Apparently it had the same effect on Peggy Duncan, for the next Saturday when, as usual, her ancient schoolfellow and crony, Janet, came to give the hovel that weekly redding up which was beyond little Paul's ability, the old lady lay in her bed discoursing at length on the "bit thing just made up o' fal-lals that sits in the auld chair as if 't belonged to her, and chirrups awa like the lady's o' heaven's hen. A sicht guid for sair e'en, no like what the house was maistly acquaint wi'--just puir, ill-fa'ured warlocks."
Whereupon Janet Faa tossed her head, and muttered in an undertone that Peggy might speak for herself; she was no warlock whatever. But she went on with her work, patiently, being accustomed to such sly hits and finding the description of Mrs. Vane's dresses and the puckles o' tea that appeared from her pocket far more interesting than the old lady's usual snappishness. But then, under any circumstances, Peggy's tongue would have been softened by the knowledge that help was more than ever necessary that day, since visitors were expected to tea. So the old woman watched the preparations with wrathful eyes, and did not even quarrel with the polish of the two silver spoons, which, usually secreted with her other treasures in the bottom drawer of the bureau, now graced the clean tablecloth. To tell truth, however, fault-finding would have had no practical effect, since Janet never took the slightest notice of it, beyond remarking every now and again: "Whist, woman! whist! It is no breath you will be having to crack with the doctor."
On the other hand, wee Paulie, who contributed his share by timidly presenting a mug full of early rowan-berries and heather for the middle of the table, was sternly bidden to take away the ugly trash, and solemnly warned against the sin of mistaking weeds for flowers, and thus setting himself up to be a judge instead of abiding by the will of Providence. The rebuke, however, did not seem to touch the child, who, with many previous memories of Miss Marjory's liking for the said "ugly trash," set the posy aside on a shelf at the back of the bed, and so beyond the reach of his grandmother's eyes.
"If Towpie wad lay anither egg," said the old lady at last, surveying thetout ensemblewith a smile struggling with the frown which was necessary to keep Janet Faa in subjection, "it wad nae be sae bad; but I misdoot the silly thing is for clucking."
"But it is two eggs there are, Peggy, woman, and the shentlemans is never for eatin' but one egg," protested Janet, who occasionally helped at the Big House, and was great, in consequence, on the ways and customs of the quality.
Peggy sniffed. "That may be your way o' thinkin', it's no mine. Ye soudna press on a guest what ye're no able to tak' yoursel'. And I'd no cook it, ye ken--I'd just offer it up to show there was ane--Lord sakes! wha's yon at the door, an' me wi' my bald head. Quick, Janet, woman, my mutch, and pit it straight, woman! I'll no have it cockit over an ear as if I were tipsy."
"It will only be the master," said little Paul, coming from the door. "He will be having a letter for you he says with a penny to pay."
"Then bid him tak' it back and pay himsel' if he's carin' for it. I'm no. There's no letters for me that I'm carin' to have, and I'll just no be fashed wi' them when there is company comin'--Hoot awa' wi' the man comin' pryin', pryin', and me puttin' on my mutch for him."
"But, Mistress Duncan," came in remonstrant tones from the door.
"Oh! you're there are ye. Weel! I'm obleeged to ye, sir, for comin' sae far oot o' ye're road. An' I must pit ye to the trouble o' takin' it back again, and tellin' them as sent it that Peggy Duncan is on the pairish an' hasna a penny to spare for their trash."
Mr. McColl, standing outside, looked longingly at the blue envelope, with the seal of a well-known firm of Writers-to-the-Signet upon it, and hesitated. Was it worth paying a penny on the chance of being the first to spread news? A momentous question, which left a tremble in his voice as he called again. "But there will be naethin' to pay, Mistress Duncan. Here! Paulie, my man, rin with it to your grannie. And it will be Scriven an' Plead's name on the anvelope, and they will be the foremost Writers-to-the-Signet in Glasgow, whatever."
"They may be Writers to onybody else," retorted Peggy, taking the bulky letter, however, and nodding to Mr. McColl, who had seized the opportunity of slipping in so far. "But I dinna ken what right they have to be Writers to me."
The master put in a deft suggestion. "Then ye can see inside, Mistress Duncan. If you are carin' for't I could be readin' it to you before I was goin' on. I'm no in a hurry."
Peggy's black eyes glittered with sheer malice as she tucked the envelope away under her pillow, and lay back on it defiantly.
"An' I'm no in a hurry, either, Mr. McColl, an' I would be asking you to have a sup tea, but that I'm expectin' the quality; sae gude day to ye, and mony thanks for your kindness."
And yet when poor Mr. McColl had retired discomfited, bemoaning the loss of his penny, and Janet Faa, having done her part of the business, had left the kettle in charge of little Paul, who sate outside watching for the first glimpse of Miss Marjory, the old woman brought out the envelope again and looked at it wistfully. Perhaps the thoughts of the long years, during which she had waited in vain for some word of the husband who had deserted her, came back to her; yet as she muttered to herself--as she did often when alone--it was not that thought which came uppermost.
"Aye! aye! it's a fine thing the readin' o' writin'. If it were aboot the lassie now; and me promising never to speir, never to let ony other body know! I canna break my word, an' me sae near the Judgment. It is no as if I were a Papist, like Janet, puir body, that can just awa' an' get absolution, ye ken. I maun carry my sins wi' me, and it will be ill eneuch flyin' wi' what I've got."
"May I come in, Mrs. Duncan?" said a clear voice, breaking in on the old woman's preoccupation. As a matter of fact, however, the permission was scarcely needed, for Violet Vane was already in the room, close to the bed, her eyes on the letter; yet her first words made it appear as if her attention had been given to something else.
