“Hullo, Kate, this is grand,” he said. “Henry, you young ass, unwind your dog.”
“She’s so pleased to see Kate. So am I,” Henry said, running round Kate in the opposite direction until she cried:
“Stop, Henry, you’re making me giddy!”
Henry came to a standstill with a reproachful sigh, and Virginia promptly wound her lead round Kate again. “There, you see,” said Henry. “Oh, I say, Kate, Father’s come to meet you, too, only he’s looking at the wrong end of the train. Hi, Father!” he raised his voice in full pitch, causing the few passengers and the entire railway stall, including the driver and fireman of the train, to look in his direction. “Father! Here she is!”
In the meantime Adam had quietly unfastened Virginia’s lead, and Kate walked out of the coils of stout leather, leaving the end trailing on the ground.
“Well, Kate, I’m more than glad to see you,” said Andrew, taking her hand in his warm and friendly clasp. “But I don’t need to tell you that.”
Kate looked at him by the dim oil-lamp flickering above them, and saw that his face, though worn and thin, had a more restful expression than she remembered in the autumn.
“I’m very glad to be here,” she said, and the squeeze she gave his hand said everything that her tongue never would or could.
“Let’s get out of here. There’s lots to do at home— and mistletoe to hang up, and all sorts,” said Adam, and they moved towards the covered stair, Henry still trailing the dogless lead behind them. Only after luggage had been collected, as well as various Christmassy boxes and parcels did he discover his loss.
“Virginia! Where’s Virginia!” he shouted. “Adam you fool, you untied her and she’s gone!”
“Look in the cab of the engine,” advised Andrew, and sure enough there was Virginia, happily sharing the fireman’s tea.
“Now perhaps we can go home,” said Adam, with an awful look at his younger brother, who, quite unmoved, was hugging Virginia under the very feet of the ticket-collector, to that official’s great amusement.
The short run in the car along the lighted road, the plunge through the dark, tree-shadowed drive, was over, and Kate was walking into the hall where she and Lucy had parted to very unpleasantly. She could forgive Lucy, if she did not try to make excuses for herself, but it would not he easy to forget: the hall at Soonhope would always have the effect on Kate of making her catch her breath when she first entered it. But it was not nearly so bad as she had expected. Lucy made no excuses at all, even her manner was calm and ordinary, her eyes betrayed no uneasiness. In fact, Kate thought with amusement, there was very little difference in her; and then she wondered what she had expected to find? The leopardess could never change her spots, and Lucy would always be a little dictatorial, a little lacking in humour, a little too ready to find fault. . . .
“But she’s kinder, I think,” Kate said to herself as she dressed for dinner with a pleasant fire to keep her company. “It may be only Christmas, of course, but perhaps she’ll get into the habit of it.”
“Kate,” said Henry suddenly, during a lull in the conversation at table that evening. “Kate, can you sing?”
“Sometimes. Why?” said Kate, for he seemed disappointed.
“Because you and Father have got to sing for the District Nurse at Charteris, and I thought if you didn’t want to, I would sing instead of you. I’ve got a new voice now. Bass.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Anne, while Kate was still puzzling out this strange need for music on the part of the District Nurse. “I’ve heard as much of your new bass voice as I can bear, and I’m sure nobody else wants to. It must be more than an octagon lower than any other human voice, and it sounds like a streptococcus calling to its young.”
As this remark seemed even more impossible to construe, Kate looked hopefully at Lucy, who was shaking her head at her younger son. “It isn’t exactly the way I should have chosen to ask you to do it, Kate,” she explained. “But as Henry has rushed in, will you sing at Charteris next week? Vera Charteris is getting up a concert to raise funds for the district nurse in their parish, and everyone has taken tickets and promised to come. The trouble is collected nearly enough performers.”
“I don’t think I sing well enough,” Kate began doubtfully. “Really, Lucy—”
“Andrew isn’t so marvellous himself, but we thought that if you and he could sing a duet it might be rather effective,” said Lucy. “Do say you will, Kate, and we can practise after dinner.”
