Penny Plain Part 34

Mrs. Macdonald was, in Bible words, a "succourer of many." She was a little stout woman with the merry heart that goes all the way, combined with heavy-lidded, sad eyes, and a habit of sighing deeply. She affected to take a sad view of everything, breaking into irrepressible laughter in the middle of the most pessimistic utterances, for she was able to see the humorous side of her own gloom. Mrs. Macdonald was a born giver; everything she possessed she had to share. She was miserable if she had nothing to bestow on a parting guest, small gifts like a few new-laid eggs or a pot of home-made jam.

"You know yourself," she would say, "what a satisfied feeling it gives you to come away from a place with even the tiniest gift."

Her popularity was immense. Sad people came to her because she sighed with them and never tried to cheer them; dull people came to her because she was never in offensive high spirits or in a boastful mood--not even when her sons had done something particularly striking--and happy people came to her, for, though she sighed and warned them that nothing lasted in this world, her eyes shone with pleasure, and her interest was so keen that every detail could be told and discussed and gloated over with the comfortable knowledge that Mrs.

Macdonald would not say to her next visitor that she had been simply _deaved_ with talk about So-and-so's engagement.

Mrs. Macdonald believed in speaking her mind--if she had anything pleasant to say, and she was sometimes rather startling in her frankness to strangers. "My dear, how pretty you are," she would say to a girl visitor, or, "Forgive me, but I must tell you I don't think I ever saw a nicer hat."

The women in the congregation had no comfort in their new clothes until Mrs. Macdonald had p.r.o.nounced on them. A word was enough. Perhaps at the church door some congregational matter would be discussed; then, at parting, a quick touch on the arm and--"Most successful bonnet I ever saw you get," or, "The coat's worth all the money," or, "Everything new, and you look as young as your daughter."

Pamela and Jean found the minister and his wife in the garden. Mr.

Macdonald was pacing up and down the path overlooking the river, with his next Sunday's sermon in his hand, while Mrs. Macdonald raked the gravel before the front door (she liked the place kept so tidy that her sons had been wont to say bitterly, as they spent an hour of their precious Sat.u.r.days helping, that she dusted the branches and wiped the faces of the flowers with a handkerchief) and carried on a conversation with her husband which was of little profit, as the rake on the stones dimmed the sense of her words.

"Wasn't that right, John?" she was saying as her husband came near her.

"Dear me, woman, how can I tell? I haven't heard a word you've been saying. Here are callers. I'll get away to my visiting. Why! It's Jean and Miss Reston--this is very pleasant."

Mrs. Macdonald waved her hand to her visitors as she hurried away to put the rake in the shed, reappearing in a moment like a stout little whirlwind.

"Come away, my dears. Up to the study, Jean; that's where the fire is to-day. I'm delighted to see you both. What a blessing Agnes is baking pancakes It seemed almost a waste, for neither John nor I eat them, but, you see, they had just been meant for you.... I wouldn't go just now, John. We'll have an early tea and that will give you a long evening."

Jean explained that she specially wanted to see Mr. Macdonald.

"And would you like me to go away?" Mrs. Macdonald asked. "Miss Reston and I can go to the dining-room."

"But I want you as much as Mr. Macdonald," said Jean. "It's your advice I want--about the money, you know."

Mrs. Macdonald gave a deep sigh. "Ah, money," she said--"the root of all evil."

"Not at all, my dear," her husband corrected. "The love of money is the root of all evil--a very different thing. Money can be a very fine thing."

"Oh," said Jean, "that's what I want you to tell me. How can I make this money a blessing?"

Mr. Macdonald gave his twisted smile.

"And am I to answer you in one word, Jean? I fear it's a word too wide for a mouth of this age's size. You will have to make mistakes and learn by them and gradually feel your way."

"The most depressing thing about money," put in his wife, "is that the Bible should say so definitely that a rich man can hardly get into heaven. Oh, I know all about a needle's eye being a gate, but I've always a picture in my own mind of a camel and an ordinary darning-needle, and anything more hopeless could hardly be imagined."

Mrs. Macdonald had taken up a half-finished sock, and, as she disposed of the chances of all the unfortunate owners of wealth, she briskly turned the heel. Jean knew her hostess too well to be depressed by her, so she smiled at the minister, who said, "Heaven's gate is too narrow for a man and his money; that goes without saying, Jean."

Jean leant forward and said eagerly, "What I really want to know is about the tenth we are to put away as not being our own. Does it count if it is given in charity, or ought it to be given to Church things and missions?"

"Whatever is given to G.o.d will 'count,' as you put it--lighting, where you can, candles of kindness to cheer and warm and lighten."

"I see," said Jean. "Of course, there are heaps of things one could slump money away on, hospitals and inst.i.tutions and missions, but these are all so impersonal. I wonder, would it be pus.h.i.+ng and _furritsome_, do you think, if I tried to help ministers a little?--ministers, I mean, with wives and families and small incomes shut away in country places and in the poor parts of big towns? It would be such pleasant helping to me."

"Now," said Mrs. Macdonald, "that's a really sensible idea, Jean.

