RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'T'
owards the end of the second week Liz began to exhibit certain signs of restlessness, which ought to have warned those concerned in her welfare that the quiet and seclusion of Bourhill were beginning to pall upon her. As she improved in her bodily health her mind became more active, and she began to pine for something more exciting than country walks and drives. They were not altogether unobservant of the growing change in her, of course, but attributed it to a returning and healthful interest in the simpler pleasures of life. All this time George Fordyce had not come to Bourhill, nor had any letters passed between him and his promised wife. It would be too much to say that Gladys was quite indifferent to this; if her feelings were not very deeply involved, her pride was touched, and the first advances were not at all likely to emanate from her. Liz had lived in secret dread, mingled with a kind of happy anticipation, of meeting George Fordyce at Bourhill, and as the days went by, and there was no sign or talk of his coming, she began to wonder very much what it all meant. She was a remarkably shrewd person, and it did occur to her to connect her visit andthe absence of Miss Graham's lover. One day, however, she put a question to Teen as they sauntered through the spring woods on the hill behind the house.
'I say, is't true that she is gaun to mairry Fordyce, Teen? It's no' like it. What way does he never look near?'
Teen looked keenly into her companion's face, to which that fortnight of complete rest and generous living had restored the bloom of health. Without planning very much, or artfully seeking to mislead the little seamstress, Liz had thrown her entirely off the scent. Such careless mention of her old lover's name, and her apparent indifference as to whether they should or should not meet at Bourhill, had entirely convinced Teen that he had no share in that part of Liz's life which she had elected to keep a sealed book.
'It's quite true that they are engaged,' she replied tranquilly; 'but maybe he's awa' frae hame. But nane o' them hae been here for a long time.'
'She disna seem to be much in earnest,' put in Liz flatly. 'I dinna believe mysel' that she cares a button for ony o' the lot; do you?'
'I dinna ken,' answered Teen truthfully. 'It disna maitter to us, onyway.'
'Maybe no'. Let's sit doon here a meenit, Teen; the sun's fine an' warm,' said Liz, and plumped down among the bracken, while Teen stood still under the jagged branches of an old fir tree, and looked 'her fill,' as she expressed it, of the lovely world at her feet. It was still a spring world, clothed in a most delicate and exquisite garb of green, waiting only for the touch of later summer to give it a deeper hue. There were many touches of white and pink bloom, showing in exquisite contrast where the hawthorn and the gean werein flower. Nor was the ground left with its more sombre hues unrelieved; the blue hyacinth, the delicate anemone, the cowslip, and the primrose grew thickly on every bare hillside and in all the little valleys, making the air heavy with their rich perfume.
And all the fields now made glad the hearts of those who had in faith dropped their seed into the brown soil, and the whole earth, down to the sun-kissed edge of the sea, rejoiced with a great joy. Nor was the sea less lovely, with the silvery sheen of early summertide on its placid bosom, and the white wings of many boats glistening in the sun.
'It's jist like heaven, Liz,' said the little seamstress, to whom these things were a great wonder, revealing to her a depth and a meaning in life of which she had not before dreamed. But to these hidden lovelinesses of Nature the eyes of Liz were closed; her vision being too much turned in upon herself, was dimmed to much that would have made her a happier and a better girl.
'It's bonnie enough, but oh, it gets stale, Teen, efter a wee. If I were as rich as her I wadna bide here—no' if they paid me to bide!'
'What for no'?'
'Oh, it's that flat. Naething ever happens. Gie me the toon, I say; there's some life there, onyway.'
'I wadna care if I never saw the toon again,' said Teen gravely, for her friend's words troubled her.
'Hoo lang d'ye mean to bide here, Teen?' queried Liz presently. 'It'll be a fortnicht the morn since we cam'.'
Teen did not at once reply. She had not dared to count the days, grudging their sweet passing, and it jarred upon her to hear Liz state the exact period, as if it had appeared to her very long.
'This is the nineteenth; it was the twenty-third, wasn't it, that Mrs. Gordon said she was leavin' Glesca?'
'I've forgotten. Yes, I believe it was the twenty-third,' answered Teen listlessly, not being interested in the time.
'My, she'll see a lot, gaun to Ireland wi' a regiment. It's a lively life. I wish I was her.'
Teen turned sharply round, and looked with reproachful eyes into her companion's face.
'I thocht ye was gled to get away from her, Liz? I dinna ken what ye mean.'
'Oh, I was doon in the mooth, because I wasna weel,' said Liz lightly. 'Seriously, though, hoo lang are ye gaun to bide doon here, Teen?'
'I wad bide aye if I had the chance, but I suppose we canna bide very much langer. Maybe we'd better see what Miss Gladys says.'
