Dear Hugo

by Molly Clavering

  “There’s a leddy down at the house ringing away at yer door bell,” he told me genially.

  Another caller! I could have wished the shepherd had not seen me, or that he had kept quiet about the lady at my door; but of course I had to thank him, gather my papers and my little cushion—a hayfield is too prickly to sit on in comfort—and make my way back to Piper’s Cottage.

  As I came round the end of the house the first thing I saw was two long silk legs apparently hanging out of the sitting-room window. The body attached to them was invisible, but a rather muffled voice was remarking:

  “She’s got some jolly nice china, anyway!”

  “Sylvia, will you come out at once? I am ashamed of you!” said another voice, also female, but considerably older than the owner of the legs, in an agitated whisper.

  “Well, if she isn’t in, why can’t I have a look?” demanded the legs’ owner reasonably.

  “I shall never bring you out calling with me again!” the other voice vowed, and then I saw a plump little lady like a partridge, and dressed in brown, also like a partridge, come from under the honeysuckle of the porch.

  “Oh dear!” she exclaimed when she saw me. “Oh dear! Miss Monteith—it is Miss Monteith? What can I say? I do apologise for—”

  “Golly! She’s here all the time!” The legs gave a violent twitch, came together neatly on the path, and the top half of Sylvia appeared from inside the open window. She seemed endless as she wriggled herself upright, and she was very tall and lanky in her grey flannel suit when she finally faced me, pink with effort and embarrassment, her eyes and mouth three large round O’s.

  Though my hair must have been full of hay, and I was almost as untidy as when Miss Bonaly caught me, I felt that this time I was in command of the situation.

  “How do you do? How nice of you to call,” I said. “Won’t you come in?” And I added, “By the door,” as the long-legged Sylvia seemed to be eyeing the window longingly.

  The poor little partridge was fluttering and still piping apologies as we all went into the sitting-room.

  “I do hope you will forgive Sylvia! She is such an impulsive child! But really—a first call, too! Such a bad impression—”

  “Oh, Mother!” said Sylvia indulgently, and gave me a look which was practically a wink. “You don’t mind frightfully, do you?” she said to me.

  “Not in the least,” I told her—and it was true, I didn’t mind. “I hope you’ll stay and have some tea?”

  “Oh, well—I don’t think—” began the partridge, but her daughter cut in ruthlessly. “Yes, please, we’d love to!” she cried. “And will you show us the house? I do so want to see it?”

  “After tea,” I said very firmly.

  Sylvia responded to firmness like a well-trained gun-dog, but wanted to help me to make the tea.

  It was rather difficult to explain that she and I could hardly go away and leave her mother in lonely splendour in the sitting-room, so I took them both to the tiny dining-room, which used to be the cottage kitchen, but now has an even tinier scullery off it, just big enough to hold a sink and a gas-cooker.

  Sylvia was delighted to play about in there, putting on the kettle and filling the milk-jug, while I laid the table and talked to her mother at the same time.

  Beyond a cup of tea and sometimes a biscuit I never bother about this unnecessary meal which breaks into an afternoon, so I am afraid the tea did not come anywhere near Ravenskirk standards—as outlined by Miss Bonaly.

  I said something apologetic about this—without mentioning Miss B., naturally—but Sylvia disagreed, in muffled tones, for her mouth was full of hot buttered toast and Gentleman’s Relish, and she was spreading another piece as she spoke.

  (Fortunately it happens to be what Mr. Gowans, the grocer, calls “the big butter week,” so I had a quarter of a pound. It didn’t seem likely that there would be much of it left by the time Sylvia had done with it. However, if the child was hungry and enjoying her food, I was glad.)

  “This is much more fun than the usual stuffy tea-parties in Ravenskirk,” she announced. “They’re terrible, honestly they are!”

  “Sylvia dear,” murmured her mother. “You will give Miss Monteith a very bad impression of Ravenskirk.” She turned to me: “Have many people called for you yet?”

  “Called for—oh, I see. Only Miss Bonaly, until you came,” I said.

  “A call from Miss Bonaly’s enough to give anyone a bad impression of the place and the people,” said Sylvia.

