“What on earth—” began Susan, only to have her arm seized in a vice-like grip by Jed Armstrong.
“Keep quiet,” he muttered, “it’s the policeman from Muirfoot. Now we’ll see some fun!”
Charles, chuckling, restrained the indignant Peggy, and the limb of the law, standing below the window, addressed himself to Oliver.
“I chairge ye,” he said, “wi’ burrglarriously enterin’, or attemp’in’ tae enter, a hoose or dwaliing. Dae ye gi’e yersel’ up?”
“Oh, don’t be a damn’ fool!” cried Oliver. His annoyance was natural, but the remark was hardly conciliatory, and did not meet with the policeman’s approval.
“Wull ye come down?” he asked ominously. “Or wull I come up tae ye?”
“I strongly advise you to stay where you are on the good brown earth, as one of our poets so beautifully puts it. This ledge was never intended for anything larger than a thin cat.”
“Ha’e ye ony accomplishes?” demanded the policeman.
“Trot along and see!” suggested Oliver pleasantly. The policeman ruminated for a few seconds, evidently decided that Oliver could not descend while the ladder lay on the ground, and tramped off round the corner of the house.
“Charles,” said Susan, “he’ll see the car, and perhaps frighten Mrs. Holden. Do go and—”
“Oh, no, Susan darling. She’ll be all right. He’ll know who she is, won’t he, Armstrong?”
“Jed!” cried Susan, now agitated, and calling on Mr. Armstrong by his Christian name, which she was not in the habit of using. “Do go and—”
“Not I. It’ll do Primrose good,” said he heartlessly.
Peggy, who since Oliver’s ascent had been very quiet, began to laugh softly.
“Hurrah!” shouted Oliver. “I’m in! I’m in! I’m—oh, Lord! There go the tooth-glasses!”
By this time Susan was running towards the front door. “Constable!” she called breathlessly as she sped. “Officer! It’s a stupid mistake! There isn’t any burglar!”
A piercing feminine shriek proclaimed that she was too late to save Mrs. Holden from the misguided policeman’s sense of duty. In another lightning flash of memory she remembered that the real burglar’s “accomplish” was presumed to be a woman. . . .
“How dare you! Let me go at once!” cried Mrs. Holden as Susan came in sight. The zealous constable had haled her bodily from the car, and she now confronted him, her fur coat thrown open over her smart black gown, in a royal rage.
“It’s all right, Smith. That’s Mrs. Holden, a guest of mine, that you’ve got hold of,” said Jed, who had followed close on Susan’s flying heels. “You’re on the wrong tack altogether, man. There’s no burglar here or we’d have seen him.”
The policeman, abashed and discomfited, fell back scratching his head. “I’m sure I’m verra sorry, mem,” he began. “But I couldna ken wha ye micht be, an’ there a pairson breakin’ in at the back—”
“Take me home at once. At once, do you hear?” almost screamed the fair Primrose, turning her back on the unhappy Smith.
“I’m damped if we’re going until we’ve had a drink, anyway,” said Jed obstinately.
Lights had begun to flicker inside the house, and in a minute the door was flung hospitably open. Oliver, the complete laird, his appearance only marred by streaks of white on his trousers, stood on his steps inviting the party to enter.
“Do come in and get warm,” Susan begged, but Mrs. Holden ignored her. It was only when Jed took her by the arm, and shaking her gently enough, adjured her not to make a fool of herself, that she condescended to go in, sweeping past as though they were all pariahs.
No further mention was made of dancing. There was a little subdued talk while the men, including the policeman, who badly needed it, swallowed their whiskies-and-soda. Then Mrs. Holden, with the air of one shaking the dust of Easter Hartrigg from off her golden shoes, sailed out to the car. Jed, giving the rest one last rueful grin, followed her.
“Well, well,” said Oliver pensively, pouring out another round of drinks. “I can’t say I’m sorry to see the last of her. A bit too temperamental for my simple taste, and a little disgusting, at her age. This has been some evening, has it not?”
“How is Peggy to get home?” Susan asked later, when P.C. Smith, restored and comforted though still apologetic, had taken his leave, and they were sitting close to the fire, by this time roused to a cheerful blaze.
“That’s all right,” said Oliver. “If you’ll lend her some night-gear, Susan, she can stay here. I’ve sent a message to the Manse by the policeman—”
“Oh, Susan!” cried Peggy, her eyes big with delight, her round face deliciously pink. “How lovely! May I?”
