RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'T'
he little seamstress had never been out of Glasgow in her life. Even the Fair holidays, signal for an almost universal exodus 'doon the water,' brought no emancipation for her. It may be imagined that such a sudden and unexpected invitation to the country filled her with the liveliest anticipation. By eight o'clock that night she had finished her pile of work, and immediately made haste with it to the warehouse which employed her. When she had received her meagre payment, and had another bundle rather contemptuously pushed towards her by the hard-visaged forewoman, she experienced quite a little thrill of pride in refusing it.
'No, thank you, Mrs. Galbraith; I dinna need ony mair the day,' she said, and her face flushed under the forewoman's strong, steady stare.
'Oh, what's up?'
'I'm gaun into the country to visit a lady,' said Teen proudly.
'Oh, all right; there's a hundred waiting on the job, but don't expect to be taken on the moment you liketo show your face. We can afford to be as independent as you.'
'I don't expect to need it,' said Teen promptly, though in truth her heart sank a little as she heard these words of doom.
If Gladys failed her, she knew of no other place in that great and evil city where she could earn her bread. She even felt a trifle despondent as she retraced her steps to her garret, but, trying to throw it off, she set herself immediately on entering the house to inspect her wardrobe. This was a most interesting occupation, and, after much deliberation, she took her best black skirt to pieces, and proceeded to hang it as nearly as possible in the latest fashion. Then she had her hat to retrim, and a piece of clean lace to sew on her neckband. At four o'clock her last candle expired in its socket, and she had to go to bed. At the grey dawn she was astir again, and long before the brougham had left Bellairs Crescent with Gladys, Teen was waiting, tin box in hand, on the platform of St. Enoch's Station.
Mrs. Fordyce accompanied Gladys to the station, and when Teen saw them she felt a wild desire to run away. Gladys Graham sitting on a chair in the little attic, talking familiarly of the Hepburns, and Gladys Graham outside, were two very different beings. Gladys glanced sharply round, and, espying her, smiled reassuringly, and advanced with frank outstretched hand.
'Ah, there you are! I am glad to see you. Mrs. Fordyce, this is Teen—Christina Balfour. I must begin to call you Christina; I think it is much prettier. Isn't this a pleasant day? The country will be looking lovely.'
Mrs. Fordyce smiled and bowed graciously to theseamstress, but did not offer her hand. Her manner was kind, but distant; her very smile measured the gulf between them. Teen felt it just as plainly as if she had spoken it in words, and felt also intuitively that her presence there was not quite approved of by the lawyer's wife. That, indeed, was true. There had been a long and rather warm discussion over the little seamstress that morning in Bellairs Crescent, and Mrs. Fordyce had discovered that, with all her gentleness and simplicity, Gladys was not a person to abandon a project on which she had set her heart.
'My dear Gladys,' she took the opportunity of whispering when Teen was out of hearing, 'I am more than ever perplexed. She is not even interesting—nothing could be more hopelessly vulgar and commonplace.'
Gladys never spoke.
'Do tell me what you mean to do with her,' she pursued, with distinct anxiety in her manner.
'Don't let us speak about it, Mrs. Fordyce,' said Gladys rather coldly. 'It is impossible you can understand. I have been like her; I know what her life is. You must let me alone.'
'I am afraid you are going to be eccentric, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce. 'I cannot help regretting that Madame Bonnemain was prevented coming to Bourhill. She would have set her foot down on this.'
'Then she would have been mistress of Bourhill,' answered Gladys, with a faint smile, 'and we should certainly have disagreed.'
Mrs. Fordyce looked at her curiously.
'There is a great deal of character about you, Gladys. I am afraid you are rather an imposition. To look at you, one would think you as gentle as a lamb.'
'Dear Mrs. Fordyce, don't make me out such a terrible person,' said Gladys quickly. 'Is it so odd that I should wish to brighten life a little for those whom I know have had so very little brightness?'
'No; it is not your aim, only your method, I object to, my dear. It will never do to fill Bourhill with such people. But I will say no more. Experience will teach you expediency and discretion.'
'We shall see,' replied Gladys, with a laugh, and for the first time she experienced a sense of relief at parting with her kind friend.
Mrs. Fordyce was a kind-hearted woman, and did a great many good deeds, though on strictly conventional lines. She was the clever organiser of Church charities, the capable head of the Ladies' Provident and Dorcas Society, to which she grudged neither time nor money; but she did not believe in personal contact with the very poor, nor in the power or efficacy of individual sympathy and effort. She thought a great deal about Gladys that day, pondering and puzzling over her action—a trifle nettled, if it must be told, at the calm, quiet manner in which her disapproval had been ignored. Gladys was indeed proving herself a very capable and independent mistress of Bourhill.
Meanwhile the two girls, whom fortune had so differently favoured, journeyed together into Ayrshire. A strange shyness seemed to have taken possession of Teen; she sat bolt upright in the corner of the carriage, clutching her tin box, and looking half-scared, half-defiant; even the red feather in her hat seemed to wear an aggressive air. In her soul she fervently rued the step she had taken, and thought with longing of her own little room, and with affectionate regret of the bundle she had so proudly returned to Mrs. Galbraith.
