Penny Plain/Chapter 12

HOR, having but lately acquired the art of writing, was fond of exercising his still very shaky pen where and when he could.

One morning, by reason of neglecting his teeth, and a few other toilet details, he was able to be downstairs ten minutes before breakfast, and spent the time in the kitchen, plaguing Mrs. M'Cosh to let him write an inscription in her Bible.

"What wud ye write?" she asked suspiciously.

"I would write," said Mhor—"I would write, 'From Gervase Taunton to Mrs. M'Cosh.'"

"That wud be a lee," said Mrs. M'Cosh, "for I got it frae ma sister Annie, her that's in Australia. Here see, there's a post-caird for ye. It's a rale nice yin.—Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. There's Annackers' shope as plain's plain."

Mhor looked discontentedly at the offering.

"I wish," he said slowly—"I wish I had a post-card of a hippopotamus being sick."

"Ugh, you want unnaitural post-cairds. Think on something wise-like, like a guid laddie."

Mhor considered. "If you give me a sheet of paper and an envelope I might write to the Lion at the Zoo."

For the sake of peace Mrs. M'Cosh produced the materials, and Mhor sat down at the table, his elbows spread out, his tongue protruding. He had only managed "Dear Lion," when Jean called him to go upstairs and wash his teeth and get a clean handkerchief.

The sun was shining into the dining-room, lighting up the blue china on the dresser, and catching the yellow lights in Jean's hair.

"What a silly morning for November," growled Jock. "What's the sun going on shining like that for? You'd think it thought it was summer."

"In winter," said Mhor, "the sky should always be grey. It's more suitable."

"What a couple of ungrateful creatures you are," Jean said; "I'm ashamed of you. And as it happens you are going to have a great treat because of the good day. I didn't tell you because I thought it would very likely pour. Cousin Lewis said if it was a good day he would send the car to take us to Laverlaw to luncheon. It's really because of Pamela; she has never been there. So you must ask to get away at twelve, Jock, and I'll go up with Pamela and collect Mhor."

Mhor at once left the table and, without making any remark, stood on his head on the hearthrug. Thus did his joy find vent. Jock, on the other hand, seemed more solemnised than gleeful.

"That's the first time I've ever had a prayer answered," he announced. "I couldn't do my Greek last night, and I prayed that I wouldn't be at the class—and I won't be. Gosh, Maggie!"

"Oh, Jock," his sister protested, "that's not what prayers are for."

"Mebbe not, but I've managed it this time," and, unrepentant, Jock started on another slice of bread and butter.

Jean told Pamela of Jock's prayer as they went together to fetch Mhor from school.

"But Mhor is a much greater responsibility than Jock. You know where you are with Jock: underneath is a bedrock of pure goodness. You see, we start with the enormous advantage of having had forebears of the very decentest—not great, not noble, but men who feared God and honoured the King—men who lived justly and loved mercy. It would be most uncalled for of us to start out on bypaths with such a straight record behind us. But Mhor, bless him, is different. I haven't a notion what went to the making of him. I seem to see behind him a long line of men and women who danced and laughed and gambled and feasted, light-hearted, charming people. I sometimes think I hear them laugh as I teach Mhor. What is the chief end of man … I couldn't love Mhor more if he really were my little brother, but I know that my hold over him is of the frailest. It's only now that I have him. I must make the most of the present—the little boy days—before life takes him away from me."

"You will have his heart always," Pamela comforted her. "He won't forget. He has been rooted and grounded in love."

Jean winked away the tears that had forced their way into her eyes, and laughed.

"I'm bringing him up a Presbyterian. I did try him with the Creed. He listened politely, and said carelessly, 'It all seems rather sad—Pilate is a nice name, but not Pontius.' Then Jock laughed at him learning, 'What is your name, A or B?' and Mhor himself preferred to go to the root of the matter with our Shorter Catechism, and answer nobly if obscurely—Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever. Indeed, he might be Scots in his passion for theology. The other night he went to bed very displeased with me, and said, 'You needn't read me any more of that narsty Bible,' but when I went up to say good-night he greeted me with, 'How can I keep the commandments when I can't even remember what they are?' … This is Mhor's school, or rather Miss Main's school."

