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he fleeting vision of Liz Hepburn's familiar face appeared to fill Gladys with excitement and unrest. As Mina looked at her flushed cheeks and shining eyes, she felt a vague uneasiness visit her own heart. They did not speak of her as they drove home, but when the girls gathered, as was their wont, round the cheerful fire in the guest-chamber before retiring for the night, Gladys asked them a question.
'Did you see her? She looked very ill, and very distressed. Do you not think so? Oh, I fear she has been in trouble, and I must do all I can to find out about her. If you will allow me, I shall remain another day in town, and I can send a telegram to Miss Peck in the morning.'
Mina, on her knees beside her chair, her plump bare arm showing very white and fair against the black lace of Gladys's gown, looked up at her with a slightly troubled air.
'Gladys, I wish you wouldn't bother about that girl. You lay things far too much to heart. It can't possibly concern you now. Let her own people look after her.'
Gladys received this remark with rather an indignant look.
'Mina, that is not like you. You only assume such hard-heartedness. If you saw her face as I saw it, it must haunt you. Her eyes were quite wild and despairing, I cannot forget them.'
'Oh, I think you exaggerate,' said Mina lightly. 'I saw her very well. It was the usual calm, rather insolent stare these girls give. I do not think she looked either very ill or very desperate, and she seemed comfortably clothed. What do you think, Clara?'
'Oh, I didn't see her,' answered Clara, with a slight yawn. 'Yes, Gladys dear, I do think you worry too much over things. What can that girl possibly be to you? Of course we are very sorry for her; still, if she is in trouble, she has brought it on herself. It will never do for you to mix yourself up with all sorts and conditions. I say, wasn't Sims Reeves heavenly to-night, and "Come into the garden, Maud," more entrancing than ever? To think what immense power that man wields in his voice! He can do with his audience as he likes. He was in splendid form.'
Gladys remained silent. The concert had given her a rare pleasure, but it was obliterated at the moment by the incident of the face at the carriage window.
'We had better get to bed, girls, or mamma will be sending Katherine to us presently,' said Mina, as she picked herself up from the rug. 'Good-night, dear, and don't worry. If you wrinkle up your brows like that over every trifle, you will be old before your time.'
Gladys faintly smiled, and bade them good-night. She 'worried' a good deal more than either of them imagined.
'I say, Clara, I do wish we could induce Gladys toleave that girl alone,' Mina said to her sister, as she threw off her evening gown and began to brush out her hair. 'I have the oddest feeling about it, just as if it would make mischief. Haven't you?'
'No; but you needn't try to dissuade Gladys from anything she has set her mind upon. I never saw anybody so "sot," as Artemus Ward would say; she's positive to the verge of obstinacy. But what makes you have any feeling in the matter I can't imagine; you never even saw the girl in your life.'
'No, but I feel interested in her, all the same. And, I say'—
She broke off there rather suddenly, and meditatively brushed her hair for a few seconds in silence.
'Did you notice that afternoon we had the tea, after all the people were gone, you remember that Cousin George spilled the contents of a cup on mamma's gown?'
'Yes, I remember that, of course, but what can it have to do with Gladys and this Hepburn girl?'
'Did nothing occur to you in connection with his unusual awkwardness? Don't you remember what we were talking of at the time?'
'No,' replied Clara, and she paused with her bodice half pulled over her lovely shoulders, and a slow wonder on her beautiful, placid face.
'Well, Gladys was telling us at the very moment about the disappearance of this Hepburn girl, as you call her, and I happened to be looking at Cousin George while she was speaking, and, Clara, I can't for the life of me help thinking he knows something about it.'
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Mina saw that she had made a profound mistake. The red colour leaped into her sister's face, dyeing even the curves of her stately throat.
'I think you are a wicked, uncharitable girl, Mina,' she said, with icy coldness. 'I wonder you are not ashamed to have such a thought for a moment. I only beg of you not to let it go any further. It may do more harm than you think.'
So saying, Clara gathered up all her wraps and marched off to her own room, leaving her sister feeling rather hurt and humiliated, though not in the least convinced that she had simply given rein to an uncharitable imagination. Mina was indeed so much troubled that she went off her sleep—a most unusual experience for her; and the morning failed to banish, as it often benignly banishes, the misgivings of the night.
