CHAPTER XXVTHE ARCH-PLOTTERSLady Betty Neil, the aunt of the Drummonds, who lived with them at Garrion, was a Highland lady of the old school. She loved the Gaelic and deplored its increasing disuse in the Glen, she had all the lore of the North country at her finger-ends, and was, moreover, gifted with the second-sight.Certainly, when she received a peremptory telegram from her nephew on the second day after his departure for London, she evinced neither perturbation nor surprise."You go to London, Aunt Betty!" cried Kitty, open-mouthed. "What does he mean? How dare he? Let me see the telegram."Lady Betty, leaning on her ebony stick with her left hand, produced from her reticule the crumpled piece of pink paper bearing the summons."I need you in London. Will meet you to-morrow night. Euston, half-past six."Kitty looked from the telegram to her aunt's face and back again in sheer amaze. Never had Lady Betty looked more like "an ancestor," which was Sadie Rosmead's name for her.She was a picturesque old lady of great height and commanding mien, her hair and eyes still as black as sloes, her face beautiful still, in spite of its wrinkles--the face that had once been the toast of a county. She was the Drummonds' nearest relative, their mother's sister, in fact, and, though immensely wealthy, she had no fixed habitation of her own, and she had agreed to live at Garrion, at any rate until Neil brought home a wife.That he had found one now she did not doubt, and she hoped that he had. Isla Mackinnon was a woman after her own heart. Neil had confided to her the nature of the business that had taken him to London, but he had enjoined silence."Kitty can't hold her tongue, as you know, Aunt Betty. Besides, she's too thick at Achree at present, and I don't want them to get wind of it. This is a business that has to be done on the quiet.""Aunt Betty, what took Neil to London?" quoth Kitty with a severe expression on her piquant face. "You and he are keeping me in the dark. It isn't fair.""Neil has his reasons, my dear, and they are good ones, depend on it.""But you can't go to London by yourself, auntie! The thing's outrageous! It can't be contemplated for a moment. I must go with you to take care of you.""No, I'll take Lisbeth, and I must go and arrange matters with her now."Lady Betty was now seventy-four, but she was as straight and supple as a young birch tree. She carried a stick--not because she needed it, but because it was her whim to do so and because it had been given to her by an old sweetheart for a wager. She had never parted with it. It was her faithful companion by day, and at night it stood in a handy corner by her bed. Lady Betty had never married. But had any married wife a life so full of romance? This is not Lady Betty's story, however.She sniffed a love story afar off and rose to it with the keen scent of a war-horse for the fray. There she would be in her element--keen, shrewd, sympathetic, and full of common-sense. Neil had made no mistake in sending that telegram. He knew the hour had come, and the woman.Aunt Betty was as gay as a young girl over her preparations, which were so elaborate that Kitty felt called upon to remonstrate."Mind your own business, my dear. I know mine. A lassie like you can afford to rise and run. A woman like me must uphold the dignity of her age and position. Neil has not said what he wants me for. I must be prepared for any emergency."Kitty was speechless, consumed with curiosity and inordinately jealous. She travelled to Stirling, however, to put her aunt on the London train, and on the way back drove to Achree to acquaint the inmates with the astounding news of Lady Betty's departure for London, that gave her one hour's rare enjoyment and partly consoled her for being left behind.Lady Betty arrived at Euston as fresh and gay as when she had left Garrion in the raw of the winter morning, driving down Balquhidder in a blast of half-frozen rain.And Neil was on the platform to greet her, overjoyed at sight of her clever old face."You are a brick, Aunt Betty. But I knew you would come. How did you get rid of Kitty?""Not easily, my lad. But I did manage it. Lisbeth is here. Where are we going, and where can she ride? We want to talk together in the cab, you and I.""I have a brougham waiting. It's quite fair, and Lisbeth can go on the box. We are going to Brown's Hotel."Lady Betty nodded an approval. She was known at Brown's. In the old days, when she had been a figure in London society, she had often spent a season there."It's Isla Mackinnon, of course. Where is she?""She's with an old servant of Achree living in a place off the Edgeware Road, from which you will fetch her to-morrow," said Neil quietly."And do what with her?""That's for you to say.""Tell me about her.