'Ay, I suppose sae,' said Liz a trifle dryly. 'Whatever you may think, I dinna think it's fair that she should hae sae much an' you an' me sae little. We're livin' on her charity, Teen.'
'Yes, but she disna mak' ye feel it,' retorted Teen quickly. 'An' she disna think it charity, either. She says aye the money's no' hers, she has jist gotten a len' o't to gie to ither folk.'
'Wad she gie me a thoosand, d'ye think, if I were to speir?' asked Liz; and Teen looked vexed at these idle words. She did not like the sarcastic, flippant mood, and she regarded Liz with strong disapproval and vague uneasiness in her glance.
'I dinna like the way ye speak, Liz,' she said quietly. 'But, I say, if ye were in Glesca the noo, what wad ye dae?'
'Dae? It's what wad I no' dae,' cried Liz. 'I'm no' the kind to sterve.'
'Ye wasna very weel aff when we got ye,' Teen could not refrain from saying.
'Oh, ye needna cast up what ye did. I never asked you, onyway. Ye ken you and Wat hauled me awa' wi' you against my wull,' said Liz rather angrily, being in a mood to cavil at trifles. 'I kent hoo it wad be, but I'll tak' jolly guid care ye dinna get anither chance o' castin' up onything o' the sort to me.'
Teen remained silent, not that she was particularly hurt by that special remark, but that she was saddened and perplexed by the whole situation. She had sustained another fearful disappointment, and she saw that Bourhill had utterly failed to work the charm on Liz which Teen herself experienced more and more every day. If she were not altogether blind to its loveliness, at least it did not touch any deeper feeling than mere eye pleasure; but more serious and disappointing still was the tone in which she spoke of Gladys. In her weak and weary state of health, she had at first appeared touched and grateful for the unceasing kindness and consideration heaped upon her, but that mood had passed apparently for ever, and now she appeared rather to chafe under obligations which Teen felt also, though in a different way, love having made them sweet. For the first time in her life she felt herself shrinking inwardly from the friend she had always loved since the days when they had played together, ragged, unkempt little girls, in the city streets. She looked at the brilliant beauty of her face. She saw it marred by a certain hardness of expression, a selfish, discontented look, which can rob the beauty from the loveliest face, and her heart sank within her, becauseshe seemed dimly to foresee the end. The little seamstress did not know the meaning of a lost ideal, the probability is that she had never heard the word, but she felt all of a sudden, standing there in the May sunshine, that something had gone out of her life for ever. That very night she spoke to Gladys, seizing a favourable opportunity, when Liz had gone to enjoy a gossip with that garrulous person, Mrs. Macintyre, at the lodge.
'I say, Miss Gladys, hae ye noticed onything aboot Liz this day or twa?' she queried anxiously.
'Nothing,' replied Gladys blithely, 'except that she looks more and more like a new creature. Have you noticed anything?'
'Naething very particular; but I am feared that she's wearyin' here, an' that she wants to get away back to Glesca,' said Teen, with a slight hesitation, it must be told, since such an insinuation appeared to savour of the deepest ingratitude.
'Oh, do you think so? I thought she was quite happy. She certainly looks much brighter and better, and feels so, I hope.'
'Oh yes, she's better; that's the reason, I suppose. She was aye active an' energetic, Liz,' said Teen, feeling impelled to make some kind of excuse for her old chum. 'We've been here twa weeks; maybe it's time we left?'
'Oh, nonsense! What is two weeks? Suppose you stayed here all summer, what would it be? Nothing at all. But what do you think Lizzie has in her mind? Has she anything in view in Glasgow?'
'They'd be clever that fathomed her mind; it's as deep as the sea,' said Teen, with an involuntary touch of bitterness, for she could not help feeling that herfaithful love and service had met with but a poor return.
'She can't think we will allow her to go back to Glasgow without knowing what she is going to do; we had too much anxiety on her account before,' said Gladys, with decision. 'There is no doubt her brother's house is the place for her. I must talk to her myself.'
'Dinna dae't the nicht, Miss Gladys, or she'll think I've been tellin' on her,' suggested the little seamstress. 'Liz is very touchy aboot a lot o' things.'
'Well, perhaps a better plan would be to write to Walter to come down and see her,' said Gladys thoughtfully. 'Yes, I shall just do that. How pleased he will be to see her looking so well! Perhaps he will be able to persuade her to go to housekeeping with him now, and in that case, Teen, you will stay on here. Miss Peck says she can't do without you anyhow, you are such an invaluable help with sewing and all sorts of things; perhaps we could make a permanent arrangement, at least which will last till I get my scheme for the Girls' Club all arranged. I must say it does not progress very fast,' she added, with a sigh. 'We always do so much less than we expect and intend, and will, I suppose, fall short to the very end. If you like to stay here, Teen, as sewing maid or anything else to Miss Peck, it will make me very happy.'