"Ah! you are expecting visitors, and I shall be in the way."
"Naethin' o' the sort, ma'am," replied Peggy, hastily, as usual on the lookout for a grievance. "I'm no sae sair put to it yet but that I can spare a cup o' tea for them that takes the trouble to come and see the auld wife."
"And a very good cup of tea, too," put in Mrs. Vane. "What you gave me the other day was delicious. I only meant that strangers may not be welcome when friends are talking secrets."
"I've nae friends and nae secrets," retorted the old woman, looking up quickly.
"Then you are lucky," continued her visitor, lightly. "Friends are often troublesome, especially over secrets; nine times out of ten you daren't ask their advice for fear of their knowing too much."
"Ye'll no be askin' mony folks' advice, I'm thinking," said Peggy, shrewdly. "Ye've plenty brains; eneuch for yoursel' and ithers to the bargain."
Mrs. Vane laughed. "Perhaps; but other folks' brains are better than one's own sometimes. When I am in a difficulty I go to someone who is as near a perfect stranger to me as possible and ask for advice. I needn't take it, you know--Gracious! what is that?" That was a clamorous cackling at the foot of the bed, and the stately march therefrom of Towpie, the hen, triumphant over the laying of an egg in her favourite nest.
"Oh ye o' little faith!" cried Peggy; "and me misca'ing the puir beastie! It's a special Providence, aye, aye. He neither slumbers nor sleeps, ye ken. And you will no be goin' to stop at Gleneira long, I'm thinking." The question followed fast on the quotation as if there was some connection in the old woman's mind between them.
"I leave it very soon, I'm sorry to say, as I think it the loveliest place in the world; and it is sad to know that I shall not see it again."
The envelope had come put of its hiding-place again during this speech, and Peggy was turning it over and over as if to attract attention to it; but she failed, and had to resort to more direct methods.
"I canna think why they pit sic'can a big seal to a letter. Will there be something on it that shoudna be broken?"
"Not that I can see," replied Mrs. Vane, taking it up carelessly. "Only the name, 'Scriven and Plead'--lawyers, Peggy--for there below is W. S. Glasgow. It is what people call a lawyer's letter, I expect."
"An' what will that be about?"
"Heaps of things. I couldn't say without reading it; shall I?" But Peggy's claw-like hand shot forth in quick negation.
"I'll no be troubling you. I thocht, maybe, ye micht hae had experience o' such things."
"So I have, Peggy. Sometimes they are wills, and sometimes they are money."
"Aye!" interrupted the old woman, with a sinister chuckle, "but when they're written to bit pauper bodies like me?"
"Then they are generally questions," replied Mrs. Vane, and though she spoke easily she was conscious of a certain agitation of mind. "Agreeable or disagreeable. Something to help a lawyer in tracing somebody, or finding out some secret."
Peggy lay back on her pillows with a sort of groan. "'Tis only the pain, ma'am," she explained, then paused awhile; "I was thinkin' maybe 'twas that. An' if you coudna answer them, what then?"
"Nothing; they can't make you; only it is impossible to tell if you can or cannot till you know the questions."
"But if I canna know them without breaking a covenant? I might just let the letter bide, maybe?"
Mrs. Vane hesitated an instant to run over the pros and cons hastily. There was some secret, that was evident, and though the letter might not be concerned with it, on the other hand it might. Peggy was disinclined to trust it to her on the instant, but might think better of it by and bye; anyhow, the first thing to ensure was that no one else should have the chance.
"In that case, of course, you should, as you say, let it be. If it is really important they will write again, and then it would be worth while considering the matter. In the meanwhile, as a perfect stranger, I should advise your setting it aside."
Peggy looked at her admiringly. "It's a fine thing to hae deceesion o' character, and me just fashing myself about it."
"Shall I put it away for you in a safe place?" asked her visitor, as the old lady proceeded to put the letter back under the pillow.
"It's safe eneuch there," she retorted sardonically. "I'll no move till they lift me to my coffin, an' that will no be far, for it's to stand on the table whaur the tea is setten oot. I've planned it a' ye see wi' Janet, and there's twa bottles o' gude whiskey wi' the deid claes in the bottom drawer. Ye canna expec' sinfu' man tae sit wi' a corp without spirits."
Despite the humour of the thought, which at another time would have outweighed the grimness, Mrs. Vane shivered. It seemed to her as if old Peggy were a corp already in that dim box bed, where she lay so still, only her angry eyes and twitching fingers showing sign of life. It was a relief to hear the grumbling voice again.
"Weel, yon's settled, thanks to you, an' I'll no be kep' lingerin' in the deid thraw about papers that, for a' I ken, wad be as weel in the fire. O, ma'am! ye dinna ken what it feels like to think o' bein' called to the Throne, an' no bein' able to stir for the weight o' yer sins. For a broken word is as heavy as lead ye ken."
"Why should you talk of being called, Peggy," protested Mrs. Vane, uneasily. "You are no worse than you were." But here in her nervousness she forgot her tact, and the old woman was in arms at once. "Maybe ye ken better nor me, ma'am, that's only tholing the pain alone in the night watches."
"Then you should get some of the neighbours to sit up."
"Neebors!" interrupted Peggy, with an eldritch laugh. "They'll have eneuch to do in settin' up wi' my corp; sae let them sleep on now an' taketheirrest."
