Oh! Christina!/Chapter 12
XII
"BACKWARD IN COMING FORWARD"
ON fine Sunday afternoons Christina usually went for a walk with her friend Jessie Ann M'Kirdy, the daughter of the local postmistress. Jessie Ann, who was Christina's senior by eighteen months, had just got a new Sunday frock—a blue print, so long that its hem touched the tops of her boots. She wore her black hair tied back with a bow, and altogether she appeared almost grown-up to the younger girl. Christina was, perhaps, a little envious, but, at the same time, she was heartily proud of her acquaintance with Jessie Ann.
"D'ye think we'll see him the day, Jessie Ann?" she inquired, as they met on the last Sunday in June.
"See who?" said Jessie Ann very carelessly.
"Him. Ye ken who I mean."
Jessie Ann ignored the remark, and turned her steps in the direction unexpected by her companion.
"Oh," cried Christina, "are we no' gaun up the loch the day?"
"What for?"
"Oh, jist because it's—nicer up the loch."
Jessie Ann halted and looked reflectively at the sky. "Oh, weel, onything to please ye," she said at last.
Although she was wearing her neat shoes and best stockings, the shortness of her skirts gave Christina considerable dissatisfaction. She had the depressing suspicion that Jessie Ann was growing to regard her as a child, and even the thought of her own five gorgeous hatpins, borrowed from the shop, failed to sustain her self-confidence.
Kilmabeg was beginning to receive its summer residents, people who had by no means left their "good clothes" at home; and those who had not too freely enjoyed their early dinners were taking the sun and air by the loch-side.
"Oh, what a beautiful hat!" said Christina, with a desperate idea of breaking the oppressive silence.
"What? Miss Ferguson's? That's her last year's done up again. I mind the shape fine. Last year it was turned up an' had grass on it. She has jist turned it doon an' put roses on instead o' the grass. Ye would think folk that took a big hoose like Burnbrae would be able to get new hats," said Jessie Ann. "That hat o' Miss Grogan's is no' sae bad, but it doesna suit a fat face like hers. What dae ye think o' her costume, Teeny?" It may be mentioned that Jessie had ideas of becoming a dressmaker.
"Oh, it's lovely!" cried Christina, delighted that the silence was broken.
"It wud be lovely if the skirt didna drag, an' if she didna waddle. I hear she's gotten a young man, a' the same."
"Oh!" murmured Christina. "A young man!"
"Ay; the servant-girl was tellin' me. He's comin' to Kilmabeg for next week-end. But he's no' much to look at, I believe."
Christina, who thought that all lovers were good to look at, felt rather chilled, but said nothing.
Jessie Ann continued to criticise—favourably or severely—other examples of dressmaking and millinery on the road, until they reached a bench placed on the turf bordering the shore. Here they seated themselves, Jessie Ann arranging her skirts with elaborate care, while Christina wriggled as though trying to shrink within hers.
Having settled herself at last, the elder girl proceeded to smooth the fingers of her gloves, glancing occasionally up the loch, at the head of which a steamer was moored. The younger followed her glances, but repressed the question which the sight of the steamer suggested—the question which seemed to have, in some way, offended her friend at the beginning of the walk.
Jessie Ann was not, as a rule, given to sedateness, but after she had sat in utter silence for some twenty minutes Christina realized that some great change must have taken place, and wondered vaguely if the long skirts had aught to do with it.
And then, of a sudden, it flashed on her that Jessie Ann might, after all, be in love. For several Sundays she had violently hoped that Jessie Ann was in love, but the latter's apparent disinclination to walk up the loch on this particular afternoon had made her put away the happy thought. But now it came back to her. Perhaps Jessie Ann had only been pretending when she started to walk the other way. Christina had read of people pretending all sorts of things when they were in love, and of people's natures being entirely altered.
Oh, if only he would come down the loch, as he had done on each of the last Sunday afternoons! Then she might discover the truth.
Christina knew that Jessie Ann would not be fifteen till September, and she had never read of any one being in love under sixteen; but she would not allow any doubts to interfere with the re-arisen hope, and she fell to guessing his age and to wondering how long it would be before he declared his passion.
So far he had only got the length of once purchasing a penny stamp from Jessie Ann while her mother was engaged in chastizing one of the younger children for putting stones in the letter-box: but since then he had always raised his cap on passing the girls, and Christina, though she had giggled involuntarily at these exciting moments, had dreamed afterwards of love at first sight.
Jessie Ann, having removed one of her gloves, was feeling the bow on her hair, when Christina suddenly nudged her.
"Don't!" said Jessie Ann sharply.
"I see him comin'!" whispered Christina, quite unable to control herself.
"See who comin'?" asked Jessie Ann, with some irritation and a sidelong glance up the road. "Ye've an elbow like a pick-axe."
"I didna mean to hurt ye," said Christina humbly.
"Weel, dinna jab me like that again, Teeny," the other returned, more gently. Then she glanced at her skirts, drew in her feet, touched the rose at her young breast, and began to put on her glove.
The junior purser of the steamer came swinging along the road. He was youthful, and exceedingly smart in his serge suit and white-roofed yachting-cap. A pleasant, suntanned countenance was his, and altogether he reminded Christina of the young naval hero in the last number but two of the Park Lane Novelist. The young naval hero, too, had fallen in love at first sight, and at the thought thereof the girl quivered with anticipations of she knew not what. Had the junior purser rushed forward then and there and flung himself at Jessie Ann's feet, Christina would probably have been more thrilled than surprised.
The junior purser, however, did nothing of a thrilling nature. As he drew near he produced and lit a cigarette, slackening his pace while he did so.
Christina glanced at her friend. The latter was staring fixedly and solemnly in front of her.
