Penny Plain Part 16

"I would like," said Pamela, "to get to know my neighbours. There are six little houses, each exactly like Hillview, and I would like to be able to nod to the owners as I pa.s.s. It would be more friendly."

Pamela and Jean, with Mhor and Peter, were walking along the road that contained Hillview and The Rigs.

"Every house in this road is a twin," said Mhor, "except The Rigs. It's different from every other house."

They were coming home from a long walk, laden with spoils from the woods: moss for the bowls of bulbs, beautiful bare branches such as Jean loved to stand in blue jars against the creamy walls. Mhor and Peter had been coursing about like two puppies, covering at least four times the ground their elders covered, and were now lagging, weary-footed, much desiring their midday meal.

"I don't know," said Jean, pondering on the subject of neighbours, "how you could manage to be friends with them. You see, they are busy people and--it sounds very rude--they haven't time to be bothered with you.

Just smile tentatively when you see them and pa.s.s the time of day casual-like; you would soon get friendly. There is one house, the one called 'Balmoral,' with the very much decorated windows and the basket of ferns hanging in the front door, where the people are at leisure, and I know would deeply value a little friendliness. Two sisters live in it--Watson is the name--most kindly and hospitable creatures with enough to live on comfortably and keep a small servant, and ample leisure after they have, what Mrs. M'Cosh calls, 'dockit up the hoose,' to entertain and be entertained. They are West country--Glasgow, I think, or Greenock--and they find Priorsford just a little stiff. They've been here about three years, and I'm afraid are rather disappointed that they haven't made more progress socially. I love them personally. They are so genteel, as a rule, but every little while the raciness natural to the West country breaks out."

"You are nice to them, Jean, I am sure."

"Oh yes, but the penalty of being more or less nice to everyone is that n.o.body values your niceness: they take it for granted. Whereas the haughty and exclusive, if they do condescend to stoop, are hailed as G.o.ds among mortals."

"Poor Jean!" laughed Pamela. "That is rather hard. It's a poor thing human nature."

"It is," Jean agreed. "I went to the dancing-cla.s.s the other day to see a most unwilling Mhor trip fantastically, and I saw a tiny girl take the hand of an older girl and look admiringly up at her. The older child, with the awful heartlessness of childhood wriggled her hand away and turned her back on her small admirer. The poor mite stood trying not to cry, and presently a still tinier mite came snuggling up to her and took her hand. 'Now,' I thought, 'having learned how cruel a thing a snub is, will she be kind?' Not a bit of it. With the selfsame gesture the older girl had used she wriggled away her hand and turned her back."

"Cruel little wretches," said Pamela, "but it's the same with us older children. Apart from sin altogether, it must be hard for G.o.d to pardon our childishness ... But about the Miss Watsons--d'you think I might call on them?"

"Well, they wouldn't call on you, I'm sure of that. Suppose I ask them to meet you, and then you could fix a day for them to have tea with you?

It would be a tremendous treat for them, and pleasant for you too--they are very entertaining."

So it was arranged. The Miss Watsons were asked to The Rigs, and to their unbounded satisfaction spent a most genial hour in the company of Miss Reston, whose comings and goings they had watched with breathless interest from behind the elegant sash curtain of Balmoral. On their way home they borrowed a copy of Debrett and studied it all evening.

It was very confusing at first, but at last they ran their quarry to earth. "Here she is ... She's the daughter (dau. must mean daughter) of Quintin John, 10th Baron Bidborough. And this'll be her brother, Quintin Reginald Feurbras--what names! _Teenie_, her mother was an earl's daughter!"

"Oh, mercy!" wailed Miss Teenie, quite over-come.

"Yes, see here. 6th Earl of Champertoun--a Scotch earl too! Lady Ann was her name. Fancy that now!"

"And her so pleasant!" said Miss Teenie.

"It just lets you see," said Miss Watson, "the higher up you get in the social scale, the pleasanter and freer people are. You see, they've been there so long they're accustomed to it; their position never gives them a thought: it's the people who have climbed up who keep on wondering if you're noticing how grand they are."

"Well, Agnes," said Miss Teenie, "it's a great rise in the world for you and me to be asked to tea with an earl's granddaughter. There's no getting over that. I'm thinking we'll need to polish up our manners.

I've an awful habit of drinking my tea with my mouth full. It seems more natural somehow to give it a _synd_ down than to wait to drink till your mouth's empty."

"Of course it's more natural," said her sister, "but what's natural's never refined. That's a queer thing when you think of it."

The Miss Watsons called on all their friends in the next few days, and did not fail to mention in each house, accidentally, as it were, that on Wednesday they expected to take tea with Miss Reston, and led on from that fact to glowing details of Miss Reston's ancestry.

The height of their satisfaction was reached when they happened to meet Mrs. Duff-Whalley, who, remembering yeoman service rendered by the sisters at a recent bazaar, stopped them and, greatly condescending, said, "Ah, er--Miss Watson--I'm asking a few local ladies to The Towers on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the subject of a sale of work for the G.F.S. A cup of tea, you understand, and a friendly chat in my own drawing-room You will both join us, I hope?" Her tone held no doubt of their delighted acceptance, but Miss Watson, who had suffered much from Mrs. Duff-Whalley, who had been made use of and then pa.s.sed unnoticed, taken up when needed and dropped, replied with great deliberation, "Oh, thank you, but we are going to tea with Miss Reston that afternoon. I dare say we shall hear from someone what is decided about the sale of work."

