OUT INTO THE WORLD
Everything about Joey was new--from top to toe, from hat to
boots--particularly boots. That knowledge was about the newest thing of
all.
She sat in her corner of the third-class compartment, looking
alternately from the window at the flying scenery of Scotland and then
down at those boots--strong, unpatched, with superior unknotted laces,
all quite new.
She was wearing the long, dark green uniform coat of Redlands and the
soft, green close-fitting hat, with a band of the same colour round the
crown and the school arms stamped in silver. Underneath she wore the
dark green serge "djibbah" with white flannel blouse and green tie.
These things had come for her from Redlands a week ago, with the bill,
which Mums had paid out of that amazing cheque for forty pounds--a
cheque which Joey had been proud to endorse under the envious eyes of
her brothers and sister.
The cheque carried with it an amazing sense of wealth, so it had been a
blow when Mums firmly refused to allow one penny of it to be spent on
anything but boots and clothes for Joey herself. However, Mr. Craigie
(after some careful calculations of which the family knew nothing)
produced ten shillings as a parting tip on the day the family were
going _en masse_ to Pettalva to choose Joey's boots.
That was a great day for Joey Graham, aged thirteen years and three
months, for Mr. Craigie's gift was hampered by no restrictions. She
proudly stood lunch to all the rest, _and_ tipped the waiter--a seedy
gentleman with a good deal of limp and dingy shirt-front, who was
nevertheless an adept at putting cruets, Worcester sauce bottles, etc.,
over the stains on the tablecloth of the little back-street restaurant
where they partook largely of sausages and mashed potatoes, limp
pastry and ginger-wine, with Joey hospitably urging them on to further
efforts. Even Gavin the Winchester "man" was no greater in the eyes of
his family that day!
There had been very little time for inconvenient thoughts of possible
home-sickness to obtrude themselves during those bustling days of
preparation. Of course it would be strange to have two days' journey
between herself and Mums and the rest, Joey knew; but people who have
won a scholarship don't go in for being home-sick. Besides, there
would be Miss Craigie, Mr. Craigie's sister--mathematical mistress at
Redlands and a ready-made friend, Joey was comfortably sure.
So she made her own final preparations very cheerfully, and helped
Mums--rather stickily--with the getting ready of Ronnie's shirts and
stockings for his plunge a week later into Gavin's old preparatory; and
said good-bye and thank you to the schoolmaster and to Effie and Ailie,
the sawmiller's twin girls, who sat next her in class; and to Luckie
Jean, who unbent to an extraordinary degree and presented a whole bag
of "sweeties" at parting; and was finally seen off at Crumach by the
entire family, with an old military portmanteau that had been Father's,
and a bewildering quantity of new clothes in it.
Mums went with her to the junction at Pettalva; from there she was to
travel in the care of the guard to Edinburgh, where Miss Craigie would
meet her and take her down to Redlands next day.
Mums and Joey both found a tendency to leave little gaps in the
conversation, as the roofs of Pettalva began to come in sight.
"I shall try to find someone who is going the whole way to Edinburgh,
darling," Mums said, after one of those gaps. "Then I shall feel quite
happy about you."
"I'll be all right anyway," Joey said determinedly.
"Yes, my Joey, I know you will; but everything, including the
travelling, will be a little--new."
"I know Mums. Don't you worry; _I_ shan't," Joey persisted, though
the roofs of Pettalva were rather blurred just then. "I know it will
be new, but I'm going to like Redlands awfully, and write you reams
of letters, so you won't be dull--and--and"--Joey swallowed a lump in
her throat--"there won't be such a heap of stockings for you to mend,
anyhow."
They two were alone in the compartment; Mums caught Joey in her
arms and held on to her tight. "Oh, my Joey, I _like_ mending the
stockings!" she cried, with a little sob in her voice, and then she
tried to laugh.
"But I am going to love your letters, darling, and live in the
interesting new world with you. Shan't we watch for the post, Kirsty
and Bingo and I, and always be making excuses to go to the odd-and-end
shop?"
