Penny Plain/Chapter 2

by O. Douglas

"They have their exits and their entrances."

As You Like It.

THE ten o'clock express from Euston to Scotland was tearing along on its daily journey. It was that barren hour in the afternoon when luncheon is over and forgotten, and tea is yet far distant, and most of the passengers were either asleep or listlessly trying to read light literature.

Alone in a first-class carriage sat Bella Bathgate's lodger—Miss Pamela Reston. A dressing-bag and a fur-coat and a pile of books and magazines lay on the opposite seat, and the lodger sat writing busily. An envelope lay beside her addressed to

THE LORD BIDBOROUGH,
  c/o King, King, & Co.,
    Bombay.

The letter ran:

"Dear Biddy,—We have always agreed, you and I (forgive the abruptness of this beginning), that we would each live our own life. Your idea of living was to range over the world in search of sport, mine to amuse myself well, to shine, to be admired. You, I imagine from your letters (what a faithful correspondent you have been, Biddy, all your wandering life), are still finding zest in it: mine has palled. You will jump naturally to the brotherly conclusion that I have palled—that I cease to amuse, that I find myself taking a second or even a third place, I who was always first; that, in short, I am a soured and disappointed woman.

"Honestly, I don't think that is so. I am still beautiful: I am more sympathetic than in my somewhat callous youth, therefore more popular: I am good company: I have the influence that money carries with it, and I could even now make what is known as a 'brilliant' marriage. Did you ever wonder—everybody else did, I know—why I never married? Simply, my dear, because the only man I cared for didn't ask me … and now I am forty. (How stark and almost indecent it looks written down like that!) At forty, one is supposed to have got over all youthful fancies and disappointments, and lately it has seemed to me reasonable to contemplate a common-sense marriage. A politician, wise, honoured, powerful—and sixty. What could be more suitable? So suitable that I ran away—an absurdly young thing to do at forty—and I am writing to you in the train on my way to Scotland…. You see, Biddy, I quite suddenly saw myself growing old, saw all the arid years in front of me, and saw that it was a very dreadful thing to grow old caring only for the things of time. It frightened me badly. I don't want to go in bondage to the fear of age and death. I want to grow old decently, and I am sure one ought to begin quite early learning how.

"'Clear eyes do dim at last
     And cheeks outlive their rose:
 Time, heedless of the past,
     No loving kindness knows.'

Yes, and 'youth's a stuff will not endure,' and 'golden lads and girls all must like chimney-sweepers come to dust.' The poets aren't at all helpful, for youth—poor brave youth—won't listen to their warnings, and they seem to have no consolation to offer to middle age.

"The odd thing is that up to a week or two ago I greatly liked the life I led. You said it would kill you in a month. Was it only last May that you pranced in the drawing-room in Grosvenor Street inveighing against 'the whole beastly show,' as you called it—the freak fashions, the ugly eccentric dances, the costly pageant balls, the shouldering, the striving, the worship of money, the gambling, the self-advertisement—all the abject vulgarity of it? And my set, the artistic, soulful literary set, you said was the worst of all: you actually described the high-priestess as looking like a 'decomposing cod-fish,' and added by way of a final insult that you thought the woman had a kind heart.

"And I laughed and thought the War had changed you. It didn't change me, to my shame be it said. I thought I was doing wonders posing about in a head-dress at Red Cross meetings, and getting up entertainments, and even my never-ceasing anxiety about you simply seemed to make me more keen about amusing myself.

"Do you remember a story we liked when we were children, The Gold of Fairnilee? Do you remember how Randal, carried away by the fairies, lived contented until his eyes were touched with the truth-telling water, and then Fairyland lost its glamour and he longed for the old earth he had left, and the changes of summer and autumn, and the streams of Tweed and his friends?

"Is it, do you suppose, because we had a Scots mother that I find, deep down within me, that I am 'full of seriousness'? It is rather disconcerting to think oneself a butterfly and find out suddenly that one is a—what? A bread-and-butter fly, shall we say? Something quite solid, anyway.