They went up the steps of a pretty, creeper-covered house.

"It once belonged to an artist," Jean explained. "There is a great big light studio at the back which makes an ideal schoolroom. It's an ideal school altogether. Miss Main and her young stepsister are born teachers, full of humour and understanding, as well as being brilliantly clever—far too clever really for this job; but if they don't mind we needn't complain. They get the children on most surprisingly, and teach them all sorts of things outside their lessons. Mhor is always astonishing me with his information about things going on in the world…. Yes, do come in. They won't mind. You would like to see the children."

"I would indeed. But won't Miss Main object to us interrupting——"

Miss Main at once reassured her on that point, and said that both she and the scholars loved visitors. She took them into the large schoolroom where twenty small people of various sizes sat with their books, very cheerfully imbibing knowledge.

Mhor and another small boy occupied one desk.

Jean greeted the small boy as "Sandy," and asked him what he was studying at that moment.

"I don't know," said Sandy.

"Sandy," said Miss Main, "don't disgrace your teachers. You know you are learning the multiplication table. What are three times three?"

Sandy merely looked coy.

"Mhor?"

"Six," said Mhor, after some thought.

"Hopeless," said Miss Main. "Come and speak to my sister Elspeth, Miss Reston."

"My sister Elspeth" was a tall, fair girl with merry blue eyes.

"Do you teach the Mhor?" Pamela asked her.

"I have that honour," said Miss Elspeth, and began to laugh. "He always arrives full of ideas. This morning he had thought out a plan to stop the rain. The sky, he said, must be gone over with glue, but he gave it up when he remembered how sticky it would be for the angels…. He has the most wonderful feeling for words of any child I ever taught. He can't, for instance, bear to hear a Bible story told in everyday language. The other children like it broken down to them, but Mhor pleads for 'the real words.' He likes the swing and majesty of them…. I was reading them Kipling's story, Servants of the Queen, the other day. You know where it makes the oxen speak of the walls of the city falling, 'and the dust went up as though many cattle were coming home.' I happened to look up, and there was Mhor with lamps lit in those wonderful green eyes of his, gazing at me. He said, 'I like that bit. It's a nice bit. I think it should be at the end of a sad story.' And he uses words well himself, have you noticed? The other day he came and thrust a dead field-mouse into my hand. I squealed and dropped it, and he said, 'Afraid? And of such a calm little gentleman?'"

Pamela asked if Mhor's behaviour was good.

"Only fair," said pretty Miss Elspeth. "He always means to be good, but he is inhabited by an imp of mischief that prompts him to do the most improbable things. He certainly doesn't make for peace in the school, but he keeps 'a body frae languor.' I like a naughty boy myself much better than a good one. He's the 'more natural beast of the twain.'"

Outside, with the freed Mhor capering before them, Pamela was enthusiastic over the little school and its mistresses.

"Miss Main looks like an old miniature, with her white hair and her delicate colouring, and is wise and kind and sensible as well; and as for that daffodil girl, Elspeth, she is a sheer delight."

"Yes," Jean agreed. "Hasn't she charming manners? It is so good for the children to be with her. She is so polite to them that they can't be anything but gentle and considerate in return. Heaps of girls would think school-marming very dull, but Elspeth makes it into a sort of daily entertainment. They manage, she and her sister, to make the dullest child see some glimmer of reason in learning lessons. I do wish I had had a teacher like that. I had a governess who taught me like a parrot. She had no notion how to make the dry bones live. I thought I scored by learning as little as I possibly could. The consequence is I'm almost entirely illiterate…. There's the car waiting, and Jock prancing impatiently. Run in for your thick coat, Mhor. No, you can't take Peter. He chased sheep last time and fought the other dogs and made himself a nuisance."

