Taken by the Hand. O. Douglas
responsibility. . . . He thought kindly, sitting there, of his step-mother. A sensible woman. They had always got on well together. She had been no trouble to him in life, nor, as it happened, in death, for it suited him quite well to be in Glasgow at this time. Not, of course, that he would have grudged coming up on purpose, but still. . . . He was truly sorry that she should have died in the prime of life—why she was only five years older than he was!—but there was no blinking the fact that the money that would now come to him would be very welcome. True, he was a wealthy man, but these were anxious days, and he had an expensive household, a terribly expensive household. Really Betha seemed to have lost all sense of the value of money. It was ridiculous, because it wasn’t as if she had been brought up in luxury. Quite the reverse. He had rather stooped, he always felt, in his marriage, but Betha had had taking ways as a young girl, and he was only human after all. She had made a good wife too, up to her lights, but she had always insisted on over-indulging the children, and now the boy and girl absolutely ruled the house; the place was turned upside down at their pleasure. . . . He turned his head and studied the face of the lady in the velvet gown above the mantelpiece. What would his mother have thought of her granddaughter?
He sighed, then realised that he was eating an excellent bit of fish.
“Very good salmon,” he said.
Beatrice, deep in her own thoughts, started slightly.
“Yes,” she said, “we always get good fish.”
“The best of everything in Glasgow, eh?” said Sir Samuel jocularly. “Well, there are worse places. After London, of course, it’s provincial, but quite a good place to live in. The people are easy to know, and pleasant to deal with. Your poor mother seems to have been quite a personage. Yes, you would have been gratified at the tributes paid to her by old friends whom I spoke to at the funeral.”
“Yes,” said Beatrice, trying not to mind the condescending tone, “mother did a lot of public work. She liked it.”
“And was well fitted for it,” said Sir Samuel, handsomely. “Ah, yes, women are coming more and more into public life. It seems ungallant to object, but one wonders, one wonders.”
Beatrice looked rather hopelessly at the slice of roast beef on the plate laid before her, as she said, “Don’t you think women are as capable as men of doing most things?”
Sir Samuel was helping himself to mustard, and paused with the large Georgian silver pot in his hand, pursing his lips at his step-sister.
“I think not,” he said finally. “Many of them have a superficial cleverness, but they don’t last the course, if you understand the expression.”
“But,” Beatrice protested, not because she cared, but merely to keep the ball of conversation rolling, “surely there are many women who are much more than superficially clever. The Duchess of Atholl, for instance, Maude Royden, and, and, oh, dozens more.”
Sir Samuel smiled kindly. “Those are merely the exceptions that prove the rule. What, I ask you, have women done in the House of Commons?”
Beatrice was about to reply, but realising in time that it was a rhetorical question she laid down her knife and fork, drank a little water, and prepared to study her step-brother while he addressed her.
He was a tall man, with a large smooth face, a high, slightly receding forehead and a fluent-looking mouth with slightly protruding teeth. He was good-looking and very well dressed, and his appearance always predisposed an audience in his favour. As her mother had reminded Beatrice he was her nearest relative, almost, in fact, her only one. She sat, hardly listening, wondering what he was like, this large man, in his own house, what his wife thought of him, if his children believed in him. . . . She hardly knew Lady Dobie. There was nothing to bring the lady to Glasgow, and when Beatrice and her mother had passed through London it was generally holiday-time and the house in Portland Place was in the hands of caretakers. When the children were quite small they had been sent for several summers to Greenbraes, the house at the coast, and she, Beatrice, had adored the funny, sophisticated little Londoners, and had played with them by the hour. But that, she reminded herself, was years ago. They would be very different now. Why, Elaine was twenty and Stewart was at Oxford.
The dinner, which had seemed to Beatrice endless, was drawing to a conclusion. Sir Samuel, who had passed the sweet, was having a second helping of savoury, explaining as he did so, “I’ve no use for sweets; leave them to the ladies. Sweets to the sweet, as the immortal William said. . . . I hope you’re fond of poetry, Beatrice? I used to read reams. Poetry’s good for the young. Browning, now. I used to write papers on Browning. But the cares of the world, you know. Ah, yes, yes. ‘Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.’ I hope so, I’m sure, but really one has little time to think of anything but the things of the moment. . . . All week I rush between the office and the House; on Sundays I like a round at golf and a rest, but Betha and Elaine have generally other views. But tell me about yourself. Did you help your mother in her various activities? Or have you branched out on a line of your own?”
Beatrice shook her head. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that I’m not really much good at anything. I don’t seem to have been given any special talent, so I do the listening.”
“Delightful,” said Sir Samuel. “And so necessary! So many people want to talk and so few to listen. Your popularity must be great.”
“I haven’t noticed it,” said Beatrice. “No, I don’t think I’m a success in any way. It didn’t matter when I had mother. I helped her, and basked in her popularity, but now——”
Sir Samuel made a grave face. “Ah, yes, this is indeed a sad blow to you. . . . Have you thought at all what you would like to do? I don’t suppose you would care to stay on here? No, I thought not. I mean to sell this house, in fact I’ve had an offer for it. Yes, it’s remarkable in these days when large houses are going for an old song, but of course it’s a very good position, and your mother kept it in such a beautiful state of repair. As you know, Greenbraes is yours. Would you care to live there for a bit? No—no, there’s no hurry in making a decision. You must look on my house as home in the meantime. You will come to us when you finish up here. It will only be a case of packing your own belongings, and disposing of your mother’s personal effects. . . .” He looked round the room. “If there is anything that you have a special liking for just let me know and it’ll be arranged. I’ve forgotten what’s in the house. If you’re not too tired d’you mind if we go over it to-night? I shall have to leave after breakfast—and get my business done and catch the midday train to London. No, no,” as Beatrice sprang up, prepared at once to do as was suggested, “let’s have our coffee in comfort; the house won’t run away. . . . Yes, it really is exceedingly fortunate to find a purchaser just to my hand, so to speak. And did I tell you he’s willing to take the furniture if we can come to an arrangement? I gathered it was wanted for a club or something of that sort. It’s none of my business so long as the money’s forthcoming.”
He laughed, and Beatrice smiled as seemed required, but she was almost dazed at the sudden way things were happening.
When they had drunk their coffee Sir Samuel rose, saying, “Well, Beatrice, shall we go through the house now? If a thing’s got to be done get it done at once. That’s a good rule in life—whether it means getting out a tooth or an appendix, or anything else unpleasant.”
Sir Samuel laughed aloud at his little joke; and Beatrice politely echoed the laugh, while she said to herself: “Mother’s funeral day and I’m laughing!”
She rang the bell and told the maid who answered it that Fairlie was wanted, and presently Fairlie appeared.
She was a short, stout woman with a comely face and the manner of a privileged old servant.
Beatrice said, “You remember Fairlie, don’t you, Samuel? She knows what’s in the house much better than I do.”
“Oh, yes.” Sir Samuel beamed in his best “constituency” manner and shook hands heartily, remarking: “I remember you in my father’s time.”
“So