The Rutherfurd Saga. Anna Buchan
about this?” Barbara asked, holding up a large flat box.
“That only wants a ribbon round it and a bit of holly stuck in. It’s for old Betsy; shortbread. I had it made with ‘Frae Tweedside’ done in pink sugar—a small attention which I hope she’ll appreciate. Mother is sending her tea, and other things. The framed print is for the Bucklers, they haven’t many household gods; the Bond Street chocolates are for Mrs. Heggie, she has such a sweet tooth; the book of Scots ballads for Dr. Kilgour.”
“I can’t see that Mrs. Heggie needs anything,” Barbara said, as she wrapped each thing in white paper and tied it with a red ribbon. “It will only make her insist on us all going to dinner at her house.” . . . She looked round at the articles remaining and asked, taking up a Venetian glass bowl with a lid, “Who is this pretty thing for?”
“It is pretty, isn’t it? I’m going to fill it with my own special geranium bath-salts, put it in a white box, tie it with a length of carnation ribbon and present it to Miss Janet Symington.” As she spoke Nicole looked impishly at her cousin, who said, “Ridiculous! What will she do with such a present?”
“Nothing, probably, but I’m determined she will have at least one pretty thing in her possession. Pack it, Babs dear, very gently, with cotton wool and lots of soft paper. . . . These are all the things for Alastair’s stocking. He’s coming here after breakfast to-morrow to get the big toy Mums has for him. The Lamberts are having him for early dinner and tea, so he’ll have quite a cheerful day.”
“You spoil every one,” said Barbara.
“I like spoiling people, but I quite see I’m a horrible trial to you. You would have liked this house to keep up its reputation for exclusiveness, wouldn’t you, poor pet? . . . But we’re not really over-run by my new friends. They never come unless they’re asked, and we have quiet jolly times, old Babs, you and Mother and I. I sometimes think it is almost unbelievable that we can be so happy after—everything.”
Barbara touched her cousin’s hand. “I know—— I didn’t approve much of coming here, as you know, but I’m bound to say I think Aunt Jane has been the better of it. She takes more interest in people and things than she did. I was really afraid for her before we left Rutherfurd, but now she is less of a gentle spirit and more of a living, breathing mortal. It pleases her to have Alastair so much with her, and she likes Mr. Beckett. D’you notice how she looks at them sometimes—the little boy and the grown man? I think it hurts her to see them, and yet the pleasure exceeds the pain. When Alastair plays round preoccupied and busy, talking to himself, she sees again Ronnie and Archie, for all little boys are very much alike: and in Mr. Beckett she sees them as they would have been now.”
Nicole nodded. “I’m rather dreading to-morrow for her. One can go on from day to day, but these special times are difficult. . . . What do outsiders matter after all, Babs? It’s we three against the world—though you and I do bark at each other whiles!”
After luncheon and a belated post had been discussed, Lady Jane and her niece settled down to cope with the last of the preparations, while Nicole set out to deliver parcels.
It was about three o’clock before she started. The frost of the morning had increased in intensity, so that walking was difficult on the cobbled stones, and Betsy’s outside stair, which had been recklessly washed, was now coated with ice.
Betsy herself was sitting wrapped in a shawl by the fire. “Come in,” she cried, “I kent yer step. Bring forrit a chair and get a warm. It’s surely terrible cauld?”
“It’s a perfect Christmas Eve,” Nicole told her, walking over to look out of the little window. “I can see the moon already, though the sun’s only going down now, and the red tiles have got snow on them, just a sprinkle. I do like your view of chimney-pots and roofs. It makes me think of storks, and Northern Lights, and Christmas trees in every window.”
This harmless remark seemed to provoke the old woman. “Gentry,” she said peevishly, “are aye crackin’ aboot views. I never felt the need o’ a view if I had a guid fire. An’ I dinna haud wi’ Christmas. It’s juist Papacy. It fair scunners me to hear the wives aboot the doors a’ crackin’ aboot Christmas here an’ Christmas there. Ye canna blame the bairns for bein’ taen up wi’ Sandy Claws an’ hingin’ up their stockins, but it’s no’ for grown folk. . . . Whae tell’t ye that Christ was born on the 25th o’ December? It’s no’ in the Bible that I’ve ever seen. Juist will-worship, that’s what ma auld minister ca’ed it, an’ he kent. The verra word’s Popish—Christ-Mass.”
Nicole left the window and sat down by Betsy.
“Does it matter about all that?” she asked. “Isn’t it a good thing that we should keep one day for kind thoughts and goodwill to all men, because long ago in Bethlehem a baby was born?”
Betsy sniffed. “Ay, but I dinna haud wi’t. It was aye the New Year we keepit at Langhope. Thae were the days!”
“Did you have presents?”
“Na, we hed nae money for presents, but the bairns dressed up and went frae hoose to hoose playin’ at ‘Galatians’ and singin’
‘Get up, auld wife, an’ shake yer feathers,
Dinna think that we are beggars:
We are but children come to play—
Get up and gie’s oor Hogmanay.’
An’ we got oatcakes and cheese, and a lump o’ currant-loaf, and shortbreed, and we carried it a’ hame in oor pinnys.”
Nicole was sorting out parcels from her big bag.
“I don’t suppose,” she said, “that this shortbread will taste anything like as good, but it says on it ‘Frae Tweedside.’ ”
“So it does.” Betsy gazed admiringly at the sugar inscription. “It’s faur ower bonny to eat, I’ll juist pit it in a drawer.” Nicole exclaimed at the idea, and produced tea, and a warm woolly coat.
“These are from my mother with her best wishes. She hopes to come to see you very soon.”
Betsy sat with her hands on her gifts. “I dinna ken what to say. I’m no’ üsed bein’ noticed. Naebody ever brocht me things afore, no’ as muckle as a mask o’ tea. Lady Jane’s kindness is fair nonsense, but ye’ll tell her I’m muckle obleeged.”
“Mrs. Martin told me to tell you that she’ll be along this evening with some ‘kail.’ ”
“Ay, weel, it’s no’ a’body’s kail I’d sup. God gies the guid food, but the deil sends the cook. . . . But Agnes Martin’s a rale guid haund at kail.”
“Well, good-bye, Betsy, and—a Merry Christmas.”
“Na, I’m for nane o’ yer Christmases. I’ll gie you a wish for Ne’er day, for fear I dinna see ye—‘The awfullest luck ever ye kent and a man afore the year’s oot.’ ”
Nicole left her chuckling, and took her perilous way down the slippery stair to the home of Mrs. Brodie.
Mrs. Brodie was busy cleaning for the New Year and, like Betsy, seemed to take little stock in Christmas.
“Ay,” she said, leaning on her besom as Nicole produced her box, “the morn’s Christmas, but it maks nae odds here. It’s juist wark, wark, the same. The bairns get an orange an’ a screw o’ sweeties in their stockins, but that’s a’ the length we gang. It’s rale guid o’ yer mither to send thae things—Jimmie, I’ll warm yer lugs if ye dinna let that alane!—Is she gaun tae gie me a look in wan o’ thae days? I like fine to hae a crack wi’ her. Weel, guid day to ye, an’ thanks.”
Nicole left her parcels at Lucknow and at Knebworth, and then turned into the gate of Ravenscraig.
Miss Symington was, as usual, sitting in the dining-room, making up the accounts of one of the many societies she was interested in. There was no sign of festivity