She regarded the little seamstress with a lovely kindness in her look, and what could poor Teen do, but burst into happy tears, having no words wherein to express a tithe of what she felt.
No further allusion was made that night to the question of the girls leaving, and all retired to rest as usual in the house of Bourhill. In the night, however, just when the faint streaks of the summer dawn werevisible in the summer sky, Liz Hepburn rose very softly from the side of the sleeping Teen, and, gathering her things together in an untidy bundle, stole out of the room and down-stairs.
The Scotch terrier, asleep on his mat at the foot of the stair, only looked up sleepily and wagged his tail as she stepped over him and stole softly through the hall. The well-oiled bolts slipped back noiselessly, and she ran out down the steps, leaving the door wide to the wall.
And so they found it at six o'clock in the morning, just when Liz was stepping into the first train at a wayside station many miles from Bourhill.
RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'I'
think we had better go down and see what Gladys is about,' said Mrs. Fordyce at the breakfast-table. 'Could you go down with me this afternoon, Tom?'
'I daresay I could,' replied the lawyer. 'Surely we haven't heard anything about her for a long time?'
'I should just think we hadn't,' said Mina, with energy. 'Perhaps by this time she has gone off with somebody. We've shamefully neglected her.'
'George hasn't been down either, Julia told me yesterday,' said Mrs. Fordyce thoughtfully. 'There must have been a quarrel, girls. Did Gladys say anything more before she went away that day?'
'Nothing; but they are both so proud, neither will give in first. I certainly don't think, mother, that Gladys's feelings are very seriously involved. She takes the whole thing very calmly.'
'George should not be too high and mighty at this early stage, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce. 'He will find that Gladys has a mind of her own, and will not be dictated to. All the same,' she added, with a faint sigh, 'I admit that he was right to find fault with her havingthose girls at Bourhill. Tom dear, I really think it is your duty, as guardian, to interfere.'
'We can go down, anyhow, and see what she is about,' replied the lawyer; and that afternoon, accordingly, they went out to Mauchline.
Not being expected, they had to hire from the hotel, and arrived just as Gladys and Miss Peck were enjoying their afternoon tea. She was unfeignedly glad to see them, and showed it in the very heartiness of her welcome. It was somewhat of a relief to Mrs. Fordyce to find Gladys alone with Miss Peck. She had quite expected to meet the objectionable girls in the drawing-room, but there were no evidences of their presence in the house at all, nor did Gladys allude to them in any way.
She had a thousand and one questions to ask about them all, and appeared so affectionately interested in everything pertaining to the family, that Mr. Fordyce could not forbear casting a rather triumphant glance at his wife.
'As the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet has come to the mountain,' he said in his good-natured way. 'You should have heard the doleful conversation about you at breakfast this morning. Were your ears not ringing?'
'No, I had something more serious to take up my attention,' said Gladys a trifle soberly. 'I hope you have come to stay a few days—until to-morrow, at least?'
'Are all your other guests away?' inquired Mrs. Fordyce, with the faintest trace of hardness in her voice.
'Christina Balfour is here still. Her companion left this morning rather suddenly,' said Gladys, and it was evident that she felt rather distressed. 'In fact, she ran away from Bourhill.'
'Indeed!' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, in astonishment.'Why should she have run away? It would have been quite sufficient, surely, for her to have said she wished to return to Glasgow. You were not keeping her here against her will, I presume?'
'No,' replied Gladys a trifle unsteadily. 'I cannot say she has treated us well. It was a very silly as well as a wrong proceeding to get up in the middle of the night and leave the door wide open, as she did. She has disappointed me very much.'
Mrs. Fordyce looked at Gladys in a kind of wonder. Her candour and her justness were as conspicuous as her decision of character. It evidently cost her pride no effort to admit that she had made a mistake, though the admission was proof of the correct prophecy made by Mrs. Fordyce when the hot words had passed between them concerning Liz at Bellairs Crescent. Mrs. Fordyce, however, was generous enough to abstain from undue triumph.
'Well, well, my dear, we all make mistakes, though we don't all admit so readily as you have done that they are mistakes,' she said good-humouredly. 'I suppose the girl felt the restraint of this quiet life too much. What was her occupation before she came down? I don't know that I heard anything about her.'
'She was once a mill girl with Mr. Fordyce,' answered Gladys. 'She is the girl who disappeared, don't you remember?—Walter Hepburn's sister.'
'Oh!'
The lawyer drew a long breath.
