before her. A letter all about nothing indeed! But, somehow, there was nothing of interest anywhere these days; life was flat and stale, and Simon Beckett was going away.
Well: Nicole gave herself a mental shake as she put her letter into an envelope, and straightened the writing things on the table. It must be the hint of spring in the air that was making her feel foolish and sentimental; besides it was Saturday afternoon, always a depressing time somehow, and her mother and Barbara had motored off to have tea at a distance, and Alastair had gone with Simon, in the latter’s car, to Langtoun, to see a football match. She had preferred to stay at home, thinking it would be pleasant to have a long afternoon for letter-writing, but she found she wasn’t liking it at all. She would go out, she decided, and talk to old Betsy for a little, and then walk very fast round the links and try to walk off this curious depression which had suddenly enveloped her.
She found Betsy in a distinctly bad humour. Saturday afternoon seemed to have cast a blight on her spirits also. She had paid somebody twopence to sand her stair, and was not pleased with the way it had been done.
“And it’s juist like everything else,” she grumbled. “The folk nowadays winna work. They dinna ken what work means: them and their eight hours day! Labourites they ca’ theirsels. What they’re lookin’ for is a country whaur folk wad be hangit for workin’. . . . An’ the Government’s tae support a’body! Ye’d think to hear them that the Government could pick up siller in gowpins . . . Ay, thae folk next door ca’ theirsels Labour, but efter the way the wumman washed ma stair, I’ll naither dab nor peck wi’ them!”
“But,” said Nicole, “the stair looked to me very clean. I just thought as I came up how fresh everything was, all ready for the Sabbath day. . . . And it’s February, Betsy, and almost spring. The last time I was here it was Christmas.”
“Weel, better something lang than naething sune, but I was wonderin’ what hed come ower ye. But her leddyship’s awfu’ attentive. I div like tae see her, an’ we’ve sic graund cracks aboot oor ain place. An’ she reads to me whiles, for ma sicht’s no’ what it was. Sic a bonnie speaker she is! There’s a lot o’ folk awfu’ queer pronouncers o’ words, ye wud suppose they were readin’ the buik upside doon. The man next door came in and read me oot o’ a paper, but losh! I was nane the wiser when he feenished. . . .”
“You’ve lots of visitors, Betsy, haven’t you? And you take such an interest in everything that goes on.”
“Oh, I dae that, an’ though I canna steer ower the door verra little passes me. There’s aye somebody to gie me a cry in an’ tell me what’s gaun on. Ye see, I’m aye here, an’ folk like a listener. . . . Did ye hear that ma son’s been lyin’? Ay, it sterted wi’ influenzy and syne it was pewmony. Ma gude-dochter cam’ to see me the nicht afore last. She’s that ill at Dr. Kilgour, the dowgs wadna lick his bluid efter the names she ca’ed him.”
“Why?” asked Nicole, startled. “What has Dr. Kilgour done?”
“Oh, when he cam’ an’ fand Tam sae faur through he gaed her a ragin’ an’ said he shuld hae been there lang syne. An’ he sterted an’ pu’ed down the winday—she keeps the windays shut for fear o’ dust comin’ in—an’ he was that gurrl aboot it that he broke a cheeny ornament.”
“But your son’s getting better?”
“Oh, ay, he is that. Dr. Kilgour’s a skilly doctor, but he’s offended ma gude-dochter.” Betsy smiled grimly. “An’ he tell’t some o’ the wives aboot here that they hed nae richt to hev bairns at a’, they didna ken hoo tae handle them. That’s true eneuch. I’ve aften said ye wad suppose it was broken bottles they hed in their airms.”
Nicole laughed as she rose to go. “Dr. Kilgour’s not afraid to speak his mind.” She looked out of the little window. “See the sun on the water, Betsy! You’ll admit Kirkmeikle is a nice little town?”
But Betsy shook her head. “I see naething in’t. I never cared for a toon. I aye likit the hill-sides and the sheep. Eh, wasna it bonnie tae see the foals rinnin’ after their mithers, an’ the mears stannin’ still to let them sook?”
“Very bonnie. And now I’m going to put your tea ready for you. Mrs. Martin sent a ginger-bread, and I know you like a bit of country butter and some cream at a time. These are fresh eggs. . . .” Nicole was unpacking the basket as she spoke.
“Weel,” said Betsy, watching her, “what’s guid to gie shouldna be ill tae tak’. It’s sic a thocht to move an’ I’m that blind, that whiles I juist dinna bather aboot ony tea, but a cup’ll be gratefu’ the noo. Thank ye kindly, Miss. . . . Na, na, I manage fine. Agnes Martin comes in every nicht when she gets the dinner cooked, an’ sees me tae ma bed, an’ pits a’thing richt for the mornin’. Ay, I’m weel aff wi’ her. . . .”
When Nicole was going up the brae towards the links she met Janet Symington walking with a man. She immediately found herself wondering who he could be, and smiled to think she was becoming as inquisitive as Betsy herself. Then she remembered that it was Saturday. Of course this was one of the preachers.
He was a tall man with a large soft face, and, evidently, quite a flow of conversation, for Miss Symington was walking with her head bent listening attentively. Looking up she saw Nicole and half stopped. Nicole also hesitated, and presently found herself being introduced to Mr. Samuel Innes. He held out a large soft hand (“He shakes hands as if he had a poached egg in his palm,” thought Nicole), and uttered a few remarks about the weather in the softest voice she had ever heard in a man.
“Mr. Innes is going to speak at the Hall to-morrow night,” Miss Symington said. “It’s always a great treat to have him.”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Innes, while Nicole faltered, “That is very nice. I hope it’ll be a good day.”
“There’s always a good turn-out when it is Mr. Innes,” said Miss Symington, looking up at her companion with what in any one else would have been called a smirk.
Mr. Innes repeated “Not at all,” and Nicole, making hasty adieux, fled.
“Now I wonder,” she said to herself, as she stood a minute looking out to sea, “I wonder if that gentleman means to hang up his hat, to use Mrs. Heggie’s descriptive phrase. . . . Mr. Samuel Innes. What a perfect Samuel he makes——”
CHAPTER XXI
“The only difference between the sentimentalist and the realist is that the sentimentalist’s reality is warm and beautiful, while the realist’s is glacial and hideous, and they are neither of them real realities either. . . .”
Reginald Farrer.
They were apt to linger over breakfast at the Harbour House. It was a pleasant time of day in the dining-room with its striped silk curtains and Hepplewhite chairs, more especially when the tide was high and the water lapped against the low wall, but always pleasant with the feeling of morning activity all round, voices from the harbour, children shouting as they went to school, wives having a gossip before they began their daily round.
The postman came, as a rule, when they were at the marmalade stage, and they read bits out of letters to each other. It had been so, too, at Rutherfurd. Something this morning took Barbara’s mind back to the old times when