--everything you can or will. I must know how I stand, and where. It's not for nothing that an old woman of seventy-four rises and runs at a young man's bidding."Neil nodded comprehendingly, and in his quickest and most graphic way he put her in possession of the facts."It's an unco story," she said, folding her slender hands with an unusual grip on the ebony stick. "It's not a story that Donald Mackinnon would have liked to bear in connexion with his one ewe lamb. I'm glad he's in Balquhidder," she said brusquely. "But the spunk of the lassie! There's grit there Neil Drummond! She'll fight--ay, and starve, but nobody shall know of it. That's the true spirit that has made Scotland great! It's in the women yet, Neil, but it's scarce, very scarce among the men."Neil had no time for platitudes. His head was a whirl of plans."Does Isla know I'm coming?" asked the old lady then."Yes. She expects you to-morrow.""Has she left herself in your hands, then, lad?" asked Lady Betty with a curious straight glance under which Neil reddened."So far. She's run down, body and spirit, Aunt Betty. I want you to realize that before you see her. She--she has lost grip. My God, to see Isla Mackinnon like that! It makes me itch to get with my two hands at Mackinnon's throat!""Leave him out of the count, Neil. His Maker will deal with him, I dinna doubt," said the old lady quietly. "Then, she's to be turned over to me to do with what I think fit.""Yes, and what she will agree to.""But this is a big thing, Neil. Does it mean that one day she will come to Garrion?""Please God, it does mean that. But only a brute would think of himself at such a time. She must first be made well in body and spirit, Auntie Betty. I'll come in later.""But if she's let you do all this she must like you, Neil. Isla Mackinnon is not the woman to take favours of this kind from frem folk.""Wait till you see her," he pleaded, and she said no more.She ate an astonishingly big dinner, insisting on going down to the restaurant, dressed in an elegant gown of rich black satin, with priceless lace on the bodice and a diamond star glistening among its filmy folds. Many looked in the direction of the handsome young man and the still handsomer old lady and wondered who they were.Aunt Betty slept like a tired child the whole night long and rose at eight o'clock when Lisbeth brought her morning tea, every faculty alert and braced for the day's work.At half-past ten the brougham came again, and Neil drove with her to the end of the Edgeware Road, where he got down, saying that he would meet her at lunch at Brown's, whither she was to bring Isla if she could persuade her to come.Agnes Fraser herself joyfully opened the door to Lady Betty Neil. She was graciously recognized, and her welfare was asked for before Isla's name was even mentioned."Miss Isla is in her own room, my lady. Will you come up? A very dark mornin', isn't it? I hope you are not very tired wi' your journey."Lady Betty suitably replied, and, with the aid of the ebony stick, she climbed to "The Pictur Gallery," where Isla was sitting over the fire, very white and spent, but with a more restful look on her face than it had worn for many a day.She sprang up at the opening of the door."Lady Betty, Lady Betty! You came all this way to see me!" she cried breathlessly, holding out both her hands."Wheesht, my dear--that's nothing. I loved your father well. I just missed being your mother: and if I had been there would have been none of this gallivanting. Where can I sit?"Isla drew in the most comfortable chair she could find, and the old lady sat down and assumed her most characteristic attitude, in which the ebony stick played a prominent part."We're not going to talk about what's past, Isla, nor even about what's to come. Our concern is with the present moment. Now I have plumed my feathers and flown from Balquhidder, I've no mind to go back until the sun begins to shine again. Will you go with me to-morrow to the south of France? I've not been there for eleven years. We'll go to Monty, my dear, and have a fling with the bravest of them. It stands to reason that I can't go alone. Will ye go?"Isla sat very still, and from the expression of her face her thoughts could not have been gathered. Perhaps the old lady partly guessed them. The gift of second-sight brings in its train a sort of sixth sense that enables its possessor to be sure about things that other people only wonder about."But I have no money, Lady Betty, and it is Kitty that you ought to take.""Kitty can come by and by. Besides, she has been so many times there that she is not caring about going any more. As for the money, I have plenty, and soon I shall not need it. We don't take it with us when we lie down in Balquhidder, my dear. And to spend a little here and there while we have it--why, that's a big pleasure, and it is one that you ought not to deny an auld wife."It was delicately done. Isla raised her swimming eyes and capitulated in a moment. The prospect allured her beyond any power of hers to tell, and no feeling of obligation to Lady Betty troubled her. One fine nature responds to another. It was what Isla herself would have done in similar circumstances--what, indeed, she had often done on a small scale in the glens when she had the chance. The kinship of good deeds was between them, and there is none closer.An immense satisfaction shone in the old lady's eyes at this unexpectedly easy capture of the fort. They positively glowed with her inward triumph, and, without