'What are you thinking of, Teen? You don't look at all happy,' said Gladys, growing a trifle embarrassed by the continued silence.
'I'm no'; I wish I hadna come,' was the flat reply, which made the sensitive colour rise in the fair cheek of Gladys.
'Oh no, you don't; you are only shy. Wait till you have seen Bourhill; you will think it the loveliest place in the world,' she said cheerfully.
'Maybe,' answered Teen doubtfully. 'I feel gey queer the noo, onyhoo.'
This was not encouraging. Gladys became silent also, and both felt relieved when the train stopped at Mauchline Station.
The girl, whose only idea of the country was her acquaintance with the straight, conventional arrangement of city parks and gardens, looked about her with genuine wonder.
'My,' she said, as they crossed over the little footbridge at the station, 'sic a room folk have here! Are there nae hooses ava?'
'Oh, lots,' replied Gladys quite gaily, relieved to see even a faint interest exhibited by her guest. 'We shall drive through Mauchline presently; it is such a pretty, quaint little town.'
A very dainty little phaeton, in charge of an exceedingly smart young groom, waited at the station gate for Miss Graham. Teen regarded it and her with open-mouthed amazement. Again it seemed impossible that this gracious, self-possessed lady, giving her orders so calmly, and according so well in every respect with her changed fortunes, could be the same girl who accompanied Liz and herself to the Ariel Music Hall not much more than a year ago.
'My,' she said again, when Gladys took the reins and the pony started off, 'it's grand, but queer.'
'It is all very nice, I think,' said Gladys whimsically. 'Did I tell you that Mrs. Macintyre, who used to live in the Wynd, is at the lodge at Bourhill? But perhaps you did not know Mrs. Macintyre?'
'I have heard o' her frae Liz,' Teen replied; 'but I didna ken that she was here.'
'She only came a month ago. She is a great treasure to me. I wonder if you have thought why I wished you to come here?'
'I've wondered. Ye can tell me, if ye like,' said Teen.
'Well, you see, I have always been sorry about you, somehow, ever since that day I saw you in the Hepburns' house; I really never forgot your pale face. I want you here for your own sake, first, to try and make you look brighter and healthier, and I want your advice and help about something I am more interested in than anything.'
'My advice an' help!' repeated Teen almost blankly, yet secretly flattered and pleased. The idea that her advice and help should be desired by any one was something so entirely new that she may be excused being almost overcome by it.
'Yes,' answered Gladys, with a nod. 'It's about the girls—the girls you and I know about in Glasgow, who have such a poor time, and are surrounded with so much temptation. Do you remember that night long ago when Lizzie Hepburn and you took me to the Ariel Music Hall?'
'Yes, I mind it fine. I was thinkin' o't no' a meenit syne.'
'Well, don't you think that the girls we saw theremight have some place a little pleasanter and safer for them to be in than a music hall?'
'Yes,' answered Teen, with unwonted seriousness. 'It's no' a guid place. I've kent twa-three that gaed to the bad, an' they met their bad company there. But what can lassies dae? Tak' Liz, for instance, or me. Had we onything to keep us at hame? The streets, or the music hall, or the dancin', ony o' them was better than sittin' in the hoose.'
'Oh, I know. Have I not thought of it all?' cried Gladys, with a great mournfulness. 'But don't you think if they had some pleasant place of their own, where they could meet together of an evening, and read or work or amuse themselves, they would be happier?'
'There are some places. I ken some lassies that belang to Christian Associations. Liz an' me gaed twice or thrice wi' some o' the members, but'—
'But what?' asked Gladys, bending forward with keen interest.
'We didna like it. There was ower muckle preachin', and some of the ladies looked at us as if we were dirt,' responded Teen candidly. 'Ye should hae heard Liz when we cam' oot. It was as guid as a play to hear her imitatin' them.'
Gladys looked thoughtful, and a trifle distressed. Curiously, at the moment she could not help thinking of the many societies and associations with which Mrs. Fordyce was connected, and of her demeanour that day at St. Enoch's Station—an exact exemplification of Teen's plain-spoken objection.
'Liz said she was as guid as them, an' she wadna be patronised; an' that's what prevents plenty mair frae gaun. A lot gang just to serve themselves, becausethey get a lot frae the ladies. My, ye can get onything oot o' them if ye ken hoo to work them.'
This was a very gross view of the case, which could not but jar upon Gladys, though she was conscious that there was a good deal of truth in it. Somehow, in the light of Teen Balfour's unvarnished estimate of philanthropic endeavour, her dreams seemed to become all at once impossible of fulfilment.
'I do not think they mean, the ladies, to patronise. Do you not think the girls imagine, or at least exaggerate?'
'Maybe; but Susan Greenlees—a lassie I ken, that works in a print-mill—telt me one o' them reproved her for haein' a long white ostrich feather in her hat, and Susan, she just says, "Naebody askit you to pay for it," an' left.'
