Oh! Christina!/Chapter 10

HE piermaster had assured her that the afternoon steamer would not risk calling at Kilmabeg in such a gale; but at thirteen one hopes all things, and Christina stood alone on the pier, grasping the rail with her right hand and holding on her black straw hat with her left. Rain and spray splashed her face and pattered on her shabby old water-proof; her fair hair, which had been loosened from a score of tight little pigtails that morning, and whose waviness she had so admired when her aunt was not looking, flapped heavily behind her, a sodden mass. In her anxiety to be on the pier in good time, she had omitted to tuck it inside her waterproof, as she usually did in wet weather.

The steamer was already nearly an hour late. Apparently it had experienced difficulties in taking the other piers on the route; and Kilmabeg was not only the most exposed, but also the least important pier of all. Yet Christina waited, though she wondered uncomfortably what her aunt would be thinking in the little newspaper and fancy-goods shop along in the village.

At last, high above the rocky point whereon the waves broke furiously, appeared scurrying wisps of smoke, then a reeling red funnel; and presently the steamer staggered into sight, the paddles beating water and air alternately, the bow throwing up clouds of spray. A minute later Christina sighed hopelessly. The piermaster had been right. The steamer was giving Kilmabeg a wide berth.

Disconsolate, the girl turned away.

"It's a' up a gum-tree," she muttered. "Baldwin 'll no' be here the day. He'll no' likely come noo for anither month."

She wended her way over the cobbles of the deserted pier, and thence along the road, till she reached the little shop, above the door of which was the simple inscription—"M. J. Purvis, Stationer and Newsagent." For a year now this little shop and the dwelling-room behind it had been Christina's home.

At the door of the shop the girl halted, stepped aside, and peered in at the window. But there were so many articles in the window that she could see nothing but her aunt's nose, which was just visible between the gable of a Noah's Ark and the edge of a chest-protector.

Still, that was something for an observant girl like Christina to build upon—though, to be sure, it was quite an ordinary-sized nose; a little sharp, perhaps, and sensitive to low temperatures, but by no means badly shaped. The nose remained stationary, and Christina noted that it supported glasses.

"She's pretendin' for to be addin' up her ledger," the girl reflected. "That's what she aye does when she's expectin' Baldyin. If I was her, I wud be readin' a love-story.... She's got on her best blouse, an' the fancy collar wi' the pink bow.... An' he's no' comin'! Oh, Jamaica! what an iron o' fate!" Christina, it should be mentioned, had recently taken to reading, with more avidity than ever, the penny novelettes which Miss Purvis, as she had more than once explained, was compelled to stock to meet the public's demand.

Christina sighed as she turned away from the window, and after a little hesitation entered the shop.

"Fine day for the jucks," she remarked sarcastically. "The boat"

"Christina, where have you been?" cried Miss Purvis, sitting up and removing her glasses. "You had only the one paper to deliver at the doctor's, and"

"I was on the pier, auntie. The boat didna ca'. It was ower stormy. Rotten weather—eh?"

"Christina! I have asked you frequently not to use that word. Rotten means decayed. You should say that the weather is most disagreeable. I have been in Kilmabeg for twelve years now, and I have certainly never seen such weather in the month of April. But, my child! you are soaking. Change your wet things at once."

"Hooch, ay!" said Christina, with affected cheerfulness. "I suppose," she added, "Baldyin 'll no' be here the day."

Miss Purvis looked her severest. "Really, Christina, you must try to cultivate some respect for people, even if you do not particularly admire them. Mr. Baldwin"

Christina laughed. "Ye ken fine I'm jist jokin', auntie. I ca' him Baldyin because he is a bald yin—he's as bald as a plate. But it's jist ma pet name for him. I like him fine. 'Deed, there's no' mony like him—Maister Baldwin. But," she continued, ere the other could speak, "what's to be done? We're oot o' jumpin'-jakes, an' penny whistles, an' ha'penny Jew's harps, an' farden dolls, an' penny pistols, an'"

"We must just write to Bunting & Co. for what we require. Now go and change your wet things, dear."

"Ah, but ye ken fine we never get the same quality when we write as when we gi'e the order to Baldyin—I mean Maister Baldwin. I've heard ye say it yersel', auntie."

"Well, well, Christina, it cannot be helped on this occasion. We cannot control the weather." Miss Purvis suppressed a sigh.

"Control yer granny!" muttered Christina. "Ye should write to Maister Baldwin hissel'," she said aloud, "an' he'll see that ye get the best quality. But it's an awfu' sin the boat didna ca'. It's time we was thinkin' o' wur summer novelties—spades an' pails, an' fishin'-lines an' hooks, an' bathin' pants' an"

"Christina, I have already asked you to change your wet things," said Miss Purvis firmly.

"I heard ye, auntie. But think o' Baldyin on the boat—maybe sea-seeck—wi' a' his samples, an' no' able to gi'e us even a squint at them"

"What do you mean by squint, Christina?"

"A keek—a look—a—oh, ye ken fine what I mean, auntie! But what's the odds, as long as ye're happy?... D'ye think Baldyin 'll be sea-seeck on the boat?"

Apparently Miss Purvis did not hear the question. She bent over her ledger and adjusted her glasses on her nose. They fell off, and she picked them up and re-adjusted them. Her face grew slightly pink.

"I'll awa' an' change," said Christina. "But dinna write for onything till I see the list o' wanteds," she added, and hurried through the door into the dwelling-room.