Mums put away her handkerchief, and went on more in her ordinary voice:
"None of us have ever seen the fen country; you'll have to tell us all
about it. And Cousin Greta said something about asking you out on a
Sunday, now and then, and she has all kinds of beautiful things at her
house that you will enjoy seeing."
Joey looked doubtful. Cousin Greta's infrequent calls at the old home
had generally ended in disgrace for at least one member of the family.
For Cousin Greta made no secret of the fact that she considered all
the children a hopeless set of little raggamuffins, and somebody was
certain to live down to her ideas. Lady Greta Sturt was Father's cousin
and always spoke of the children as his only, though she put their
faults down to poor Mums. She brought them the best chocolates when
she came--such chocolates as were a rare and unaccustomed luxury even
before the War--but the Grahams were not to be bought by chocolates,
though it must be owned that they ate them with great speed and
enjoyment. Joey wasn't sure that to be asked out by Cousin Greta would
add to the joy of Redlands.
"You will be nice to her if she should ask you," Mums went on, in her
soft, pleading voice. "She was very fond of Father and did a great many
kind things for him when he was little, he always said."
"She's probably gone off, like Luckie Jean's Englishy cakes do," Joey
said solemnly; but added, for Mums' comfort:
"Don't worry, Mums. I'll be as nice as I know how, and most likely she
won't want me again after she's seen me once."
Mums smiled, and then the train stopped at Pettalva Junction, and the
bustle of changing began.
Mums found a lady going all the way to Edinburgh--a cheerful,
capable-looking personage who breezily undertook to see Joey safely
into the hands of Miss Craigie at the Waverley Station. Then Mums
bought Joey buns and two apples and a magazine, and reminded her of the
packet of sandwiches in her pocket and kissed her silently; and Joey
said, "Don't mind, Mums; I'm going to _like_ it."
And then the train slid out of the station and Joey was off to the new
world, and Mums was left behind.
That was the beginning of the long day's travelling down through
Scotland, and now she was almost at Edinburgh, and the end. In a few
minutes Miss Craigie would meet her--Miss Craigie, whom Joey saw as
a replica of her brother, only in a coat and skirt--and she would be
hearing all about Redlands, and learning what a new girl ought to
know. Joey remembered from school stories that new girls need a lot of
watching if they are not to begin their school career with unforgivable
blunders. She was very thankful that she was going to travel with Miss
Craigie.
She was also rather thankful that this day's journey was nearly over.
She seemed to have sat still for such a long, long time. Mrs. Tresham
had broken it a little for herself by going to the restaurant-car for
lunch; but though she had pressed Joey most kindly to come with her
as her guest, explaining that she hated meals alone, Joey stuck to it
firmly that she preferred sandwiches, having her own private supply of
family pride. She ate her sandwiches--potted shrimp and margarine--and
the buns and the apples in solitude; they didn't take long--nothing
like as long as Mrs. Tresham's lunch did.
The afternoon was very long, but tea-time came at last, and she had
been told to have tea in the restaurant-car. She and Mrs. Tresham had
it together, at a little table, fixed firmly to the floor; and there
was hot, buttered toast and a sort of mongrel jam, and you had to pour
the tea carefully because of the lurches of the train. Joey enjoyed
that meal, and it was five o'clock by the time it was finished, and she
and Mrs. Tresham had reeled back along the swaying corridor to their
own compartment; and at six they were due at Edinburgh.
Joey tidied herself up and washed her hands even before the Forth
Bridge was reached; she was so anxious to be ready in good time. And
that wonderful engineering feat was crossed--with a certain thrilling
and delightful sense of insecurity about the crossing--and Corstorphine
Hill was passed, and the train was slipping into the Waverley Station.
Edinburgh at last!
