The next morning Paul, smoking his usual cigar of proprietorship about the stables and dog kennels, saw Mrs. Vane coming with a pretty little air of hesitation along one of the shrubbery paths.
"Ben trovato!Who would have thought of finding you here?" she cried gaily, just as if she had not been watching to catch him from her window for the last ten minutes. "I have missed my way to the Lodge; show it to me, please."
He looked into her clever, charming face, understanding perfectly what she was at, and yet thefinessedid not irritate him as it would have done in another woman. Besides, in this instance, she was just a little too clever, as he meant to prove to her.
"By all means," he replied coolly; "I was just going there myself to apologise to Mrs. Cameron for my sister's negligence, but really the weather has been so bad."
Mrs. Vane shot an amused glance at her tall companion. So Paul meant to ride the high horse, that poorest of all defences against a quick wit; like that of lance against bayonet, dignified and circumambient, but quite ineffectual.
"But I am not going to see Mrs. Cameron," she retorted frankly; "I am going to see if Miss Carmichael will be kind and play Bach to me; it is a long time since I heard him played so well. You used to be fond of him, too, in the old days, Paul. Don't you remember how you used to lie on the sofa after that fever and declare that a wife's first duty was to be able to play to her husband? But girls--at least, most girls--don't care to play nowadays unless they are professionals. And if they are professionals they don't care to be wives--not even to a Highland laird."
"In regard to the present musician," replied Paul, beginning to dismount, "I am sure no such scheme of self-sacrifice ever entered her head. Miss Carmichael is charming, I admit; but she has a mission in life, and it is not to regulate me. That, I think, is a fair and full statement of the truth, except that before I came here she used to practise occasionally on the piano at the Big House, and, I presume, left her music there by mistake."
Mrs. Vane stopped in an attitude of tragic despair. "There! I have gone and forgotten it after all, and that was my excuse for going so soon. You see, your sister said it had better be taken back at once, as none of the girls in the house played, and so it wouldn't be wanted."
Paul bit his lip at the double thrust. "Perhaps it is as well youhaveforgotten it," he said angrily; "Miss Carmichael will, no doubt, be able to use it herself some day soon."
"That will be delightful," replied Mrs. Vane, with a sudden cessation of attack.
Five minutes after, rather to his own surprise, Paul Macleod found himself talking to Marjory as he might have talked to any other girl of his acquaintance, and wondering how he could have been such a fool as to imagine himself to be in love with her. After all, he told himself, his first theory had been right, and the ridiculously unconventional familiarity of the past idyll was mainly responsible for the mawkish sentimentality which had attacked him of late, but which, thank heaven! was now over. How could it be otherwise with a girl like Marjory--a perfect iceberg of primness and propriety?
His sense of security, joined to a certain unconfessed resentment at her apparent indifference as to whether he came or not, drove him into more effusive apologies on his sister's behalf than he would otherwise have made, and brought down on him a remark from Mrs. Cameron that "Indeed and in truth Marjory would no be going to make strangers of the laird and his sister, and he so kind, in and out o' the house for weeks, just like a bairn of her own." Whereat Mrs. Vane, stifling a desire to laugh at Paul's evident confusion, came to the rescue with a well-timed diversion about some of the household troubles which had been occupying Lady George.
'"Deed!" said Mrs. Cameron, after listening sympathetically, "I can well believe it! But the warld will come to an end soon, that's one comfort. You see, it'll just no be possible' for Providence to put up wi' it much longer, for it's a' I can do to have patience wi' my small corner of the vineyard, an' that, praise be, is no sae bad as it might be, seeing that I can hand my ain wi' most folk."
"But Providence can do that also, surely, Mrs. Cameron?" laughed Paul.
"Maybe, an' maybe not. I grant ye it comes quits at the hinder end, what wi' worms that die not, an' fires that be not quenched. But it's a weary long time to blow at the flames o' wrath, and wadna suit me that's aye for havin' it out and done wi'. Lord sakes! life wad no be worth havin' if I had to write down a' the servant lassies cantrip's in a big bookie against term day, an' keep my tongue on them meanwhiles. And it is little the hussies would care if I did, for they wad ken find I'd just forgive them when the day of reckoning came, an' forgiveness just beats all for spoiling folk."
"It's lucky for some of us," put in Mrs. Vane, with a laugh, "that Providence isn't of your way of thinking."
"'Deed, I am not as sure of that neither. Folk would think twice o' breaking the law if it waant for the grips they have on mercy. It is just, you see, in the nature o' man to stand by his luck if the odds are even; but if he knows he'll get paicks he will just keep the body in subjection. It is the same in all things. Just look at the difference in the manners o' folks nowadays! Not half so good as in the old times when they had to stand sponsor for each word with a pistol shot. Why, I mind, Gleneira, your grandfather calling out Glenrannooh for passing him on the kirk steps without a reverence!"
"I didn't know you were so bloodthirsty," remarked Paul; "and though I quite agree with you, theoretically, I must be careful, since you evidently don't believe in apologies."
"Apologies," echoed Mrs. Cameron, scornfully. "No! no! Gleneira. They're fine healin' balm to the sinner, but I'll have none coming between me and my rights. There was James Gillespie telling little Sandy McColl to go an' apologise to wee Peter Rankin for pulling his hair, instead o' just giving the laddie a good skelping, and daring him to do it again. So the bairns just bided their time and had it out in a natural way, and you never saw such sichts they were. I'm no saying folk should not be repentant o' their sins, but they should just take the consequences along wi' the forgiveness."
"Or follow my example and take neither," suggested the laird.
Mrs. Cameron looked at him sharply, then shook her head. "Havers! that is what no mortal man can do, least of all, you, Gleneira, with your soft heart."
"Soft heart!" echoed Paul, derisively. "It is only that towards you, Mrs. Cameron; to the world in general it is hard as adamant. Don't you agree with me, Miss Carmichael?"
"Hard enough to ensure your peace of mind, I hope," she replied quietly.
Violet Vane's bright eyes were on them both, and she gave an odd little laugh. "I wonder if it is! I should like to vivisect you and find out, Captain Macleod; only the process of seeing the 'wheels go wound,' as Toddie says in 'Helen's Babies,' might end in stopping them altogether. Perhaps it would be as well--for other people's hearts."