Mrs. Vane shivered again, and, a sudden distaste to the whole business coming over her, made an excuse to escape; yet when, almost at the threshold, she met Marjory and Dr. Kennedy on their way to Peggy's entertainment, she paused with the lightest of laughs to tell them that the old woman was in one of her worst moods, and would make their hair stand on end. For her part she had had her fill of horrors, and intended to shock Mrs. Woodward by asking for a spoonful of brandy in her tea! It was a relief to joke over it for the time, even though in her heart she knew that she would have amauvais quart d'heuresooner or later; most likely later, when the time came for sleep and she would have to seek the aid of that bottle of chloral--for Mrs. Vane's mind was fragile as her body, and could not stand any great strain. She could handle the reins deftly, and drive her team gaily along the turnpike road, but she had never driven across country. So it was a further relief to meet the butler in the hall carrying a fresh teapot of tea into the drawing-room, while the footman followed decorously bearing eight cups on a tray. Lady Hooker, the former functionary replied, in answer to her inquiries, had driven over from the Forest to see her ladyship in achâr-a-banc, with seven other ladies, some children, and a piper playing on the box. He added the last item in tones of tolerant contempt, born of a dispute downstairs as to whether the musician should have his tea in the housekeeper's room or the servants' hall; the womenkind, dazzled by his gorgeous array, favouring the former, the menkind the latter, on the ground that fine feathers did not make fine birds, and that without them he was only Roderick the gillie's brother and a "hignorant 'ighland beast" to boot.
Lady George's face relaxed even at the sight of another woman, seeing that that other was Mrs. Vane; for as she said afterwards, "It is nearly twenty miles, you know, and a bad road, so the horses were bound to have an hour's rest, and it requires a dreadful expenditure of tissue to make tea last an hour; yet, if you don't, you have to put on your boots in a hurry and begin the conservatories and the garden, which no one wants to see in the least. Really, in the country, it would be a charity to have a room where people could wait until the horses came round, or rather, till the coachman got tired of flirting with the maids, for in the end it comes to that, you know."
To tell truth, there was cause for Lady George's welcome of reinforcements, for, despite the fact that the hall positively reeked of mackintoshes, the drawing-room was redolent of the shower-proof mantles worn by a bevy of ladies of the type so common on Mr. McBrayne's steamers; ladies whose conception of the Highlands and islands might be likened to a volume of Scott bound in waterproof!
"We brought our sandwiches for lunch with us," explained one in reply to Mrs. Vane's commonplace about the long drive; "and dear Lady Hooker said we might rely on Highland hospitality for tea; and really it was exquisite, a dream of beauty, and so interesting, too! Dear Lady Hooker says that a portion of Waverley was really written in this neighbourhood."
"I hope they were not the opening ones, then," remarked Mrs. Vane, carelessly. "They always make me inclined to agree for the time with the man who said it was a pity Sir Walter wrote in such small print."
A perfectly bovine silence fell on her group, broken, however, by a determined voice from over the way:
"I agree with you absolutely, at least, as absolutely as the limitations of human life allow. There is a lack of spiritual insight in Sir Walter, a want of emotional instinct, an almost brutal content with things as they are. His style is doubtless good, but personally I confess to being unable to appreciate it fully. Even on a second reading I find the story distracts my mind."
The speaker was a slim, rather elegant-looking girl, with an odd mixture of eagerness and stolidity on her face.
"She writes a great deal," said Mrs. Vane's next-door neighbour in an undertone of gratification, as if she gained a certain distinction by being of the same party.
"Only a hundred brace!" came Lady Hooker's voice, compassionately. "That's very poor, scarcely worth writing for--but then, you don't rent the place, of course; that makes the difference. Sir Joseph doesn't go in for grouse, of course; he is a deer man. But we couldn't get on under five hundred brace for the table, we really couldn't. Cooks are so extravagant. You will hardly believe it, Lady Temple, but my Glasgow beef bill last week was over nine pounds, and we had three sheep besides, and--how many deer was it, Miss Jones? Six? Yes, six deer."
"That seems enough even for Noah's Ark or a menagerie," said Mrs. Vane, sympathetically, and Lady George gave her a grateful smile.
"But then, of course, the servants won't touch venison," went on Lady Hooker, contentedly; "though really it makes very fair clear soup--it does, indeed. Even Sir Joseph does not object; and he is so particular. When we had the Marquis of Steyne's place in Ross-shire----"
"Ah! there are the children," said Lady George, with a sigh of relief. "I thought, Lady Hooker, that my little boy and girl--oh, nurse! I did not intend Master Blasius----"
But nurse apparently had other views--possibly that of hearing the pipes downstairs--for she feigned not to hear, and set Blazes down on his feet with that final "jug" behind to his smock frock which is the usual parting admonition to behave nicely.
"Eve, my darling! Adam, my love! go and shake hands' with your little visitors," said Lady George, keeping an apprehensive eye on Blazes, who, with his legs very far apart, was clacking the whip he had brought down with him, and making extraordinary cluckings in the roof of his mouth, like a whole bevy of broody hens, in which occupation, what with his close-cropped hair and white smock, he looked a carter to the life. "Really, nurse!" she continued nervously; "I think, perhaps, it would be better. He is so much younger than the others, you see, Lady Hooker."
But nurse was not to be put off with this subterfuge, and as she happened to be keeping company with the carrier, she felt outraged by the palpable suspicion. "Indeed, your ladyship," she said, in an indignant whisper, "it is only the man as drives the ferry cart, and 'e is most respectable!"