so much as alluding to the odd circumstances that had brought them together, she proceeded to expatiate on what they would do when they got away to the sunshine. This was the crowning touch of the wisdom that comes from the second-sight.Isla was sick to death of herself and of the sordid problems of her life. What she wanted was to get away from everything that would remind her of them, and, above all, from the people that would talk about them."I have no smart clothes for the Riviera, Lady Betty. But take me as your maid.""Lisbeth is here," was the grim answer. "I can get a maid for the hiring, but companions and friends have to be won. I suppose you have things to cover you, and, if I mind rightly, the shops at Nice were not that bad, though they put it on for the English. But you and me will get the better of them. Come then, my dear, and we'll go back to Brown's to lunch and talk about all our plans."Then an odd shyness seemed to come over the girl."Neil will be there, Lady Betty?""Yes, I suppose that he will.""Then, will you excuse me? I--I haven't got over things yet. Did he tell you how he found me?""In a general way he did, but Neil has not his sister's gift of the gab. You have to fill in with him. Of this you may be sure, Isla--that Neil Drummond will not tell to me, or to anybody a thing that would vex or humble you. He has set you up there!" she added with a slight upward inflection of her eyebrows as well as of her voice. "So come, and remember that you and I are not women with a past, but only with a future."Cackling at her own joke, she carried off Isla, who met Neil in the luncheon-room of the restaurant in a way which commanded Lady Betty's highest admiration. Isla Mackinnon was no fool. She was neither hysterical nor emotional. Lady Betty knew that in what the girl had done her reason had fully justified her, though her method perhaps had been at fault. She guessed that in the sunny days to come she would hear the full story, or at least enough of it to enable her to fill in all the gaps.Neil's manner was also admirable, and they appeared just like a happy little family party, of which the old lady was the life and soul.That evening after dinner, over the fire in Lady Betty's sitting-room, she indicated to her nephew his course of action."It will not be a good thing for you to come with us just now, Neil. We can make the journey by ourselves and get settled. Then I'll write."Disappointment immediately wrote itself large upon his face. He had already wired to Garrion for another trunk to be sent and he had looked forward to being the director of the little travelling party to the south."I am understanding Isla better than you, my dear, and just at the present moment the sight of you humiliates her just a wee bit. She canna forget how you found her and the weakness she thought she betrayed. She has to get over that, and she will do it all the quicker if you are not on the spot.""But, hang it all, Aunt Betty, to go back to Garrion--and Christmas without you, too! I won't do it!""I didn't lay down the law as to times and seasons. What is at the back of my mind is that you will bring Kitty to Nice, or to Monte Carlo, or to wherever we have settled ourselves, and spend Christmas with us. Then folk will not have any talk about us, because I, of course, can do as I like and nobody dare say a word."Neil's face brightened as he consulted his pocket-diary."This is the fifth, so we shall come inside of three weeks.""You will come when I bid ye--not a moment sooner or later," she said severely. "Don't forget how you hauled the old wife from the Garrion fastnesses to the gay world again. Now she must have her revenge."When Neil did not answer she leaned forward on the ebony stick, and her eyes grew soft and luminous."Listen, lad. Ye may trust your Aunt Betty. She is not without knowledge of a woman's heart. If Isla is to be won it will take time and some skill. Her heart is asleep, but if I can waken it it shall be done. Do you think I am to be idle in these three weeks? I think ye may safely leave her in my hands. I will be true to your cause, for I would dearly like to see her in the house of Garrion for all our sakes as well as for her own."It was Neil's turn to capitulate, which he did with all the grace he could muster.Next day at two o'clock of the afternoon he saw his aunt and Isla off by the boat-train at Charing Cross, and thereafter he got ready for his own return at night to Scotland. There was nothing to keep him in London now, and he had left certain loose ends of his affairs at home which would be none the worse of his handling.At the station Isla had broken down, trying to thank him with a faint, wavering smile on her pathetic lips."Don't, Isla, for God's sake, don't! It's down on my knees I'd go to serve you, and besides, we made the pact--didn't we?