"The heart is no easily damaged, anyway," put in Mrs. Cameron, with the air of one who knows. "Folks like to think it is, but it is maistly the stomach that goes wrang. I've seen a heap o' broken hearts in my time cured wi' camomile tea; it's just grand for the digestion."
"I shall order Peter Macpherson to lay down a large bed at once," began Paul, gravely.
"For the sake of your victims, I suppose," interrupted Mrs. Vane. "Commend me to Captain Macleod, Mrs. Cameron, for shameless conceit."
"Pardon me," put in Paul, "for my own." He gave a glance at Marjory, who was standing apart with a little fine smile of contempt on her face, but she took no notice of him. To tell truth she scarcely knew why she felt scornful, and, when they had gone, she sate down in defiance of her promise to her books again, telling herself that Paul by himself, willing to fall in with her life, was quite a different being from Paul expecting her to be friends with his friends--people whose dresses fitted them like a glove, and who looked charming. Yes, that was the right word!--charming from the sole of their feet to the crown of their heads. As if she had anything in common with such people!--or, for the matter of that, with Paul, himself--she, whose fate it was to work, and who liked that fate? Yet almost before Captain Macleod and his companion had reached home after thedétourhe begged for round the garden, Marjory had thrown down her book in a temper at her own stupidity, run upstairs for her hat, and was off for a wild, solitary scramble over the hills.
Paul and his companion, meanwhile, strolling idly through the vineries and hothouses, she with dainty dress, draped gingerly from fear of stain, and vivid, whimsical face, diving like a honey-sucker at the perfumed flowers, were enjoying themselves thoroughly in their own way; so that the former, coming out at last from an atmosphere of stephanotis and tropical heat to face the bright, sharp air of a Highland glen, gave a little shiver, and told himself inconsequently that Violet was the most charming companion in the world. And so she was, being blessed with the infallible range-finder called tact; for half the misunderstandings of life come from people either blazing away at a bird that is out of shot, or blowing one to pieces,--that is to say, from a failure to appreciate distance and the fact that, though our best friend may be, so to speak, well within range over night, that is no reason why we should reach him with the same sight the next morning. In most of us feeling, tastes, dislikes, fluctuate with every hour; nay, more, the individual, as a whole, hovers like the needle of a barometer on either side of change, so that the more sensitive of us are conscious of the difference in ourselves at different times in the day, and it becomes possible for us to be certain that we might do that at ten o'clock at night which we could not do at ten o'clock in the day. Yet, despite this undoubted fact, most of us resent the change of position in regard to our outlook in life which it entails, the change of key which strict harmony requires. Mrs. Vane, however, was not one of the many, and, as a rule, when she played a dissonant note she did it out of malice aforethought; as she did now when, looking back at the garden with its low espaliers and broad walks bordered by old-fashioned flowers, she paused to say sweetly, "It is a charming place, Paul; you ought to be very happy here with her."
He frowned as he held the door open for his companion to pass through; but he was beginning to remember that she used the bayonet deftly, and came to close quarters at once.
"The personal pronoun, third person singular, feminine gender, accusative case, is rather too vague to interest me, I'm afraid. Can't you suggest something more concrete?"
She laughed as she pointed gaily to an upper path which, after a time, would merge into theirs. "See! yonder are the young ladies, going home, as we should be also, since you will be wanted. Don't let me keep you, please. They will walk faster than I do, and I am used to being left behind to fend for myself."
"Not by me," he replied, with a certain self-complacency, "and you never will be, I trust. I should be a brute indeed were I to forget all your kindness."
"Dieu mercie," she flashed out, in sudden, uncontrollable resentment, "how I hate gratitude! It takes half the flavour out of life. I often think I should have been happier if I had not been so kind to people."
"I have no doubt you madethemmuch happier, if that is any consolation to you."
"Not in the slightest." Then as suddenly her irritation passed, and she looked up at him with a whimsical smile. "Paul," she said, "I believe Miss Carmichael used to set you copies--or is it Miss Woodward? anyhow, you are detestably didactic to-day; so it is just as well the others are joining us, or you would be telling me that 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'"
"The process is pleasant, anyhow," he replied, in one of those moments of recognition which come to us, even with familiar friends, as some quality or charm strikes us afresh; "and you couldn't corrupt my good temper, for you always put me into one, somehow. I believe you use arts and spells."
She shrugged her shoulders gaily. "Burn me as a witch, by all means! You can afford it since the next fairly good-looking woman you meet will have exactly the same consolatory power. As you said, the personal pronoun, feminine gender, third person singular, has a wide application for Paul Macleod. Ah! Miss Woodward, what lovely ferns! We have just been going round the houses, and there is a hibiscus out which you ought to see. It put me in mind of India; you sent the seed home from our garden, I think, didn't you, Captain Macleod? We might go back and look at it now, and return by the beach, mightn't we? It is no longer, and far prettier."
The result of which easy, deft manipulation of a chance meeting being that, ere the memory of his pleasant stroll with her had passed from Paul's somewhat vagrant mind, he was performing the same pilgrimage again under different guidance. Now, Alice Woodward was always counted a most agreeable girl in her world, and Paul, as in duty bound, laid himself out to please; yet all the time they were chatting amicably about Shakespeare and the musical glasses he was conscious of an effort, and of a desire to know what the other girls who were lagging behind with Violet could be laughing at so gaily.
"That is the hibiscus," he said, stopping abruptly before the flower which, with its creamy petals and crimson heart, had ten minutes before carried him back to another hemisphere, another life--a pleasant, younger life, with more possibilities of passion in it than the present one.
"It is very pretty," replied Alice, blandly, rather absently. "The colours are lovely. I really think colours improve every year. Do you remember at Constantinople, Captain Macleod, everyone agreed that there was a decided advance on Venice? In that ballet before the procession, you know, they really were exquisite."
Paul assented cheerfully, even though he felt such memories were as water after wine to Mrs. Vane's appeal to the past. "It used to grow by the well. Ah, Paul! how young you were on those days, and how you used to enjoy life."