'Perhaps it is just as well she has disappeared again. I did not knowthatwas the girl all the talk was about. Well, are you not tired of this quiet life yet?'
'Oh no; I like it very much. But when will you allow the girls to come down, Mrs. Fordyce? I thinkit is too bad that they have never yet paid me a proper visit at Bourhill.'
'They are talking of London again—wheedling their poor dear papa, as they do every May. I think you must go with us again, my dear.'
'Yes, I should like that,' replied Gladys, with brightening face; and Mrs. Fordyce perceived that she had sustained a very severe disappointment, which had made her for the time being a trifle discontented with her own fair lot.
She took an early opportunity, when Gladys conducted her to the guest-chamber, to put another question to her.
'Gladys, how long is it since George was here?'
'I have never seen him since that night in your house, when he didn't come up to the drawing-room,' answered Gladys calmly.
'But he has written, I suppose?'
'No; nor have I.'
'My dear girl, this is very serious,' said Mrs. Fordyce gravely. 'What was the difference about? You will tell me, my dear? I have your best interests at heart, but I cannot help thinking it is rather soon to disagree.'
'I don't think we disagreed, only I said I should ask whom I like to Bourhill. Surely that was within my rights?' said Gladys proudly.
'Oh yes, to a certain degree, but not when you harbour questionable characters—yes, I repeat it, questionable characters, such as the girl who ran off this morning I hope you counted your spoons to-day, Gladys?'
Gladys could have laughed, only she was too miserable.
'Oh, what absurd mistakes you make!' was all she said.
'Not so very absurd, I think. Well, as I said, I think George only showed that he had a proper regard for you and your peculiar position here. We know the world, my love; you do not. I think now, surely, you will allow us to be the judges of what is best for you?'
'I think he has behaved shamefully to me, not having come, or even written, for so long, and I don't think I can forgive him. Think, if he were to treat me so after I was his wife, how dreadful it would be. It would certainly break my heart.'
'My dear, the cases are not parallel. When you are his wife your interests will be identical, and there never will be any dispute.'
Gladys shook her head. She did not feel at all sure of any such thing.
'I cannot help thinking, my dear child, that the sooner you are married the better it will be for you. You are too much isolated here, and that Miss Peck, good little woman though she is, is only an old sheep. I must for ever regret the circumstances which prevented Madame Bonnemain coming to Bourhill.'
Mrs. Fordyce felt the above conversation to be so unsatisfactory that she occupied herself before dinner in writing a letter to her nephew, in which she treated him to some very plain-speaking, and pointed out that unless he made haste to atone for past shortcomings, his chance of winning the heiress of Bourhill was not worth very much.
This letter reached the offender when he was seated at his father's breakfast-table with the other members of the family. He slipped it into his pocket, and his mother, keenly watching him, observed a curious look, half surprise, half relief, on his face. She was not therefore in the least surprised when he came to herimmediately after breakfast for a moment's private conversation.
'I've had a letter from Aunt Isabel, written at Bourhill last night; you can read it if you like.'
She took it from him eagerly, and perused it with intense interest. Like her son, she had really abandoned hope, and had accepted the silence of Gladys as her lover's final dismissal.
'This is extraordinary, George,' she said excitedly. 'The girl has been, and gone, evidently, and never uttered a word. Can you believe it?'
'I must. Gladys would not be fretting, as Aunt Isabel says she is, if she knew all that. What shall I do?'
His mother thought a moment. She had been very unhappy during the last two weeks, daily dreading the revelation of the miserable story which would make her idolised boy the centre of an unpleasant scandal. Her relief was almost too great, and it was a few minutes before she could collect her thoughts and gather up the scattered threads of her former ambition.
'You may have a chance yet. It is a slender one; but still I advise you to make instant use of it. Go down and make it up with Gladys, at any cost. If she has heard nothing, and is at all pliable, press for an early marriage.'
She gave the advice in all good faith, and without a thought of the great moral wrong she was committing. The supreme selfishness of her motherly idolatry blinded her to the cruel injustice she was meting out to the innocent girl whose heritage she coveted for her son. Yet she counted herself a Christian woman, and would have had nothing but indignant scorn for the individual who might presume to question her right to such a title.
This is no solitary or exceptional case. Such thingsare done daily, and religion is made the cloak to cover a multitude of sins. Mrs. Fordyce had so long striven to serve both God and Mammon that she had lost the fine faculty which can discern the dividing line. In other words, her conscience was dead, and allowed her to give this deplorable advice without a dissenting word.
'It would be deuced awkward,' said the amiable George, 'if anything were to come out after.'
'After marriage, you mean? Oh, there would be a scene, a few hysterics perhaps, and there the matter would be at an end. A wife can't afford to be so punctilious as a maiden fancy free. She has herself too much to lose.'
