Love in thine eyes for ever plays;He in thy snowy bosom strays,
Love in thine eyes for ever plays;He in thy snowy bosom strays,
Love in thine eyes for ever plays;He in thy snowy bosom strays,
they sang, just as in the by-gone times of Summer; and now old Mackenzie had got on a bit further in his musical studies, and could hum with the best of them,
He makes thy rosy lips his care,And walks the mazes of thy hair.
He makes thy rosy lips his care,And walks the mazes of thy hair.
He makes thy rosy lips his care,And walks the mazes of thy hair.
There was no Winter at all in the snug little room, with its crimson fire and closed shutters and songs of happier times. “When the rosy morn appearing” had nothing inappropriate in it; and if they particularly studied the words of “Oh wert thou in the cauld blast,” it was only that Sheila might teach her companion the Scotch pronunciation, as far as she knew it. And once, half in joke, Lavender said he could believe it was Summer again if Sheila had only on her slate-gray silk dress, with the red ribbon around her neck; and sure enough, after dinner she came down in that dress, and Lavender took her hand and kissed it in gratitude. Just at that moment, too, Mackenzie began to swear at Duncan for not having brought him his pipe, and not only went out of the room forit, but was a full half hour in finding it. When he came in again he was singing carelessly,
Love in thine eyes for ever plays.
Love in thine eyes for ever plays.
Love in thine eyes for ever plays.
just as if he had got his pipe around the corner.
For it had been all explained by this time, you know, and Sheila had in a couple of trembling words pledged away her life, and her father had given his consent. More than that he would have done for the girl, if need were; and when he saw the perfect happiness shining in her eyes—when he saw that, through some vague feelings of compunction or gratitude, or even exuberant joy, she was more than usually affectionate toward himself—he grew reconciled to the ways of Providence, and was ready to believe that Ingram had done them all a good turn in bringing his friend from the South with him. If there was any haunting fear at all, it was about the possibility of Sheila’s husband refusing to live in Stornoway even for half the year or a portion of the year; but did not the young man express himself as delighted beyond measure with Lewis and the Lewis people, and the sports and scenery and climate of the island? If Mackenzie could have bought fine weather at twenty pounds a day, Lavender would have gone back to London with the conviction that there was only one thing better than Lewis in Summer-time, and that was Lewis in time of snow and frost.
The blow fell. One evening a distinct thaw set in, during the night the wind went around to Southwest, and in the morning, lo! the very desolation of desolation. Suainabhal, Mealasabhal, Cracabhal were all hidden away behind dreary folds of mist; a slow and steady rain poured down from the lowering skies on the wet rocks, the marshy pasture land and the leafless bushes; the Atlantic lay dark under a gray fog, and you could scarcely see across the loch in front of the house. Sometimes the wind freshened a bit, and howled about the house or dashed showers against the streaming panes; but ordinarily there was no sound but the ceaseless hissing of the rain on the wet gravel at the door and the rush of the waves along the black rocks. All signs of life seemed to have fled from the earth and the sky. Bird and beast had alike taken shelter, and not even a gull or a sea-pye crossed the melancholy lines of moorland, which were half obscured by the mist of the rain.
“Well, it can’t be fine weather always,” said Lavender,cheerfully, when Mackenzie was affecting to be greatly surprised to find such a thing as rain in the Island of Lewis.
“No, that iss quite true,” said the old man. “It wass ferry good weather we were having since you hef come here. And what iss a little rain?—Oh, nothing at all. You will see it will go away whenever the wind goes around.”
With that Mackenzie would again go out to the front of the house, take a turn up and down the wet gravel, and pretend to be scanning the horizon for signs of a change. Sheila, a good deal more honest, went about her household duties, saying merely to Lavender, “I am very sorry the weather has broken, but it may clear before you go away from Borva.”
“Before I go? Do you expect it to rain for a week?”
“Perhaps it will not, but it is looking very bad to-day,” said Sheila.
“Well, I don’t care,” said the young man, “though it should rain the skies down, if only you would keep in doors, Sheila. But you do go out in such a reckless fashion. You don’t seem to reflect that it is raining.”
“I do not get wet,” she said.
“Why, when you came up from the shore half an hour ago your hair was as wet as possible, and your face all red and gleaming with the rain.”
“But I am none the worse. And I am not wet now. It is impossible that you will always keep in a room if you have things to do; and a little rain does not hurt any one.”
“It occurs to me, Sheila,” he observed slowly, “that you are an exceedingly obstinate and self-willed young person, and that no one has ever exercised any proper control over you.”
She looked up for a moment with a sudden glance of surprise and pain; but she saw in his eyes that he meant nothing, and she went forward to him, putting her hand in his hand, and saying with a smile, “I am very willing to be controlled.”
“Are you really?”
“Yes.”
“Then hear my commands. You shallnotgo out in time of rain without putting something over your head or taking an umbrella. You shallnotgo out in the Maighdean-mhara without taking some one with you besides Mairi. You shallnever, if you are away from home, go within fifty yards of the sea, so long as there is snow on the rocks.”
“But that is so very many things already; is it not enough?” said Sheila.
“You will faithfully remember and observe these rules?”
“I will.”
“Then you are a more obedient girl then I imagined or expected; and you may now, if you are good, have the satisfaction of offering me a glass of sherry and a biscuit, for, rain or no rain, Lewis is a dreadful place for making people hungry.”
Mackenzie need not have been afraid. Strange as it may appear, Lavender was well content with the wet weather. No depression or impatience or remonstrance was visible on his face when he went to the blurred windows, day after day, to see only the same desolate picture—the dark sea, the wet rocks, the gray mists over the moorland and the shining of the red gravel before the house. He would stand with his hands in his pocket and whistle “Love in thine eyes forever plays,” just as if he were looking out on a cheerful Summer sunrise. When he and Sheila went to the door, and were received by a cold blast of wet wind and a driving shower of rain, he would slam the door to again, with a laugh, and pull the girl back into the house. Sometimes she would not be controlled; and then he would accompany her about the garden as she attended to her duties, or would go down to the shore with her to give Bras a run. From these excursions he returned in the best of spirits, with a fine color in his face; until, having got accustomed to heavy boots, impervious frieze and the discomfort of wet hands, he grew to be about as indifferent to the rain as Sheila herself, and went fishing or shooting or boating with much content, whether it was wet or dry.
“It has been the happiest month of my life—I know that,” he said to Mackenzie as they stood together on the quay at Stornoway.
“And I hope you will hef many like it in the Lewis,” said the old man, cheerfully.
“I think I should soon learn to become a Highlander up here,” said Lavender, “if Sheila would only teach me the Gaelic.”
“The Gaelic!” cried Mackenzie impatiently. “TheGaelic! It is none of the gentlemen who will come here in the Autumn will want the Gaelic; and what for would you want the Gaelic—ay, if you was staying here all the year round?”
“But Sheila will teach me all the same, won’t you, Sheila?” he said, turning to his companion, who was gazing somewhat blankly at the rough steamer and at the rough gray sea beyond the harbor.
