"Is this a world to hide virtues in?"
_Twelfth Night._
"You should never wear a short string of beads when you are wearing big
earrings," Pamela said.
"But why?" asked Jean.
"Well, see for yourself. I am wearing big round earrings--right. I put
on the beads that match--quite wrong. It's a question of line."
"I see," said Jean thoughtfully. "But how do you learn those things?"
"You don't learn them. You either know them, or you don't. A sort of
instinct for dress, I suppose."
Jean was sitting in Pamela's bedroom. Pamela's bedroom it was now,
certainly not Bella Bathgate's.
The swinging looking-glass had been replaced by one which, according to
Pamela, was at least truthful. "The other one," she complained, "made me
look pale green and drowned."
A cloth of fine linen and lace covered the toilet-table which was spread
with brushes and boxes in tortoiseshell and gold, quaint-shaped bottles
for scent, and roses in a tall glass.
A jewel-box stood open and Pamela was pulling out earrings and
necklaces, rings and brooches for Jean's amusement.
"Most of my things are at the bank," Pamela was saying as she held up a
pair of Spanish earrings made of rows of pearls. "They generally are
there, for I don't care a bit about ordinary jewels. These are what I
like--odd things, old things, things picked up in odd corners of the
world, things that have a story and a meaning. Biddy got me these
turquoises in Tibet: that is a devil charm: isn't that jade delicious? I
think I like Chinese things best of all."
She threw a string of cloudy amber round Jean's neck and cried, "My
dear, how it becomes you. It brings out all the golden lights in your
hair and eyes."
Jean sat forward in her chair and looked at her reflection in the glass
with a pleased smile.
"I do like dressing-up," she confessed. "Pretty things are a great
temptation to me. I'm afraid if I had money I would spend a lot in
adorning my vile body."
"I simply don't know," said Pamela, "how people who don't care for
clothes get through their lives. Clothes are a joy to the prosperous, a
solace to the unhappy, and an interest always--even to old age. I knew a
dear old lady of ninety-four whose chief diversion was to buy a new
bonnet. She would sit before the mirror discarding model after model
because they were 'too old' for her. One would have thought it difficult
to find anything too old for ninety-four."
Jean laughed, but shook her head.
"Doesn't it seem to you rather awful to care about bonnets at
ninety-four?"
"Not a bit," said Pamela. She was powdering her face as she spoke. "I
like to see old people holding on, not losing interest in their
appearance, making a brave show to the end.... Did you never see anyone
use powder before, Jean? Your eyes in the glass look so surprised."
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Jean, in great confusion, "I didn't mean
to stare--" She hastily averted her eyes.
Pamela looked at her with an amused smile.
"There's nothing actively immoral about powdering one's nose, you know,
Jean. Did Great-aunt Alison tell you it was wrong?"
"Great-aunt Alison never talked about such things," Jean said, flushing
hotly. "I don't think it's wrong, but I don't see that it's an
improvement. I couldn't take any pleasure in myself if my face were made
up."
Pamela swung round on her chair and laid her hands on Jean's shoulders.
"Jean," she said, "you're within an ace of being a prig. It's only the
freckles on your little unpowdered nose, and the yellow lights in your
eyes, and the way your hair curls up at the ends that save you.
Remember, please, that three-and-twenty with a perfect complexion has no
call to reprove her elders. Just wait till you come to forty years."
"Oh," said Jean, "it's absurd of you to talk like that. As if you didn't
know that you are infinitely more attractive than any young girl. I
never know why people talk so much about _youth_. What does being young
matter if you're awkward and dull and shy as well? I'd far rather be
middle-aged and interesting."
"That," said Pamela, as she laid her treasures back in the box, "is one
of the minor tragedies of life. One begins by being bored with being
young, and as we begin to realise what an asset youth is, it flies.
Rejoice in your youth, little Jean-girl, for it's a stuff will not
endure.... Now we'll go downstairs. It's too bad of me keeping you up
here."
"How you have changed this room," said Jean. "It smells so nice."
"It is slightly less forbidding. I am quite attached to both my rooms,
though when Mawson and I are both here together I sometimes feel I must
poke my arms out of the window or thrust my head up the chimney like
Bill the Lizard, in order to get room. It is a great disadvantage to be
too large for one's surroundings."
The parlour was as much changed as the bedroom.
