Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures
ADVENTURE XXIV.
THE CROOK IN THE LOT OF CLEAVER'S BOY
I should have mentioned before that Inverness Janet's other name was Urquhart, but for the fact that second names do not seem to matter anywhere, except in those grades of society where persons require calling cards to remind them of each others' names.
It was only a natural precisian like Mr. Cleg Kelly who always insisted on the second name. But Cleg had a reason for that. He was himself in the curious position of having no ascertained first name. There was a tradition in the family that he had been baptized Bryan, but his mother had never used the name. And since his father and everyone else had always called him Cleg, Cleg Kelly he remained all his life – or at least, as they say commercially, "to date."
But it is with Inverness Janet and the faithless and easily consoled James Annan, late assistant to Mr. Cleaver, butcher, that we have presently to do. Janet's conditional acceptance of his devotion seemed in a fair way to being made absolute. For Cleaver's boy proved a success at the night work. But in spite of this, and of his apparently assured success, both in the fields of practical sanitation and in those of love, James Annan was clearly not happy.
Judging by some past experience of his own, Cleg thought he must be pining for his old freedom.
"What for do ye no rin away, if ye want to be rid o' Janet?" was Cleg's contribution to the problem.
"Haud your tongue! I dinna want to get rid o' Janet!" said Cleaver's boy, loyally, but without indignation. Such things had been, and might be again.
"It's aboot Janet onyway," said wise Cleg, shaking his head; "hae Sal or Susy been botherin' her?"
"Na," said Janet's lover, "they ken better. My certes, Janet wad gie them the door in their faces and then send for a polissman."
"Ye had better tell me, at ony rate," said Cleg.
And with a little pressing, James Annan did unburden his sore heart.
"Ye see," he said, "Janet's bonny – or I think sae – "
"It is the same thing exactly!" interjected Cleg.
"She's bonny, an' easy to be doin' wi'. She's no sair ava' in the way o' expense. She is a natural saver hersel', an' she's aye at me to be puttin' by the siller. O, in some ways it is juist like heeven – nae leemonades, nae swing rides, nae merry-go-rounds, nae shows! I declare she cares no a buckie for Pepper's Ghost. In that respect there's no a mair agreeabler lass in the toon. Janet is aye pleased to tak' a walk on the Calton, or maybe in the Gardens, or to the Museum, or doon the shore to Leith to see the ships, or, what pleases her best, juist doon to the Waverley Station to see the Heelant train come in. O, Cleg, she is sic a weel-dooin', couthy, kindly lass, that ony man micht hae been prood o' her."
"What is't, then," said Cleg, "since she's sae perfect? Is't the poetry?" To Cleg "the poetry" was a trouble which might seize a victim at any moment, like the toothache. "And then where are ye?" he would add, cogently.
But it was not the poetry. It was a deeper grief. It appeared from the tale which Cleg laboriously extracted from the reluctant and deeply wounded suitor, that Janet, though a well-doing lass in every respect, had one grave fault.
All day she was at work quietly and willingly. It was the nature of James's occupation that he should be in the neighbourhood in the early morning. At that hour Janet, in her working gown, was all that heart could desire. But when Cleaver's boy chanced to go round in the afternoon, or met Janet by appointment, some malicious pixie had wrought a sea-change in the lass of Inverness.
She would then tell, with the greatest candour and engaging innocence, tales which even a faithful lover could not otherwise characterise than as "whoppers." This mania appeared to come upon her whenever she had taken off her morning wrapper and put on her company dress. She was going (so she declared) to "the mistress" to ask for a few evenings off in order to fulfil her innumerable social engagements. Every house where at any time she had been engaged (as kitchen-maid) opened wide its doors to her as a welcome guest. She told the cook, who listened with unconcealed scorn, how she had been at balls and suppers galore in "the best houses" in Melville Street and Princes Street. She must really, she said, begin to remodel and refashion some of her many silks and satins for the approaching season.