“Yes,” said the girl; she seemed in no mood for joking.
Lavender returned to town more in love than ever; and soon the news of his engagement was spread abroad, he nothing loath. Most of his club-friends laughed, and prophesied it would come to nothing. How could a man in Lavender’s position marry anybody but an heiress? He could not afford to go and marry a fisherman’s daughter. Others came to the conclusion that artists and writers and all that sort of people were incomprehensible, and said “Poor beggar!” when they thought of the fashion in which Lavender had ruined his chances in life. His lady friends, however, were much more sympathetic. There was a dash of romance in the story; and would not the Highland girl be a curiosity a little while after she came to town! Was she like any of the pictures Mr. Lavender had hanging up in his rooms? Had he not even a sketch of her? An artist, and yet not have a portrait of the girl he had chosen to marry? Lavender had no portrait of Sheila to show. Some little photographs he had he kept for his own pocket-book, while in vain had he tried to get some sketch or picture that would convey to the world of his friends and acquaintances some notion of his future bride. They were left to draw on their imagination for some presentment of the coming princess.
He told Mrs. Lavender, of course. She said little, but sent for Edward Ingram. Him she questioned in a cautious, close and yet apparently indifferent way, and then merely said that Frank was very impetuous, that it was a pity he had resolved on marrying out of his own sphere of life, but that she hoped the young lady from the Highlands would prove a good wife to him.
“I hope he will prove a good husband to her,” said Ingram, with unusual sharpness.
“Frank is very impetuous.” That was all Mrs. Lavender would say.
By and by, as the spring grew on, and the time of the marriage was coming nearer, the important business of taking and furnishing a house for Sheila’s reception occupied the attention of the young man from morning till night. He had been somewhat disappointed at the cold fashion in which his aunt looked upon his choice, admitting everything he had to say in praise of Sheila, but never expressing any approval of his conduct, or hope about the future; but now she showed herself most amiably and generously disposed. She supplied the young man with abundant funds wherewith to furnish the house according to his own fancy. It was a small place, fronting a somewhat commonplace square in Notting Hill, but it was to be a miracle of artistic adornment inside. He tortured himself for days over rival shades and hues; he drew designs for the chairs; he himself painted a good deal of paneling; and, in short, gave up his whole time to making Sheila’s future home beautiful. His aunt regarded these preparations with little interest, but she certainly gave her nephew ample means to indulge the eccentricities of his fancy.
“Isn’t she a dear old lady?” said Lavender one night to Ingram. “Look here! A check, received this morning, for two hundred pounds, for plate and glass.”
Ingram looked at the bit of pale green paper: “I wish you had earned the money yourself, or done without the plate until you could buy it with your own money.”
“Oh, confound it, Ingram! you carry your puritanical theories too far. Doubtless I shall earn my own living by and by. Give me time.”
“It is now nearly a year since you thought of marrying Sheila Mackenzie, and you have not done a stroke of work yet.”
“I beg your pardon. I have worked a good deal of late, as you will see when you come up to my rooms.”
“Have you sold a single picture since last summer?”
“I cannot make people buy my pictures if they don’t choose to do so.”
“Have you made any effort to get them sold, or to come to any arrangement with any of the dealers?”
“I have been too busy of late—looking after this house, you know,” said Lavender with an air of apology.
“You were not too busy to paint a fan for Mrs. Lorraine, that people say must have occupied you for months.”
Lavender laughed: “Do you know, Ingram, I think you are jealous of Mrs. Lorraine, on account of Sheila? Come, you shall go and see her.”
“No, thank you.”
“Are you afraid of your Puritan principles giving way?”
“I am afraid that you are a very foolish boy,” said the other, with a good-humored shrug of resignation; “but I hope to see you mend when you marry.”
“Ah, then youwillsee a difference!” said Lavender, seriously; and so the dispute ended.
It had been arranged that Ingram should go up to Lewis to the marriage, and after the ceremony in Stornoway return to Borva with Mr. Mackenzie, to remain with him a few days. But at the last moment Ingram was summoned down to Devonshire on account of the serious illness of some near relative, and accordingly Frank Lavender started by himself to bring back with him his Highland bride. His stay in Borva was short enough on this occasion. At the end of it there came a certain wet and boisterous day, the occurrences in which he afterwards remembered as if they had taken place in a dream. There were many faces about, a confusion of tongues, a good deal of dram-drinking, a skirl of pipes, and a hurry through the rain; but all these things gave place to the occasional glance he got from a pair of timid and trusting and beautiful eyes. Yet Sheila was not Sheila in that dress of white, with her face a trifle pale. She was more his own Sheila when she had donned her rough garments of blue, and when she stood on the wet deck of the vessel, with a great gray shawl around her, talking to her father with a brave effort at cheerfulness, although her lip would occasionally quiver as one or other of her friends from Borva—many of them barefooted children—came up to bid her good-bye. Her father talked rapidly, with a grand affectation of indifference. He swore at the weather. He bade her see that Bras was properly fed, and if the sea broke over his box in the night, he was to be rubbed dry, and let out in the morning for a run up and down the deck. She was not to forget the parcel directed to an innkeeper at Oban. They would find Oban a very nice place at which to break the journey to London, but as for Greenock, Mackenzie could find no words with which to describe Greenock.
And then, in the midst of all this, Sheila suddenly said, “Papa, when does the steamer leave?”
“In a few minutes. They have got nearly all the cargo on board.”
“Will you do me a great favor, papa?”
“Ay, but what is it, Sheila?”
“I want you not to stay here till the boat sails, and then you will have all the people on the quay vexing you when you are going away. I want you to bid good-bye to us now, and drive away around to the point, and we shall see you the last of all when the steamer has got out of the harbor.”
“Ferry well, Sheila, I will do that,” he said, knowing well why the girl wished it.
So father and daughter bade good-bye to each other; and Mackenzie went on shore with his face down, and said not a word to any of his friends on the quay, but got into the wagonette, and, lashing his horses, drove rapidly away. As he had shaken hands with Lavender, Lavender had said to him, “Well, we shall soon be back in Borva again to see you;” and the old man had merely tightened the grip of his hand as he left.
The roar of the steam-pipes ceased, the throb of the engines struck the water, and the great steamer steamed away from the quay and out of the plain of the harbor into a wide world of gray waves and wind and rain. There stood Mackenzie as they passed, the dark figure clearly seen against the pallid colors of the dismal day; and Sheila waved a handkerchief to him until Stornoway and its lighthouse and all the promontories and bays of the great island had faded into the white mists that lay along the horizon. And then, her arm fell to her side, and for a moment she stood bewildered, with a strange look in her eyes of grief, and almost of despair.
“Sheila, my darling, you must go below now,” said her companion; “you are almost dead with cold.”
She looked at him for a moment as though she had scarcely heard what he said. But his eyes were full of pity for her; he drew her closer to him, and put his arms around her, and then she hid her head in his bosom and sobbed there like a child.
“WELCOMEto London—!”