Once more Gladys made a pilgrimage to the old home where Walter dwelt alone, working early and late, the monotony of his toil only brightened by one constant hope. It was a strange existence for the lad on the threshold of his young manhood, and many who knew something of his way of life wondered at the steady and dogged persistence with which he pursued his avocation. He appeared to have reached, while yet not much past his boyhood, the grave, passionless calm which comes to most men only after they have outlived the passion of their youth. He was regarded as a sharp, hard-working young man, with a keen eye for business, and honourable and just, but conspicuously hard to deal with—one whose word was as his bond, and who, being so absolutely reliable himself, suffered no equivocation or crooked dealings in others. By slow but certain degrees he had extricated himself from the strange network which old Abel Graham had woven about the business, and established it upon the basis of sound, straightforward dealing. The old customers, in spite of certain advantages the new system offered,dropped away from him one by one, but others took their place. When Walter balanced his books at the end of the first year, he had reason to be not only content, but elated, and he was enabled to carry out at once certain extensions which he had quite expected would only be justifiable after the lapse of some years. But, while prospering beyond his highest anticipations, what of the growth of the true man, the development of the great human soul, which craves a higher destiny than mere grovelling among the sordid things of earth? While supremely unconscious of any change in himself, there was nevertheless a great change—a very great change indeed. It was inevitable. A life so narrow, so circumscribed, so barren of beauty, lived so solitarily, away from every softening influence, was bound to work a subtle and relentless change. The man of one idea is apt to starve his soul in his effort to make it subservient to the furtherance of his solitary aim. To be a successful man, to win by his own unaided effort a position which would entitle him to meet Gladys Graham on equal ground, such was his ambition, and it never did occur to him that this very striving might make him unfit in other ways to be her mate. His isolated life, absolutely unrelieved by any social intercourse with his fellows, made him silent by choice, still and self-contained in manner, abrupt of speech. In his unconsciousness it never occurred to him that it is the little courtesies and graces of speech and action which commend a man first to the notice of the woman he wants to win. He was, though he did not know it, a melancholy spectacle; but his awakening was at hand.
Gladys made her second call at the house in Colquhoun Street, as before, early in the day. It seemed very familiar, though it was many months since she hadpassed that way. It seemed a more hopeless and squalid street than she had yet thought it. She picked her steps daintily through the greasy mud, holding her skirts high enough to show a most bewitching pair of feet, cased in Parisian boots, only there was nobody visible to admire them but a grimy butcher's boy, with a basket on his head, and he stared with all his might.
The warehouse door, contrary to the old custom, stood wide open, as if inviting all comers. Gladys gave a glance along the passage which led to the living-rooms, but was not moved to revisit them. She went at once up the grimy staircase, giving a little light cough as she neared the landing, a herald of her coming. She heard quite distinctly the grating of the stool on the floor, and a step coming towards her—a step which even now sounded quite familiarly in her ears.
'It is I—Gladys,' she said, trying to speak quite naturally, but conscious of a shrinking embarrassment which made her cheeks nervously flush. 'The door was open, so I came right in. How are you, Walter?'
In his face shone something of the old bright friendliness, but as she looked at the shabby youth, with his unshaved face and threadbare clothes, her fastidious eye disapproved of him just as it had disapproved of him when they met, boy and girl, for the first time in the rooms below.
'I am quite well,' he answered in his quick, abrupt unsmiling manner. 'But why do you always come without any warning? If you let me know, I should be ready for you. I am always busy in the morning, and a fellow who has so much hard work to do can't always be in trim to receive ladies.'
It was rather an ungracious greeting, which Gladys was quick enough to resent. The gentle meekness ofthe girl had merged itself into the dignity of the woman, which insists upon due deference being paid.
'I am quite sorry if I intrude, Walter,' she said rather stiffly. 'I shall not keep you long. All the same, I am coming in to sit down for a little, as I have something very particular to speak to you about.'
'Come in. Of course you know I am glad to see you,' he said hurriedly; and Gladys could not help rather enjoying his evident confusion. If he felt nervous and awkward in her presence, it was no more than he deserved to feel, sinceshewas so entirely unchanged.
'I am glad you have the grace to be civil, at least,' she said, with a bewildering smile, which vanished, however, when she seated herself on the battered old office-stool; all her anxiety and troubled concern made her face grave to sadness as she put the question—
'Do you know that your sister is in Glasgow?'
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alter did not know. His expression of surprise, tinged with alarm and a touch of shame, answered her before he spoke.
'How do you know that?' he asked.
'I saw her last night in Berkeley Street, just outside the Crown Halls, where we were at a concert,' said Gladys. 'Is it possible you have never seen her?'
'No; and I don't believe it was her you saw. You must have made a mistake,' replied Walter quickly.
'It was no mistake, because she looked into our carriage, and I saw her quite plainly. Besides, do you think that any one who has seen Liz once would ever forget her face? I have never seen one like it.'
'I don't know anything about it, and I care less,' Walter said with unpromising hardness.
Gladys did not know that the simple announcement she had brought to him in all faith, believing even that he might be in a sense relieved and glad to hear it, tortured him to the very soul. He felt so bitter against Gladys at the moment that he could have ordered her away. Her dainty presence, her air ofladyhood, her beautiful ways, almost maddened him; but Gladys was quite unconscious of it.
'Have you not been at your father's house lately, then?' she asked. 'Of course she must be there. How glad they will be to have her safely at home again! Do you think she would be glad to see me if I went to-day?'
