"O, I wad like to ken--to the beggar-wife says I--
Why chops are guid to brander and nane sae guid to fry,
An' siller, that's sae braw to get, is brawer still to gie.
--_It's gey an' easy speirin'_, says the beggar-wife to me."
R.L.S.
It is always easier for poor human nature to weep with those who weep
than to rejoice with those who rejoice. Into our congratulations to our
more fortunate neighbour we often manage to squeeze something of the
"hateful rind of resentment," forgetting that the cup of life is none
too sweet for any of us, and needs nothing of our bitterness added.
Jean had not an enemy in the world, almost everyone wished her well, but
in very few cases was there any marked enthusiasm about her inheritance.
"Ridiculous," was the most frequent comment: or "Fancy that little
thing!" It seemed absurd that such an unimportant person should have had
such a large thing happen to her.
Pamela was frankly disgusted with the turn things had taken. She had
intended giving Jean such a good time; she had meant to dress her and
amuse her and settle her in life. Peter Reid had destroyed all her
plans, and Jean would never now be dependent on her for the pleasures of
life.
She wrote to her brother:
"Jean seems to be one of the people that all sorts of odd things happen
to, and now fortune has played one of her impish tricks and Jean has
become a very considerable heiress. And I was there, oddly enough, when
the god in the car alighted, so to speak, at The Rigs.
"One afternoon, just after I came to Priorsford, I went in after tea and
found the Jardines entertaining a shabby-looking elderly man. They were
all so very nice to him that I thought he must be some old family
friend, but it turned out that none of them had seen him before that
afternoon. He had asked to look over the house, and told Jean that he
had lived in it as a boy, and Jean, remarking his rather shabby clothes
and frail appearance, jumped to the conclusion that he had failed in
life and--you know Jean--was at once full of tenderness and compassion.
At his request she sang to him a song he had heard his mother sing, and
finished by presenting him with the song-book containing it--a somewhat
rare collection which she valued.
"This shabby old man, it seems, was one Peter Reid, a wealthy London
business man, and owner of The Rigs, born and bred in Priorsford, who
had just heard from his doctor that he had not long to live, and had
come back to his childhood's home meaning to die there. He had no
relations and few friends, and had made up his mind to leave his money
to the first person who did anything for him without thought of payment.
(He seems to have been a hard, suspicious type of man who had not
attracted kindness.) So Fate guided his steps to Jean, and this is the
result. Yes, rather far-fetched, I agree, but Fate is often like a
novelette.
"Mr. Peter Reid had meant to ask the Jardines to leave The Rigs and let
him settle there, but--there must have been a soft part somewhere in the
hard little man--he hadn't the heart to do it when he found how attached
they were to the place.
"I was at The Rigs when the lawyer's letter came. Jean as an heiress is
very funny and, at the same time, horribly touching. At first she could
think of nothing but that the lonely old man she had tried to be kind to
was dead, and wept bitterly. Then as she began to realise the fact of
the money she was aghast, suffocated with the thought of her own wealth.
She told us piteously that it wouldn't change her at all. I think the
poor child already felt the golden barrier that wealth builds round its
owners. I don't think Mr. Peter Reid was kind, though perhaps he meant
to be. Jean is such a conscientious, anxious pilgrim at any time, and
I'm afraid the wealth will hang round her neck like the Ancient
Mariner's albatross.
" ... I have been wondering, Biddy, how this will affect your chances. I
know you felt as I did how nice it would be to give Jean all the things
that she has never had and which money can buy. I admit I am horribly
disappointed about it, but I'm not at all sure that this odd trick of
fortune's won't help you. Her attitude was that marriage with you was
unthinkable; you had so much and she had so little. Well, this evens
things up. _Don't come. Don't write._ Leave her alone to try her wings.
She will want to try all sorts of schemes for helping people, and I'm
afraid the poor child will get many bad falls. So long as she remains in
Priorsford with people like Mrs. Hope and the Macdonalds to watch over
her she can't come to any harm. Don't be anxious. Honestly, Biddy, I
think she cares for you. I'm glad you asked her when she was poor."