He was about to add “Sheila,” but suddenly stopped. The girl, who had hastily come forward to meet him with a glad look in her eyes and with both hands out-stretched, doubtless perceived the brief embarrassment of the moment, and was perhaps a little amused by it. But she took no notice of it; she merely advanced to him and caught both his hands, and said, “And are you very well?”
It was the old and familiar salutation, uttered in the same odd, gentle, insinuating fashion, and in the same low and sweet voice. Sheila’s stay in Oban and the few days she had already spent in London, had not taught her the difference between “very” and “ferry.”
“It is so strange to hear you speak in London—Mrs. Lavender,” he said, with rather a wry face as he pronounced her full and proper title.
And now it was Sheila’s turn to look a bit embarrassed and color, and appear uncertain whether to be vexed or pleased, when her husband himself broke in in his usual impetuous fashion: “I say, Ingram, don’t be a fool! Of course you must call her Sheila—unless when there are people here, and then you must please yourself. Why, the poor girl has enough of strange things and names about her already. I don’t know how she keeps her head. It would bewilder me, I know; but I can see that, after she has stood at the window for a time, and begun to get dazed by all the wonderful sights and sounds outside, she suddenly withdraws and fixes all her attention on some little domestic duty, just as if she were hanging on to the practical things of life to assure herself it isn’t all a dream. Isn’t that so, Sheila?” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.
“You ought not to watch me like that,” she said with a smile. “But it is the noise that is most bewildering. Thereare many places I will know already when I see them, many places and things I have known in pictures; but now the size of them, and the noise of carriages, and the people always passing, always different, always strangers, so that you never see the same people any more. But I am getting very much accustomed to it.”
“You are trying very hard to get accustomed to it, any way, my good girl,” said her husband.
“You need not be in a hurry; you may begin to regret some day that you have not a little of that feeling of wonder left,” said Ingram. “But you have not told me anything of what you think about London, and of how you like it, and how you like your house, and what you have done with Bras, and a thousand other things.”
“I well tell you all that directly, when I have got for you some wine and some biscuits.”
“Sheila, you can ring for them,” said her husband, but she had by that time departed on her mission. Presently she returned, and waited upon Ingram just as if she had been in her father’s house in Borva, with the gentlemen in a hurry to go out to the fishing, and herself the only one who could serve them.
She put a small table close by the French window; she drew back the curtains as far as they would go, to show the sunshine of a bright forenoon in May lighting up the trees in the square and gleaming on the pale and tall fronts of the houses beyond; and she wheeled in three low easy-chairs, so as to front this comparatively cheerful prospect. Somehow or other, it seemed quite natural that Sheila should wheel in those chairs. It was certainly no disrespect on the part of either her husband or her visitor which caused both of them to sit still and give her her own way about such things. Indeed, Lavender had not as yet ever attempted to impress upon Sheila the necessity of cultivating the art of helplessness.
That, with other social graces, would, perhaps, come in good time. She would soon acquire the habits and ways of her friends and acquaintances, without his trying to force upon her a series of affectations, which would only embarrass her and cloud the perfect frankness and spontaneity of her nature. Of one thing he was quite assured—that whatever mistakes Sheila might make in society they would never render her ridiculous. Strangers might not know the absolutesincerity of every word and act, which gave her a courage that had no fear of criticism, but they could at least see the simple grace and dignity of the girl, and that natural ease of manner which is beyond the reach of cultivation, being mainly the result of a thorough consciousness of honesty. To burden her with rules and regulations of conduct would be to produce the very catastrophes he wished to avoid. Where no attempt is made, failure is impossible; and he was meanwhile well content that Sheila should simply appear as Sheila, even although she might draw in a chair for a guest, or so far forget her dignity as to pour out some wine for her husband.
“After all, Sheila,” said Lavender, “hadn’t I better begin and tell Ingram about your surprise and delight when you came near Oban and saw the tall hotels and the trees? It was the trees, I think, that struck you most, because, you know, those in Lewis—well, to tell the truth—the fact is, the trees of Lewis—as I was saying, the trees of Lewis are not just—they cannot be said to be—”
“You bad boy, to say anything against the Lewis!” exclaimed Sheila; and Ingram held that she was right, and that there were certain sorts of ingratitude more disgraceful than others, and that this was just about the worst.
“Oh, I have brought all the good away from Lewis,” said Lavender with a careless impertinence.
“No,” said Sheila, proudly. “You have not brought away my papa, and there is not any one in this country I have seen as good as he is.”
“My dear, your experience of the thirty millions of folks in these islands is quite convincing. I was wholly in the wrong; and if you forgive me we shall celebrate our reconciliation in a cigarette—that is to say, Ingram and I will perform the rites, and you can look on.”
So Sheila went away to get the cigarettes also.
“You don’t say you smoke in your drawing-room, Lavender?” said Ingram, mindful of the fastidious ways of his friend, even when he had bachelor’s rooms in King street.
“Don’t I, though? I smoke everywhere—all over the place. Don’t you see we have no visitors yet. No one is supposed to know we have come South. Sheila must get all sorts of things before she can be introduced to my friends and my aunt’s friends, and the house must be put to rights, too. Youwouldn’t have her go to see my aunt in that sailor’s costume she used to rush about in up in Lewis?”
“That is precisely what I would have,” said Ingram, “She cannot look more handsome in any other dress.”
“Why, my aunt would fancy I had married a savage; I believe she fears something of the sort now.”
“And you haven’t told even her that you are in London?”
“No.”
“Well, Lavender, that is a precious silly performance. Suppose she hears of your being in town, what will you say to her?”
“I should tell her I wanted a few days to get my wife properly dressed before taking her about.”
Ingram shrugged his shoulders: “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps, indeed, it would be better if you waited six months before you introduced Sheila to your friends. At present you seem to be keeping the foot-lights turned down until everything is ready for the first scene, and then Sheila is to burst upon society in a blaze of light and color. Well, that is harmless enough; but look here! You don’t know much about her yet; you will be mainly anxious to hear what the audience, as it were, say of her; and there is just a chance of your adopting their impressions and opinions of Sheila, seeing that you have no very fixed ones of your own. Now, what your social circle may think about her is a difficult thing to decide; and I confess I would rather have seen you remain six months in Lewis before bringing her up here.”
Ingram was at least a candid friend. It was not the first nor the hundredth time that Frank Lavender had to endure small lectures, uttered in a slow, deliberate voice, and yet with an indifference of manner which showed that Ingram cared very little how sharply his words struck home. He rarely even apologized for his bluntness. These were his opinions; Lavender could take them or leave them, as he liked. And the younger man, after finding his face flush a bit on being accused of wishing to make a dramatic impression with Sheila’s entrance into London society, laughed in an embarrassed way, and said, “It is impossible to be angry with you, Ingram, and yet you do talk so absurdly. I wonder who is likely to know more about the character of a girl than her own husband?”
“You may in time; you don’t now,” said Ingram, carefully balancing a biscuit on the point of his finger.