Christina clasped her hands together very tightly—so tightly that one of her gloves, which Miss Purvis had repaired the previous evening, rent with a faint crack; at the same time her right leg began to curl round her left. She was holding herself together; as a matter of fact, she felt as if she might burst at any moment. Without intending to do so, she emitted a squeak and drove her elbow into her companion's ribs.
"Be quiet!" muttered Jessie Ann, in an awful voice.
"I—I didna mean it."
"Be quiet!"
Christina became quiet, except for her breathing.
The junior purser threw away the spent match with careless grace, and strode forward. It looked almost as if he were not going to observe them at all—but Christina had read that Love was blind. At the same time she wondered whether it would be advisable to drop her handkerchief, which she reflected gladly was a clean one; she might drop it so that it should appear to be Jessie Ann's.
She glanced inquiringly at her friend, and just at that moment her friend's head fell and rose in precisely the way that the doctor's wife's head fell and rose when the doctor's wife passed the laird's wife in the latter's motor.
Christina's eyes leapt back to the junior purser. He was replacing his hat on his head with one hand and his cigarette in his mouth with the other. But she could not tell whether the "love-light" was in his eyes. He seemed, however, to redden.
She lost command of herself.
"Oh, Jamaica!" she exclaimed, and sniggered helplessly. And was instantly ashamed.
Had she had courage to look she would have seen that Jessie Ann's face was a prey to blushes, though Jessie Ann remained rigid.
Jessie Ann had made her first real bow to a member of the opposite sex.
The junior purser disappeared round a bend in the road.
Then Jessie Ann spoke.
"Can ye no' behave yersel'?" she asked, in an unkind voice.
"I couldna help it," Christina murmured. "I—I thocht he was gaun to speak to ye."
"He wouldna be likely to speak to me when you was there."
"Oh!" It was all Christina had to say. She got up and walked away.
"Here, Teeny, eome back!" called Jessie Ann, relenting. "I was jist jokin'."
Christina may not have heard.
The other ran after her and caught her arm.
"Dinna be huffy, Teeny."
"I'm no' huffy."
"What are ye, then?"
"I'm vexed."
"What for?"
"For spiling yer chance, Jessie Ann," said Christina, in a choked voice.
"Oh!" said Jessie Ann, taken aback.
"I kep' him frae speakin' to ye. Oh, I wish I hadna come wi' ye the day."
Jessie Ann hardly knew what to say. She had never really thought of the junior purser speaking to her. Still, perhaps Teeny was right; certainly he might have spoken had Teeny not been present. A new sense of importance came to her.
"Aweel," said she at last, possibly a trifle patronizingly, "we'll no' say ony mair aboot it. But ye maun try no' to giggle the next time, Teeny. Young men dinna like to be giggled at."
Christina did not remind her friend that she also had giggled the previous Sunday, but squeezed her friend's arm and promised solemnly never to giggle as long as she lived.
They returned to the seat, better friends than ever.
After a long silence Christina remarked shyly, "Maybe we'll meet him on the road back, Jessie Ann."
Jessie Ann tossed her head.
"I'm no' in the habit o' runnin' efter men," she said haughtily. "I intend for to gang back the high road."
Christina regarded her with admiration. It was almost exactly what one of her recent heroines had done, though, to be sure, the heroine had met the hero after all.
"Ay; I dare say it's best to be coy," she murmured softly.
"What d'ye mean by 'coy'?"
"Oh, weel," stammered the reader of novelettes, "I think it means kin' o' backward in comin' forward, forbye pretendin' ye dinna care a snuff when ye're jist dyin' for him."
"But 'm no' dyin' for onybody. I never seen the man yet I would die for."
"Oh, but ye can never tell beforehand," Christina said sagely. "I believe it whiles comes on ye like a blot from the blue," she went on in a hoarse whisper, carried away by her feelings, "an' ye canna resist the passionate vowels o' the adorin' swine. An' then"
"Oh, mercy! " cried Jessie Ann. "What's this ye're sayin' aboot roarin' swines an' blue blots?"
"Maybe ye'll ken some day," said Christina, with much seriousness. Then, earnestly, "Oh, Jessie Ann, what wud ye say if—if he proposed to ye?"
"Och, come on hame, Teeny," the elder girl returned quickly, but not the least crossly. She jumped up, and Christina followed.
They traversed the greater part of the little-used high road in silence and without meeting any one until they rounded a sharp bend, when, behold!
There, on the edge of the moor, reclined the junior purser—and not alone. Beside him sat a dainty damsel of some eighteen summers, a vistor to Kilmabeg, into whose pretty mouth he was, at the moment, engaged in popping pink aromatic lozenges. His left arm was about her waist.
An inarticulate sound came from Christina; for an instant she halted as though to turn and flee. But she took her cue from Jessie Ann, and the two girls marched past the pair with burning cheeks and elevated noses. To Christina it was like a bad dream.
Jessie Ann was the first to speak.
"That was why I took ye up the high road," she said, with something like an effort.
Christina gaped at her friend.
"Of course I kent fine he was mashin' her," pursued Jessie Ann.
Christina gaped a little more widely if anything.
"She's been tryin' for to catch him since she cam' here at the beginnin' o' the month. It's awfu' funny—eh, Teeny?" And Jessie Ann laughed loudly.
To oblige her friend the younger girl forced a dismal cackle.
"Catch me dressin' up an' runnin' efter a man!" said the elder, and shortly afterwards changed the subject by asking Christina if she liked pancakes with jam.
Later Miss Purvis and her niece went, as was their custom, to evening service. In the course of his sermon the minister put the question, "What is Truth?"
Christina wondered—with special reference to Love. She fell asleep that night, still wondering.