'No, she wouldn't, even if she were there, which I know is not the case. I was there myself yesterday, and they had never heard anything about her. I wish to heaven you would leave us alone, and let us sink into the mire we are made for! We don't want such fine ladies as you coming patronising us, and trying to make pious examples of us. We are quite happy—oh, quite happy—as we are.'
He spoke with an awful bitterness, with a passion which made him terrible to look upon, but Gladys only shrank a little, only a little, under this angry torrent. Her vision was clearer than a year ago. She read the old friend now with unerring skill, and looked at him steadily with gentle, sorrowful eyes.
'You are very angry, Walter, and you think it is with me, but I know better, and you cannot prevent me trying to find out what has become of poor Lizzie. I loved her, and love has certain rights, even you will admit that.'
Her gentle words relieved the tension of his passion, and he became calmer in a moment.
'If it is true that she is in Glasgow, it is easy knowing what has become of her,' he said, with an ironical smile. 'Take my advice, and let her alone. She never was company for you, anyhow, and now less than ever. Let her alone.'
'Oh, I can't do that, Walter. You have no idea how much I have thought about her. It has often kept me from sleeping, I assure you. I have so many blessings,I wish to share them. To make others happy is all the use money is for.'
Walter was secretly touched, secretly yearning over her with a passion of admiration—ay, and of sympathy, but his passive face betrayed nothing. He listened as he might have listened to a customer's complaint, yet with even a slighter exhibition of interest. Strange that he should thus be goaded against his better impulses to show so harsh a front to the being he passionately loved, unless it was part of therôlehe had mapped out for himself.
'I heard that you had invited Teen Balfour to your estate; is she there yet?' he asked; and Gladys did not know whether he asked in scorn or in jest.
'Yes, she is at Bourhill still, and will remain for some time. Have you got anybody in Mrs. Macintyre's place? It was rather selfish of me, perhaps, to take her away without consulting you.'
'It didn't affect me in the least, I assure you. Mrs. Macintyre was not indispensable to my comfort. So you like being a fine rich lady? Don't you remember how I prophesied you would, and how indignant you were? After all, there is a good deal of worldly wisdom in the slums.'
'You prophesied that I should in a week forget, or wish to forget, this place, and that has not come true, since I am here to-day,' she said, trying to smile, though her heart was sore. 'Won't you tell me now how you are getting on? Excuse me saying that I don't think you look very prosperous or very happy.'
'Nevertheless, the thing will pay; there isn't any doubt about the prosperity. As for the happiness,' he added, with a shrug of the shoulders, 'I don't think there is much real happiness in this world.'
'Oh yes, there is,' she cried eagerly, 'a great deal of it, if only one will take the trouble to look for it. It is in little things, Walter, that happiness is found, and you might be very happy indeed, if you would not delight in being so bitter and morose. It is so very bad for you. Some day, when you want to throw it off, you will not be able to do so, because it will have become a habit with you. I must tell you quite plainly what I think, because it makes me so unhappy to see you like this. You always remind me of Ishmael, whose hand was against every man. What has changed you so terribly?'
'Circumstances. Yes, I am the victim of circumstances.'
'There is no such thing,' said Gladys calmly. 'That is a phrase with which people console themselves in misfortunes they often bring upon themselves. If you would only think of the absurdity of what you are saying. You have admitted your prosperity; and the other troubles, home troubles, which I know are very trying, need not overwhelm you. You are much less manly, Walter, now you are a man, than I expected you to be. You have quite disappointed me, and without reason.'
He was surprised, and could not hide it. The gentle, simple, shrinking girl had changed into a self-reliant, keen-sighted woman, and from the serene height of her gracious womanhood calmly convicted him of his folly and his besetting weakness, and, manlike, his first impulse, thus convicted, was to resent her interference.
'Whatever I may do, it can't affect you now, you are so far removed from me,' he said, without looking at her; and Gladys, disappointed, and a little indignant, rose to go.
'Very well; good-bye. It is always the same kindof good-bye,' she said quietly. 'If ever, when you look back upon it, it should grieve you, remember it was always your doing, yours alone. But even yet, though you may not believe it, Walter, your old friend will remain quite unchanged.'
His face flushed, and he dashed his hand with a hasty gesture across his eyes.
'I am not changed,' he said huskily. 'You need not reproach me with that. You know nothing about the struggle it is for me here, nor what I have to fight against. It was you who taught me first to be discontented with my lot, to strive after something higher. I sometimes wish now that we had never met.'
'Whatever happens, Walter, I shall never wish that; and I hope one day you will be sorry for ever having said such a thing,' she said, with a proud ring in her clear, sweet voice. 'I hope—I hope one day everything will be made right; just now it all seems so very wrong and hard to bear.'
She left him hurriedly then, just as she had left him before, at the moment when he could have thrown himself at her feet, and revealed to her all the surging passion of his soul.