--that day long ago when we went to Glasgow together and lunched at St. Enoch's. I've lived on the memory of that day all these months. Don't grudge me what I've been able to do now. Besides, it's nothing but what Highland folk are doing for one another every day."Lady Betty, observing the emotional moment, frowned upon him warningly from the background, and he tried to restrain himself. When the train fairly moved out Isla leaned out of the window to wave to him, and when she drew back to her seat her eyes were still wet."I've a job with that laddie, Isla. He's very thrawn. I'm often thinking I'll wash my hands of him and Kate. What with his dour temper and her tongue, my life is not as peaceful as a woman of my years has the right to expect.""Neil--a dour temper, Lady Betty!" cried Isla spiritedly. "This is the first I have heard of it, and I don't believe it now!""It's there, my dear. And forby, in some things he hasna the sense of a paitrick on the moor. I'm tired of them both, I tell ye, and glad to get away."Oh, the wily old plotter! Isla would have argued the point with her and was only restrained from doing so by her sense of decency. But this was the line of diplomacy Lady Betty started on--belittling Neil up to a certain point and voicing her relief at being rid of his company until Isla waxed furious and championed him both by spoken word and in her secret thoughts all the way south.Lady Betty, a real diplomatist in her way, took care, however, not to overact her part. She would throw in at intervals a judicious word which had the odd effect in casting a full glare of sunshine on all that was best of Neil and so giving unexpected glimpses of his fine young manhood. Then, after a time, she left the subject in order that her words might filter down to the bed-rock of Isla's heart.Very grey and dour seemed Balquhidder and the Garrion hills when Drummond drove up in the snell winter morning, meeting a bitter wind that seemed to skin his face."All right at home, Hamish?" he asked the groom, and, being answered in the affirmative, he spoke no further word until they turned in at the Garrion gate."Miss Kitty is at Achree, sir. They came and fetched her away the day you left," observed Hamish stolidly."Why didn't you tell me that at the station?" inquired Neil rather hotly, to which question the man answered never a word."I took the telegram over last nicht, sir, and she will come back to-day," he said after a moment in the same stolid fashion, wondering what had happened in London to shorten his master's usually placid temper.Kitty arrived in the Achree motor, alone, about luncheon-time."I want to hear all about Isla, Neil," she cried. "I thought I should find her here. What have you done with her and Aunt Betty?""They have gone to the South of France.""Oh!" said Kitty, and her piquant face fell. "I don't call that fair of Aunt Betty. She might have taken me.""If you're a good girl and don't talk too much between now and Christmas," said Neil provokingly, "I'll take you myself to be there in time for Christmas."Kitty danced in ecstasy."Oh, I shall be glad. It's going to be a frightfully dismal Christmas here this year, and nobody is going to do any entertaining. The Rosmeads are all down in the mouth because their brother can't get away for Christmas, and now it may be Easter, or even later, before they see him. Bridge-building seems to be a very unsatisfactory business, though you make so much money at it. Peter Rosmead has to work like a navvy. He goes down into caissons--and things in diver's clothes to the bottom of the river. That's where the difficulty is. Things are always happening--silting, and queer things like that. Then the work has to be done all over again. He seems annoyed about it, but he'll keep on at it. He hasn't got that square jaw for nothing," cried Kitty breathlessly. "Well, tell me all about Isla Mackinnon. What has she been doing all this time?""Nothing particular. There isn't any romance or tragedy--or anything. She was simply living with an old servant of Achree and getting very sick of it. She would have come home soon, anyway.""Did she seem glad to see you?""Isla doesn't say much at any time. But, yes--I think she was glad. Have you seen anything of Mackinnon at Achree, Kitty?""Why, yes. I've seen him every day. He spends the most of his time there, and I think it's going to be a match between him and Vivien."The colour rose a little in Drummond's cheeks."I should have thought that she would have had enough of matrimony after her experience," he observed drily."I should have thought so, too, Neil. And at first I was angry at Malcolm, thinking he was only after her money. But now anybody can see that he cares. I wonder how long it will be before we hear the news, and what Isla will say."Drummond had got fresh food for reflection. Knowing what he did of Malcolm Mackinnon, he wondered just how much or how little the Rosmeads guessed. It was a certain fact that had they known the whole truth about Malcolm Mackinnon he never would have been permitted so much intimacy at Achree.But the thought uppermost in Neil's mind was an unholy joy that caissons, and silt, and other queer things, as Kitty put it, were keeping Peter Rosmead safely out of the way at the bottom of the Delaware River. He would not have minded much though he had never come up again.CHAPTER XXVITHE LURE OF VIVIENSix weeks later, on a snowy January day, Neil