“Never by passion quite possess'd,And never quite benumbed by the world's sway”?
It was Bell's nightly duty to turn the lamp out in the lobby and bolt the outer door. She went this night reluctant to perform that office, but a thought possessed her of a child from home, somewhere in the darkness among strangers, and she had to call her brother.
“What is it?” said he.
“The door,” she said, ashamed of herself; “I cannot bolt it.”
He looked at her flushed face and her trembling hand and understood. “It's only the door of a house,” said he; “thatmakes no difference,” and ran the bolt into its staple.
FOR all the regrets of increasing age there is one alleviation among many, that days apart from those we love pass the quicker, even as our hurrying years. Thus it is that separations are divested of more and more of their terrors the nearer we are to that final parting which wipes out all and is but the going to a great reunion. So the first fortnight, whereof Miss Bell thought to cheat the almanac under the delusion that Bud's absence would then scarcely be appreciated, was in truth the period when she missed her most, and the girl was back for her Christmas holidays before half of her threepenny bits for the plate were done.
It was worth a year of separation to see her come in at the door, rosy from the frosty air, with sparkling eyes and the old, sweet, rippling laugh, not—outside at least—an atom different from the girl who had gone away; and it made up to Bud herself for many evenings homesick on an Edinburgh pillow to smell again the old celestial Christmas grocery and feel the warmth of her welcome.
Myself, I like to be important—not of such consequence to the world as to have it crick its neck with having to look up at me, but now and then important only to a few old friends; and Bud, likewise, could always enjoy the upper seat, if the others of her company were never below the salt. She basked in the flattery that Kate's deportment gave to her dignity as a young lady educated at tremendous cost.
It was the daft days of her first coming over again; but this time she saw all with older eyes—and, besides, the novelty of the little Scottish town was ended. Wanton Wully's bell, pealing far beyond the burgh bounds—commanding, like the very voice of God, to every ear of that community, no matter whether it rang at mom or eve—gave her at once a crystal notion of the smallness of the place, not only in its bounds of stone and mortar, but in its interests, as compared with the city, where a thousand bells, canorous on the Sabbath, failed, it was said, to reach the ears of more than a fraction of the people. The bell, and John Taggart's band on hogmanay, and the little shops with windows falling back already on timid appeals, and the gray, high tenements pierced by narrow entries, and the douce and decent humdrum folk—she saw them with a more exacting vision, and Ailie laughed to hear them all summed up as “quaint.”
“I wondered when you would reach 'quaint,'” said Auntie Ailie; “it was due some time ago, but this is a house where you never hear the word. Had you remained at the Pige—at the Misses Duff's Seminary, Miss Amelia would have had you sewing it on samplers, if samplers any longer were the fashion.”
“Is it not a nice word, 'quaint'?” asked Bud, who, in four months among critics less tolerant (and perhaps less wise) than the Dyces, had been compelled to rid herself of many transatlantic terms and phrases.
“There's nothing wrong with 'quaint,' my dear,” said Miss Ailie; “it moves in the most exclusive circles; if I noticed it particularly, it is because it is the indication of a certain state of mind, and tells me where you stand in your education more clearly than your first quarterly report. I came home from school with 'quaint' myself; it not only seemed to save a lot of trouble by being a word which could be applied to anything not otherwise describable, but I cherished it because its use conferred on me a kind of inward glow of satisfaction like—like—like Aunt Bell's homemade ginger cordial. 'Quaint,' Bud, is the shibboleth of boarding-school culture; when you can use the word in the proper place, with a sense of superiority to the thing so designated, you are practically a young lady and the polish is taking on.”
“They all say it in our school,” explained Bud, apologetically; “at least all except The Macintosh—I couldn't think of her saying it, somehow.
“Who's The Macintosh?” asked Ailie.
“Why! was there no Macintosh in your time?” exclaimed Bud. “I thought she went away back to the—to the Roman period. She's the funniest old lady in the land, and comes twice a week to teach us dancing and deportment. She's taught them to mostly all the nobility and gentry of Scotland; she taught Lady Anne and all her brothers when they were in St. Andrew's.”
“I never heard of her,” said Ailie; “she must be—be—be decidedly quaint.”
“She's so quaint you'd think she'd be kept in a corner cupboard with a bag of camphor at the back to scare the moths away. She's a little wee mite, not any bigger than me—than I—and they say she's seventy years old; but sometimes she doesn't look a day more than forty-five, if it weren't for her cap and her two front teeth missing. She's got the loveliest fluffy, silver hair—pure white, like Mrs. Molyneux's Aunt Tabitha's Persian cat—cheeks like an apple, hands as young as yours, and when she walks across a room she glides like this, so you'd think she was a cutter yacht—”
Bud sailed across the parlor to represent the movement of The Macintosh with an action that made her aunties laugh, and the dog gave one short yelp of disapproval.
“That was the way that Grandma Buntain walked—it used to be considered most genteel,” said Bell. “They trained girls up to it with a back-board and a book on the top of the head; but it was out before my time; we just walked any way in Barbara Mushet's seminary, where the main things were tambouring and the catechism.”