Gladys relapsed into silence; and Teen, all unconscious of the cold water she had thrown so copiously on a bright enthusiasm, sat back leisurely, and looked about her interestedly.
'Here we are,' said Gladys, at length rousing herself up, though with an evident effort; 'and there is Mrs. Macintyre at the gate. You have never seen her, you say? Hasn't she a nice kind face?'
Gladys drew rein when they had passed through the gate, and introduced the two. Mrs. Macintyre, who looked like a different being in her warm grey tweed gown, neat cap, and black apron, gave the pale city girl a hearty hand-shake, and prophesied that Bourhill air would soon bring a rose into her cheek. Gladys nodded, and said she hoped so, then drove on to the house. And when they went up the long flight of steps and into the wide, warm, beautiful hall, Teen's shyness returned to her, and if it had been possible she would have turned and fled.
RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'I'
t did not occur to Gladys to give her guest quarters at the lodge beside Mrs. Macintyre, where, it might have been thought, she would be more at home. Having invited her to Bourhill, she treated her in all respects like any other guest. Teen, after the first fit of shyness wore off, accepted it all as a matter of course, and conducted herself in a calm and undisturbed manner, which secretly astonished Gladys. All the while, however, her new surroundings and experiences made a profound impression on the awakened mind of the city girl. Nothing escaped the keen vision of her great dark eyes. Every detail of the beautiful old house was photographed on her memory; she could have told how many chairs were in the drawing-room, and described every picture on the dining-room walls. Between her and little Miss Peck—the brisk, happy-hearted spinster, who appeared to have taken a new lease of life—there was speedily established a very good understanding, which was also a source of amazement to Gladys. She had anticipated exactly the reverse.
'My dear, she is most interesting,' said Miss Peck,when the first evening was over, and Teen had gone to bed, not to sleep, but to lie enjoying the luxury of a down-bed and dainty linen, and pondering on this wonderful thing that had happened to her,—'most interesting. What depths in her eyes—what self-possession in her demeanour! My dear, you can make anything of that girl.'
Miss Peck was given to romancing and enthusiasm, but the contrast between her opinion and that expressed by Mrs. Fordyce made Gladys smile. She did not feel herself as yet very particularly drawn towards her guest, whose reserve of manner was sometimes as trying as her outspokenness on other occasions.
'I am glad you like her, Miss Peck. I confess that sometimes I do not know what to make of her. But, you see, she is the only one who can be of any use to me; she knows all about working girls and their ways. If only I could find poor Lizzie Hepburn! She always knew exactly what she meant, and she was clever enough for anything,' said Gladys, with a sigh.
'But tell me, my dear, what is it you wish to do? I don't know that I quite comprehend.'
'Indeed, I am not quite clear about it yet myself, though, of course, I have an idea I want to help them, especially the friendless ones. If it could be arranged, I should like to establish a kind of friendly Club for them in Glasgow, where they could all meet, and where those who have no friends could lodge; then I should like to have a little holiday house for them here, if possible.'
'My dear, that is a great undertaking for one so young.'
'Do you think so? I must try it, and you must help me, dear Miss Peck, for Mrs. Fordyce won't. Shedoesn't approve at all of my having invited Christina Balfour down here.'
'My dear, the world never does approve of anything done out of the conventional way,' said Miss Peck, with a quiet touch of bitterness. 'I think you have a very noble aim, and the heart of an angel; only there will be mountains of difficulty in the way.'
'We must overcome them,' answered Gladys quickly.
'And you will meet with much discouragement, and a great deal of ingratitude,' pursued the little spinster, hating herself for her discouraging words, but convinced that it was her duty to prepare her dear charge for the worst.
'Not more than I can bear,' Gladys answered. 'And I am quite sure that, with all these drawbacks, I shall also receive many bright, encouraging things to help me on.'
'Yes, my dear, you will. God will reward you in His own best way,' said Miss Peck, with tears in her eyes.
Gladys sat late by the fire that night, pondering her new scheme, and developing its details with great rapidity. She found the greatest comfort and pleasure in such planning; for, though she was the envied of many, there were times, though unconfessed, when she was weighed down by her own loneliness, when a sense of desolation, as keen as any she had ever experienced in Colquhoun Street, made all the lovelier things of life seem of no account.
Next morning Gladys drove her guest into Troon, and at sight of the great sea, its breast troubled with wintry storms, tossing and rolling in wildest unrest, Teen appeared for the first time really moved.
'It's fearsome,' she said in an awe-stricken whisper,—'fearsome! Michty me, look at the waves! It's fearsome to look at.'
'How odd that it should strike you so!' exclaimed Gladys. 'It always rests and soothes me; the wilder it is, the deeper the quiet it infuses into my soul. See the tall shadow yonder through the mists, the mountains of Arran; and that is Ayr, across Prestwick Bay; and these rocks jutting out into the sea, the Heads of Ayr. Do you see that house with the flagstaff, at the top of the Links? It is Mr. Fordyce's house, The Anchorage, where I lived all summer. It is splendid here to-day. Stand still, Firefly, you impatient animal; we are not ready to go yet.'
