Concluding THEY CALLED on Miss Currie

Lake County Mail, Issue 31, 24 December 1947, Page 4

Concluding THEY CALLED on Miss Currie

“ Won’t you come away in and try a piece of honey cake?” She would never have believed she could manage such trickery. Her heart thumped nervously as Frances Leslie unsmilingly accepted. Just give her five minutes and then Duncan Taggart could call back for his honey any time he liked —she’d been expecting him all the day. It was actually Miss Leslie who mentioned yesterday’s visitor first. “ Your nephew?” she asked, with just too-casual indifference. Miss Currie hid a smile. It was going to be easy! Oh, no! The landlord, Mr Taggart, a fine, good man, he is too. He noticed you particularly and was asking your name.” . “Was he, indeed?” “ It’ll be a lucky woman that Duncan Taggart weds,” Miss Currie said quietly, “ He’s a good man to his family, and would be an awful good husband, too. There’s just one thing he just cannot stand, and that is people who are unkind to their own. He’s been a fine brother and a fine son himself, has Duncan.” She paused to brew- the tea, and there was no sound in the dim little kitchen but the quick tick-tock of the grandfather clock. But before she turned away Miss Currie had seen her caller’s face, and knew she understood. But in that moment simple little Miss Currie saw also a quick flicker in those cold, clever, grey eyes, and she realised what she should have known all along, that Frances Leslie was more than her equal. She would turn this information to her own advantage —and take care at the same time that it did no good to her sister-in-law. Tears sprang to her wrinkled, deepset eyes. She’d tried to help dear, sweet Mrs Leslie, and she’d only succeeded in helping this hard-eyed woman in the chair. She was relieved when her caller rose to go, and Duncan had not appeared. Miss Leslie was walking into the town and went away down the hill. Duncan Taggart’s farm car drove up a few minutes later and turned noisly in a cart track across the lane. Miss Currie Avent out with the honey. “ I passed Miss Leslie going away down,” he shouted above the noisy engine. “ I’ll give her a lift into Kinuathie. It’s a long way for a town lady to walk!” He winked broadly and let in his clutch. Miss Currie turned in at the gate again and sighed. This would maybe be a lesson to her never to stoop to such trickery again! There w r a? only one caller from Greenways in the next three days, and that was Timmy. There was a puddle in the path, and hj" lowered through it absently as he munched h’s cake and chatted. “Mummy’s conrng down to see you soon, but she’s been busy. Aunt Fan goes out every day with a big man that knows you. She’s always laughing, but mummy That was all the news Miss Currie had until Duncan called himself for a oppond jar of honev. The first had done •RpqsVs little g ; rl so much good, Miss Frances had suggested getting her another ! “And you’ll maybe be getting your bathroom before you cxuected it, Miss Curre” he shouted. “You’ve brought m° good luck. I’m thinking!” The next caller —on Sunday morning, just after Miss Currie got back from church —was actually Frances Leslie herself.. “ I’ve got to talk to you,” she announced. Frances Leslie seemed to find it hard to begin. She coughed once or twice and stared at the brass fender irresolutely. Then she spoke —curtly, defiantly. it You saw I was interested in Mr Taggart, didn’t you? And you tried to arrange things to suit your own purpose!” She gave a queer little laugh. “ You might just as well have told mo that Clare had been talking to you! And you gave me some useful information. Mind you, I should have realised all that about Mr Taggart myself in time, but I might have made a mistake before I did so. You prevented that.” “ It was too easy, I knew Clare would never tell him I was standing in her way. Even if she could bring herself to do so, she’d think it a despicable thing to do. So I knew I could pretend to Mr Taggart that I was very soft and loving with her, and yet—not give in. And I w r as right!” She laughed ,and little Miss Currie hated her more vehemently than she could ever have believed possible. But Miss Leslie’s smile had faded now. ho was still and serious. “ What I didn’t - anticipate,” she went on slowly, “ was Clare’s ridiculous nobility. Would you beljeve it, when she saw how happy Duncan and I were in one another’s company, she actually did all she could to help us, and went so far as to tell me she was glad I was to find such happiness . • ■ She was actually pleased, .the silly creature, because something—something rather wonderful had happened to me! Can you belive it? Miss Currie’s reply was stern rebuke. it of course I can believe it. Mrs Leslie’s an angel!” “ Oh, well!” Frances dismissed all that with a flippant gesture. “Falling in low seems to have a queer effect on folks,

or else that absurd nobility of hers unnerved me or something—anyway I felt quite sorry for her, though, heavens knows why I should, and I sent a wire to her lan last night and told him to come at once.” “ You—you told her she was free to do as she wanted, and that Timmy wouldn’t suffer if she married again?” Tears of joy stood now in Miss Currie’s eyes, but unashamedly she let them drop. “ Oh, this is just what I prayed for! And for Duncan’s sake too, I’m awfully glad. He’ll be happy with you, now you can feel like that, you’ll be happy, too, yourself. You’ll sec! ” After that Miss Currie knew who her next callers would be. She watched them from her tiny window as they walked down from Greenways. Clare kissed Miss Currie warmly as they came into the small room and lit its dimness with the radiance of their happiness. “ lan tells me he’s met you before, and I think you guess how things have worked out for us!” Her eyes danced and her cheeks were tinted with a coral flush. “ You’ve brought us good luck — how strange that we should both have confided in you. And yet not so strange either, is it, lan? Well, Miss Currie, Duncan just called for Frances and he asked us to give you a message. You’ve brought him good luck too, and he says you’re to have your bathroom just as soon as he can get a permit.” Miss Currie’s elderly face flushed with quick pleasure, but she saw by the twinkle in lan Drummond’s kind eyes that there was more to come. “ Now Clare, you know that’s not what you wanted to tell Miss Currie at all!” he smiled. Clare laughed and pouted at him delightfully. “I didn’t want to give her a shock by springing it all on her at once.” She turned to Miss Currie and took both thin hands in her own warm clasp. “ Miss Currie, I’ve a proposition to make to you. “ I promised Allan before he went abroad that if he didn’t come back, I wouldn’t sell Greenways. Even if I wasn’t able to live in it, he hoped I would hang on to it until Timmy was 25, and if Timmy didn’t want it then —well, then I must just do what I thought best.” “ It’s a caretaker I really want. Someone to live in Greenways and love it and look after it until Timmy’s grown up. It was lan who first thought of you, and I knew at once how right he was! You and your bees .to care for Greenways and its garden! Allan would have been so happy to know that. Will you do it for him?” Miss Currie shook her head gently. “ Not just for him, my dear,” she told the softly smiling Clare, and her voice was so low they could hardly hear her. “ I’ll do it for you surely, and it’ll be the happiest duty I ever had. It’ll be like—like living in heaven!” Later, as the two happy callers waved good bye at the white gate, Miss Currie watched them go with eyes that bad indeed glimpsed heaven. Her thin lips moved gently. “ Bless you both,” she whispered softly. “ Bless you both as you have blessed me to-day.”