Gladys felt so saddened and disheartened that she could not bear to return to Bellairs Crescent, to the inevitable questioning which she knew awaited her there. If the Fordyces were kind, they were also a trifle fussy, and sometimes nettled Gladys by their too obvious and exacting interest in her concerns. She ran up to the office in St. Vincent Street, and told Mr. Fordyce she was going off to Mauchline by the one-o'clock train, and begged him to send a boy with an explanation to the Crescent. Mr. Fordyce was very good-natured, and not at all curious; it never occurredto him to try and dissuade her from such a hurried departure, or pester her with questions about it. He simply set her down to write her note at his own desk, then took her out to lunch, and finally put her in her train, all in his own easy, pleasant, fatherly way, and Gladys felt profoundly grateful to him.
Her arrival being unexpected, there was no one to meet her at Mauchline Station, but the two-and-a-half-mile walk did not in the least disconcert her. It seemed as if the clear, cool south wind—the wind the huntsman loves—blew all the city cobwebs from her brain, and again raised her somewhat jaded spirits. She could even think hopefully of Liz, and her mind was full of schemes for her redemption, when she espied, at a short distance from her own gates, the solitary figure of Teen, with her hand shading her eyes, looking anxiously down the road. She had found life at Bourhill insufferably dull without its mistress.
'Have ye walkit a' that distance?' she cried breathlessly, having run all her might to meet her. 'Ye'll be deid tired. What way did ye no' send word?'
'Because I came off all in a hurry this morning,' answered Gladys, with a smile; for the warm welcome glowing in the large eyes of the little seamstress did her good. 'And how have you been—you and Miss Peck, and all the people?'
'Fine; but, my, it's grand to see ye back,' said Teen, with a boundless satisfaction. 'It's no' like the same place when ye are away. An' hoo's Glesca lookin'—as dreich as ever?'
'Quite. And oh, Teen, I have found Liz at last. I saw her last night in Berkeley Street.'
'Saw Liz in Berkeley Street? Surely, never!' repeated Teen, aghast.
'It is quite true. I think she cannot have been away from Glasgow at all. We must try and find her, you and I, and get her down here.'
'I'll get her, if she's in Glesca!' cried Teen excitedly. 'Did ye speak to her? What did she look like?'
'Very ill, I thought, and strange,' answered Gladys slowly. 'She only peeped into our carriage window as we drove away from the concert hall.'
'It's queer,' said Teen musingly,—'very queer. I feel as if I wad like to gang back to Glesca this very day, and see her.'
'You might go to-morrow, if you like,' said Gladys. 'I daresay you will find her much quicker than I should; she would not be so shy of you.'
Teen turned her head and gave Gladys a strange, intent look, which seemed to ask a question. The girl was indeed asking herself whether it might not be better to let the whole matter rest. She suspected that there might be in this case wheels within wheels which might seriously involve the happiness of her who deserved above all others the highest happiness the world can give. The little seamstress was perplexed, saddened, half-afraid, torn between two loves and two desires. She wished she knew how much or how little George Fordyce was to Gladys Graham, yet dared not to ask the question.
But so great was the absorbing desire of Gladys to find means of communication with Liz that she would not let the matter rest. Next day the visit of the little seamstress to Bourhill was brought apparently to a very sudden end and she returned to town—not, however, to sue for work at the hands of the stony-visaged forewoman, but to carry out the behest of the young lady of Bourhill.
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he interview with Gladys upset Walter for the day. When she was gone, he found it impossible to fix his attention on his books or any of the details of his business. He could not even sit still, but wandered restlessly up and down his domain, trying to unravel his own thoughts. The subtle fragrance of her presence, like some rare perfume, seemed to pervade the place, and her words continued to haunt him, till he felt angry and impatient with her, with himself, with all the world. He had now two persons in his employment—a man who delivered goods on a hand-barrow, and a lad who filled a position similar to that which had been Walter's own in Abel Graham's days.
When this lad returned after the dinner hour, Walter left him in charge, and took himself into the streets, pursued by that vague restlessness he could neither understand nor shake off. Looking in at the mirrored window of a great shop in St. Vincent Street, he saw the image of himself reflected, a tall, lean figure, shabbily clad—an image which filled him with a sudden loathing and contempt. He stood quite still, and calmly appraised himself, taking in every meagre detail of his appearance, noting the grimy hue of the collar he hadworn three days, the glazed front of the frayed black tie, the soft, greasy rim of the old hat. Yes, he told himself, he was a most disreputable-looking object, with nothing in his appearance to suggest prosperity, or even decent comfort. A grim humour smote him suddenly, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, he brought it out full of money, and rapidly counted it. Then he opened the door of the fashionable tailor's, and walked in. He was regarded, as was to be expected, a trifle superciliously by the immaculately-attired young gentlemen therein.
'I want a suit of clothes,' he said in his straight, abrupt fashion,—'a good suit; the best you have in your shop.'
The young gentlemen regarded him and each other with such significance in their glances that their shabby-looking customer turned on his heel.
