CHAPTER TENFromfive to seven o’clock on Saturdays M. Tod and her assistant did a fairly brisk trade in newspapers; thereafter, as Christina often thought, but refrained from saying, it was scarcely worth while keeping the shop open: A stray customer or two was all that might be expected during the last hour, and Christina was wont to occupy herself and it by tidying up for Sunday, while M. Tod from the sitting-room bleated her conviction, based on nothing but a fair imagination and a bad memory, that the Saturday night business was not what it had been twenty years ago. The old woman invariably got depressed at the end of the week; she had come to grudge the girl’s absence even for a day.Christina was counting up some unsold periodicals, chattering cheerfully the while on the ethics of modern light literature. The door opened with a suddenness that suggested a pounce, and a young woman, whom Christina could not recollect having seen before, started visibly at the bang of the bell, recovered herself, and closed the door carefully. It was Christina’s habit to sum up roughly the more patent characteristics of new customers almost before they reached the counter. In the present case her estimate was as follows: “Handsome for the money; conceited, but not proud.”“Good-evening,” she said politely.“Evenin’,” replied the other, her dark eyes making a swift survey of the shop. She threw open her jacket, already unbuttoned, disclosing a fresh white shirt, a scarlet bow and a silver belt. Touching the belt, she said: “I think this was got in your shop.”Christina bent forward a little way. “Perhaps,” she said pleasantly. “I couldn’t say for certain. We’ve sold several of these belts, but of course we haven’t the monopoly.”It may have been that the young woman fancied she was being chaffed. Other customers less unfamiliar with Christina had fancied the same thing. At all events her tone sharpened.“But I happen to ken it was got here.”“Then itwasgot here,” said Christina equably. “Do you wish to buy another the same? I’m sorry we’re out of them at present, but we could procure one for youwithin——”“No, thanks. An’ I didna buy this one, either. It was bought by a young gentleman friend of mines.”“Oh, indeed!” Christina murmured sympathetically. Then her eyes narrowed slightly.“I came to see if you could change it,” the young woman proceeded. “It’s miles too wide. Ye can see that for yersel’.”“They are worn that way at present,” said Christina, with something of an effort.“Maybe. But I prefer it tight-fittin’. Of course I admit I’ve an extra sma’ waist.”“Yes—smaller than they are worn at present.”“I beg your pardon!”“Granted,” said Christina absently. She was trying to think of more than one male customer to whom she had sold a belt. But there had been only one.The dark eyes of the young woman glimmered with malignant relish.“As I was sayin’,” she said, “I prefer it tight-fittin’. I’ve a dance on next week, an’ as it is the belt is unsuitable, an’ the young man expec’s me to wear it. Of course I couldna tell him that it didna fit me. So I thought I would jist ask ye to change it wi’oot lettin’ on to him.” She gave a self-conscious giggle.“I see,” said Christina, dully. “But I’m afraid there’s only the one size in those belts, and, besides, we can’t change goods that have been worn for a month.”“Oh, so ye mind when ye sold it!” said the other maliciously. “Ye’ve a fine memory, Miss! But though I’ve had it for a month—it was part o’ his birthday present, ye ken—I’ve scarcely worn it—only once or twice, to please him.”There was a short silence ere Christina spoke. “If you are bent on getting the belt made tight-fitting, a jeweller would do it for you, but it would cost as much as the belt is worth,” she said coldly. “It’s a very cheap imitation, you know,” she added, for the first time in her business career decrying her own wares.It was certainly a nasty one, but the young woman almost succeeded in appearing to ignore it.“So ye canna change it—even to please ma young man?” she said mockingly.“No,” Christina replied, keeping her face to the foe, but with difficulty.Said the foe: “That’s a pity, but I daresay I’ll get over it.” She moved to the door and opened it. She smiled, showing her teeth. (Christina was glad to see they were not quite perfect.) “A sma’ waist like mines is whiles a misfortune,” she remarked, with affected self-commiseration.Christina set her lips, but the retortwouldcome. “Ay,” she said viciously; “still, I suppose you couldn’t grow tall any other way.”But the young woman only laughed—she could afford to laugh, having done that which she had come to do—and departed to report the result of her mission to the youth known as Willie Thomson.“Wha was that, dearie?” M. Tod called from the living-room.Christina started from an unlovely reverie. “Merely a female,” she answered bitterly, and resumed counting the periodicals in a listless fashion.The poison bit deep. The cheek of him to suggest walking home withherwhen he was going to a dance with that tight-laced girl next week! No doubt he admired her skimpy waist. He was welcome to it and her—and her bad teeth. And yet he had seemed a nice chap. She had liked him for his shyness, if for nothing else. But the shy kind were always the worst. He had very likely been taking advantage of his shyness. Well, she was glad she had found him out before he could walk home with her. And possibly because she was glad, but probably because she was quite young at heart, tears came to her eyes....When ten minutes had passed, M. Tod, missing the cheerful chatter, toddled into the shop.