* * * * *
When the news of Jean's fortune broke over Priorsford, tea-parties had
no lack of material for conversation.
Miss Watson and Miss Teenie, much more excited than Jean herself, ranged
gaily round the circle of their acquaintances, drank innumerable cups of
tea, and discussed the matter in all its bearings.
"Isn't it strange to think of Miss Jean as an heiress? Such a plain
little thing--in her clothes, I mean, for she has a bit sweet wee face.
I don't know how she'll ever do in a great big house with butlers and
things. I expect she'll leave The Rigs now. It's no place for an
heiress. Perhaps she'll build a house like The Towers. No; you're right:
she'll look for an old house; she always had such queer ideas about
liking old things and plain things.... Well, when she had a wee house it
had a wide door. I hope when she gets a big house it won't have a
narrow door. Money sometimes changes people's very natures.... It's a
funny business; you never really know what'll happen to you in this
world. Anyway, I don't grudge it to Miss Jean, though, mind you, I don't
think myself that she'll carry off money well. She hasn't presence
enough, if you know what I mean. She'll never look the thing in a big
motor, and you can't imagine her being haughty to people poorer than
herself. She has such a way of putting herself beside folk--even a
tinker-body on the road!"
Miss Bathgate heard the news with sardonic laughter.
"So that's the latest! Miss Jean's gaun to be upsides wi' the best o'
them! Puir lamb, puir lamb! I hope the siller 'll bring her happiness,
but I doot it ... I yince kent some folk that got a fortune left them.
He was a beadle in the U.F. Kirk at Kirkcaple, a dacent man wi' a wife
and dochter, an' by some queer chance they came into a heap o' siller,
an' a hoose--a mansion hoose, ye ken. They never did mair guid, puir
bodies. The hoose was that big that the only kinda cosy place they could
see to sit in was the butler's pantry, an' they took to drink, fair for
want o' anything else to dae. I've heard tell that they took whisky to
their porridges, but that's mebbe a lee. Onyway, the faither and mither
sune died off, and the dochter went to board wi' the minister an' his
wife, to see if they could dae onything wi' her. I mind seein' her
yince. She was sittin' horn-idle, an' I said to her, 'D'ye niver tak' up
a stockin'?' and she says, 'I dinna _need_ to dae naething.' 'But,' I
says, 'a stockin' keeps your hands busy, an' keeps ye frae wearyin','
but she juist said, 'I tell ye I dinna need to dae naething. I whiles
taks a ride in a carriage.' ... It was a sorry sicht, I can tell ye, to
see a dacent lass ruined wi' siller.... Weel, Miss Jean 'll get a man
noo. Nae fear o' that," and Miss Bathgate repeated her cynical lines
about the lass "on Tintock tap."
Mrs. Hope was much excited when she heard, more especially when she
found who Jean's benefactor was.
"Reids who lived in The Rigs thirty years ago? But I knew them. I know
all about them. It was I who suggested to Alison Jardine that the
cottage would suit her. She had lost a lot of money and wanted a small
place.... Why, bless me, Augusta, Mrs. Reid, this man's mother, came
from Corlaw; her people were tenants of my father's. What was the name?
I used to be taken to their house by my nurse and get an oatcake with
sugar sprinkled on it--a great luxury, I thought. Yes, of course,
Laidlaw. She was Jeannie Laidlaw. When I married and came to Hopetoun I
often went to see Mrs. Reid. She reminded me of Corlaw, and could talk
of my father, and I liked that.... Her husband was James Reid. He must
have had some money, and I think he was retired. He had a beard and came
from Fife. I remember the east-country tone in his voice. They went to
the Free Kirk, and I overheard, one day, a man say to him as we came out
of church (where a retiring collection for the next Sunday had been
announced), 'There's an awfu' heap o' collections in oor kirk,' and
James Reid replied, 'Ou ay, but ma way is to pay no attention.' When I
told your father he was delighted and said that he must take that for
his motto through life--'Ma way is to pay no attention.'"