"As I say, I suddenly became deadly sick of everything. I simply couldn't go on. And it was no use going burying myself at Bidborough or even dear Mintern Abbas; it would have been the same sort of trammelled, artificial existence. I wanted something utterly different. Scotland seemed to call to me—not the Scotland we know, not the shooting, yachting, West Highland Scotland, but the Lowlands, the Borders, our mother's countryside.

"I remembered how Lewis Elliot (I wonder where he is now—it is ages since I heard of him) used to tell us about a little town on the Tweed called Priorsford. It was his own little town, his birthplace and I thought the name sung itself like a song. I made inquiries about rooms and found that in a little house called Hillview, owned by one Bella Bathgate, I might lodge. I liked the name of the house and its owner, and I hope to find in Priorsford peace and great content.

"Having been more or less of a fool for forty years, I am now going to try to get understanding. It won't be easy, for we are told that 'it cannot be gotten with gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof…. No mention shall be made of coral and pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies.'

"I am going to walk on the hills all day, and in the evening I shall read the Book of Job and Shakespeare and Sir Walter.

"In one of the Jungle Books there was a man called Sir Purun Dass—do you remember? Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., who left all his honours and slipped out one day to the sun-baked highway with nothing but an ochre-coloured garment and a beggar's bowl. I always envied that man. Not that I could rise to such Oriental heights. The beggar's bowl wouldn't do for me. I cling to my comforts: also, I am sure Sir Purun Dass left himself no loophole whereby he might slip back to his official position whereas I—— Well, the Politician thinks I have gone for a three months' rest cure, and at sixty one is not impatient. You will say, 'How like Pam!' Yes, isn't it? I always was given to leaving myself loopholes; but, all the same, I am not going to face an old age bolstered up by bridge and cosmetics. There must be other props, and I mean to find them. I mean to possess my soul. I'm not all froth, but, if I am, Priorsford will reveal it. I feel that there will be something very revealing about Miss Bella Bathgate.

"Poor Biddy, to have such an effusion hurled at you!

"But you'll admit I don't often mention my soul.

"I doubt if you will be able to read this letter. If you can make it out, forgive it being so full of myself. The next will be full of quite other things. All my love, Biddy.—Yours,

Pam."

Three hours later the express stopped at the junction. The train was waiting on the branch line that terminated at Priorsford, and after a breathless rush over a high bridge in the dark Pamela and her maid, Mawson, found themselves bestowed in an empty carriage by a fatherly porter.

Mawson was not a real lady's maid: one realised that at once. She had been a housemaid for some years in the house in Grosvenor Street, and Pamela, when her own most superior maid flatly refused to accompany her on this expedition, had asked Mawson to be her maid, and Mawson had gladly accepted the offer. She was a middle-aged woman with a small brown face, an obvious toupée, and an adventurous spirit.

She now tidied the carriage violently, carefully hiding the book Pamela had been reading and putting the cushion on the rack. Finally, tucking the travelling-rug firmly round her mistress, she remarked pleasantly, "A h'eight hours' journey without an 'itch!"

"Certainly without an aitch," thought Pamela, as she said, "You like travelling, Mawson?"

"Oh yes, m'm. I always 'ave 'ad a desire to travel. Specially, if I may say so, to see Scotland, Miss. But, oh, ain't it bleak? Before it was dark I 'ad me eyes glued to the window, lookin' out. Such miles of 'eather and big stones and torrents, Miss, and nothing to be seen but a lonely sheep—'ardly an 'ouse on the 'orizon. It gave me quite a turn."

"And this is nothing to the Highlands, Mawson."

"Ain't it, Miss? Well, it's the bleakest I've seen yet, an' I've been to Brighton and Blackpool. Travelled quite a lot, I 'ave, Miss. The lydy who read me 'and said I would, for me teeth are so wide apart." Which cryptic saying puzzled Pamela until Priorsford was reached, when other things engaged her attention.

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

There was another passenger for Priorsford in the London express. He was called Peter Reid, and he was as short and plain as his name. Peter Reid was returning to his native town a very rich man. He had left it a youth of eighteen and entered the business of a well-to-do uncle in London, and since then, as the saying is, he had never looked over his shoulder; fortune showered her gifts on him, and everything he touched seemed to turn to gold.