The round table with the red-and-green cover that filled up the middle
of the room had been banished and a small card-table stood against the
wall ready to be brought out for meals. A Persian carpet covered the
linoleum and two comfortable wicker-chairs filled with cushions stood by
the fireside. The sideboard had been converted into a stand for books
and flowers. The blue vases had gone from the mantelshelf and two tall
candlesticks and a strip of embroidery took their place. A writing-table
stood in the window, from which the hard muslin curtains had been
removed; there were flowers wherever a place could be found for them,
and new books and papers lay about.
Jean sank into a chair with a book, but Pamela produced some
visiting-cards and read aloud:
"MRS. DUFF-WHALLEY.
MISS DUFF-WHALLEY.
THE TOWERS,
PRIORSFORD.
"Who are they, please? and why do they come to see me?"
Jean shut her book, but kept her finger in as if hoping to get back to
it soon, and smiled broadly.
"Mrs. Duff-Whalley is a wonderful woman," she said. "She knows
everything about everybody and simply scents out social opportunities.
Your name would draw her like a magnet."
"Why is she called Duff-Whalley? and where does she live? I'm
frightfully intrigued."
"As to the first," said Jean, "there was no thought of pleasing either
you or me when she was christened--or rather when the late Mr.
Duff-Whalley was christened. And I pointed out the house to you the
other day. You asked what the monstrosity was, and I told you it was
called The Towers."
"I remember. A staring red-and-white house with about thirty
bow-windows and twenty turrets. It denies the landscape."
"Wait," said Jean, "till you see it close at hand. It's the most naked,
newest thing you ever saw. Not a creeper, not an ivy leaf is allowed to
crawl on it; weather seems to have no effect on it: it never gets to
look any less new. And in summer it is worse, for then round about it
blaze the reddest geraniums and the yellowest calceolarias and the
bluest lobelias that it's possible to imagine."
"Ghastly! What is the owner like?"
"Small, with yellowish hair turning grey. She has a sharp nose, and her
eyes seem to dart out at you, take you all in, and then look away. She
is rather like a ferret, and she has small, sharp teeth like a ferret.
I'm never a bit sure she won't bite. She really is rather a wonderful
woman. She hasn't been here very many years, but she dominates everyone.
At whatever house you meet her she has the air of being hostess. She
welcomes you and advises you where to sit, makes suitable conversation
and finally bids you good-bye, and you feel yourself murmuring to her
the grateful 'Such a pleasant afternoon,' that was due to the real
hostess. She is in constant conflict with the other prominent matrons in
Priorsford, but she always gets her own way. At a meeting she is quite
insupportable. She just calmly tells us what we are to do. It's no good
saying we are busy; it's no good saying anything. We walk away with a
great district to collect and a pile of pamphlets under one arm.... Her
nose is a little on one side, and when I sit and look at her presiding
at a meeting I toy with the thought that someone goaded to madness by
her calm persistence had once heaved something at her, and wish I had
been there to see. Really, though, she is rather a blessing in the
place; she keeps us from stagnation. I read somewhere that when they
bring tanks of cod to this country from wherever cod abound, they put a
cat-fish in beside them, and it chases the cod round all the time, so
that they arrive in good condition. Mrs. Duff-Whalley is our cat-fish."
"I see. Has she children?"
"Three. A daughter, married in London--Mrs. Egerton-Thomson--a son at
Cambridge, and a daughter, Muriel, at home. I think it must be very bad
for the Duff-Whalleys living in such a vulgar, restless-looking house."
Pamela laughed. "Do you think all the little pepper-pot towers must have
an effect on the soul? I doubt it, my dear."
"Still," said Jean, "I think more will be expected at the end from the
people who have all their lives lived in and looked at lovely places. It
always worries me, the thought of people who live in the dark places of
big cities--children especially, growing up like 'plants in mines that
never saw the sun.' It is so dreadful that sometimes I feel I _must_ go
and help."
"What could you do?"
"That's what common sense always asks. I could do nothing alone, but if
all the decent people tried their hardest it would make a difference....
It's the thought of the cruelty in the world that makes me sick. It's
the hardest thing for me to keep from being happy. Great-aunt Alison
said I had a light nature. Even when I ought to be sad my heart jumps up
in the most unreasonable way, and I am happy. But sometimes it feels as
if we comfortable people are walking on a flowery meadow that is really
a great quaking morass, and underneath there is black slime full of
unimagined horrors. A paragraph in the newspaper makes a crack and you
see down: women who take money for keeping little babies and allow them
to die, men who torture: tales of horror and terror. The War made a
tremendous crack. It seemed then as if we were all to be drawn into the
slime, as if cruelty had got its fangs into the heart of the world. When
you knelt to pray at nights you could only cry and cry. The courage of
the men who grappled in the slime with the horrors was the one thing
that kept one from despair. And the fact that they could _laugh_. You
know about the dying man who told his nurse some joke and finished,
'This is _the_ War for laughs.'"