“What’s wrang, dearie? Preserve us! Ha’e ye been cryin’?”“Cryin’!” exclaimed Christina with contempt. “But I think I’m in for a shockin’ cauld in ma heid, so ye best keep awa’ frae me in case ye get the infection. A cauld’s a serious thing at your time o’ life.” And she got the feebly protesting old woman back to the fireside, and left her there.* * * * *At eight o’clock Macgregor saw the window lights go out and the shop lights grow dim. A minute later he heard an exchange of good-nights and the closing and bolting of a door. Then Christina appeared, her head a little higher even than usual.He went forward eagerly. He held out his hand and—it received his gift of the afternoon unopened.“I’ve changed my mind. I’ll bid you good-night—and good-bye,” said Christina, and walked on.Presently he overtook her.“Christina, what’s up?”“Kindly do not address me any more.”“Any more?——Never?——Whatway?——”She was gone.He dashed the little package into the gutter and strode off in the opposite direction, his face white, his lip quivering.If Macgregor seemed in the past to have needed a thorough rousing, he had it now. For an hour he tramped the streets, his heart hot within him, the burden of his thoughts—“She thinks I’m no’ guid enough.”And the end of the tramp found him at the door of the home of Jessie Mary. For a wonder, on a Saturday night at that hour, she was in. She opened the door herself.At the sight of the boy something like fear fell upon her. For what had he come thus boldly?He did not keep her in suspense. “Will ye gang wi’ me to that dance ye was talkin’ aboot?” he asked abruptly, adding, “I’ve got the money for the tickets.”A curse, a blow even, would have surprised her less.“Will ye gang, Jessie?” he said impatiently.For the life of her she could not answer at once.Said he: “If it’s Wullie, ye’re thinkin’ o’, I’ll square him.”“Wullie!” she exclaimed, a cruel contempt in the word.“Weel, if naebody else is takin’ ye, will ye gang wi’ me?”“Dae—dae ye want me, Macgreegor?”“I’m askin’ ye.”She glanced at him furtively, but he was not looking at her; his hands were in his pockets, his mouth was shaped to emit a tuneless whistle. She tried to laugh, but made only a throaty sound. It seemed as if a stranger stood before her, one of whom she knew nothing save his name. And yet she liked that stranger and wanted much to go to the dance with him.The whistling ceased.“Are ye gaun wi’ somebody else?” he demanded, lifting his face for a moment.It was not difficult to guess that something acute had happened to him very recently. Jessie Mary suddenly experienced a guilty pang. Yet why Macgregor should have come back to her now was beyond her comprehension. Yon yellow-haired girl in the shop could not have told him anything—that was certain. And though she had not really wanted him back, now that he had come she was fain to hold him once more. Such thoughts made confusion in her mind, out of which two distinct, ideas at last emerged: she did not care if she had hurt the yellow-haired girl; she could not go to the dance on Macgregor’s money.So gently, sadly, she told her lie; “Ay, there’s somebody else, Macgreegor.” Which suggests that no waist is too small to contain an appreciable amount of heart and conscience.A brief pause, and Macgregor said drearily:“Aweel, it doesna matter.I’ll awa’ hame.” And went languidly down the stairs.“It doesna matter.” The words haunted Jessie Mary that night, and it was days before she got wholly rid of the uncomfortable feeling that Macgregor had not really wanted her to go to the dance, and that he had, in fact, been “codding” her.Whereas, poor lad, he had only been “codding” himself, or, at least, trying to do so. By the time he reached the bottom step he had forgotten Jessie Mary.* * * * *Once more he tramped the streets.At home Lizzie was showing her anxiety, and John was concealing his.When, at long last, he entered the kitchen, he did not appear to hear his mother’s “Whaur ha’e ye been, laddie?” or his father’s “Ye’re late, ma son.” Their looks of concern at his tired face and muddy boots passed unobserved.Having unlaced his boots and rid his feet of them more quietly than usual, he got up and went to the table at which his mother was sitting.He took all the money—all—from his pockets and laid it before her.“There’s a shillin’ each for Jeannie an’ Jimsie. I’m no’ needin’ the rest. I’m wearied,” he said, and went straightway to his own room.John got up and joined his wife at the table. “Did I no’ tell ye,” he cried, triumphantly, “that Macgreegor wud dae the richt thing?”Lizzie stared at the little heap of silver and bronze.“John,” she whispered at last, and there was a curious distressed note in her voice, “John, d’ye no’ see?—he’s gi’ed me ower much!”