'I wad be feared to live in that hoose,' said Teen. 'The waves micht come up in the nicht an' wash it away. Jist look at that yin the noo.'
A great green wave, with its angry crest of foam, came rolling in with apparently resistless force, and spent itself on the pebbly shore with a sullen roar.
'"Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther,"' said Gladys, with a faint smile, and a momentary uplifting of her eyes to the grey wintry sky. '"He holdeth the sea in the hollow of His hand."'
'Some day, when it is very fine, I shall take you to Ayr,' said Gladys, as she turned the pony's head. 'I have often thought how I should like to bring Liz here. I cannot tell you how I feel about her; I think about her almost continually.'
'So dae I, though I think, mind, she's been very shabby to me; but she was my chum,' said Teen, with an unusually soft look on her face. 'She didna care a button what she said to a body, but at the same she wad dae onything for ye.'
'And you still think she is in London?'
'Yes,' answered Teen, without a moment's hesitation 'Learnin' to be an actress, as sure as I sit here.'
'Somehow I don't think it. I have an odd feeling at times about her, as if she were not so far away from us as we imagine.'
'She's no' in Glesca, onyway. She couldna be in Glesca withoot me kennin',' replied Teen confidently. 'There's some that think she gaed aff wi' a beau, but they never said it twice to me. I kent Liz better than that. She could watch hersel'.'
'Did you know him, the man you call her beau?' inquired Gladys, with a slight blush.
'Ay, I kent him,' said Teen, looking away over the landscape as if she suddenly found it of new and absorbing interest.
'And have you seen him since?'
'Ay.'
'Did you speak to him, or ask him if he knew anything about her?'
'No' me; it's nane o' my business to meddle; but maybe I wad ask him if I had a chance,' said Teen, with a peculiar pressure of the lips.
'Who is he, Teen? Do you know his name?'
'Ay, fine that; but it wad dae nae guid to say,' replied Teen guardedly. 'I dinna think he had onything to dae wi' her gaun away, onyway.'
Gladys perceived that Teen was determined to be utterly loyal to her friend, and admired her for it.
That very afternoon, however, Teen saw occasion to change her mind on the subject. After lunch, while Gladys was busy with letter-writing, Teen went out to pay a visit to Mrs. Macintyre at the lodge. She was walking very leisurely down the avenue, admiring the brilliant glossy green of the laurels and hollies, whenthe tall figure of a man in a long ulster came swinging round the curve which hid the gates from view. Teen gave a great start, and the dusky colour leaped in her face when she recognised him. His cheek flushed too with distinct annoyance, and surprise was also visible on his face.
'What are you doing here?' he asked, without the shadow of other greeting.
Teen looked up at him with a kind of quiet insolence in her heavy dark eyes.
'That's my business,' she said calmly, and picked to pieces the leaf she had in her hand.
'Are you staying here?' he asked then, with undisguised uneasiness, which secretly delighted Teen. If there was a human being she mortally disliked and distrusted, it was Mr. George Fordyce.
'Yes, I'm stayin' at the big hoose.'
'With Miss Graham?'
Teen nodded, and a faint, melancholy smile, half of scorn, half of amusement, touched her thin lips.
'How the deuce did you manage that?' he inquired angrily. 'I can't understand it.'
'Nor I; ye can ask her, if ye like,' responded Teen calmly; then quite suddenly she dropped her mask of indifference, and, laying her thin, worn fingers on his arm, lifted her penetrating eyes swiftly to his uneasy face. 'I say, where's Liz?'
'How should I know? How dare you question me?' he asked passionately. 'I shall warn Miss Graham against you, that you are not a proper person to have in her house. You are not fit to breathe the same air with her.'
'Maybe no'; but as fit as you,' she answered scornfully. 'I see through it a'; but if ye have harmed Liz,my gentleman, ye'll no' get off wi' it. Ye'll answer for it to me.'
Mrs. Fordyce had called her vulgar and commonplace; she did not look so now; passion transformed her into a noble creature. The man of the world, accustomed to its homage and adulation, cowed before the little seamstress of the slums. While she walked away from him, as if scorning to bandy further words, he looked after her in consternation. She had not only surprised, she had made a coward of him for the moment. He seemed to see in the slight, insignificant form of the city girl the Nemesis who would sooner or later bring his evil deeds home, and thwart what was at the present moment the highest ambition of his life.
His step lagged as he continued his way towards the house, within whose walls dwelt the woman whom love and ambition prompted him to make his wife. It was not, however, the reluctance of a dishonoured soul to seek communion with one so absolutely pure, it was merely the hesitation of a prudence wholly selfish. He rapidly reviewed the situation, considered every possibility and every likely issue, and took his resolve. He could not afford to wait. If Gladys was ever to be his, she must be won at once. If she cared sufficiently for him to pledge herself to him, he believed that she would stand by him and take his word, whatever slander might assail his name. He had not anticipated this crisis when, in a careless, idle mood, he had left the mill, and followed the impulse which sent him to Bourhill.