“Miss Macintosh is a real lady,” Bud went on. “She's got genuine old ancestors. They owned a Highland place called Kaims, and the lawyers have almost lawyered it a' awa', she says, so now she's simply got to help make a living teaching dancing and deportment. I declare I don't know what deportment is no more than the child unborn, unless it's shutting the door behind you, walking into a room as if your head and your legs were your own, keeping your shoulders back, and being polite and kind to everybody, and I thought folks 'd do all that without attending classes, unless they were looney. Miss Macintosh says they are thesine qua nonand principal branches for a well-bred young lady in these low days of clingy frocks and socialism; but the principal she just smiles and gives us another big block of English history. Miss Macintosh doesn't let on, but I know she simply can't stand English history, for she tells us, spells between quadrilles, that there hasn't been any history anywhere since the Union of the Parliaments, except the Rebellion of 1745. But she doesn't call it a rebellion. She calls it 'yon affair.'She'sScotch! I tell you, Auntie Bell, you'd love to meet her! I sit, and sit, and look at her like—like a cat. She wears spectacles, just a little clouded, only she doesn't call them spectacles; she says they are preserves, and that her eyes are as good as anybody's. They're bright enough, I tell you, for over seventy.”
“Indeed, I would like to see the creature!” exclaimed Miss Bell. “She must be an original! I'm sometimes just a trifle tired of the same old folk about me here—I know them all so well, and all they're like to do or say, that there's nothing new or startling to be expected from them.”
“Would you like to see her?” said Bud, quickly; “then—then, some day I'll tell her, and I'll bet she'll come. She dresses queer—like a lady in the 'School for Scandal,' and wears long mittens like Miss Minto, and when our music-master, Herr Laurent, is round she makes goo-goo eyes at him fit to crack her glasses. 'Oh, Hair-r-r!' she says, sitting with her mitts in her lap—'oh, Hair-r-r! Can you no' give the young ladies wiselike Scotch songs instead o' that dreich Concone?' And sometimes she'll hit him with a fan. He says she plays the piano to our dancing the same as it was a spinet.”
“I declare it beats all!” said Miss Bell. “Does the decent old body speak Scotch?”
“Sometimes. When she's making goo-goo eyes at the Herr, or angry, or finding fault with us but doesn't want to hurt our feelings.”
“I can understand that,” said Miss Bell, with a patriot's fervor; “there's nothing like the Scotch for any of them. I fall to it myself when I'm sentimental; and so does your uncle Dan.”
“She says she's the last of the real Macintoshes—that all the rest you see on Edinburgh signboards are only in-comers or poor de-degenerate cadets; and I guess the way she says it, being a de-degenerate cadet Mackintosh must be the meanest thing under the cope and canopy. Heaps of those old ancestors of hers went out in the days of the clans, fighting for any royalty that happened along. She's got all their hair in lockets, and makes out that when they disappeared Scotland got a pretty hard knock. I said to her once the same as Aunt Ailie says to you, Aunt Bell, 'English and Scots, I s'pose we're all God's people, and it's a terribly open little island to be quarrelling in, seeing all the Continent can hear us quite plain,' but she didn't like it. She said it was easy seen I didn't understand the dear old Highland mountains, where her great-great-grandfather, Big John of the Axe, could collect five hundred fighting-men if he wagged a fiery cross at them. 'I have Big John's blood in me!' she said, quite white, and her head shaking so much her preserves nearly fell off her nose. 'I've Big John's blood in me; and when I think of things,I hate the very name o' thae aboaminable English!' 'Why, you've never seen them, Miss Mackintosh,' I said—for I knew she'd never had a foot outside Scotland. 'No,' said she, quite sharp, 'and I don't want to, for they might be nice enough, and then I wad be bound to like them.'”
“Oh, Bell!” cried Ailie, laughing, “Miss Mackintosh is surely your doppelganger.”
“I don't know what a doppelganger is,” said Auntie
Bell; “but she's a real sensible body, and fine I would like to see her.”
“Then I'll have to fix it somehow,” said Bud, with emphasis. “P'r'aps you'll meet her when you come to Edinburgh—”
“I'm not there yet, my dear.”
“Or she might be round this way by-and-by. She'd revel in this place; she'd maybe not call it quaint, but she'd find it pretty careless about being in the—in the modern rush she talks about, and that would make her happier than a letter from home. I believe The Macintosh—”
“Miss Macintosh, my dear,” said Bell, reprovingly, and the girl reddened.
“I know,” said she. “It's mean to talk of her same as she was a waterproof, and I often try not to, because I like her immensely; but it's so common among the girls that I forget. I believe Miss Macintosh would love this place and could stop in it forever.”
“Couldn't you?” asked Auntie Ailie, slyly.
Bud hesitated. “Well, I—I like it,” said she. “I just love to lie awake nights and think about it, and I can hear the wind in the trees and the tide come in, and the bell, and the wild geese; and family worship at the Provost's on Sunday nights, and I can almostbehere, I think so powerfully about it; but—but—” She stopped short, for she saw a look of pain in the face of her auntie Bell.