Fromfive to seven o’clock on Saturdays M. Tod and her assistant did a fairly brisk trade in newspapers; thereafter, as Christina often thought, but refrained from saying, it was scarcely worth while keeping the shop open: A stray customer or two was all that might be expected during the last hour, and Christina was wont to occupy herself and it by tidying up for Sunday, while M. Tod from the sitting-room bleated her conviction, based on nothing but a fair imagination and a bad memory, that the Saturday night business was not what it had been twenty years ago. The old woman invariably got depressed at the end of the week; she had come to grudge the girl’s absence even for a day.
Christina was counting up some unsold periodicals, chattering cheerfully the while on the ethics of modern light literature. The door opened with a suddenness that suggested a pounce, and a young woman, whom Christina could not recollect having seen before, started visibly at the bang of the bell, recovered herself, and closed the door carefully. It was Christina’s habit to sum up roughly the more patent characteristics of new customers almost before they reached the counter. In the present case her estimate was as follows: “Handsome for the money; conceited, but not proud.”
“Good-evening,” she said politely.
“Evenin’,” replied the other, her dark eyes making a swift survey of the shop. She threw open her jacket, already unbuttoned, disclosing a fresh white shirt, a scarlet bow and a silver belt. Touching the belt, she said: “I think this was got in your shop.”
Christina bent forward a little way. “Perhaps,” she said pleasantly. “I couldn’t say for certain. We’ve sold several of these belts, but of course we haven’t the monopoly.”
It may have been that the young woman fancied she was being chaffed. Other customers less unfamiliar with Christina had fancied the same thing. At all events her tone sharpened.
“But I happen to ken it was got here.”
“Then itwasgot here,” said Christina equably. “Do you wish to buy another the same? I’m sorry we’re out of them at present, but we could procure one for youwithin——”
“No, thanks. An’ I didna buy this one, either. It was bought by a young gentleman friend of mines.”
“Oh, indeed!” Christina murmured sympathetically. Then her eyes narrowed slightly.
“I came to see if you could change it,” the young woman proceeded. “It’s miles too wide. Ye can see that for yersel’.”
“They are worn that way at present,” said Christina, with something of an effort.
“Maybe. But I prefer it tight-fittin’. Of course I admit I’ve an extra sma’ waist.”
“Yes—smaller than they are worn at present.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Granted,” said Christina absently. She was trying to think of more than one male customer to whom she had sold a belt. But there had been only one.
The dark eyes of the young woman glimmered with malignant relish.
“As I was sayin’,” she said, “I prefer it tight-fittin’. I’ve a dance on next week, an’ as it is the belt is unsuitable, an’ the young man expec’s me to wear it. Of course I couldna tell him that it didna fit me. So I thought I would jist ask ye to change it wi’oot lettin’ on to him.” She gave a self-conscious giggle.
“I see,” said Christina, dully. “But I’m afraid there’s only the one size in those belts, and, besides, we can’t change goods that have been worn for a month.”
“Oh, so ye mind when ye sold it!” said the other maliciously. “Ye’ve a fine memory, Miss! But though I’ve had it for a month—it was part o’ his birthday present, ye ken—I’ve scarcely worn it—only once or twice, to please him.”
There was a short silence ere Christina spoke. “If you are bent on getting the belt made tight-fitting, a jeweller would do it for you, but it would cost as much as the belt is worth,” she said coldly. “It’s a very cheap imitation, you know,” she added, for the first time in her business career decrying her own wares.
It was certainly a nasty one, but the young woman almost succeeded in appearing to ignore it.
“So ye canna change it—even to please ma young man?” she said mockingly.
“No,” Christina replied, keeping her face to the foe, but with difficulty.
Said the foe: “That’s a pity, but I daresay I’ll get over it.” She moved to the door and opened it. She smiled, showing her teeth. (Christina was glad to see they were not quite perfect.) “A sma’ waist like mines is whiles a misfortune,” she remarked, with affected self-commiseration.
Christina set her lips, but the retortwouldcome. “Ay,” she said viciously; “still, I suppose you couldn’t grow tall any other way.”
But the young woman only laughed—she could afford to laugh, having done that which she had come to do—and departed to report the result of her mission to the youth known as Willie Thomson.
“Wha was that, dearie?” M. Tod called from the living-room.
Christina started from an unlovely reverie. “Merely a female,” she answered bitterly, and resumed counting the periodicals in a listless fashion.
The poison bit deep. The cheek of him to suggest walking home withherwhen he was going to a dance with that tight-laced girl next week! No doubt he admired her skimpy waist. He was welcome to it and her—and her bad teeth. And yet he had seemed a nice chap. She had liked him for his shyness, if for nothing else. But the shy kind were always the worst. He had very likely been taking advantage of his shyness. Well, she was glad she had found him out before he could walk home with her. And possibly because she was glad, but probably because she was quite young at heart, tears came to her eyes....
