Yoked with a Lamb

by Molly Clavering

  “Gosh, Anne, do you see? There’s been a mix-up,” muttered Henry, squirming delightedly. “Robin’s gatecrashed their song!”

  “Be quiet,” said Anne savagely.

  Surprise and indignation did Kate a good turn by robbing her entirely of nervousness, and though she glared at Robin in a most unloverlike way, she sang so well that she astonished herself.

  “Where’s Andrew?” she asked him crossly, almost before the curtain had fallen on polite clapping and a burst of tumultuous applause raised by Henry in support of what he obviously considered the home team. “Have I got to sing the other song with you, too?”

  “I’m afraid you have. Andrew’s voice had packed up,” said Robin. “Do you mind? How do you do, by the way?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t mind at all. Only I think I might have been warned. How do you do?” said Kate, all in the same chill, uninterested tone.

  It had been bad enough to sing the song of love that had waited faithfully, with him, but she thought that Leezie Lindsay would probably be even more embarrassing, consisting as it did of a proposal, maidenly hesitation, and a coy acceptance. “Anyhow, I’m looking nice,” she consoled herself, remembering how pleased she had been for once with her reflection in the long glass. She was wearing a stiff gown of green, watered silk lent her by Lucy, with long, tight sleeves, and on her head a wreath of holly berries and green leaves, which, Henry told her, made her look like Santa Claus, but suited her very well.

  “I’ll play up to him this time. He took me by surprise with The Crookit Bawbee, but I’ll show him that he can’t have it all his own way,” she thought, and went on to the platform again, determined to do her best—or worst.

  And when Robin, in the character of Lord Ronald MacDonald, besought her to ‘gang tae the Hielands’ with him, she gave a display of girlish surprise, tinged with the pleasure of conquest, which convulsed the watching Andrew and delighted the rest of the audience.

  ‘Poor old Rob,’ he thought. ‘He’s being put through the hoop now, all right. I never would have thought that Kate could be such an outrageous flirt.’

  He teased her with it on the way home, but Kate took it very coolly. “I think you and I did it better together,” she said. “Of course all that coquettishness was just part of the song. It would have been very dull if I hadn’t done it.”

  “It wasn’t half-bad, Kate,” said Henry in a voice in which condescension strove with yawns. “Not that you wouldn’t have been better off with me as Lord Ronald—” but here an indignant chorus cut him short, and he had to resort to growling: “Will ye gang tae the Hielands, Katy-Waty?” in his best bass, this transposing of names affording him exquisite pleasure at his own subtle wit.

  Kate could have dispensed with this reminder of the words Robin had sung to her with such melting ardour, but they rang in her head even after she had gone to bed, and kept her awake for quite a long time. Nor was it helpful to a calm and disinterested frame of mind to be greeted next morning, as she went to her bath, by the same song rendered by Henry, who had stolen in ahead of her, and was now lustily carolling: “Will ye gang tae the Hielands, Katy Waty?” as he wallowed and splashed.

  Deciding to do without a bath until later in the day, Kate beat a hasty retreat; but it was no better downstairs, where his offspring were assuring Andrew that Robin’s voice was streets ahead of his, and that he would not have done nearly so well.

  “I’m going for a walk, Lucy,” she said, shortly after breakfast, putting her head round the parlour door. “Until luncheon, unless you want me. Any messages?”

  “Oh, Kate, I’ve got some New Year presents for Mrs. Anstruther and those horrible Milligans. Would you hate to leave them at their doors, like an angel?” Lucy sprang up and found three neat parcels wrapped in white paper and girdled with coloured ribbon. “Tablet for Mrs. Anstruther, she’s so fond of this special kind, and a pair of gloves for Miss Milligan as a hint not to wear those thread ones, and a really very ugly little hug-me-tight for ‘Mamma’ who doesn’t deserve anything at all.”