“Yes, Kate, come on. I don’t mind making a fool of myself in company,” said Andrew cheerfully. “But I have flatly refused to sing a solo.”
“They should have asked me. I’d have sung them a solo, two or three solos, if they liked,” said Henry, with a disparaging glance at those whose services had been requested.
“Shut up,” said Adam, and added unkindly: “If you don’t eat your pudding pretty quickly you won’t have time for a second helping.”
Henry scraped all that was on his plate into one enormous spoonful, forced it into his mouth, and hurriedly helped himself from the dish which Nina was presenting at his left elbow. Then, swallowing with evident effort, he announced his intention of letting them all hear how he could sing Here’s A Health Unto His Majesty.
“With a fa-la-la la-la la LA?” asked Kate, while Lucy said firmly, “Not at table, Henry.”
“Father, you’d like to hear me, wouldn’t you?” said Henry, turning his shoulder to his mother. “You know mother doesn’t care about singing, but you—”
“Certainly not. Wait until we go to the drawing-room,” said Andrew hastily. “I shall feel stronger after a glass of port.”
“Port is very good for the vocal chords,” suggested Henry. “Do you think I’d better have some? It’s not that I like the stuff, but it’s good for my voice, and I expect you want to hear my bass at its very best, don’t you?”
“Best or worst makes very little difference,” was Adam’s brutal reply, while Anne was heard to murmur that really Henry gave himself airs enough for a prima donnerina or something.
Port being refused, the singer had to content himself with the grapes suggested by his mother as a substitute, of which he disdainfully ate the greater portion of a large bunch before leaving the dining-room.
After a suitable interval, Kate and Andrew proceeded to try various songs to Lucy’s accompaniment, while Anne and Adam played double-dummy bridge and Henry, lying on the hearth-rug, tried to curl his long nose into a shape indicative of scorn.
“That’s not bad,” he said finally, when they had decided that they could sing Leezie Lindsay and The Crookit Bawbee quite creditably. “I dare say the people at the concert at Charteris won’t mind it. And now I’ll sing. Mother, will you play for me?”
When he had made several false starts, each time blaming his mother for playing in a key either too high or too low to suit his capricious vocal chords, he began in a voice of such astonishing profundity that it sounded like a Saint Bernard’s growl, to wish A Health Unto His Majesty. In spite of manful efforts to remain bass, he emitted from time to time a shrill treble squeak very trying to the gravity of his audience, and Kate became really anxious for him as she watched his earnest youthful countenance slowly becoming more and more apoplectic in tint. However, he reached the end of his song without accident, and instantly demanded: “That’s a good bass, isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s certainly bass in bits,” said Adam with the air of one making a generous concession against his better judgment. “But I like the other bits better.”
Anne had given way to disgraceful laughter in which the others did not dare to join, though their lips twitched and their eyes watered.
Henry shrugged his shoulders. “‘The man that hath music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,’” he began, when Adam placed a large hand over his mouth.
“Less Shakespeare,” he said sternly, while from behind his hand came in incoherent mumble of ‘treason
s, stratagems and spoils.’
“It’s time for bed, Henry,” Lucy said hastily, and unfairly ended the evening as far as her younger son was concerned.
3
“Do you feel nervous, Father? I bet you feel nervous. You probably won’t be able to sing a note,” said Henry, in intervals of taking a fond farewell of Virginia and assuring her that he would not be away for long.
It was the night of the concert, and Andrew and the two boys were waiting in the billiard-room for Lucy, Kate, and Anne. Lady Charteris had invited them all to dinner, but, in response to the urgent pleas of the two performers, Lucy had refused, and they had had a light, early meal at Soonhope before starting for Charteris.
“I don’t feel nervous yet, but if you go on like this I shall be a wreck before we get there,” said Andrew, trying to convince himself that a curious dryness in his throat was pure imagination.
