Taken by the Hand. O. Douglas
I’d hardly have given her credit for so much organising power. How many things is she president of, I wonder? And it’s always a pleasure to see her on a platform. She not only speaks well but she looks well. I always wondered where she got her hats; they’re so becoming. She’ll be greatly missed. I’m sorry for Be’trice, poor thing.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Murray mournfully, “it’s Be’trice who’s to be pitied. . . . She’s a friend of your Peggy’s, isn’t she?”
“Oh, well, they played together as children, and the two families have always been intimate, but I wouldn’t call them great friends. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Murray, Peggy can’t be bothered much with Be’trice; she says she’s too deprecating. Did you ever? I’m sure if she is it’s a good fault, for most of the girls I know are impudent hussies. I said that to Peggy, but she just laughed. . . . I like Be’trice because she’s so civil, it’s a relief to find a girl pretty-mannered in these days, but perhaps she is a little inclined to be listless and—and unenterprising. She never seems to want to do anything but stay at home beside her mother.”
“Mebbe,” said Mrs. Murray, panting a little with the walk, “mebbe the girl’s shy.”
Mrs. Lithgow turned to give a beaming bow to a passing acquaintance, then said: “Have you noticed, Mrs. Murray, that a very energetic mother has often a tired kind of daughter? Just as a very sort of diplomatic mother will have a disconcertingly honest girl?”
The older woman laughed. “I daresay you’re right. Well, anyway, you’ve got a very satisfactory daughter in Peggy. So clever in the house and yet so good at games, and a fine, upstanding creature! I’m sure you and her father must be proud of her.”
“Oh, we are. I don’t deny it. She’s a good girl, Peggy. And what d’you think? She’s just got engaged! It’s not out, but I’m telling you because you’ve always been so kind about Peggy. Harry Lendrum. Yes, Aitkin & Lendrum. The eldest son. Yes, isn’t it nice? ‘A neighbour’s bairn’ as Granny says; they’ve grown up together. And I’ll have her beside me—that’s the best of it. I hope I wouldn’t have made a fuss, but I’d have been very vexed to let her away to India or Kenya or any of those places—though she’d go like a shot. Nothing dauntons our Peggy. . . . You’re tired, Mrs. Murray: I hope you haven’t walked too far?”
“No, no. I’m just a—wee thing—wheezy. I walk too little. Indeed, Mr. Murray sometimes tells me I’ll soon lose the use of my legs! That’s the worst of a car. I’m awfully pleased to hear about Peggy. I wonder what she’d like for a present?”
“Oh, anything will be acceptable. They’ve got to furnish from the foundation, so to speak.”
“That’s fine. If it’s a widower with a house furnished already, or a bride going abroad, you feel so cramped in your choice, don’t you? We’ll have to think of something specially nice for Peggy. . . . It won’t be for a time yet?”
“In the beginning of the year, we thought, but there’s nothing fixed. Well, here we are at your own door, and I do hope you haven’t felt the walk too far.”
“It’s done me good, Mrs. Lithgow. Now you’ll just come in and have a cup of tea with me. You’re a good wee bit from home yet.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Murray. I’ll be glad of my tea, for I’ve got a great blow this afternoon. Poor Janie Dobie. I can’t get over it at all.”
They went in together, through the hall, up the handsome staircase, to the large and richly furnished drawing-room, where a tea-table stood invitingly near the fire.
Tea was brought up at once, and Mrs. Murray, busying herself at the tea-tray, sighed. “Dear, dear, it seems no time since poor Mrs. Dobie was sitting in that chair you’re in. . . . She always admired that fire-screen, and I said ‘I’ll leave it to you in my will, Mrs. Dobie,’ just for a joke you know. How little I thought. . . . How d’you like your tea, Mrs. Lithgow?”
“Both, please, and a good kitchen cup. I’m old-fashioned, I suppose, but I must say I get tired of the people who say, ‘Two spoonfuls of milk and hot water,’ or ‘Neither sugar nor cream, and very weak. . . .’ Yes, it’s the way we must all go, Mrs. Murray. D’you know, I sometimes find myself wondering why the world was made so full of interesting things and beautiful places, and why we’re allowed to get so fond of each other when we’ve got such a short time in it. And Janie Dobie was enjoying life so heartily. She always did everything with such gusto. I can’t picture her ill and weak. . . . I’ll call again to-morrow and ask to see poor Be’trice. It must be so lonely for her with only strange nurses, though, of course, there’s always Fairlie. She was nurse, you know, and stayed on as sewing-maid, housekeeper, a bit of everything, and she’s devoted to Be’trice. . . . I don’t know of any relations on the Boyd side: Janie was an only child; and I don’t know of any on the Dobie side either, except the step-son Samuel, Sir Samuel. Did you ever meet his wife, Mrs. Murray?”
“Never,” said Mrs. Murray firmly. “Does she come here much?”
Mrs. Lithgow pursed her lips. “She used to come years ago, and she was glad enough to send her children—she has a son and daughter—when she and her husband wanted a holiday on the Continent, but now she’s too busy ascending the social ladder—you see her name and her photograph often in the papers, in connection with charity balls and things—to trouble about the humble connections in Glasgow. I’m told she says Glasgow’s so common.”
“Poor thing,” said Mrs. Murray, quite sincerely. “And will Be’trice have to make her home with her?”
“Well, I don’t know what else she could do. It isn’t as if she was a girl with a lot of spirit and enterprise. At her age—she’s nearly twenty-five—with plenty of money she could give herself a splendid time, travel and see the world, or take up some special work, there’s no end to what she might do. It’s what the girl of to-day’s always asking, freedom to live her own life, but I doubt if poor Be’trice’ll see it in that light. It’s the way she’s been brought up. If she’d been sent to a good school where she’d have got to know all sorts of girls, and got accustomed to the rough and tumble of life, instead of going about with a governess, for all the world like a cloistered nun. I’m sure Janie Dobie meant it for the best, but she didn’t show her usual good sense in bringing up her girl. She taught Be’trice to depend on her for everything—and now what’s to happen?”
* * * * *
Mrs. Dobie lay in her large, comfortable bedroom, surrounded with gifts from her many friends—flowers, books, baskets of fruit. It was the same room she had shared for fifteen years with her husband, and every day of the fifteen years she had wished in her heart that she could get rid of every article of furniture it contained. The first Mrs. Dobie had had a sombre taste in bedrooms, and everything was dark and heavy, and so good that there was no hope of its getting shabby in reasonable time.
His first wife had been a favourite topic with Joseph Dobie. Her portrait hung above the dining-room mantelpiece (a tall woman in a Liberty gown of olive green) and his eyes often sought it at meal-times while he recalled some instance of her philanthropic zeal. Indeed, so much was said of “Isabella’s” excellencies that her successor, half-irritated, half-amused, sometimes felt that it would have evened things a little had she had a first husband whose portrait she could have hung above the drawing-room mantelpiece and whose virtues she could have extolled. But, untroubled by jealousy, Janie Dobie bore no grudge to the dead women either for her excellencies or her taste in furniture; all the same when Joseph Dobie died she wasted no time in reforming her bedroom.
Ten happy years had followed. She enjoyed the importance that her position as Joseph Dobie’s widow gave her. In a small way she blossomed into a personage. Other women recognised in her the makings of a leader. When she spoke she was listened to. When some one was wanted to plead a cause, or preside at a function, Mrs. Dobie’s was often the name suggested. As one of her friends said: “Mrs. Dobie has both common sense and mother-wit, she’s easy to look at, and there’s a sort of cosy you-and-me-ness about the way she addresses