  Kate laughed, took the parcels, and went out. It was the last day of the year, and the grey skies seemed to regret its passing, as they hung low above tree-tops and roots. She delivered Mrs. Anstruther’s parcel to the grenadier, who actually achieved a smile as she announced that ‘the mistress’ was resting until midday. Kate was not sorry that she had not seen Mrs. Anstruther, she did not want to meet those sharp black eyes at the moment. But she had to endure a prolonged and searching examination when she reached Mrs. Milligan’s house in Pettycraw Street, for Mima, without taking the presents from her, turned and ran to fetch Miss Milligan. Only too well did she know what a scolding she would get if neither of her mistresses saw Miss Heron.

  “So very kind of dear Lucy,” said Miss Milligan ecstatically, as she clasped the parcels to her meagre bosom. “Please tell her how much we appreciate her thought for us at this time, Kate.”

  “I will, with pleasure,” said Kate. “I hope Mrs. Milligan is well?” (‘And able to enjoy gossip as usual,’ she added inwardly.)

  “Mamma is quite wonderful, thank you,” said her daughter with pride. “She is thinking of taking up contract bridge. At her age! She has a most alert and brilliant mind, and this, I hope, will be a real interest to her, though for my part, I shall continue to play whist. I find all that declaring of trumps so difficult to follow . . . Must you go? Well, I won’t keep you. No doubt you are meeting someone?”

  “No one. I’m going for a walk by myself,” said Kate hastily, and went quickly along the street.

  Miss Milligan stood in her doorway looking after her. So many odd things had been whispered about Kate Heron, it had been said that Lucy wouldn’t have her at Soonhope because of Andrew. But that must be untrue, since there Kate was, and singing at a concert at Charteris last evening, and of course dear Lady Charteris would be the last woman to allow anyone about whom scandal had been talked to enter her house. So perhaps the story about Kate and Robin Anstruther walking about Haystoun in the middle of the night was all a fabrication also? ‘I hope so, I am sure,’ thought Miss Milligan, watching Kate’s straight back, now almost out of sight at the end of the street. ‘Such a pity when a girl gets talked about, and of course there could have been nothing in it, when Robin is still in love with that Mrs. Fardell.’ She sighed, however, as she turned to go in and pour out a glass of Wincarnis for Mamma. It would be very dull if there was nothing and no one left to talk about!

  4

  Kate walked out of Haystoun by the bridge over Alewater, and took a road leading to the hills. It seemed to her, now that she had seen Robin again, that it would have been easier after all if she had not. The dull ache in her heart had quickened to a sharper pain, for she had had forgotten what he looked like, and now his picture was far too clear in her memory for peace. She was glad that, when her father and mother, who were arriving at Soonhope in time for tea, went home again in a few days, she would be going with them. It only made her restless to be here. . . . And yet, in spite of all this, the cool air soothed her to a vague dreamy happiness as she walked quickly up the deserted road, noticing the lovely shapes of the bare trees, the brilliant green of moss about their roots, where everything else was brown. All of a sudden she found that she was humming Leezie Lindsay, and her face flamed.

  “Kate Heron, you’re nothing but a fool,” she said angrily. “A silly old song that doesn’t mean a thing to you.”

  A robin, hopping close beside her, cocked his head to listen, decided that he did not care for the sound of her voice, and flew away in disgust; and Kate, who always noticed birds, did not even see him go. When she roused herself and saw where she was, she was astonished to find how far she had walked, for she was now on the track which the road had dwindled to, at the foot of the Lammermuirs. As if to compensate her for her energy, the sun suddenly came out from a wreath of cloud, and shed a pale, wintry light on the bare hillside, discovering a single blossom on a clump of whins growing at the side of
the rough path. Kate realized that she was warm, that the day was unseasonably mild, and that she had walked far enough, and sat down on a large stone to look at the hills.

  And there, after a few minutes more peaceful thought, she was disturbed by a footstep, quick and decided, and looked over her shoulder to see Robin Anstruther.

  “Kate,” he said at once, without any show of surprise. “I thought I’d find you here. I was in at the farm down the road and saw you pass, so I came after you. Will you marry me?”

  Kate gasped, but quickly recovered herself, though the hills were jumping up and down in a most peculiar way. “Is this because you haven’t a housekeeper—oh, yes, I’ve heard all about Mrs. MacOstrich and why she went away—or because I remind you of Mrs. Fardell?”

  “Neither, oddly enough,” he said. “You know, you ought to marry a man who will beat you when you’re tiresome. I’m the man.”