Mhor was now pleading that he might sit in the front beside the chauffeur and cry "Honk, honk," as they went round corners.

"Well," said Jean, "choose whether it will be going or coming back. Jock must sit there one time."

Mhor, as he always did, grasped the pleasure of the moment, and clambered into the seat beside the chauffeur, an old and valued friend, whom he greeted familiarly as "Tam."

The road to Laverlaw ran through the woods behind Peel, dipped into the Manor Valley and, emerging, made straight for the hills, which closed down round it as though jealous of the secrets they guarded. It seemed to a stranger as if the road led nowhere, for nothing was to be seen for miles except bare hillsides and a brawling burn. Suddenly the road took a turn, a white bridge spanned the noisy Laverlaw Water, and there at the opening of a wide, green glen stood the house.

Lewis Elliot was waiting at the doorstep to greet them. He had been out all morning, and with him were his two dogs, Rab and Wattie. Jock and Mhor threw themselves on them with many-endearing names, before they even looked at their host.

"Is luncheon ready?" was Mhor's greeting.

"Why? Are you hungry?"

"Oh yes, but it's not that. I wondered if there would be time to go to the stables. Tam says there are some new puppies."

"I'd keep the puppies for later, if I were you," Lewis Elliot advised. "You'd better have luncheon while your hands are fairly clean. Jean will be sure to make you wash them if you go mucking about in the stables."

Mhor nodded. He was no Jew, and took small pleasure in the outward cleansing of the cup and platter. Soap and water seemed to him almost quite unnecessary, and he had greatly admired and envied the Laplanders since Jock had told him that that hardy race rarely, if ever, washed.

"I hope you weren't cold in that open car," Lewis Elliot said as he helped Pamela and Jean to remove their wraps. "D'you mind coming into my den? It's warm, if untidy. The drawing-room is so little used that it's about as cheerful as a tomb."

He led them through the panelled hall, down a long passage hung with sporting prints, into what was evidently a much-liked and much-used room.

Books were everywhere, lining the walls, lying in heaps on tables, some even piled on the floor, but a determined effort had evidently been made to tidy things a little, for papers had been collected into bundles, pipes had been thrust into corners, and bowls of chrysanthemums stood about to sweeten the tobacco-laden atmosphere.

A large fire burned on the hearth, and Lewis pulled up some masculine-looking arm-chairs and asked the ladies to sit in them, but Jean along with Jock and Mhor were already engrossed in books, and their neglected host looked at them with disgust.

"Such are the primitive manners of the Jardine family," he said to Pamela. "If you want a word out of them you must lock up all printed matter before they approach. Thank goodness, that's the gong! They can't read while they're feeding."

"Honourable," said Mhor, as they ate their excellent luncheon. "Isn't Laverlaw a lovely place?"

Pamela agreed. "I never saw anything so indescribably green. It wears the fairy livery. I can easily picture True Thomas walking by that stream."

"Long ago," said Jock in his gruff voice, "there was a keep at Laverlaw instead of a house, and Cousin Lewis' ancestors stole cattle from England, and there were some fine fights in this glen. Laverlaw Water would run red with blood."

"Jock," Jean protested, "you needn't say it with such relish."

Pamela turned to her host.

"Priorsford seems to think you find yourself almost too contented at Laverlaw. Mrs. Hope says you are absorbed in sheep."

Lewis Elliot looked amused. "I can imagine the scorn Mrs. Hope put into her voice as she said 'sheep.' But one must be absorbed in something—why not sheep?"

"I like a sheep," said Jock, and he quoted:

<block center| "'Its conversation is not deep,   But then, observe its face.'" }}

"You may be surprised to hear," said Lewis, "that sheep are almost like fine ladies in their ways: they have megrims, it appears. I found one the other day lying on the hill more or less dead to the world, and I went a mile or two out of my way to tell the shepherd. All he said was, 'I ken that yowe. She aye comes ower dwamy in an east wind.' … But tell me, Jean, how is Miss Reston conducting herself in Priorsford?"