That was true; and yet a well-cooked dinner and roomy stalls at a first-classspectaclebrought solid comfort more suitable to the coming years; besides, Violet had always had the knack of taking the colour out of other women, and while adapting herself more readily to her surroundings than most, never lost a peculiar piquant charm of her own which did not clash with her environment. Yet, as they strolled home by the beach, it occurred to him that they were all, himself included, out of touch with the glorious world of sea and sky and mountain in which they stood. And Mrs. Vane agreed, or, at any rate, was quick enough to read his thought, for as the girls trooped up the stairs finishing a discussion on the relative merits of two balls, she lingered in the hall to say quizzically:
"Is her name Virginia, Paul? and do you fancy a desert island? That comes of having so much of the natural Adam left in you."
"Oh, dear me! what has Blasius been doing now?" asked Lady George, plaintively, overhearing the last words as she came out of the morning room. At the same moment, as if in answer, the sturdy stump intermingled with bumps which usually marked Blazes' rapid descent from the nursery regions, was heard as a sort of running accompaniment to a steady stream of violent objurgations delivered with immense zest, in his round, full voice: "Haud up! Ger' out, ye brute! Stiddy, yer deevil! Stiddy yer!"
"Nurse!" cried poor Blanche, aghast, to the stately figure, descending behind the stumbling, bumping, yet swift offender, "what does this mean? Where has Master Blasius picked up----"
"Oh! if it comes to picking up, milady, that's easy sayin'. Master Blazes told me last night 'is bath was 'devilish 'ot,' and when I spoke to him serious told me it was the Capting."
"Really, Paul, I think you might be more careful," began his sister, aggrievedly, when he interrupted her.
"I'm not responsible forthat, anyhow! What on earth is he up to now?" For Blasius, having reached the bottom of the stairs, had, so to speak, fallen tooth and nail on the sheepskin rug, which he was bestriding with vehement kicks and upbraidings, as he clutched on to the wool wildly--
"Ger' up, ye deevil! Haud still, ye dommed brute!"
"It is through Mary's young man as she's took up with bein' a shepherd, milady," said nurse, swooping down on the child. "An' through her never 'aving seen sheep shore, that's what it is."
Paul burst into a guffaw of laughter. "Old Angus! I swear to you, Violet, it's the living image of old Angus. What a mimic the child is!"
"Do be quiet, Paul!" said his sister, hastily. "How can I---- Nurse, tell Mary that I am much displeased, and that if I hear of her watching the shepherd again----"
"I 'ave told her, milady," retorted the nurse, with as much dignity as kicks and strugglings left to her, "and there an't no fear. Master Blazes'll forget it sharp enough when he don't 'ear it. It is the things 'as he do 'ear, constant"--a backward glance at Paul from the turn of the stair emphasised the reproach.
"It is really very distressing," mourned Lady George, turning in grave regret to Mrs. Vane, and then, seeing unqualified amusement in that lady's face, yielding a little to her own sense of humour. "But he really did it splendidly, though where the child gets the talent from, I don't know. But fancy, Paul, if Mrs. Woodward had been here! I should have died of shame, for she spent half an hour yesterday in lecturing me. 'Dear Lady George,' she said, 'you mean well, and of course the younger generation are always right.' Now, what are you all laughing at?"
"At you and your son, my dear," replied Paul. "That was Mrs. Woodward to the life! So cheer up, Blanche. He will make his fortune on the stage--or as a sheep farmer." And so full of smiles over the recollection of the small sturdy figure struggling with the woolly mat, he went off, feeling that in one way or another the morning had passed pleasantly enough. Rationally also, without any attempt at Arcadia. That danger was over, and incidentally he owed Mrs. Vane another debt of gratitude for having driven him into calling at the Lodge, and so discovering that Marjory, seen in ordinary society, was not nearly so distracting a person as she had been when earth, and air, and water had seemed to conspire in suggesting a new world of dreams, where love was something very different to what it was in real life.
But Paul Macleod was not the only one of the party who felt satisfied with the morning's work. Mrs. Vane, as she idled away an hour or two in her room--one of her country-house maxims being that the less people saw of you between meals the better--told herself that there was time yet to stave off the immediate danger with Alice Woodward. That was the one thing to be attained somehow--how, she did not care. Paul had been flirting with Marjory, of course. Deny what he would, the look she had surprised on his face on the Sunday did not come there for nothing; besides, the girl herself had been too cold, too distant, for absolute indifference. That farce of everything being over for ever was easily played in absence, but was apt to break down at a renewal of intimacy. It would be well to try if it would, at any rate; and under any circumstances Paul was not likely to settle matters with Alice until the party was on the eve of breaking up; since it was always more convenient in these matters to have a way of escape if you were refused.
Mrs. Woodward was of the same opinion, and said so to her husband when, on laying his night-capped head on the conjugal pillow that evening, he began to sound her as to the prospects of escape from the dilatory posts, which, to tell truth, afforded him daily occupation. For on the stroke of eleven he could fuss round, watch in hand, counting the minutes of delay, and, after Donald had come and gone, there was always that letter to theTimes, exposing the iniquity of whiskey bottles and pounds of tea in Her Majesty's mail bag, to be composed against Lord George's return from the hill to the smoking-room, when it had to be read aloud, amended, discussed, and finally set aside till the next day. Then Donald would be later than ever, and Mr. Woodward, tempted by the thought of detailing still more horrible delinquencies, would withhold his letter for further amendment.
"I suppose it is all right, mamma," he began cautiously. "At least, I noticed that the young people seemed to be--er--getting on to-day."
"Quite right," yawned the partner of his joys and sorrows. "How lucky it was that Jack had to go to Riga about that tallow business."
Even in the dark, with his head in night-cap, Mr. Woodward's paternal dignity bristled.
"Lucky! You speak, my dear, as if he had had claims, and I deny----"
"You can deny what you please, Mr. Woodward. I think it was lucky, for now he need know nothing of the engagement till he returns."
"Perhaps. My dear, by the way, have you any idea when the engagement is likely to--ahem--er--come off?"
Mrs. Woodward yawned once, twice. This was a detail scarcely sufficient to warrant her being kept awake. "I can't say--not till we are going to leave, I should think. That sort of thing breaks up a party dreadfully. Why?"
