A Night of Gaiety Read Free Page B

before.
    “ Either that, or live on air, which I do not believe is very substantial fare,” Davita said.
    “ Now suppose for th’ time being ye have me croft, Miss Davita?” Hector said. “I’ve still got a few years o’ work left in me, an’ ... ”
    D avita gave a little cry and interrupted him before he could say any more.
    “ Do not be so ridiculous, Hector!” she said. “It is sweet of you, and just like your kind heart, but you know as well as I do that you should not go on working any longer, and Papa was sensible enough to give you a croft and leave you enough money so that you will not starve.”
    S he paused to say in a more practical tone:
    “ All the same, there will be work at the Castle to employ you for a few days a week, which will provide you with the luxuries you could not otherwise afford.”
    “ I don’t need much, Miss Davita,” Hector replied, “and there’s always a wee rabbit or a grouse up th’ hill.” Davita laughed, and they both knew he intended to poach what he required.
    “ If it comes to that,” he said, “there’ll be enough for two. I’m not a big eater.”
    “ You are the kindest man in the world,” Davita replied, “but we have to be sensible, Hector. I cannot stay with you for the rest of my life, and at eighteen I have to learn to look after myself.”
    S he gave a little sigh.
    “ Not that it would be very exciting being in Edinburgh with Mrs. Stirling!”
    “ Is that what he suggested?” Hector enquired.
    “Something of the ... sort.”
    S he knew by the expression on the old man’s face that he was thinking, as she had, that Mrs. Stirling would disapprove of her father having died as he had, and more especially of Katie.
    D avita felt she could almost hear the whispers:
    “ You can’t touch pitch without being defiled!” “Those who sup with the Devil should use a long spoon!”
    S he wanted to cry out that she could not bear it, and she felt she would be quite incapable of controlling young children and making them obey her.
    “ Oh, Hector, what shall I ... do?” she asked.
    T hen as she looked down at what he was packing she saw in the trunk a picture of Katie.
    I t was in a silver frame and Hector had laid it on top of one of her father’s suits and obviously intended to cover it with another so that there was no possibility of the glass breaking.
    D avita had heard from Katie all about the photographic beauties whose faces filled the illustrated papers and show-windows.
    K atie had been photographed for advertisements and, like Maude Branscombe, who had been the first of the beauties, had posed for a religious picture.
    “ Very pretty I looked,” she had told Davita, “wearing a kind of nightgown with my hair hanging over my shoulders, and clinging to a cross!”
    T hen she had laughed the light, spontaneous laugh which had always delighted Sir Iain.
    “ I wonder what some of those old battle-axes who took my picture into their pious homes would feel if they knew it was a Gaiety Girl they were pressing in their Bibles or hanging on the wall!”
    K atie had laughed again.
    “ That picture brought me in a lot of shiny golden sovereigns, and that’s what mattered!”
    I t was then, looking at Katie’s photograph, that Davita had an idea.
    W hat was the point of being looked down on and perhaps despised in Edinburgh?
    I f she had to work, she was much more likely to find it in London than anywhere else.
    S he would go to Violet, who had been very friendly all the time she was staying with her, and in fact at times she had seemed almost like the sister Davita had never had.
    S he remembered too that Violet had said to her: “You’re very pretty, Davita, and in a year or two you’ll be stunning! If you take my advice, you’ll not waste yourself in this dead-or-alive place.”
    “ But this is my home!” Davita had said.
    “ Home or not, the moors aren’t going to pay you compliments, and the only kisses you’ll get will be from the