By the time he reached the steps before the door every trace of disturbance had vanished, and he was once more the urbane, handsome, debonair gentleman who played such havoc among women's hearts.
Miss Graham being at home, he was at once showninto the drawing-room, and left there while the maid took his name to her mistress. Meanwhile Teen, instead of going into the lodge, passed through the gates, and walked away up the road. She was utterly alone, the only sign of life being a flock of sheep in the distance, trotting on sedately before a tall shepherd and a collie dog. Teen never saw them. She was fearfully excited, believing that she had at last discovered the clue to her missing friend.
RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'G'
ladys was writing a long letter to her guardian, setting forth in eloquent terms what she wished to do for the working girls of the East End, and asking him for some sympathy and advice, when the housemaid knocked at the door.
'A gentleman for me, Ellen? Yes, I shall be there presently,' she said, without looking at the card on the salver. 'Is Miss Peck in the drawing-room?'
'No, ma'am; she is taking her rest. Shall I tell her?'
'Oh no. Who is it?'
She added another word to her letter, and then read the name on the card. The maid standing by could not help seeing the lovely access of colour in the fair cheek of her mistress, and, as was natural, drew her own conclusions.
Gladys rose at once, and proceeded up-stairs. She did not, as almost every other woman in the circumstances would have done, go to her own room to inspect her appearance or make any change in her toilet. And, in truth, none was needed. Her plain black serge gown, with its little ruffle at the neck, which wouldhave made a dowdy of almost anybody but herself, was at once a fitting and becoming robe. Her lovely hair, which in the early days had hung in straight heavy plaits over her back, was now wound about her head, and kept in place by a band and knot of black velvet. She moved with the calm mien and serious grace of a woman at ease with herself and all the world. A faint hesitation, however, visited her when she stood without the closed door of the drawing-room. That curious prevision, which most of us experience at times, that something unusual was in store, robbed her for a moment of her usual self-possession; but, smiling and inwardly chiding herself for her own folly, she opened the door and entered the presence of her lover. She knew him to be such, it was impossible to mistake his demeanour and his attitude towards her. There was the most lover-like eagerness in his look and step as he came towards her, and under his gaze the girl's sweet eyes drooped and her colour deepened.
'This is quite a surprise,' she said gaily. 'Why did you not bring some of the girls with you?'
'I haven't seen them for ages, and Julia has a dance on to-night for which she is saving herself. Besides, perhaps, I wanted to come quite alone.'
'Yes?' she said in a voice faintly interrogatory. 'And you had to walk from the station, too? If you had only wired in the morning, I could have come or sent for you.'
'But, you see, I did not know in the morning I should be here to-day. It is often the unexpected that happens. I came off on the impulse of the moment. Are you glad to see me?'
It was a very direct question; but Gladys had now quite recovered herself, and met it with a calm smile.
'Why, of course; how could I be otherwise? But, I say, you said a moment ago you had not seen any of the girls for ages; it is only forty-eight hours since we met in your aunt's drawing-room.'
'So it is,' he said innocently. 'I had quite forgotten, which shows how time goes with me when you are out of town. Are you really going to bury yourself here all winter?'
'I am going to live here, of course. It is my home, and I don't want any other. A day in Glasgow once a week is quite enough for me.'
'Hard lines for Glasgow,' he said, tugging his moustache, and looking at her with a good deal of real sentiment in his handsome eyes. She was looking so sweet, he felt himself more in love than ever; and there was a certain 'stand-offishness' in her manner which attracted him as much as anything. He had not hitherto found such indifference a quality among the young ladies of his acquaintance.
'I have just been writing to your Uncle Tom, telling him I want to spend a great deal of money,' she began, rather to divert the conversation than from any pressing desire for his opinion, 'and I don't feel at all sure about what he will say. Your aunt does not approve, I know.'
'May I ask how you are going to spend it?' he inquired, with interest.
'Oh yes. I want to institute a Club for working girls in Glasgow, and a holiday house for them here.'
'But there are any amount of such things in Glasgow already, and I question if they do any good. I know my mother and Ju are always down on them, and there's truth in what they say, too, that we are making a god out of the working class. It is quitesickening what is done for them, and how ungrateful they are.'
Gladys winced a little, and he perceived that he had spoken rather strongly.
'I know there is a good deal done, but I think sometimes the methods are not quite wise,' she said quietly. 'I am going to run my Club, as the Americans say, on my own lines. You see, I am rather different, for I have been a poor working girl myself, and I know both what they need and what will do them most good.'
'You seem rather proud of the distinction,' he said involuntarily. 'Most women in your position would have made a point of ignoring the past. That is what half of Glasgow is trying to do all the time—forget where they sprang from. Why are you so different?'
'I do not know.' Her lips curled in a fine scorn. 'As if it mattered,' she said half-contemptuously,—'as if it mattered what anybody had sprung from. I was reading Burns this morning, and I felt as if I could worship him if for nothing more than writing these lines—
"The rank is but the guinea stamp,The man's the gowd for a' that."'
