had sat with her elders sipping her second cup of tea and listening to Sir Walter reading out bits of news from the Scotsman.
There never had been, Barbara thought, a more truly good man than her uncle, so gentle and magnanimous, so full of humour, such a sportsman. Often, laughing, they had told him that he was in danger of the Woe promised to those of whom all men speak well. He was always asked to take the chair at political meetings that promised to be rowdy, because he was so courteous, so full of sweet reasonableness that the rudest were disarmed. She remembered how all his life his first thought had been his country. In his youth he had been in the Army, and when his father died he settled down at Rutherfurd, making the ideal landlord. When war broke out he had at once offered for service, and worked patiently through the four years at a dull but necessary job at the War Office, stinting himself of all but the barest necessities when food became scarce.
He was cheerful till Ronnie and Archie died. After that his laugh was seldom heard, though he went about among his friends and neighbours with his old kindly smile, always willing to listen, always ready to help. At home they had seen the change in him. The big man seemed to have shrunk, his clothes hung loose on him. He wandered much alone, and the men about the place shook their heads and told each other, “He’s sair failed, the maister; he’s gettin’ awfu’ wee buik. . . .”
Barbara came back to the present with Christina bringing in the letters. There were a few for Barbara and Nicole, but most of the budget went to Lady Jane.
“Why, Mother,” Nicole said, “I never saw any one get so many letters. You might almost be a Cinema Star.”
“It comes,” said her mother, busily opening envelopes, “of being one of a large and united family. This is from Constance.”
Nicole took up her own letters, looked through them and laid them down again to go and strew the usual meal on the window-sill for the birds. She sat half outside the window for a few minutes breathing in the fresh salt air.
Lady Jane looked up from her letters. “Anything interesting, Nikky?”
“Nothing much. There’s one from Mrs. Jackson asking me to Rutherfurd in the beginning of March. If I can come she means to send out invitations for a dinner on the 10th, and a dance on the 11th. Heard you ever the like?”
“It is very kind of Mrs. Jackson,” Lady Jane said.
“It is—very. She gives me no information about how things are going with her, but in a postscript remarks, ‘We are liking our new home quite well.’ I must say I call that rather cheek! Liking it quite well indeed! I feel inclined to say to her what Thomas Carlyle said to the lady who told him she accepted life. ‘My God, Madam, you had better.’ ”
Lady Jane laughed. “I had forgotten that,” she said; but Barbara glowered and asked, “Will you go? Could you bear to go?”
Nicole looked at her cousin thoughtfully. “It won’t be easy. In fact . . . but, you see, I’m afraid I did promise that I would go and help her if she wanted me. It’s so fatally easy to say something kind when you are saying good-bye to people you don’t expect to come much into contact with; Mrs. Jackson seems to be depending on me. I know, Babs, you think I would consult my own dignity if I refused. What do you say, Mums? Ought I to accept or not?”
Lady Jane gathered up her correspondence. “My dear, you know best yourself. Mrs. Jackson is a nice woman and she was very considerate to us. It won’t be easy, but it might be kind. You’d be a great help to her, and you needn’t stay more than a few days.”
“I might have to stay a week.”
“I daresay you would survive it.”
“And,” said Barbara, “I defy Nicole not to get a great deal of amusement out of the most unpleasant duty. It’s your lucky nature. I don’t think I could go, but I’m not likely to be asked. Naturally they want the more romantic figure, the dispossessed heiress, golden hair and all!”
“What nonsense, Babs!”
“Great nonsense, my dear, but true . . . By the way, I’ve a note here from Marjory Erskine. She wants us to go over this afternoon. Some people have arrived unexpectedly whom they’d like us to meet.”
“But I can’t, Babs, I’m so sorry. I’ve promised to go to tea with Miss Symington—a special invitation in writing. I haven’t seen her for weeks. They’ve had the painters in, and Alastair has said several times that his aunt was from home. It is unfortunate. I’d have loved a run with you this fresh good day. . . . Here comes Alastair with his shining morning face and his bag on his back, the complete scholar! Well, old man, is bat still t a b this morning? . . .”
That afternoon, having half an hour to spare before going to Ravenscraig, Nicole looked in at Knebworth, and found the Heggies, mother and daughter, at home.
“This is nice,” said Mrs. Heggie, rising large and fresh and rosy, in her black dress and white frillings, to greet her visitor. “We do see you seldom! Surely you’ll stay to tea?”
“I’d like to,” Nicole assured her, “but I’m engaged to drink a dish of tea with Miss Symington. Invited by letter. I thought it must be a party, but it can’t be if you’re not going.”
“Oh, it may be, it may be, but we’re not invited. In fact, I haven’t been asked inside the door of Ravenscraig since well before Christmas.”
“Oh well,” Nicole said soothingly, “Miss Symington may perhaps want to talk to me about something. I expect I’m the party! It’s much better fun when there are several.”
“Yes. She hasn’t much conversation and it’s difficult getting into a good comfortable talk with her. You’ve just to ask her how the Girls’ Guild’s getting on, and the Mothers’ Meetings, and talk about the price of food and how cooks waste. She’s not interested in anything you’ve been reading, and she’ll not gossip. I must say I like a more varied ‘crack’!” Mrs. Heggie laughed. . . . “And how’s Lady Jane?”
“Very well. She’s so busy writing letters this afternoon that she wouldn’t stir out to take the air. You see, she has five sisters and three brothers and numerous nieces and cousins, and they all love her dearly and write constantly.”
“Wonderful!” ejaculated Mrs. Heggie. “It’s so unlike all I’ve ever heard of the aristocracy! . . . Joan’s glaring at me, but I’m not saying anything wrong, am I?”
Nicole smiled at Joan, and reassured Mrs. Heggie.
“Of course not. You mean that from novels and the daily papers you would think the ‘aristocracy’ were thoroughly debased, engaged all the time in being divorced, and spending hectic days and nights gambling, drugging, swindling and dancing at night clubs—all that sort of thing! And, I suppose, it’s true in a way of a certain section, a small but very vocal section. But you would be amused if you met the members of my mother’s family and their friends. Some, I admit, are not bright and shining lights, but the majority are quite hopelessly respectable, and full of ‘high ideels,’ working away obscurely and conscientiously to leave the world a little better than they found it: husbands and wives quite loving and loyal; children brought up to respect the eternal decencies; master and servants liking and respecting each other! Even the people labelled ‘smart’ in the picture papers, whose names you see reading from left to right, are often quite dull-ly respectable. I’m afraid it’s disappointing!”
Mrs.