Mrs. Hope took off her glasses and smiled to herself over her
recollections.... "Mrs. Reid was a nice creature, 'fair bigoted,' as
they say here, on her son Peter. He was her chief topic of conversation.
Peter's cleverness, Peter's kindness to his mother, Peter's good looks,
Peter's fine voice: when I saw him--well, I thought we should all thank
God for our mothers, for no one else will ever see us with such kind
eyes.... And it's this Peter Reid--Jeannie Laidlaw's son--who has
enriched Jean. Well, Augusta, I must say I consider it rather a
liberty."
Augusta looked at her mother with an amused smile.
"Yes, Augusta, it was a pushing, interfering sort of thing to do. What
is the child to do with a great fortune? I'm not afraid of her being
spoiled. Money won't vulgarise Jean as it does so many people, but it
may turn her into a very burdened, anxious pilgrim. She is happier poor.
The pinch of too little money is a small thing compared to the burden of
too much. The doing without is good for both body and soul, but the
great possessions are apt to harden our hearts and make our souls small
and meagre. Who would have thought that little Jean would have had the
hard hap to become heir to them. But she has a high heart. She may make
a success of being a rich woman! She has certainly made a success of
being a poor one."
"I think," said Augusta, in her gentle voice, "that Peter Reid was a
wise man to leave his money to Jean. Only the people who have been poor
know how to give, and Jean has imagination and an understanding heart.
Haven't you noticed what a wonderful way she has with the poor people?
She is always welcome in the cottages.... And think what a delight she
will have in spending money on the boys! But I hope Pamela Reston will
do as she had planned and carry Jean off for a real holiday. I should
like to see her for a little while spend money like water, buy all
manner of useless lovely things, and dine and dance and go to plays."
Mrs. Hope put up her glasses to regard her daughter.
"Dear me, Augusta, am I hearing right? Who is more severe than you on
the mad women who dance, and sup, and frivol their money away? But
there's something in what you say. The bairn needs a playtime.... To
think that Jeannie Laidlaw's son should change the whole of Jean's life.
Preposterous!"
* * * * *
Mrs. Duff-Whalley was having tea with Mrs. Jowett when the news was
broken to her. It was a party, but only, as Mrs. Duff-Whalley herself
would have put it, "a purely local affair," meaning some people on the
Hill.
Mrs. Jowett sat in her soft-toned room, pouring out tea into fragile
cups with hands that seemed to demand lace ruffles, so white were they
and transparent. The room was like herself, exquisitely fresh and
dainty; white walls hung with pale water-colours in gilt frames, Indian
rugs of soft pinks and blues and greys, plump cushions in worked muslin
covers that looked as if they were put on fresh every morning.
Photographs stood about of women looking sweetly into vacancy over the
heads of pretty children, and books of verses, bound daintily in white
and gold, lay on carved tables.
Mrs. Duff-Whalley did not care for Mrs. Jowett's tea-parties, and she
always felt irritated by her drawing-room. The gentle voice of her
hostess made her want to speak louder than usual, and she thought the
conversation insipid to a degree. How could it be anything but insipid
with Mrs. Jowett saying only "How nice," or "What a pity" at intervals?
She did not even seem to care to hear Mrs. Duff-Whalley's news of "the
County," and "dear Lady Tweedie," merely murmuring, "Oh, really," when
told the most interesting and even startling facts.
"Uninterested idiot," thought Mrs. Duff-Whalley to herself as she turned
from her hostess to Miss Mary Duncan, who at least had some sense,
though both she and her sisters had a lamentable lack of style.
Miss Duncan's kind face beamed pleasantly. She was quite willing to
listen to Mrs. Duff-Whalley as long as that lady pleased. She thought
she needed soothing, so she agreed with everything she said, and made
sensible little remarks at intervals. Mrs. Jowett was pouring out a
second cup of tea for Mrs. Duff-Whalley when she said, "And have you
heard about dear little Jean Jardine?"
