"I will the country see
Where old simplicity,
Though hid in grey,
Doth look more gay
Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad."
THOMAS RANDOLPH, 1605-35.
A letter from Pamela Reston to her brother.
" ... It was a tremendous treat to get your budget this morning after
three mails of silence. I got your cable saying you were back before I
knew you contemplated going, so I never had to worry. I think the War
has shaken my nerves in a way I hadn't realised. I never used to worry
about you very much, knowing your faculty of falling on your feet, but
now I tremble.
"Sikkim must be marvellous, and to try an utterly untried route was
thrilling, but what uncomfortable times men do give themselves! To lie
in a tiny tent in the soaking rain with your bedding crawling with
leeches, 'great, cold, well-nourished fellows.' Ugh! And yet, I suppose
you counted the discomforts as nothing when you gazed at Everest while
yet the dawn 'walked tiptoe on the mountains' (will it ever be climbed,
I wonder!), and even more wonderful, as you describe it, must have been
the vision from below the Alukthang glacier, when the mists slowly
unveiled the face of Pandim to the moon....
"And I shall soon hear of it all by word of mouth. It is the best of
news that you are coming home. I don't think you must go away again
without me. I have missed you dreadfully these last six months.
"Besides, you ought to settle at home for a bit now, don't you think?
First, your long exploring expedition and then the War: haven't you been
across the world, away long enough to make you want to stay at home? You
are one of the very worst specimens of an absentee landlord.... After
profound calculations I have come to the conclusion that you will get
two letters from me from Priorsford before you leave India. I am sending
this to Port Said to make sure of not missing you. You will have lots of
time to read it on board ship if it is rather long.
"Shall I meet you in London? Send me a wire when you get this. What I
should like to do would be to conduct you personally to Priorsford. I
think you would like it. The countryside is lovely, and after a week or
two we could go somewhere for Christmas. The Champertouns have asked me
to go to them, and of course their invitation would include you. They
are second or third cousins, and we've never seen them, but they are our
mother's people, and I have always wanted to see where she was brought
up. However, we can settle all that later on....
"I feel myself quite an old resident in Priorsford now, and have become
acquainted with some of the people--well-to-do, hospitable, not at all
interesting (with a few exceptions), but kind.
"The Jardines remain my great interest. What a blessing it is when
people improve by knowing--so few do. I see the Jardines once every day,
sometimes oftener, and I like them more every time I see them.
"I've been thinking, Biddy, you and I haven't had a vast number of
people to be fond of. There was Aunt Eleanor, but I defy anyone to be
fond of her. Respect her one might, fear her we did, but love her--it
would have been as discouraging as petting a steam road-roller. We
hadn't even a motherly old nurse, for Aunt Eleanor liked machine-made
people like herself to serve her. I don't think it did you much harm,
you were such a sunny-tempered, affectionate little boy, but it made me
rather inhuman.
"As we grew up we acquired crowds of friends and acquaintances, but they
were never like real home-people to whom you show both your best and
your worst side, and who love you simply because you are you. The
Jardines give me that homey feeling.
"The funny thing is I thought I was going to broaden Jean, to show her
what a narrow little Puritan she is, bound in the Old Testament thrall
of her Great-aunt Alison--but not a bit of it. She is very receptive,
delighted to be told about people and clothes, cities, theatres,
pictures, but on what she calls 'serious things' she is an absolute
rock. It is like finding a Roundhead delighting in Royalist sports and
plays, or a Royalist chanting Roundhead psalms--if you can imagine an
evangelical Royalist. Anyway, it is rather a fine combination.
"I only wish I could help to make things easier for Jean. I have far
more money than I want; she has so little. I'm afraid she has to plan
and worry a good deal how to clothe and feed and educate those boys. I
know that she is very anxious that David should not be too scrimped for
money at Oxford, and consequently spends almost nothing on herself. A
warm coat for Jock; no evening gown for Jean. David finds that he must
buy certain books and writes home in distress. 'That can easily be
managed,' says Jean, and goes without a new winter hat. She and Mrs.
M'Cosh are wonders of economy in housekeeping, and there is always
abundance of plain, well-cooked food.
"I told you about Mrs. M'Cosh? She is the Jardines' one servant--an
elderly woman, a widow from Glasgow. I like her way of showing in
visitors. She was a pew-opener in a church at one time, which may
account for it. When you ask if Jean is in, she puts her head on one
side in a considering way and says, 'I'm no' juist sure,' and ambles
away, leaving the visitor quite undecided whether she is intended to
remain on the doorstep or follow her in. I know now that she means you
to remain meekly on the doorstep, for she lately recounted to me with
glee of another caller, 'I'd went awa' up the stair to see if Miss Jean
wis in, an' whit d'ye think? When I lukit roond the wumman wis at ma
heels.' The other day workmen were in the house doing something, and
when Mrs. M'Cosh opened the door to me she said, 'Ye see the mess we're
in. D'ye think ye should come in?' leaving it to my better nature to
decide.
"She is always serene, always smiling. The great love of her life is
Peter, the fox-terrier, one of the wickedest and nicest of dogs. He is
always in trouble, and she is sorely put to it sometimes to find excuses
for him. 'He's a great wee case, is Peter,' she generally finishes up.