“When Wardlaw had to sing at the School Concert,” pursued Henry agreeably, “he was in such a funk that he just stood there in front of everyone opening and shutting his mouth like a fish. Gosh, he did look a fool! I hope you won’t look such a fool, Father.”
Unable to bear his younger son’s society any longer, Andrew went out into the hall. The front door was open, and Kate stood on the step, regardless of the frosty air.
‘‘You’ll get cold, Kate,” said Andrew, joining her. “And as Henry has already prophesied in my case, you won’t be able to sing.” His voice sounded husky, and he cleared his throat.
“Will you, Andrew? You sound like a frog,” said Kate, her own voice clear and composed.
“God knows. I used to have a habit of losing my voice entirely in times of stress, and it seems to me that it’s going to happen again to-night.”
“Splendid,” said Kate cheerfully. “Then I shan’t have to do my piece either. I won’t sing alone, and though I’m sure Henry is burning to offer himself as a substitute, I don’t propose to do it with him. You’d better go in. I want to look at the stars.”
Orion was mounting the south-eastern sky, the Pleiades twinkled confusingly overhead, the Plough ruled in the north. “I can see the papoose on the old squaw’s back. They are very clear to-night,” said Kate, turning unwillingly from their splendour as Lucy and Anne came downstairs.
“You idiots. Are you both quite mad?” asked Lucy, hurrying to the door and shutting it quickly and decisively. “I’ve ordered coffee, and we’ll have it now, just before we start. Andrew, I suppose you are driving Kate and Henry and me in the big car? Is Adam safe to take Anne in hers? She doesn’t want to drive herself in her new dress.”
“Perfectly safe,” croaked Andrew; and Lucy, without a word, fetched him a large glass of port, which she made him drink.
It was a long drive to Charteris, and Kate occupied the time by thinking of the lovely sight of the wild geese which she and Andrew had seen the evening before at Crookedshaws Loch. Shivering with cold in spite of many coats, they had crouched behind one of the small hides in the gathering dusk, hearing duck quacking on the water and gulls calling overhead, straining their ears for the first sound of geese. . . . At last, after a long wait, there had come the far crying that might have been hounds in the distance, the sound that, with drum-beats and the thud of horses’ hoofs coming up the straight and the maddening music of the pipes, is surely the most heart-stirring in all the world. Two geese appeared, black against the grey sky, honking to each other in turn, spying out the land for the rest. When they had settled on the water there was another pause, and then, faint but clear, the clamour of the flight approaching. That wild unceasing crying brought tears of excitement to Kate’s eyes, she was clutching Andrew’s sleeve to keep herself from calling out. Suddenly she had seen them, the black symmetrical wedge, the great wings beating, the sharp-eyed heads thrust forward on long necks. Skein after skein came in, blackening the evening sky, and to their loud music was added the steady, windy throb of thousands of powerful wings. They passed overhead, the air alive with their voices, and landed with a crash on the steely surface of the loch. Shortly after that Andrew had given her the sign to move softly away, and Kate remembered how surprising it was to hear the splashing of water, the low continuous contented gaggling murmur that issued from those same birds’ throats. She smiled, sitting silent beside Lucy in her corner of the car, glad that she would always have it to think about. It was too beautiful to miss. And there had been more. As they had crossed the mile of bleak moor to the road where they had left the car, Andrew had quoted to her from a poem of Housman, something about a ‘land of lost content,’ and she had disagreed with him, saying that she thought that content belonged to childhood and inexperience, and that no one would really wish to be there again. “You know you wouldn’t have kept that lost content at the expense of never having met your Elizabeth,” she had told him.
“No, I wouldn’t, Kate. And I have won to a different sort of content, after all,” he said, adding, “Elizabeth’s gone out to Rhodesia to some cousins. I don’t expect she’ll ever come back to this country. Did you know that Robin had asked her to marry him? He’s a chivalrous old ass.”
“Chivalrous? Why, he’s in love with her.” Kate could almost hear her own voice again, sharp with the pain brought by knowledge of that love.