So it appeared, for beyond the usual "ger'up" Blasius' vocabulary was, if anything, too endearing. So much so, that Lady George suggested that since the children had had their tea, she thought it would be nice for them to play on the lawn. She would ring for the nursemaid to keep an eye on them, not that it would be necessary, since she could trust darling Adam and Eve not to get into mischief anywhere--out of Paradise. But here a difficulty presented itself. One little girl, a very pretty child dressed in white serge and fur, refused to go, and stood burying her face in the window curtain, and digging the toe of one shoe into the carpet after the manner of children who have made up their minds to give trouble.
"She isn't my girl," came Lady Hooker's loud voice. "Sir Joseph wouldn't tolerate that sort of thing, he is so particular. When we had the Duke's place in Sutherland----"
"Cressida, my sweet!" said the authoress, plaintively; "if you can possibly wish to go, do wish; it would be so much more convenient for dear little mother. I never coerce her, on principle, Lady George--she is the only tie I have to life."
"Separated from her husband," put in Mrs. Vane's next-door neighbour, in the same self-complacent whisper. "It is quite the proper thing when you write, you know."
"That is what Lady George says also," broke in Mrs. Woodward, a little spitefully. "And I tell her that children were made to obey their parents----"
"Should be made to obey them, you mean, dear Mrs. Woodward," interrupted her hostess, rising to the bait; "but, as I say, it depends upon experience. You may have found it necessary with--with yours, but mine----"
"And mine also!" broke in the lady who wrote, enthusiastically. "Cressida's mind is so beautiful in its intense naturalness, so delicate in texture. It is the instinctive shyness of a sensitive organism which----" She started, and turned round, for a loud, full, yet childish voice rose confidently above her words.
"Blazeth' goin' to kiss the little gurl, then she won't be flighted, but come along o' Blazeths."
And she did, hand in hand, admiringly, while he cracked his whip and cried, "Ger'rup!" to amuse her.
"And he can do old Angus awful well, too," whispered Eve to her companion, as they passed out of the door. "We'll get him to do it by the burn when Mary isn't looking. Mary doesn't like it, you know, because her young man is a shepherd, too; but he really is quite a genteel young fellar, and kept company with the under 'rouse last year at the Forest--that's your place, isn't it?"
"It's a deal bigger than this," remarked the other. "And we have deers and grouses."
So the game of brag--which children play more naïvely than their elders--began, while the authoress was explaining at length how it came about that Cressida had consented to Blasius's methods of persuasion.
"I don't think you need distress yourself," remarked Mrs. Vane, with an odd little smile; "Blazes is really a remarkable boy; he invariably goes down straight to first principles, and that is a deadly method of argument--especially with our sex."
"Sex!" echoed the authoress, scenting the foe. "I deny the right of man----"
"Lady George!" said Mrs. Vane, hastily, "perhaps some of these ladies might like to see the conservatories. I have on my boots."
Blanche gave her another glance of heartfelt gratitude, and as she saw her bear off a large contingent, told herself that she was worth three of Alice Woodward, who was only equal to the bread and butter! And Paul was anything but bread and butter! The thought, as such vagrant ones have a trick of doing, begged for more consideration as she sate turning a polite ear and tongue to the task of amusing the authoress, who had remained behind; Mrs. Woodward meanwhile appearing deeply interested in a certain place the Hookers had had in Perthshire, where the gillies expected champagne andpâti de foie grasfor their ball supper. And she was fast approaching that condition of mind in which the only thing which prevents our owning up that we are out of our depth is the conviction that we know quite as much of what we are talking about as the other party to the conversation, when the sudden reappearance of the garden contingent bearing two bundles wrapped in waterproofs supplied an all too efficient distraction.
For the waterproofs being set on the ground disclosed the coy Cressida and Blasius, both dripping, and inconceivably smeared with tar; but both to all appearance in the highest of spirits.
Poor Lady George stood up tragically.
"Yes!" replied Mrs. Vane, striving to be grave. "They are bad children--all bad children," she added, turning to the group of elder ones behind.
"Oh, but we wasn't there!" came in a chorus, led by Adam and Eve, "we wasn't, really. It's all his fault."
"Don't! Don't come near me, child!" cried the devoted mother, hastily retreating from the embrace of her only tie to life. "Cressida! What--what have you been doing?"
"Oh mummie! it was bewful. First he washted me, and then I washted him, an' then we washted each other, didn't we, Blazes? and we said, Haud up--ye----"
"The child is dripping!" interrupted Lady George, hastily. "I will ring for nurse. Oh! Blasius, how could you think of such a thing?"
Mrs. Vane pointed slily to the furred white pelisse. "It is rather tempting," she said, aside; but Blanche was not to be mollified.
"And Mary? Where was Mary?"
"Mary's dancing the Highland fling with James in the boot hole," blabbed Eve, readily. "An' we wanted to dance too, but nursie was there, an' so we comed away."
"But where did you go? What were you doing? How came you not to see? you two whom I can generally trust," persisted Lady George, growing tearful from vexation, yet feeling vaguely that it all arose from people bringing a piper with them when they came to call--a piper who disorganised the household and introduced Highland flings into the boot hole! "I insist, children, on hearing what you were all doing."
There was a dead silence, until for the first time Blazes lifted up his loud, mellow voice, as he stood disregarded by a chair smearing his tarry hands stolidly over its cover in a vain effort to amend matters before nurse appeared.
"They was flicking piggy wif a pin, and piggy was 'quealin' louder nor Blazeths."
And even Lady George--when thechâr-a-banchad driven off, piper and mackintoshes and all, with Cressida kissing her still tarry hands to a struggling figure in Mary's arms at the nursery window--was forced to admit that Blazes generally went straight to the point; and that after all it had helped to pass the time. And as for Mary, she declared that her ladyship might say what she liked about 'orseplay, an' lendin' 'erself to savage an' indignified dances in a boot 'ole, but 'ighland flings wasn't in it--for a stetch in yer side an' no 'airpins to speak of--with Master Blazes when you 'ad to 'old 'im and 'e didn't meant to be 'eld.