Mr. Woodward sighed. "Only the posts really are so irregular. As I said in my letter of to-day----"
But this was too much for anyone's patience. "You can tell me to-morrow, my dear," said the wife of his bosom, firmly. "I shouldn't wonder if it were later than ever, for Lady George told me it was fair day, or fast day, or something of that sort in Oban."
Mr. Woodward gave a groan, and turned over to compose a still more scathing report of the Gleneira mail.
About the same time Blanche Temple, who, on her husband's late arrival from the smoking-room, was found by him in dressing-gown and slippers over the fire, reading a novel, and enjoying the only free time, she said, a Highland hostess could hope for, was telling her lord and master much the same tale. The young people were getting on, Paul was really behaving charmingly, and little Mrs. Vane, contrary to her expectations, seemed quite inclined to throw them together, so that the future seemed clear. And Alice Woodward, had she been awake, would doubtless have added her voice to the general satisfaction, for it was distinctly pleasant to see the other girls' evident admiration of Paul's good looks, and to hear their raptures over the beauty of Gleneira. For a few months in autumn it would certainly be pleasant to play the part Lady George was playing now, and for the rest of the year there would be Constantinople, and civilisation generally.
But the very next day at dinner something occurred to disturb one person's peace, for Paul, as Mrs. Vane used to say, was a bad landlord even to himself. His mind was not well fenced, and the gates, which should have barred vagrant thoughts from intrusion, were as often as not wide open or sadly out of repair. And this interruption was trivial, being only a remark in his sister's clear, high-pitched voice:
"Mr. Gillespie was here again about that bazaar, and I believe, Paul, he is in love with that Miss Carmichael of yours. At least, he talked of her in a way--it would be most suitable, of course, and I really think we ought to encourage it. It would give us old fogies something to amuse us, wouldn't it, Mrs. Woodward?"
"I disapprove of matchmaking on principle, Lady George," replied that lady, severely; "but this, as you say, appears very suitable indeed. She is a governess, or something of that sort of thing, I believe, and they generally make admirable wives for poor clergymen. Understand Sunday-schools, and don't expect to be taken about everywhere."
"What an admirable wife for any poor man," put in a subaltern from Paul's regiment, who had been asked down to make the sexes even; a nice, fair-haired lad, given as yet to blushing over his own successes in society. "If you will introduce me, Lady George, I might cut out the curate."
"He isn't the curate," said his hostess, smiling. "By the way, Paul, what are they in Scotland?"
"Dissenting ministers!" retorted her brother, sullenly, angry with her, and with himself; the one for inflicting, the other for feeling, this sudden pain. Blanche's face was a study in outraged dignity.
"My dear Paul!" she began, and then paused, speechless.
"He is very good-looking, I think," said the echo diligently, "and I hear----"
"What is that?" put in Lord George from afar. "Miss Carmichael and the parson! Pooh! she is far too good for that blatant young----"
"George!" exclaimed his better half, this time with authority, "pray remember that he is our clergyman--our parish clergyman."
"We are not likely to forget his pretensions to that position, Blanche, considering how often he comes here," put in Paul, at a white heat over what he told himself was an unwarrantable liberty with a young lady's name, and feeling as if he could rend the whole company; especially the unsuspecting subaltern.
"What a refreshing thing it is," came Mrs. Vane's half-jesting voice, "to find the sexes have so high an opinion of each other! Go where you will, Lady George, the news of an engagement makes nine-tenths of the men swear she is too good for him, and all the women say he is too good for her. Touching tributes; but what gender is truth?"
"Masculine, of course!" put in her next-door neighbour, who prided himself on being smart. "That dissentient tenth proves discrimination the unanimity prejudice."
"Pardon me, it may only mean that men mix their prejudices as they do their wines, while we women are consistent and prefer simplicity."
"I can hardly be expected at the present moment to say that I do," retorted her companion.
"I shall remember that against you," laughed the little lady. "Meanwhile I agree with the men. The young lady is too good for any of you; she is charming."
"Give me first introduction, please," pleaded the subaltern. "I always like people who are too good for me."
"That explains the universality of your affections, I suppose, Mr. Palmer," remarked Mrs. Vane, demurely.
"But really, Paul," said his sister, returning to the subject with injured persistency when the laugh had subsided. "I cannot see why Mr. Gillespie should not pay his pastoral visits if he chooses; besides we had to discuss the church."
"Then I trust the service won't be a repetition of the last one," replied her brother, still woefully out of temper; "I, for one, will refuse to go if it is. You agree with me, don't you, Miss Woodward?"
She smiled at him placidly. "Well! it was rather funny, wasn't it?"
"Funny!" echoed Sam Woodward. "I'll tell you what, it was the rummiest go!" and he was proceeding to detail the whole to the new arrival whom he had taken down to dinner, when Lady George, with a withering glance in his direction, proceeded in a higher key.
"The new church, I mean, Paul. We have arranged it all delightfully while you horrid men have been killing birds. Alice is making a subscription book with a Gothic window on the outside--illuminated, you know--and a little appeal on the first page. It is to have an initial letter, is it not, dear? Then by and bye, next year, perhaps, when London isn't quite empty, Mrs. Woodward has promised her house for a Highland fair--tartan things, and snoods--and--and----"
"Queighs," suggested her husband, demurely, but she scorned the interruption. "And spinning chairs."
"Spinning chairs?" echoed Mr. Woodward, who, hearing for the first time that his house was to be made use of, felt bound to show some interest in the matter.
"Yes! those things with very little seat, no back, and a lot of carving. All the stall-keepers are to be dressed out of Scott's novels and Mr. St. Clare is going to write--what was it, Mr. St. Clare?"
"A rondelet," muttered the poet, gloomily, looking up from the chocolate creams with which he was trying to make life worth living.
"Of course! a rondelet--that is the thing with very few words and a great many rhymes, isn't it? And of course you, Paul, will wear the kilt--local colour is everything."
"My dear girl," cried Paul, too aghast for ill-humour. "I haven't worn the kilt for years--pray consider----"
"The local colour of your knees," put in Lord George, brutally. "Never mind, old man, a bottle of patent bronzine, like Blanche uses for her slippers----"
"George!" cried his wife, rising with an awful dignity. "Shall we go into the drawing-room, Mrs. Woodward?"