“The fact is,” said Lavender, with good-natured impatience, “you are the most romantic card I know, and there is no pleasing you. You have all sorts of exalted notions about things, about sentiments and duties, and so forth. Well, all that is true enough, and would be right enough if the world were filled with men and women like yourself; but then it isn’t, you see, and one has to give in to conventionalities of dress and living and ceremonies, if one wants to retain one’s friends. Now, I like to see you going about with that wide-awake—it suits your brown complexion and beard—and that stick that would do for herding sheep; and the costume looks well, and is business-like and excellent when you’re off for a walk over the Surrey downs or lying on the river-banks about Henley or Cookham; but it isn’t, you know, the sort of costume for a stroll in the Park.”
“Whenever God withdraws from me my small share of common sense,” said Ingram, slowly, “so far that I shall begin to think of having my clothes made for the purpose of walking in Hyde Park, well—”
“But don’t you see,” said Lavender, “that one must meet one’s friends, especially when one is married; and when you know that at a certain hour in the forenoon they are all to be found in a particular place, and that a very pleasant place, and that you will do yourself good by having a walk in the fresh air, and so forth, I really don’t see anything very immoral in going down for an hour or so to the Park.”
“Don’t you think the pleasure of seeing one’s friends might be postponed till one had done some sort of good day’s work?”
“There now!” cried Lavender, “that is another of your delusions. You are always against superstitions, and yet you make work a fetish. You do with work just as women do with duty; they carry about with them a convenient little God, and they are always worshiping it with small sacrifices, and complimenting themselves on a series of little martyrdoms that are of no good to anybody. Of course, duty wouldn’t be duty if it wasn’t disagreeable, and when they go nursing the sick—and they could get it better done for fifteen shillings a week by somebody else—they don’t mind coming back to their families with the seeds of typhus about theirgowns; and when they crush the affections in order to worship at the shrine of duty, they don’t consider that they may be making martyrs of other folks, who don’t want martyrdom and get no sort of pleasure out of it. Now, what in all the world is the good of work as work? I believe that work is an unmistakable evil, but when it is a necessity I suppose you get some sort of selfish satisfaction in overcoming it; and doubtless if there was any immediate necessity in my case—I don’t deny the necessity may arise, and that I should like nothing better than to work for Sheila’s sake—”
“Now, you are coming to the point,” said Ingram, who had been listening with his usual patience to his friend’s somewhat chaotic speculations. “Perhaps you may have to work for your wife’s sake and your own; and I confess I am surprised to see you so content with your present circumstances. If your aunt’s property legally reverted to you, if you had any sort of family claim on it, that would make some little difference; but you know that any sudden quarrel between you might leave you penniless to-morrow.”
“In which case I should begin to work to-morrow, and I should come to you for my first commission.”
“And you shouldn’t have it. I would leave you to go and fight the world for yourself; without which a man knows nothing of himself or of his relations with those around him.”
“Frank, dear, here are the cigarettes,” said Sheila, at this point; and as she came and sat down the discussion ceased.
For Sheila began to tell her friend of all the strange adventures that had befallen her since she left the far island of Lewis—how she had seen with fear the great mountains of Skye lit up by the wild glare of a stormy sunrise; how she had seen with astonishment the great fir woods of Armadale; and how green and beautiful were the shores of the Sound of Mull. And then Oban, with its shining houses, its blue bay, and its magnificent trees, all lit up by a fair and still sunshine! She had not imagined there was anywhere in the world so beautiful a place, and could scarcely believe that London itself was more rich and noble and impressive; for there were beautiful ladies walking along the broad pavements, and there were shops with large windows that seemed to contain everything that the mind could desire, and there was a whole fleet of yachts in the bay. But it was the trees, above all, that captivated her; and she asked if they were lordswho owned those beautiful houses built up on the hill, and half smothered among lilacs and ash trees and rowan trees and ivy.
“My darling,” Lavender had said to her, “if your papa were to come and live here, he could buy half a dozen of those cottages, gardens and all. They are mostly the property of well-to-do shopkeepers. If this little place takes your fancy, what will you say when you go South—when you see Wimbledon and Richmond and Kew, with their grand old commons and trees? Why, you could hide Oban in a corner of Richmond Park!”
“And my papa has seen all those places!”
“Yes. Don’t you think it strange he should have seen them all, and known he could live in any one of them, and then gone away back to Borva?”
“But what would the poor people have done if he had never gone back?”
“Oh, some one else would have taken his place.”
“And then, if he were living here or in London, he might have got tired, and he might have wished to go back to the Lewis and see all the people he knew; and then he would come among them like a stranger, and have no house to go to.”
Then Lavender said quite gently, “Do you think, Sheila, you will ever tire of living in the South?”
The girl looked up quickly, and said, with a sort of surprised questioning in her eyes, “No, not with you. But then we shall often go to the Lewis?”
“Oh, yes,” her husband said, “as often as we can conveniently. But it will take some time at first, you know, before you get to know all my friends who are to be your friends, and before you get properly fitted into our social circle. That will take you a long time, Sheila, and you may have many annoyances or embarrassments to encounter; but you won’t be very much afraid, my girl?”
Sheila merely looked up to him; there was no fear in the frank, brave eyes.
The first large town she saw struck a cold chill to her heart. On a wet and dismal afternoon they sailed into Greenock. A heavy smoke hung about the black building-yards and the dirty quays; the narrow and squalid streets were filled with mud, and only the poorer sections of thepopulation waded through the mire or hung disconsolately about the corners of the thoroughfares. A gloomier picture could not well be conceived; and Sheila, chilled with the long and wet sail, and bewildered by the noise and bustle of the harbor, was driven to the hotel with a sore heart and a downcast face.
“This is not like London, Frank?” she said, pretty nearly ready to cry with disappointment.
“This? No. Well, it is like a part of London, certainly, but not the part you will live in.”
“But how can we live in the one place without passing the other and being made miserable by it? There was no part of Oban like this.”
“Why, you will live miles away from the docks and quays of London. You might live for a lifetime in London without ever knowing it had a harbor. Don’t you be afraid, Sheila. You will live in a district where there are far finer houses than any you saw in Oban, and far finer trees; and within a few minutes’ walk you will find great gardens and parks, with lakes in them and wild fowls, and you will be able to teach the boys about how to set the helm and the sails when they are launching their small boats.”
“I should like that,” said Sheila, her face brightening.
“Perhaps you would like a boat yourself?”
“Yes,” she said, frankly. “If there were not many people there, we might go out sometimes in the evening—”
Her husband laughed and took her hand: “You don’t understand, Sheila. The boats the boys have are little things a foot or two long—like the one in your papa’s bedroom in Borva. But many of the boys would be greatly obliged to you if you would teach them how to manage the sails properly, for sometimes dreadful shipwrecks occur.”
“You must bring them to our house. I am very fond of little boys, when they begin to forget to be shy, and let you become acquainted with them.”
“Well,” said Lavender, “I don’t know many of the boys who sail boats in the Serpentine; you will have to make their acquaintance yourself. But I know one boy whom I must bring to the house. He is a German-Jew boy, who is going to be another Mendelssohn, his friends say. He is a pretty boy, with ruddy-brown hair, big black eyes, and a fine forehead, and he really sings and plays delightfully. But youknow, Sheila, you must not treat him as a boy; for he is over fourteen, I should think; and if you were to kiss him—”
“He might be angry,” said Sheila, with perfect simplicity.