Only the evening before, she had entertained the servants' hall at Bailie Holden's with an account of a dinner she had been at the night before in the Grange. She had even got off early in order to have her hair done by the hairdresser.
"The hairdresser, as a great favour, is going to arrange it in the latest style for five shillings, instead of ten-and-six, his usual charge," said Janet of Inverness, with a glance like an angel's for innocence. Then she described her drive to the house in a four-wheeler. "My hair would have got so blown about, or I should have gone in a hansom, which is much more distinguished." Her former master had, it appeared, come into the hall to receive her. Two gentlemen had almost quarrelled as to who should see her home. A handsome and distinguished gentleman and a member of Parliament for the city, celebrated for his gallantry to the ladies, had, however, forestalled them both, arranged the shawl deliciously about her shoulders with well-accustomed fingers, and had thereafter driven home with her in a hansom.
"It did not matter about the hair then, you know," said gay Janet of Inverness, looking daringly at Cleaver's boy.
At this the cook had laughed out loud. She then said that it was all lies, and that she had seen Janet walking along the Bridges with another girl at the supposed hour of the dinner. Thus was shame brought upon Cleaver's boy and upon the pride and good name of his sweetheart.
"An' what do ye think I should do, Cleg?" asked James Annan.
"I wad gie her a lickin' and gar her stop," said Cleg, who had still prehistoric notions as to the discipline of women.
"Na," said Cleaver's boy; "I hae thocht o' that. But, man, she's no like Susy or Sal. Ye couldna lift a hand to her when she looks at ye wi' yon e'en, an' tells ye that her faither was either a Highland Chief or a Toon Councillor o' Inverness. I couldna do it, Cleg."
"Hoot," said Cleg, "then I wad try no to heed. She may grow oot o't. An' thae Heelant folk are aye leein' onyway. Think on a' the lees they tell aboot their Bonny Prince Chairlie!"
"I hae tried no to mind," answered Cleaver's boy, sadly; "but when I see the ither yins a' laughin' at her an' her no seeing it, but gaun straight on wi' her daft-like story, I tell ye, Cleg, it pits me fair wild. There'll be murder dune, Cleg, gin it's no stoppit."
"Weel, Cleaver," said Cleg philosophically, "I think I see the reason on't. She disna gang to shows an' theaytres, to save the siller; but she says she gangs, an' that costs naething. I dinna see what ye hae to compleen o'!"
"If that's a' ye can tell me," said Cleaver's boy indignantly, "I wadna hae missed muckle if ye had stayed at hame."
"Hoots, butcher," said Cleg, with indulgence, "dinna gang a aff like the fuff o' a match. There's little sense and nae siller in that. But I'll tell ye what, butcher: I'll speak to Miss Celie. She will ken what ye had better do."
It was thus indirectly that Providence was appealed to in the Sooth Back.
ADVENTURE XXV.
A COMELY PROVIDENCE IN A NEW FROCK
Cleg was as good as his word. He went that very night to call on Miss Tennant at Aurelia Villa. He found her in a philanthropic frame of mind. She had received from the dressmaker a dress of the latest mode, and she was conscious that the new fashion suited her like a garment fashioned by the fairies in a dream. Also (what was even better) that it would make other girls whose shoulders were not so good and whose figure was less slim and graceful, look perfectly hideous. Yet they would have to wear it. Celie felt that evening that there was little left to wish for in this sinful world. She looked out of the window toward the west. There was also (it seemed on purpose) a beautiful sunset which glorified the purple cliffs of Arthur's Seat – a quiet, providential sunset, for it went so well with the colour of her new dress. Besides, here was Mr. Donald Iverach walking slowly up the Avenue. And yet some people complained that this was not a good world! What would folk say next?
But Cleg forestalled the Junior Partner. He came by the back door, and when in a strait betwixt two, a serving maid will always answer a knock at the back before a ring at the front door. The back door is more variously interesting.
So Cleg had the floor of the house, and was just finishing his tale, when Mr. Donald Iverach was announced.