"It was only his knees, my dear," protested the discomforted nobleman in a whisper as she swept past him. "Hang it all! if a man mayn't mention his brother-in-law's knees or his wife's slippers."
But she was out of hearing, so he sate down in his chair again and poured himself out a bumper of port viciously.
While the Big House was going on its way from cellar to attic, as if it had been within the sound of Bow Bells instead of in a remote Highland glen, Marjory for the first time in her life felt time heavy on her hands; a thing not to be tolerated for an instant by a young person of her views and prospects. She told herself that if this was the result of her holiday, the sooner she set to work and forgot that pleasant, idle time the better. For it had been pleasant, and Paul Macleod had been kind. But what of that? His ways were not her ways--his thoughts were not her thoughts; and then suddenly would come the memory of that short instant on Isle Shuna when they had stood hand in hand watching the Green Ray. Or was that only another result of idleness?--that she should be growing fanciful. Paul himself had denied seeing it, and after all, despite his kindness, he was the last person to have sympathy with her ideals; yet such sympathy was the only thing which could make her care for him or his society. She told herself all this, over and over again, until she believed it; for Marjory had not yet learnt to differentiate her head from her heart. Many women never learn the art, and though some, no doubt, find the difficulty lies in discovering their heads, a far greater number stop short at a calm affection in the catalogue of their emotions.
Still, for some reason or another, as yet inexplicable to the girl herself, the melodious carol of a blackbird singing his heart out in a cherry tree sent a pain to her own. It seemed to fill the world with unrest, even though the house lay still as the grave; for Mrs. Cameron and the lassies were away at the milking. She covered her ears to shut out the sound and bent closer to her book, until suddenly she found herself blindfolded by a pair of strong, slender, supple hands--hands that could not be mistaken for an instant.
"Tom!" she cried. "Oh, Tom! is it you?"
"Tom it is," said a voice with a pleasant intonation scarcely foreign, and yet assuredly not wholly English. "E' bene!Mademoiselle Grands-serieux! So this is the way you hold high holiday?"
He pointed to the open book, then, as she clung delighted to his arm, put on an air of simulated disgust, perhaps to conceal the keen joy which her welcome afforded him.
"Conic sections again, and I wandering round 'permiskus' calling for some of my relations to kill the fatted calf!"
"The prodigal didn't come 'permiskus.' He wired ahead and they saw him from afar."
"Then he didn't get an unexpected holiday, come express from Paris to Oban, and then walk thirty miles over the hills because he had missed the mail cart and was a fool----"
"But why a fool?"
"Why? Because the bosom of my family was absorbed in conic sections! And if that reason won't do, you really must wait until I have had some veal--for to tell truth I'm ravenous--mostly for drinks!"
He watched her as she flew off, singing as she went like any blackbird out of sheer lightness of heart, and asked himself if this were not enough? If he were bound to wait for something more? For Dr. Tom Kennedy was not a man to require much time for such thoughts, especially when he had been thinking of Marjory and his welcome all that trudge of thirty miles over bog and heather. But the answer came slowly, for he was quite as much in the dark on the vexed question of Love and Marriage as most people, and the little Blind Boy with the bow and arrows was as yet a part of his Pantheon. And yet there was temptation enough to set mere romance aside, when, after anticipating his every want, and fussing over him after the manner of a hen with a solitary chicken, Marjory drew a low stool beside his chair, and, with her elbows resting on her knees and her radiant face supported on her hands, looked over him, as it were, in sheer content.
"You don't know how nice it is to have you back," she said, suddenly stretching out one hand to him--a favourite gesture of hers when eager. He took it in both of his, bent over it, and kissed it.
"'Tis worth the parting, child, to come back--to this."
She laughed merrily. "You have such pretty manners, Tom! I expect you learnt them from grandpapa the Marquis and thehaute noblesse. And then in Paris, I suppose----"
His heart contracted, but he interrupted her gaily. "I decline to be scheduled in that fashion. My manners are my own, thank Heaven! in spite of Galton on heredity. Oh! Marjory, my dear! what a relief it is to get away from it all--from the eternal hunt for something that escapes you--from the first chapter of Genesis to the Book of Revelation; and now that I come to think of it, there is something new about you--what is it?"
She shook her head hastily. "Nothing. You said that last time, I believe--people always look different. You have got greyer."
He rubbed his close-cropped head disconsolately. "Have I?--well, I can't help it. I'm getting old."
"Nonsense! And I won't have you say you are glad to get away from work--from the best work in the world! How can you tire of the only thing worth anything, and of the search for truth?"
"Because I'm forty-three--more than double your age. By the way, there was a man I know who married a girl of sixteen when he was thirty-two. And when he saw it down on the register it struck him all of a heap that when she was forty he would be eighty. Matrimony, apparently, isn't good for arithmetic--nor for the matter of that, arithmetic for matrimony!"
"What silly stories you have, Tom," laughed the girl, "and in other ways you really are so sensible."
He rose suddenly and went to the window--a small, slight man, with a keen brown face--and then, as if in excuse for the move, he picked a spray or two of white jasmine and stuck them in his buttonhole. Then he turned to her with a smile. "I should have been a deal more sensible if people hadn't taught me things when I was young. Original sin isn't in it with education. Come, Marjory! let us go and find my cousin--or there will be a row in the house."
"I like that!" retorted the girl, taking possession of his arm; "as if anyone in the place dare say a word against you. Why, she told Dr. Macrea the other day that she didn't intend to die till she could have you to attend her!" Whereat they both laughed.
But, in truth, there was much laughter and general good-will at the Lodge that evening, when Dr. Kennedy insisted on Mrs. Cameron bringing her knitting to the garden bench, while he and Marjory and Will strolled about among the flowers, or stood talking here and there as the fancy took them.
"Why do you always wear jasmine, Tom?" asked the girl, idly bending to catch a closer whiff of the buttonhole. "I supposesheused to give it to you."
"What she?"
"The onesheof a man's life, of course."
"Fabulous creature! If they come at all, they come in crowds. Yes! now I think of it, I fancy you are right. I was twelve, and she a distracting young flirt of six. Her name was Pauline. I remember it, because she was the last!----"
"Oh, Tom! how can you!"