“But what?” said the latter, sharply.
“Oh, I'm a wicked, cruel, ungrateful girl, Auntie Bell; and I ought to want to love this place so much, nobody could push me out of it. And Idolove it, but feel if I lived here always I'd not grow any more.”
“You're big enough,” said Auntie Bell. “You're as big as myself now.”
“I mean inside. Am I a prig, Aunt Ailie? I'd hate to be a prig! But I'd hate as bad to tell a lie; and I feel I'd never learn half so much or do half so much here as I'd do where thousands of folk were moving along in a procession and I was with them, too. A place like this is like a kindergarten—it's good enough as far's it goes, but it doesn't teach the higher branches.”
Bell gazed at her in wonder and pity and blame, shaking her head. All this was what she had anticipated.
“I know the feeling,” said Aunt Ailie, “for I have shared it myself; and sometimes still it will come back to me, but in my better hours I think I'm wiser and can be content. If there is growth in you, you will grow anywhere. You were born in the noise of Chicago, Bud, and I suppose it's hard to get it out of the ears. By-and-by I hope you'll find that we are all of us most truly ourselves, not in the crowd, but when we are alone, and that not the smallest hamlet in the world need be intellectually narrow for any one with imagination, some books, and a cheerful constitution. Do you understand that, Bud?”
Bud thought hard for a moment and then shook her head. “It sounds as if it ought to be true,” said she, “and I dare say you think just now it is true; but I simplycan'tbelieve it.” And all of them turned at the sound of a chuckling laugh to find that Mr. Dyce had heard this frank confession.
“That's the worst of you, Bud,” said he. “You will never let older folk do your thinking for you.”
IT is another mercy, too, that in our age we learn to make the best of what aforetime might be ill to thole, as Bell made fine new garments out of old ones faded by turning them outside in and adding frills and flounces. Bud's absence early ceased to be deplorable, since it wakened cheerful expectations not to be experienced had she stayed at home, gave rise to countless fond contrivances for her happiness in exile, and two or three times a year to periods of bliss, when her vacations gave the house of Dyce the very flower of ecstasy. Her weekly letters of themselves were almost compensation for her absence. On the days of their arrival Peter the post would come blithely whistling with his M.C. step to the lawyer's kitchen window before he went to the castle itself, defying all routine and the laws of the postmaster-general, for he knew Miss Dyce would be waiting feverishly, having likely dreamed the night before of happy things that—dreams going by contraries, as we all of us know in Scotland—might portend the most dreadful tidings.
Bud's envelope was always on the top of his budget. For the sake of it alone (it sometimes seemed to Peter and those who got it) had the mail come splashing through the night—the lawyer's big blue envelopes, as it were, had got but a friendly lift through the courtesy of clerks in Edinburgh, and the men on the railway train, and the lad who drove the gig from Maryfield. What were big blue envelopes of the business world compared with the modest little square of gray with Lennox Dyce's writing on it?
“Here's the usual! Pretty thick to-day!” would Peter say, with a smack of satisfaction on the window-sash. Ah, those happy Saturdays! Everybody knew about them. “And how's hersel'?” the bell-ringer would ask in the by-going, not altogether because his kindly interest led to an eye less strict on his lazy moods in the garden. One Fair day, when Maggie White's was irresistible, it rang so merrily with drovers, and he lost the place again, he stopped the lawyer on the street to ask him what Miss Lennox thought of all this argument about the Churches, seeing she was in the thick of it in Edinburgh.
“Never you mind the argument, Will,” said Daniel Dyce, “you do your duty by the auld kirk bell; and as for the Free folk's quarrelling, amang them be't!”
“But can you tell me, Mr. D-D-Dyce,” said Wanton Wully, with as much assurance as if he was prepared to pay by the Table of Fees, “what's the difference between the U.F.'s and the Frees? I've looked at it from every point, and I canna see it.”
“Come and ask me some day when you're sober,” said the lawyer, and Wanton Wully snorted.
“If I was sober,” said he, “I wouldna want to ken—I wouldna give a curse.”
Yet each time Bud came home she seemed, to the mind of her auntie Bell, a little further off from them—a great deal older, a great deal less dependent, making for womanhood in a manner that sometimes was astounding, as when sober issues touched her, set her thinking, made her talk in fiery ardors. Aunt Ailie gloried in that rapid growth; Aunt Bell lamented, and spoke of brains overtaxed and fevered, and studies that were dangerous. She made up her mind a score of times to go herself to Edinburgh and give a warning to the teachers; but the weeks passed, and the months, and by-and-by the years, till almost three were gone, and the Edinburgh part of Lennox's education was drawing to a close, and the warning visit was still to pay.
It was then, one Easter came. The Macintosh.