"With the greatest propriety, I assure you," Pamela replied for herself. "Aren't I, Jean? I have dined with Mrs. Duff-Whalley and been introduced to 'the County.' You were regrettably absent from that august gathering, I seem to remember. I have lunched with the Jowetts, and left the table without a stain either on the cloth or my character, but it was a great nervous strain. I thought of you, Jock, old man, and deeply sympathised with your experience. I have been to quite a lot of tea-parties, and I have given one or two. Indeed, I am becoming as absorbed in Priorsford as you are in sheep."

"You have been to Hopetoun, I know."

"Yes, but don't mix that up with ordinary tea-parties That is an experience to keep apart. She holds the imagination, that old woman, with her sharp tongue, and her haggard, beautiful eyes, and her dead sons. To know Mrs. Hope and her daughter is something to be thankful for."

"I quite agree. The Hopes do much to leaven the lump. But I expect you find it rather a lump."

"Honestly, I don't. I'm not being superior, please don't think so, or charitable, or pretending to find good in everything, but I do like the Priorsford people. Some of them are interesting, and nearly all of them are dears."

"Even Mrs. Duff-Whalley?"

"Well, she is rather a caricature, but there are oddly nice bits about her, if only she weren't so overpoweringly opulent. The ospreys in her hat seem to shriek money, and her furs smother one, and that house of hers remains so starkly new. If only creepers would climb up and hide its staring red-and-white face, and ivy efface some of the decorations, but no—I expect she likes it as it is. But there is something honest about her very vulgarity. She knows what she wants and goes straight for it; and she isn't a fool. The daughter is. She was intended by nature to be a dull young woman with a pretty face, but not content with that she puts on an absurdly skittish manner—oh, so ruthlessly bright—talks what she thinks is smart slang, poses continually, and wears clothes that would not be out of place at Ascot, but are a positive offence to the little grey town. I hadn't realised how gruesome provincial smartness could be until I met Muriel Duff-Whalley."

"Oh, poor Muriel!" Jean protested. "You've done for her anyway. But you're wrong in thinking her stupid. She only comes to The Rigs when she isn't occupied with smart friends and is rather dull—I don't see her in her more exalted moments; but I assure you, after she has done talking about 'the County,' and after the full blast of 'dear Lady Tweedie' is over, she is a very pleasant companion, and has nice delicate sorts of thoughts. She's really far too clever to be as silly as she sometimes is—I can't quite understand her. Perhaps she does it to please her mother."

"Jean's disgustingly fond of finding out the best in people," Pamela objected.

"Priorsford is a most charming town," said Mr. Elliot, "but I never find its inhabitants interesting."

"No," Jean said, "but you don't try, do you? You stay here in your 'wild glen sae green,' and only have your own friends to visit you——"

"Are you," Pamela asked Lewis, "like a woman I know who boasts that she knows no one in her country place, but gets her friends and her fish from London?"

"No, I'm not in the least exclusive, only rather blate, and, I suppose, uninterested. Do you know, I was rather glad to hear you begin to slang the unfortunate Miss Duff-Whalley. It was more like the Pamela Reston I used to know. I didn't recognise her in the tolerant, all-loving lady."

"Oh," cried Pamela, "you are cruel to the girl I once was. The years mellow. Surely you welcome improvement, even while you remind me of my sins and faults of youth."

"I don't think," Lewis Elliot said slowly, "that I ever allowed myself to think that the Pamela Reston I knew needed improvement. That would have savoured of sacrilege…. Are we finished? We might have coffee in the other room."

Pamela looked at her host as she rose from the table, and said, "Years have brought clearer eyes for faults."

"I wonder," said Lewis Elliot, as he put a large chocolate into Mhor's ever-ready mouth.

