The Rutherfurd Saga. Anna Buchan
with a photo here and an ornament there, but he said I spoiled the effect. It’s what the man who arranged it for us called a ‘period’ room, but what period I never can mind. I’m never in it except to see that it’s kept well dusted, and when we have people to dinner. I’ve got a wee room of my own”—she nodded happily to Nicole—“the morning-room it should be called, but I like to call it ‘the parlour.’ ”
“I expect,” said Nicole, “it’s a delightful room. Do have one of these hot scones.”
“Thanks. I don’t know if you’d call it a delightful room, but it seems delightful to me for I’ve all my things round me, my wee ornaments that I buy for souvenirs when I visit new places, and photos of old friends—I’ve got Andy (that’s my boy) at every year of his life—and the plush suite that we began life with in the drawing-room. Andy says I like the room because I can come off my perch in it! In a way he’s right. It’s not natural for me to be stiff and starched in my manner. I like a laugh, and I’m inclined to be jokesome, but, of course, I’ve got to be on my dignity when we’re entertaining people. Such swells as we get sometimes! That’s because Father’s connected with all sorts of public things, and I can tell you I’ve to be careful what I say.”
Mrs. Jackson laughed aloud, and Lady Jane said in her gentle voice:
“You must lead a very interesting life. So varied. I always think Glasgow seems such an alive place. Babs and Nicole and I once helped at a bazaar there and we loved it.” She turned to her niece. “You remember, dear, that big bazaar for a woman’s hospital? Mary Carstairs had a stall.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Jackson, “that bazaar. I was there! I had the Pottery stall—along with others, of course. . . . So you know Lady Carstairs? I’ve met her here and there, of course, but I’m not awfully fond of her. A frozen kind of woman she seemed to me, but I daresay she’s all right when you know her.”
“Oh, she is,” Nicole assured her. “She’s a cousin of ours, so we’ve had opportunities of judging. But I know what you mean about the frozenness. It’s a sort of protective barrier she has raised between herself and the host of casual acquaintances that she is compelled to have. She says they would overrun her otherwise. The wife of a public man—and such a very public man as Ted Carstairs—has a sorry time. You must feel that yourself sometimes.”
Mrs. Jackson gave Nicole an understanding push with her disengaged hand. “Be quiet!” she said feelingly. “Do I not know what it means at big receptions and things to have people come up and say, ‘How d’you do, Mrs. Jackson?’ shaking me by the hand as friendly as you like, and me with no earthly notion who they are. Of course I just smile away and never let on, but, as you say, it’s wearing, and then there’s the pushing kind that you’ve got to keep in their places—uch yes. . . . You’ll not have been troubled much with that sort of thing, Lady Ruth—Lady Jane, I mean.”
That gentle lady shook her head. “Indeed no. I’ve often been so thankful for my quiet life. With my wretched memory for faces I would be worse than useless.”
Mrs. Jackson leant forward and said earnestly, “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You’d be a great success, I’m sure, in any sphere of life.” She paused, and added, “If Mr. Jackson buys this place—of course, I don’t know whether he will or not—but if he does, I’m just wondering how I’m to come after you. It’ll be an awful drop, you know, from Lady Jane Rutherfurd to Mrs. Jackson.”
She laughed happily, evidently in no way depressed at the prospect, while Lady Jane, flushing pink at such unusual frankness, hastily suggested that she might have more tea.
Mrs. Jackson waved away the suggestion, too much interested in what she wanted to say to trouble about tea. Looking confidentially into the face of her hostess, she said, “How many servants d’you run this house with, if it’s a fair question?”
“How many? Let me see. There’s Johnson, the butler, he has always been with us, and . . .” She turned to her niece. “Barbara is our housekeeper. Barbara will tell you.”
“Johnson,” began Barbara, counting on her fingers, “and Alexander, the footman, that’s two. And the cook and kitchen-maid, and an under kitchen-maid, five: three housemaids, eight. Then there’s our maid, Aunt Jane, and Harris. That makes ten in the house, doesn’t it?”
“My!” ejaculated Mrs. Jackson. “Ten’s a lot. At Deneholm we’ve just the three—cook, housemaid, and tablemaid. I don’t know if I could bear to launch out into menservants. For all the time we’ve had a gardener I’ve never so much as given him an order, and I’m not a bit at home with the chauffeur. . . . I must say I liked the look of the butler when he let me in—a fatherly sort of man he looked. D’you think he would stay on with us and keep us right—you know what I mean?—and the footman, too, of course.”
She looked at Barbara, who said, “Well—I hardly know. As my aunt says, he has been at Rutherfurd a long time and he may feel himself too old to begin with new people. Alexander might——”
“Alexander,” said Nicole, “is like his namesake, ‘hopelessly volatile.’ ”
“I see,” Mrs. Jackson murmured, looking puzzled. “Have you a large family, Lady Jane?”
Before her mother could reply Nicole broke in, “There are only we three now.”
“Is that so? Well, well. I’ve only the one son, Andy. . . . I can’t tell you what I came through when he was away at the War. Father had his business to keep him occupied, and I couldn’t stay in the house. I made bandages and picked sphagnum moss like a fury, and did every mortal thing I could to keep myself from thinking. . . . But he came back none the worse. It would have killed Mr. Jackson and me to lose Andy.”
Mrs. Jackson laid down her cup, arranged her veil, and prepared to depart.
“Well,” she said, standing solidly on the rug before Lady Jane, “I don’t know, of course—Mr. Jackson’ll have to see the place himself—but I’ve a kind of feeling that it’s here we’ll settle.” She looked round the room again. “I mebbe shouldn’t ask, but will you be taking all the furniture away with you? That picture above the fire-place, now? You see, I could never get the room to look the same, and I know Mr. Jackson would like it like this.”
She held out her hand, saying rather wistfully, “He has such high ideals, you know what I mean. . . . Well, thank you for that nice tea. It’s been a treat to me seeing you. D’you know what it all reminds me of? One of Stephen McKenna’s novels. He’s an awful high-class writer, isn’t he? There’s hardly one of his characters but what has a title and a butler.”
CHAPTER II
“The last sad squires ride slowly towards the sea,
And a new people take the land. . . .”
G. K. Chesterton.
Nicole went out to the hall to see the visitor depart. When she came back to the drawing-room, “Well?” she said.
“Well,” said Barbara, and added, “I must say!”
Her cousin laughed. “Yes, ‘smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau’ or words to that effect. All the same I like Mrs. Jackson, though I admit at first I was appalled. The tight figure, the large red face crowned by the ospreyed hat! I thought ‘That woman at Rutherfurd!’ But in a little I realised that she wasn’t ‘that woman’ at all. She’s a dear, and simple, and above all a comic. I do love a comic.”
Nicole put a log on the fire.
“Wasn’t she funny about Mary Carstairs? ‘A frozen sort of woman’ so exactly describes her when she is standing at bay, so to speak, before the advances of the populace. I think myself that it’s silly of her. Her life would be enormously more interesting