"Fact; for twenty years after that the responsibilities of searching for truth prevented my thinking of fictions."
"And after that?"
"My dear Marjory, no history is ever written up to date. Even in your beloved school-primers the last years of Her Gracious Majesty's reign are glozed over by generalities. You see it is never safe to hazard an opinion till events have proved it to be right. And then decent reserve over the immediate past saves a lot of worry. I should hate to confess that I had told a lie yesterday, though I might own up placidly to one seven years ago. Yes! seven years should be close time for confession. A man renews his vile body in that period, and can take credit for having changed his morals also."
"But it is more than seven years since you were thirty-two."
"You have a head for arithmetic, my dear, not for--the other thing; and it is possible that I am still only in the second volume of my fiction."
"You mean in love. What a delightfully funny idea!"
"Mrs. Cameron!" cried the doctor, "do you see anything comic in the spectacle of Methuselah wishing to get married; for I don't. I think it is melancholy in the extreme."
In truth he did think so, for though, when he was away, his own sentimentality seemed sufficient for them both, the first look at Marjory's face always told him that, if the received theories were true, there was something yet to come before he had any right--in a way any desire--to ask Marjory to be his wife. If they were true! There lay the problem which he found so much difficulty in solving. Like most men of his profession, he was almost over familiar with the material side of the question, and, being naturally of delicate fibre, an instinctive revolt made him exaggerate the part which romance was to play in the purification of passion. To marry when you loved each other was one thing; for one to love, and both to remain friends, was another! And between these two ideals he hesitated; for Dr. Kennedy's power lay not so much in strength as in a certain fineness of perception and delicacy of touch. And yet at times a doubt lingered--the doubt which had made him fall foul of the things he had been taught in his youth. But even through this there ran a vein of protest against the lack of colour which a more prosaic, more material, and yet less animal view of the relations which ought to exist between a man and woman would involve. For he was sentimental to a degree, and told himself that the very fact of his age made it more than ever necessary that his wife should be inspired to do her duty by something more than mere affection. That is to say, once more, if current theories were true! He came back to this point again and again, unable to settle it to his own satisfaction, and finding his chief comfort in the fact that Marjory had, hitherto, never shown the least sign of loving anyone. If that were to continue in the future, he could imagine the doubts and difficulties disappearing altogether; but for this time was required, time for her to understand her own nature. His knowledge, his experience of life, the position in which he stood towards her, all combined to make him hyper-sensitive lest in any way he should wrong her innocence and ignorance. Besides, he himself would have been bitterly dissatisfied with the position. That was the solid truth, which went further than anything else in making him stand aloof; though, no doubt, he would have denied the fact strenuously, since to men of his stamp a sentimental grief is better than no sentiment at all. Yet the grief sate on him lightly because of its very sentimentality, and because--though this again he would strenuously have denied--in his heart of hearts he felt that it was largely of his own making, and that one part of his nature was satisfied and to spare. In these days, when the happiness of the individual is both aim and end, it is curious to see how persistently one form of happiness is ignored; the happiness which indubitably comes from doing what you wouldnotwish to do, unless you conceived it to be your duty. And yet the very people who deny the possibility of this content are the first to point out that, when all is said and done, a man can only do what he wishes to do.
So that when, on the next morning, Dr. Kennedy, who had listened to the tale of what had been going on and what was going on in the Big House with a certain foreboding, came to Marjory and urged her to accompany him on a visit there in the afternoon, he did so with the distinct intention of feeling the self-complacency of duty performed. And Marjory, in her turn, thus brought face to face with the very reasonable proposition, found it hard to make an excuse that did not rouse her own indignation by being over serious. After all, why should she not comply with Captain Macleod's urgent invitations? There was nothing to be afraid of. Nevertheless, when she appeared, clothed in white raiment with her best gloves on, she had so solemn and sedate an air that the doctor felt aghast at his own act.
"Don't look so like Iphigenia, my dear," he said; "or let us give it up."
"Certainly not. If it's the right thing to do, it has got to be done; but I do feel like a sacrificial lamb. You don't, of course; but then you are accustomed to society, a great deal of society, and I'm not. Do you know, Tom, I have scarcely ever seen more than three or four people of my own rank together in my life, and I positively don't know any girls."
"Time you did," he replied stoutly.
"But I doubt if I have any manners," she protested.
He had, at any rate; and new as the experience of the large party gathered in the big drawing-room was to her, she found immediate confidence in the perception that her companion would stand the test of any society; indeed, as she sate talking to Alice Woodward, she could not help noticing with a certain amused pride Lady George's frigid politeness give way to interested endeavours to find out who this most unusually well-bred specimen of a country doctor could be; for Paul was not there to aid his sister's ignorance.
But by and bye Mrs. Vane came in and made her way straight to Marjory with pretty little words of welcome, yet with the Anglo-Indian lady's reminiscent interest at the sight of a real live man at afternoon tea.
"Who is he?" she asked; "did he come with you?"
"He is my guardian--Dr. Kennedy."
"Kennedy! not the famous Dr. Kennedy--Tom Kennedy of Paris?" And before Marjory could get beyond the first syllable of acquiescence, Mrs. Vane had crossed the room and was standing opposite Lady George.
"I would ask you to introduce me to Dr. Kennedy," she said, "but it would be of no use, for while he has made a name for himself since I knew him, I have lost mine. So I will only ask him if he remembers the jasmine bush at the Château Saumarez?"
There was an instant's bewilderment, and then Tommy Kennedy, who had risen at her first word, took a step forward and both his hands went out gladly.
"Pauline!"
"Just so--and you are Alphonse! What a small place the world is after all! To think of finding you at Gleneira. Lady George, you were talking of theatricals this morning, and the idea fell through because no one--not even your brother--would do thejeune premierwith me. He is found! Dr. Kennedy is one of the best amateur actors in Paris."
"The past tense, if you please, my dear lady," protested the doctor. "Consider my grey hairs."
"That is a remark which should not have been made, for we are contemporaries. He was my first--no! one of my first loves, Lady George. We used to give each other sweeties over the garden wall when his grandmother, the Marquise de Brisson, was not looking; but the jasmine bush, Alphonse, was at your uncle's, Prince Rosignacs's. Why! you have a bit in your buttonhole now, and I----" She pointed to the spray fastened into the laces of her tea-gown.