Bell and Ailie were out that afternoon for their daily walk in the woods or along the shore, when Mr. Dyce returned from the sheriff's court alert and buoyant, feeling much refreshed at the close of an encounter with a lawyer who, he used to say, was better at debating than himself, having more law-books in his possession and a louder voice. Letting himself in with his pass-key, he entered the parlor, and was astonished to find a stranger, who rose at his approach and revealed a figure singular though not unpleasing. There was something ludicrous in her manner as she moved a step or two from the chair in which she had been sitting. Small, and silver-gray in the hair, with a cheek that burned—it must be with embarrassment—between a rather sallow neck and sunken temples, and wearing smoked spectacles with rims of tortoiseshell, she would have attracted attention anywhere even if her dress had been less queer. Queer it was, but in what manner Daniel Dyce was not the person to distinguish. To him there was about it nothing definitely peculiar, except that the woman wore a crinoline, a Paisley shawl of silken white, and such a bonnet as he had not seen since Grandma Buntain's time.
“Be seated, ma'am,” said he. “I did not know I had the honor of a visitor,” and he gave a second, keener glance that swept the baffling figure from the flounced green poplin to the snow-white lappet of her bonnet. A lady certainly—that was in the atmosphere, however odd might be her dress. “Where, in the world has this one dropped from?” he asked himself and waited an explanation.
“Oh, Mr. Dyce!” said the lady, in a high, shrill voice that plainly told she never came from south of the border, and with a certain trepidation in her manner, “I'm feared I come at an inconvenient time to ye, and I maybe should hae bided at your office; but they tell't me ye were out at what they ca'd a Pleading Diet. I've come about my mairrage.”
“Your marriage!” said the lawyer, scarcely hiding his surprise.
“Yes, my mairrage!” she repeated, sharply, drawing the silken shawl about her shoulders, bridling. “There's naething droll, I hope and trust, in a maiden lady ca'in' on a writer for his help about her settlements!” “Not at all—not at all, ma'am,” said Daniel Dyce. “I'm honored in your confidence.” And he pushed his spectacles up on his brow that he might see her less distinctly and have the less inclination to laugh at such an eccentric figure.
She broke into a torrent of explanation. “Ye must excuse me, Mr. Dyce, if I'm put about and gey confused, for it's little I'm acquent wi' lawyers. A' my days I've heard o' naething but their quirks, for they maistly rookit my grandfaither. And I cam' wi' the coach frae Maryfield, and my heart's in a palpitation wi' sic brienging and bangin' ower heughs and hills—” She placed a mittened hand on a much-laced stomacher and sighed profoundly.
“Perhaps—perhaps a glass of wine—” began the lawyer, with his eye on the bell-pull and a notion in his head that wine and a little seed-cake someway went with crinolines and the age of the Paisley shawl.
“No, no!” she cried, extravagantly. “I never lip it; I'm—I'm in the Band o' Hope.”
The lawyer started, and scanned her again through his glasses with a genial, chuckling crow. “So's most maiden ladies, ma'am,” said he. “I'm glad to congratulate you on your hopes being realized.”
“It remains to be seen,” said the visitor. “Gude kens what may be the upshot. The maist deleeberate mairrage maun be aye a lottery, as my auntie Grizel o' the Whinhill used to say; and I canna plead that mine's deleeberate, for the man just took a violent fancy the very first nicht he set his een on me, fell whummlin' at my feet, and wasna to be put aff wi' 'No' or 'Maybe.' We're a puir, weak sex, Mr. Dyce, and men's sae domineerin'!”
She ogled him through her clouded glasses; her arch smile showed a blemish of two front teeth a-missing. He gave a nod of sympathy, and she was off again. “And to let ye ken the outs and ins o't, Mr. Dyce, there's a bit o' land near Perth that's a' that's left o' a braw estate my forebears squandered in the Darien. What I want to ken is, if I winna could hinder him that's myfiancéfrae dicin' or drinkin' 't awa' ance he got me mairried to him? I wad be sair vexed at ony such calamity, for my family hae aye been barons.”
“Ance a baron aye a baron,” said the lawyer, dropping into her own broad Scots.
“Yes, Mr. Dyce, that's a' very fine; but baron or baroness, if there's sic a thing, 's no great figure wantin' a bit o' grun to gang wi' the title; and John Cleghorn—that's my intended's name—has been a gey throughither chiel in his time by a' reports, and I doubt wi' men it's the aulder the waur.”
“I hope in this case it 'll be the aulder the wiser, Miss—” said the lawyer, and hung unheeded on the note of interrogation.
“I'll run nae risks if I can help it,” said the lady, emphatically; “and I'll no' put my trust in the Edinburgh lawyers, either; they're a' tarred wi' the a'e stick, or I sair misjudge them. But I'm veesitin' a cousin ower by at Maryfield, and I'm tell't there's no' a man that's mair dependable in a' the shire than yoursel', so I just cam' ower ains errand for a consultation. Oh, that unco' coach! the warld's gane wud, Mr. Dyce, wi' hurry and stramash, and Scotland's never been the same since—But there! I'm awa' frae my story; if it's the Lord's will that I'm to marry Johnny Cleghom, what comes o' Kaims? Will he be owner o't?”