Joey was in the corridor in a second, looking for Miss Craigie. Of
course it was not wonderful that she did not see her at once; the
station was so big and the people so many. But even when she had got
out, accompanied by the small suit-case containing her night-things,
and by her new umbrella, and had stood quite a long time waiting and
tiptoeing by the door of the compartment while Mrs. Tresham claimed the
luggage for them both, still there was no sign of anyone who looked
like Mr. Craigie's sister.
A stout, elderly woman stood at a little distance among the
fast-thinning crowd surveying her unblinkingly, but Joey was sure that
_could not_ be Miss Craigie. Just as Mrs. Tresham came back with the
luggage and a porter, this personage moved forward and spoke to Joey
with distinct caution. "I'm thinking you might be perhaps Miss Jocelyn
Graham?"
"Yes, I am," Joey confessed, staring.
The stout woman became less cautious, and more communicative.
"As am own husband's cousin to Maggie M'Tulloch, and when she telled me
of Miss Craigie being down, puir body, wi' the influenzy, and the young
leddy not to gang near the hoose for fear o' carrying the infection to
her braw new schule...."
"Oh, is Miss Craigie ill? I _am_ sorry," Joey cried out.
"The temperature being one hundred and four, forbye some points up
which I canna mind exactly, I'm douting she's for the pewmonia, and
twa in the next hoose abune lying deed of the same," the stout woman
mentioned, with a certain gloomy satisfaction that puzzled Joey. "And
says I to Maggie M'Tulloch, 'I'll take the young leddy,' says I, 'and
what o'wer chances _she'll_ not tak' the infection awa' wi' her.'"
"Thank you; that's awfully kind," Joey said politely, though
mournfully. She explained to Mrs. Tresham, who looked somewhat
mystified by the flood of broad Scotch.
"You poor child, I should like to take you with me to my hotel for
to-night, but I suppose I hardly could, as I am staying with a friend
there. But I don't like this for you. Have you authority from Miss
Craigie?" she asked suddenly, turning to Maggie M'Tulloch's "own
cousin" as though she rather hoped for a negative answer.
But there was no escape. Maggie M'Tulloch's kinswoman dived promptly
into a black knitted bag that she carried and produced a sheet of
paper, scrawled in pencil:
"I am so sorry, but I may not see you, Joey. Mrs. Nicol will take
care of you, and put you into your train to-morrow. Good luck.
"JEAN CRAIGIE."
There was no help for it. Joey shook hands with kind Mrs. Tresham and
thanked her, and walked off beside Mrs. Nicol in the wake of a huge
outside porter, who wheeled her trunk on a barrow. They came up into
the width and glare of Princes Street, crossed it, turned up a narrower
street running at right angles to it, went half-way down, still
following the porter, and turned into another narrower still, where
narrow "wynds" or thread-like passages showed between the immensely
tall old houses. In this street Mrs. Nicol stopped at last, produced
a latch-key, and opened the door into a hall made dimly visible by a
glimmer only of gas.
"Ye'll be pleased to mount, miss," she said unsmilingly.
Joey mounted four flights of stairs, all covered with slippery
linoleum, till she landed at last in a room which looked as though no
one could ever have laughed in it from the time the house was built.
Four wooden waiting-room chairs stood against the mustard-coloured
walls; a square table covered with a mottled brown cloth stood exactly
in the centre. A cheap, crudely coloured print of "The last sleep of
Argyle" above the chimney-piece was the sole attempt at ornament,
unless one counted the dim cruets which occupied, for the want of a
side-board, the centre of the dingy and once white-painted mantelpiece.
The room was at once cold and stuffy.
"Ye'll be taking your supper here, miss, and then ye shall gang to
your bed," Mrs. Nicol informed her, and Joey, seeing nothing whatever
to stay up for, agreed meekly. It was not the evening she had pictured
to herself, but she must make the best of it. She wrote a pencil post
card to Mums, while Mrs. Nicol laid the table and set before her a
rather gristly chop, in which she mentioned that the journey had been
"all right" and she herself was "all right" too. It seemed better not
to mention Miss Craigie's illness, and this rather desolate reception,
when she happened to be one of those five children who had promised
father to "take care of Mums."