Oliver smiled at her indulgently.
“Of course you may, you ridiculous child,” said Susan. “I can lend you all you need.”
“Except a tooth-brush. What am I to do about my teeth?”
Oliver coughed. “No one can brush his or her teeth,” he said. “For one thing, I’ve stood on every tube of tooth-paste—”
“But there are brushes,” began Susan.
Oliver raised his hand. “There were brushes,” he corrected gently. “But they’ve—well, they’ve gone where they can never be recovered, short of calling in the plumbers. And I hardly think you’ll want—”
Charles began to shake with silent laughter.
“Let’s change the subject,” said Oliver. “Did it never occur to any of you to wonder how I’d opened the front-door?”
The others stared at him in a wild surmise.
“Don’t—don’t tell me it was unlocked all the time?” Susan murmured faintly.
“Not so, sweeting. It was locked securely enough.” He thrust a hand into a trousers-pocket and pulled out a large iron object which he laid reverently on a table. “After scaling that ladder at infinite risk to my neck, after unshipping a window which valiantly resisted my efforts, after being brutally accosted by the polis and in sheer terror getting into the bathroom, I skidded on the tooth-paste, and came down with a crash on something hard. Yes,” he said brokenly, “you are quite right. It was the key. But finding it even in that painfully sudden manner proved that I was right.”
“What do you mean, right?” they cried indignantly.
“I had a feeling, you know, that I hadn’t really mislaid that key,” he murmured.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1
Thanks to Mrs. Cunningham’s foresight, her daughter was able to appear at breakfast the next morning suitably clad, for “Jems” had been waylaid at the Manse gate on his way to Easter Hartrigg and given a change of clothes to convey to Peggy.
“Don’t dash off immediately,” said Oliver. “Stay and keep Susan company for a bit.”
He and Charles were both on the point of starting for Wanside, where Mr. Elliot had arranged to have a day at his pheasants.
“I must,” said Peggy. “It’s Hallowe’en, you see, and the Infantry are having a small party, and I’ve got to make turnip lanterns and do all sorts of things.”
“Tara and I will walk down with you, if you can wait until I’ve seen Donaldina,” said Susan.
Frost had kissed the woods to burning splendour, and the air had a cold freshness that made them both want to sing or shout aloud when they went out. The barberry hedges had been stripped of their waxen red and orange fruit by hungry birds, and even the hawthorns were almost bare. Underfoot the fallen leaves rustled crisply, overhead the sky was a chill faint blue, and a field of turnips, where the sun fell on it, was vivid emerald green.
“That’s the most brilliant green that Nature can show, I think,” said Susan, pointing to the patch of exquisite clear colour.
“Lovely!” Peggy danced along as if the blood ran in her veins too fast for mere walking.
“I always think that round wood looks so mysterious,” said Susan.
Peggy sobered at once. “It’s—supposed to be haunted,” she said, throwing a quick glance
towards it as they approached. “No one in the village will pass it after dark.”
“Won’t they? I’ve always wanted to see what it was like, and I will, one day—”
“Oh, Susan, don’t!”
“Why? Are you afraid of it too?”
“Yes, I am, rather,” Peggy confessed. “I’ve never been into it beyond the first trees. I tried once, but I just had to turn back.” She added with a rush, her colour heightening. “It was there that the Pringles thought they saw me. Remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Susan. “I thought it a piece of unwarrantable impertinence on their part, but of course they’re like that.”
“Susan. It wasn’t me they saw,” said Peggy earnestly and ungrammatically. “But I wish they hadn’t seen her, for all that.”
“So you know who it was?”
“I can guess.” Peggy looked troubled. “I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. . . . How I hate Ronald Graham! He’s the horridest person I know. But he’s going away, to Manchester or somewhere. His father has found him a job.”
“About time,” was Susan’s comment. “Not a nice young man.”
“Horrible!” said Peggy fervently, and they turned into the village of Muirfoot.
Passing the post office they were hailed by the imperious voice of Mrs. Davidson, and resignedly turned aside into the dark stuffiness of her domain. “Ha’e ye heard?” was her dramatic greeting.