“I might,” said Lavender; and then, noticing that she seemed a little surprised, he merely patted her head and bade her go and get ready for dinner.
Then came the great climax of Sheila’s southward journey—her arrival in London. She was all anxiety to see her future home; and, as luck would have it, there was a fair spring morning shining over the city. For a couple of hours before she had sat and looked out of the carriage-window as the train whirled rapidly through the scarcely awakened country, and she had seen the soft and beautiful landscapes of the South lit up by the early sunlight. How the bright little villages shone, with here and there a gilt weathercock glittering on the spire of some small gray church, while as yet in many valleys a pale gray mist lay along the bed of the level streams, or clung to the dense woods on the upland heights! Which was the more beautiful—the sharp, clear picture, with its brilliant colors and its awakening life, or the more mystic landscape over which was still drawn the tender veil of the morning haze? She could not tell. She only knew that England, as she then saw it, seemed a great country that was very beautiful, that had few inhabitants, and that was still and sleepy and bathed in sunshine. How happy must the people be who lived in those quiet green valleys by the side of slow and smooth rivers, and amid great woods and avenues and stately trees, the like of which she had not imagined in her dreams.
But from the moment they got out at Euston Square she seemed a trifle bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade her—clinging to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of guidance. She did, indeed, glance somewhat nervously at the hansom into which Lavender put her, apparently asking how such a tall and narrow two-wheeled vehicle could be prevented toppling over. But when he, having sent on all their luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler, got into the hansom beside her, and put his hand inside her arm, and bade her be of good cheer, that she should have such a pleasant morning to welcome her to London, she said, “Yes,” mechanically, and only looked out in a wistful fashion at the great houses and trees of EustonSquare, the mighty and roaring stream of omnibuses, the droves of strangers, mostly clad in black, as if they were going to church, and the pale blue smoke that seemed to mix with the sunshine and make it cold and distant.
They were in no hurry, these two, on that still morning, and so, to impress Sheila all at once with a sense of the greatness and grandeur of London, he made the cabman cut down by Park Crescent and Portland Place to Regent Circus. Then they went along Oxford Street; and there were crowded omnibuses taking young men into the city, while all the pavements were busy with hurrying passersby. What multitudes of unknown faces, unknown to her and unknown to each other? These people did not speak; they only hurried on, each intent upon his own affairs, caring nothing, apparently, for the din around them, and looking so strange and sad in their black clothes in the pale and misty sunlight.
“You are in a trance, Sheila,” he said.
She did not answer. Surely she had wandered into some magical city, for now the houses on one side of the way suddenly ceased, and she saw before her a great and undulating extent of green, with a border of beautiful flowers, and with groups of trees that met the sky all along the Southern horizon. Did the green and beautiful country she had seen shoot in thus into the heart of the town, or was there another city far away on the other side of the trees? The place was almost as deserted as those still valleys she had passed by in the morning. Here, in the street, there was the roar of a passing crowd, but there was a long and almost deserted stretch of park, with winding roads and umbrageous trees, on which the wan sunlight fell from between loose masses of half-golden cloud.
Then they passed Kensington Gardens, and there were more people walking down the broad highways between the elms.
“You are getting nearly home now, Sheila,” he said, “and you will be able to come and walk in these avenues whenever you please.”
Was this, then, her home? this section of a barrack-row of dwellings, all alike in steps, pillars, doors and windows? When she got inside the servant who had opened the door bobbed a curtsey to her; should she shake hands with herand say, “And are you ferry well?” But at this moment Lavender came running up the steps, playfully hurried her into the house and up the stairs, and led her into her own drawing-room. “Well, darling, what do you think of your home, now that you see it?”
Sheila looked around timidly. It was not a big room, but it was a palace in height and grandeur and color compared with that little museum in Borva in which Sheila’s piano stood. It was all so strange and beautiful—the split pomegranates and quaint leaves on the upper part of the walls, and underneath a dull slate-color, where the pictures hung; the curious paintings on the frames of the mirrors; the brilliant curtains, with their stiff and formal patterns. It was not very much like a home as yet; it was more like a picture that had been carefully planned and executed; but she knew how he had thought of pleasing her in choosing these things, and without saying a word she took his hand and kissed it. And then she went to one of the three tall French windows and looked out on the square. There, between the trees, was a space of beautiful soft green, and some children dressed in bright dresses, and attended by a governess in sober black, had just begun to play croquet. An elderly lady with a small white dog was walking along one end of the graveled paths. An old man was pruning some bushes.
“It is very still and quiet here,” said Sheila. “I was afraid that we should have to live in that terrible noise always.”
“I hope you won’t find it dull, my darling,” he said.
“Dull, when you are here?”
“But I cannot always be here, you know?”
She looked up.
“You see, a man is so much in the way if he is dawdling about the house all day long. You would begin to regard me as a nuisance, Sheila, and would be for sending me out to play croquet with those young Carruthers, merely that you might get the rooms dusted. Besides, you know I couldn’t work here: I must have a studio of some sort—in the neighborhood, of course. And then you will give me your orders in the morning as to when I am to come round for luncheon or dinner.”
“And you will be alone all day at your work?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will come and sit with you, my poor boy,” she said.
“Much work I should do in that case!” he said. “But we’ll see. In the meantime go up stairs and get your things off; that young person below has breakfast ready, I dare say.”
“But you have not shown me yet where Mr. Ingram lives,” said Sheila before she went to the door.
“Oh, that is miles away. You have only seen a little bit of London yet. Ingram lives about as far away from here as the distance you have just come, but in another direction.”
“It is like a world made of houses,” said Sheila, “and all filled with strangers. But you will take me to see Mr. Ingram?”
“By-and-by, yes. But he is sure to drop in on you as soon as he fancies you are settled in your new home.”
And here, at last, was Mr. Ingram come; and the mere sound of his voice seemed to carry her back to Borva, so that in talking to him and waiting on him as of old, she would scarcely have been surprised if her father had walked in to say that a coaster was making for the harbor, or that Duncan was going over to Stornoway and Sheila would have to give him commissions. Her husband did not take the same interest in the social and political affairs of Borva that Mr. Ingram did. Lavender had made a pretence of assisting Sheila in her work among the poor people, but the effort was a hopeless failure. He could not remember the name of a poor family that wanted a new boat, and was visibly impatient when Sheila would sit down to write out for some aged crone a letter to her grandson in Canada. Now, Ingram, for the mere sake of occupation, had qualified himself during his various visits to Lewis, so that he might have become the home minister of the King of Borva; and Sheila was glad to have one attentive listener as she described all the wonderful things that had happened in the island since the previous Summer.
But Ingram had got a full and complete holiday on which to come up and see Sheila; and he had brought with him the wild and startling proposal that in order that she should take her first plunge into the pleasures of civilized life, her husband and herself should drive down to Richmond and dine at the Star and Garter.