Drummond rode one of his big roans to the Lodge of Creagh, where he had a luncheon appointment with Malcolm Mackinnon. It was one o'clock when he breasted the last bit of rising ground and beheld in front of him the little house standing sheer on the edge of the Moor of Silence, its bleak outline silhouetted against the clear grey of the sky.The smell of Margaret Maclaren's baked meats was in his nostrils as he turned in at the gate, whetting the appetite he had gained in his long ride from Garrion.Neil never looked better than when astride a horse, and he was the best judge of horse-flesh in all the Glen. In fact, that was his one extravagance. He was looking particularly well that day. There was an air of buoyancy about him which would not be repressed. He had whistled and sung all the way from Balquhidder and had given Pride of Garrion her head in a way which that damsel particularly liked and in which she had seldom before been indulged. Her sleek sides were wet with foam as she ran quivering to the door, tossing her pretty head, the breath coming fast in her delicate nostrils, life brimming over in every pore and muscle.Malcolm, who had been watching, opened the door immediately, bade him good day, and in a word expressed his pleasure at sight of him.They walked together to the stable, where Neil himself rubbed down his horse, saw that she had a modest drink, covered her up, and then turned, ready to accompany his host back to the house."Had a good time abroad--eh?" asked Malcolm with a somewhat covert glance at Neil as they walked.Neil threw his head up with a joyous air."Ripping. It's a bit thick coming back to the grey silence of the glens. It's a white silence with us. We've heavy drifts from Balquhidder up. You're pretty free here.""It's coming, though," said Malcolm, with an upward glance at the snell skies. "Come inside. The house is small, but it's easily warmed. That's one comfort."When Neil had washed his hands and brushed his clothes they passed into the little snuggery, where Malcolm sat and smoked of an evening. He had made some little alteration in the arrangement of the house, and the room which the General had used as his library and sitting-room was now converted into a dining-room, which it had originally been. It was a man's house now, the few tokens of Isla's presence having long since disappeared.Whether Malcolm was able to keep the peace between his two elderly and contentious servants nobody knew. Truth to tell, he never bothered his head about them, and many a storm rose and raged in the kitchen and was followed by many a dead and ominous calm, but of these he seemed to be totally unaware. He had none of those finer shades of feeling which had rendered Isla immediately conscious of any rift in the domestic lute.Drummond stretched himself in the lounge-chair before the blazing peat with a sigh of content. He was in the mood to be at peace with the whole world and to give every man more than his due. It occurred to him as he looked at Malcolm, on whose face the full light from the window fell where he sat, that he had improved in looks of late. The coarseness had disappeared from his features, and there was an expression of refinement and delicacy which had been at one time wholly absent.It was such an improvement that Drummond decided that Mackinnon's looks had been underrated. The keen, hard, simple life, in conjunction with the pursuit of a certain lofty ideal, had wrought its saving grace in Malcolm Mackinnon, as it will in any man who gives it fair play."Surely you didn't stop away as long as you intended," said Malcolm as he lit up his pipe, while waiting for Diarmid's summons to eat."I was there three weeks--long enough to idle about, though I could have stopped three years," said Drummond significantly."Your sister didn't come home with you?""No. They haven't any plans just yet. Aunt Betty talks about staying over Easter, and if they stop as long of course I'll go back.""Nice, is it, or Monte Carlo?""Their headquarters are at Nice. My aunt has taken a villa. The old lady is going strong, and she is looking younger every day. What a warrior she is! She could give points to most of the girls one sees. She knows how to enjoy life at seventy-five. She had her birthday when I was there, and she had a dinner party of twelve. She has unearthed all sorts of old friends on the Riviera, and more are turning up every day. The latest is a Russian princess, whose mother was a Scotswoman somewhere away back in the dark ages. They're all having the time of their lives."Neil was making talk, and they both knew it. It was not to rehearse these trivial items that he had come up that day to the Moor of Creagh.Just then Diarmid made timely diversion by announcing that luncheon was served. His manner was irreproachable and dignified, and it could not have been excelled in the most distinguished establishment.It was a great day for Diarmid, and he waited behind his young master's chair with a secret pride, for the Laird of Garrion was a guest worthy of honour.The luncheon, though simple, was excellent, and they both enjoyed it to the full. A modest