'I can be served elsewhere, I guess, without so much hesitation,' he said, and in an instant he was intercepted with profuse apologies, and patterns of the best materials in the shop laid before him.
'I'll take this,' said Walter, after refusing several.
'It is very expensive, sir—beautiful material, but a suit made to measure will be five guineas,' said the young gentleman suggestively.
'I'll take it,' said Walter calmly. 'And I want an overcoat, and a hat, and some other things. Show me what you have.'
The fascination of choosing new garments for personal wear was upon Walter Hepburn, and he spent a whole hour in the shop, selecting an outfit which did credit to his taste and discernment. Before that hour was over he had risen very considerably in the opinion of those who served him—his choice invariably falling on what was not only most expensive, but in the best taste.
'Now, how much is to pay? I'll pay ready money to-day, and send for the things when they are ready, which I hope will be soon.'
'Very well, sir; but there is no hurry, I assure you,' said the young gentleman suavely. 'Payment on delivery is always quite satisfactory.'
'I'll pay to-day,' Walter replied, with his hand in his pocket; and when the bill was presented he ran his eye over it without a change of face.
'Twelve pounds eight shillings and twopence,' he said slowly, and counted out the bank notes carelessly, as if the handling of them was his daily work. Then, having made arrangements for fitting, he went his way, leaving a very odd impression on the minds of the shop people. Had he heard their surmises and comments, he would have felt at once amused and chagrined.
From St. Vincent Street he sauntered back to Argyle Street, and took a Bridgeton car. Thoughts of Liz were crowding thick and fast upon him, and he found himself scanning the faces of the people in the crowded streets, and even looking up expectantly each time the car stopped, assuring himself he would not be in the least surprised were his sister to appear suddenly before him. He was ill at ease concerning her. If it were true that she was in Glasgow, then his first fears concerning her were likely to have some foundation. It was curious that all resentment seemed to have died out of his mind, and that he felt nothing but an indescribable longing to see her again. Strange and unnatural as it may seem, he had not for a very long time felt any such kindly affection towards his parents. He did his duty by them so far as the giving of money was concerned, but they lay upon his heart like a heavy weight, and he lived in dread of some calamity happening, for they were seldom sober. He could not help asking himself sometimes whether he was justified in giving them so liberal an allowance, since relief from all pecuniary anxiety seemed to have only made them more dissipated and abandoned. It was very seldom indeed that his father now wrought a day's work. These were heavy burdens for the young man to bear, and he may be forgiven his morbid pride, his apparent hardness of heart. It is a common saying that living sorrows are worse than death—they eat like a canker into the soul. It was his anxiety about Liz which took Walter to the dreary house in Bridgeton at that unusual hour of the day. He thought it quite likely that if she were in Glasgow they would have seen or heard something of her. He made a point of visiting them once a week, and his step was never buoyant as he ascended that weary stair, nor when he descended it on his homeward way, for he was either saddened and oppressed anew with their melancholy state, or wearied with reproaches, or disgusted with petty grumblings and unsavoury details of the neighbours' shortcomings and domestic affairs. It is a tragedy we see daily in our midst, this gradual estrangement of those bound by ties of blood, and who ought, but cannot possibly be bound by ties of love. Love must be cherished; it is only in the rarest instances it can survive the frost of indifference and neglect. The drink fiend has no respect of persons; the sanctity of home and God-given affections is ruthlessly destroyed, high and holy ambitions sacrificed, hearts remorselessly broken, graves dug above the heavenliest hopes.
Walter Hepburn was always grave, oftentimes sorrowful, because with the years had come fuller knowledge, keener perception, clearer visions that thesorrows of his youth were sorrows which could darken his young manhood and shadow all his future. It was a profound relief to him that day to find his mother tidier than usual, busy with preparations for the mid-day meal. He never knew how he should find them; too often a visit to that home made him sick at heart.
'Ye are an early visitor, my man,' his mother said, in surprise. 'What's brocht ye here at sic a time?'
'Is Liz here?' he inquired, with a quick glance round the kitchen.
'Liz! No.'
In her surprise at this unexpected question, Mrs. Hepburn paused, with the lid of the broth-pot in her hand, looking wonderingly into her son's face.
'What gars ye ask that?'
'I heard she was in Glasgow, that's why,' Walter answered cautiously. 'Where's the old man? Not working, surely?'
'Ay; he's turned over a new leaf for three days, workin' orra at Stevenson's; they're short o' men the noo. He'll be in to his denner the noo. Wull ye tak' a bite wi' us? It's lang since ye broke breid in this hoose.'
'I don't mind if I do,' replied Walter, laying off his hat and drawing the arm-chair up to the fire. 'So you have never seen Liz? The person that saw her must have made a mistake.'
'Wha was't?'
'A lady. You don't know her. Have you never heard anything about her at all, then?'
'No' a cheep. She's in London, they say—the folk that pretend to ken a'thing. I'm sure I'm no' carin'.'