"Has anything happened to her? I saw her the other day and she was all
right."
"She's quite well, but haven't you heard? She has inherited a large
fortune."
Mrs. Duff-Whalley said nothing for a minute. She could not trust herself
to speak. Despised Jean, whom she had not troubled to ask to her
parties, whom she had always felt she could treat anyhow, so poor was
she and of no account. It had been bad enough to know that she was on
terms of intimacy with Pamela Reston and her brother: to hear Miss
Reston say that she meant to take her to London and entertain for her
and to hear her suggest that Muriel might go to Jean's parties had been
galling, but she had thrust the recollection from her, reflecting that
fine ladies said much that they did not mean, and that probably the
promised visit to London would never materialise. And now to be told
this! A fortune: Jean--it was too absurd!
When she spoke, her voice was shrill with anger in spite of her efforts
to control it.
"It can't be true. The Jardines have no relations that could leave them
money."
"This isn't a relation," Mrs. Jowett explained. "It's someone Jean was
kind to quite by chance. I think it is _so_ sweet. It quite makes one
want to cry. _Dear_ Jean!"
Mrs. Duff-Whalley looked at the sentimental woman before her with bitter
scorn.
"It would take more than that to make me cry," she snorted. "I wonder
what fool wanted to leave Jean money. Such an unpractical creature!
She'll simply make ducks and drakes of it, give it away to all and
sundry, pauperise the whole neighbourhood."
"Oh, I don't think so," Miss Duncan broke in. "She has had a hard
training, poor child. Such a pathetic mite she was when her great-aunt
died and left her with David and Jock and the little Gervase Taunton! No
one thought she could manage, but she did, and she has been so plucky,
she deserves all the good fortune that life can bring her. I'm longing
to hear what Jock says about this. I do like that boy."
"They are, all three, dear boys," said Mrs. Jowett. "Tim and I quite
feel as if they were our own. Tim, dear," to that gentleman, who had
bounced suddenly and violently into the room, "we are talking about the
great news--Jean's fortune--"
"Ah yes, yes," said Mr. Jowett, distributing brusque nods to the women
present. "What I want is a bit of thick string." (His wife's delicate
drawing-room hardly seemed the place to look for such a thing.) "No, no
tea, my dear. I told you I wanted a bit of _thick string_.... Yes,
let's hope it won't spoil Jean, but I think it's almost sure to. Fortune
hunters, too. Bad thing for a girl to have money.... Yes, yes, I asked
the servants and Chart brought me the string basket, but it was all thin
stuff. I'll lose the post, but it's always the way. Every day more
rushed than another. Remind me, Janetta, to get some thick string
to-morrow. I've no time to go down to the town to-day. Why, bless me, my
morning letters are hardly looked at yet," and he fussed himself out of
the room.
Mrs. Duff-Whalley rose to go.
"Then, Mrs. Jowett, I can depend on you to look after that collecting?
And please be firm. I find that collectors are apt to be very lazy and
unconscientious. Indeed, one told me frankly that in her district she
only went to the people she knew. That isn't the way to collect. The
only way is to get into each house--to stand on the doorstep is no use,
they can so easily send a maid to refuse--and sit there till they give a
subscription. Every year since I took it on there has been an increase,
and I'll be frightfully disappointed if you let it go back."
Mrs. Jowett looked depressed. She knew herself to be one of the worst
collectors on record. She was guiltily aware that she often advised
people not to give; that is, if she thought their circumstances
straitened!
"I don't know," she began, "I'm afraid I could never sit in a stranger's
house and insist on being given money. It's so--so high-handed, like a
highwayman or something."
"Think of the cause," said Mrs. Duff-Whalley, "not of your own
feelings."
"Yes, of course, but ... well, if there is a deficit, I can always raise
my own subscription to cover it." She smiled happily at this solution of
the problem.
Mrs. Duff-Whalley sniffed.
