O. Douglas - Taken by the Hand

Sir Samuel walked over and studied the portrait.

“It’s large,” he said, “and dull. I can’t think where I’d hang it in Portland Place. Elaine wouldn’t let it into the drawing-room, and it would be hopelessly out of place in the dining-room. It’s well painted though—that velvet. . . . If you’d care to have it, Beatrice . . . ?”

The girl hesitated, but before she could speak Sir Samuel hit on a plan.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Let’s send it down to Greenbraes. It would look very well in the dining-room there. That sort of large coast villa is the proper setting for that sort of portrait. Besides, I remember my mother was very fond of Greenbraes, so it’s quite fitting that her portrait should find a home there—I suppose you’ll let the place? There’s no point in having it stand empty.”

“It isn’t empty exactly,” Beatrice said. “A couple live in it as caretakers, and in the spring and autumn mother used to send people down who needed a rest. She called it her private holiday-home.”

Sir Samuel was looking at the other pictures. “Ah, yes,” he said, “that was very nice of your mother. She had a large heart and—I may add—a large income. My father left his widow exceedingly well provided for, and she had full control of everything.”

“I expect,” said Beatrice, flushing pink, “I expect he knew he could trust mother to use the money as he would have wished. He was generous too.”

“Quite, quite,” Sir Samuel’s tone was conciliatory. “They both belonged to a generous age. People could afford to give in my father’s day. Those were solid secure times. Now everything is uncertain. It’s no joke, I can tell you, Beatrice, to have large responsibilities in these days—Ah! here comes the family plate.”

Fairlie, assisted by a housemaid, carried in the chest, which she unlocked solemnly, and proceeded to exhibit its contents with pride.

Sir Samuel picked out a spoon. “About 1875,” he said, “when my father married.”

“There’s three dozen of each of these,” said Fairlie, “soup-spoons, dessert-spoons, forks, big and little, and further down there’s awful bonnie thin plain ones—Georgian, I think, my mistress called them. She liked them best, though of course they hav’na the look of the heavy ones. . . . And then there’s three tea-and-coffee services. Oh! and ongtray-dishes and a silver soup-tureen, and trays and salvers galore. I aye wanted the mistress to keep them in the bank, the world’s that lawless turned.”

“Yes—well, I might keep the Georgian stuff, but the rest had better be sold. Thank you, Fairlie; lock it up again. I’ll see that an inventory’s made at once. . . . Now, Beatrice, shall we go to the drawing-room? Excuse my going first,” and he ran like a boy up the stairs.

Beatrice followed slowly, wondering what her mother would have said to her stepson’s interest in his new possessions. She would have been amused, Beatrice thought. She wondered if her mother could see them now. Did she notice, perhaps, that the new black lace dress that Beatrice wore did not fit? It was part of the “mourning order” she had given to the shop where she and her mother had been in the habit of getting most of their clothes. The head dressmaker had come herself—tightly encased in black satin, and sniffing mournfully, for she had sincerely liked the cheerful, considerate customer who had been so easy to dress—and advised Beatrice as to what she would need.

“Just a nice morning frock, and mebbe a coat and skirt, and something for the evening is all you need to begin with. Black is not worn as it used to be. I remember when it was a year’s deep black for a parent, but now it’s black and white or grey from the very start, and every vestige off before the year’s out. But I’m sure, Miss Be’trice, you’ll want to wear real mourning for your Mamma, for she was a dear soul.” She slipped a frock over the girl’s head. “Yes, I used to feel that the sun had come out when she dropped in. She always asked after my mother, and wanted to know how my neuritis was keeping before she began about her own affairs. Ucha, that’s not bad, Miss Be’trice. You’re stock size and that’s a great help at a time like this. . . . Look in the glass. D’you like it yourself? You can wear black with your hair and skin, and you should be thankful, for some people look awful! Though it’s wonderful, too, what you can do with a touch of white, and there’s this about black, I always say it subdues ladies who are too what you might call rash in their colours. You’d be surprised at the trouble I have, to keep high-coloured, full figures away from puce, and even bright red. Some of them seem to have no control over themselves with regard to colour—just like some people with drink—so it’s a mercy in a way, though of course it’s a pity for the reason, when they’re compelled to wear black. Yes, I don’t think you could do better than that. Will you try this lace dress? I thought it would be nice and soft for you and younger than satin or crepe de chine. You suit the cape at the back. Isn’t it awful graceful?”

But it was the cape at the back that was the trouble, and Beatrice almost imagined she could feel the twitch her mother’s hand would have given it to make it hang properly.

Sir Samuel looked round the drawing-room with an appraising eye, and Beatrice watched him. This was the most familiar place in life to her. Here she had played as a child while her mother wrote letters, for she had never been kept strictly to the nursery. She had often done her lessons here too, and painted pictures, and made up stories and games. Here, later on, she had helped her mother to entertain, making anxious conversation with middle-aged gentlemen and their comfortable, complacent ladies. And what happy evenings they had had when they were alone, reading aloud, listening to the wireless, talking, laughing, never tiring for a moment of each other’s company.

“I remember this room when I was a child,” said Sir Samuel, “in my mother’s lifetime. It had a sort of terra-cotta silk panels then and was considered very magnificent. I’m afraid there’s nothing of any particular value in it.” He peered at the china in a cabinet. “There may be some good things here; we’ll know when they’re valued. I remember my father was keen about china. Some of these rugs might go to Portland Place; I wish I could find room for that bureau and those chairs, for there’s no market for antiques at present. . . . Anything here you’d like to have as a keepsake?”

Beatrice had an impulse to gather the room in her arms and cry, “You can’t take it from me; it’s mine because of its memories.” But what was a room when the spirit that had made it home was gone? So she replied, “I think not, thank you.”

“It seems you’re no sentimentalist,” said her step-brother. “Perhaps it’s as well. There’s no place for sentiment in the modern world. What a hard world it is I hope you’ll never know. I’ve been blessed—or cursed—with a feeling heart, and when I’ve got to tell men who’ve been all their lives in the business, who thought they were safe for life, and were educating their children well, and buying their little suburban villas, that we can’t afford to keep them on and must replace them by younger, cheaper men—I assure you, Beatrice, it makes me utterly wretched.”

“But must you dismiss them?” Beatrice asked. “Couldn’t you keep them on—perhaps at a lower salary—till you see if things improve? It’s too dreadful to think of those men and their wives and families left stranded—for how could they save when they had to buy their houses and keep their children at good schools? Clerks, too, who won’t easily get another job. And those are the people you can’t help, for they won’t speak. Sometimes—often, I’m afraid, it’s a case of the whole firm coming down, but if the heads of the business have still money to go on with, I do think it’s up to them to help on their men.”