened again, but this time it was only Mawson.
She hailed her. "Mawson, we must get something done to this room. Lift all these vases and photographs carefully away. Miss Bathgate says she will put them somewhere else in the meantime. And we'll wire to Grosvenor Street for some cushions and rugs—this is too hopeless. Are you quite comfortable Mawson?"
"Yes, Miss. I 'ave me meals in the kitchen, Miss, for Miss Bathgate don't want to keep another fire goin'. A nice cosy kitchen it is, Miss."
"Then I wish I could have my meals there, too."
"Oh, Miss!" cried Mawson in horror.
"Does Miss Bathgate talk to you, Mawson?"
"Not to say talk, Miss. She don't even listen much; says she can't understand my 'tongue.' Funny, ain't it? Seems to me it's 'er that speaks strange. But I expect