Celie held out her hand to him, with a motion which signified at once a welcome and a desire that he should not interrupt. So the Junior Partner, who had for some time been accustomed to devote more time to the study of her moods than he had ever done to his Bible (and he had not neglected that either when nobody saw him), sat down upon a sofa and became interested in the pattern of some crochet work, which Miss Celie had tossed on a chair with characteristic impetuosity when she had rushed across the room to greet Cleg.
"Are ye gaun to pit on that dress on Sabbath at the Sunday school?" asked Cleg, when he had time to think a little about his own affairs.
Celie looked at him with a small start of ingenuous wonder. It was a good little start in its way, and expressed amazement that anyone should notice so plain and simple a thing as her new dress. It is an undoubted fact that she was a truthful girl, and it is also a fact that she was quite aware how instantly the summer dress had riveted the attention of both Cleg and the Junior Partner. Yet the little start expressed as plainly as words her surprise, even her sorrow, that in the midst of so serious a world the minds of men and boys should dwell upon so vain a thing as a girl's gown. Perhaps Celie's little start was her way of telling stories. For the sage sayeth that all women tell stories habitually and unintentionally, whereas men tell them only occasionally but intentionally.
At any rate, whether it was the start or whether it was merely owing to her sympathetic nature, after a moment's consideration of the sad failing of Janet of Inverness, Celie lifted her eyes to those of the Junior Partner.
"Poor girl," she said, "I quite understand; don't you?"
"You see, I have not heard," said the Junior Partner, hesitating.
Celie instantly withdrew her eyes from his. She looked at once hurt and disappointed. He set up for being sympathetic and kind, and he had failed to understand a simple thing like this. He was clearly unworthy of confidence. Celie Tennant turned to Cleg for assistance. He was looking at her with wide eyes of boyish adoration. Cleg at any rate understood. She turned half round in her chair and the profile which she presented to Mr. Donald Iverach struck a chill through the room like that part of Greenland which looks towards the Pole. Celie's lovers did not lack varied interests in their life; and perhaps that was why she had so many. For in the affairs of the heart most men like good sport and a run for their money.
"Come, Cleg," she said, rising, "I want to speak to you. My father is in the garden, Mr. Iverach!" she added, pointedly.
What Mr. Iverach said under his breath of his excellent friend Mr. Robert Greg Tennant at that moment, it is perhaps better not to write down. He rose and went to the window. From the wide space of its oriel, he watched with furtive sidelong gloom the confabulation of Celie and Cleg. Celie was explaining something with great animation to the boy, who looked down and seemed a little doubtful. Then with inimitable archness, which seemed thrown away upon an Arab of the city (if it were intended for him), Celie explained the whole matter over again from the top of the steps. She went a little way back towards the house.
"Now you quite understand?" she cried with impressive emphasis. And lest he should not yet comprehend, she turned ere she reached the door, ran to Cleg at the gate with still more inimitable daintiness, and, with her hand upon his arm, she explained the whole thing all over again. The Junior Partner felt a little string tighten somewhere about the region in which (erroneously) he believed his heart to lie. He clenched his fist at the sight.
"O confound it!" he remarked, for no very obvious reason, as he turned away.
But Celie was full of the most complete unconsciousness. Yet (of course without knowing it) she quite spoilt the game of two young men, who were playing lawn tennis on the court of a neighbouring house. Their returns grew wilder and their services were beneath contempt. Their several partners (attractive young women whom the new style of dress did not suit) met casually at the net, and one of them remarked to the other, "Isn't she a minx? And her pretending to be good and all that!" Which was perhaps their way of clenching fists and saying, "Confound it!" Or worse.
Then in a little while Cleg went down the Avenue with a sense that the heavens had fallen, and that angels were getting quite common about the garden gates of the South Side. He carried the arm on which Celie had laid her hand a little apart from him. It was as blissfully sensitive as if he had been ten years older.