For the next few days after the visit to old Peggy, which convinced her that some secret lay in the old woman's keeping, Mrs. Vane refrained from any attempt to interfere with Providence. To begin with, she felt vaguely that the Scotch marriage laws were dangerous, and the very fact that she knew enough of Paul to be sure that this was not likely to be a mere vulgar entanglement, made her hesitate before her own suspicions. On the other hand, this possibility of a new string to her bow inclined her to slack off the other; the more so because here again she was beginning to be afraid of her own weapon. She had always recognised that, but for her interference, Paul would have held to that discretion which is the better part of valour, have seen no more of Marjory, and forgotten her; also, that the girl herself had been quite as ready to dismiss this strange, if alluring, figure from her thoughts, as belonging to a society--nay! to a world--in which she had no part. But now? Mrs. Vane, as she watched the easy familiarity which had of necessity recommenced between them, as she noted the girl's quick, healthy response to the thousand and one new thoughts and ways of this new life, could not help wondering if the awakening to new pleasures might not rouse into action a new set of emotions and instincts. For Marjory, as for Paul, there was also danger; to her from the unfamiliarity, to him from the very familiarity of the environment, which threw him back on past experience, and rendered it well-nigh impossible for him to forget his own nature, and dream himself in Arcadia. And then Dr. Kennedy's appearance had complicated matters for Mrs. Vane, who, kindly to all, had a weak spot in her heart for the friend of her earliest youth. It did not take long for her sharp eyes to pierce through his pretence of mere guardianship, and it gave her quite a pang to think of giving him one. Yet here she comforted herself by the palpable jealousy which Marjory showed towards those youthful days; a jealousy she did not scruple to stimulate, for Mrs. Vane, with all herfinesse, occasionally made a mistake, and in the present instance did not realise that in thus, as it were, emphasising a hitherto unknown side of Dr. Kennedy's life she was adding to the strangeness of the environment in which Marjory found herself; and at the same time suggesting that it was no new thing to the one person to whose opinion she was inclined to defer. So that, instead of helping her old friend by the time-honoured device of exciting jealousy as a prelude to love, Mrs. Vane, in reality, made it easier for the girl to drift from her moorings.
"You are very kind to your ward," said the little lady one day, feeling impelled to give comfort as she noticed Dr. Kennedy's eyes following Marjory rather wistfully. "But virtue has its own reward. Do not pretend you don't understand,Monsieur le Docteur!for you do. And I will give you my opinion--when she has seen a little more of the world she will see whatithas seen already--that there are not many men in it like Dr. Tom Kennedy."
"She will see exactly what she chooses to see,Madame!" he replied, with one of his little foreign bows, which, to Marjory, seemed to reveal him in a new and worldly light.
"Exactly," retorted the little lady; "and being of the Truth will choose the Truth." And then suddenly her mood changed, and she laid her hand close to his on the table as if to attract his attention to her quick emotion. "Ah,mon ami, I envy you! you can afford to wait for Paradise, and I have had mine. At least, I feel as if I had eaten my apple and been turned out into the cold, for there hasn't been much happiness in my life."
He looked at her with 'grave pity, noting with the eye of one accustomed to the work the thousand and one little signs of wear and tear in the clever, mobile face.
"You have put plenty into other people's lives, anyhow," he said, in kindly, if cold, comfort; and his words were true. With all her faults Mrs. Vane had given more to the world than she had ever taken from it.
Marjory, watching the little scene from afar, felt something of this, as she told herself it was quite natural that Tom should enjoy the companionship of his old friend. Who, in fact, would not enjoy talking to so brilliant and charming a woman? at least, in this new world, which could not somehow be cleft in two by a straight line dividing right from wrong, darkness from light.
Yet, though she acknowledged this, she was as far as ever from understanding it, and as ready as ever to disdain anything which bordered on sentiment; on that unknown ground of Love or Passion.
Dr. Kennedy, repeating to her his part ofjeune premierin the little play which was to precede some tableaux, realised her lack of change in this respect with mingled gratification and regret.
"I must keep my own counsel," he recited, in the even yet jerky tone sacred to the learning of parts, "em--and not let her suspect the deep attachment she has inspired--inspired--inspired. Now, don't tell me, please; I know what comes next. Yes! I do, Mademoiselle! In nine cases out of ten a proposal! So there! Well, where were we? Ah! 'But, soft' (depends greatly on the stage floor, my dear sir). 'But, soft! she comes!' Go on, Marjory. 'Enter Blanche--she comes,' is your cue."
"'Tis he! Henri!' Oh! Tom, do let us skip all that bosh!"
Dr. Kennedy put down the hazel root he was whittling into a shepherd's crook and looked at her in feigned surprise. "Bosh! Why, I intend to work this up until I draw tears from every eye."
"Not from mine, Tom," smiled Marjory; "that sort of thing always makes me laugh."
They were lounging under the beech tree which grew close to the burn at the bottom of the garden, and the dappled sunshine and shade from the green canopy overhead made the green draperies outlining the fine curves of Marjory's slender figure seem like a dress of leaves. Leaning forward on the grass, her chin resting on her hands, her curly head thrown back half-defiantly to look him in the face, she reminded Dr. Kennedy of Rosalind; yet it was of another heroine that he spoke.
"Poor Juliet! I suppose she ought not to have survived to the nineteenth century!"