'And my father's really working this week? Oh, mother, if only he would keep steady, it would make allthe difference. You look better yourself, too. Are you not far better without drink?'
'Maybe. We've made a paction, onyway, for a week, till we see,' said Mrs. Hepburn, with a slow smile. 'The way o't was this. We fell oot wan day, an' he cuist up to me that I couldna keep frae't, an' I jist says, says I, "Ye canna keep frae't yersel'," an' it's for spite we're no' touchin't. I dinna think mysel' he'll staun' oot past Seterday.'
Walter could not forbear a melancholy smile.
'It's not a very high motive, but better spite than no motive at all,' he answered. 'D'ye think, mother, that Liz can be in Glasgow?'
'Hoo should I ken? There's yer faither's fit on the stair, an' the tatties no' ready, but they'll be saft in a jiffy. He canna wait a meenit for his meat. As I say, he thinks it should be walkin' doon the stair to meet him. Ay, my man, it's you I'm on.'
She made a great clatter with knives and spoons on the table, and then made a rush to pour the water off the potatoes.
'Hulloa, Wat, what's up?' inquired the old man, as genuinely surprised as his wife had been to see his son.
'I heard Liz was in Glasgow, and I came to see if she was here,' answered Walter. 'So you're working again? I must say work agrees with you, father; you look a different man.'
'Oh, I'm no' past wark. If I like, I can dae my darg wi' ony man,' he replied rather ironically. 'Pit oot the kale, Leezbeth, or we'll be burnt to daith. Are ye slack yersel' that ye can come ower here at wan o'clock in the day?'
'I'm slacker than I was,' said Walter, 'but I can't complain, either.'
'An' what was that ye said aboot Liz, that she was herein Glesca? Weel, if she is, she's never lookit near. It's gentry bairns we hae, Leezbeth; let's be thankfu' for them.'
This mild sarcasm did not greatly affect Walter, he was too familiar with it.
'I heard she had been seen, but perhaps it was a mistake. It must have been, or she would surely have come here. You are working at Stevenson's, mother says; will it be permanent?'
'I'll see. It depends on hoo I feel,' replied the old man complacently. 'I've been in waur places, an' the gaffer's very slack. He disna work a ten-hoors' day ony mair than the rest o's.'
'Though you are paid for it, I suppose?' said Walter.
'Ay, but naebody but a born fule will kill himsel' unless he's made dae't,' was the reply.
'I wouldn't keep a man who didn't do a fair day's work for a fair day's wage, nor would you,' said Walter. 'I believe that nobody would make more tyrannical masters than working men themselves, just as women who have been servants themselves make the most exacting mistresses.'
'This is Capital speakin' noo, Leezbeth,' said his father very sarcastically. 'It's kind o' amusin'. We're the twa sides, as it were—Capital and Labour. Ye've no' been lang o' forgettin' whaur ye sprang frae, my man.'
Walter's father had been a skilful workman in his day, with an intelligence above the average; had he kept from drink, there is no doubt he would have risen from the ranks. Even yet gleams of the old spirit which had often displayed itself at workmen's meetings and demonstrations would occasionally shine forth. Walter was thankful to see it, and after spending a comparatively pleasant hour with them, he went his way with a lighter and happier feeling about them than he had experienced for many a day.
RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'G'
eorge Fordyce was listening to a maternal lecture the morning after a dance, at which he had been distributing his attentions very freely among the most attractive of the young ladies present. The breakfast was nearly an hour late, and mother and son partook of it alone, Mr. Fordyce being in London on business, and the fair Julia not yet out of bed.
'It's all your nonsense, mother,' said George imperturbably. 'I didn't pay special court to anybody except Clara. She was the best dancer in the room and very nearly the handsomest girl.'
'You should have pity on Clara, my dear,' his mother said indulgently. 'You know she is fond of you; she can't hide it, poor thing, and it is a shame to pay her too much attention in public, when it can't come to anything.'
'I can't help it if girls will be silly,' was the complacent reply. 'Clara is all very well as a cousin, but I'd like more spirit in a wife.'
'It strikes me you will get enough of it if you should be successful where we wish you to be successful,' said his mother, with a keen glance across the table. 'GladysGraham is a very self-willed piece of humanity. Your Aunt Isabel told me only yesterday of her absurd fad to have common girls visiting her at Bourhill. It is quite time somebody took her firmly in hand, or she will become that insufferable kind of person, a woman with a mission to set the world right.'
George emptied his coffee-cup, and returned his mother's look with one equally steady and keen.
'There is no use going on at me, mother. I've done all I can do in the meantime. I asked her, and she'—
'Did not refuse you, I hope?' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, with a gasp.
'Well, not quite; she said I must leave her alone for a long time, and I mean to. It isn't pleasant for a fellow to be sat on by a girl—especially,' he added, with a significant shrug, 'when he isn't used to it.'