George accepted the maternal advice, and went out to Mauchline after business hours that very day.
RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'N'
ext afternoon Gladys herself drove the lawyer and his wife from Bourhill to the station.
'Now, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce, as they were about to part, 'I shall allow the girls to come down on Saturday, on condition that you return with them at the end of a week, prepared to accompany us to London.'
Gladys nodded, with a bright smile.
'Yes, I shall do everything you wish. I believe I am rather tired of having my own way, and I should not mind having a change, even from Bourhill.'
As they stood lingering a little over their good-byes, a train from Glasgow came puffing into the station, and, with a sudden gleam of expectation, Mrs. Fordyce glanced anxiously at the alighting passengers.
'My dear, why, there is George! actually George himself.'
Gladys cast a startled glance in the direction indicated and the colour mounted high to her brow, then faded quite, leaving her rather strikingly pale.
'Why does he come here?' she asked quickly, 'I have not asked him.'
'Unless you have broken off your engagement with him, Gladys, he has a right to come whether you ask him or not. Tom dear, here is our train now, and we must run over that bridge. We dare not miss it, I suppose?'
'I daren't, seeing I have to take the chair at a dinner in the Windsor Hotel to-night,' replied the lawyer; 'but if you like to remain a little longer, why not, Isabel?'
Mrs. Fordyce hesitated a moment. Her nephew was giving up his ticket to the collector at the little gate, and their train was impatiently snorting at the opposite platform.
'I had better go,' she decided quickly, as her husband began to run off. Turning to Gladys, she gave her a hasty kiss, and observed seriously,—
'Be kind to poor George, Gladys; he is very fond of you, and you can make anything of him you like. Write to me, like a dear, this evening, after he is away.'
She would have liked a word in her nephew's private ear also, but time forbade it. She waved her hand to him from the steps of the bridge, but he was so occupied looking at Gladys that he did not return her salutation.
Gladys stepped composedly into the phaeton, and, sitting up in rather a dignified way, accorded him a very calm, cool greeting. His demeanour was significant of a slight nervousness as he approached the carriage, not at all sure of his ground.
'I am in luck, Gladys,' he said, trying to speak with a natural gaiety. 'Have I your permission to take a seat beside you?'
'If you are going to Bourhill, of course you may,' she replied quite calmly; then, turning to the groom, she said, without any hesitation, 'You can walk home,William. Put my letters in at the post as you pass, and bring me five shillings' worth of stamps.'
The groom touched his hat, took the money and the letters, and walked off, indulging in a grin when his face was turned away from the occupants of the carriage.
'Shall I take the reins, Gladys?' inquired George, with a very bright look on his face. He perceived that, though there might be 'rows,' as he mentally expressed it, they would be of a mild nature, easily explained; the bolt hadnotfallen, if anything was to be gathered from her demeanour.
'No, thank you. I dislike sitting idle in a carriage. I always drive myself,' she said calmly, and, with a rather tighter hand than usual on the reins, she turned the ponies' heads, and even gave each a sharp flick with the whip, which sent them up the leafy road at a very smart pace.
'I have come to make my peace, Gladys, and it's awfully good of you to send the fellow away,' George began impressively. 'I'm in luck, I tell you. I pictured to myself a long dusty walk through the sunshine.'
'I sent him away because we had a long drive this morning, and I wanted Castor and Pollux to have an easier load to pull up the hill,' she replied. 'I suppose if I had allowed you to walk instead of William, it would have been rather rude.'
Her manner, though very calm and unruffled, was rather unpromising. George looked at her a trifle anxiously, as if hardly sure how to proceed.
'Are you awfully angry with me, Gladys? I always expected a letter from you. I thought you were so angry with me that I was afraid to write.'
'You were quite wrong, then. I was not angry at all. But why should I have written when you did not?'
This was rather unanswerable, and he hesitated amoment over his next words. He had to weigh them rather carefully for the ears of this singularly placid and self-possessed young lady, whose demeanour was so little index to her state of mind.
'Well, if I admit I was in the wrong all the time, though I really, upon my word, don't know very well what the row was about, will you forgive me?' he asked in his most irresistible manner, which was so far successful that the first approach to a smile he had seen since they met now appeared on her lips.
'You know very well what it was all about; you have not forgotten a word that passed, any more than I have,' she answered. 'But you ought to have written all the same. I am generous enough to admit, however, that you had more reason on your side than I was induced to admit that night. The experiment I tried has not been a success. Have you heard that Lizzie Hepburn has run away from us?'
He swallowed the choking sensation in his throat, and answered, with what indifference he could command,—
'Yes, I heard it.'