“What is that?” said Sheila.
“My dear girl,” said the husband, seriously, “your ignorance is something fearful to contemplate. It is quite bewildering. How can a person who does not know what the Star and Garter is, be told what the Star and Garter is?”
“But I am willing to go and see,” said Sheila.
“Then I must look after getting a brougham,” said Lavender, rising.
“A brougham on such a day as this?” exclaimed Ingram. “Nonsense! Get an open trap of some sort; and Sheila, just to please me, will put on that very blue dress she used to wear in Borva, and the hat and the white feather, if she has got them.”
“Perhaps you would like me to put on a sealskin cap and a red handkerchief instead of a collar,” observed Lavender, calmly.
“You may do as you please. Sheila and I are going to dine at the Star and Garter.”
“May I put on that blue dress?” said the girl, going up to her husband.
“Yes, of course, if you like,” said Lavender, meekly, going off to order the carriage, and wondering by what route he could drive those two maniacs down to Richmond, so that none of his friends should see them.
When he came back again, bringing with him a landau, which could be shut up for the homeward journey at night, he had to confess that no costume seemed to suit Sheila so well as the rough sailor-dress; and he was so pleased with her appearance that he consented at once to let Bras go with them in the carriage, on condition that Sheila should be responsible for him. Indeed, after the first shiver of driving away from the square was over, he forgot that there was much unusual about the look of his odd pleasure-party. If you had told him eighteen months before, that on a bright day in May, just as the people were going home from the Park for luncheon, he would go for a drive in a hired trap, with one horse, his companions being a man with a brown wide-awake, a girl, dressed as though she were the owner of a yacht, and an immense deerhound, and that in this fashion he would dare to drive up to the Star and Garter and order dinner, he would have bet five hundred to one that such a thing would neveroccur so long as he preserved his senses. But somehow he did not mind much. He was very much at home with those two people beside him; the day was bright and fresh; the horse went a good pace; and once they were over Hammersmith Bridge and out among fields and trees, the country looked exceedingly pretty, and the beauty of it was mirrored in Sheila’s eyes.
“I can’t quite make you out in that dress, Sheila,” he said “I am not sure whether it is real and business-like or a theatrical costume. I have seen girls on Ryde Pier with something of the same sort on, only a good deal more pronounced, you know, and they looked like sham yachtsmen; and I have seen stewardesses wearing that color and texture of cloth—”
“But why not have it as it is,” said Ingram—“a solitary costume produced by certain conditions of climate and duties, acting in conjunction with a natural taste for harmonious coloring and simple form? That dress, I will maintain, sprang as naturally from the salt sea as Aphrodite did; and the man who suspects artifice in it or invention, has had his mind perverted by the skepticism of modern society.”
“Is my dress so very wonderful?” said Sheila, with a grave complaisance. “I am pleased that the Lewis has produced such a fine thing, and perhaps you would like me to tell you its history. It was my papa bought a piece of blue serge in Stornoway; it cost three shillings sixpence a yard, and a dressmaker in Stornoway cut it for me, and I made it myself. That is all the history of the wonderful dress.”
Suddenly Sheila seized her husband’s arm. They had got down to the river by Mortlake; and there, on the broad bosom of the stream, a long and slender boat was shooting by, pulled by four oarsmen clad in white flannel.
“How can they go out in such a boat?” said Sheila, with great alarm visible in her eyes. “It is scarcely a boat at all; and if they touch a rock or the wind catches them—”
“Don’t be frightened, Sheila,” said her husband. “They are quite safe. There are no rocks in our rivers, and the wind does not give us squalls here like those on Loch Roag. You will see hundreds of those boats by and by, and perhaps you yourself will go out in one.”
“Oh, never, never!” she said, almost with a shudder.
“Why, if the people here heard you they would not knowhow brave a sailor you are. You are not afraid to go out at night by yourself on the sea, and you won’t go on a smooth inland river—”
“But those boats; if you touch them they must go over.”
She seemed glad to get away from the river. She could not be persuaded of the safety of the slender craft of the Thames; and indeed for some time after seemed so strangely depressed that Lavender begged and prayed of her to tell him what was the matter. It was simple enough. She had heard him speak of his boating adventures. Was it in such boats as that she had just seen? and might he not be some day going out in one of them, and an accident—the breaking of an oar, a gust of wind—
There was nothing for it but to reassure her by a solemn promise that in no circumstances whatever would he, Lavender, go into a boat without her express permission, whereupon Sheila was as grateful to him as though he had dowered her with a kingdom.
This was not the Richmond Hill of her fancy—this spacious height, with its great mansions, its magnificent elms, and its view of all the Westward and wooded country, with the blue-white streak of the river winding through the green foliage. Where was the farm? The famous Lass of Richmond Hill must have lived on a farm, but here surely were the houses of great lords and nobles, which had apparently been there for years and years. And was this really a hotel that they stopped at—this great building that she could only compare to Stornoway Castle?
“Now, Sheila,” said Lavender, after they had ordered dinner and gone out, “mind you keep a tight hold on that leash, for Bras will see strange things in the Park.”
“It is I who will see strange things,” she said; and the prophecy was amply fulfilled. For as they went along the broad path, and came better into view of the splendid undulation of woodland and pasture and fern, when on the one hand they saw the Thames, far below them, flowing through the green and spacious valley, and on the other hand caught some dusky glimpse of the far white houses of London, it seemed to her that she had got into a new world, and that this world was far more beautiful than the great city she had left. She did not care so much for the famous view from the hill. She had cast one quick look to the horizon, with onethrob of expectation that the sea might be there. There was no sea there—only the faint blue of long lines of country apparently without limit. Moreover, over the Western landscape a faint haze prevailed, that increased in the distance and softened down the more distant woods into a sober gray. That great extent of wooded plain, lying sleepily in its pale mists, was not so cheerful as the scene around her, where the sunlight was sharp and clear, the air fresh, the trees flooded with a pure and bright color.
Here, indeed, was a cheerful and beautiful world, and she was full of curiosity to know all about it and its strange features. What was the name of this tree? and how did it differ from that? Were not these rabbits over by the fence? and did rabbits live in the midst of trees and bushes? What sort of wood was the fence made of? and was it not terribly expensive to have such a protection? Could not he tell the cost of a wooden fence? Why did they not use wire netting? Was not that a loch away down there? and what was its name? A loch without a name! Did the salmon come up to it? and did any sea birds ever come inland and build their nests on its margin?
“Oh, Bras, you must come and look at the loch. It is a long time since you will see a loch.”
And away she went through the thick breckan, holding on to the swaying leash that held the galloping grayhound, and running swiftly as though she had been making down for the shore to get out the Maighdean-mhara.
“Sheila,” called her husband, “don’t be foolish!”
“Sheila,” called Ingram, “have pity on an old man!”
Suddenly she stopped. A brace of partridges had sprung up at some distance, and, with a wild whirr of their wings, were now directing their low and rapid flight toward the bottom of the valley.
“What birds are those?” she said peremptorily.