'He means no ill' (this after it has been proved that he has chased
sheep, killed hens, and bitten message-boys); 'he's juist a wee thing
playful.'
"Peter attends every function in Priorsford--funerals, marriages,
circuses. He meets all the trains and escorts strangers to the objects
of interest in the neighbourhood. He sees people off, and wags his tail
in farewell as the train moves out of the station.
"He and Mhor are fast friends, and it is an inspiring sight to see them
of a morning, standing together in the middle of the road with the whole
wide world before them, wondering which would be the best way to take
for adventures. Mhor has had much liberty lately as he has been
infectious after whooping-cough, but now he has gone back to the little
school he attends with some twenty other children. I'm afraid he is a
very unwilling scholar.
"You will be glad to hear that Bella Bathgate (I'm taking a liberty
with her name I don't dare take in speaking to her) is thawing to me
slightly. It seems that part of the reason for her distaste to me was
that she thought I would probably demand a savoury for dinner! If I did
ask such a thing--which Heaven forbid!--she would probably send me in a
huge pudding dish of macaroni and cheese. Her cooking is not the best of
Bella.
"She and Mawson have become fast friends. Mawson has asked Bella to call
her Winifred, and she calls Miss Bathgate 'Beller.'
"Miss Bathgate spends any leisure moments she has in doing long strips
of crochet, which eventually become a bedspread, and considers it a
waste of time to read anything but the Bible, the _Scotsman_ and the
_Missionary Magazine_ (she is very keen on Foreign Missions), but she
doesn't object to listening to Mawson's garbled accounts of the books
she reads. I sometimes overhear their conversations as they sit together
by the kitchen fire in the long evenings.
"'And,' says Mawson, describing some lurid work of fiction, 'Evangeline
was left shut up in the picture-gallery of the 'ouse.'
"'D'ye mean to tell me hooses hev picture-galleries?' says Bella.
"'Course they 'ave--all big 'ouses.'
"'Juist like the Campbell Institution--sic a bother it must be to dust!'
"'Well,' Mawson goes on, 'Evangeline finds 'er h'eyes attracted--'
"Again Bella interrupts. 'Wha was Evangeline? I forget aboot her.'
"'Oh, don't you remember? The golden-'aired 'eroine with vilet eyes.'
"'I mind her noo. The yin wi' the black hair was the bad yin.'
"'Yes, she was called 'Ermione. Well, Evangeline finds 'er h'eyes
attracted to the picture of a man dressed like a cavalier.'
"'What's that?'
"'I don't rightly know,' Mawson confesses. 'Kind of a fancy dress, I
believe, but anyway 'er h'eyes were attracted to the picture, and as she
fixed 'er h'eyes on it the _h'eyes in the picture_ moved.'
"'Oh, murder!' says Bella, much thrilled.
"'You may say it. Murder it was, h'attempted murder, I should say, for
of course it would never do to murder the vilet-h'eyed 'eroine. As it
'appened ...' and so on ...
"One of the three months gone! Perhaps at the beginning of the year I
shall have had more than enough of it, and go gladly back to the
fleshpots of Egypt and the Politician.
"It is a dear thing a little town, 'a lovesome thing, God wot,' and
Priorsford is the pick of all little towns. I love the shops and the
kind, interested way the shopkeepers serve one: I have shopped in most
European cities, but I never realised the full delight of shopping till
I came to Priorsford. You can't think what fun it is to order in all
your own meals, to decide whether you will have a 'finnan-haddie' or a
'kipper' for breakfast--much more exciting than ordering a ball gown.
"I love the river, and the wide bridge, and the old castle keeping watch
and ward, and the _pends_ through which you catch sudden glimpses of the
solemn round-backed hills. And most of all I love the lights that
twinkle out in the early darkness, every light meaning a little home,
and a warm fireside and kindly people round it.
"To live, as you and I have done all our lives, in houses where all the
difficulties of life are kept in oblivion, and existence runs on
well-oiled wheels is very pleasant, doubtless, but one misses a lot. I
love the _nearness_ of Hillview, to hear Mawson and B.B. converse in the
kitchen, to smell (this is the most comfortable and homely smell) the
ironing of clean clothes, and to know (also by the sense of smell) what
I am going to have for dinner hours before it comes.
"Of course you will say, and probably with truth, that what I enjoy is
the _newness_ of it, that if I knew that my life would be spent in such
surroundings I would be profoundly dissatisfied.
"I dare say. But in the meantime I am happy--happy in a contented, quiet
way that I never knew before.
"It is strange that our old friend Lewis Elliot is living near
Priorsford, at a place called Laverlaw, about five miles up Tweed from
here. Do you remember what good times we used to have with him when he
came to stay with the Greys? That must be more than twenty years
ago--you were a little boy and I was a wild colt of a girl. I don't
think you have ever seen much of him since, but I saw a lot of him in
London when I first came out. Then he vanished. Some years ago his uncle
died and he inherited Laverlaw. He came to see me the other day, not a
bit changed, the same dreamy, unambitious creature--rather an angel. I
sometimes wonder if little Jean will one day go to Laverlaw. It would be
very nice and fairy-tale-ish!"