Oh! Christina!/Chapter 1



ROM behind the counter, with its little piles of periodicals and trays of picture postcards, Miss Purvis gave her twelve-year-old niece a frown of disapproval.

"Have you delivered the extra papers at the manse, Christina?" She spoke as severely as her peculiarly soft voice would allow her.

"Uh-ha!" said Christina, with an almost choked utterance.

"Why didn't you tidy yourself before you went to the manse?"

"I forgot."

Miss Purvis sighed. "I hope Mrs. Beaton didn't see you in such a state?" she said.

"Ay, she seen me," mumbled the girl, smiling.

"Oh, dear me!" Miss Purvis made a gesture of despair. "And I'm sure I've told you a hundred times not to say seen when you mean saw. Try to remember that in future, Christina."

"Uh-ha!"

"Don't say uh-ha! What have you got in your mouth?"

"Jujubes."

"Jujubes! More than one jujube?"

"Uh-ha!"

"Wh—where did you get jujubes?"

"Frae Mistress Beaton."

"And you put them all in your mouth at once?" Miss Purvis asked in a tone of disgust.

"I jist got five frae her.... Ye canna taste yin jujube proper. Is the tea no' ready yet?" Christina's speech gained in freedom and clarity as the jujubes dissolved.

"There will be no tea," said Miss Purvis firmly, "for a girl with dirty hands and untidy hair."

"A' richt, auntie. I'll tosh masel' up in twa shakes," said Christina cheerfully, and passed through the glazed and curtained door at the back of the shop.

Miss Purvis groaned as she adjusted the wick of the lamp burning above the counter. Christina was certainly a heavy trial to the gentle—and very genteel—middle-aged spinster. Orphaned and quite unprovided for, Christina had been brought from Glasgow six months ago, and ever since then her benefactress had been endeavouring to improve her manners in general, and her grammar and mode of speech in particular. Too frequently she had been driven to despair by the girl's lack of response to her efforts. Miss Purvis, though compelled by circumstances to earn a modest living in a west coast village, belonged to Edinburgh, a fact which she never forgot. "Manners first and money afterwards" might have been her motto.

Miss Purvis was still under forty, of medium height, very slender and rather prim. But for her primness she might have been deemed attractive. Most of the villagers were inclined to regard her as "stuck-up"—the last thing she had any intention of being, desiring only to be lady-like, which was a natural enough desire, seeing that she was a lady at heart.

She drew her chair near to the counter, and bent over the latest number of The Hearth-rug Novelist, which every week, for the sum of one penny, gives its readers a work of fiction, "equal in every respect to the average novel sold at six shillings"; a page of "Housekeeping Hints"; two pages of advice to worried lovers; a paper pattern of a baby's garment, and a chance of winning almost anything from a 20 h.p. motor-car to a xylonite thimble.

She resumed her reading at the point where Christina's entrance had interrupted her—the point at which the bold, black-bearded, Bulgarian baron was assuring the lovely young English heiress, whom he had abducted and lodged in his ancient castle, that he would soon tame her haughty spirit.

But somehow the baron was much less terrifying, the heiress much less pathetic, than Miss Purvis had found them ten minutes earlier. Miss Purvis was depressed; she was, moreover, suffering from a slight headache.

Passing her hand over her brow, from which the brown hair was drawn tightly back, she reflected, as she had done every other day for many years, that she did not take sufficient exercise. Her reflection was probably not unreasonable, considering that she rarely went out of doors except to church on Sundays. For a long time she had been intending to follow the instructions given in a ladies' magazine, wherein a young woman was depicted in many unusual attitudes, each of which was stated to be helpful to some part of the human frame and to the system generally. But as yet Miss Purvis had been unable to bring herself to lie, kicking, on the floor, or to stand on one foot, swinging the other, for five minutes. She had a horror of looking ridiculous, even in private, and the only exercise which she felt she could carry out with dignity was one specially prescribed for a person possessing a double chin, which Miss Purvis had not.

"Want of exercise and, perhaps, want of excitement," she sighed to herself, or rather to the Bulgarian baron, whose dissipated but noble countenance stared at her from the page before her.

During the last three years Miss Purvis had experienced but two incidents which might be truly called exciting. Once her kitchen chimney had gone on fire; once she had fallen from the fourth step of the shop ladder along with a package containing a dozen doll's tea-sets. So far Christina's company had meant a good deal of anxiety and some irritation, but it had produced no episodes which could be described as stirring in the mildest meaning of the word.

"Yes," thought the spinster, absently dabbing at the baron with the rusty pen she had picked up, "I do believe it's excitement, even more than exercise, that I require."

"Here, auntie!" called Christina from the door of the back room.

Miss Purvis started. "What is wrong?" she called in reply, half-rising.

"Naethin'. Am I to wash ma face?"

"Certainly."

"It's no' dirty."