  “Have one of these shortbread biscuits,” I suggested, passing them to her in a hurry. And to stop the reproaches which I was sure her mother was going to pour out, I said,

  “You know, it sounds very silly, but I don’t know your name yet.”

  The poor little partridge was dreadfully upset. From her torrent of self-abuse mingled with plaints that Sylvia’s tomboyish ways would make her forget her own name soon, I picked out the fact that she was Mrs. Currie from Templerig, on the other side of the village, which her husband farmed, and that he was coming to fetch them when he got home from some lamb sales.

  “We could have come in the Land Rover,” put in Sylvia. “But mother won’t let me drive her, so we had to walk.”

  Mrs. Currie, with a shudder, said she would rather walk twenty miles on her flat feet than be driven two by Sylvia.

  I thought it was time I showed them the rest of the house.

  Piper’s Cottage is surprisingly large inside; upstairs there are two quite good bedrooms, a slip of a place hardly bigger than a cupboard, and a bathroom. True, the bedrooms are cam-ceiled and if one is tall it is easy to bang one’s head near the windows; but the Curries thought—or at least said—that it was delightful. Sylvia particularly admired the bathroom—and it is a very good bathroom, I admire it myself! And Mrs. Currie ceased to twitter and became extremely sensible about cupboards, and made one or two practical suggestions for saving space.

  When they left, summoned by tremendous blasts on the horn by Mr. Currie from the gate, Mrs. Currie started to twitter again,

  “We mustn’t keep Father waiting, Sylvia—he’s too shy to come in, thank you all the same, Miss Monteith—and goodness me, it’s half-past six. What will you be thinking of us? Fancy staying so long, and a first call too!”

  It must be very trying to live in such a state of constant agitation. I assured her that the time had passed so quickly that it seemed quite a short visit, but I’m afraid her sense of social fitness was too grievously disturbed for such comfort.

  At the last moment, when Sylvia had fled out to stop her male parent’s wasting his battery on the unnecessary use of his horn, Mrs. Currie’s real kindness rose above her propriety. She took both my hands in hers and said: “Now, my dear, don’t you come tramping all the way over to Templerig to return this call. We’ll fix a day for you to come to tea instead.”

  Because I like the little partridge, I fixed a day, only asking that she would not think it necessary to have a tea-party for me. Her face fell, but she agreed, and we parted on very good terms.

  Sylvia came flying back to say breathlessly: “It’s been lovely! Thank you most awfully!” And then two strides of her long legs took her out to the gateway and into the car, and the Currie family bumped away down the lane.

  I went into the scullery and washed up the tea-things, the tiresome aftermath of even the simplest entertainment at home in these days. Sylvia had eaten practically all the butter ration, but though I dislike margarine, I did not grudge her the butter, or at least, not as I would have grudged it to Miss Bonaly!

  *

  I feel very much ashamed of grumbling about my butter, for this morning, when I came back from a shopping expedition in the village, I found a mysterious parcel on the shady corner of the door-step: half a pound of real farm butter with a little note from Mrs. Currie to say that she knew it must be very difficult to manage on one ration-book, and she hoped I would accept this; it was her own churning.

  Really,
a very kind and thoughtful partridge! I prefer to think that she, rather than Miss Bonaly, is typical of Ravenskirk society, but I have no first-hand evidence, because though several other people have called, I have not seen them. If you suspect that I deliberately avoided seeing them, Hugo, I must confess that you are right. Every afternoon I have taken to the hills like any Covenanter until the hour for paying calls is safely over. There is only one I regret having missed: a Mrs. Keith, who had written on her card in a shaky old lady’s hand that she sent it by her table-maid, as she was no longer able to call in person. . . . You and Ivo used to know her, I am sure. Indeed, I have a recollection of Ivo’s once telling me about going to tea with Mrs. Keith at Ladymount and being allowed under the strawberry nets to forage at will. I must return her call at once. Until I came to Ravenskirk, I thought that calling on newcomers was extinct. I’m sure it is everywhere else; and it really is a tyrannous custom. I am groaning in spirit at the prospect of having to put on my best bib and tucker and sallying out to leave cards on all the owners of these nasty little slips of pasteboard with unknown names engraved on them in copperplate! Do you remember poor Jo being dragged out by Amy to pay calls, in Good Wives? No, of course you don’t. Why should you? Boys don’t read Good Wives—nor do many girls, nowadays, more’s the pity.

