Part 7 (1/2)

CHAPTER VII

COMIC OVERTURE TO A TRAGEDY

”Jean Myles bides in London” was the next remarkable news brought by Tommy from Thrums Street. ”And that ain't all, Magerful Tam is her man; and that ain't all, she has a laddie called Tommy and that ain't all, Petey and the rest has never seen her in London, but she writes letters to Thrums folks and they writes to Petey and tells him what she said.

That ain't all neither, they canna find out what street she bides in, but it's on the bonny side of London, and it's grand, and she wears silk clothes, and her Tommy has velvet trousers, and they have a servant as calls him 'sir.' Oh, I would just like to kick him! They often looks for her in the grand streets, but they're angry at her getting on so well, and Martha Scrymgeour said it were enough to make good women like her stop going reg'lar to the kirk.”

”Martha said that!” exclaimed his mother, highly pleased. ”Heard you anything of a woman called Esther Auld? Her man does the orra work at the Tappit Hen public in Thrums.”

”He's head man at the Tappit Hen public now,” answered Tommy; ”and she wishes she could find out where Jean Myles bides, so as she could write and tell her that she is grand too, and has six hair-bottomed chairs.”

”She'll never get the satisfaction,” said his mother triumphantly. ”Tell me more about her.”

”She has a laddie called Francie, and he has yellow curls, and she nearly greets because she canna tell Jean Myles that he goes to a school for the children of gentlemen only. She is so mad when she gets a letter from Jean Myles that she takes to her bed.”

”Yea, yea!” said Mrs. Sandys cheerily.

”But they think Jean Myles has been brought low at last,” continued Tommy, ”because she hasna wrote for a long time to Thrums, and Esther Auld said that if she knowed for certain as Jean Myles had been brought low, she would put a threepenny bit in the kirk plate.”

”I'm glad you've telled me that, laddie,” said Mrs. Sandys, and next day, unknown to her children, she wrote another letter. She knew she ran a risk of discovery, yet it was probable that Tommy would only hear her referred to in Thrums Street by her maiden name, which he had never heard from her, and as for her husband he had been Magerful Tam to everyone. The risk was great, but the pleasure--

Unsuspicious Tommy soon had news of another letter from Jean Myles, which had sent Esther Auld to bed again.

”Instead of being brought low,” he announced, ”Jean Myles is grander than ever. Her Tommy has a governess.”

”That would be a doush of water in Esther's face?” his mother said, smiling.

”She wrote to Martha Scrymgeour,” said Tommy, ”that it ain't no pleasure to her now to boast as her laddie is at a school for gentlemen's children only. But what made her maddest was a bit in Jean Myles's letter about chairs. Jean Myles has give all her hair-bottomed chairs to a poor woman and buyed a new kind, because hair-bottomed ones ain't fas.h.i.+onable now. So Esther Auld can't not bear the sight of her chairs now, though she were windy of them till the letter went to Thrums.”

”Poor Esther!” said Mrs. Sandys gaily.

”Oh, and I forgot this, mother. Jean Myles's reason for not telling where she bides in London is that she's so grand that she thinks if auld Petey and the rest knowed where the place was they would visit her and boast as they was her friends. Auld Petey stamped wi' rage when he heard that, and Martha Scrymgeour said, 'Oh, the pridefu' limmer!'”

”Ay, Martha,” muttered Mrs. Sandys, ”you and Jean Myles is evens now.”

But the pa.s.sage that had made them all wince the most was one giving Jean's reasons for making no calls in Thrums Street. ”You can break it to Martha Scrymgeour's father and mither,” the letter said, ”and to Petey Whamond's sisters and the rest as has friends in London, that I have seen no Thrums faces here, the low part where they bide not being for the like of me to file my feet in. Forby that, I could not let my son mix with their bairns for fear they should teach him the vulgar Thrums words and clarty his blue-velvet suit. I'm thinking you have to dress your laddie in corduroy, Esther, but you see that would not do for mine. So no more at present, and we all join in compliments, and my little velvets says he wishes I would send some of his toys to your little corduroys. And so maybe I will, Esther, if you'll tell Aaron Latta how rich and happy I am, and if you're feared to say it to his face, tell it to the roaring farmer of Double d.y.k.es, and he'll pa.s.s it on.”

”Did you ever hear of such a woman?” Tommy said indignantly, when he had repeated as much of this insult to Thrums as he could remember.

But it was information his mother wanted.

”What said they to that bit?” she asked.

At first, it appears, they limited their comments to ”Losh, losh,”

”keeps a',” ”it cows,” ”my eertie,” ”ay, ay,” ”sal, tal,” ”dagont” (the meaning of which is obvious). But by and by they recovered their breath, and then Baker Lamsden said, wonderingly:

”Wha that was at her marriage could have thought it would turn out so weel? It was an eerie marriage that, Petey!”

”Ay, man, you may say so,” old Petey answered. ”I was there; I was one o' them as went in ahint Aaron Latta, and I'm no' likely to forget it.”

”I wasna there,” said the baker, ”but I was standing at the door, and I saw the hea.r.s.e drive up.”