"The face should always be washed before meals," said Miss Purvis primly. Once upon a time she had dreamed of being a schoolmistress.

"I think it needs washin' mair efter meals," remarked Christina, combing her abundant fair hair in the doorway.

"Wash your face at once!" cried Miss Purvis, trying to speak sternly.

"Hooch, ay!" Christina replied lightly, and disappeared.

"Christina!"

The girl returned to the doorway. "What's up?" she asked pleasantly.

"What did you say when I told you to wash your face at once?" her aunt demanded.

"Hooch, ay!"

"Well, don't let me hear you using these words again, Christina."

"They're in a comic song, auntie."

"Well, you must not repeat them. They aren't nice words for a girl to use. I forbid you to repeat them."

"What wey?"

"Because I forbid you."

"A' richt. Keep yer hair on, auntie." The girl turned away, laughing.

"Christina!"

"Hullo?"

"What—what do you mean by such impudence?" cried Miss Purvis, now really indignant.

"I didna mean for to be impiddent. I jist meant"

"Where do you learn such expressions?"

"At the schule. I jist meant"

"Go and wash your face at once!"

Miss Purvis, with a hopeless sigh, bent once more over her novelette.

"A' richt," said her niece, as cheerfully as ever, and banged the door behind her. It did not catch, however, and presently Miss Purvis heard the sound of running water, to which soon was added a shrill whistling.

"Christina!"

"Hullo?"

"Stop that whistling!"

"Hooch, ay!—I mean, a' richt!"

A couple of minutes went past.

"Christina!"

"Hullo?"

"Have you finished washing?"

"Uh-ha!"

"Turn off the water, and don't say ''uh-ha!" ''

"Hooch—a' richt!"

The sound of water ceased, and for a little while silence reigned in the back room.

Then Christina began to sing.

Miss Purvis put a finger in each ear and sought to concentrate her thoughts on the conversation of the swarthy baron and his fair prisoner. It was past the usual hour for tea, and Miss Purvis was wearying for a cup, but she had not the energy required for its preparation.

"Wretch!" she read, "you have decoyed me here under false pretences. But your triumph shall be short-lived. Last night my secret message would be in the hands of the British ambassador, and already I hear the sound of"

At this point it was necessary to turn the page, and Miss Purvis unplugged one of her ears. Whereupon she clearly heard—

"Christina!"

"Hullo?"

"Don't sing that dreadful song!"

"A' richt."

But the girl was not long silent. Stunned with horror, the aunt listened to the following—

"Oh, Christina, Christina!" cried Miss Purvis, finding speech at last; "where did you learn such songs?"

"In Glesca, auntie. A laddie learnt them to me. I ken a lot mair."

"Oh, but you mustn't sing them! You must try to forget them."

"Hoo that?"

"Because—because I say so. Don't you understand that it's wrong for a girl to know such songs?" Miss Purvis nearly went on to remark on her niece's up-bringing, but she managed to stop her tongue in time. Thus far she had never uttered a single reflection on the girl's parents and the Glasgow aunt, who had afterwards made but a doubtful guardian, but often she had been shocked by the indications of their neglect.

"Promise me, Christina," she said solemnly, "never to sing such songs again."

"Hooch, ay! I promise."

Miss Purvis let the forbidden expression of assent pass as a customer came into the shop.

"Fine nicht," said the customer. "I was wantin' a leed pincil."

"Yes," she returned, producing a box.

"What's the price o' thur yins?"

"Ha'pennies each."

"Aw!" The customer, an elderly man, picked out a pencil and examined it minutely under the lamp. "Ye can get three o' thur for a penny in the toon," he observed after much deliberation.

"Can you?" said Miss Purvis, a little wearily. "I'm afraid I couldn't afford to give more than two. They are good pencils."

The man submitted the pencil to another long and searching examination. Then he laid it down and turned to the door.

"Aweel, I'll think ower it," he said. "Guid nicht."

A young woman came in and purchased a "Park Lane Cabinet of Choice Stationery," price threepence, after inspecting every variety of notepaper in the shop.

"Is these the only kinds ye've got?" she remarked again and again.

"I'll see if there's nothing else," returned the spinster, and ascended and descended the shop ladder till she was slightly giddy.

When the young woman had departed, Miss Purvis sat down, placed her elbows on the counter and her head in her hands. If she could only rouse herself to make the tea!

"Hey, auntie!"

Christina was standing in the doorway, her face shining, her hair in order, her eyes dancing.

Miss Purvis sat up. She tried to smile her approval, but it was a very wan smile.

Then, suddenly, there was wafted towards her a whiff of that delicious odour which comes from bread just toasted, or being toasted.

"Christina!" she exclaimed, getting up.

"I hear ye."

"You don't mean to say you've been so clever as to make the tea."

"Uh-ha!"

"Oh, I never was so glad in my life!" cried the spinster. "It was real good of you, dear."

"Hooch, ay!" said Christina, highly pleased with herself.