"Ce soir ma robe en est tout embaumée."
"Respires-en moi l'adorant souvenir," quoted Dr. Kennedy, looking at the lapel of his coat tenderly; and Marjory, standing a little apart, a mute spectator of the scene, felt a sudden sense of loneliness. He, too, was at home in this idle, careless life, and she was the only one who was out of it. It came upon her by surprise, for though she had known and been proud of the fact that her guardian belonged by virtue of his mother's birth to the best of French society, she had had no actual experience of him in the part of a man of the world. But he was that, and of a good world, too, she recognised frankly as she sate listening to the now animated conversation about people she had never heard of, things she had never seen, and at the same time trying to be agreeable to the girls who, dutiously, had taken her in hand. She felt that it was a duty, and a sort of indifferent resentment possessed her, even when Lady George hoped she would accompany Dr. Kennedy, who had kindly promised to dine with them next day and talk over the now possible theatricals. Yet, rather to his surprise, she accepted without even a look at his face, and made quite a polite little speech about hoping to see more of the girls; and so, with a certain independent grace, passed out into the hall, leaving him detained for a moment by some last remark. She could hear Mrs. Vane's light laugh, his voice, and then another laugh, as she stood waiting beside the deferential butler, and all involuntarily her lip curled.
"Miss Carmichael! How glad I am!" It was Paul, newly in from the moor, looking his best, as a handsome man does, in his rough shooting-clothes. He had a tuft of white heather and stag-horn moss in one hand, and with a sudden impulse he held it out gaily to her. "Tit-for-tat! you welcomed me here--though I never thanked you for so doing, did I? It is my turn now."
He had meant the offering for Violet Vane or Alice Woodward, whichever he met first, but now it seemed as if fate had sent it for Marjory and for no one else. He felt as if it were so, he looked as if it were so, and for the first time in her life Marjory felt an odd little thrill run through her veins.
"Thank you," she said soberly. "Yes! I did give it to you; so now we are quits--I mean," she corrected hastily, "that--that we are on the same footing."
There was quite a tremor in her voice, too, as, seeing Dr. Kennedy beside her, she turned to him quickly. "This is Captain Macleod, Tom;--he has been very kind to me."
In nine cases out of ten Paul Macleod on being introduced to a man belonging to a girl in Marjory's position, and, as it were, having a claim on her, would have been studiously, frigidly courteous, and no more; and so might have once and for all chilled Marjory's sudden confidence and relief in finding an old friend in her new environment; but it is difficult for an emotional man to be cold, when a sudden glow of content makes him feel absurdly happy. Consequently he went out of his way to be frank and kindly in expressing his pleasure at making the acquaintance of one of whom Miss Carmichael had so often spoken.
"In terms of reprobation, no doubt," replied Dr. Kennedy, lightly; "a guardian is a disagreeable appendage, though I try to be as little of a nuisance as I can."
"So do I," retorted Paul, with a smile; "but Miss Carmichael is so dreadfully hard to please."
As Dr. Kennedy's keen brown eyes took in the figure before him, he told himself that the girl must be hard indeed to please if she could find fault with it.
"That is the handsomest man I've seen for a long time," he said as they walked home. "What is he like inside?"
Marjory paused with her head on one side, considering. "Oh! nice in a way--the way of the world, I suppose, and I thought him nicer than ever to-day; being in his own house agrees with him. Oh, Tom! how I wish you hadn't accepted that invitation to dinner!"
Yet when she returned from the Big House, she had a little flush on her cheek, and when Dr. Kennedy challenged her to tell truth in answer to Mrs. Cameron's inquiry as to how she got on, she answered with a laugh and a nod: "Why not--it was rather interesting; quite an evolutionary process. Before I went I was protoplasmic--all in a jelly. Then at dinner we were all amoebic--digestive apparatus and nothing else. Afterwards, with the ladies, I felt like a worm, or a fish out of water. Then I wanted to have wings like a bird and fly away, but I couldn't, for the quadrumana appeared from the dining-room, and we all became apes!"
"What is the lassie talking about?" put in Mrs. Cameron, with a toss of her head. "Can you no answer a straight question wi' a straight answer? What then, I say, what then?"
"Yes! what then, Marjory?" asked Tom Kennedy, quickly; he knew the answer, and yet he wanted to hear it from her lips, because it would satisfy him that so far he had been right.
"And then--why then I suppose I became a girl--at any rate I enjoyed it. They were all so kind, and Mrs. Vane--I suppose in your world, Tom, there are heaps of women like that?"
"Not many so charming," he answered heartily. In truth it had been very pleasant meeting her again after so many years; for a man, even when he is in love, or supposes himself to be in love, with one woman, is never proof against the pleasure of being made much of by another. And Dr. Kennedy, with a quaint simplicity and wisdom, was perfectly aware of his own reputation as one of the boldest adventurers in new fields of discovery, and told himself that people made much of him for their own sake, and because he carried his restless energy with him into society as well as into his work. For energy is, as a rule, a godsend tofin-de-sièclemen and women. So the conceit of it slipped off him like water from a duck's back, leaving him free to take his world as he found it.
But Marjory felt once more the little chill of regret for the things she had not known in his life.
"There is one thing I forget to ask you," she said quickly. "Your name is not Alphonse, is it?"
"No! But she thought Tom unromantic, and so I promised to change my name if she changed hers."
"Men don't generally do as much as that," grumbled Will. "So they are going to have theatricals, are they? That means that all the horses will be dead lame, and the laird will be wanting more."
"How on earth do you make that out?" asked Dr. Kennedy.
"Women," said Will, laconically. "Something will always be wanted in a hurry, the telegraph station is ten miles off, and women seem to think a horse can change its legs when it comes home."
There was some truth in his remark during the next ten days. Gleneira House lived in a continual bustle which gave no time for thought, save, perhaps, to Mrs. Vane, who, busy as she was, found time to congratulate herself so far on the success of her plans; for Marjory and Paul had perforce to meet constantly, and more than once something occurred to encourage her belief that there was material for mischief ready to her hand if it was needed.