bottle of claret with the cheese just unloosed their tongues, and when Diarmid had left them Neil looked across the table very earnestly at Mackinnon's face."I don't suppose it will come as a very great surprise to you, Malcolm.""What?" asked Malcolm with a start."About Isla.""What about her? You saw her, of course. I didn't like to harry you with questions, but I suppose she's all right with Lady Betty. She has never written. I have managed, somehow, to commit the unpardonable sin where Isla is concerned. I'm sorry, but there isn't anything I can do now but wait her pleasure. You see it was she who cut the knot, so to speak."Neil nodded as he crumbled the biscuit on his plate."I don't know whether you know, Malcolm, that I have always wanted Isla. I've asked her to marry me on the average about twice a year for the last three or four years. Last year, I believe, I asked her six times.""Such persistence deserves its reward, and I hope you've got it, old chap," said Malcolm, but his tone lacked warmth.He could not understand the man who wanted Isla. To him she seemed lacking in most, if not all, of the qualities which make a woman desirable."She has said 'Yes' at last, Malcolm, and that's why I am here to-day," said Neil.And his hand trembled ever so slightly as it rested on the sheer white of the tablecloth."Well, and what's going to happen next?" said Malcolm with a curious dry note in his voice. "I'm glad, of course. It--it's a mighty relief to me to hear that anything is likely to anchor Isla or settle her. Though nobody may have given me credit for it, Neil, I've had many a bad hour--ay, and day--about her up here.""I suppose you have," said Neil. "But, all the same, I can't help saying that I don't think you ought to have left her as long as you did--in London, I mean. That's all past, however, and there isn't any use of going back on it now. It's the future, thank God, that concerns us. I hope ours is going to be very bright.""She has agreed to marry you, then? Is it likely to be soon?""What I should like, and what I'm hoping for, is that it may take place at Nice. I've had to leave the details to Aunt Betty, and they're safe with her. She's the most ripping General on earth. I owe this happiness to her, I don't doubt. There's a Scotch church there, and we could go south a bit for the honeymoon and get back to Garrion for the summer.""It sounds all right, and in that way you would escape all the fuss and talk of the glens," said Malcolm musingly."I wanted to see you, Malcolm, because you're the head of the house, and I must lay the position before you.""Oh, but there isn't any need, Neil,--between you and me, I mean. I haven't the right. Isla has always managed her own affairs, and she wouldn't like my interference now, I'm sure. Of course, anything I can do I should like to do if I'm permitted. I'd go out to Nice to give her away if she asked me.""We'll come to that later. I want to tell you that after I'm married we'll have Garrion to ourselves. My aunt will get a place for herself somewhere and take away Kitty. I'm not a very rich man, and you know what Highland estates are in these times. But--again it's Aunt Betty to the rescue. She says she'll give us ten thousand pounds as a wedding gift and that there will be more to come later on. So you see you needn't have any anxiety about Isla's financial position.""I couldn't have any in any case if she was in your hands," said Malcolm with difficulty. "Ten thousand pounds and Garrion clear! By Gad, Neil, you're a lucky beggar! Try to put yourself in my place for a moment and see whether you wouldn't have some crumbs of pity for a poor devil who can't make ends meet and who is just as anxious to have a home as you can possibly be."A something swept over Malcolm's face--a spasm of infinite yearning which oddly moved Neil Drummond. Happiness brings out all that is best in a man. He forgot all his doubts of Malcolm Mackinnon, all his secret and open blame of him, and he was able even to bury his anger against him for his treatment of Isla as he stretched his hand across the table to grasp Malcolm's."Never mind, old chap. The luck will turn. It's bound to sooner or later, you know. No man goes through the hards from first to last."Malcolm shook his head."I suppose most men get the luck they deserve," he said a little heavily.Later, these words recurred with poignancy to Drummond's mind.They smoked another pipe of peace together in the den afterwards, and about half-past three Drummond took his horse once more and rode through the fine powder of the newly-fallen snow towards the home that was now illumined by so many stars of promise.A strange restlessness was upon Malcolm Mackinnon when he was left alone, and, after a little deliberation, he took to his horse--the poor common cob that had so often filled Drummond with compassion for the man who had to mount it--and rode slowly down Glenogle.Though not bred in any of the glens, the cob had learned the way to Achree and needed no guiding when he came to the gate. Achree, with the delicate powder of the snow lying upon it and lightly touching the exquisite tracery