"Oh, Beller! Miss Jean would 'ave jumped at 'im!"
"Naething o' the kind," said Miss Bathgate fiercely, forgetting all about her former pessimism as to Jean's chance of getting a man, and desiring greatly to champion her cause. "D'ye think Miss Jean's sitting here waitin' to jump at a man like a cock at a grossit? Na! He'll be a lucky man that gets her, and weel his lordship kens it. She's no pented up to the een-holes like thae London Jezebels. Her looks'll stand wind and water. She's a kind, wise lassie, and if she condescends to the Lord, I'm sure I hope he'll be guid to her. For ma ain pairt I wud faur rather see her marry a dacent, ordinary man like a minister or a doctor—but we've nane o' thae kind needin' wives in Priorsford the noo, so Miss Jean 'll mebbe hev to fa' back on a lord…."
On the afternoon of the day this conversation took place in Hillview kitchen, Jean sat in the living-room of The Rigs, a very depressed little figure. It was one of those days in which things seem to take a positive pleasure in going wrong. To start with, the kitchen range could not go on, as something had happened to the boiler, and that had shattered Mrs. M'Cosh's placid temper. Also the bill for mending it would be large, and probably the landlord would make a fuss about paying it. Then Mhor had put a newly-soled boot right on the hot bar of the fire and burned it across, and Jock had thrown a ball and broken a precious Spode dish that had been their mother's. But the worst thing of all was that Peter was lost, had been lost for three days, and now they felt they must give up hope. Jock and Mhor were in despair (which may have accounted for their abandoned conduct in burning boots and breaking old china), and in their hearts felt miserably guilty. Peter had wanted to go with them that morning three days ago; he had stood patiently waiting before the front door, and they had sneaked quietly out at the back without him. It was really for his own good, Jock told Mhor; it was because the gamekeeper had said if he got Peter in the Peel woods again he would shoot him, and they had been going to the Peel woods that morning—but nothing brought any comfort either to Jock or Mhor. For two nights Mhor had sobbed himself to sleep openly, and Jock had lain awake and cried when everyone else was sleeping.
They scoured the country in the daytime, helped by David and Mr. Jowett and other interested friends, but all to no purpose.
"If I knew God had him I wouldn't mind," said Mhor, "but I keep seeing him in a trap watching for us to come and let him out. Oh, Peter, Peter…."
So Jean felt completely demoralised this January afternoon and sat in her most unbecoming dress, with the fire drearily, if economically, banked up with dross, hoping that no one would come near her. And Mrs. Duff-Whalley and her daughter arrived to call.
It was at once evident that Mrs. Duff-Whalley was on a very high horse indeed. Her accent was at its most superior—not at all the accent she used on ordinary occasions—and her manner was an excellent imitation of that of a lady she had met at one of the neighbouring houses and greatly admired. Her sharp eyes were all over the place, taking in Jean's poor little home-made frock, the shabby slippers, the dull fire, the depressed droop of her hostess's shoulders.
Jean was sincerely sorry to see her visitors. To cope with Mrs. Duff-Whalley and her daughter one had to be in a state of robust health and high spirits.
"We ran in, Jean—positively one has time for nothing these days—just to wish you a Happy New-Year though a fortnight of it is gone. And how are you? I do hope you had a very gay Christmas, and loads of presents. Muriel quite passed all limits. I told her I was quite ashamed of the shoals of presents, but of course the child has so many friends. The Towers was full for Christmas. Dear Gordon brought several Cambridge friends, and they were so useful at all the festivities. Lady Tweedie said to me, 'Mrs. Duff-Whalley, you really are a godsend with all these young men in this unmanned neighbourhood.' Always so witty, isn't she? dear woman. By the way, Jean, I didn't see you at the Tweedies' dance, or the Olivers' theatricals."
"No, I wasn't there. I hadn't a dress that was good enough, and I didn't want to be at the expense of hiring a carriage."
"Oh, really! We had a small dance at The Towers on Christmas night—just a tiny affair, you know, really just our own house-party and such old friends as the Tweedies and the Olivers. We would have liked to ask you and your brother—I hear he's home from Oxford—but you know what it is to live in a place like Priorsford: if you ask one you have to ask everybody—and we decided to keep it entirely County—you know what I mean?"
"Oh, quite," said Jean; "I'm sure you were wise."
"We were so sorry," went on Mrs. Duff-Whalley, "that dear Lord Bidborough and his charming sister couldn't come. We have got so fond of both of them. Muriel and Lord Bidborough have so much in common—music, you know, and other things. I simply couldn't tear them away from the piano at The Towers. Isn't it wonderful how simple and pleasant they are considering their lineage? Actually living in that little dog-hole of a Hillview. I always think Miss Bathgate's such an insolent woman; no notion of her proper place. She looks at me as if she actually thought she was my equal, and wasn't she positively rude to you, Muriel, when you called with some message?"
"Oh, frightful woman!" said Muriel airily. "She was most awfully rude to me. You would have thought that I wanted to burgle something." She gave an affected laugh. "I simply stared through her. I find that irritates that class of person frightfully … How do you like my sables, Jean? Yes—a present."
"They are beautiful," said Jean serenely, but to herself she muttered bitterly, "Opulent lumps!"
"David goes back to Oxford next week," she said aloud, the thought of money recalling David's lack of it.
"Oh, really! How exciting for him," Mrs. Duff-Whalley said. "I suppose you won't have heard from Miss Reston since she went away?"
"I had a letter from her a few days ago."
Mrs. Duff-Whalley waited expectantly for a moment, but as Jean said nothing more she continued:
"Did she talk of future plans? We simply must fix them both up for a week at The Towers. Lord Bidborough told us he had quite fallen in love with Priorsford and would be sure to come back. I thought it was so sweet of him. Priorsford is such a dull little place."
"Yes," said Jean; "it was very condescending of him."
Then she remembered Richard Plantagenet, her friend, his appreciation of everything, his love for the Tweed, his passion for the hills, his kindness to herself and the boys—and her conscience pricked her. "But I think he meant it," she added.
"Well," Muriel said, "I fail to see what he could find to admire in Priorsford. Of all the provincial little holes! I'm constantly upbraiding Mother for letting my father build a house here. If they had gone two or three miles out, but to plant themselves in a little dull town, always knocking up against the dull little inhabitants! Positively it gets on my nerves. One can't go out without having to talk to Mrs. Jowett, or a Dawson, or some of the villa dwellers. As I said to Lady Tweedie yesterday when I met her in the Eastgate, 'Positively,' I said, 'I shall scream if I have to say to anyone else, "Yes, isn't it a nice quiet day for the time of year?"' I'm just going to pretend I don't see people now."
"Muriel, darling, you mustn't make yourself unpopular. It's not like London, you know, where you can pick and choose. I quite agree that the Priorsford people need to be kept in their places, but one needn't be rude. And some of the people, the aborigines, as dear Gordon calls them, are really quite nice. There are about half a dozen men one can ask to dinner, and that new doctor—I forget his name—is really quite a gentleman. Plays bridge."
Jean laughed suddenly and Mrs. Duff-Whalley looked inquiringly at her.
"Oh," she said, blushing, "I remembered the definition of a gentleman in the Irish R.M.—'a man who has late dinner and takes in the London Times.' … Won't you stay to tea?"
"Oh no, thank you, the car is at the gate. We are going on to tea with Lady Tweedie. 'You simply must spare me an afternoon, Mrs. Duff-Whalley,' she said to me the other day, and I rang her up and said we would come to-day. Life is really