The Rutherfurd Saga. Anna Buchan
and black timber, with many small odd-shaped windows, picturesque grates with imitation Dutch tiles, and antique door-handles.
Mrs. Heggie lived here comfortably, and, on the whole, amicably with her daughter Joan. Mrs. Heggie was more than “given to hospitality,” she simply revelled in feeding all her friends and acquaintances. It seemed impossible for her to meet people without straightway asking them to a meal. It was probably this passionate hospitality that had soured her daughter and made that young woman’s manner, in contrast, short and abrupt.
The third villa, Lucknow, was occupied by a retired Anglo-Indian and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Buckler. They had two children to educate and had come to Kirkmeikle because it was quiet and cheap. Mrs. Buckler wrestled with servants, while the husband played golf and walked about with dogs.
There was a fourth house on the brae, much smaller than the others, more a cottage than a villa, which belonged to a Miss Jamieson, a genteel lady, so poorly provided with this world’s goods that she was obliged to take a lodger.
She had been fortunate, she would have told you, to secure at the end of the summer season a single gentleman, quiet in his habits and most considerate. He had come to Kirkmeikle because he wanted quiet to write a book—something about exploring, Miss Jamieson thought. He had been with her for three weeks and expected to remain till early spring. His name was Simon Beckett. No one, so far, had made the acquaintance of Miss Jamieson’s lodger except Miss Symington’s six-year-old nephew, Alastair.
That young person had a way of escaping from his nurse and pushing his small form through a gap in the hedge that divided Miss Jamieson’s drying-green from the road, and, on reaching the window of Mr. Beckett’s room, flattening his nose against the glass to see if that gentleman was at work at his desk. If he were, Alastair at once joined him, and, with no shadow of doubt as to his welcome, related to him all the events that made up his day, finishing up with an invitation to join Annie and himself in Ravenscraig at nursery tea.
One afternoon in October, a day of high wind, and white-capped waves and scudding clouds, Alastair was returning with Annie from the shore where he had been playing among the boats. He was toiling up the hill, shuffling his feet among the rustling brown leaves and talking to himself under his breath, when Annie called to him to wait a minute, and forthwith dived into the baker’s shop. It was a chance not to be missed. Off ran Alastair straight to Miss Jamieson’s, walked boldly in at the front door and found his friend at his desk.
“Hello!” said Mr. Beckett, “it’s you.”
“Yes,” Alastair said, panting slightly from his run. “Annie’s in the baker’s. I’ve run away.”
“Shouldn’t do that, you know.”
“Why not?” said Alastair. “I wanted to see you. She’ll be here in a minute.” He looked out of the window and saw Annie already on his track. She was standing at the gate trying to see into the room.
Simon Beckett looked up from his writing and saw her.
“You’d better go, old man.”
“I’d rather stay with you. Miss Jamieson’s making pancakes for your tea. We only have bread and butter and digestive biscuits.”
“I’m too busy for tea to-day. Come to-morrow at four o’clock.”
He began again to write, and Alastair saw that there was no real hope of tea, and a story or a game. Still he lingered, and presently asked, “Do you mind coming out and telling Annie you’ve invited me to tea to-morrow?”
The face that he turned up to his friend was the funniest little wedge of a face, with a wide mouth and a pointed chin and pale blue eyes, the whole topped by a thatch of thick sandy hair; a Puck-like countenance.
Simon Beckett smiled as he looked at it. “Come on, then,” he said, getting up and propelling Alastair before him, “we’ll make it all right with Annie.”
That damsel was not difficult to propitiate. When Alastair had tea in “the room,” she had tea in the kitchen, and Miss Jamieson was known for her comfortable ways and her good cooking, so she blushed and said she would ask Miss Symington, and thanked Mr. Beckett in the name of her charge, calling him “Sir” quite naturally, a thing she had never thought to do, for she belonged to the Labour Party and believed in equality. As they were parting, all three on excellent terms, at the gate, Mrs. Heggie and her daughter passed. Joan would have walked on, but her mother stopped.
“Well, Alastair,” she said, in the loud bantering tone which she kept for children, “what mischief have you been up to to-day, I wonder!”
Alastair regarded her in hostile silence, while Annie poked him in the back to make some response.
Mrs. Heggie turned to Miss Jamieson’s lodger.
“You’re Mr. Beckett, I think? How d’you do? Strange that we should have never met, but you’re a great student I hear. It must take a lot of hard thinking to write a book. I often say that to Joan—my daughter, Mr. Beckett—for she’s inclined to be literary too. . . . We would be so glad to see you any time. Could you lunch with us to-morrow?”
Joan trod heavily on the foot nearest her, and her mother winced but went recklessly on. “No? Then Thursday; Thursday would suit us just as well. 1.30. Then that’s settled.”
“Thank you,” said Simon Beckett, in chastened tones. “It’s tremendously kind of you. Yes, Thursday. Good-bye.”
“I wonder,” said Miss Joan Heggie, coldly, as they walked on, “what possible pleasure it gives you, Mother, to try to cultivate people who quite obviously don’t want to be cultivated. You absolutely forced that poor man to come to lunch.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Heggie. “I think he’s only shy.”
“Not he, he’s unwilling, and I don’t blame him. Kirkmeikle society is far from enlivening. Oh, here comes Miss Symington. Don’t stop, Mother, for goodness’ sake.”
But Mrs. Heggie was physically incapable of passing a friend or neighbour without a few words; besides she was wearing her new winter things, and was going to take tea with the doctor’s sister, and altogether felt pleased and happy. She shook hands with Miss Symington, hoped she saw her well, and told her where she was going to tea. She rather hoped in return to receive a compliment about her new hat and coat, but none seemed forthcoming, so she said, “Well, good-bye just now, and do come and see us when you have time. . . . Could you lunch with us on Thursday? Do. 1.30.” (Joan gazed despairingly at the sky.) “That’ll be nice. Mr. Beckett is coming. Good-bye. . . . Oh, by the way, did you hear a rumour that the Harbour House is let? Our cook heard it from the postman. Let’s hope it’s a nice family who’ll be a help in the place. Well, good-bye just now. . . .”
“Mother, what do you mean by it?” Joan asked as they walked away.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Heggie, “it just came out.”
But there was no real repentance in her tone.
CHAPTER VIII
“Lady Alice, Lady Louise,
Between the wash of the tumbling seas.”
William Morris.
Jean Douglas insisted on taking Lady Jane to Kingshouse out of the way of the removal, and Nicole and Barbara, accompanied by two maids from Rutherfurd, an under housemaid, and a girl who had been “learning the table,” set out for Kirkmeikle to make the Harbour House habitable.
It proved a comparatively easy task. Mrs. Agnes Martin had managed to chase out the painters in good time, and had every cupboard and floor scrubbed white when they arrived; the furniture fitted in as if made for the rooms, and very soon the house took on a look of comfort.
Now,