  “Really?” said Kate, raising her eyebrows. “Is this romance? They do it better on the films.”

  “Kitty, don’t torment me,” said Robin, still looking down at her without coming any nearer. “Won’t you come with me—not to the Hielands, but to Pennymuir?”

  “Your—your bride and your darling to be?” asked Kate flippantly, but her voice stumbled over the words.

  “Yes. Just that.”

  “Well, will you promise never to laugh at me any more?” asked Kate.

  “Of course I won’t make any such silly promise. I’ll always laugh at you. Don’t you rather like it, my funny dear?” said Robin, and now he did step forward. He put his arms round her, pulled her up off the stone, held her closely to him. “Don’t you like it, Kate—darling?”

  “You big stupid, I believe I do,” said Kate quite angrily, and then had neither time nor breath to speak because of his long kisses.

  At the touch of his lips all her doubts and unhappiness melted away. She did not care whether he had loved Elizabeth Fardell or not, for now he loved her, Kate Heron, and she would be his all the rest of her life, to love and quarrel with and make it up again. . . .

  “Oh, Robin! Your eyes are blue!” she said rather breathlessly, when he had held her a little way from him and was looking at her slowly and carefully as if he had never seen her before.

  “Sort of greyish, I thought. Is it important?”

  “Frightfully. And not greyish. Quite blue, nice and dark, almost navy-blue. That’s very satisfactory. I have always preferred blue-eyed men, and I thought yours were brown or something.”

  “Your own are brown with green bits.”

  “That’s why I like yours to be blue,” Kate explained patiently. Then she laughed. “I’ve thought of a much more suitable song than Leezie Lindsay,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “Kind Robin lo’es me,” said Kate impudently.

  “You hussy. And do you lo’e kind Robin?”

  “Not at all. What an absurd idea. I’m marrying you for an establishment and because I’ve always wanted to live near Lammerlaw.”

  “Darling, I’ll sell Yennymuir and take you to a nice little house in Haystoun, preferably next-door to Mrs. Milligan.”

  “Very well, Robin,” said Kate meekly.

  He shook her. “Don’t dare to be meek with me. And—er—it’s customary for a young woman to use a few endearments when addressing her fiancé.”

  Kate looked piteous, and to his horror he saw her eyes fill with tears. “I—I can’t,” she said. “I’ve always scattered ‘darlings’ and ‘dears’ over everyone I’m fond of, and now when I want to call you all of them I don’t seem able to get it out. But, ok, Robin, Robin darling, I’ve always thought them about you!”

  Robin laughed. “My absurd sweetheart, bless you for thinking them. But you’ve done very nicely for a start, you know. You called me darling just this minute.”

  “So I did. How clever of me,” said Kate gaily. “I believe it’s going to be rather fun being married to you, Robin. You’re so encouraging!”

  5

  They were all gathered in the billiard-room at Soonhope, watching the minute-hand of the clock moving over the last minutes to midnight. Henry, wild with excitement and inflated with success, for he had sung straight through two songs without producing a single treble note, was assisting in the brewing of a huge bowl over which Andrew, Greystiel Heron, and Robin were all hanging “like the witches in Macbeth,” said Kate.

  “How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!” cried Henry instantly, overjoyed at the aptness of the quotation. “And you see, Mother, it is midnight, or very nearly, isn’t it?”

  “Not too much lemon, Drew,” murmured Greystiel Heron, stirring the concoction with a large ladle and an air of happy absorption.

  “Do you think Virginia would like a little drop of punch, as I helped to make it, Mother?” asked Henry. “I don’t like her to be left out of things, it hurts her feelings, Mother.”

  “I doubt if she would enjoy it, Henry,” said his mother, but she smiled at him. It seemed to Lucy that life was beginning to run smoothly again for them all at Soonhope, though she knew now that Andrew’s heart was lost to her, if indeed she had ever really had it, yet she could rely always on his steady affection. It was as much as she deserved, she thought, with a humility which was good for her, though she would never let anyone else know that she had grown humbler than she used to be. . . . Anne and Grey sat side by side on a sofa, speechless, a dead loss to the party as far as other were concerned, they scarcely realized that there were other people in the room at all. . . . Mrs. Barlas was happy, her daughter, her nephew who was like her own son, and her old friend Mrs. Anstruther, all within sight, and the younger ones rushing in and out of the billiard-room marshalling the maids and the Pows at the doorway to bring in the New Year.