Celie stood a moment at the gate looking after him. She shaded her eyes from the sunset and looked down the long street. It is a charming pose when one is sure of one's arms and shoulders. At this moment one of the young men in the garden sent a ball over the house, and the eyes of his partner met those of the other girl. Peace was upon the earth at that sweet hour of sunset, but good-will to women was not in their two hearts. Celie felt that the light summer silk had already paid for itself.
"I don't believe a bit in religion – so there!" said the girl next door to her friend over the net.
At that moment Celie gave a little sigh to think that her first night in the new garment was so nearly over. "And father wanted to give me a black silk," said Celie Tennant to herself. Celie felt that she had not wasted her time nor her father's money.
So to show her gratitude she went and found her father. He was slowly walking up and down the little plot of garden, meditatively smoking his large evening pipe. He stopped now before a favourite row of cabbages, and now at the end of the strawberry bed. He regarded them equally with the same philosophical and meditative attention. He was a practical man and insisted on growing vegetables in his own private domains at the back, leaving his daughter to cultivate roses and the graces in the front garden.
Celie elevated her nose and sniffed as she came out. "O father, what a horrid smell of tobacco you are making!"
"It is almost inevitable," he said, apologetically; "you see it is tobacco I am smoking."
If it had been asafœtida, Celie could not have appeared more disgusted.
"I thought your young thieves smoked at that club of yours," said her father.
"Oh, yes; but that is different," she answered.
"Yes, it is different," chuckled her parent, thinking of what his tobacco cost him.
Then Celie went on to explain all about Cleaver's boy and his trouble, telling the sad tale of the "failing" of Janet of Inverness, as, well – as I should like to have the tale of my weaknesses told, if it were necessary that they should be told at all.
Her father smoked and listened. Sometimes he lifted a snail from the leaf of a cabbage with care. Anon he kicked a stone sideways off the path, and ever he smoked, listened, and nodded without comment.
"These are all your orders, ma'am?" he asked slowly, when his daughter had finished.
"I'll pull your ears, father, now I will," said she, with equal want of connection.
And did it.
"Oh, I had forgotten Mr. Iverach!" she cried, running off towards the house with a little gesture of despair; "what shall I do?"
"Give him his orders, too!" her father called after her, as the last flutter of the new dress flashed through the twinkling poplars.
ADVENTURE XXVI.
R. S. V. P
A great event happened in the back-kitchen of Bailie Holden. The postman had brought a letter with a fine monogram – a very stiff, square letter, for Miss Janet Urquhart. The table-maid, who considered herself quite as good as a governess, examined it as though there must needs be some mistake in the address. The housemaid turned it about and looked at it endways and upside down, to see if there might not be another name concealed somewhere. She rubbed it with her apron to see if the top would come off and something be revealed beneath. The cook, into whose hands the missive next passed, left a perfect tracing of her thumb and fore-finger upon it, done in oils, and very well executed, too.
In this condition it reached the back-kitchen at last, and the hands of Janet of Inverness. As she took the letter in her little damp fingers, she grew pale to the lips. What she feared, I cannot tell – probably only the coming true of some of her dreams.
In a cluster round the door stood the housemaid, the table-maid, and family cat – the one which went habitually on four legs, I mean. The cook moved indignantly about the range, clattering tongs, pans, and other instruments of music, as it is the immemorial use of all cooks when the bird in the breast does not sing sweetly. She was, of course, quite above curiosity as to what Janet's letter might contain.
"Likely it's an invitation!" sneered the housemaid.
"Aye, frae the police!" added the table-maid from the doorway. She was plain, and Cleaver's boy never stopped to gossip with her. Not that she cared or would have stood talking with the likes of him.
The cook banged the top of the range, like Tubal-cain when Naamah vexed him in that original stithy, near by the city of Enoch in the land of Nod.
Janet of Inverness opened the letter. Scarcely could she believe her eyes. It was a formal invitation upon a beautifully written card, and contained a wish on the part of Mr. Greg Tennant and Miss Tennant that Miss Janet Urquhart would favour them with her company at Aurelia Villa on the evening of Friday the 17th, at eight o'clock. R.S.V.P.
