The Rutherfurd Saga. Anna Buchan
hand and kissed it. “You want both to have your cake and eat it, my dear. Your income will come largely from the sale of it. We can’t run Rutherfurd on a few hundreds a year. Think of servants’ wages alone! No, I’m afraid there is nothing for it but to leave our Eden, and the question is, where are we to go? The whole wide world is before us. What are your ideas on the subject, Babs?”
“I haven’t any. So long as I am with you two I don’t much care where it is. What about a flat in London? . . .”
“A flat?” said Nicole. “Somewhere in Kensington, I suppose? I’ve got very little idea of how much money one needs to do things well, but I fear our combined incomes wouldn’t go far in the way of a fashionable flat. Besides—would Mother like being cooped up in town? I doubt it. For myself I couldn’t stand more than a month or two of London at a time, and it’s not a place to be poor in.”
“We might travel for a bit,” Barbara suggested.
“We might!” Nicole agreed. She had perched herself on the arm of her mother’s chair. “What about going round the world? I read in the ‘personal’ column of the Times the other day that a General, a K.C.B., was offering to take a party round the world at £950 a head, or something like that. Can’t you see us staggering about Japan with the K.C.B.!—Babs, Mother smiled. Did you see? Well, you made a very good impression on Mrs. Jackson, anyway, Mums.”
“Nonsense, Nicole.”
“Oh, I assure you, as she left she said to me, ‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, and I just love your mother.’ After all my unwearied efforts to be nice to her and show her everything, it was galling to see you romp in and win her approval with no trouble at all. Why are mothers always nicer than their daughters? If this deterioration goes on, if every daughter is inferior in every way to her mother, what of the future of the British Race? I confess it weighs on me a good deal. But, seriously, Mums, what would you like to do? Now, don’t say you don’t care, you’re bound to have some preference.”
“I haven’t, my dear, you must believe me when I say it. I shall be happy if you are happy. We must see to it that we go to a place where you and Babs can have a good time. Nancy Gordon—did you read her letter?—suggests that we go to them in Somerset. She says the dower-house is empty, and Tom would gladly let us have it. Nancy lives in a constant whirl of entertaining, so you wouldn’t be dull. Then, Aunt Constance wants us to go to her at once. She says Ormhurst feels so large and empty now, that it would be a real kindness to go and help to fill it. Constance was always my favourite sister. . . . But, perhaps—d’you think—we’d better have a place of our own?”
“Yes,” said Nicole. “I doubt if it would be wise to plant ourselves on friends or relations, no matter how willing they are. They might easily tire of us or we of them. We must make our own niche. I’ve been thinking”—she looked from her mother to her cousin with a quick laughing glance—“I’ve been thinking that since Mrs. Jackson and her kind are all rising in the world, they must be leaving vacant places. Well, why shouldn’t we, ousted from our own place, take theirs? Why shouldn’t we become dwellers in a suburban villa, and taste the pleasures of suburban society? I think myself it would be highly interesting.”
“Interesting!” Barbara ejaculated, but Nicole hurried on. “I don’t mean, of course, that we should go making a fuss about ourselves. The time for that is past. Pooh-Bah could no longer dance at middle-class parties—for a consideration. There are none so low now as do us reverence! You and I, Mums, would get on all right, but Barbara”—she glanced affectionately at her cousin—“is so hopelessly aristocratic.”
Barbara flushed, for she knew that what her cousin said was true. Social distinctions meant almost nothing to Nicole; to Barbara they stood for much. Nicole never thought of her position; Barbara gloried in belonging to Rutherfurd. When they were all children together they had played with other children about the place. There had been quite a colony of large families belonging to servants on the estate, and they had had splendid games. But Barbara had always been the Little Lady from the Big House, had held herself aloof, allowed no familiarities. Her cousins were different, their whole hearts were in the play, they had no thought of themselves. Barbara often felt that Nicole should have been the Burt, and she the daughter of a hundred earls. To see Nicole playing at “houses” with a shawl wrapped round her supporting a doll, as she saw cottage-women carrying their babies, making believe to stir porridge in a pot while she addressed her playmates in broadest Border Scots! It had been the summit of her ambition to live in a cottage—a but and ben—and carry a real baby in a shawl. She startled her mother one day by handing her a doll and saying, “Hey, wumman, haud ma bairn.” The boys were as bad. Ronnie was found one snowy morning on the roof of the house—he had climbed out of a skylight—putting out crumbs for sea-gulls. When remonstrated with by his governess, he replied, “Wumman, d’ye want them to be fund deid wi’ their nebs in the snaw, seekin’ meat?”
Sir Walter said Border Scots was a fine foundation for Eton, and so it proved. The boys came home from school speaking correct English, but always able, at a moment’s notice, to drop into the speech of their childhood.
“Well,” said Nicole, “what d’you say to my suggestion?” Barbara merely shrugged her shoulders, but Lady Jane was unusually firm.
“Darling, I said I didn’t mind where I went; but I do draw the line here. I’m afraid I can’t fill the vacant place left by Mrs. Jackson. Suburbs are for people who have business in cities: we have none. Why not a small house in, or near, a country town? I think I should like that, only—not too near Rutherfurd, please.”
“That,” said her daughter, “is the correct idea. A country town. A rambling cottage covered with roses. Delightful Cranford-ish neighbours, quiet-eyed spinsters and gallant old men who tell good stories. I see it all.”
Barbara wore a most discouraging expression as she said, “I never saw a cottage that ‘rambled.’ What you will probably find in any country town is a number of new semi-detached villas occupied by retired haberdashers. Cranford doesn’t exist any longer—the housing problem killed it. You’re a most unpractical creature, Nik. You don’t know how horrible such a life as you want to try would be. Imagine living always with people like Mrs. Jackson! Just think how you would miss your friends—Jean Douglas, the Langlands . . .”
Nicole shook her head impatiently. “My dear, why will you insist on saying things that jump to the eye? Don’t you suppose I am full of thoughts about having to leave the old friends? I never loved Mistress Jean as I do to-night, and the thought of Kingshouse makes me want to howl like a wolf. The jollities we’ve had there! And Daddy Langlands, and Miss Lockhart, and even Tillie Kilpatrick, though, poor dear, she does paint her face more unconvincingly than any one I ever saw. But Mistress Jean will be the great loss. To know that there is no chance of suddenly hearing Johnson announce ‘Mrs. Douglas,’ and to hear her say ‘Well,’ and then, ‘This is nice,’ as she settled down beside us.”
“Then why not stay where we are known? There are lots of small places that would suit us, and people would be glad to have us stay, and would make things pleasant for us.”
Nicole turned to her mother. “What do you say, Mums?”
“My dears, I don’t think I could remain near Rutherfurd. Let us try Nicole’s plan for a year and see how it works. . . .”
“You mean,” said her daughter, “that we should go to a new place and make a niche for ourselves? Let’s, Barbara. I’m sure there are places without semi-detached villas, where we shall be able to cultivate ‘high ideels’ like Mr. Jackson. . . . But you must promise to make the best of everything—it would be terribly unsporting of you to grumble.”
“Oh, very well,” said Barbara. “Let’s try it for a year. A lot can happen in twelve months.”
CHAPTER III