'I wish you would tell me when all this happened. You have been very close about it, George,' his mother said reproachfully.
'I wish I had remained close; but now that I've let the cat out, I may as well tell the whole tale. It was only a fortnight ago—that Saturday afternoon I was down at Bourhill. I had no intention of committing myself when I went, but somehow I got carried away, and asked her. I believe I should have had a more favourable answer, but a confounded maid came in with tea—as they always do when nobody wants them.'
'And what did she say?' queried Mrs. Fordyce, in breathless interest.
'Faith, I can't remember exactly,' George replied, and his mother was more than astonished to see his cheek flushing. 'I know she asked me to wait, and not to bother her. I believe she'll have me in the end.Anyhow, I mean to have her, and it's the same thing, isn't it?'
'I hope it may be; but if you take my advice, my dear, don't leave her alone too much, in case somebody else more enterprising and not so easily repulsed should step in before you. If I were a man I wouldn't walk off for a girl's first No.'
'You don't know a blessed thing about what you're talking of, mother,' replied George, with calm candour. 'If you were a man, and had a girl looking at you with a steady stare, and telling you to get out, well, I guess you'd get out pretty quick, that's all.'
Mrs. Fordyce laughed.
'Well, perhaps so; but it is very important that you should follow up your advantage, however slight it may be. It would be a most desirable alliance. Think of her family; it would be a splendid connection. You would be a county gentleman, to begin with.'
'And call myself Fordyce Graham? Eh, mother?' said George lazily. 'There are worse sounding names. But Gladys herself affects to have no pride in her long descent; that very day she was quoting to me that rot of Burns about rank being only the guinea stamp, and all that sort of thing. All very well for a fellow like Burns, who was only a ploughman. It has done Gladys a lot of harm living in the slums; it won't be easy eradicating her queer notions, I can tell you.'
'Oh, after she is married, if you take her well in hand, it will be easy enough,' said his mother confidently. 'She did not give you a positive refusal, then?'
'No; but I'm not going to make myself too cheap,' said George; 'it seldom pays in any circumstances—in dealings with women, never. They set all the more store by a fellow who thinks a good deal of himself.'
'Then you should be very successful,' said Mrs. Fordyce, with a smile. 'Well, remember that nothing will give your father and me greater pleasure than to hear that you are engaged to Gladys Graham.'
'Well, I'd better get out of this. Twenty minutes to eleven! By Jove, wonder what the governor would say if he were to pop in just now? Thunder's not in it.'
So the amiable and self-satisfied George took himself off to the mill, and all day long thought much of his mother's advice, and somehow he felt himself being impelled towards paying another visit to Bourhill. Out of that visit arose portentous issues, which were to have the strongest possible influence upon the future of Gladys Graham. He found her in a lonely and impressionable mood, and left the house, to his own profound astonishment, an accepted lover.
That very evening, after he was gone, Gladys sat by the fire in her spacious drawing-room, turning upon her third finger the diamond ring George Fordyce had transferred from his own hand to hers, whispering as he did so that she should soon have one worthier of her. Watching the flashing of the stone in the gleaming firelight, she wondered to see tears, matching the diamonds in brilliance, falling on her gown. She did not understand these tears; she did not think herself unhappy, though she felt none of that passionate, trembling joy which happy love, as she had heard and read of it, is entitled to feel. She realised that she had taken a great and important step in life, and that it seemed to weigh upon her, that was all. In her loneliness she longed passionately for some sympathetic soul to lean upon. Miss Peck had gone back to the fen country to see a dying friend, and for some days she had heard nothing of Teen, who was pursuing in Glasgow hersearch for the lost and mysterious Liz. In the midst of the strange reverie she heard footsteps on the stair, and presently a knock came to the door. As it was opened, the silver chimes of the old brass clock rang seven.
'Mr. Hepburn.'
Gladys sprang up, struck by the familiar name, yet not expecting to behold her old companion in the flesh, and there he was, standing modestly, yet with so much manliness and courage in his bearing, that she could not forbear a little cry of welcome as she ran to him with outstretched hands. It seemed as if her prayer for the sympathy of one who understood her was answered far beyond any hope or expectations she had cherished regarding it.
'Oh, Walter, I am so very glad to see you! It is so good of you to come. I have so often wished to see you here. Come away, come away!'
The accepted lover, at that moment being whirled back by express train to Glasgow, would not have approved of those warm words, nor of the light shining all over the girl's sweet face as she uttered them. But he would have been compelled to admit that in Gladys's old companion of the slums he had no mean rival. The St. Vincent Street tailor had done his duty by his eccentric customer, and not only given him value for his money, but converted him, so far as outward appearance goes, into a new man. Philosophers and cynics have from time to time had their fling at the tyranny of clothes, but it still remains an undisputed fact that a well-dressed man is always much more comfortable and self-respecting than an ill-dressed one. When Walter Hepburn beheld the new man the tailor had turned out, a strange change came over him, and hesaw in himself possibilities hitherto undreamed of. He realised for the first time that he looked fitter than most men to win a woman's approval, and I am quite safe in saying that Gladys owed this totally unlooked-for visit entirely to the St. Vincent Street tailor.
