Penny Plain | Page 7

and found that in a little house called Hillview, owned by one Bella Bathgate, I might lodge. I liked the name of the house and its owner, and I hope to find in Priorsford peace and great content.
"Having been more or less of a fool for forty years, I am now going to try to get understanding. It won't be easy, for we are told that 'it cannot be gotten with gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.... No mention shall be made of coral and pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies.'
"I am going to walk on the hills all day, and in the evening I shall read the Book of Job and Shakespeare and Sir Walter.
"In one of the Jungle Books there was a man called Sir Purun Dass--do you remember? Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., who left all his honours and slipped out one day to the sun-baked highway with nothing but an ochre-coloured garment and a beggar's bowl. I always envied that man. Not that I could rise to such Oriental heights. The beggar's bowl wouldn't do for me. I cling to my comforts: also, I am sure Sir Purun Dass left himself no loophole whereby he might slip back to his official position whereas I-----Well, the Politician thinks I have gone for a three months' rest cure, and at sixty one is not impatient. You will say, 'How like Pam!' Yes, isn't it? I always was given to leaving myself loopholes; but, all the same, I am not going to face an old age bolstered up by bridge and cosmetics. There must be other props, and I mean to find them. I mean to possess my soul. I'm not all froth, but, if I am, Priorsford will reveal it. I feel that there will be something very revealing about Miss Bella Bathgate.
"Poor Biddy, to have such an effusion hurled at you!
"But you'll admit I don't often mention my soul.
"I doubt if you will be able to read this letter. If you can make it out, forgive it being so full of myself. The next will be full of quite other things. All my love, Biddy.--Yours, PAM."
* * * * *
Three hours later the express stopped at the junction. The train was waiting on the branch line that terminated at Priorsford, and after a breathless rush over a high bridge in the dark Pamela and her maid, Mawson, found themselves bestowed in an empty carriage by a fatherly porter.
Mawson was not a real lady's maid: one realised that at once. She had been a housemaid for some years in the house in Grosvenor Street, and Pamela, when her own most superior maid flatly refused to accompany her on this expedition, had asked Mawson to be her maid, and Mawson had gladly accepted the offer. She was a middle-aged woman with a small brown face, an obvious _toupée_, and an adventurous spirit.
She now tidied the carriage violently, carefully hiding the book Pamela had been reading and putting the cushion on the rack. Finally, tucking the travelling-rug firmly round her mistress, she remarked pleasantly, "A h'eight hours' journey without an 'itch!"
"Certainly without an aitch," thought Pamela, as she said, "You like travelling, Mawson?"
"Oh yes, m'm. I always 'ave 'ad a desire to travel. Specially, if I may say so, to see Scotland, Miss. But, oh, ain't it bleak? Before it was dark I 'ad me eyes glued to the window, lookin' out. Such miles of 'eather and big stones and torrents, Miss, and nothing to be seen but a lonely sheep--'ardly an 'ouse on the 'orizon. It gave me quite a turn."
"And this is nothing to the Highlands, Mawson."
"Ain't it, Miss? Well, it's the bleakest I've seen yet, an' I've been to Brighton and Blackpool. Travelled quite a lot, I 'ave, Miss. The lydy who read me 'and said I would, for me teeth are so wide apart." Which cryptic saying puzzled Pamela until Priorsford was reached, when other things engaged her attention.
* * * * *
There was another passenger for Priorsford in the London express. He was called Peter Reid, and he was as short and plain as his name. Peter Reid was returning to his native town a very rich man. He had left it a youth of eighteen and entered the business of a well-to-do uncle in London, and since then, as the saying is, he had never looked over his shoulder; fortune showered her gifts on him, and everything he touched seemed to turn to gold.
While his mother lived he had visited her regularly, but for thirty years his mother had been lying in Priorsford churchyard, and he had not cared to keep in touch with the few old friends he had. For forty-five years he had lived in London,