“Certainly not, ma'am,” said Mr. Dyce, with a gravity well preserved considering his inward feelings. “Even before the Married Women's Property Act, hisjus mariti, as we ca' it, gave him only his wife's personal and movable estate. There is no such thing ascommunio bonorum—as communion of goods—between husband and wife in Scotland.”
“And he canna sell Kaims on me?”
“No; it's yours and your assignsad perpetuam remanentiam, being feudal right.”
“I wish ye wad speak in honest English, like mysel', Mr. Dyce,” said the lady, sharply. “I've forgotten a' my Laiten, and the very sound o't gars my heid bizz. I doubt it's the lawyer's way o' gettin' round puir, helpless bodies.”
“It's scarcely that,” said Mr. Dyce, laughing. “It's the only chance we get to air auld Mr. Trayner, and it's thought to be imposin'.Ad perpetuam remanentiamjust means to remain forever.”
“I thocht that maybe John might hae the poo'er to treat Kaims as my tocher.”
“Even if he had,” said Mr. Dyce, “adot, ordos, or tocher, in the honest law of Scotland, was never the price o' the husband's hand; he could only use the fruits o't. He is not entitled to dispose of it, and must restore it intact if unhappily the marriage should at any time be dissolved.”
“Dissolved!” cried the lady. “Fegs! ye're in an awfu' hurry, and the ring no' bought yet. Supposin' I was deein' first?”
“In that case I presume that you would have the succession settled on your husband.”
“On Johnny Cleghom! Catch me! There's sic a thing as—as—as bairns, Mr. Dyce,” and the lady simpered coyly, while the lawyer rose hurriedly to fumble with some books and hide his confusion at such a wild conjecture. He was relieved by the entrance of Bell and Ailie, who stood amazed at the sight of the odd and unexpected visitor.
“My sisters,” said the lawyer, hastily. “Miss—Miss—I did not catch the name.”
“Miss Macintosh,” said the stranger, nervously, and Bell cried out, immediately, “I was perfectly assured of it! Lennox has often spoken of you, and I'm so glad to see you. I did not know you were in the neighborhood.”
Ailie was delighted with so picturesque a figure. She could scarcely keep her eyes off the many-flounced, expansive gown of poplin, the stomacher, the ponderous ear-rings, the great cameo brooch, the long lace mittens, the Paisley shawl, the neat poke bonnet, and the fresh old face marred only by the spectacles and the gap where the teeth were missing.
“I have just been consultin' Mr. Dyce on my comin' mairrage,” said The Macintosh; and at this intelligence from a piece of such antiquity Miss Bell's face betrayed so much astonishment that Dan and Ailie almost forgot their good manners.
“Oh, if it's business—” said Bell, and rose to go; but The Macintosh put a hand on her sleeve and stayed her.
“Ye needna fash to leave, Miss Dyce,” said she. “A' thing's settled. It seems that Johnny Cleghom canna ca' a rig o' Kaims his ain when he mairries me, and that was a' I cam' to see about. Oh, it's a mischancy thing a mairrage, Miss Dyce; maist folk gang intill't heels-ower-hurdies, but I'm in an awfu' swither, and havena a mither to guide me.”
“Keep me!” said Miss Bell, out of all patience at such maidenly apprehensions; “ye're surely auld enough to ken your ain mind. I hope the guidman's worthy.”
“He's no' that ill—as men-folk gang,” said The Macintosh, resignedly. “He's as fat's creish, and has a craighlin' cough, the body, and he's faur frae bonny, and he hasna a bawbee o' his ain, and, sirs! what a reputation! But a man's a man, Miss Dyce, and time's aye fleein'.”
At such a list of disabilities in a husband, the Dyces lost all sense of the proprieties and broke into laughter, in which the lady joined them, shaking in her armchair. Bell was the first to recover with a guilty sense that this was very bad for Daniel's business. She straightened her face, and was about to make apologies, when Footles bounded in at the open door, to throw himself at the feet of The Macintosh and wave a joyous tail. But he was not content there! In spite of her resistance he must be in her lap, and then, for the first time, Bell and Ailie noticed a familiar cadence in the stranger's laugh.
Dan rose and clapped her on the back. “Well done, Bud!” said he. “Ye had us a'; but Footles wasna to be swindled wi' an auld wife's goon,” and he gently drew the spectacles from the laughing eyes of his naughty niece.
“Oh, you rogue!”, cried Auntie Ailie.
“You wretch!” cried Auntie Bell. “I might have known your cantrips. Where in the world did you get these clothes?”
Bud sailed across the room like a cutter yacht and put her arms about her aunt's neck. “Didn't you know me?” she asked.
“How could I know you, dressed up like that? And your teeth—you imp! they're blackened; and your neck—you jad! it's painted; and—oh, lassie, lassie! Awa', awa'! the deil's ower grit wi' ye!”
“Didn'tyouknow me, Aunt Ailie?” asked Bud.
“Not in the least,” said Ailie, taking the droll old figure in her arms. “Perhaps I might have known you if I didn't think it was to-morrow you were coming.”
“It was to have been to-morrow; but the measles have broken out in school, and I came a day earlier, and calculated I'd just hop in and surprise you all. Didn't you guess, Uncle Dan?”