'So very glad to see you,' she repeated, and she thought it no treachery to her absent lover to keep hold of the hand she had taken in greeting. 'And looking so nice and so handsome! Oh, Walter, now I am no longer unhappy about you, for I see you have awakened at last to a sense of what you ought to be.'
It was a tribute to clothes, but it sank with unalloyed sweetness into the young man's heart.
'You are very kind to me, Gladys, and I do not deserve any such welcome. I was afraid, indeed, that you might refuse to see me, as you would be perfectly justified in doing.'
'Oh, Walter,' she said reproachfully, 'how dare you say such a thing? Refuse to see you, indeed! Do sit down and tell me everything. Do you know, it is just my dinner hour, and you shall dine with me; and how delightful that will be. I thought of sending down to say I didn't wish any dinner, it is so lonely eating alone.'
'Where is the lady who lives with you? You had a lady, hadn't you?'
'Yes—Miss Peck. She has gone back to Lincoln to see her aunt who is dying, and I am quite alone, though to-morrow I expect one of Mr. Fordyce's daughters. And now, tell me, have you heard anything of Liz?'
The voice sank to a grave whisper, and her eyes grew luminous with anxiety and sympathetic concern.
'Nothing,' Walter answered, with a shake of his head, 'and I have been inquiring all round, too. My fatherand mother have never seen or heard anything of her. I think you must have made a mistake that night in Berkeley Street.'
'If it was not Liz, it was her ghost,' said Gladys quite gravely. 'I cannot understand it. But, come, let us go down-stairs. You ought to offer me your arm, Walter. I cannot help laughing when I think of Mrs. Fordyce, she would be so horrified were she to see me now. She tries so hard to make me quite conventional, and she isn't able to do it.'
'She may be right, though,' said Walter, and though he would have given worlds for the privilege, he dared not presume to take Gladys at her word and offer her his arm. But they went into the dining-room side by side; and at the table, Gladys, though watching keenly, detected very little of the old awkwardness, none at all of that blunt rudeness of speech and manner which had often vexed her sensitive soul. For the first time for many many months Walter permitted himself to be at ease and perfectly natural in his manner, and the result was entirely satisfactory; self-consciousness is fatal to comfort always. Gladys wore a black gown of some shimmering soft material, with a quaint frill of old lace falling over the low collar, a bunch of spring snowdrops at her belt, and her lovely hair bound with the black velvet band which none could wear just in the same way—a very simple, unostentatious home toilet, but she looked, Walter thought, like a queen. Possessed of a wonderful tact, Gladys managed, while the meal progressed, to confine the conversation to commonplace topics, so that the servant who attended should not be furnished with food for remark. Both were glad, however, to return to the drawing-room, where their talk could be quite unrestrained.
'And now you are going to tell me everything about this wonderful metamorphosis,' she said merrily,—'every solitary thing. When did it dawn upon you that even a handsome man is utterly dependent on his tailor?'
There was at once rebuke and approval conveyed in this whimsical speech, which made Walter's face slightly flush.
'It dawned upon me one day, looking in at a shop window where I could see myself, that I was a most disreputable-looking object, quite eligible to be apprehended as an able-bodied vagrant.'
'How delightful! I hope the shock was very bad, because you deserved it. Now that you have come back clothed and in your right mind, I am not going to spare you, Walter, and I will say that after my last visit to Colquhoun Street I quite lost hope. It is always the darkest hour before the dawn, somebody has said.'
'If I'd thought you cared'—Walter began, but stopped suddenly; for Gladys turned from the table, where she was giving her attention to some drooping flowers, and her look was one of the keenest wonder and reproach.
'Now you are weak, Walter, trying to bring your delinquencies home to me,' she said, with the first touch of sharpness he had ever seen in her. 'It has been your own fault entirely all along, and I have never had a solitary bit of sympathy for you, and I don't know, either, what you meant by going on in any such manner.'
'I didn't understand it myself then; I seemed goaded on always to be a perfect brute when you came. But I believe I understand it now, and perhaps it would be better if I did not.'
He spoke with considerable agitation, which Gladysaffected not to notice, while her white fingers touched the drooping blossoms tenderly, as if sympathising with them that their little day was over.
'Suppose you enlighten me, then?' she said, gaily still; then suddenly seeing his face, her own became very white.
'I don't dare,' he said hoarsely, 'it is too much presumption; but it will perhaps make you understand and feel for me more than you seem to do. Don't you see, Gladys, that it is my misery to care for you as happier men care for the woman they ask to marry them?'
There was a moment's strained silence, then Gladys spoke in a low, sobbing voice,—
'It is, as I said, Walter, too late, too late! I have promised to marry another man.'