Janet sank into a seat speechless, still holding the invitation. The table-maid came and looked over her shoulder.
"Goodness me!" she exclaimed, as she read the card.
"She's been tellin' the truth after a'," said the housemaid, who, having some claims to beauty, was glad of Janet's good fortune, and hoped that the like might happen to herself.
"I dinna believe a word o't!" said the cook indignantly. "I'se warrant she wrote it hersel'!"
But Janet had not written it herself. She could not even bring herself to write the answer, though she had received a sound School Board education. But the three R's do not contemplate the answering of invitations upon thick cardboard, ending "R.S.V.P." They stop at the spelling of "trigonometry" and the solving of vulgar fractions.
In spite of her silks and satins and her vaunted experience, Janet did not know the meaning of "R.S.V.P." But the housemaid had not brushed clothes ten years for nothing.
"It means 'Reply shortly, very pleased'!" said she. Which, being substantially correct, settled the question.
Nevertheless, poor Janet was in great perturbation. When Cleaver's boy went to see her that evening before going on duty she showed him the card.
"What shall I do?" she said. "I hae nothing fit to wear, and I am feared to gang."
Cleaver's boy looked up at the ceiling of the back-kitchen, as he sat on the edge of the sink, unconscious that there was a tap running behind him and that the plug was in.
"There was that purple brocade ye telled me aboot, wi' the auld lace and the pearls that belonged to your grandmither, the Earl's dochter," said James Annan, meditatively.
"O aye," said Janet. "Yes, of course there is that ane." But she did not look happy.
"Or there is the plain white muslin wi' the crimson sash aboot the waist, that the twa gentlemen were for stickin' are anither aboot, yon nicht they quarrelled wha was to see ye hame."
"Aye," said Janet, piteously, "there's that ane too."
"An' what say ye," continued James Annan remorselessly, "to the yellow sattin, trimmed wi' flounces o' glory-pidgeon roses and – ?"
Cleaver's boy suddenly stopped. He had been feeling for some time a growing coolness somewhere. But at this point the water in the sink ran over on the floor, and he turned round to discover that he had been sitting in a full trough of excellent Moorfoot water, with the spigot running briskly down his back all the while.
"O James," cried Janet, pleased to get a chance to change the subject, "what for did ye do that, James? And your new breeks, too!" she added, with an expression of supreme pain.
"I didna do it for naething," remarked Cleaver's boy, tartly. "I didna do it ava'. It was you that left the spigot rinnin and the plug in!" he added, after a thoughtful pause, while he realised how cool a sitz-bath can be, even on a summer evening, when one stands by an open window.
Now nothing is more provoking, when you are performing a high and noble work in the reformation of another person's morals, than to have the thread of your weighty discourse broken by something so ridiculous as sitting down in a bucket of water. There was every reason why Cleaver's boy should be annoyed.
But Janet broke out in a sobbing ecstacy of laughter, which irritated her lover more even than her wrong-doing.
"I wonder at you," he said, "telling a' thae lees when ye haena a dress to your back, forbye the alpaca that ye pit on on Sabbaths!"
It was a mistake, and Cleaver's boy knew it as soon as he had the words out of his mouth.
Janet instantly stopped in the midst of her laughter.
"I would have you know," she said with dignity, "that I shall accept the invitation. And I will never speak to you again. I'll thank you to take yourself out of my presence, James Annan!"
"And out of Bailie Holden's back-kitchen!" continued her lover, whose colour did not diminish with the growing coolness consequent upon standing in a draught. Then as he went up the steps from the area he cried, "Be sure and put on the brocade, Janet!"
It was an unbearable affront, for Janet had told her stories so often, and with so much innocent feeling, that though, of course, she could not quite believe them herself, she had nevertheless all the feelings of an indignant moralist insulted and outraged in her tenderest susceptibilities.