Marjory's eyebrows puckered themselves in doubt. "I don't mean that; perhaps I don't know what I mean; but Juliet loved Romeo, and these"--she nodded at the little book between her elbows in careless contempt--"they--they--Tom! you must allow there is too much of--of that sort of thing."
He went on whittling for a moment; it was the first time he had ever touched on the subject with Marjory, and he felt at once curious and constrained.
"I am afraid that sort of thing--as you call it--will not reduce itself to please you; it is part, and perhaps a necessary part, of life," he said shortly.
"A part!" returned the girl, eagerly. "Not all? Now, in the novels and these plays one hears of little else. It is all hero and heroine; work, ambition, failure, success, are nowhere. It is very uninteresting--don't you think so?"
Dr. Kennedy's face was a study in humour and gravity.
"Upon my word, I don't know, my child! But most people think otherwise at some time of life. And you are a little hard, surely; you should remember that after all the love-season is generally the crisis of life's fever. Put it another way; the touchstone by which we can test the lovers' ideal;" he paused till his innate doubt made him add: "At least it should be so, though I'm afraid it isn't--not always."
She looked at him, and a troubled expression came to her eyes. "I suppose not," she said absently; "that has always been a puzzle to me. To love, and yet not to approve, seems to me a contradiction in terms." The chips flew faster from the knot Dr. Kennedy was smoothing.
"You talk as if love were reducible to logic, but it isn't." Then the impossibility of a mutual understanding made him add more gently: "It isn't a thing you can reason about. It comes and goes as it chooses--not as you choose. That is the difficulty."
"Difficulty," echoed Marjory, raising herself with a belligerent air to clasp her hands about her knees and subside again into a half-dreamy defiance as she sate looking out over the burn to the sunlit point stretching into the blue loch. "It is manifestly unfair if it is so; only I don't think it is. Else how is it possible to hold love sacred? How is it possible to believe in it?"
"I am afraid it will be believed in to the end of the chapter all the same," replied her hearer, with a smile. "And it isn't so unfair when all is said and done, since 'a love that is tender and true and strong crowneth the life of the giver.'"
She turned on him sharply. "Where does that come from? Some extremely sentimental---- Why, Tom! I believe you wrote that--now did you? Come! own up!"
"I might have guessed it wouldn't pass muster with a young person who has taken honours in English literature and knows the Elizabethan poets by heart," he replied gravely. "Yes! Marjory, I am responsible for that particular version of a time-honoured, crusted old sentiment. I wrote it in delirium, or something like it--if that is any excuse."
She edged closer to him in girlish eagerness. "This is quite delightful. I never knew you wrote rhymes. I do, and burn them; butyou!Come, tell me the rest at once."
"Perhaps I burn them, too."
"Oh! but that is only pretence, you know, just to keep oneself in subjection. One remembers them all the same. I do. So now, once, twice, thrice!"
He gave an odd little grimace. "It was last year when I had fever," he began apologetically.
"In Paris?"
"No! They had sent me to the country, and there was a stream and some reeds. I could see them as I lay in bed, and so---- Now, mind, if once I begin to swear I won't leave off under half-a-crown!"
"I wouldn't mind giving three shillings if it were worth it; so go on, Tom, why should you be bashful?"
"Because I was delirious when I wrote it, of course," he replied; yet there was a real tremor in his voice, as he began:--
"Where the river's golden sheen floats byThe plumes of the tall reeds touch the sky,Like arrows from out a quiver.But one bends over to reach the stream,Dreaming of naught but the golden gleam,Weary for love of the river."'Oh, river! river! thou flowest fast;Yet leave me one kiss as thou goest past--One kiss, to be mine for ever!'She bent her head to the shining flood;On swept the river in careless mood,Mocking her poor endeavour."'Oh, river! river! give back to meSome token of all I have given to thee,To show thou art my lover!'But the only answer to her prayerWas the shade of her own love mirrored there,With the reeds that grew above her."The proud reeds chid her, yet still she sighed,Wondering such love could be so denied;While ever towards the ocean,Dreaming deep dreams of that future free,The river swept on to the unknown sea,Careless of her devotion."A bird flew down when the sun set red,To sing his hymn from the reed's bowed headTo God, the All-good Giver.Bowed by the weight of the singing bird,At long, long last the waters stirred,As the reed's plume touched the river."'Oh! glad and sweet,' sang the bird, 'is Life,And Death is sweet, bringing Peace to Strife,But Love is God's best treasure.It cometh best when it comes unsought,It giveth all, and it asketh naught,For true love hath no measure,'"The bird flew home when its song had ceased.The reed, from its one dear kiss released,Shall give another never;But a silver crown of dewdrops shone,Telling of true love given, not won,In the reed's bright plume for ever."Go forth, my song! so that all may learnLove, like the reed's, needeth no return,Save the baptism of the river.Though the heart be sad, and the way be long,A love that is tender, and true, and strong,Crowneth the life of the giver."
"Where the river's golden sheen floats byThe plumes of the tall reeds touch the sky,
Like arrows from out a quiver.
But one bends over to reach the stream,Dreaming of naught but the golden gleam,
Weary for love of the river.
"'Oh, river! river! thou flowest fast;Yet leave me one kiss as thou goest past--
One kiss, to be mine for ever!'
She bent her head to the shining flood;On swept the river in careless mood,
Mocking her poor endeavour.
"'Oh, river! river! give back to meSome token of all I have given to thee,
To show thou art my lover!'
But the only answer to her prayerWas the shade of her own love mirrored there,
With the reeds that grew above her.