'And is that why you have come?' she asked, with a keen, curious glance at him,—'to crow over my downfall That is not generous in the least.'
'My darling, how can you think me capable of such meanness? Would it not be more charitable to think I came to condole and sympathise with you?'
'It would, of course,' she admitted, with a sigh; 'but I am rather suspicious of everybody. I am afraid I am not at all in a wholesome frame of mind.'
She looked so lovely as she uttered these words, her sweet face wearing a somewhat pensive, troubled look, that her lover felt that nothing would ever induce him to give her up. They had now left the town behind,and were on the brow of the hill where four roads meet. To the right stood the cosy homestead of Mossgiel, and to the left the whole expanse of lovely country, hill and field and wood, which had so often filled the soul of Burns with the lonely rapture of the poet's soul. Gladys never passed up that way without thinking of him, and it seemed to her sometimes that she shared with him that deep, yearning depression of soul which found a voice in the words—
'Man was made to mourn.'
The road was quite deserted. Its grassy slopes were white with the gowan, and in the low ragged hedges there were clumps of sweet-smelling hawthorn. All the fields were green and lovely with the promise which summer crowns and autumn reaps; and it was all so lovely a world that there seemed in it no room for care or sadness or any dismal thing. Being thus alone, with no witness to their happiness but the birds and the bees, the pair of lovers ought to have found it a golden hour; but something appeared still to stand between them, like a gaunt shadow keeping them apart.
'I have been awfully miserable, Gladys. You see, I didn't know what to do; you are so different from any girl I have ever met. I never know exactly what will please you and what will aggravate you. Upon my word, you have no idea what an amount of power you have in those frail little hands.'
Gladys smiled and coloured a little. She was not quite insensible to flattery; she was young enough to feel that it was rather pleasant, on the whole, to have so much power over a big handsome fellow like George Fordyce.
'I wish you would not talk so much nonsense,' she said quickly; but her tone was more encouraging, andwith a sudden inspiration George followed up his advantage. He put his arm round the slender waist, to the great amazement of Castor and Pollux, who, finding the firm hand relax on the reins, had no sort of hesitation about coming to an immediate stop.
'But, all the same, I'm going to keep hold of these little hands,' he said passionately, 'because they hold my happiness in their grasp, and I'm not going to allow them to torture me very much longer. How soon can you be ready to marry me, Gladys?'
'To marry you! Oh, not for ages. Let me go. Just look at the ponies! They are utterly scandalised,' she cried, her sweet face suffused with red. But he did not release her until he had stolen a kiss from her unwilling lips, a kiss which seemed to him to bridge entirely the slight estrangement which had been between them.
She sat very far away from him, and, gathering up the reins again, brought Castor and Pollux to their scattered senses; but her face was not quite so grim and unreadable as before. After all, it was something to be of so much importance to one man. The very idea of her power over him had something intoxicating in it, thus proving her to be a very woman.
'I am going to London very soon with your Aunt Isabel and the girls,' she said, trying to lead the conversation into more commonplace grooves.
'And couldn't you see about your trousseau when you are there? Isn't London the place to get such things?' he asked. But Gladys calmly ignored this speech.
'I have engaged Christina Balfour to remain at least all summer at Bourhill. She can be useful to Miss Peck in many ways, and she is devoted to the place. Poor Lizzie has fearfully disappointed me. What would you advise me to do about her?'
'Nothing. There is nothing you can possibly do now but leave her alone,' he answered at once. 'Do you think it is wise to keep the other one here?'
'Oh yes; why not? I am really going to perfect that scheme for the working girls soon. Meantime, I think I have got a little disheartened; I am afraid I am not very brave. I hoped that you would help me in that.'
She turned to him with a look which no man living could resist.
'My darling, I'll do anything you wish. I'm not half good enough for you,' he cried, uttering this solemn truth with all sincerity. 'Only give me the right to be interested in all that interests you, and you'll find you can make of me what you like.'
Gladys was silent a moment, on her face a strange look. She was thinking, not of the lover pleading so passionately at her side, but of one who, while loving her not less dearly, had sufficient manliness and strength of will to go his way alone—conquering, unassisted, difficulties which would appear unsurmountable to most men. George Fordyce, looking at her, wondered at the cloud upon her brow.
'Promise me, my darling, that you won't keep me waiting too long. Surely three months is long enough for the making of the best trousseau any woman can want? Won't you promise to come to me in autumn, and let us have a lovely holiday, coming back in winter to work together in real earnest?'
She turned her head to him slowly, and her eyes met his with a long, questioning, half-pathetic look.
'In autumn? That is very soon,' she said. 'But, well, perhaps I will think about it, only you must let me be till I have made up my mind. Why, here we are already at home.'