“Not at first,” said he. “I'll admit I was fairly deceived, but when you talked about being in the Band of Hope I saw at a shot through The Macintosh. I hope you liked my Latin, Bud.”
YOU surely did not come in these daftlike garments all the way from Edinburgh?” asked her auntie Bell, when the wig had been removed and Bud's youth was otherwise resumed.
“Not at all!” said Bud, sparkling with the success of her deception. “I came almost enough of a finished young lady to do you credit, but when I found there was nobody in the house except Kate, I felt I couldn't get a better chance to introduce you to The Macintosh if I waited for a year. I told you we'd been playing charades last winter at the school, and I got Jim to send me some make-up, the wig, and this real cute old lady's dress. They were all in my box to give you some fun sometime, and Kate helped me hook things, though she was mighty scared to think how angry you might be, Aunt Bell; and when I was ready for you she said she'd be sure to laugh fit to burst, and then you'd see it was only me dressed up; and Footles he barked, so he looked like giving the show away, so I sent them both out in the garden and sat in a stage fright that almost shook my ear-rings off. I tell you I felt mighty poorly sitting there wondering what on earth I was to say; but by-and-by I got to be so much. The Macintosh I felt almost sure enough her to have the rheumatism, and knew I could fix up gags to keep the part going. I didn't expect Uncle Dan would be the first to come in, or I wouldn't have felt so brave about it, he's so sharp and suspicious—that's with being a lawyer, I s'pose, they're a' tarred wi' the a'e stick Miss Macintosh says; and when he talked all that solemn Latin stuff and looked like running up a bill for law advice that would ruin me, I laughed inside enough to ache. Nowamn'tI just the very wickedest girl, Uncle Dan?”
“A little less Scotch and a more plausible story would have made the character perfect,” said her uncle. “Where did you get them both? Miss Macintosh was surely not the only model?”
“Well, she's not so Scotch as I made out, except when she's very sentimental, but I felt she'd have to be as Scotch as the mountain and the flood to fit these clothes; and she's never talked about marrying anybody herself, but she's making a match just now for a cousin of hers, and tells us all about it. I was partly her, but not enough to be unkind or mean, and partly her cousin, and a little bit of the Waverley Novels—in fact, I was pure mosaic, like our dog. There wasn't enough real quaint about Miss Macintosh for ordinary to make a front scene monologue go, but she's fuller of hints than—than a dictionary, and once I started I felt I 'could play half a dozen Macintoshes all different, so's you'd actually think she was a surging crowd. You see, there's the Jacobite Macintosh, and the 'aboaminable English' Macintosh, and the flirting Macintosh who raps Herr Laurent with her fan, and the fortune-telling Macintosh who reads palms and teacup leaves, and the dancing and deportment Macintosh who knows all the first families in Scotland.” Bud solemnly counted off the various Macintoshes on her finger-tips.
“We'll have every one of them when you come home next winter,” said Miss Ailie. “I'd prefer it to the opera.”
“I can't deny but it's diverting,” said Miss Bell; “still it's dreadfully like play-acting, and hardly the thing for a sober dwelling. Lassie, lassie, away this instant and change yourself!”
If prizes and Italian songs had really been the proof that Bud had taken on the polish, she would have disappointed Uncle Dan, but this art of hers was enough to make full amends, it gave so much diversion. Character roused and held her interest; she had a lightning eye for oddities of speech and gesture. Most of a man's philosophy is in a favorite phrase, his individuality is betrayed in the way he carries his hat along the aisle on Sunday. Bud, each time that she came home from Edinburgh, collected phrases as others do postage-stamps, and knew how every hat in town was carried. Folk void of idiosyncrasy, having the natural self restrained by watchfulness and fear, were the only ones whose company she wearied of; all others she studied with delight, storing of each some simulacrum in her memory. Had she reproduced them in a way to make them look ridiculous she would have roused the Dyces' disapproval, but lacking any sense of superiority she made no impersonation look ignoble—the portraits in her gallery, like Raeburn's, borrowed a becoming curl or two and toned down crimson noses.
But her favorite character was The Macintosh in one of the countless phases that at last were all her own invention, and far removed from the original. Each time she came home, the dancing-mistress they had never really seen became a more familiar personage to the Dyces. “I declare,” cried Bell, “I'm beginning to think of you always as a droll old body.” “And how's the rheumatism?” Dan would ask; it was “The Macintosh said this” or “The Macintosh said that” with Ailie, and even Kate would quote the dancing-mistress with such earnestness that the town became familiar with the name and character without suspecting they were otten merely parts assumed by young Miss Lennox.
Bud carried the joke one night to daring lengths by going as Miss Macintosh with Ailie to a dance, in a gown and pelerine of Grandma Buntain's that had made tremendous conquests eighty years before.