But other material came to light also, or so it seemed to her cynical experience; and the clue to it came one day when she and Marjory, who had grown keen, as was only natural, over the novelty of amusement, were searching through an old portfolio of Paul's sketches for hints likely to be of use for a drop scene.
It was nothing more than the portrait of a girl with a bunch of red rowans held up to her cheek.
"That is very well done, Paul," said Mrs. Vane, holding it up for him to see, as he stood a little way off. "Who was the beautiful model?"
He came over to her hastily. "Oh! no one you know; and it isn't really worth looking at. A wretched caricature--I did not know it was there."
Something in his voice roused the amused malice which always lurked behind Mrs. Vane's treatment of Paul's foibles.
"I disagree with you; look, Miss Carmichael! Don't you think that quite the best thing we have seen of Captain Macleod's doing?"
"It is a lovely face," said the girl, "and it reminds me of someone----" Then she looked up in sudden interest. "Surely it is Paul--little Paul, I mean, Peggy Duncan's grandson; perhaps----" She stopped abruptly, remembering the big Paul's confession, and blushed, she scarcely knew why. Then, feeling vexed with herself for doing so, put down the sketch, and taking up another, made some trivial remark about its being very pretty. But Mrs. Vane had not done with the sketch. "That Highland type of face----" she began.
"There is no need to theorise over the likeness in this case," interrupted Paul, seeing through her, as he nearly always did. "It was little Paul's mother; and as I think I told you once, Miss Carmichael, the most beautiful woman I ever saw. That is why I call it a caricature, Mrs. Vane."
The anger in his voice was not to be mistaken, and Marjory, as he moved away to resume histête-a-têtewith Alice Woodward, was left with an uncomfortable feeling that she had somehow betrayed a secret, though her common, sense resented the imputation. But Mrs. Vane looked after his retreating figure with one of her fine smiles. So the memory of this particular most-beautiful-woman-in-the-world--there must have been a good many of them in Paul Macleod's life--was not pleasant to him. Wherefore? The question came quite idly, and passed from her mind without an answer. Marjory, on the other hand, took hers--as to whether she was to blame or not--seriously to heart. So much so, that when she had speech with Paul alone, which occurred naturally enough when he brought her a cup of tea, as she sate stitching away for dear life at some ridiculous theatrical property near the window, so as to get the full advantage of the waning light, she reverted to the subject at once.
"Don't," he interrupted hurriedly, almost before she had begun. "Please don't; I would so much rather you said nothing more about it."
"But I don't understand."
"Thank heaven you don't," he replied.
"Why should you say that?" she cried reproachfully. "I cannot see why I should not, if I can. I am not a fool----"
"Marjory!" interrupted Dr. Kennedy, coming forward, "little Paul Duncan has just come round from the Lodge with a message that his grannie wants to see you. We might go round that way; it is getting late as it is."
"There's no hurry," put in Paul. "I will tell them to give the boy a piece, and he can wait till Miss Carmichael has finished giving me absolution."
"That is the wrong way about, surely?" she said.
"It is the usual way between a man and a woman," replied Paul, "and will be to the end of the chapter, I'm afraid."
Half an hour afterwards Mrs. Vane, who had come out into the hall with some parting instructions to Marjory, stood looking down with the others at little Paul Duncan, who, weary of waiting, had cuddled himself round on the doorstep and fallen into the heavy sleep of childhood. "He looks very delicate," said Violet, kindly stooping over him as he lay with one hand tucked into the back of his neck in rather an unusual posture; and then suddenly she looked up at the big Paul, for the trick had taken her back to the old days when she had watched his sleep with jealous care, lest her patient should be disturbed; and how often had she not wondered why he chose so uncomfortable a position?
Impossible! and yet there was a likeness. The name, too, and his evident dislike to the mention of the boy's mother! It must mean something--what? The thought left her pale, so that Paul, turning back with her when those two had gone, noticed it, telling her that she was overworking herself.
"Of course I am overworking," she retorted, with a strange mixture of self-pity, blame, and fierce resentment. "I always do. Is it my fault if I do things quicker than other people? Is it my fault if I see things more clearly? You think I am always managing, managing; and so I am. How can I help it when, everything keeps coming into my mind, and no one thinks or cares?"
"My dear Violet! You have been overworking, indeed. You must take it easier, or we shall be having you laid up----"
"And then what would Paul Macleod do?" she went on, with a reckless laugh. "No! I won't make myself so disagreeable as all that--if I can help it, Paul; but how can one help being disagreeable at times when one is wise--wise and old? Oh, Paul, how old I am!"
"I don't see it," he answered, with an amused smile.
"You! you never see anything," she began; then suddenly returned to her own light, half-jesting manner. "No! that is not true; you see most things, but you are too young to understand me. Dreadfully young for your age, Paul, so it is lucky there are so many of us to look after you."
When she went upstairs to dress for dinner she sate down before the looking-glass and stared at herself with a sort of repugnance. Yes! she was old, hatefully old, in mind, in knowledge of the world, in experience. That thought which had flashed through her brain at the sight of little Paul lying asleep on the doorstep was not a nice thought. Yet could she help its flashing? and, if there was anything in the thought, might not the knowledge strengthen her hand in the coming fight? For a fortnight's daily experience of Alice Woodward's calm attractions had raised Mrs. Vane's opposition to her marriage with Paul to virtuous horror. No true friend, she told herself, would hesitate to throw every difficulty in the way of so disastrous a connection. At the same time she felt almost afraid to reach out after this new weapon, lest it might prove too heavy for those delicate hands of hers, accustomed for the most part to leading reins. It was one thing to goad and guide people into the right path, another to split open their heads with a sledgehammer. Though how this could be such a lethal weapon she could not see, since she knew enough of Paul Macleod to doubt if he would have had the hardihood to mention Jeanie Duncan to Marjory if there had been anything between them in the past. And yet? So she stood before possibilities, shivering on the brink, and finally telling herself there would be time enough to think of such things if less heroic measures failed. It was a mistake to touch pitch needlessly; at the same time it was as well to make sure there was pitch in the pot. So the next day saw her, on some airy pretence of getting old Peggy to knit stockings, sitting beside the old pauper and bringing to bear on her ailments and wrongs all the gay cheerfulness and sympathy which Paul declared always put him in a good humour.