The epoch-making Wednesday dawned at last.

Great consultations had gone on between The Rigs and Hillview how best to make it an enjoyable occasion. Pamela wanted Jean to be present, but Jean thought it better not to be. "It would take away from the glory of the occasion. I'm only a _chota Miss_, and they are too accustomed to me. Ask Mrs. Jowett. She wouldn't call on the Watsons--the line must be drawn somewhere even by the gentle Mrs. Jowett--but she will be very sweet and nice to them. And Miss Mary Dawson. She is such a kind, comfortable presence in a room--I think that would be a nice little party."

Pamela obediently promised to do as Jean suggested.

"I've sent to Fullers' for some cakes, though I don't myself consider them a patch on the Priorsford cakes, but they will be a change and make it more of an occasion. Mawson can make delicious sandwiches and Bella Bathgate has actually offered to bake some scones. I'll make the room look as smart as possible with flowers."

"You've no photographs of relations? They would like photographs better than anything."

"People they never heard of before," cried Pamela. "What an odd taste!

However, I'll do what I can."

By 11 a.m. the ladies in Balmoral had laid out all they meant to wear--skirts spread neatly on beds, jackets over chair-backs, even to the very best handkerchiefs on the dressing-table waiting for a sprinkle of scent.

At two o'clock they began to dress.

Miss Teenie protested against this disturbance of their afternoon rest, but her sister was firm.

"It'll take me every minute of the time, Teenie, for I've all my underclothing to change."

"But, mercy me, Miss Reston'll not see your underclothes!"

"I know that, but when you've on your very best things underneath you feel a sort of respect for yourself, and you're better able to hold your own in whatever company you're in. I don't know what you mean to do, but I'm going to change _to the skin_."

Miss Teenie nearly always followed the lead of her elder sister, so she meekly went off to look out and air her most self-respecting under garments, though she protested, "Not half aired they'll be, and as likely as not I'll catch my death," and added bitterly, "It's not all pleasure knowing the aristocracy."

They were ready to the last glove-b.u.t.ton half an hour before the time appointed, and sat stiffly on two high chairs in their little dining-room. "I think," said Miss Watson, "we'd be as well to think on some subjects to talk on. We must try to choose something that'll interest Miss Reston. I wish I knew more about the Upper Ten."

"I'd better not speak at all," said Miss Teenie, who by this time was in a very bad temper. "I never could mind the names of the Royal Family, let alone the aristocracy. I always thought there was a weakness about the people who liked to read in the papers and talk about those kind of folk. I'm sure when I do read about them they're always doing something kind of indecent, like getting divorced. It seems to me they never even make an attempt to be respectable."

She looked round the cosy room and thought how pleasant it would have been if she and her sister had been sitting down to tea as usual, with no need to think of topics. It had been all very well to tell their obviously surprised friends where they were going for tea, but when it came to the point she would infinitely have preferred to stay at home.

"She'll not likely have any notion of a proper tea," Miss Watson said.

"Sc.r.a.ps of thin bread and b.u.t.ter, mebbe, and a cake, so don't you look disappointed Teenie, though I know you like your tea. Just toy with it, you know."

"No, I don't know," said Miss Teenie crossly. "I never 'toyed' with my tea yet, and I'm not going to begin. It'll likely be China tea anyway, and I'd as soon drink dish-water."

Miss Watson looked bitterly at her sister.

"You'll never rise in the world, Teenie, if you can't _give_ up a little comfort for the sake of refinement Fancy making a fuss about China tea when it's handed to you by an earl's granddaughter."

Miss Teenie made no reply to this except to burst--as was a habit of hers--into a series of violent sneezes, at which her sister's wrath broke out.

"That's the most uncivilised sneeze I ever heard. If you do that before Miss Reston, Teenie, I'll be tempted to do you an injury."

Miss Teenie blew her nose pensively. "I doubt I've got a chill changing my underclothes in the middle of the day, but 'a little pride and a little pain,' as my mother used to say when she screwed my hair with curl-papers.... I suppose it'll do if we stay an hour?"

Things are rarely as bad as we antic.i.p.ate, and, as it turned out, not only Miss Watson, but the rebellious Miss Teenie, looked back on that tea-party as one of the pleasantest they had ever taken part in, and only Heaven knows how many tea-parties the good ladies had attended in their day.

They were judges of china and fine linen, and they looked appreciatively at the table. There were the neatest of tea-knives, the daintiest of spoons, jam glowed crimson through crystal, b.u.t.ter was there in a lordly dish, cakes from London, delicate sandwiches, Miss Bathgate's best and lightest in the way of scones, shortbread crisp from the oven of Mrs.

M'Cosh.

And here was Miss Reston looking lovely and exotic in a wonderful tea-frock, a cla.s.s of garment hitherto unknown to the Miss Watsons, who thrilled at the sight. Her welcome was so warm that it seemed to the guests, accustomed to the thus-far-and-no-further manner of the Priorsford great ladies, almost exuberant. She led Miss Teenie to the most comfortable chair, she gave Miss Watson a footstool and put a cus.h.i.+on at her back, and talked so simply, and laughed so naturally, that the Miss Watsons forgot entirely to choose their topics and began on what was uppermost in their minds, the fact that Robina (the little maid) had actually managed that morning to break the gazogene.