  Yet, though I feel quite as rebellious as Jo, I see that there is something rather pleasant and friendly about calling, and it has an old-fashioned, Cranford-ish fragrance like the lavender just coming into flower beside my door, a reminiscence of more leisured days before radio and television were invented to alter the world our grandparents lived in beyond recognition.

  How far this letter has wandered from its starting point and gone rambling off down unexpected paths at unexpected length! Was it because you expected this to happen that you suggested, when you asked me to write to you, that I should not send my letters by air mail? If the present effort is a fair sample of the rest, you were not only wise but thoughtful for my pocket. Anyhow I shall keep to our arrangement: this shall go off on its sea-trip, and yours in return will fly, so that there won’t be such a very long time-lag between our letters.

  For this mail, then, Hugo, good-bye.

  CHAPTER II

  JULY, 1951

  A great deal has happened since I last wrote to you, Hugo, so much that I must tell you about it as shortly as I can, or I shall never be able to carry out my promise to let you know how Ravenskirk and its affairs progress. . . .

  My only remaining relative is a first cousin, Rex Kincaid, who was left a widower with a small child of three—a boy—when his wife Marjorie was killed during the bad blitzes on London in 1940. Rex has married again recently, and I must say I think it is a very good thing for him. He is still comparatively young, very lively and gregarious, and to spend all the rest of his life as a lonely widower would be miserable. It is delightful that he met his pretty young Lizbeth and married her; but—yes, there is a but, and it is young Arthur Kincaid, now thirteen years old. He just doesn’t fit into the new household, and when the expected baby arrives there will be less room for him than ever. It is easy to blame Rex and his Lizbeth for this, but not altogether fair, for the boy and his father have seen so little of one another that they are practically strangers. Rex was abroad with the army until 1946, and since then has been travelling all over the world for his firm, leaving Arthur to Marjorie’s parents. Naturally when Rex married again and found himself settled in London with the prospect of staying there for some time, he took a flat and announced to Arthur’s grand-parents that he could now make a home for his son.

  Apparently everything went wrong from the start. The boy, wretched at being taken away from the only place and people he really knew, was sullen and rude. Lizbeth, who has no brothers and does not like boys, once they have ceased to be babies, may have tried to make friends with Arthur; indeed, I am sure she tried, for she is a nice creature, and has a conscience; but she did not succeed. Rex, busy and impatient, made nothing of him either. In the meantime, the old grandmother died, and the grandfather, who has been going gently dotty for some years, was pushed over the boundary line of sanity by losing her, and is now in a home.

  Matters were at this stage, and the prospect of the summer holidays was filling Rex with angry dread and upsetting Lizbeth, who is rather temperamental at present on account of the baby, when his firm suddenly offered Rex a very good executive job in U.S.A. Rex is delighted, it is right up his street. He knows and likes Washington, where he has many acquaintances, he is a good mixer, he likes the American way of life; in fact, everything in the garden is lovely—except for Arthur.

  Of course you will have gathered by this time, Hugo, where I come into this. Yes, Rex has asked me to look after Arthur. Oh, it has all been most carefully arranged: school fees are to be paid through his lawyers, and I am to draw on them for any expenses in connection with Arthur. It is quite sensible, if it seems a little cold-blooded. Rex wants the boy brought up in this country, he is already entered for his public-school near Edinburgh, where he will go in a year’s time. And though I think that a female first cousin once-removed is a poor substitute for a family, at least Arthur will find himself the man of the house at Piper’s Cottage.

  I went up to Edinburgh last Sunday—mercifully his prep. school is there, so it is within reach—to take him out, rather in fear and trembling, but it went off all right, I think. We were both on our best behaviour, and quite painfully polite. He struck me as being more bewildered and unhappy than sullen, and showed no interest in the coming holidays.

  So I did not tell him anything about Ravenskirk. I hope he will discover for himself that it is a good place for boys to run wild.