She took no notice of the fact that her companions were pretty nearly too blown to speak. There was a brisk life and color in her face, and all her attention was absorbed in watching the flight of the birds. Lavender fancied he saw in the fixed and keen look something of old Mackenzie’s gray eye; it was the first trace of a likeness to her father he had seen.
“You bad girl!” he said, “they are partridges.”
She paid no heed to this reproach, for what were those other things over there underneath the trees? Bras had pricked up his ears, and there was a strange excitement in his look and in his trembling frame.
“Deer!” she cried, with her eyes as fixed as were those of the dog beside her.
“Well,” said the husband calmly; “what although they are deer?”
“But Bras—” she said; and with that she caught the leash with both her hands.
“Bras won’t mind them if you keep him quiet. I suppose you can manage him better than I can. I wish we had brought a whip.”
“I would rather let him kill every deer in the Park than touch him with a whip,” said Sheila proudly.
“You fearful creature, you don’t know what you say. That is high treason. If George Ranger heard you he would have you hanged in front of the Star and Garter.”
“Who is George Ranger?” said Sheila with an air, as if she had said, “Do you know that I am the daughter of the King of Borva, and whoever touches me will have to answer to my papa, who is not afraid of any George Ranger?”
“He is a great lord who hangs all persons who disturb the deer in this Park.”
“But why do they not go away?” said Sheila, impatiently. “I have never seen any deer so stupid. It is their own fault if they are disturbed; why do they remain so near to people and to houses?”
“My dear child, if Bras wasn’t here you would probably find some of those deer coming up to see if you had any bits of sugar or pieces of bread about your pockets.”
“Then they are like sheep—they are not like deer,” she said, with some contempt. “If I could only tell Bras that it is sheep he will be looking at, he would not look any more. And so small they are! They are as small as the roe, but they have horns as big as many of the red deer. Do people eat them?”
“I suppose so.”
“And what will they cost?”
“I am sure I can’t tell you.”
“Are they as good as the roe or the big deer?”
“I don’t know that, either. I don’t think I ever ate fallow-deer.But you know they are not kept here for that purpose. A great many gentlemen in this country keep a lot of them in their parks merely to look pretty. They cost a great deal more than they produce.”
“They must eat up a great deal of fine grass,” said Sheila, almost sorrowfully. “It is a beautiful ground for sheep—no rushes, no peat-moss, only fine, good grass and dry land. I should like my papa to see all this beautiful ground.”
“I fancy he has seen it.”
“Was my papa here?”
“I think he said so.”
“And did he see those deer?”
“Doubtless.”
“He never told me of them.”
By this time they had pretty nearly got down to the little lake, and Bras had been alternately coaxed and threatened into a quiescent mood. Sheila evidently expected to hear a flapping of sea-fowls’ wings when they got near the margin, and looked all around for the first sudden dart from the banks. But a dead silence prevailed, and as there were neither fish nor birds to watch, she went along to a wooden bench and sat down there, one of her companions on each hand. It was a pretty scene that lay before her—the small stretch of water ruffled with the wind, but showing a dash of blue sky here and there, the trees in the inclosure beyond clad in their summer foliage, the smooth green sward shining in the afternoon sunlight. Here, at least, was absolute quiet after the roar of London; and it was somewhat wistfully that she asked her husband how far this place was from her home, and whether, when he was at work, she could not come down here by herself.
“Certainly,” he said, never dreaming that she would think of doing such a thing.
By-and-by they returned to the hotel, and while they sat at dinner a great fire of sunset spread over the West, and the far woods became of a rich purple, streaked here and there with lines of a pale white mist. The river caught the glow of the crimson clouds above, and shone duskily red amid the dark green of the trees. Deeper and deeper grew the color of the sun as it sank to the horizon, until it disappeared behind one low bar of purple cloud, and the wild glow in the West slowly faded away, the river became pallidand indistinct, the white mists over the distant woods seemed to grow denser, and then, as here and there a lamp was lit far down in the valley, one or two pale stars appeared in the sky overhead, and the night came on apace.
“It is so strange,” Sheila said, “to find the darkness coming on and not to hear the sound of the waves. I wonder if it is a fine night at Borva!”
Her husband went over to her and led her back to the table, where the candles, shining over the white cloth and the colored glasses, offered a more cheerful picture than the deepening landscape outside. They were in a private room, so that when dinner was over, Sheila was allowed to amuse herself with the fruit, while her two companions lit their cigars. Where was the quaint old piano now, and the glass of hot whisky and water, and the “Lament of Monaltrie” or “Love in thine eyes for ever plays?” It seemed but for the greatness of the room, to be a repetition of one of those evenings at Borva, that now belonged to a far off past. Here was Sheila, not minding the smoke, listening to Ingram as of old, and sometimes saying something in that sweetly inflected speech of hers; here was Ingram, talking, as it were, out of a brown study, and morosely objecting to pretty nearly everything Lavender said, but always ready to prove Sheila right; and Lavender himself, as unlike a married man as ever, talking impatiently, impetuously and wildly, except at such times as he said something to his young wife, and then some brief smile and look, or some pat on the hand said more than words. But where, Sheila may have thought, was the one wanting to complete the group? Has he gone down to Borvapost to see about the cargoes of fish to be sent off in the morning? Perhaps he is talking to Duncan outside about the cleaning of the guns, or making up cartridges in the kitchen. When Sheila’s attention wandered away from the talk of her companions she could not help listening for the sound of the waves; and as there was no such message coming to her from the great wooded plain without, her fancy took her away across that mighty country she had traveled through, and carried her up to the island of Loch Roag, until she almost fancied she could smell the peat-smoke in the night air, and listen to the sea, and hear her father pacing up and down the gravel outside the house, perhaps thinking of her as she was thinking of him.
This little excursion to Richmond was long remembered by those three. It was the last of their meetings before Sheila was ushered into the big world to busy herself with new occupations and cares. It was a pleasant little journey throughout, for as they got into the landau to drive back to town, the moon was shining high up in the Southern heavens, and the air was mild and fresh, so that they had the carriage opened, and Sheila, well wrapped up, lay and looked around her with a strange wonder and joy as they drove underneath the shadow of the trees and out again into the clear sheen of the night. They saw the river, too, flowing smoothly and palely down between its dark banks; and somehow here the silence checked them, and they hummed no more those duets they used to sing up at Borva. Of what were they thinking, then, as they drove through the clear night along the lonely road? Lavender, at least, was rejoicing at his great good fortune that he had secured for ever to himself the true-hearted girl who now sat opposite to him, with the moonlight touching her face and hair; and he was laughing to himself at the notion that he did not properly appreciate her, or understand her, or perceive her real character. If not he, who then? Had he not watched every turn of her disposition, every expression of her wishes, every grace of her manner and look of her eyes? and was he not overjoyed to find that the more he knew of her the more he loved her?