When ten minutes had passed, M. Tod, missing the cheerful chatter, toddled into the shop.
“What’s wrang, dearie? Preserve us! Ha’e ye been cryin’?”
“Cryin’!” exclaimed Christina with contempt. “But I think I’m in for a shockin’ cauld in ma heid, so ye best keep awa’ frae me in case ye get the infection. A cauld’s a serious thing at your time o’ life.” And she got the feebly protesting old woman back to the fireside, and left her there.
* * * * *
At eight o’clock Macgregor saw the window lights go out and the shop lights grow dim. A minute later he heard an exchange of good-nights and the closing and bolting of a door. Then Christina appeared, her head a little higher even than usual.
He went forward eagerly. He held out his hand and—it received his gift of the afternoon unopened.
“I’ve changed my mind. I’ll bid you good-night—and good-bye,” said Christina, and walked on.
Presently he overtook her.
“Christina, what’s up?”
“Kindly do not address me any more.”
“Any more?——Never?——Whatway?——”
She was gone.
He dashed the little package into the gutter and strode off in the opposite direction, his face white, his lip quivering.
If Macgregor seemed in the past to have needed a thorough rousing, he had it now. For an hour he tramped the streets, his heart hot within him, the burden of his thoughts—“She thinks I’m no’ guid enough.”
And the end of the tramp found him at the door of the home of Jessie Mary. For a wonder, on a Saturday night at that hour, she was in. She opened the door herself.
At the sight of the boy something like fear fell upon her. For what had he come thus boldly?
He did not keep her in suspense. “Will ye gang wi’ me to that dance ye was talkin’ aboot?” he asked abruptly, adding, “I’ve got the money for the tickets.”
A curse, a blow even, would have surprised her less.
“Will ye gang, Jessie?” he said impatiently.
For the life of her she could not answer at once.
Said he: “If it’s Wullie, ye’re thinkin’ o’, I’ll square him.”
“Wullie!” she exclaimed, a cruel contempt in the word.
“Weel, if naebody else is takin’ ye, will ye gang wi’ me?”
“Dae—dae ye want me, Macgreegor?”
“I’m askin’ ye.”
She glanced at him furtively, but he was not looking at her; his hands were in his pockets, his mouth was shaped to emit a tuneless whistle. She tried to laugh, but made only a throaty sound. It seemed as if a stranger stood before her, one of whom she knew nothing save his name. And yet she liked that stranger and wanted much to go to the dance with him.
The whistling ceased.
“Are ye gaun wi’ somebody else?” he demanded, lifting his face for a moment.
It was not difficult to guess that something acute had happened to him very recently. Jessie Mary suddenly experienced a guilty pang. Yet why Macgregor should have come back to her now was beyond her comprehension. Yon yellow-haired girl in the shop could not have told him anything—that was certain. And though she had not really wanted him back, now that he had come she was fain to hold him once more. Such thoughts made confusion in her mind, out of which two distinct, ideas at last emerged: she did not care if she had hurt the yellow-haired girl; she could not go to the dance on Macgregor’s money.
So gently, sadly, she told her lie; “Ay, there’s somebody else, Macgreegor.” Which suggests that no waist is too small to contain an appreciable amount of heart and conscience.
A brief pause, and Macgregor said drearily:
“Aweel, it doesna matter.I’ll awa’ hame.” And went languidly down the stairs.
“It doesna matter.” The words haunted Jessie Mary that night, and it was days before she got wholly rid of the uncomfortable feeling that Macgregor had not really wanted her to go to the dance, and that he had, in fact, been “codding” her.
Whereas, poor lad, he had only been “codding” himself, or, at least, trying to do so. By the time he reached the bottom step he had forgotten Jessie Mary.
* * * * *
Once more he tramped the streets.
At home Lizzie was showing her anxiety, and John was concealing his.
When, at long last, he entered the kitchen, he did not appear to hear his mother’s “Whaur ha’e ye been, laddie?” or his father’s “Ye’re late, ma son.” Their looks of concern at his tired face and muddy boots passed unobserved.
Having unlaced his boots and rid his feet of them more quietly than usual, he got up and went to the table at which his mother was sitting.
He took all the money—all—from his pockets and laid it before her.
“There’s a shillin’ each for Jeannie an’ Jimsie. I’m no’ needin’ the rest. I’m wearied,” he said, and went straightway to his own room.
John got up and joined his wife at the table. “Did I no’ tell ye,” he cried, triumphantly, “that Macgreegor wud dae the richt thing?”
Lizzie stared at the little heap of silver and bronze.
“John,” she whispered at last, and there was a curious distressed note in her voice, “John, d’ye no’ see?—he’s gi’ed me ower much!”