Pamela nodded. "It hardly bears thinking of yet--the War and the
fighters. Later on it will become the greatest of all sagas. But I want
to hear about Priorsford people. That's a clean, cheerful subject. Who
lives in the pretty house with the long ivy-covered front?"
"The Knowe it is called. The Jowetts live there--retired Anglo-Indians.
Mr. Jowett is a funny, kind little man with a red face and rather a
nautical air. He is so busy that often it is afternoon before he reads
his morning's letters."
"What does he do?"
"I don't think he does anything much: taps the barometer, advises the
gardener, fusses with fowls, potters in the garden, teaches the dog
tricks. It makes him happy to feel himself rushed, and to go carrying
unopened letters at tea-time. They have no children. Mrs. Jowett is a
dear. She collects servants as other people collect prints or old china
or Sheffield plate. They are her hobby, and she has the most wonderful
knack of managing them. Even now, when good servants seem to have become
extinct, and people who need five or six are grubbing away miserably
with one and a charwoman, she has four pearls with soft voices and
gentle ways, experts at their job. She thinks about them all the time,
and considers their comfort, and dresses them in pale grey with the
daintiest spotted muslin aprons and mob caps. It is a pleasure to go to
the Jowetts for a meal, everything is so perfect. The only drawback is
if anyone makes the slightest mark on the cloth one of the silver-grey
maids brings a saucer of water and wipes it off, and it is apt to make
one nervous. I shall never forget going there to a children's party with
David and Jock. Great-aunt Alison warned us most solemnly before we left
home about marking the cloth, so we went rather tremblingly. There was a
splendid tea in the dining-room with silver candlesticks and pink
shades, and lovely china, and a glittering cloth, and heaps of good
things to eat--grown-up things like sandwiches and rich cakes, such as
we hardly ever saw. Jock was quite small and loved his food even more
than he does now, dear lamb. A maid handed round the egg-shell china--if
only they had given us mugs--and as she was putting down Jock's cup he
turned round suddenly and his elbow simply shot it out of her hand, and
sent it flying across the table. As it went it spattered everything with
weak tea and then smashed itself against one of the candlesticks.
"I wished at that moment that the world would come to an end. There
seemed no other way of clearing up the mess. I was so ashamed, and so
sorry for my poor Jock, I couldn't lift my eyes, but Mr. Jowett rose to
the occasion and earned my affection and unending gratitude. He
pretended to find it a very funny episode, and made so many jokes about
it that stiffness vanished from the party, and we all became riotously
happy. And Mrs. Jowett, whose heart must have been wrung to see the
beautiful table ruined at the outset, so mastered her emotion as to be
able to smile and say no harm had been done.... You must go with me and
see Mrs. Jowett, only don't tell her anything in the very least sad: she
weeps at the slightest provocation."
"Tell me more," said Pamela--"tell me about all the people who live in
those houses on the hill. It's like reading a nice _Cranfordy_ book."
"But," Jean objected, "we're not in the least like people in a book. I
often wonder why Priorsford is so unlike a story-book little town. We're
not nearly interested enough in each other for one thing. We don't
gossip to excess. Everyone goes his or her own way. In books people do
things or are suspected of doing things, and are immediately cut by a
feverishly interested neighbourhood. I can't imagine that happening in
Priorsford. No one ever does anything very striking, but if they did I'm
sure they wouldn't be ostracised. Nobody would care much, except perhaps
Mrs. Hope, and she would only be amused."
"Mrs. Hope?"
"Have you noticed a whitewashed house standing among trees about half a
mile down Tweed from the bridge? That is Hopetoun, and Mrs. Hope and her
daughter live there."
"Nice?"
Jean nodded her head like a wise mandarin. "You must meet Mrs. Hope. To
describe her is far beyond my powers."
"I see. Well, go on with the houses on the hill. Who lives in the one at
the corner with the well-kept garden?"
"The Prestons. Mr. Preston is a lawyer, but he isn't much like a lawyer
in appearance--not yellow and parchmenty, you know. He's a good shot and
an ardent fisher, what Sir Walter would have called 'a just leevin' man
for a country writer.' There are several daughters, all musical, and it
is a very hospitable, cheerful house. Next the Prestons live the
Williamsons. Ordinary nice people. There is really nothing to say about
them.... The house after that is Woodside, the home of the two Miss
Speirs. They are not ordinary. Miss Althea is a spiritualist. She sees
visions and spends much of her time with spooks. Miss Clarice is a
Buddhist. Their father, when he lived, was an elder in the U.F. Church.