  Only at the very end, as we were going back in a taxi to school, he suddenly said: “Are there many birds at Ravenskirk, Cousin Sara?”

  “Birds?” I said rather stupidly.

  “Yes. Wild birds. I’m interested in birds. I’m an orthinologist.”

  It looks to me, Hugo, as though I shall have to be interested in birds too, from now on! Up to date I have only looked at them rather vaguely. I know the larger birds, and tits and finches are easy because of their distinctive colouring, but when it comes to all those sparrows, buntings, warblers (Arthur calls them wobblers in all seriousness), I am apt to lump them together as “little birds.” With less than a month until the holidays, I shall have to do some intensive reading on the subject.

  Seriously, Hugo, this coming of Arthur has given me an object in life—and ought to satisfy even Miss Bonaly! To make a home for a boy is surely an excellent reason for choosing to buy and live in Piper’s Cottage. And I was beginning to wonder how an able-bodied woman like myself was going to occupy her time. Settling here was the result of an impulse which I do not regret, but once my mind as well as my body was settled, I did feel it was rather an aimless selfish existence for me. No one has any business to sit down with folded hands and say that their lives are spoiled because they have lost the dearest thing in them. I have only said this to you, but I have thought it to myself far too often, and acted upon it; and I feel ashamed of having been so poor-spirited.

  To prove that I have turned over a new leaf, this morning I went and looked at Ivo’s name on the War Memorial which stands in the main street on the site of the old Mercat Cross, that Cross which the zeal of the reformers made headless almost four hundred years ago. . . . I have never been able to make myself really look at it before, and I am sorry now, for I felt so proud when I saw it graven there: Lt. Cdr. Ivo Jamieson, R.N.V.R. It is a pity that they have forgotten to put his D.S.C. after his name, but perhaps it does not matter very much. I have his cross and ribbon—how can I ever thank you enough for sending it to me, Hugo? It must have cost you a great deal to part with it, but you know that I treasure it and always will.

  I was standing quietly looking at the plain stone column with the town’s crest at the top, reading the names that figure on it with Ivo’s, in alphabetical order, and never imagining th
at anyone would notice me.

  I did not allow for the eagle-keenness of eye possessed by some of Ravenskirk’s inhabitants! Suddenly a sharp voice said in my ear: “Admiring our little War Memorial, Miss Monteith?”

  It was Miss Bonaly, of course. I jumped a bit, as who wouldn’t, startled at such a moment, and she promptly wagged a bony forefinger at me, saying, “Tut-tut! How nervy all you young people are nowadays!” And fixing me with an eye like a gimlet, she added: “You seemed to be so engrossed that we couldn’t help wondering if you knew one of the names on the roll of honour.”

  I shook my head. Nothing would have induced me to tell her that one name there meant everything in the world. “Just—looking,” I mumbled.

  She was a little disappointed, but rallied at once. “Have you met my friend Miss Garvald who lives next door to me? She called for you the other day, but you were out.” (This in a tone of extreme disapproval.)

  Miss Garvald offered me a flabby hand. She was altogether rather flabby, like a haddock which has been left lying too long on a fishmonger’s slab, and she had a haddock’s lacklustre eyes, peering out under a mass of untidy yellow-grey hair.

  I was very glad I had been out when she called, and hoped that she would not be at home when I paid my duty return visit! But people like Miss Garvald are almost certain to be at home, no matter how fine the afternoon, unless they are out having tea with friends of their own sort.

  *

  Of course she was in, and as I had left her to the last, and been lucky enough to find all the other people not at home, I arrived on her bright red doorstep just at tea-time, and could not in decency refuse the cup she pressed on me so fervently. In the cluttered and suffocatingly hot little drawing-room of Miramar—yes, Miramar, though the nearest sea must be thirty miles away—I found Miss Garvald’s mother, a jolly old soul like King Cole, and rather like his pictures in the nursery rhyme too, being red and round. She was totally different from her dreary daughter, as those lively old mothers so often are. I wonder why? Is it that mamma’s constant joviality has a depressing effect when lived with? Or is it just nature evening things out—so much liveliness, so much dismal flabbiness per family, and if mother has all the one, daughter must have all the other?