Closing the door carefully behind her, she skipped round the table several times. Then she paused, and in a hoarse whisper said—

"Oh, Jamaica! She loves him!"

For the last six months it had been Christina's ambition to witness the arrangement of a match between her aunt and the gentleman who travelled for the wholesale toy firm in Glasgow. She admired Mr. Baldwin as a man—he had given her a new sixpence on his last Christmas visit—and she felt she could love him as an uncle. Moreover, she fancied that he regarded her aunt with rather more than the eyes of stern business. How did her aunt regard him?

Christina's idea in going to the pier that forenoon had been this. She would wait until she saw Mr. Baldwin actually ashore; then she would speed along to the shop and inform Miss Purvis that Mr. Baldwin was not coming; and when Mr. Baldwin did appear unexpectedly she would be watching her aunt's countenance. The weather had spoilt her little scheme, but now she felt that she had found out half of what she wanted to know, in spite of the weather.

"She loves him!"

Having removed her hat and waterproof, Christina sat down in the old easy-chair by the fire and hugged herself. Coming back to earth for a brief space, she took off one of her boots. Then soaring once more, she hugged herself again till, throwing herself back in an ecstasy of mirthful delight, she felt her clammy hair against the nape of her neck.

Suddenly sobered, she got up and inspected herself in the hanging mirror.

"Oh, leeks!" she groaned at the sight of her hair.

At that moment she heard the shop door opened, and the next she fairly jumped to recognize the hearty voice of Mr. Baldwin.

"Awful weather, Miss Purvis," he said. "And how are you? I drove round from Kinlochan. Couldn't afford to miss a good customer like yourself, you know." He laughed. "Well, and how's business?"

The reply of Miss Purvis was inaudible to Christina.

"You are looking remarkably well," she heard Mr. Baldwin say, as he dumped a case of samples on the counter. "Remarkably well!"

"Can this be love?" muttered Christina, creeping to the door and peeping through a tiny hole in the curtain which covered the glazed portion. "Can this be love?"

"And how is Christina?" inquired Mr. Baldwin.

The girl was tempted to answer for herself, but remembered her dishevelled condition. It would never do to affront her aunt at such a critical juncture.

Then, to her dismay, Miss Purvis proceeded calmly to pay an account, which Mr. Baldwin receipted without the slightest sign of emotion. And afterwards they discussed toys—toys!

Christina was disgusted. She was quite sure that Mr. Baldwin had blushed on his last visit, and her hopes had run high. She returned to the easy-chair, and sat there, gloomily contemplating an incipient hole in the toe of her stocking, while now and then Mr. Baldwin's voice reached her ears in such phrases as "ninepence a dozen," "two and eleven the gross," "quite a novelty," and "I assure you, Miss Purvis, that the paint cannot be licked off."

"He loves her not!" she muttered at last, in despair. "It's a' up a gum-tree! But I believe he micht love her, if she jist gi'ed him a wee bit encouragement. I'll ha'e anither squint at them."

Alas! the scene that met her gaze was not calculated to inspire sentiment. The clean-shaven, rosy gentleman was gravely demonstrating to the lady the correct method of working the latest type of mechanical nigger, and the lady was looking on as though her whole future depended on an exact knowledge of the mechanism.

"Oh, Jamaica!" sighed Christina. "I doot they're ower auld for true love." Their age had all along been an objection in her estimation, though she had not yet admitted it to be insuperable to romance. "Maybe auntie's no' really carin'—her an' him was maybe jist ha'ein' a wee flurtation to theirsel's the last time he was here. Oh, my! but ma feet is cauld!"

She returned to the fire, and over a novelette tried to imagine herself dispensing a love-potion—whatever that might be—to the indifferent couple.

The shutting of the shop door roused her, but she kept her eyes on the page when Miss Purvis, a little pinker than usual, came in.

"Christina, why haven't you changed your stockings?"

"They're no' wat, auntie. Baldyin's in an awfu' hurry the day, surely. Eh? "

"Mr. Baldwin had to hasten back to Kinlochan to catch the steamer from there. He asked very kindly for you, Christina."

"Did he?"

Miss Purvis lifted the kettle from the hob and carried it to the sink.

"I'll mak' the tea, auntie, in a meenute," said Christina. "Jist wait till I feenish this page."

"What is it you are reading? I'm sure you'll be glad when the holidays are over," Miss Purvis remarked pleasantly. "I'm afraid you are reading too many of these trashy novelettes at present."

"Ye read them yersel'," retorted Christina. "I've seen ye greetin' ower them."

"You are too young for such things," said Miss Purvis severely. "What are you reading? The Mayfair Novelist. Why, that's the worst of them all. You"

"The last number's a corker! It's"—here Christina looked hard at her aunt—"it's a tale o' love an' passion!"

"Christina," said Miss Purvis coldly, "there's a hole in your stocking."

"I ken. Hoo could get ma foot in if there was nae hole?"

"You are a very rude girl!"

"Hooch, ay!" Christina murmured in a tired voice. "Did ye ask Baldyin if he was sea-seeck in the boat?" she inquired abruptly.

Miss Purvis reddened. "Really, Christina!"

"I beg your paurdon, auntie." The girl's voice was apologetic, but to herself she was saying, "She loves him—some. I'll ha'e to see Baldyin masel' next time—in private."