“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Miss Turnbull protested. “These are difficult days for every one, and my dividends aren’t what they were, and the taxes take a big slice. But, of course, I’ve nothing to keep up, and I know exactly what my living costs me. Oh, I’ve many blessings; a nice circle of friends, books——”
“And bridge,” supplied her niece. “Bridge is your great stand-by, Aunt Ella. I forget if you play, Bee.”
“I don’t,” said Beatrice. “Somehow—we seemed always to be doing something else, and only two of us. . . .”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Lithgow quickly. “I don’t know that I’d ever play myself if it weren’t for Father; he likes a game of an evening. But I’d as soon have my work or a book. . . . Ella, I read that book you recommended, but I must say I thought it very queer. The mother going on like that! Such notions writers have now, hardly one of them can write a decent, straightforward story.”
“Well,” Peggy explained, “they’re not writing for you or your friends. They’d scorn to. . . . If they think of you at all it’s only to wish you were out of the world.”
“Well, I never!” said Mrs. Lithgow, looking round helplessly. “Peggy, what a way to talk! What have I ever done to writers? The only one I ever met was that brother of Mrs. Warwick’s, and I never thought he was right in the head, but I’m sure I’ve done nothing to deserve——”
“The fact that you exist is enough,” said Peggy inexorably. “You’re middle-class and middle-aged, two of the things the bright young writers hate most. . . . and you’re decent and clean-minded and you can’t expect them to pardon that.”
Poor Mrs. Lithgow could only shake her head, and her sister, with something of a condescending air, as of one more used to the ways of the world, began to comfort her. “It’s true in a way what Peggy says, Nettie; some of these younger writers are quite unbearable. You’d think no one over thirty and respectable had a right to live! But most of the people they’re hitting at are blissfully unaware of their efforts, don’t know the writers exist, in fact, so no harm is done. I must say it rather amuses me to read those books just to see how far they’ll go.” She addressed Beatrice. “I find reading a great comfort. I hope you are fond of books?”
Beatrice said she was, and Mrs. Lithgow broke in, “I should say so. She’s been brought up among books. I think her mother read about every important book that came out; and highbrow weeklies and quarterlies; there was always a table piled with them. I used to feel such an ignoramus when I looked at them. I never get further than a novel.”
Immediately after lunch Miss Turnbull hurried away to keep an engagement, Peggy went off on some business of her own, and Mrs. Lithgow ordered the car and took Beatrice for a long drive, during which she spoke without intermission, except when for a few minutes she was overcome by sleep. Beatrice was rather miserably aware that had her kind hostess not been so keen on doing her duty by her guest, she would have spent the afternoon asleep in her comfortable chair by the fire.
Mr. Lithgow was at home for dinner, a small man with a cheerful, ugly face. His way of showing sympathy with his guest was to press on her the choicest viands at his disposal and a large selection of beverages.
“You wouldn’t like a little white wine? No? Well, what about some green ginger—Crabbie’s green ginger, a grand warming thing in cold weather? No? Well, some cider then? Well, lemonade?”
Beatrice, touched as well as amused, could not refuse the lemonade, whereupon Mr. Lithgow told her the story of a country girl at a dance who said that the worst of lemonade was that it was “sae bowffy.” He chuckled with delight, and advised Beatrice to tell that story to her London relatives and see what they made of it.
After dinner Peggy’s fiancé, Harry Lendrum, came in, and he and Peggy indulged in a war of words which seemed to afford them much satisfaction. They were as good-looking and cheerful a young couple as anyone could wish to see. Mrs. Lithgow’s pride in them was obvious, though she pretended that Beatrice must be shocked at their behaviour.
“Children,” she commanded, “stop arguing and behave yourselves. We’d better have a quiet game, something we can all join in. Be’trice doesn’t play bridge.”
Beatrice was conscious of nothing but a burning ache at her heart. Peggy, with her mother and father and her big Harry—how rich she was! No wonder she could laugh and be glad, with life so full of interest, so crammed with things to do, so crowded with people who were fond and proud of her. Lucky Peggy, she thought. And kind Peggy, she added, as, noticing the wistful look on her friend’s face, the girl held her hand for a moment in a warm grasp.
Mrs. Lithgow absolutely refused to let Beatrice go back to Park Place.
“Nothing of the kind,” she said. “Here you’ll stay till you go to London, and the longer that is the better we’ll be pleased. Fairlie can come here every day and report. You need more things? Well, we’ll send for them. I’ll take you along this very day to Park Place and you’ll tell Fairlie what you want; that’s easy enough surely.”
And Beatrice, comforted in spite of herself by the warm kindliness of the Lithgow household, was thankful enough to remain.
On the fourth morning of her visit she got a letter from Lady Dobie saying they would be glad to see her in Portland Place on the 15th of October—the Monday of the following week.
She told Mrs. Lithgow as they sat in the morning-room after breakfast. It was Mrs. Lithgow’s time for reading the paper: she went through the Herald and Bulletin from cover to cover, exclaimed at the different brides, mourned over any premature deaths, shook her head over political muddles, and turned hastily away from reported crimes.
This morning, just as she was finishing the papers, Mrs. Murray was announced. She came in explaining that she was out very early as Mr. Murray had gone with the ten train to London, and she had been to the Central to see him off.
“I’m interrupting you,” she said, “but I won’t stay a minute.”
“Who are you interrupting?” asked Mrs. Lithgow. “I’m doing nothing, nor is Be’trice. Peggy’s the only busy one—just listen to her.”
Peggy used the morning-room for many purposes, sewing, telephoning, writing notes for her mother. To-day she was carrying bowls of bulbs from one place to another, and as she worked she whistled loud and clear like a boy. Her mother, remembering a saying of her country up-bringing, told her that “whistling maids and crowing hens were not canny about any man’s town,” and turning to her friend said, “Did you ever hear that proverb, Mrs. Murray?”
Mrs. Murray shook her head rather hopelessly. “I daresay I have,” she said, “but I hardly dare commit myself to a statement now. My memory’s something awful. It’s a humiliating thing to have to confess, but I have to write down everything I mean to do in a wee book, and then, as likely as not I lose the book! And my purse! And my spectacles! It’s become a joke in our house, ‘What’s Mother lost now?’ but I can tell you it’s no joke to me. I take many a cry to myself. I often wish I had a daughter like Peggy to run and search and keep me right.”
“You needn’t wish that,” said Peggy, pausing with a bowl of bulbs in each hand. “You’ll get daughters-in-law all in good time; when Tom and Richard have stopped butterflying from flower to flower.”
Mrs. Murray sighed and said, “Daughters-in-law are no better than they’re called. I really came in this morning to see if Be’trice wouldn’t come and pay me a visit. It would be a real kindness on her part.”
“Oh, but you mustn’t steal her from us,” cried Mrs. Lithgow. “Why, she’s only just come, and I said this would be her home so long as she stayed in Glasgow, didn’t I, Be’trice?”
“You did indeed, and I’m more than grateful for your kindness, and for Mrs. Murray’s, but I’ve just had a letter