“Was in love with her. I’m pretty sure he isn’t now, you know. I think myself that he’s been out of love—with her—for ages,” Andrew had replied with a calm certainty which defied doubt. It had remained with Kate ever since, strangely comforting, though she told herself angrily that it really made no difference to Robin’s feelings for her. If any: she doubted if he had any, or else why couldn’t he have written or done something after she had gone home? No, the real truth was that all her attraction for him had been that supposed resemblance to Elizabeth Fardell. . . .
“Here we are at last,” said Lucy. “I hope you aren’t cold, Kate? It’s such a long way on a dark night.”
And Kate, who felt as if they had only left Soonhope a moment before, found that the car had stopped at a great doorway at the head of an imposing flight of wide stone steps. The whole front of the big palladian house was blazing with lights, cars were parked in rows at the edge of the wide gravelled sweep, and more were coming up behind them.
“Lucy,” said Andrew in a hoarse whisper, pulling her aside as they entered a warm bright circular inner hall, delicately scented by great banks of hot-house flowers, gay with the crimson berries and glossy leaves of holly. “Do you hear? My voice has gone completely. For God’s sake keep Henry away from me. If he offers me another throat pastille I’ll fell him. Can they do without our turn? Kate’s and mine, I mean?”
“Andrew, how tiresome. I don’t think they can,” Lucy said anxiously. “In fact I am sure they can’t. I am so sorry about your voice, but how maddening of it to fail you now.”
“I’m dashed glad!” whispered her husband. “Look here, Lucy, get hold of Robin and tell him to sing those songs with Kate, he can do it far better than me. Only don’t let Kate know, or she’ll get nervous. Just let her think I’m singing as arranged. Can do?”
“Leave it to me,” said Lucy, a gleam of understanding in her eyes. “I’ll see to it. Andrew, do you mean that Robin—and Kate—?”
He nodded. “Looked uncommonly like it in the autumn. This will be a chance for them,” he croaked.
“I’m glad Kate is looking so well to-night,” said Lucy with satisfaction. “All right, Andrew. You keep out of the way and I’ll see to everything.”
She flitted off to find Lady Charteris, and Kate, thankful to hear the last of Henry’s tales about chaps who had forgotten the words of their songs as soon as they stepped to the platform, went to a small room where the other performers had been marshalled by Sybil Charteris, who was dressed for the Spanish dance she was to do presently. Anne, seizing the reluctant Henry by the arm, dragged him to the ballroom, which had been filled with a mixed collection of every chair in the house for the concert, while large curtains drap
ed in front of the small orchestra platform had transformed it into a stage for the occasion.
Henry, provided with a supply of sweets bought from some of the younger Charteris’s, who were selling them as a side-line, settled down to stern and critical enjoyment of the entertainment, after pointing out to Anne in his loudest whisper that the stage at school had footlights and was at least three times as big as the one here. A spirited performance of The Bathroom Door merely drew from him the comment that if he’d been taking part in it he could have showed them how to do it; and he then sat in silent but restless misery through a violin solo, the Spanish dance, and a great many songs and recitations.
As the moment approached for The Crookit Bawbee, he became alert and interested. “I bet Father’ll be in too big a funk to sing,” he hissed to Anne through a large mouthful of nougat. “He should have let me do it.”
“Hsssh!” said Anne.
The curtains were pulled back to show Lucy at the piano.
“I told you so,” said Henry. “They’ve both funked it.”
He did not know, of course, that Lady Charteris, to spare the nervous duettists the ordeal of standing side by side on the platform facing their listeners while the opening chords were played, had arranged for them to enter from opposite doors to the first bars of the music. So it happened that the unsuspecting Kate came in and found herself face to face with, and already singing to, Robin Anstruther. She faltered and almost turned back, thinking that there had been some mistake in the programme, but fortunately, before she could move, Robin’s excellent voice was asking her, without a tremor, to the familiar tune: “Oh, whereawa’ got ye that auld crookit penny?”
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