  Perhaps Greystiel Heron and his wife were not looking forward so much to the New Year, when both their son and daughter would marry and leave the shabby old house that was still home to them; but they knew there was no help for it, and hid their feelings successfully, except from each other and Kate. Kate knew, and hovered about them in turn, neglecting Robin to such a degree that Anne was horrified and Adam said approvingly: “Thank goodness Kate‘s sensible. There’s nothing of this sickly lovey-dovey business about her and Robin.”

  Kate, overhearing, and knowing just how little sensible she was, laughed and looked at Robin across the room. At once, as if she had touched him, he looked back, and she was content.

  Henry began to carry the steaming glasses round, with one eye on the clock, the inevitable result being that he left a trail of punch behind him on the carpet.

  “Be quick. Oh, do be quick!” he said in an agony of impatience. “Or it’ll be New Year before everyone’s got some!”

  “This will be so good for my arthritis,” murmured Mrs. Anstruther, accepting a slopping glass. “But I must drink to a happy and prosperous year for all, especially Robin and Kate.”

  Everyone in the room, and the servants clustered in the doorway, were served just as the clock began to strike.

  “A good New Year to one and all!” cried Andrew, raising his glass, and they all drank with a sudden solemnity silencing them for the moment. Then an orgy of kissing broke out, interrupted by a shrill yell of outraged modesty from Florence, whose cheek had been gallantly saluted by Geordie Pow.

  “Now Auld Long Syne! We must do the thing properly, so that I can tell the fellows next term how it’s done,” said Henry, seizing Mrs. Anstruther by one hand and Mrs. Pow’s May by the other. Thus urged on, they all formed a circle and led by the celebrated bass voice, sang the time-honoured words.

  Kate, between her father and Robin, sang mechanically, looking round her as if to fix the scene on her memory. There was Florence with her cap over one eye, Geordie Pow elated by punch, Mrs. Pow unmoved as ever. There was Mrs. Anstruther, her sharp eyes rather dim, dear Granny crying with a smiling face, her mother, so pretty, clutched by Grey’s large hand, who had the love-dazed Anne on his othe
r side, there were Adam and the loud-voiced Henry, with Virginia sitting in patient bewilderment at his feet, quietly chewing the red bow he had tied round her shrinking neck earlier in the evening. Kate did not need to look at the two men she loved most, for she held them tightly. . . . Last of all, her eyes roved to Lucy and Andrew. Lucy was to all appearance unchanged: the real difference was in Andrew. For he had lost his conciliatory manner towards his wife, his faint consciousness of inferiority. ‘And what a good thing,’ thought Kate. ‘The superiority is in far better keeping when Andrew has it. It won’t ever be obtrusive, but just sort of hanging over Lucy so that she doesn’t forget she isn’t perfect. She will always be yoked with a lamb—dear Andrew, such a nice lamb! But she’ll never, never be quite so sure of the lamb’s meekness again in her life!’

  T H E E N D

  About The Author

  Mary ‘Molly’ Clavering was born in Glasgow in 1900. Her father was a Glasgow businessman, and her mother’s grandfather had been a doctor in Moffat, where the author would live for nearly 50 years after World War Two.

  She had little interest in conventional schooling as a child, but enjoyed studying nature, and read and wrote compulsively, considering herself a ‘poetess’ by the age of seven.

  She returned to Scotland after her school days, and published three novels in the late 1920s, as well as being active in her local girl guides and writing two scenarios for ambitious historical pageants.

  In 1936, the first of four novels under the pseudonym ‘B. Mollett’ appeared. Molly Clavering’s war service in the WRNS interrupted her writing career, and in 1947 she moved to Moffat, in the Scottish border country, where she lived alone, but was active in local community activities. She resumed writing fiction, producing seven post-war novels and numerous serialized novels and novellas in the People’s Friend magazine.