Our dances at the inn are not like city routs: Petronella, La Tempête, and the reel have still an honored place in them; we think the joy of life is not meant wholly for the young and silly, and so the elderly attend them. We sip claret-cup and tea in the alcove or “adjacent,” and gossip together if our dancing days are done, or sit below the flags and heather, humming “Merrily danced the quaker's wife,” with an approving eye on our bonny daughters. Custom gives the Provost and his lady a place of honor in the alcove behind the music; here is a petty court where the civic spirit pays its devoirs, where the lockets are large and strong, and hair-chains much abound, and mouths before the mellowing midnight hour are apt to be a little mim.
Towards the alcove Ailie—Dan discreetly moving elsewhere—boldly The Macintosh, whose ballooning silk brocade put even the haughtiest of the other dames in shadow. She swam across the floor as if her hoops and not her buckled shoon sustained her, as if she moved on air.
“Dod! here's a character!” said Dr. Brash, pulling down his waistcoat. “Where have the Dyces gotten her?”
“The Ark is landed,” said the Provost's lady. “What a peculiar creature!”
Ailie gravely gave the necessary introductions, and soon the notable Miss Macintosh of Kaims was the lion of the assembly. She flirted most outrageously with the older beaux, sharing roguish smiles and taps of the fan between them, and, compelling unaccustomed gallantries, set their wives all laughing. They drank wine with her in the old style; she met them glass for glass in water.
“And I'll gie ye a toast now,” she said, when her turn came—“Scotland's Rights,” raising her glass of water with a dramatic gesture.
“Dod! the auld body's got an arm on her,” whispered Dr. Brash to Colin Cleland, seeing revealed the pink, plump flesh between the short sleeves and the top of the mittens.
They drank the sentiment—the excuse for the glass was good enough, though in these prosaic days a bit mysterious.
“What are they?” asked the Provost.
“What are what?” said The Macintosh.
“Scotland's Rights.”
“I'll leave it to my frien' Mr. Dyce to tell ye,” she said, quickly, for the lawyer had now joined the group. “It 'll aiblens cost ye 6s. 8d.,but for that I dare say he can gie ye them in the Laiten. But—but I hope we're a' frien's here?” she exclaimed, with a hurried glance round her company. “I hope we have nane o' thae aboaminable English amang us. I canna thole them! It has been a sair doon-come for Scotland since ever she drew in wi' them.” For a space she dwelt on themes of rather antique patriotism that made her audience smile, for in truth in this burgh town we see no difference between Scotch and English; in our calculations there are only the lucky folk, born, bred, and dwelling within the sound of Will Oliver's bell, and the poor souls who have to live elsewhere, all equally unfortunate, whether they be English, Irish, or Scots.
“But here I'm keepin' you gentlemen frae your dancin',” she said, interrupting herself, and consternation fell on her company, for sets were being formed for a quadrille, and her innuendo was unmistakable. She looked from one to the other of them as if enjoying their discomfiture.
“I—I—I haven't danced myself for years,” said the Provost, which was true. And Colin Cleland, sighing deeply in his prominent profile and hiding his feet, protested quadrilles were beyond him. The younger men quickly remembered other engagements and disappeared. “Will you do me the honor?” said Dr. Brash. Good man! a gentle hero's heart was under that wrinkled waistcoat.
“Oh!” said The Macintosh, rising to his arm, “you'll be sure and no' to swing me aff my feet, for I'm but a frail and giddy creature.”
“It would be but paying you back,” said the doctor, bowing. “Miss Macintosh has been swingin' us a' aff our feet since she entered the room.”
She laughed behind her clouded glasses, tapped him lightly with her fan, and swam into the opening movement of the figure. The word's abused, yet I can but say she danced divinely, with such grace, lightness of foot, and rhythm of the body that folk stared at her in admiration and incredulity; her carriage, seen from behind, came perilously near betraying her, and possibly her partner might have soon discovered who he had, even if she had not made him a confession.
“Upon my word!” said he, in a pause between the figures—“upon my word! you dance magnificently, Miss Macintosh. I must apologize for such a stiff old partner as you've gotten.”
“I micht weel dance,” said she. “You ken I'm a dancin'-mistress?” Then she whispered hurriedly in her natural voice to him. “I feel real bold, Dr. Brash, to be dancing with you here when I haven't come out yet, and I feel real mean to be deceiving you, who would dance with an old frump just because you're sorry for her, and Ican'tdo it one minute longer. Don't you know me, really?”
“Good Lord!” said he, in an undertone, aghast. “Miss Lennox!”
“Only for you,” she whispered. “Please don't tell anybody else.”
“You beat all,” he told her. “I suppose I'm making myself ridiculous dancing away here with—h'm!—auld lang syne, but faith I have the advantage now of the others, and you mustn't let on when the thing comes out that I did not know you from the outset. I have a crow to pick with Miss Ailie about this—the rogue! But, young woman, it's an actress you are!”
“Not yet, but it's an actress I mean to be,” she said, poussetting with him.
“H'm!” said he, “there seems the natural gift for it; but once on a time I made up my mind it was to be poetry.”
“I've got over poetry,” she said. “I found I was only one of that kind of poets who always cut it up in fourteen-line lengths and begin with 'As when.' No, it's to be the stage, Dr. Brash; I guess God's fixed it.” “Whiles He is—h'm—injudicious,” said the doctor. “But what about Aunt Bell?”