"'The conies are a feeble folk,'" she quoted rudely. "Well, good-bye. I
shall send over all the papers and collecting books to-morrow. Muriel
and I go off to London on Friday _en route_ for the south. It will be
pleasant to have a change and meet some interesting people. Muriel was
just saying it's a cabbage's life we live in Priorsford. I often wonder
we stay here...."
Mrs. Duff-Whalley went home a very angry woman. After dinner, sitting
with Muriel before the fire in the glittering drawing-room, she
discussed the matter.
"I know what'll be the end of it," she said. "You saw what a fuss Miss
Reston made of Jean the other day when we called? Depend upon it, she
knew the money was coming. I dare say she and her brother are as poor as
church mice--those aristocrats usually are--and Jean's money will come
in useful. Oh, we'll see her Lady Bidborough yet.... I tell you what it
is, Muriel, the way this world's managed is past speaking about."
Mrs. Duff-Whalley was knitting a stocking for her son Gordon (her hands
were seldom idle), and she waved it in her exasperation as she talked.
"Here are you, meant, as anyone can see, for the highest position, and
instead that absurd little Jean is to be cocked up, a girl with no more
dignity than a sparrow, who couldn't keep her place with a washerwoman.
I've heard her talking to these cottage women as if they were her
sisters."
Muriel leant back in her chair and seemed absorbed in balancing her
slipper on her toe.
"My dear mother," she said, "why excite yourself? It isn't clever of you
to be so openly annoyed. People will laugh. I don't say I like it any
better than you do, but I hope I have the sense to purr congratulations.
We can't help it anyway. You and I aren't attracted to Jean, but there's
no use denying most people are. And what's more, they keep on liking
her. She isn't a person people get easily tired of. I wish I knew her
secret. I suppose it is charm--a thing that can't be acquired."
"What nonsense, Muriel! I wonder to hear you. I'd like to know who has
charm if you haven't. It is a silly word anyway."
Muriel shook her head. "It's no good posing when we are by ourselves. As
a family we totally lack charm. Minnie tries to make up for it by a
great deal of manner and a loud voice. Gordon--well, it doesn't matter
so much for a man, but you can see his friends don't really care about
him much. They take his hospitality and say he isn't a bad sort. They
know he is a snob, and when he tries to be funny he is often offensive,
poor Gordon! I've got a pretty face, and I play games well, so I am
tolerated, but I have hardly one real friend. The worst of it is I know
all the time where I am falling short, and I can't help it. I feel
myself jar on people. I once heard old Mrs. Hope say that it doesn't
matter how vulgar we are, so long as we know we are being vulgar. But
that isn't true. It's not much fun to know you are being vulgar and not
be able to help it."
Mrs. Duff-Whalley gave a convulsed ejaculation, but her daughter went
on.
"Sometimes I've gone in of an afternoon to see Jean, and found her
darning stockings in her shabby frock, with a look on her face as if she
knew some happy secret; a sort of contented, brooding look--and I've
envied her. And so I talked of all the gaieties I was going to, of the
new clothes I was getting, of the smart people we know, and all the time
I was despising myself for a fool, for what did Jean care! She sat there
with her mind full of books and poetry and those boys she is so absurdly
devoted to; it was nothing to her how much I bucked; and this fortune
won't change her. Money is nothing--"
Mrs. Duff-Whalley gasped despairingly to hear her cherished daughter
talking, as she thought, rank treason.
"Oh, Muriel, how you can! And your poor father working so hard to make a
pile so that we could all be nice and comfortable. And you were his
favourite, and I've often thought how proud he would have been to see
his little girl so smart and pretty and able to hold her own with the
best of them. And I've worked too. Goodness knows I've worked hard. It
isn't as easy as it looks to keep your end up in Priorsford and keep the
villa-people in their places, and force the County to notice you. If I
had been like Mrs. Jowett you would just have had to be content with the
people on the Hill. Do you suppose I haven't known they didn't want to
come here and visit us? Oh, I knew, but I _made_ them. And it was all
for you. What did I care for them and their daft-like ways and their
uninteresting talk about dogs and books and things! It would have been
far nicer for me to have made friends with the people in the little
villas. My! I've often thought how I would relish a tea-party at the
Watsons'! Your father used to have a saying about it being better to be
at the head of the commonalty than at the tail of the gentry, and I know
it's true. Mrs. Duff-Whalley of The Towers would be a big body at the
Miss Watsons' tea-parties, and I know fine I'm only tolerated at the
Tweedies' and the Olivers' and all the others."