'That's all very good in theory,' he said a trifle lazily; 'and besides, it is very easy for you to speak like that, with centuries of lineage behind you. I suppose the Grahams are as old as the Eglintons, or the Alexanders, or even the great Portland family itself, if you come to inquire into it. Yes, it is very easy for you to despise rank.'
'I don't despise it, and I am very proud in my own way that I do belong to such an old family; but, all the same, it doesn't really matter. There is nothing of any real value except honour and high character, and, of course, genius.'
'When you speak like that, Gladys, and look like that, upon my word, you make a fellow afraid to open his mouth before you,' he said quickly, and there was something very winning in the humility and deference with which he uttered these words.
Gladys was not unmoved by them, and had he followed up his slight advantage, he might have won her on the spot; but at the propitious moment Ellen brought in the tea-tray, and the conversation had to drift into a more general groove.
'To return to my project,' said Gladys, when the maid had gone again, 'I have one of my old acquaintances among the working girls here just now. I expect she will help me a good deal. She was the friend of poor Lizzie Hepburn, whom we have lost so completely. Is it not strange? What do you thinkcanhave become of her?'
'I'm sure I couldn't say,' he replied, with all the indifference at his command.
Gladys, busy with the tea-cups, noticed nothing strange in his manner, nor did his answer disappoint her much. She was quite aware that he did not take an absorbing interest in the questions which engrossed so much of her own thought.
'The saddest thing about it is that nobody seems to care anything about what has become of her,' she said, as she took the dainty Wedgewood teapot in her hand. 'Just think if the same thing had happened to your sister or either of your cousins, what a thing it would have been.'
'My dear Gladys, the cases are not parallel. Such things happen every day, and nobody pays the least attention. And besides, such people do not have the same feelings as us.'
Gladys looked at him indignantly.
'You only say so because you know nothing about them,' she said quickly. 'I do assure you the poor have quite as keen feelings as the rich, and some things they feel even more, I think. Why, only to-day I had an instance of it in the girl I have staying here. Her loyalty to Liz is quite beautiful. I wish you would not judge so harshly and hastily.'
'I will think anything to please you, Gladys,' said George fervently. 'You must forgive me if I am a trifle sceptical. You see, a fellow has his opinions moulded pretty much by his people, and mine don't take your view of the lower classes.'
Again he was unfortunate in his choice of words. Gladys particularly disliked the expression, 'lower classes,' and his apologetic tone did not appease her.
'They judge them harshly because they know nothing about them, and never will. One has to live among them, as I have done, to learn their good qualities. It is the only way,' she said rather sadly.
George set down his cup on the tray, and lingered at the table, looking down at her with a glance which might have disconcerted her.
'You are so awfully good, Gladys,' he said, quite humbly for him. 'I wonder you can be half as civil as you are to a reprobate like me.'
'Are you a reprobate?' she asked, with a faint, wondering smile.
'I'm not as good as I should be,' he added frankly. 'But, you see, I've never had anybody put things in the light you put them in. If I had, I believe it would have made all the difference. Won't you take me in hand?'
He threw as much significance as he dared into hislast question; but Gladys apparently did not catch his meaning.
'I don't like to hear you speak so,' was the unexpected reply. 'It is like throwing the blame on other people. A man ought to be strong enough to be and to do good on his own account.'
'If you tell me what you would like me to do, I'll do it, upon my word,' he said earnestly.
'Oh, I have no right to do that, but since you ask, I will say that you have not very far to seek your opportunities. Your Uncle Tom told me the other day you employed nearly seven hundred men and women at your mills. If that is not a field for you to work in, I don't know what is.'
George Fordyce bit his lip ever so slightly, and half turned away. This was bringing it home indeed, and the vision of himself taking up a newrôleamong his own workpeople rather disconcerted him.
'Now you are offended,' said Gladys quickly; 'and, please, it is not my fault. You asked me what you should do.'
'Offended with you! No such thing. You could never offend me. Can't you see, Gladys, that the very reason I would be better isyou, and you alone. I want to please you, because I want to win you.'
There was no doubt at all about his meaning now. The passion with which he spoke brought a blush to the girl's cheek, and she rose hurriedly from her chair.
'Oh, you must not say such things to me, please.'
'Why not? Every man has the right to speak when he loves a woman as I love you. Could not you care for me, Gladys? I know I am not half good, but I'll try to be better for your sake.'
'I have liked you very well. I do like you,' sheanswered, with a trembling frankness,—'only, I think, not quite in that way.'
'If you like me at all, I shall not despair. It will come in time. Give me the hope that you'll try to think of me in that way,' he pleaded passionately; and Gladys slightly shook her head.
'Try?' she repeated. 'I do not know much, but it seems to me that that should be without trying.'
'But you need not give me a final answer now. Let me wait and try to win you—to be more worthy of you. I know I am not that yet, but you know we've got on awfully well together—been such chums—I'm sure it would all come right.'
He looked very handsome and very winning, pleading his cause with an earnestness which left no doubt of his sincerity. Gladys allowed him to take her hand, and did not draw herself away.