“There's no buts about it, though I admit I'm worried to think of Auntie Bell. She considers acting is almost as bad as lying, and talks about the theatre as Satan's abode. If it wasn't that she was from home to-night, I daren't have been here. I wish—I wish I didn't love her so—almost—for I feel I've got to vex her pretty bad.”
“Indeed you have,” said Dr. Brash. “And you've spoiled my dancing, for I've a great respect for that devoted little woman.”
Back in the alcove The Macintosh found more to surround her than ever, though it was the penalty of her apparent age that they were readier to joke than dance with her. Captain Consequence, wanting a wife with money, if and when his mother should be taken from him, never lost a chance to see how a pompous manner and his medals would affect strange ladies; he was so marked in his attention and created such amusement to the company that, pitying him, and fearful of her own deception, she proposed to tell fortunes. The ladies brought her their emptied teacups; the men solemnly laid their palms before her; she divined for all their past and future in a practised way that astonished her uncle and aunt, who, afraid of some awkward sally, had kept aloof at first from her levee, but now were the most interested of her audience.
Over the leaves in Miss Minto's cup she frowned through her clouded glasses. “There's lots o' money,” said she, “and a braw house, and a muckle garden wi' bees and trees in't, and a wheen boy's speilin' the wa's—you may be aye assured o' bien circumstances, Miss Minto.”
Miss Minto, warmly conscious of the lawyer at her back, could have wished for a fortune less prosaic.
“Look again; is there no' a man to keep the laddies awa'?” suggested the Provost, pawky body!
“I declare there is!” cried The Macintosh, taking the hint. “See; there! he's under this tree, a' huddled up in an awfu' passion.”
“I can't make out his head,” said the Provost's lady. “Some men hae nane,” retorted the spae-wife; “but what's to hinder ye imaginin' 't, like me?”
“Oh! if it's imagination,” said the Provost's lady, “I can hear him swearin'. And now, what's my cup?”
“I see here,” said The Macintosh, “a kind o' island far at sea, and a ship sailin' frae't this way, wi' flags to the mast-heid and a man on board.”
“I hope he's well, then,” said the Provost's lady, “for that's our James, and he's coming from Barbadoes; we had a letter just last week. Indeed, you're a perfect wizard!” She had forgotten that her darling James's coming was the talk of the town for ten days back.
Colin Cleland, rubicund, good-natured, with his shyness gone, next proffered his palm to read. His hand lay like a plaice, inelegant and large, in hers, whose fresh young beauty might have roused suspicion in observers less carried away in the general illusion.
“Ah, sir,” said she, with a sigh, “ye hae had your trials!”
“Mony a ane, ma'am,” said the jovial Colin. “I was ance a lawyer, for my sins.”
“That's no' the kind o' trial I mean,” said The Macintosh. “Here's a wheen o' auld tribulations.”
“Perhaps you're richt, ma'am,” he admitted. “I hae a sorry lot o' them marked doon in auld diaries, but, Gude be thanked, I canna mind them unless I look them up. They werena near sae mony as the rattlin' ploys I've had.”
“Is there no' a wife for Mr. Cleland?” said the Provost—pawky, pawky man!
“There was ance, I see, a girl, and she was the richt girl, too,” said The Macintosh.
“Yes, but I was the wrang man,” said Colin Cleland, drawing his hand away, and nobody laughed, for all but The Macintosh knew that story and made it some excuse for foolish habits.
“I'm a bit of a warlock myself,” said Dr. Brash, beholding the spae-wife's vexation at afaux-passhe only guessed herself guilty of. “I'll read your loof, Miss Macintosh, if ye let me.”
They all insisted she should submit herself to the doctor's unusual art, and taking her hand in his he drew the mitten off and pretended to scan the lines.
“Travel—h'm—a serious illness—h'm—your life, in youth, was quite adventurous, Miss Macintosh.”
“Oh, I'm no' that auld yet,” she corrected him. “There's mony a chance at fifty. Never mind my past, Dr. Brash, what about my future?”
He glanced up a moment and saw her aunt and uncle listening in amusement, unaware as yet that he knew the secret, then scanned her palm again.
“The future—h'm! let me see. A long line of life; heart line healthy—h'm—the best of your life's before you, though I cannot say it may be the happiest part of it. Perhaps my—h'm—my skill a little fails here. You have a strong will, Miss—Miss Macintosh, and I doubt in this world you'll aye have your own way. And—h'm—an odd destiny surely's before you—I see the line of fame, won—h'm—in a multitude of characters; by the Lord Hairry, ma'am, you're to be—you're to be an actress!”
The company laughed at such a prophecy for one so antiquated, and the doctor's absurdity put an end to the spaeing of fortunes, but he had effected his purpose. He had found the words that expressed the hope, half entertained so far, of Ailie and the fear of her brother Dan. They learned before they left that he had not spoken without his cue, yet it was a little saddened they went home at midnight with their ward in masquerade.