Taken by the Hand. O. Douglas
how could they save when they had to buy their houses and keep their children at good schools? Clerks, too, who won’t easily get another job. And those are the people you can’t help, for they won’t speak. Sometimes—often, I’m afraid, it’s a case of the whole firm coming down, but if the heads of the business have still money to go on with, I do think it’s up to them to help on their men.”
Sir Samuel gave a short laugh as he said, “Ah, my dear girl, it’s easily seen that you know nothing about business questions; business isn’t a charitable institution. We can’t afford, as I said, to be sentimental. To keep going at all means the strictest attention to details; no leakage allowed anywhere. The same thing in my own house. I go over the books carefully myself. Of course economy in a house like ours is very difficult, for we entertain largely. Have to. My position, you know, and Betha has a wide circle of friends, Elaine, too, has her own. I can’t insist on economy as I would like, for servants have to be carefully considered. One daren’t disaffect them for they are more difficult to find than hid treasure. Fortunately we have a most efficient cook-housekeeper who runs things very well, for Betha hasn’t really time, and Elaine is taken up with her own affairs. But you will see for yourself when you come. Betha will write. . . . I see you have the wireless here—what time is it? We might listen to the news . . . a great invention, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER III
“Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.”
Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Sir Samuel departed the next morning immediately after breakfast, to finish his business, and get the train back to London, and Beatrice saw him go with a relief that she felt slightly ashamed of, for, as she told herself, he had really tried to be kind.
As she turned from saying good-bye to him Fairlie stopped her with:
“Excuse me, Miss Be’trice, but could you spare a minute to say what’s to be done with all the things? Oh, I know”—as the girl turned away—“it’s awfully hard for you, but it’s better to do it now when your heart’s as sore as it can be, than put it off and have it hanging over you. Come, ma dearie. I’ve laid out everything and all you need to do is just to nod your head, for I think I know where the mistress would have liked the things to go. I mean, of course, the ordinary things. The furs and lace you’ll be keeping. . . . But she had such a lot of good, well-made, sensible clothes and shoes—and they’ll be a fair godsend to some decent bodies. Mistress Gregor, for one; she’s worn the same coat for that many winters I’ve lost count.”
As Fairlie talked she guided Beatrice upstairs and into her mother’s bedroom, fresh and sweet as it had always been, with a west wind blowing in through the open windows, and the crystal and silver shining just as she had liked it. The sight of the garments, many of them so familiar, forced the hot tears to the girl’s eyes, but Fairlie talked on as if she noticed nothing.
“I wouldn’t send anything to a Jumble Sale if I were you, Miss Be’trice. It’s different to give them where you know they’ll be valued. My, this costume would be a treat to that poor delicate woman—what’s her name? Miss Ralston—that the mistress set up in a wee shop. You see, it’s decent clothes that’s the difficulty. They can manage along no’ that bad, but there’s little over for clothes and boots.”
“Oh, I know, Fairlie, and I’m more than willing that the things should go where they’ll be useful, but——”
“That’s all right then,” said Fairlie, in her comfortable, reassuring way. “I’ll see about getting them all parcelled up. And the—the personal things? Will you take them with you?”
“Is there any hurry? I won’t be leaving for some weeks probably.”
Fairlie stopped folding clothes and asked, “Did Sir Samuel not say to you that he wanted everything out of the house as soon as possible? I understood that all your own things were to be stored or sent down to Greenbraes at once, because the house had been sold and they wanted immediate entry. . . . The things in this room, dearie, are all yours, mind that; they’re your mother’s things.”
Beatrice looked round. “I’d hate,” she said, “not to keep the dressing-table and anything that goes with it, and those painted bottles, and the Morland prints, and the worked stool that stood before the dressing-table . . . . they can be sent to Greenbraes in the meantime.”
“Of course they can. I’ll take them there myself and see that they’re put in a proper place. . . . You wouldn’t like to live down there, Miss Be’trice? It’s a bonny place.”
“Yes. You always liked Greenbraes, Fairlie. I don’t know, I may settle there some time, but I was thinking that I’d like you to go there for the winter. Mr. and Mrs. Shields would be glad of your company, and I would feel that there was something to bring me back to Scotland. At present I’m like a knotless thread.”
“Toots, you’re nothing of the kind. You’ll be having a grand time in London with Lady Dobie. And I’d like fine to go to Greenbraes, for I get on well with the Shields, and I’d have the things she liked round me. No, no, we’ll no greet, ma dearie. . . . Here’s Agnes. What is it, Agnes?”
“Mrs. Lithgow wonders if you could see her, ’M? She’s waiting in the library.”
Beatrice shrank back, crying, “Oh, I couldn’t, Fairlie; I couldn’t—No, that’s silly. I’ve got to see people some time. Please tell Mrs. Lithgow, Agnes, that I’ll be down in a minute.”
“There’s a brave lassie,” encouraged Fairlie. “Just you give your face a sponge with cold water and you’ll be fine. Away down afore you’ve time to think about it.”
Mrs. Lithgow’s eyes filled with tears as Beatrice came in in her black frock, and she kissed her, and murmured sympathy, and sat down still holding the girl’s hand. Beatrice felt very uncomfortable. She did not know whether to let her hand lie in the visitor’s warm suede-covered grasp, or gently withdraw it finger by finger, and the problem so absorbed her that she hardly heard the first part of the conversation. When she did become aware of what Mrs. Lithgow was saying—“And now, dear Be’trice, I want you to come home with me. Yes, just now. I don’t know what your arrangements are for the future, but I can’t bear to think of you alone here. So long as you stay in Glasgow our house is your home. I daren’t go back without you. Both Mr. Lithgow and Peggy gave me my orders, ‘Bring Be’trice back with you’ ”—Beatrice gasped with horror. To go, at this time, to stay with strangers—though she had known the Lithgows all her life she had never been intimate with them—to leave Fairlie and her mother’s room and the loved familiar things! It was unthinkable. And yet here was Mrs. Lithgow, dressed in black to show nice feeling, positively exuding kindness and sympathy; how could she throw it back in her face?
“The room’s ready, the fire burning and all, and Peggy’s away out to get flowers,” said Mrs. Lithgow, and every word seemed to draw the net closer round the girl.
“Oh, but—you are too kind,” she murmured.
“Kind? Nonsense. I was at school with your mother, and we put our hair up the same day. I’m very sure Janie Boyd wouldn’t have let my Peggy be alone if I had been the one to be taken. Now, you ring for Fairlie and get a case packed and I’ll call for you in about an hour. I’m just going down town to do some shopping. . . . Now, my dear, you mustn’t mind me being so, so precipitate. Sometimes we’re the better of having our minds made up for us. . . . Don’t you worry about things here, Fairlie will manage. Your mother always said she could trust Fairlie with anything. You’ll be better out of the way—I’ll be back about twelve. Ta-ta.”
As the door shut behind Mrs. Lithgow Beatrice stood and apostrophised herself as a weak fool. Why had she not said firmly that it was impossible for her to leave Park Place in the meantime, that there was much to arrange and that she must be on