RURAL SCENE, CHAPTER HEADER.
Ornamental capital 'I'
t was some days before Gladys could summon courage to write to Walter about his sister. Had she known the consequences of that delay she would have been profoundly unhappy; it gave Liz the chance, which she took advantage of, to get clear away from the city.
Through these bright days of the early summer Walter kept plodding on at his business, but life had lost its charm. He was, indeed, utterly sick at heart; all incentive to push on seemed to be taken from him, and the daily round was gone through mechanically, simply because it waited his attention on every hand. As is often the case when success becomes no longer an object of concern, it became an assured matter. Everything he touched seemed to pay him, and he saw himself, while yet in his young manhood, rapidly becoming rich. But this did not make him happy—ah, how utterly inadequate is wealth to the making of happiness how many have bitterly proved!—on the contrary, it made him yet more restless, moody, and discontented. Looking ahead, he saw nothing bright—a long stretch of grey years, which held nothing beautiful or satisfyingor worthy of attainment—a melancholy condition of mind, truly, for a young, prosperous, and healthy man. In the midst of this deep depression came the letter from Gladys conveying the news of Liz's sudden and strange flight from Bourhill. He smiled grimly when he read it, and, putting it in his pocket, returned to his work as if it concerned him not at all. Nevertheless, in the course of the afternoon, he left his place of business and took the car to Maryhill. Gladys had given him the address of Mrs. Gordon, with whom Liz had formerly lodged, and he felt himself impelled to make some listless inquiries there regarding her. The result was quite unsatisfactory. The landlady regarded him with considerable suspicion, and did not appear disposed to give him any information. But after repeated questioning, Walter elicited from her the fact that Mrs. Gordon had gone to Dublin with the Eighty-Fifth Regiment, and she believed Miss Hepburn was with her. Walter thanked the woman and went his way, scarcely affected one way or the other, at least to outward seeming. Liz was lost. Well, it fitted in with the rest of his dreary destiny; her ultimate fate, which could not be far off, weaved only some darker threads into the grey web of life.
Next morning Gladys received an answer to her letter, and it made her feel very strange when she read it. It ran thus:—
'Colquhoun Street,Thursday Night.'Dear Miss Graham,—I received your kind letter this morning, and I thank you for acquainting me with my sister's departure from Bourhill. The news did not surprise me at all. I was only astonished that she stayed so long. This afternoon I called at the addressyou gave me, and the landlady informed me that Mrs. Gordon has gone to Dublin with the Eighty-Fifth Regiment, taking my sister with her. After this there is nothing we can do. Poor Liz is lost, and we need not blame her too hardly. You reproved me once for calling myself the victim of circumstances, but I ask you to think of her as such with what kindness you can. Of one thing we may be sure, her punishment will far exceed her sin.—Thanking you for all your past kindness, and wishing you in the future every good thing, I am, yours sincerely,Walter Hepburn.'
'Colquhoun Street,Thursday Night.
'Dear Miss Graham,—I received your kind letter this morning, and I thank you for acquainting me with my sister's departure from Bourhill. The news did not surprise me at all. I was only astonished that she stayed so long. This afternoon I called at the address
you gave me, and the landlady informed me that Mrs. Gordon has gone to Dublin with the Eighty-Fifth Regiment, taking my sister with her. After this there is nothing we can do. Poor Liz is lost, and we need not blame her too hardly. You reproved me once for calling myself the victim of circumstances, but I ask you to think of her as such with what kindness you can. Of one thing we may be sure, her punishment will far exceed her sin.—Thanking you for all your past kindness, and wishing you in the future every good thing, I am, yours sincerely,Walter Hepburn.'
It was a sad letter, conveying a great deal more than was actually expressed. Gladys threw it from her, and, laying her head on her hands, sobbed bitterly.
'My dear,' cried the little spinster, in sympathetic concern, 'don't break your heart. You have done a great deal—far more, I assure you, than almost any one else would have done. You cannot help the poor girl having chosen the way of transgressors.'
'It is not Liz I am crying for at present, Miss Peck,' said Gladys mournfully; 'it is for Walter. It is a heartbreaking letter. I cannot, dare not, comfort him. I must take it to Christina to read.'
She picked it up, and ran to the stillroom, where the happy and placid Teen sat by the open window with some sewing in her hand, love making the needle fly in and out with a wondrous speed. Her resentment against Liz for her ingratitude had taken the edge off her grief, and she was disposed to be as hard upon her as the rest of the world.
'Oh, Teen, I have had a letter from Walter. I shall read it to you. It is dreadful!' Gladys cried; and, with trembling voice, she read the epistle to the little seamstress. 'Isn'tit dreadful? Away to Dublin! What will she do there?'
