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Complete Works. Anna Buchan
awa, an' I'm a guid cook, an' he would aye come in to a clean fireside.' So she married him and made a good wife to him, and they had one son. And Mirren's son is now Sir John Banks, a baronet and an M.P. Tuts, the thing's ridiculous…. Not that there's anything wrong with the man. He's a soft-tongued, stuffed-looking butler-like creature, with a lot of that low cunning that is known as business instinct, but he was good to his mother. He didn't marry till she died, and she kept house for him in his grand new house—the dear soul with her caps and her broad south-country accent. She managed wonderfully, for she had great natural dignity, and aped nothing. It was the butler killed her. She could cope with the women servants, but when Sir John felt that his dignity required a butler she gave it up. I dare say she was glad enough to go…. 'Eh, mem, I am effrontit,' she used to say to me if I went in and found her spotless kitchen disarranged, and I thought of her to-day when I saw those silly little painted faces, and was glad she had been spared the sight of her descendants…. But what am I raging about? What does it matter to me, when all's said? Let the lassies dress up as long as they have the heart; they'll have long years to learn sense if they're spared…. Miss Reston, did you ever see anything bonnier than Tweed and Hopetoun Woods? Jean, my dear, Lewis Elliot brought me a book last night which really delighted me. Poems by Violet Jacob. If anyone could do for Tweeddale what she has done for Angus I would be glad…."
"You care for poetry, Miss Reston? In Priorsford it's considered rather a slur on your character to care for poetry. Novels we may discuss, sensible people read novels, even now and again essays or biography, but poetry—there we have to dissemble. We pretend, don't we, Jean?—that poetry is nothing to us. Never a quotation or an allusion escapes us. We listen to tales of servants' misdeeds, we talk of clothes and the ongoings of our neighbours, and we never let on that we would rather talk of poetry. No. No. A daft-like thing for either an old woman or a young one to speak of. Only when we are alone—Jean and Augusta and Lewis Elliot and I—we 'tire the sun with talking and send it down the sky.' … Miss Reston, Lewis Elliot tells me he knew you very well at one time."
"Yes, away at the beginning of things. I adored him when I was fifteen and he was twenty. He was wonderfully good to me and Biddy—my brother. It is delightful to find an old friend in a new place."
"I'm very fond of Lewis," said Mrs. Hope, "but I wish to goodness he had never inherited Laverlaw. He might have done a lot in the world with his brain and his heart and his courage, but there he is contentedly settled in that green glen of his, and greatly absorbed in sheep. Sheep! The country is run by the Sir John Bankses, and the Lewis Elliots think about sheep. It's all wrong. It's all wrong. The War wakened him up, and he was in the thick of it both in the East and in France, but never in the limelight, you understand, just doggedly doing his best in the background. If he would marry a sensible wife with some ambition, but he's about as much sentiment in him as Jock. It would take an earthquake to shake him into matrimony."
"Perhaps," said Pamela, "he is like your friend Mirren—'bye caring.'"
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Hope briskly. "He's 'bye' the fervent stage, if he ever was a prisoner in that cage of rushes, which I doubt, but there are long years before him, I hope, and if there isn't a fire of affection on the hearth, and someone always about to listen and understand, it's a dowie business when the days draw in and the nights get longer and colder, and the light departs."
"But if it's dreary for a man," said Pamela, "what of us? What of the 'left ladies,' as I heard a child describe spinsters?"
Mrs. Hope's blue eyes, callously calm, surveyed the three spinsters before her.
"You will get no pity from me," she said. "It's practically always the woman's own fault if she remains unmarried. Besides, a woman can do fine without a man. A woman has so much within herself she is a constant entertainment to herself. But men are helpless souls. Some of them are born bachelors and they do very well, but the majority are lost without a woman. And angry they would be to hear me say it!… Are you going, Jean?"
"Mhor's lessons," said Jean. "I'm frightfully sorry to take Pamela away."
"May I come again?" Pamela asked.
"Surely. Augusta and I will look forward to your next visit. Don't tire of Priorsford yet awhile. Stay among us and learn to love the place." Mrs. Hope smiled very kindly at her guest, and Pamela, stooping down, kissed the hand that held her own.
CHAPTER XI
"Lord Clinchum waved a careless hand. A small portion of blood royal flows in my veins, he said, but it does not worry me at all and after all, he added piously, at the Day of Judgment what will be the Odds?
"Mr. Salteena heaved a sigh. I was thinking of this world, he said."—The Young Visiters.
"I would like," said Pamela, "to get to know my neighbours. There are six little houses, each exactly like Hillview, and I would like to be able to nod to the owners as I pass. It would be more friendly."
Pamela and Jean, with Mhor and Peter, were walking along the road that contained Hillview and The Rigs.
"Every house in this road is a twin," said Mhor, "except The Rigs. It's different from every other house."
They were coming home from a long walk, laden with spoils from the woods: moss for the bowls of bulbs, beautiful bare branches such as Jean loved to stand in blue jars against the creamy walls. Mhor and Peter had been coursing about like two puppies, covering at least four times the ground their elders covered, and were now lagging, weary-footed, much desiring their midday meal.
"I don't know," said Jean, pondering on the subject of neighbours, "how you could manage to be friends with them. You see, they are busy people and—it sounds very rude—they haven't time to be bothered with you. Just smile tentatively when you see them and pass the time of day casual-like; you would soon get friendly. There is one house, the one called 'Balmoral,' with the very much decorated windows and the basket of ferns hanging in the front door, where the people are at leisure, and I know would deeply value a little friendliness. Two sisters live in it—Watson is the name—most kindly and hospitable creatures with enough to live on comfortably and keep a small servant, and ample leisure after they have, what Mrs. M'Cosh calls, 'dockit up the hoose,' to entertain and be entertained. They are West country—Glasgow, I think, or Greenock—and they find Priorsford just a little stiff. They've been here about three years, and I'm afraid are rather disappointed that they haven't made more progress socially. I love them personally. They are so genteel, as a rule, but every little while the raciness natural to the West country breaks out."
"You are nice to them, Jean, I am sure."
"Oh yes, but the penalty of being more or less nice to everyone is that nobody values your niceness: they take it for granted. Whereas the haughty and exclusive, if they do condescend to stoop, are hailed as gods among mortals."
"Poor Jean!" laughed Pamela. "That is rather hard. It's a poor thing human nature."
"It is," Jean agreed. "I went to the dancing-class the other day to see a most unwilling Mhor trip fantastically, and I saw a tiny girl take the hand of an older girl and look admiringly up at her. The older child, with the awful heartlessness of childhood wriggled her hand away and turned her back on her small admirer. The poor mite stood trying not to cry, and presently a still tinier mite came snuggling up to her and took her hand. 'Now,' I thought, 'having learned how cruel a thing a snub is, will she be kind?' Not a bit of it. With the selfsame gesture the older girl had used she wriggled away her hand and turned her back."
"Cruel little wretches," said Pamela, "but it's the same with us older children. Apart from sin altogether, it must be hard for God to pardon our childishness … But about the Miss Watsons—d'you think I might call on them?"
"Well, they wouldn't call on you, I'm sure of that. Suppose I ask them to meet you, and then you could fix a day for them to have tea with you? It would be a tremendous treat for them, and pleasant for you too—they are very entertaining."
So