“No. What’s happened?” asked Peggy quickly. “Yon Mistress Holden, her that’s at Reiverslaw the noo, her husband’s deid. Ay. M’phm. The tallygram cam’ in a wee whiley syne, an’ I’ve juist foamed them up. She’ll be awa’ by the neist train, nae doot. An’ a guid riddings,” ended Mrs. Davidson, while Susan and Peggy stared wordlessly at each other.
Somehow, although Mrs. Holden’s invalid husband was only a shadowy figure even to Peggy, though his death was not unexpected, the news, received on such a morning, was a shock.
“Poor Mrs. Holden!” murmured Susan at last, to Peggy.
Mrs. Davidson answered her. “Nae need tae peety her, I’m thinkin’. We’ll be seein’ her back sune eneuch, the more’s the peety. The pentit hizzy! A wumman o’ her age suld think shame o’ sic ongauns. It’s puir Maister Armstrang I’m wae for.” Folding her arms, she stared defiantly at her two startled hearers.
“But really, Mrs. Davidson, you oughtn’t to say—” began Peggy, remembering that she must uphold her position of minister’s daughter.
“Hoot awa’, lassie! Wha’s tae stop me? Ye ken fine that I’m richt, though ye maunna say it yersel’!”
“I think,” said Susan with tact, “that I’ll have to be going home, Peggy. I’ve left all my household duties undone.”
“Yes, and I must fly too.” Peggy seized on the chance of escape with relief. “Good morning, Mrs. Davidson, I’ll have to—”
“Ay. It’s the bairns’ Hallowe’en, is it no’? I’ll no’ keep ye. Yon Jo-an’s leavin’ the morn, they’re tellin’ me?”
“Yes, I’m afraid she is. Now I simply must fly!”
Outside again, and beyond hearing of the post-mistress, Peggy said, “I like Mrs. Davidson, but she is a terror at times, isn’t she? Good-bye, Susan, and thank you for my lovely time.”
“Lovely time, my dear! Standing for hours in the cold because that lunatic Oliver thought he’d lost the key—”
“Well, it was fun. And I thought it was going to be such a dreary evening.”
Susan, as she walked away at a brisk pace, found herself rather in agreement with Mrs. Davidson’s outspoken sentiments regarding Mrs. Holden.
“Anyhow, she won’t hear the true story of the key,” thought Susan, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Jed will think it a huge joke and roar, but I don’t think Mrs. Holden’s sense of humour is very robust. She wouldn’t appreciate it at all.”
And then she felt suddenly remorseful, remembering that Mrs. Holden would be going back to a house heavy with death. For, even if she had not loved her husband, and somehow, love and Mrs. Holden did not seem to go together very well, yet she had been bound to him by ties of intimacy, of years under the same roof, even of petty annoyances, which all go to make up marriage.
“Poor Mrs. Holden!” she said again.
2
Peggy, speeding up the well-raked drive towards the Manse, did not think of Mrs. Holden at all. Her mind was concentrated on Jo-an, about whom she was still troubled, for the girl’s face looked as if she really had a secret, and a tragic one, when she fancied herself unobserved. Mrs. Davidson had reminded Peggy of the fact that Jo-an was leaving the Manse on the following day, and after that, what was going to become of her? Common sense assured Peggy that she was going home, to good if narrow-minded parents, and on the face of it anxiety seemed absurd; but Peggy had been brought up to a feeling of responsibility towards her father’s parishioners. She could not add the vague burden of her fears to Mrs. Cunningham’s cares, nor could she speak to Jo-an herself. Somehow Jo-an was quite unapproachable. Peggy, with a small shudder of distaste, was aware that her conscience told her she must tackle Ronald Graham. . . . However, as she realized thankfully, that could not be done to-day, she would have to wait until the next choir-practice. At present her business was to arrange the Infantry’s Hallowe’en party.
Her mind was full of a jumble of apples, nuts and turnip-lanterns as she flew into the house, dashing over the slippery linoleum of the hall with the ease of long use, and called.
“Mother! Where are you, Mother?”
A voice from upstairs answered her. “In my room. And Peggy, if you’re coming up, just bring Father’s best boots with you. I want to pack them. They’ll be in the Bootery.”
“To pack—?” Then Peggy remembered that her parents were going away for the night to Mr. Cunningham’s old parish to attend Hallowe’en festivities there.