"The proud reeds chid her, yet still she sighed,Wondering such love could be so denied;
While ever towards the ocean,
Dreaming deep dreams of that future free,The river swept on to the unknown sea,
Careless of her devotion.
"A bird flew down when the sun set red,To sing his hymn from the reed's bowed head
To God, the All-good Giver.
Bowed by the weight of the singing bird,At long, long last the waters stirred,
As the reed's plume touched the river.
"'Oh! glad and sweet,' sang the bird, 'is Life,And Death is sweet, bringing Peace to Strife,
But Love is God's best treasure.
It cometh best when it comes unsought,It giveth all, and it asketh naught,
For true love hath no measure,'
"The bird flew home when its song had ceased.The reed, from its one dear kiss released,
Shall give another never;
But a silver crown of dewdrops shone,Telling of true love given, not won,
In the reed's bright plume for ever.
"Go forth, my song! so that all may learnLove, like the reed's, needeth no return,
Save the baptism of the river.
Though the heart be sad, and the way be long,A love that is tender, and true, and strong,
Crowneth the life of the giver."
Dr. Kennedy recited well; the tremor of his voice had soon passed, and with it, apparently, all sense of the personal application of the verses; for as he sate, still whittling away at the hazel root, his keen brown face wore a half-humorous and half-puzzled look, and after a decent pause he gave an odd sort of laugh.
"It sounds pretty," he said; "but upon my word I don't know quite what I meant, and I am almost certain it was not love, not what is generally understood by love."
Marjory looked at him judgmatically. "Nonsense! Of course it was love, and what is more, Tom, I think you must have been in love when you wrote it. Now confess, were you not?"
Once again the temptation to say "Yes! with you," rose uppermost; only to meet with the old revulsion of feeling, born of the knowledge of things hidden from her, and please God! always to be so hidden. In love! Great heavens, no! if that were love. And yet, how could he answer for her nature as well as his own? For a nature which his practised eye told him was full of vitality, full of possibilities; and young, ah! so young as yet in its knowledge of itself. If he told her that he loved her and asked her to marry him, the chances were ten to one that she would say "Yes." And yet the conviction that it was so brought him no content, but only something of tender reluctance for her, of vague contempt for himself.
"In love!" he echoed. "I was in a delirium if you meant that, or near it. Temperature a hundred and five point two, and Abbeville--he was nursing me--good luck to him!--had just confessed there was not much chance; as if I hadn't known that for days!"
"And you never told me," she said, after a pause.
"No; I didn't want to bother you, and----" He looked up to see her face white, and his manner changed. "Don't, child! it's past and over--besides I have a knack of pulling through--I am sorry I mentioned it, now."
"What is it?" she asked, in a constrained voice. "I should like to know, if I may?"
"My dear! of course you may. Pyæmia; the knife slipped, that was all. The veriest scratch. What a fool I was to mention it!"
"Don't say that," she flashed out suddenly. "Don't you know that I like to hear everything--everything----" She paused, and her quick resentment seemed to die down before a keener thought, and she sate silent for a while. "I can scarcely think what it would have meant to me," she went on, half to herself, before she turned her face to him again. "I should have been quite alone in the world then, you know, Tom."
"Until you made a home of your own, perhaps," he replied quietly, being, like most men of his temperament, somewhat given to self-torture.
"Perhaps; but it would never be the same," she said, as quietly. "It would never seem to be the haven of rest that the thought of your goodness is to me now. Do you know, Tom, that I always hearten myself up by saying that if I am tired I can always ask you to let me rest, and you would, wouldn't you?" As she spoke she stretched out her hand towards him in her favourite gesture of appeal, and both of his, leaving their work, had reached to it eagerly and clasped it close.
"Marjory!" he said, a surge of sheer happiness flooding heart and brain with unalloyed content. "Promise me that always--and--and I am satisfied."
"Promise what?" she asked, smiling through the sudden tears which brightened her eyes. "That I will come home to rest if I am tired? Of course I shall. What is the use of having you, Tom, the best, the kindest, if I don't make use of you? And I will. I'll come home fast enough, you'll see, if----" She paused to give a wise shake of her head, and then, clasping the hand he had released over the other which lay upon her knee, she looked out absently over the running water at her feet.
"I wonder how I shall like it?" she continued. "I wonder if it will be what I have fancied it?"
"Probably not," replied her companion, with a quick dread at his heart. For how could it be so? What could this girl's imagining have to do with that world which he knew so well: so well that the finer tissue in him rebelled against the teaching which his very profession forced him to accept as true, at any rate for the majority of men and women. "Probably not," he repeated more quietly, "though that is just the sort of thing it is impossible to predict of a girl who has been brought up as you have. So it must be settled by experience."
Half an hour afterwards Paul Macleod, coming over to the Lodge on the pretence of giving notice of an afternoon rehearsal, found them still busy over the loves and woes of Henri and Blanche. In fact, Dr. Kennedy was on his knees disclaiming his part passionately; whereat the newcomer frowned. First at the sight, secondly at his own dislike to it.
"I have been trying to teach Miss Carmichael how to refuse an aspirant firmly, yet sympathetically," said the doctor, coolly, rising to his feet and putting the handkerchief he had spread on the ground into his pocket; "but she finds a difficulty, apparently, in keeping her countenance. It is a mistake, Marjory. Half the unhappy marriages in the world come from the difficulty which the untutored mind has in saying 'No' with decent courtesy. It is so much easier to say 'Yes,' since that requires no diplomacy. If I had daughters I should always impress on them that the eleventh commandment does not consist in 'Thou shalt not refuse.'"
"I shouldn't have thought it necessary to impress that on the girls of the present day," remarked Paul, rather hastily, and Marjory flushed up at once.