While his mother lived he had visited her regularly, but for thirty years his mother had been lying in Priorsford churchyard, and he had not cared to keep in touch with the few old friends he had. For forty-five years he had lived in London, so there was almost nothing of Priorsford left in him—nothing, indeed, except the desire to see it again before he died.

They had been forty-five quite happy years for Peter Reid. Money-making was the thing he enjoyed most in this world. It took the place to him of wife and children and friends. He did not really care much for the things money could buy; he only cared to heap up gold, to pull down barns and build greater ones. Then suddenly one day he was warned that his soul would be required of him—that soul of his for which he had cared so little. After more than sixty years of health, he found his body failing him. In great irritation, but without alarm, he went to see a specialist, one Lauder, in Wimpole Street.

He supposed he would be made to take a holiday, and grudged the time that would be lost. He grudged, also, the doctor's fee.

"Well," he said, when the examination was over, "how long are you going to keep me from my work?"

The doctor looked at him thoughtfully. He was quite a young man, tall, fair-haired, and fresh-coloured, with a look about him of vigorous health that was heartening and must have been a great asset to him in his profession.

"I am going to advise you not to go back to work at all."

"What!" cried Peter Reid, getting very red, for he was not accustomed to being patient when people gave him unpalatable advice. Then something that he saw—was it pity?—in the doctor's face made him white and faint.

"You—you can't mean that I'm really ill?"

"You may live for years—with care."

"I shall get another opinion," said Peter Reid.

"Certainly—here, sit down." The doctor felt very sorry for this hard little business man whose world had fallen about his ears. Peter Reid sat down heavily on the chair the doctor gave him. "I tell you, I don't feel ill—not to speak of. And I've no time to be ill. I have a deal on just now that I stand to make thousands out of—thousands, I tell you."

"I'm sorry," James Lauder said.

"Of course, I'll see another man, though it means throwing away more money. But"—his face fell—"they told me you were the best man for the heart…. Leave my work! The thing's ridiculous Patch me up and I'll go on till I drop. How long do you give me?"

"As I said, you may live for years; on the other hand, you may go very suddenly."

Peter Reid sat silent for a minute; then he broke out:

"Who am I to leave my money to? Tell me that."

He spoke as if the doctor were to blame for the sentence he had pronounced.

"Haven't you relations?"

"None."

"The hospitals are always glad of funds."

"I daresay, but they won't get them from me."

"Have you no great friends—no one you are interested in?"

"I've hundreds of acquaintances," said the rich man, "but no one has ever done anything for me for nothing—no one."

James Lauder looked at the hard-faced little man and allowed himself to wonder how far his patient had encouraged kindness.

A pause.

"I think I'll go home," said Peter Reid.

"The servant will call you a taxi. Where do you live?"

Peter Reid looked at the doctor as if he hardly understood.

"Live?" he said. "Oh, in Prince's Gate. But that isn't home…. I'm going to Scotland."

"Ah," said James Lauder, "now you're talking. What part of Scotland is 'home' to you?"

"A place they call Priorsford. I was born there."

"I know it. I've fished all round there. A fine countryside."

Interest lit for a moment the dull grey eyes of Peter Reid.

"I haven't fished," he said, "since I was a boy. Did you ever try the Caddon Burn? There are some fine pools in it. I once lost a big fellow in it and came over the hills a disappointed laddie…. I remember what a fine tea my mother had for me." He reached for his hat and gave a half-ashamed laugh.

"How one remembers things! Well, I'll go. What do you say the other man's name is? Yes—yes. Life's a short drag; it's hardly worth beginning. I wish, though, I'd never come near you, and I would have gone on happily till I dropped. But I won't leave my money to any charity, mind that!"

He walked towards the door and turned.

"I'll leave it to the first person who does something for me without expecting any return…. By the way, what do I owe you?"

And Peter Reid went away exceeding sorrowful, for he had great possessions.