Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [169]
“Is there anything wrong?” asked Domenica.
Pat shook her head. “No . . . Well, perhaps there is.”
“Do you feel bad about accepting such an expensive present from him? Is that it?”
“Maybe. Maybe just a bit.”
Domenica took Pat’s hand and pressed it gently. “It’s very important to be able to accept things, you know. Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most of never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.”
“Why?”
“Possibly because of our subconscious fears about the gift relationship,” said Domenica. “The giving of gifts can create obligations, and we might not wish to be encumbered with obligations. And yet, there are gifts which are outright gifts – gifts which have no conditions attached to them. And you have to realise that accepting another person’s gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.”
Yes, thought Pat. You are right about this, as you are right about so many other things.
“He gave Big Lou a present as well yesterday,” Pat said. “I was there when he did it. A silver beaker with some words from the Declaration of Arbroath engraved on it.”
354 Domenica’s Dinner Party
“A somewhat odd gift,” mused Domenica. “And was Big Lou pleased?”
“Very,” said Pat. “She hugged him. She lifted him up, actually, and hugged him.”
Domenica smiled. “It’s very easy,” she said. “It’s very easy, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“To increase the sum total of human happiness. By these little acts. Small things. A word of encouragement. A gesture of love. So easy.”
Domenica looked at her watch. “We must get on with our labours,” she said. “Angus, Antonia, and all the rest will be here before we know it.”
“Will Angus have a poem for us, like last time?”
“He always does,” said Domenica. “When we reach the end of something.”
“But is this really the end of something?” asked Pat. Domenica smiled, somewhat sadly. “I fear it is.”
113. Domenica’s Dinner Party
One of Domenica’s little ways was to give each of her guests a different arrival time, thus staggering them at ten minute intervals. She felt that this was a good way of ensuring that each person got the attention a guest deserves right at the beginning of an evening, even if it should become, as it often did, more difficult for a hostess to devote herself to individual guests later on. The first to arrive, of course, was Angus, whom she had already seen on her return, even if only briefly. He had been over-excited at that meeting, and had blurted out all sorts of news with scant regard to chronology or significance. He had told her about Cyril’s disappearance and miraculous return; about Ramsey Dunbarton’s demise; about his new shoes; about Lard O’Connor’s appearance in Big Lou’s café and the routing of Eddie – it had all come tumbling out.
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Then Antonia came from over the landing, and had brought with her a sickly orchid and a box of chocolates as a present. Domenica thought that she recognised the box of chocolates as one that had been doing the rounds of Edinburgh dinner parties over a period of several years, passed from one hand to another and opened by no recipient. She did not reveal this, though, but put the box in a drawer for the next occasion on which she needed to take her hostess a present. It might even be Antonia, should she reciprocate the invitation, but by that time the chocolates would be wrapped in a fresh piece of gift paper and might not be identified. The real danger in recycling presents came in forgetting to remove the gift tag from the wrapping, as sometimes happened with recycled wedding presents. Then Matthew arrived, wearing a curious off-green jacket, and her friends, Humphrey and Jill Holmes, and James Holloway, who brought her an orchid in much better condition, and David Robinson, bearing a small pile of novels which Domenica had missed and which he suspected she would enjoy. That was the party complete; a small gathering,