There's no manner of doubt that the small salaries of the clergy are a crying scandal. I don't like ministers to wail in the papers about it, but the laymen should wail until things are changed. Ministers don't enter the Church for the loaves and fishes, but the labourer is worthy of his hire, and they must have enough to live on decently. Living has doubled. I couldn't manage as things are now, and I'm a good manager, though I says it as shouldn't.... The fight I've had all my life n.o.body will ever know. Now that we have plenty, I can talk about it. I never hinted it to anybody when we were struggling through; indeed, we washed our faces and anointed our heads and appeared not unto men to fast! The clothes and the boots and the butcher's bills! It's pleasant to think of now, just as it's pleasant to look from the hilltop at the steep road you've come. The boys sometimes tell me that they are glad we were too poor to have a nurse, for it meant that they were brought up with their father and me. We had our meals together, and their father helped them with their lessons. Indeed, it's only now I realise how happy I was to have them all under one roof."

She stopped and sighed, and went on again with a laugh. "I remember one time a week before the Sustentation Fund was due, I was down to one six-pence And of course a collector arrived! D'you remember that, John?... And the boys worked so hard to educate themselves. All except Duncan. Oh, but I am glad that my little laddie had an easy time--when it was to be such a short one."

"He always wanted to be a soldier," Mr. Macdonald said. "You remember, Anne, when you tried to get him to say he would be a minister? He was about six then, I think. He said, 'No, it's not a white man's job,' and then looked at me apologetically afraid that he had hurt my feelings.

When the War came he went 'most jocund, apt, and willingly,' but without any ill-will in his heart to the Germans.

"'He left no will but good will And that to all mankind....'"

Mrs. Macdonald stared into the fire with tear-blurred eyes and said: "I sometimes wonder if they died in vain. If this is the new world it's a far worse one than the old. Cla.s.s hatred, discontent, wild extravagance in some places, children starving in others, women mad for pleasure, and the dead forgotten already except by the mothers--the mothers who never to their dying day will see a fresh-faced boy without a sword piercing their hearts and a cry rising to their lips, 'My son! My son!'"

"It's all true, Anne," said her husband, "but the sacrifice of love and innocence can never be in vain. Nothing can ever dim that sacrifice. The country's dead will save the country as they saved it before. Those young lives have gone in front to light the way for us."

Mrs. Macdonald took up her sock again with a long sigh.

"I wish I could comfort myself with thoughts as you can, John, but I never had any mind. No, Jean, you needn't protest so politely. I'm a good house-wife and I admit my shortbread is 'extra,' as Duncan used to say. Duncan was very sorry as a small boy that he had left heaven and come to stay with us. He used to say with a sigh, 'You see, heaven's extra.' I don't know where he picked up the expression. But what I was going to say is that people are so wretchedly provoking. This morning I was really badly provoked. For one thing, I was very busy doing the accounts of the Girls' Club (you know I have no head for figures), and Mrs. Morton strolled in to see me, to cheer me up, she said. Cheer me up! She maddened me. I haven't been forty years a minister's wife without learning patience, but it would have done me all the good in the world to take that woman by her expensive fur coat and walk her rapidly out of the room. She sat there breathing opulence, and told me how hard it was for her to live--she, a lone woman with six servants to wait on her and a car and a chauffeur! 'I am not going to give to this War Memorial,' she said. 'At this time it seems rather a wasteful proceeding, and it won't do the men who have fallen any good.' ... I could have told her that surely it wasn't _waste_ the men were thinking about when they poured out their youth like wine that she and her like might live and hug their bank books."

Mr. Macdonald had moved from his chair in the window, and now stood with one hand on the mantelshelf looking into the fire. "Do you remember," he said, "that evening in Bethany when Mary took a box of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, so that the odour of the ointment filled the house? Judas--that same Judas who carried the bag and was a robber--was much concerned about the waste. He said that the box might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor.

And Jesus, rebuking him, said, 'The poor always ye have with you, but Me ye have not always.'"

He stopped abruptly and went over to his writing-table and made as though he were arranging papers. Presently he said, "Anne, you've been here." His tone was accusing.

"Only writing a post card," said his wife quickly. "I can't have made much of a mess." She turned to her visitors and explained: "John is a regular old maid about his writing-table; everything must be so tidy and unspotted."

"Well, I can't understand," said her husband, "why anyone so neat handed as you are should be such a filthy creature with ink. You seem positively to sling it about."

"Well," said Mrs. Macdonald, changing the subject "I like your idea of helping ministers, Jean. I've often thought if I had the means I would know how to help. A cheque to a minister in a city-charge for a holiday; a cheque to pay a doctor's bill and ease things a little for a worn-out wife. You've a great chance, Jean."

"I know," said Jean, "if you will only tell me how to begin."

"I'll soon do that," said practical Mrs. Macdonald "I've got several in my mind this moment that I just ache to give a hand to. But only the very rich can help. You can't in decency take from people who have only enough to go on with.... Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll see if Agnes is getting the tea. I want you to taste my rowan and crab-apple jelly, Miss Reston, and if you like it you will take some home with you."

As they left the Manse an hour later, laden with gifts, Pamela said to Jean, "I would rather be Mrs. Macdonald than anyone else I know. She is a practising Christian. If I had done a day's work such as she has done I think I would go out of the world pretty well pleased with myself."

"Yes," Jean agreed. "If life is merely a chance of gaining love she will come out with high marks. Did you give her the miniature?"

"Yes, just as we left, when you had walked on to the gate with Mr.

Macdonald. She was so absurdly grateful she made me cry. You would have thought no one had ever given her a gift before."

"The world," said Jean, "is divided into two cla.s.ses, the givers and the takers. Nothing so touches and pleases and surprises a 'giver' as to receive a gift. The 'takers' are too busy standing on their hind legs (like Peter at tea-time) looking wistfully for the next bit of cake to be very appreciative of the biscuit of the moment."

"Bless me!" said Pamela, "Jean among the cynics!"

CHAPTER XXI