"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!"
CHAPTER X
"You that are old," Falstaff reminds the Chief Justice, "consider not the capacities of us that are young."
One afternoon Jean called for Pamela to take her to see Mrs. Hope.
It was a clear, blue-and-white day, with clouds scudding across the sky, and a cold, whistling wind that blew the fallen leaves along the dry roads—a day that made people walk smartly and gave the children apple-red cheeks and tangled curls.
Mhor and Peter were seated on The Rigs garden wall as Pamela and Jean came out of Hillview gate. Peter wagged his tail in recognition, but Mhor made no sign of having seen his sister and her friend.
"Aren't you cold up there?" Pamela asked him.
"Very cold," said Mhor, "but we can't come down. We're on sentry duty on the city wall till sundown," and he shaded his eyes with his hand and pretended to peer into space for lurking foes.
Peter looked wistfully up at him and hunched himself against the scratched bare knees now blue with cold.
"When the sun touches the top of West Law," said Jean, pointing to a distant blue peak, "it has set. See—there…. Now run in, sonny, and tell Mrs. M'Cosh to let you have some currant-loaf for tea. Pamela and I are going to tea at Hopetoun."
"Aw," said Mhor, "I hate when you go out to tea. So does Jock. So does Peter. Look out! I'm going to jump."
He jumped and fell prostrate, barking his chin, but no howl came from him, and he picked himself up with dignity, merely asking for the loan of a handkerchief, his own "useful little hanky," as he explained, having been used to mop up a spilt ink-bottle.
Fortunately Jean had a spare handkerchief, and Pamela promised that on her return he should have a reel of sticking-plaster for his own use, so, battered but content, he returned to the house, Peter remaining behind to investigate a mole-heap.
"What a cheery day for November," Pamela remarked as they took the road by Tweedside. "Look at that beech tree against the blue sky, every black twig silhouetted. Trees are wonderful in winter."
"Trees are wonderful always," said Jean. "'Solomon spake of trees'—I do wonder what he said. I suppose it would be the cedars of Lebanon he 'spake' of, and the hyssop that grows in the walls, and sycamores, but he would have been worth hearing on a rowan tree flaming red against a blue September sky. Look at that newly ploughed field so softly brown, and the faded gold of the beech hedge. November is a cheery time. The only depressing time of the year to me is when the swallows go away. I can't bear to see them wheeling round and preparing to depart. I want so badly to go with them. It always brings back to me the feeling I had as a child when people read Hans Andersen to me—the storks in The Marsh King's Daughter, talking about the mud in Egypt. Imagine Priorsford swallows in Egypt!… As the song says:
"'It's dowie at the hint o' hair'st
At the way-gaun o' the swallow.'"
"What a lovely sound Lowland Scots has," said Pamela. "I like to hear you speak it. Tell me about Mrs. Hope, Jean. I do hope we shall see her alone. I don't like Priorsford tea-parties; they are rather like a foretaste of eternal punishment. With no choice you are dumped down beside the most irrelevant sort of person, and there you remain. I went to return Mrs. Duff-Whalley's call the other day, and fell into one. Before I could retreat I was wedged into a chair beside a woman whom I hope I shall never see again. She was one of those bleak people who make the thought of getting up in the morning and dressing quite insupportable. I don't think there was a detail in her domestic life that she didn't touch on. She told me all her husband could eat and couldn't eat; she called her children 'little tots,' and said she couldn't get so much as a 'serviette' washed in the house. I thought nobody talked of serviettes outside Wells and Arnold Bennett. Mrs. Duff-Whalley rescued me in the nick of time before I could do anything desperate, and then she cross-examined me as to my reasons for coming to Priorsford."
Jean laughed. "What a cheery afternoon! But it will be all right to-day. Mrs. Hope never sees more than one or two people at a time. She is pretty old, you see, and frail, though she has such an extraordinary gift of being young. I do hope you will like each other. She has an edge to her tongue, but she is an incomparable friend. The poor people go to her in flocks, and she scolds them roundly, but always knows how to help them in the only wise way. Her people have been in Priorsford for ages; she knows every soul in the place, and is vastly amused at all the little snobberies that abound in a small town. But she laughs kindly. Pretentious people are afraid of her; simple people love her."
"Am I simple, Jean?"
Jean laughed and refused to give an opinion on the subject, beyond quoting the words of Autolycus—"How blessed are we that are not simple men."
They were in the Hopetoun Woods now, and at the end of the avenue could see the house standing on a knoll by the river, whitewashed, dignified, home-like.
"Talk to Mrs. Hope about the view," Jean advised "She is as proud of the Hopetoun Woods as if she had made them. Isn't it a nice place? Old and proud and honourable—like Mrs. Hope herself."
"Are there sons to inherit?"
Jean shook her head. "There were three sons. Mrs. Hope hardly ever talks about them, but I've seen their photographs, and of course I have often been told about them—by Great-aunt Alison, and others—and heard how they died. They were very clever and good-looking and well-liked—the kind of sons mothers are very proud of, and they all died imperially, if that is an expression to use. Two died in India, one—a soldier—in one of the Frontier skirmishes: the other—an I. C. S. man—from over-working in a famine-stricken district. The youngest fell in the Boer War … so you see Mrs. Hope has the right to be proud. Aunt Alison used to tell me that she made no moan over her wonderful sons. She shut herself up for a short time, and then faced the world again, her kindly, sharp-tongued self. She is one of those splendid people who take the slings and arrows thrown at them by outrageous fortune and bury them deep in their hearts and go on, still able to laugh, still able to take an interest. Only, you mustn't speak to her of what she has lost. That would be too much."
"Yes," said Pamela. "I can understand that."
She stopped for a minute and stood looking at the river full of "wan water from the Border hills," at the stretches of lawn ornamented here and there by stone figures, at the trees thrawn with winter and rough weather, and she thought of the three boys who had played here, who had lived in the whitewashed house (she could see the barred nursery windows), bathed and fished in the Tweed, thrown stones