Teen laid down her sewing and looked at Gladys with the simplest wonder in her large eyes. She could scarcely believe that a human being could be so entirely innocent and unsuspecting as Gladys Graham, for it was quite evident she did not really know what Walter meant by saying Liz was lost.
'He says her punishment will be greater than her sin, whatever he means. Do you know what he means?'
'Ay, fine,' was Teen's reply, and her mouth trembled.
'Tell me, then. I want to understand it,' cried Gladys, with a touch of impatience. 'There have been things kept from me; and if I had known everything I could have done more for her, and perhaps she would not have run away.'
'There was naething kept frae ye; if ye hadna been a perfect bairn in a'thing, ye wad hae seen through a'thing. That was why a' the folks—yer grand freen's, I mean—were sae angry because ye had Liz here. But I believed in her mysel' up till she ran awa'. Although a lassie's led awa' she's no' aye lost; but I doot, I doot—an' noo Liz is waur than we thocht.'
Gladys stood as if turned to stone. Slowly a dim comprehension seemed to dawn upon her; and it is no exaggeration to say that it was a shock of agony.
'Do you mean to say that the poor girl is really bad, that she has deliberately chosen a wicked life?' she asked in a still, strained voice.
Teen gravely nodded, and her lips trembled still more.
'And what will be the end of it? What will become of her, Teen?'
'The streets; an' she'll dee in a cellar, or an hospital, maybe, if she's fortunate enough to get into wan; an' it'll no' be lang either,' said Teen, in a quite matter-of-fact way, as if it were the merest commonplace detail. 'She has nae strength; wan winter will finish her.'
Here the composure of the little seamstress gave way, and, dropping her heavy head on the sunny window-sill, she too wept passionately over the ruin of the girl she had loved. But Gladys wept no more. Standing there in the long yellow shaft cast by the sunshine, memory took her back to a never-to-be-forgotten night, when an old man and a maiden child had toiled through the streets of Glasgow after midnight, and how the throng of the streets had bewildered the wondering child, and had made her ask questions which never till this time had been satisfactorily answered.
'I begin to understand, Teen,' she said slowly, with a shiver, as if a cold wind had passed over her. 'Life is even sadder than I thought. I wonder how God can bear to have it so. I cannot bear it even in thought.'
She went out into the sunny garden, and, casting herself on the soft green sward, wept her heart out over the new revelation which had come to her. Never had life seemed so bitter, so mysterious, so unjust. What matter that she was surrounded by all that was lovely and of good report, when outside, in the great dark world, such things could be? For the first time Gladys questioned the goodness of God. Looking up into the cloudless blue of the summer sky, she wondered that it could smile so benignly upon a world so cursed by sin. Little Miss Peck, growing anxious about her, at last came out, and bade her get up and attend to the concerns of the day waiting for her.
'You know, my dear, we can't stand still thoughanother perverse soul has chosen the broad road,' she said, trying to speak with a great deal of worldly wisdom. 'I see it is very hard upon you, because you have never been brought into contact with such things, but as you grow older, and gain more experience, you will learn to regard them philosophically. It is the only way.'
'Philosophically?' repeated Gladys slowly. 'What does that mean, Miss Peck? If it means that we are to think lightly of them, then I pray I may be spared acquiring such philosophy. Is there nothing we can do for Lizzie even yet, Miss Peck?'
She broke off suddenly, with a pathetic wistfulness which brought the tears to the little spinster's eyes.
'Is there no way we can save her? Teen says she will die in a cellar or an hospital. Can you bear to think of it, and not try to do something?'
Miss Peck hesitated a moment. It was an extremely delicate subject, and she feared to touch upon it; but there was no evading the clear, straight, questioning gaze of Gladys.
'I fear it is quite useless, my dear. It is almost impossible to reform such girls. I had a cousin who was matron of a home for them in Lancashire, and she gave me often rather a discouraging account of the work among them. You see, when a woman once loses her character she has no chance, the whole world is against her, and everybody regards her with suspicion. Sometimes, my love, I have felt quite wicked thinking of the inequality of the punishment meted out to men and women in this world. Women are the burden-bearers and the scapegoats always.'
Gladys rose up, weary and perplexed, her face looking worn and grey in the brilliant sunshine.
Her heart re-echoed the words of the little spinster; for the moment the loveliness of the earth seemed a mockery and a shame.
'Why is it so?' was the only question she asked.
Miss Peck shook her head. That great question, which has perplexed so many millions of God's creatures, was beyond her power of solution. But from that day it was seldom out of the mind of Gladys, robbing all the sweetness and the interest from her life.