"Poor Mother! You've been splendid!"
"If you aren't happy, what does anything matter? I'm fair disheartened,
I tell you. I believe you're right. Money isn't much of a blessing. I've
never said it to you because you seemed so much a part of all the new
life, with your accent and your manners and your little dogs, but over
and over when people snubbed me, and I had to talk loud and brazen
because I felt so ill at ease, I've thought of the old days when I
helped your father in the shop. Those were my happiest days--before the
money came. I had a girl to look after the house and you children, and I
went between the house and the shop, and I never had a dull minute. Then
we came into some money, and that helped your father to extend and
extend. First we had a house in Murrayfield--and, my word, we thought we
were fine. But I aimed at Drumsheugh Gardens, and we got there. Your
father always gave in to me. Eh, he was a hearty man, your father. If
it's true what you say that none of you have charm, though I'm sure I
don't know what you mean by it, it's my blame, for your father was
popular with everyone. He used to laugh at me and my ambition, for, mind
you, I was always ambitious, but his was kindly laughter. Often and
often when I've been sitting all dressed up at some dinner-party, like
to yawn my head off with the dull talk, I've thought of the happy days
when I helped in the shop and did my own washing--eh, I little thought I
would ever live in a house where we never even know when it's washing
day--and went to bed tired and happy, and fell asleep behind your
father's broad back...."
"Oh, Mother, don't cry. It's beastly of me to discourage you when you've
been the best of mothers to me. I wish I had known my father better, and
I do wish I could remember when we were all happy in the little house.
You've never been so very happy in The Towers, have you, Mother?"
"No, but I wouldn't leave it for the world. Your father was so proud of
it. 'It's as like a hydro as a private house can be,' he often said, in
such a contented voice. He just liked to walk round and look at all the
contrivances he had planned, all the hot-rails and things in the
bathrooms and cloakrooms, and radiators in every room, and the wonderful
pantries--'tippy,' he called them. He couldn't understand people making
a fuss about old houses, and old furniture, grey walls half tumbling
down and mouldy rooms. He liked the new look of The Towers, and he said
to me, 'Mind, Aggie, I'm not going to let you grow any nonsense like ivy
or creepers up this fine new house. They're all very well for holding
together tumbledown old places, but The Towers doesn't need them. And
I'm sure he would be pleased to-day if he saw it. The times people have
advised me to grow ivy--even Lady Tweedie, the last time she came to
tea--but I never would. It's as new-looking as the day he left it....
You don't want to leave The Towers, Muriel?"
"No--o, but--don't you think, Mother, we needn't work quite so hard for
our social existence? I mean, let's be more friendly with the people
round us, and not strive so hard to keep in with the County set. If Miss
Reston can do it, surely we can."
"But don't you see," her mother said, "Miss Reston can do it just
because she is Miss Reston. If you're a Lord's daughter you can be as
eccentric as you like, and make friends with anyone you choose. If we
did it, they would just say, 'Oh, so they've come off their perch!' and
once we let ourselves down we would never raise ourselves again. I
couldn't do it, Muriel. Don't ask me."
"No. But we've got to be happier somehow. Climbing is exhausting work."
She stooped and picked up the two small dogs that lay on a cushion
beside her. "Isn't it, Bing? Isn't it, Toutou? You're happy, aren't you?
A warm fire and a cushion and some mutton-chop bones are good enough for
you. Well, we've got all these and we want more.... Mother, perhaps Jean
would tell us the secret of happiness."
"As if I'd ask her," said Mrs. Duff-Whalley.