'If you will let me alone a long time—a year, at least—and never speak of it, I will give you an answer then. It is a very serious thing, and one must be quite sure,' she said slowly; and that answer was more than George Fordyce had dared to hope for. There was more deliberation and calmness in her disposal of the question than would have satisfied most men, but he had fared better than he expected, and left the house content.
As for Gladys, she felt restless and unhappy, she did not know why; only she knew that never had her thoughts reverted with such lingering persistence to the past, never had its memories seemed more fraught with sweetness and with pain. She was an enigma, she could not understand herself.
RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'T'
een took quite a long walk along the bleak country road, and on her way back dropped in at the lodge.
Mrs. Macintyre and the redoubtable 'Tammy'—a very round and chubby urchin, as unlike a denizen of the slums as could well be imagined—were sitting at tea by the cosy hearth, and there was a warm welcome and a cup for the visitor at once.
'Come awa', my wummin; I saw ye gang by,' said the good soul cheerily. 'My, but ye hae a fine colour; jist gang ben an' look at yersel' in the room gless. Ye're no' like the same lassie.'
Teen smiled rather incredulously, and did not go 'ben' to verify the compliment.
'It's a fine place this,' she said, as she dropped into a chair. 'A body's never tired. I wonder onybody bides in the toon when there's sae much room in the country.'
The wideness of the landscape, its solitary freedom, and its quiet, impressed the city girl in no ordinary way. After the crush and struggle of the overcrowded streets, which she had not until now left behind, it was natural she should be so impressed.
'I walkit as far as frae the Trongate to the Briggate, an' I saw naething but twa-three sheep an' a robin red-breist sittin' in the hedge,' she said musingly. 'It's breist was as red as it had been pented. I didna ken ye could see them leevin'?'
'Oh, there's thoosan's o' them,' quoth Tammy enthusiastically. 'In the spring that hedge up the road will be thick wi' nests, filled wi' eggs o' a' kinds.'
'Which ye'll leave alane, my man, or I'll warm ye,' said his aunt, with a warning glance. 'Ay, my wummin, this is a hantle better nor the Trongate or the Briggate o' Glesca. An' what's the young leddy aboot this efternune?'
'Writin' letters, I think. Has she said onything to you, Mrs. Macintyre, aboot makin' a Club for lassies in the toon?'
'Tammy,' said Mrs. Macintyre, 'tak' the wee jug an' rin up to the dairy, an' ask Mrs. Grieve if she'll gie ye a hap'nyworth o' mair cream.'
She did not urgently require the cream, but it was necessary at the moment to get rid of Tammy, who was a remarkably shrewd boy, with very long ears and a wonderful understanding.
Just as Tammy departed, rather unwillingly it must be told, the carriage from the house came bowling down the avenue, and Mrs. Macintyre ran out to open the gate. From her seat by the fire Teen could see over the low white window-blind that George Fordyce sat in it alone.
'There's something up,' said Mrs. Macintyre. 'D'ye see that?'
She held up a shining half-crown, which in his gracious mood the hopeful lover had bestowed upon the gatekeeper.
'I wonder if that's to be the Laird o' Bourhill?' shesaid meditatively. 'Ye wadna see him as he gaed by?—a very braw man, an' rich, they say—a Fordyce o' Gorbals Mill. Hae ye heard o' them?'
'Ay, often.' Teen's colour seemed to have deepened, but it might be only the fire which glowed upon it. 'Ye dinna mean to say thatthatmicht happen?'
'What for no'?' queried Mrs. Macintyre easily, as she cut a slice from the loaf and held it on a fork before the fire. 'She's bonnie an' she's guid, besides being weel tochered. She'll no' want for wooers. I say, did ye ken Walter Hepburn, that carries on auld Skinny's business noo in Colquhoun Street?'
'Yes, well enough,' answered Teen slowly.
'There was a time when I wad hae said the twa—him an' Miss Gladys, I mean—were made for ane anither, but it's no' noo. He seems to hae forgotten her, an' maybe it's as weel. She maun mak' a braw mairriage, an' Fordyce is a braw fellow. I wish ye had noticed him.'
'Oh, I've seen him afore,' said Teen, with an evident effort, and somehow the conversation did not flow very freely, but was purely a one-sided affair, Teen simply sitting glowering into the fire, with an expression on her face which indicated that she was only partially interested in the gatekeeper's cheery talk. It was rather a relief when Tammy returned with the 'wee jug' full of cream, and his own mind full of the arrival of a new calf, a great event, which had happened at the dairy that very afternoon.
Mrs. Macintyre was, on the whole, disappointed with her guest, and saw her depart after tea without regret. She was altogether too reticent and silent for that garrulous person's liking. She would have been very much astonished had she obtained a glimpse into the girl's mind. Never, indeed, in all her life had TeenBalfour been so troubled and so anxious. Once or twice that evening Gladys caught her looking at her with a glance so penetrating and so anxious that it impressed her with a sort of uneasiness. She did not feel particularly happy herself. Now that her lover had gone, and that the subtle charm of his personality and presence was only a memory, she half regretted what had happened that afternoon. She felt almost as if she had committed herself, and she was surprised that she should secretly chafe over it.
