The Rutherfurd Saga. Anna Buchan
it were a summer day. A wave came over the top and nearly washed me into the water. I had to hold on to a chain.”
“Then,” cried her mother, “you must have been drenched from the very beginning. Oh, my dear, that was reckless of you.”
“No, no. Salt water never gave any one cold. I gasped and spluttered for a bit to the evident amusement of the boy and said, ‘Oh! what a storm!’ He grinned again, and spat into the water. ‘Storrum?’ he said. ‘It’s no a’ storrum, it’s juist a wee jobble.’ Wasn’t he a horrid fellow? . . . I left the Harbour then, and walked along the shore to the Red Rocks. It took me about half an hour, for the wind seemed to clutch at me and pull me back; indeed when I reached the rocks I got down on my hands and knees and crawled; I thought it would be rather silly to risk breaking a leg. . . . The waves were fine. To watch them rush in and hurl themselves against the rocks so exhilarated me that I found myself shouting and encouraging them—— It’s a good thing you weren’t there, Babs, you would have been ashamed. I was just thinking of coming home when I suddenly heard, quite near me, a scream which almost immediately turned into a laugh, and turning round I found a small boy clutching his hair while his hat soared sea-wards.”
“A small boy alone on the rocks?” Lady Jane asked.
“Not alone, Mums. There was a young man with him.”
“A young man!” said Barbara.
Nicole’s eyes danced. “An extraordinarily good-looking young man with a delightful voice, and, as far as I could judge among jagged rocks and gathering darkness and a wind blowing at a thousand miles an hour, some charm of manner. Aha!”
Barbara made a sceptical sound, and asked what such a being was doing in Kirkmeikle.
“Ah, that I can’t tell you,” Nicole confessed; “he didn’t confide in me. The small boy is called Alastair Symington and lives with his aunt at Ravenscraig. When we call on that lady we may hear more.”
“It’s a matter of no interest to me,” Barbara declared.
“I threw out feelers,” continued Nicole, “to find out what he was doing here. I told him what we were doing here, but he offered no confidences in return. I think he must be in rooms near Ravenscraig, for the small boy kept hinting that he would like to go to tea with him. . . . You’d like him, Mums, the small Alastair, I mean. He told me a long tale about the minister, Mr. Lambert, finding a gold comb on the sands, which he took home with him, and that night as he sat in his study somebody tapped at his window, and it was a mermaid to ask for her comb! According to Alastair the minister went with her to the Red Rocks and had dinner with her—cod-liver oil soup, which, it seems, is excellent, and a great delicacy—and she asked him what she could do to show her gratitude. There had been a great storm a little while before that, and many boats had gone down, and women had lost their bread-winners, and the mermaid gave the minister gold and jewels from the bottom of the sea to sell for the poor people.”
Barbara looked indignant. “What a very odd sort of minister to tell a child such ridiculous tales.”
Nicole helped herself to strawberry jam, and laughed as she said: “A very nice sort of minister, I think. Alastair was stumbling along in the storm looking for another comb. He said he thought it was the sort of day a comb would be likely to get lost, and he’s very anxious to see a mermaid in a cave. Mums, we must call at once on Miss Symington, if only to get better acquainted with this Alastair child. How old? About six, I think. A queer little fellow and most pathetically devoted to this tall young man. To a boy brought up by women a man is a wonderful delight. The two escorted me to the door. I asked them in to tea, and Alastair was obviously more than willing, but the man said they were too wet, as indeed they were.”
“Did you discover the man’s name?”
“I did, from Alastair. He is called Simon Beckett.”
Lady Jane wrinkled her brows. “Isn’t there something familiar about that name—— Simon Beckett?”
“Aren’t you thinking of Thomas à Becket?” Nicole suggested.
“No, no. I am sure I read somewhere lately of a Simon Beckett having done something.”
“Crime?” said Nicole. “He didn’t look like a criminal exactly. Isn’t there a Beckett who boxes?”
“I know,” cried Barbara. “I know where you saw the name, Aunt Jane. It was in the account of the last attempt made on Everest, more than a year ago. You remember? Two men almost reached the top and one died. Simon Beckett was the one that came back. You remember we read about the lecture to the Geographical? Uncle Walter was tremendously interested.”
“Why, of course. . . . But this can’t be the same man, Nicole?”
“Of course not,” Barbara broke in. “What would that Simon Beckett be doing in Kirkmeikle?”
“This Simon Beckett certainly didn’t mention Everest to me,” Nicole said, as she began on a slice of plum-cake.
CHAPTER X
“O brave new-world
That has such people in’t.”
The Tempest.
A few days later Nicole and her mother—Barbara had pleaded excessive boredom at the prospect and had been let off—set out to return their neighbours’ calls.
Nicole carried a card-case which she had unearthed from somewhere, and was very particular about what her mother should wear.
“The new long coat with the grey fur, Mums; it has such a nice slimifying effect—not that you need it. What a blessing that we are sylphs, you and I. Wouldn’t you hate to feel thick, and to know that you had a bulge at the back of your neck? . . . You really are ridiculously young, Mums. You could wear your hair shingled, for the back of your neck is the nicest thing I ever saw, almost like a child’s; and your little firm face is so fresh—only the eyes shadowed a little. And not one grey hair! How have the gods thus guarded your first bloom, as the poet puts it?”
Lady Jane, standing before the looking-glass pulling a small hat over her wavy hair, laughed at her daughter.
“All this flattery because I’ve consented to go with you and call! Or is there something more you want?”
Nicole stood beside her mother looking at the reflection in the mirror.
“We might easily be taken for sisters, Mums. In fact, I might be mistaken for the mother, for there is something stern in my visage that ages me. . . . How nice it is that now mothers and daughters can dress alike—the same little hats, long coats, and unimportant dresses. At one stage of the world’s history you would have worn a bonnet and a dolman, Madam, and I should have had a sailor-hat tilted up behind (see old Punches) and a bustle. What we have been spared!”
“Come along, then, and get our visits over. I’m ready.”
As they mounted the long street that led from the shore to the villas on the top of the brae, Lady Jane remarked, “I should think every one will be out this fine day.”
Nicole pinched her mother’s arm. “Don’t say it so hopefully; you’re as bad as Barbara. I want them all to be in. . . . Do let’s speak to this woman; she’s a friend of mine, a Mrs. Brodie.”
They were passing a little house, the doorway a few steps under the level of the street, with two little windows each curtained with a starched stiff petticoat of muslin, and further darkened by four geraniums in pots. A large, cheerful-looking woman was standing at the door, holding a baby, while two slightly older children played at her feet. She greeted Nicole with a broad smile, and when she said, “Mrs. Brodie, this is my mother,” she gave an odd little backward jerk of the head by way of a bow.