“All right!” she called back. She opened the door of the Bootery, a small cupboard-like apartment off the hall, where the family’s outdoor shoes stood tidily on shelves, and waterproofs and umbrellas hung on their appointed hooks. The household lamps were trimmed and filled here, and the little room smelt of boot-polish, mackintosh, and paraffin. It had been one of Peggy’s pet refuges in childhood, and she still loved the strangely assorted odours for the memories they called up. This morning the Bootery was occupied by Bun, who sat curled up among the boots and shoes, a battered writing-pad on her knee, and a much-chewed yellow pencil clutched in her grubby right hand.
“Bun! It’s much too cold for you in here!” said Peggy, even while she hunted for the minister’s Sunday boots.
“It’s peaceful,” said Bun placidly. “An’ I’m making a poetry. Would you like to see it?”
“Of course I would. I’d love to.” Peggy dropped the boots and respectfully accepted a page, from the writing-pad on which was written in Bun’s laborious script four lines of verse.
The King has ridden away to Fife,
Becos he Wants to save his lif.
We all did see him Mount his Horse
But he doth take it very corse.
“There’s more to come. It’s a ballid,” Bun explained. “When I’m big I’m going to be a Littery Club like Miss Pringle.”
Peggy laughed. “Your poetry seems to me a great deal better than Miss Pringle’s,” she said.
Bun was suitably gratified. “I’ll write it out for you, one all to yourself.”
Leaving her to her congenial task, Peggy took the large black boots, beaming with faithful polishing, up to her mother’s room.
The well-known expanding suitcase of blue fibre stood on a chair, and Mrs. Cunningham was bending over it, stowing away sponge-bag, hair-brush and handkerchief sachet into vacant corners. Peggy knew that each shoe already packed held its neatly rolled pair of stockings, or the minister’s socks, or some other small uncrushable article.
“Here are Father’s boots, Mother,” she said.
“Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Cunningham p
lanted a somewhat absent-minded kiss on her daughter’s pink cheek. “I think he’d better wear them to travel in. Just put them down somewhere, so that he won’t forget to put them on. Last time he went in his old pair with a great patch on one, and I was so ashamed. Now, where did I put my bottle of lavender water? Do you see it anywhere, Peggy? The little flat one. It will just go nicely into this corner.”
Peggy sat down on the big bed and clasped her hands round one of the solid mahogany posts, watching her mother with mild interest.
“You always like to go back to Kirklaw, Mother, don’t you?”
“Indeed I do, Peggy. They give us such a welcome even yet that it nearly makes me cry. They thought the world of your father, and they’re more forthcoming in the West, less afraid of showing their feelings. You’ll not remember Kirklaw, of course, for Elspeth was only Bun’s age when we left, and Jim no bigger than Colin. . . .”
Peggy had heard this many times before, but though her parents’ often-repeated stories occasionally made her irritated and impatient, she listened now with a new interest, vaguely conscious that there was something stable and comforting about her mother’s gentle kindly reminiscing.
“You wouldn’t like to leave here, though, and go back, would you?” she asked.
Mrs. Cunningham shook her neat grey head. “No. It’s never the same, going back. We probably see it differently on a visit like this. Muirfoot is home to me now. You were born here, and we’ve been here longer than anywhere. . . . There, I think that’s everything. Peggy, you’re sure you can manage all right? Agnes is going out to-night, I promised her before I knew you would be alone; but you’ll have Jo-an, of course, and we’ll be back to-morrow.”
The Manse was strangely quiet after they had gone, for Peggy sent the Infantry out for a walk in the frosty afternoon sun with Jo-an, while she made ready for the party. At first she felt lonely and oppressed, but she was too busy for this mood of faint self-pity to last. Agnes brought the big wooden tub, half-filled with water, to the dining-room, and stood it on the floor in the bay-window, behind the long red curtains, to be ready when the time came. Then there were the red apples to be polished until their dark skins had the rich satiny gloss of old furniture. A basket of these and a great dish of nuts were put on the hall table for the village children who would come “guizarding” later in the evening. Turnip lanterns had to be made, too, and Peggy gouged out their soft interiors with a sharp knife as she chattered to Agnes in the warm kitchen. She was a child again herself, sniffing the sharp, sweet smell of the turnip pulp, carving grotesque faces on the tough, well-scrubbed yellow skins.
Susan Settles Down Page 21