'Teen,' she said quite suddenly, when they were sitting alone at the library fire after supper, when Miss Peck had gone to give her housekeeping orders for the morning, 'had you ever a lover?'
This extraordinary and unexpected question drove the blood into the colourless face of Teen, and she could not for the moment answer.
'Well, yes,' she said at length, with a faint, queer smile. 'Maybe I've had twa-three o' a kind.'
'Two or three?' echoed Gladys in a surprised and rather disapproving voice. 'That is very odd. But, tell me, have you ever seen anybody who wished to marry you, and whom you wished to marry?'
'There was a lad asked me yince,' answered Teen, 'but he was only seventeen—a prentice in Tennant's, wi' aicht shillin's a week. I've never had a richt offer.'
'Then what do you mean by saying you have had two or three lovers?' queried Gladys, in wonder.
'Oh, weel, I've keepit company wi' a lot. They've walkit me oot, an' ta'en me to the balls an' that—that's what I mean.'
Gladys was rather disappointed, perceiving that it was not likely she would get much help from the experience of Teen.
'I think that is rather strange, but perhaps it is quite right, and it is only I who am strange. But, tell me, do you think a girl always can know just at once whether she cares enough for a man to marry him?'
'I dinna ken; there's different kinds o' mairriages,' said Teen philosophically. 'I dinna think there's onything in real life like the love in "Lord Bellew's Bride," unless among the gentry.'
'Do you really think not?' asked Gladys, with a slight wistfulness. 'I have not read "Lord Bellew," of course, but I do believe there is that kind of love which would give up all, and dare and suffer anything. I should not like to marry without it.'
'Dinna, then,' replied Teen quite coolly. Nevertheless, as she looked at the sweet face rendered so grave and earnest by the intensity of her thought, her eye became more and more troubled.
'Among oor kind o' folk there's a' kind o' mairriages,' she began. 'Some lassies mairry thinkin' they'll hae an easier time an' a man to work for them, an' they sometimes fin' oot they've only ta'en somebody to keep; some mairry for spite, an' some because they'd raither dee than be auld maids. I dinna think, mysel', love—if there be sic a thing—has ony thing to do wi't.'
It was rather a cynical doctrine, but Teen implicitly believed what she was saying.
'Areyouthinkin' on mairryin'?' she asked then; and, without waiting for an answer, continued in rather a hurried, troubled way, 'I wadna if I were you—at least, for a while. Wait or ye see what turns up. Ye'll never be better than ye are, an' men are jist men. I wadna gie a brass fardin' for the best o' them.'
Gladys did not resent this plain expression of opinion,because she perceived that a genuine kindliness prompted it.
'I am quite sure I shall not marry for a very long time,' Gladys replied; then they fell to talking over the other subject, which was so interesting to them both.
Underneath all her cynical philosophy there was real kindness as well as shrewd common-sense in the little seamstress. She was in some respects one of the best advisers Gladys could possibly have taken into her confidence.
These sweet, restful days were a benediction to the weary, half-starved heart of the city girl, and under their benign influence she became a different creature. Little Miss Peck, who adored Gladys, sometimes observed, with a smile of approval, the grateful, pathetic look in Teen's large solemn eyes when they followed the sweet young creature who had shown her a glimpse of the sunny side of life. It was not a glimpse, however, which Gladys intended to be merely transient. She had in view a scheme which was to be of permanent value to the poor little seamstress.
In the course of that week Gladys had occasion to be over-night in Glasgow, for the purpose of attending a concert with the family in Bellairs Crescent. It was a very select and fashionable affair, at which theéliteand beauty of Glasgow were present. Gladys enjoyed the gay and animated scene as much as the music, which was also to her a rare treat. When they left the hall it was nearly eleven o'clock, and they had to wait some time in the vestibule till their carriage should move towards the door. It was a fine mild night, and the girls, with their soft hoods drawn over their heads, and their fleecy wraps close about their throats, stood close by the great doors, chatting merrily while they waited.The usual small crowd of loafers were hanging about the pavements, and as usual Gladys was saddened by the sight of the dejected and oftentimes degraded-looking denizens of the lower quarters of the city. It might be that, in contrast with the gay and handsomely-dressed people from the West End, their poverty seemed even more pitiable.
'Now, Gladys, no such pained expression, if you please,' said the observant Mina. 'Don't look as if you carried all the sins and sorrows of Glasgow on your own shoulders. Good, here is the brougham; and pray observe the expression on the countenance of James. Is it not a picture?'
Gladys could not but laugh, and they tripped across the pavement to the carriage. When they were all in, and Mr. Fordyce had given the word to the coachman, a woman suddenly swerved from the pavement and peered in at the carriage window. At the moment the impatient horses moved swiftly away, and when Gladys begged them to stop it was too late; the woman was lost in the crowd.
Gladys, however, had seen her face, and recognised it, in spite of the change upon it, as the face of Walter's sister Liz.