"It is never safe to generalise from a single experience, Captain Macleod," she retorted, "and yours may have been exceptionally fortunate--hitherto."
"Perhaps it has--hitherto," he replied, and, after delivering his message, went off in a huff. Yet he felt himself more on a plane with Marjory than he had ever done before, slightly to his discomfiture; for this atmosphere of quick give and take, this suspicion of jealous anger, was familiar to him, and he could not mistake its possibilities. So he devoted himself more than usual to his duty, and though, of course, he made up his tiff a trifle sentimentally with Marjory, he chose to be rather lordly over her relations with Dr. Kennedy, and even went so far as to mention to his sister that he suspected herprotégé, Mr. Gillespie, was forestalled.
"My dear Paul!" said Lady George, distractedly, "I really don't care at the present moment who marries who. I might be in a better world for that matter, if I weren't in Purgatory."
"Wherefore?" asked Paul, kindly.
"Oh! the supper, and the servants, and the general civility," replied Blanche, who was in reality enjoying the bustle, but, at the same time, liked to pose as a victim. "Really, in these out-of-the-way places one has to be a virtuous woman, and bring one's food from afar; and then there is always Blasius. I suppose it is the name, as you say, George, but, really, I don't believe that childcando what is right."
"Nonsense, my dear," retorted her spouse, who ever since he undertook to interpret the laws of nature to his youngest born had been a trifle jealous of his pupil's reputation. "Blasius won the Derby in '73. What has the child been doing now?"
"Oh! nothing much; only he wouldn't eat his dinner just now because it was only an egg, and the others had mutton. He really is too young to have meat every day; so, as I was busy, I told nurse to put him to bed, and he is sitting up in it making the most unearthly noises, as if the whole farmyard were in the top landing. Listen! you can hear him down here."
There could be no doubt of it, and as they stood in the hall, looking up involuntarily, a perfect babel of cluckings and cacklings, crowings and quackings, seemed to come down the stairs with Mary, the nursemaid, who was bearing the dirty dishes from the nursery dinner; among them Blazes' despised egg.
"The worst of it is," went on Lady George, in her high, plaintive voice, "you never really know what the child means. Why, for instance, should he cackle, as if he had laid an egg himself?"
'"Um!" grumbled her husband. "More to the purpose why he refused his dinner? Here, let me look at that tray, will you? By Jove, Blanche!" he went on, holding out the egg-cup excitedly, "it's bad--no child could be expected to eat that--what a fool!"
He was half-way up the stairs impetuously when his wife begged him to be discreet, and wait for her.
"It is just what I said," she confided to Paul, who followed full of laughter. "You never can tell what he means till afterwards; now, of course, I can guess that--that----" She paused, feeling that words were unnecessary before the spectacle of Blasius, standing beside the round, white pillow of his cot, and cackling vehemently. But Lord George was too angry for amusement, and after an elaborate apology to Blazes for the mistake, handed him over to the nurse with a sharp order to re-dress him and take more care in future, which enabled that functionary to veil her real regret under a show of indignation until Blasius, who was sitting on her knee, and could presumably see more of the truths than others, said consolingly:
"Never mind, nursie! Cocky eat his own egg next time." Whereupon, she burst into tears and hugged him for a darling, and a treasure, and the one comfort of her life.
"I don't think his meaning was obscure that time, Blanche," said her husband, as they went downstairs. "If Cocky had committed the indiscretion of laying a bad egg, why then--God bless the boy, he is a little trump!"
"And has a wisdom beyond his years," added Paul, rather cynically; "for he lays the blame where it should be given--on the Creator."
"My dear Paul! what a dreadful thing to say; please remember he is your god-son."
"Well, if he doesn't hear it from me he will from others, my dear girl," replied her brother, with a shrug of the shoulders. "It is the teaching of to-day. We are none of us responsible beings."
"And upon my soul," growled Lord George, "I'm inclined to agree with it in one sense--think of that fool of a nurse!--you should dismiss her, Blanche."
"But, my dear Paul," persisted Lady George, disregarding her husband's suggestion, "the question of heredity does not exclude the forces of education. We can be altered----"
"I've heard you say a dozen times, Blanche, that an altered body is never satisfactory, even with the best of dressmakers," interrupted Paul, as he turned off to the smoking-room. "So why should you think it would answer with a soul?"
"There is something the matter with Paul," remarked his sister, who disliked above all things to have the logical sequence of her own theories flung in her face; "but that is only to be expected. When one is busy troubles come crowding in on every side. However, I have written to Lady Hooker, and begged her as a personal favour not to bring the piper to-morrow night; for, though I have warned the servants about Highland flings, you cannot expect people to overcome their natural instincts nowadays, and of course we shall be enjoying ourselves, in a way, upstairs."
"I hope so," assented her husband, gloomily; "and I suppose, my dear, I shall get my towel-horse back when it is all over."
"Now, George! isn't that like a man?" cried his wife, triumphantly, as if appealing to him for verification of a new and interesting fact about himself. "As if you didn't know that tableaux in the drawing-room and towel-horses in the bedrooms were quite incompatible when scenery is required--especially rustic scenery. And Mrs. Vane requires so many rocks! You may be thankful it wasn'tboulders, for then the pillows would have gone, and what would you have said to that?"
Lord George said nothing, but as he followed his brother-in-law's example and turned off to the smoking-room, some connection of ideas made him hum to himself:--
"Out of my stony grief Bethels I'll raise."
"Really, George!" called his wife, indignantly; "you and Paul areimpayable. It is a wonder Adam and Eve are so good."