a pretty, faded woman, with a vivacious manner.
“When I think of my jewel of a Khansamah who made everything go like clockwork and produced anything you wanted at a moment’s notice like a djinn in a fairy tale, I almost weep. Of course, we’re as poor as rats now and we can’t afford really good servants, and I know I ought to be thankful that at least we have honest women in the house, but, oh, Lady Jane, their manners! They never think of saying ‘Mum’ to me, and very seldom ‘Sir’ to Ernest. They seem to think it demeans them, whereas, as I tell them, all servants in good houses say it as a matter of course. They merely prove their own inferiority by not saying it. But how can one teach manners to women who don’t know what manners mean? It was quite funny the other day, though vexing. A friend of ours had motored a long way to see us, and found no one in. Mrs. Heggie—our neighbour next door—came up to the door at the same time and heard the conversation. Our friend has a very forthcoming, sympathetic manner, and she said to Janet, the housemaid, who had opened the door: ‘Now, tell me, how is Mrs. Buckler? Has she quite got over that nasty turn of influenza? Is she out and about again?’ Janet stood quite stolid (so Mrs. Heggie said), then drawled in a bored voice, ‘Och, she’s quite cheery’!”
Lady Jane laughed. “It was rather funny, wasn’t it? and most reassuring, and after all manners aren’t everything: I wouldn’t worry about them if I were you.”
“We tried,” Mrs. Buckler went on, “to be exceedingly polite to each other, Ernest and I, to see if that might have a good effect, but it hadn’t. They merely seemed to think we were feeble-minded. . . . But as you say, we might have worse trials—and Janet isn’t as bad as she was. The last time we had some people to dinner Janet’s way of offering the vegetables was to murmur ‘Whit aboot sprouts?’ . . . But I really don’t mind anything if Ernest and the children are happy.”
“You have children?”
“Two—a boy at Oxford and a girl in Switzerland. That’s why we live here. It is cheap and we can pinch in comfort—a contradiction in terms! . . . Must you go?”
Mr. Buckler walked down to the gate with the visitors, and as they stood talking a tall young man came towards them.
“Ah, Beckett, the very man I wanted to see! I heard this morning from the India Office. . . . By the way, have you met? . . . May I introduce Mr. Beckett? Lady Jane Rutherfurd, Miss Rutherfurd.”
“Mr. Beckett and I have met already,” Nicole said. “I told you, Mother—Alastair’s friend. . . .”
As they walked away Lady Jane asked if they had done enough for one day. “It must be nearly tea-time,” she said.
“Well,” said Nicole, “we haven’t time to attempt the Kilgours, but we pass the Lamberts’ house, it’s just here, this green gate in the wall—we needn’t stay more than a few minutes. Come on, Mums.”
The green door opened into a good-sized garden surrounded by a high brick wall on which fruit trees were trained. There was a lawn, wide borders which still held bravely blooming Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums, and plots of rose-trees—evidently a place on which was bestowed both labour and love.
“ ‘A garden enclosed,’ ” said Nicole, as they went up the path to the front door. “And what a pleasant-looking house!”
The manse was a rather long, low house built of grey stone. The front door stood open and children’s voices could be heard. When Nicole rang the bell a very young servant answered it. She was not more than fifteen, but her hair was put tidily up, and she wore a very white cap and apron: her face shone with soap and rubbing.
“No, Mem,” she said shyly. “Mistress Lambert’s oot, but she’ll be in to the tea aboot half five, and it’s that noo. Would ye . . . come in?”
Nicole picked out a card while Lady Jane said:
“No, thank you—we shall hope to see Mrs. Lambert another time. . . . Who is this young person?”
A small fat child had trotted out, and now held the apron of the maid before her as a protection, while she peered at the visitor.
“That’s Bessie. She’s three,” the rosy little maid said proudly, smiling down at her charge.
“I can skip, but Aillie can’t,” the baby informed them, and received the rebuke, “Dinna boast—Aillie canna walk, let alane skip.”
The mother and daughter smiled to each other as they let themselves out of the little green gate in the wall.
“Doesn’t she remind you, Mums, of the heroine of Jane Findlater’s story? She’s ‘terrible bauld and firm.’ And so trim and clean. A most decorous maid for a manse—— Oh, my dear, would you mind? Just one more place. There’s an old woman here—Mrs. Martin told me about her—who comes from Langhope and wants terribly to see you.”
“Yes, but need we go to-day?”
“Well, I’m just afraid she may be looking for us. Besides, it’s so near—the Watery Wynd, the place is called. The first turning. This must be the place. There is the outside stair that I was told to look for. ‘ “On, on,” cried the Duchess.’ Take care, these steps are uneven. . . .”
The short November day was nearly done, and Betsy Curle’s kitchen was dark but for the firelight. She peered through the shadows at her visitors—“An’ whae may ye be?” she asked.
Lady Jane went forward. “I hope you don’t mind us coming,” she said. “Mrs. Martin, our cook at the Harbour House, told us you came from our own part of the world and we wondered if we might come and shake hands with you. We’re still feeling far from home.”
Betsy rose to her feet painfully and tried to drag two chairs to the fire for her visitors.
“Let me,” Nicole said. “You sit down in your own chair and tell us how you have strayed so far from the Borders.”
“Ye may say it! Sit whaur I can see ye. I mind yer faither, an’ yer grandfaither, an’ yer great-grand-faither!”
“Oh!” Nicole leaned forward, her eyes alight with interest. “My great-grandfather! Tell me about him.”
“He was handsome, like a’ the Rutherfurds, and mad! as mad as a yett in a high wind.” She turned to Lady Jane. “I mind fine o’ yer leddy-ship comin’ to Rutherfurd—the bonfires and the flags. That was fower and thirty years syne come Martimas. Ye were but a young lass in a white goon and a hat wi’ feathers, an’ they ga’ed ye a bunch o’ red roses.”
Lady Jane nodded. “I remember both the hat and the roses. . . . Where was your home?”
“D’ye mind the white-washed hoose at the edge o’ the pine wood afore ye come to Langhope? Ay, the keeper’s cottage. I bade there; ma faither was heid keeper at Langlands.”
“And what brought you to Fife?”
“Ye may ask! I mairrit a jiner. If I hed ta’en ma mither’s advice—‘Betsy, lass,’ said she, ‘there’s little sap amang the shavin’s.’ . . . His folk cam’ frae Fife, an’ efter we’d been mairrit a wheen years, he got the offer o’ a job here. I niver likit it—nesty saut cauld hole! No’ like oor ain couthy country-side. I canna thole the sicht o’ the sea, sae jumblin’ an’ weet. What wud