Marriage had increased rather than diminished the mystery and wonder he had woven about her. He was more her lover now than he had been before his marriage. Who could see in her eyes what he saw? Elderly folks can look at a girl’s eyes and see that they are brown or blue or green, as the case may be; but the lover looks at them and sees in them the magic mirror of a hundred possible worlds. How can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there, or tell what strange fancies or reminiscences may be involved in an absent look? Is she thinking of starlit nights on some distant lake, or of the old by-gone days on the hills? All her former life is told there, and yet but half told, and he longs to become possessed of all the beautiful past that she has seen. Here is a constant mystery to him, and there is a singular and wistful attraction for him in those still deeps where the thoughts and dreams of an innocent soul lie but half revealed. He does not see those things in the eyes of womenhe is not in love with; but when, in after years, he is carelessly regarding this or the other woman, some chance look, some brief and sudden turn of expression, will recall to him, as with a stroke of lightning, all the old wonder-time, and his heart will go nigh to breaking to think that he has grown old, and that he has forgotten so much, and that the fair, wild days of romance and longing are passed away forever.
“Ingram thinks I don’t understand you yet, Sheila,” he said to her, after they had got home and their friends had gone.
Sheila only laughed, and said, “I don’t understand myself sometimes.”
“Eh? What?” he cried. “Do you mean to say that I have married a conundrum? If I have I don’t mean to give you up, anyway, so you may go and get a biscuit and a drop of the whisky we brought from the North with us.”
FRANKLAVENDERwas a good deal more concerned than he chose to show about the effect that Sheila was likely to produce on his aunt; and when at length the day arrived on which the young folks were to go down to Kensington Gore, he had inwardly to confess that Sheila seemed a great deal less perturbed than himself. Her perfect calmness and self-possession surprised him. The manner in which she had dressed herself, with certain modifications which he could not help approving, according to the fashion of the time, seemed to him a miracle of dexterity; and how had she acquired the art of looking at ease in this attire, which was much more cumbrous than she had usually worn in Borva?
If Lavender had but known the truth, he would have begun to believe something of what Ingram had vaguely hinted. This poor girl was looking toward her visit to Kensington Gore as the most painful trial of her life. While she was outwardly calm and firm, and even cheerful, her heart sank within her as she thought of the dreaded interview. Those garments which she wore with such an appearance of ease and comfort, had been the result of many an hour of anxiety, for how was she to tell, from her husband’s raillery,what colors the terrible old lady in Kensington would probably like? He did not know that every word he said in joke about his aunt’s temper, her peevish ways, the awful consequences of offending her, and so forth, were like so many needles stuck into the girl’s heart, until she was ready to cry out to be released from this fearful ordeal. Moreover, as the day came near what he could not see in her she saw in him. Was she likely to be reassured when she perceived that her husband, in spite of all his fun, was really anxious, and when she knew that some blunder on her part might ruin him? In fact, if he had suspected for a moment that she was really trembling to think of what might happen, he might have made some effort to give her courage. But apparently Sheila was as cool and collected as if he had been going to see John the Piper. He believed she could have gone to be presented to the Queen without a single tremor of heart.
Still, he was a man, and therefore bound to assume an air of patronage. “She won’t eat you, really,” he said to Sheila, as they were driving in a hansom down Kensington Palace Gardens. “All you have got to do is to believe in her theories of food. She won’t make you a martyr to them. She measures every half ounce of what she eats, but she won’t starve you; and I am glad to think, Sheila, that you have brought a remarkably good and sensible appetite with you from the Lewis. Oh, by the way, take care you say nothing against Marcus Aurelius.”
“I don’t know who he was, dear,” observed Sheila, meekly.
“He was a Roman emperor and a philosopher. I suppose it was because he was an emperor that he found it easy to be a philosopher. However, my aunt is nuts on Marcus Aurelius: I beg your pardon, you don’t know the phrase. My aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible, and she is sure to read you bits from him, which you must believe, you know.”
“I will try,” said Sheila, doubtfully, “but if—”
“Oh, it has nothing to do with religion. I don’t think anybody knows what Marcus Aurelius means, so you may as well believe it. Ingram swears by him, but he is always full of odd crotchets.”
“Does Mr. Ingram believe in Marcus Aurelius?” said Sheila, with some accession of interest.
“Why, he gave my aunt the book years ago—confoundhim!—and ever since she has been a nuisance to her friends. For my own part, you know, I don’t believe that Marcus Aurelius was quite such an ass as Plato. He talks the same sort of perpetual commonplaces, but it isn’t about the true, the good and the beautiful. Would you like me to repeat one of the dialogues of Plato—about the immorality of Mr. Cole and the moral effect of the South Kensington Museum?”
“No, dear, I shouldn’t,” said Sheila.
“You deprive yourself of a treat, but never mind. Here we are at my aunt’s house.”
Sheila timidly glanced at the place, while her husband paid the cabman. It was a tall, narrow, dingy-looking house of dark brick, with some black-green ivy at the foot of the walls, and with crimson curtains formally arranged in every one of the windows. If Mrs. Lavender was a rich old lady, why did she live in such a gloomy building? Sheila had seen beautiful white houses in all parts of London; her own house, for example, was ever so much more cheerful than this one, and yet she had heard with awe of the value of this depressing little mansion in Kensington Gore.
The door was opened by a man, who showed them upstairs and announced their names. Sheila’s heart beat quickly. She entered the drawing-room with a sort of mist before her eyes, and found herself going forward to a lady who sat at the farther end. She had a strangely vivid impression, amid all her alarm, that this old lady looked like the withered kernel of a nut. Or, was she not like a cockatoo? It was through no anticipation of dislike to Mrs. Lavender that the imagination of the girl got hold of that notion. But the old lady held her head like a cockatoo. What was there, moreover, about the decorations of her head that reminded one of a cockatoo when it puts up its crest and causes its feathers to look like sticks of celery.
“Aunt Caroline, this is my wife.”
“I am glad to see you, dear,” said the old lady, giving her hand, but not rising. “Sit down. When you are a little nervous you ought to sit down. Frank, give me that ammonia from the mantelpiece.”
It was a small glass phial, and labeled “Poison.” She smelt the stopper, and then handed it to Sheila, telling her to do the same.
“Why did your maid do your hair in such a way?” she asked suddenly.
“I haven’t got a maid,” said Sheila, “and I always do my hair so.”
“Don’t be offended. I like it. But you must not make a fool of yourself. Your hair is too much that of a country beauty going to a ball. Paterson will show you how to do your hair.”
“Oh, I say, aunt,” cried Lavender, with a fine show of carelessness, “you mustn’t go and spoil her hair. I think it is very pretty as it is, and that woman of yours would simply go and make a mop of it. You’d think the girls nowadays dressed their hair by shoving their head into a furze bush and giving it a couple of turns.”
She paid no heed to him, but turned to Sheila and said, “You are an only child?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you leave your father?”
The question was rather a cruel one, and it stung Sheila into answering bravely. “Because my husband wished me.”
“Oh! You think your husband is to be the first law of your life?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Even when he is only silly Frank Lavender?”
Sheila rose. There was a quivering of her lips, but no weakness in the proud, indignant look of her eyes:
“What you may say of me, that I do not care. But I will not remain to hear my husband insulted.”