Before going home they went for a walk up the glen. Jean and the boys, very much at home, were in front, while Lewis named the surrounding hills and explained the lie of the land to Pamela. They fell into talk of younger days, and laughed over episodes they had not thought of for twenty years.

"And, do you know, Biddy's coming home?" Pamela said. "I keep remembering that with a most delightful surprise. I haven't seen him for more than a year—my beloved Biddy!"

"He was a most charming boy," Lewis said. "I suppose he would be about fifteen when last I saw him. How old is he now?"

"Thirty-five. But such a young thirty-five. He has always been doing the most youth-preserving things, chasing over the world after adventures, like a boy after butterflies, seeing new peoples, walking in untrodden ways. If he had lived in more spacious days he would have sailed with Francis Drake and helped to singe the King of Spain's beard. Oh, I do think you will still like Biddy. The charm he had at fifteen he hasn't lost one little bit. He has still the same rather shy manner and slow way of speaking and sudden, affection-winning smile. The War has changed him of course, emptied and saddened his life, and he isn't the light-foot lad he was six years ago. When it was all over he went off for one more year's roving. He has a great project which I don't suppose will ever be accomplished—to climb Everest. He and three great friends had arranged it all before the War, but everything of course was stopped, and whatever happens he will never climb it with those three friends. They had to scale greater heights than Everest. It is a sober and responsible Biddy who is coming back, to settle down and look after his places, and go into politics, perhaps—"

They walked together in comfortable silence.

Jean, in front, turned round and waved to them.

"I'm glad," said Lewis, "that you and Jean have made friends. Jean——" He stopped.

Pamela stood very still for a second, and then said, "Yes?"

"Jean and her brothers are sort of cousins of mine. I've always been fond of them, and my mother and I used to try to give them a good time when we could, for Great-aunt Alison's was rather an iron rule. But a man alone is such a helpless object, as Mrs. Hope often reminds me. It isn't fair that Jean shouldn't have her chance. She never gets away, and her youth is being spoiled by care. She is such a quaint little person with her childlike face and motherly ways! I do wish something could be done."

"Jean must certainly have her chance," said Pamela. She took a long breath, as if she had been under water and had come to the surface. "I've said nothing about it to anyone, but I am greatly hoping that some arrangement can be made about sending the boys away to school and letting me carry off Jean. I want her to forget that she ever had to think about money worries. I want her to play with other boys and girls. I want her to marry."

"Yes, that would be a jolly good scheme." Lewis Elliot's voice was hearty in its agreement. "It really is exceedingly kind of you. You've lifted a weight from my mind—though what business I have to push my weights on to you…. Yes, Jean, perhaps we ought to be turning back. The car is ordered for four o'clock. I wish you would stay to tea, but I expect you are dying to get back to Priorsford. That little town has you in its thrall."

"I wish," said Jock, "that The Rigs could be lifted up by some magician and plumped down in Laverlaw Glen."

"Oh, Jock, wouldn't that be fine?" sighed the Mhor. "Plumped right down at the side of the burn, and then we could fish out of the windows."

The sun had left the glen, the Laverlaw Water ran wan; it seemed suddenly to have become a wild and very lonely place.

"Now I can believe about the raiders coming over the hills in an autumn twilight," said Pamela. "There is something haunted about this place. In Priorsford we are all close together and cosy: that's what I love about it."

"You've grown quite suburban," Lewis taunted her. "Jean, I was told a story about two Priorsford ladies the other day. They were in London and went to see Pavlova dance at the Palace, for the first time. It was her last appearance that season, and the curtain went down on Pavlova embedded in bouquets, bowing her thanks to an enraptured audience, the house rocking with enthusiasm. The one Priorsford lady turned to the other Priorsford lady and said, 'Awfully like Mrs. Wishart!'"

As the car moved off, Jock's voice could be heard asking, "And who was Mrs. Wishart?"