side of his face for weeks.” She turned to Nicole and explained: “Mr. Lawson is the superintendent of the Sunday School, a decent man, but dreadfully easily slighted. And talk about the teachers, John, and say something encouraging about their work. And when some one is singing, don’t just say coldly, ‘Miss So-and-so will sing,’ as if she had forced her way in; say something about how fortunate we are to have Miss So-and-so with us to-night—you know the sort of thing.”
“Yes, yes, girl, I’ll remember about Lawson and the teachers, only do stop now. . . . Miss Rutherfurd, I wonder who invented Social Meetings; he did an ill turn to ministers.”
“Not to all ministers,” his wife reminded him. “Mr. Bain simply lives for them. He’s the best soirée speaker in these parts, Miss Rutherfurd, and we’re very lucky to get him to-night.”
“Please tell me,” said Nicole, “may any one go to-night?”
“Adults ninepence,” Mr. Lambert responded gloomily.
“Oh! Does that cover a poke and a service of fruit? Because both Alastair and Arthur are keen to taste of those delights, and I’m going now to beg Miss Symington to let Alastair go with us.”
“Do come. It would be so cheering to see you there,” Mrs. Lambert said, but her husband only smiled sardonically.
Miss Symington gave the desired permission. Alastair might go with Arthur and Nicole, and Annie, who would also be at the Social, would take him home. The show began at seven o’clock, so Lady Jane said instead of dinner there would be supper at nine o’clock. Nicole tried to persuade Barbara to join the party but she refused; Simon Beckett, however, accepted an invitation given by Arthur, and the four started in great spirits.
The soirée was held in the church, which seemed odd to Simon’s English eyes, but Nicole told him that in her opinion it could not hurt even a sacred building to see a lot of happy children have tea, even though they did explode their “pokes,” when empty, with a loud bang.
The “poke” in question consisted of a cookie, a scone, a perkin, and an iced cake from which the icing had peeled and distributed itself over the other contents.
In the choir-seat a table was spread with a white cloth covered with more choice viands than were provided for the multitude, and at it sat Mr. Lambert, the superintendent of the Sunday School, and Mr. Bain who had come to speak. Mr. Lambert wore a strained expression.
When Nicole volunteered to help with the tea, Mrs. Lambert, very busy with tea-kettles, pointed her to the choir-seat which was doing duty as a platform. “If you’d take them that tea-pot. There’s cream and sugar on the table; they don’t get ordinary ready-mixed soirée tea.”
Nicole nodded. “I see—‘How beautiful they are, the lordly ones!’ ”
She mounted the platform and was introduced to the two men she did not know, and gave them tea, and received in turn many fair speeches from the jokesome Mr. Bain. Simon, meanwhile, helped Mrs. Lambert with the heavy kettles.
“Boys all right?” Nicole asked as she passed him.
“They seem so, and the way the Bat’s wolfing the contents of that bag is a poor compliment to the tea Miss Jamieson gave him a short time ago.”
“Ah, but think how good, how different things taste when eaten out of a poke, in a hot steamy atmosphere, along with fifty other children. . . . I think everybody’s about finished eating now. I wonder what happens next?”
A hymn was given out, an old-fashioned hymn, which the children knew and sang with gusto, “When Mothers of Salem,” then Mr. Lambert rose to his feet. He smiled nervously and said he was glad to see such a good turn-out of children, and also of parents. Then followed a few sentences in which Nicole recognised an attempt to follow his wife’s advice to try to be bright. It was galvanised mirth and she was thankful when he ceased the effort, and gave a very short, very sincere address to the children. He finished and sat down, and his eyes wandered to where his wife sat. She was obviously dissatisfied. What message was she trying to send him? Ah! the superintendent—the teachers: he got to his feet again: the situation was saved.
A stalwart young woman sang “The Holy City,” then came the feature of the evening. Mr. Bain, advancing to the front of the choir-seat, and rubbing his hands as if in anticipation of his own treat, began. It was soirée-speaking in its finest flower. Everything in heaven and earth seemed to remind the speaker of a funny story and his audience rocked with laughter.
“Look,” whispered Nicole to Simon, “do just look at Arthur and the Bat.”
Arthur was sitting looking absolutely blank, evidently thoroughly bored with Mr. Bain’s efforts. Alastair, on the other hand, seemed to sympathise with the theory that “every chap likes a hand,” for he was applauding vociferously, his face radiant.
“Arthur,” said Simon, “evidently believes with Dr. Johnson that the merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.”
The meeting was over before nine o’clock, so they carried Alastair and Gentle Annie back to the Harbour House for a drink of lemonade, a beveridge which Alastair’s soul loved.
Arthur, who was in great spirits about staying up late and having supper with Simon Beckett, nudged Alastair and asked, “Did you like it, Bat-Sprat? Was it fine?”
And Alastair lifted his face from the lemonade glass and said: “Fine. . . . This lemonade’s so nice and prickly.”
“You get treats here, Arthur,” Barbara said. “A ‘swaree’ is far before a pantomime.”
“Rather like a pantomime, Cousin Barbara. The chap who kept on being funny wouldn’t have made a bad clown. Silly kind of clergyman, though.”
“But tell me,” said Lady Jane, “what is a service of fruit? I’ve been so anxious to know.”
“It was an orange,” Alastair said gravely, producing from his pocket a somewhat shrivelled specimen of that fruit.
“Have mine, Sprat,” said Arthur; “mine’s a goodlier one.”
“An orange!” said Lady Jane. “And I expected at the very least bells and pomegranates!”
CHAPTER XIX
“What’s to come is still unsure.”
Twelfth Night.
Barbara took Arthur back to school, as she professed herself unable to live any longer without a breath of London air and the sight of her friends.
It was quiet and strange to Nicole and her mother without the boy. In the short time he had lived with them he had made a place for himself, and every way they turned there was a gap.
“Barbara was wise,” Nicole said. “It’s the people who stay at home who do the worst of the missing.”
She and her mother were sitting in the dusk doing nothing.
Arthur
