We’ll hear nae mair lilting at our ewe-milking;
Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning—
The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
‘Isn’t it smashing?’ said Binnie, when the tune had died. ‘I thought it would be just the thing for you, Mrs Gavin. You do like it — don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Laura replied, hardly knowing what else to say.
‘Did you know that Florian is going to stay with Grandmamma Binnen? It’s for his bust, and she’s delighted, I expect. He’ll be rather a relief after the two dim aunts. Opal and Ruby are rather dreadful, didn’t you think?’
‘They are more than dreadful,’ said Florian. ‘They are positively sinister. Opal, in particular, gives me the creeps. Fat people often do. Julius Caesar was mistaken. Lean and hungry men are to be trusted. Fat, sleek-headed ones are not reliable, no matter how well they sleep at night. What say you, Mrs Gavin?’
‘I have had no opportunity to form a judgment,’ said Laura shortly. She would as soon have attended a session of the Black Mass in the form of a believer as to have criticised her own relatives to comparative strangers. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her employer in earnest conversation with the proprietors of the street-organ.
‘An odd encounter,’ said Dame Beatrice, when they had returned to their hotel for lunch.
‘I don’t know which of them, Binnie or Florian, I think the more gosh-awful,’ said Laura. ‘By the way, how did the organ-grinders get hold of that tune? I noticed you were talking to them.’
‘They told me that it had been in their repertoire for many years.’
Laura observed that it must have had something to do with the war. Purposely she left this reference extremely vague, but when she and Dame Beatrice were at lunch, she observed,
‘Did it strike you that there was more in that invitation this morning than met the eye?’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ Dame Beatrice replied.
‘How did you like the tune?’
‘The Flowers of the Forest? Your son, our dear Hamish, sings it, I remember, accompanying himself on his guitar.’
‘I know. He sings out of tune. Anyway, a guitar is a most unsuitable instrument for Scottish airs. Still, I suppose… Auld Lang Syne, and all that, apart… I’m just as pleased he doesn’t want to learn the bagpipes. The piano and the organ, plus this ghastly guitar, are more than enough in one family.’
‘I knew a young man,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘who was similarly placed to Kipling’s hero of the “choose between me and your cigar” fame. You remember the poem, perhaps? Well, in the case I am quoting, the young man was asked to choose between his young woman and his bagpipes. She said the pipes made her feel ill.’
‘And which did he choose?’
‘Unhesitatingly he chose the bagpipes. You would care to hazard a guess as to the outcome of this possibly doleful story?’
‘Oh, yes. He got his own way and the girl as well. She had to put up with the bagpipes because she wanted the toy.’
‘You speak with an authoritative note which compels my admiration and respect.’
‘Oh, well, you’re not the only psychologist among those present,’ said Laura, squinting modestly down her nose. ‘You should read the women’s magazines. That’s where I pick up my tips on feminine psychology, and I may say that they always work out.’
‘Dear me! What a mine of information I seem to have missed! Tell me more.’
‘No, no. You tell me what the organ-grinders said.’
‘Their ability to speak English was surprisingly limited, judging by my experience of most of the Netherlanders we have met, but I understood them to say that they had no idea how the tune had come to be part of their instrument’s stock-in-trade. They do not like the air. They prefer gay tunes, but some of the foreign tourists like this one, so I was told.’
‘Must be the Scottish tourists, I should think.’
‘True,’ said Dame Beatrice; but she spoke in an absent-minded manner and Laura realised that her thoughts were elsewhere. This was proved when she added, ‘Extreme wealth, in some cases, may exercise a subversive influence on its owners.’
‘All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but the power of money corrupts absolutelier than any other power, you think? commented Laura. ‘Doesn’t always work out that way, though, does it? Look at Lord Nuffield.’
‘Ah, but he seems to have been more interested in motor cars than in money. I cannot see him as a case in point.’
‘Talking of money,’ said Laura, after a pause, ‘what about Grandmother Rebekah? She seemed the most gosh-awful old girl, I thought, and crude, at that, but I noticed you didn’t agree.’
‘She is loyal, out-spoken, vulgar and dependable, dear child, I imagine. But Time will show. That is, if we ever meet Mrs Rose again.’
‘As you say. What did you make of the other grandmother?’
‘Mrs Colwyn-Welch? If there is such a thing as a typical Dutchwoman, I think it is she.’
‘No, but what did you make of her?’
‘I think she keeps those middle-aged daughters on too tight a rein.’
‘I wish I knew why the tunes on that barrel-organ included The Lament for Flodden,’ said Laura. ‘It doesn’t make sense. The French might be interested, but why the Dutch?’
‘Perhaps we have been warned,’ said Dame Beatrice, with mock solemnity.
CHAPTER FOUR
Maastricht and Valkenburg
‘La curiosité la plus remarquable de Fauquemont est la grotte municipale.’
Local Brochure
« ^ »
The province of Limburg,’ pronounced Laura, a day or two later, surveying from the terrace of their hotel a view of hills and woods, ‘does not make me think of Holland at all. Holland is flat, canalised and consists of a mixture of tulips, clogs, windmills, polders and patched trousers.’
‘It is obvious to me,’ said Dame Beatrice, putting down a cup which had contained the usual excellent Dutch coffee, ‘that your holiday is doing you good. What do you wish to do this afternoon?’
‘Well, according to the book of words supplied free gratis and for nothing by this excellent hostelry, there seems to be something at Maastricht called the Hill of St Pietersburg. It lies two miles, or thereabouts, to the south of the town, and has an enormous quarry with tunnels two hundred miles long and fifty feet high. It possesses an art gallery and some prehistoric remains in the form of fossils. Many famous names are inscribed on the walls and, in direct contradiction of the urgent appeals of our own National Trust and other bodies concerned with the preservation of ancient monuments, visitors are actually invited to add their own signatures to the names of the great. We are even informed that this testimony to the fact that we once lived, moved and had our being will be in evidence for at least a thousand years. There is only one snag about visiting these caves.’
Dame Beatrice cackled.
‘I am delighted to hear it,’ she said. ‘The idea of heaven, without a hint or two of hell, would be intolerable. Describe this little rift within the lute.’
‘We must have a guide to take us round.’
‘It seems a reasonable precaution. Even the most intrepid of hikers, (why so-called?), and speleologists, might burke at the thought of two hundred miles of underground galleries and labyrinths. Let us, then, guide included, spend the afternoon in the bowels of the earth.’