The Rutherfurd Saga. Anna Buchan
a thought, perhaps, of Alastair—a box of candied fruit. And there was Miss Rutherfurd’s box. It stood on the sideboard, a seductive-looking parcel wrapped in white paper and tied with carnation silk ribbon. What could it be! Surely not chocolates. . . . Slowly she untied the ribbon, undid the paper, took off the lid of the box and lifted out the fragile gilt bowl. She sniffed. Bath salts—geranium. That was the scent Miss Rutherfurd always used. Well, really! Miss Symington sat back in her chair and looked at the frivolous, pretty thing. No one had ever thought of giving her such a present before. A thought came vaguely to her that the gift was like the giver, the glow of it, the brightness, the fragrance.
While Alastair played, absorbed, she gathered up the box with the bowl, and the ribbon, and carried them up to her room.
The window was wide open to the frosty air, the bed stripped, and airing. She looked round for a place to put her present. The dressing-table was covered with the silver brushes and mirror her parents had given her on her twenty-first birthday. There was a large pin-cushion too, and two silver-topped bottles that would not unscrew. It looked crowded, and she remembered Nicole’s dressing-table when she had once been taken into her room to see something, a table, old and beautiful in itself, covered with plate-glass, with nothing on it but a standing mirror and a bowl of flowers. Everything else, Nicole had explained, lived in the drawers of the table: it was tidier so, she thought.
Janet then tried the bowl on the mantelpiece, but decided at once that it couldn’t stand there. It was an ugly painted wood mantelpiece, with a china ornament at each end and a photograph of the Scott Monument in the middle, and the Venetian bowl looked forlornly out of its element, as a nymph might have looked at an Educational Board meeting.
There was a fine old walnut chest of drawers opposite the window. It had a yellowish embroidered cover on it which Janet whisked off, leaving it bare. That was better. The wood was beautiful, and the bowl stood proudly regarding its own reflection in the polished depths.
Janet was surprised at her own feeling of pleasure and satisfaction in her new possession. After all, there was, she thought, something rather nice about having pretty things about one. But, the worst of it was that one pretty thing was apt to make everything else look uglier. That wall-paper! It had been chosen for its lasting qualities, but she acknowledged to herself that it was far from beautiful. Suppose the walls were made cream? It would make a difference . . . Perhaps when spring-cleaning time came round she might have it done, though it did seem ridiculous to fuss about one’s own room. A guest-room was a different matter. . . . She lifted the lid of the bowl and the light sweet scent stole out. What had Alastair said, “Soft and warm and nice-smelling.” She supposed many people considered it worth while to do everything in their power to make themselves and their surroundings attractive, but in this fleeting world was it not a waste of time? So soon we would all be done with it. A few more years shall roll. . . . She wondered if Nicole and her mother, among their pretty things, ever thought of another world, and of the importance of working while it was day. The shadow of the night that was coming had always lain dark across Janet’s day of life.
The sound of voices disturbed her train of thought. Looking out of the window she saw her neighbour, Mr. Beckett, standing on the gravel holding a large box, while his dog, James, leapt on him, and Alastair ran about giving excited yelps. Janet felt almost ashamed of herself for noticing how good the young man was to look at standing there in his light tweed jacket and knickerbockers. He was bare-headed, and the winter sun turned his fair hair to gold.
“Ask your aunt if you may come in with me next door. My room’s the best place to fix it up in,” she heard him say, and went quickly downstairs to the front door.
“It’s a train,” Alastair shouted, roused completely out of his habitual gravity, “a train for me! May I go with Mr. Beckett and see how it works?”
Janet met the eyes of the tall young man, who smiled boyishly as if he were as keen on the game as his small companion, and she found herself telling him, with quite a warm inflection in her usually so colourless voice, how good he was to trouble about her nephew, and she hoped Alastair was as grateful as he ought to be.
Alastair, in no mood to study inflections in his aunt’s voice, tugged at his friend’s arm, saying, “Come on, then, oh, do come on,” but Simon felt compelled to suggest that perhaps Miss Symington would accompany them to see the train work.
Alastair’s face was anxious until he heard his aunt decline, graciously, the invitation. She added that Annie would call for him at eleven o’clock to take him to the Harbour House, and, about twelve, he was going to the Lambert’s.
“My word, Bat, you’re having a day,” Simon told him.
“I’m afraid he will be spoiled among so many kind people,” Janet said primly.
“Come on, oh, do come on,” Alastair insisted, jigging up and down impatiently, feeling that all this talk was quite beside the mark; so Simon, with a smile to Miss Symington, allowed himself to be led away.
* * * * *
Evening had fallen on another Christmas Day. Everywhere tired children were being put to bed, some cross, some dissatisfied, all, more or less, suffering from over-eating. It is doubtful whether the long-looked-for day ever does come up to expectations, but no matter how disillusioned they go to bed, in the morning they are already beginning again to look forward to that bright day which lies at the end of the long year ahead.
The Rutherfurds, having long since put away childish things and having no expectations of extra happiness but rather the reverse, had been surprised to find themselves thoroughly enjoying their first Christmas in Kirkmeikle. Alastair and the postman had taken up the morning, after luncheon they had, all three, walked round the links, and finished up at the Lambert’s garden-enclosed house, which was full of all happy cheerful things, toys and children’s voices, music and firelight. Mr. Lambert had told a wonderful story of pirates in Kirkmeikle, with Alastair as hero, and they had played games and sung carols.
Now dinner was over, and they were sitting round the fire in the long drawing-room, drinking their coffee, Lady Jane in her own low chair, Nicole beside her on a wooden stool with a red damask cushion, Barbara on the sofa, and Simon Beckett comfortable in a capacious arm-chair.
Barbara wore a dress the colour of Parma violets, Nicole was in white, with a spray of scarlet berries tucked into the white fur which trimmed it.
They had been talking animatedly, but now a silence had fallen. So quiet was the room that outside the tide could be heard rippling over the sand. A boy passed whistling some popular song, a gay tune with an undertone of sadness.
After a minute, “Well,” said Lady Jane, “what are we going to do to amuse our guest?”
“Let’s play at something,” Nicole suggested.
“But what?” asked Barbara.
“Oh, anything,” Nicole said lazily. “Just let’s make up a game! Suppose we each tell what strikes us as the funniest thing we know.”
“The best joke, do you mean?” Simon asked.
“The best joke, or story, or episode in a play, or something that happened to yourself. The thing that has remained in your memory as being really funny.”
“Far too difficult,” Barbara declared. “I laugh and forget.”
“And I,” said her aunt, “have such a primitive sense of humour that it’s the most obvious joke that makes me laugh: to see somebody fall over a pail of water convulses me. But I never can remember good stories, can you, Mr. Beckett?”
“I seldom remember them at the right moment,” Simon confessed.
“I’m glad of that,” Barbara said, getting out her work. “I do think those people are a bore who are constantly saying, ‘That reminds me of a story. . . .’ ”
“I think you’re all very stupid,” Nicole said.
“But I do remember one thing, Miss Nicole,” Simon said, “one of A. A. M.’s Punch