I sometimes wonder what he would say to his daughters now. When he died
they left the U.F. Church and became Episcopalians, then Miss Clarice
found that she couldn't believe in vicarious sacrifice and went over to
Buddhism. She took me into her bedroom once. There was a thick yellow
carpet, and a bed with a tapestry cover, and almost no furniture,
except--is it impious to call Buddha furniture?--a large figure of
Buddha with a lamp burning before it. It all seemed to me horribly
unfresh. Both ladies provide much simple amusement to the townsfolk with
their clothes and their antics."
"I know the Speirs type," said Pamela. "Foolish virgins."
"Next to Woodside is Craigton," went on Jean, "and there live three
spinsters--the very best brand of spinsters--the Duncans, Miss Mary,
Miss Janet, and Miss Phemie. I don't know what Priorsford would do
without these good women. Spinsters they are, but they are also real
mothers in Israel. They have time to help everyone. Benign Miss Mary is
the housekeeper--and such a housekeeper! Miss Janet is the public one,
sits on all the Committees. Miss Phemie does the flowers and embroiders
beautiful things and is like a tea-cosy, so soft and warm and
comfortable. Somehow they always seem to be there when you want them.
You never go to their door and get a dusty answer. There is the same
welcome for everyone, gentle and simple, and always the bright fire, and
the kind, smiling faces, and tea with thick cream and cake of the
richest and freshest.... You know how some people beg you to visit them,
and when you go they seem to wear a surprised look, and you feel
unexpected and awkward? The Duncans make you feel so pleased with
yourself. They are so unselfishly interested in other people's concerns;
and they are grand laughers. Even the dullest warm to something
approaching wit when surrounded by that appreciative audience of three.
They don't talk much themselves, but they have made of listening a fine
art."
"Jean," said Pamela, "do you actually mean to tell me that everybody in
Priorsford is nice? Or are you merely being charitable? I don't know
anything duller than your charitable person who always says the kind
thing."
Jean laughed. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid the Priorsford people are all
more or less nice. At least, they seem so to me, but perhaps I'm not
very discriminating. You will tell me what you think of them when you
meet them. All these people I've been telling you about are rich people,
'in a large way,' as Priorsford calls it. They have all large motor-cars
and hothouses and rich things like that. Mrs. M'Cosh says Priorsford is
a 'real tone-y wee place,' and we do fancy ourselves a good deal. It's a
community largely made up of women and middle-aged retired men. You see,
there is nothing for the young men to do; we haven't even mills like so
many of the Tweedside towns."
"Will people call on me?" Pamela asked. "Is Priorsford sociable?"
Jean pursed up her mouth in an effort to look worldly wise. "I think
_you_ will find it sociable, but if you had come here obscure and
unknown, your existence would never have been heard of, even if you had
taken a house and settled down. Priorsford hardly looks over its
shoulder at a newcomer. Some of the 'little' people might call and ask
you to tea--the kind 'little' people--but--"
"Who do you call the 'little' people?"
"All the people who aren't 'in a large way,' all the dwellers in the
snug little villas--most of Priorsford in fact." Jean got up to go.
"Dear me, look at the time! The boys will be home from school. May I
have the book you spoke of? Priorsford would be enraged if it heard me
calmly discussing its faults and foibles." She laughed softly. "Lewis
Elliot says Priorsford is made up of three classes--the dull, the daft,
and the devout."
Pamela, looking for the book she wanted to lend to Jean, stopped and
stood still as if arrested by the name.
"Lewis Elliot!"
"Yes, of Laverlaw. D'you know him, by any chance?"
"I used to know a Lewis Elliot who had some connection with Priorsford,
but I thought he had left it years ago."
"Our Lewis Elliot inherited Laverlaw rather unexpectedly some years
ago. Before that he was quite poor. Perhaps that is what makes him so
understanding. He is a sort of distant cousin of ours. Great-aunt Alison
was his aunt too--at least, he called her aunt. It will be fun if he
turns out to be the man you used to know."
"Yes," said Pamela. "Here is the book, Jean. It's been so nice having
you this afternoon. No, dear, I won't go back with you to tea. I'm going
to write letters. Good-bye. My love to the boys."
But Pamela wrote no letters that evening. She sat with a book on her
knee and looked into the fire; sometimes she sighed.