of the trees, was a dream-place that looked the fit cradle for a thousand lovely hopes.Malcolm took his horse to the stables, and when he presented himself at the door asked for Mrs. Rodney Payne."She has gone to the village, to the post, sir," the man answered.This information caused Malcolm to turn about and walk away without another word. What he had to say were perhaps better said in the open, where none could hear and where there would be room to breathe and to think. He had a die to cast that day which would make or mar the rest of his life.It was below the Darrach Brig he met Vivien walking alone with step a little fleet, the snow sprinkled over her long coat and lightly powdering her beautiful hair. She was pleased to see him, but her colour did not rise, nor were there about her any of the signs the impatient lover can interpret to his own joy.That was the lure of Vivien. She was so still, like the waters of Loch Earn on the quiet autumn days or in the hush of the early morning when the dawn was waking upon its breast."It is not a day for you to be out in. We are going to have a great storm. At Creagh, Diarmid predicts the drift of the year. You must be more careful of yourself.""Oh, but I love it!" she cried, her eyes lighting up. "There is something ethereal in it all. I should like to walk on and on in it to the limit of the world. Have you been at the house, and is there nobody at home?""I asked only for you," he made answer, greatly daring.But still the clear paleness of her face had no touch of flame upon it."I had Drummond to lunch. Perhaps you met him? He went down the Glen in front of me. I didn't ride with him, because I couldn't pit my sorry old hack against his fine bit of horse-flesh.""He does have lovely horses, and he loves them--and don't they know it!" said Vivien musingly. "Even a horse thrives best in an atmosphere of appreciation and of kindly care.""And that's a true word, Mrs. Payne. May I tell you about Drummond and what was his business with me to-day? It was a bit of family business, but I hope you will do me the honour to be interested in it.""Surely, if you care to tell me I shall be interested," she answered without a moment's hesitation."You know, of course, that he has just come back from Nice?""I knew he had gone anyhow, because Sadie has had budgets from Kitty.""And you know, too, that my sister is there with Lady Betty Neil?""Yes," she answered quietly, "I knew that, too.""She is going to marry Drummond," said Malcolm then, not looking at her.It did not occur to him that she could have any acute personal interest in the news. As for Rosmead, in his absence he had in more senses than one dropped out of the count."She is going to marry Neil Drummond!" said Vivien after a while, and her voice was a little faint as if the news staggered her. "How very extraordinary and unexpected!""Why do you say that?" he asked anxiously."Well, because, somehow, one never expected to hear that in this world. Did you?""I wasn't surprised. He has been in love with her since they were children. He told me he had asked her six times last year.""Oh!" said Vivien with a little gasp. "Then one can only hope that they will be very happy," she added, as if recovering herself by an effort of the will.But her reception of the news was all very half-hearted, and Malcolm was deeply disappointed."I thought you would be pleased.""I am, if you are. I suppose you would like Mr. Drummond for a brother-in-law.""Drummond is a very good sort. But what chiefly pleases me is that Isla will have a proper home at Garrion and the position she ought to have. It's a fine old place, and Drummond will be a rich man one day when Lady Betty Neil is done with her money. She is to give them ten thousand pounds as a wedding present.""'The Ancestor' has come up to expectation," said Vivien with a little smile. "Have you heard from your sister? Is she very happy?""I haven't heard from her," he answered lamely. "I'll be writing this evening. May I send her a message from you?""If you like. But I shall write myself--unless she is coming home soon.""That is unlikely. Drummond talks of a marriage at the Scotch church at Nice. In that case I, of course, would have to go there. But nothing can be arranged till I have heard from Isla.""Don't you feel a little sore because she did not write to tell you herself?" asked Vivien straightly and in a puzzled voice.The relations between Mackinnon and his sister had always puzzled and saddened Vivien, and in her heart of hearts she had sometimes blamed Isla. At other times, recalling the glimpse of the real woman she had obtained on that never-to-be-forgotten day at the Lodge of Creagh, she wondered whether there was not something in the background which, if known, would have explained everything and justified Isla."Well, you see, we are not a writing family, and I was so long abroad that we got a little out of touch," said Malcolm lamely again.Vivien was fully conscious that there was evasion in the answer, but it was not her business to probe into depths with which she had no personal concern.Quite suddenly Malcolm stood still on the road and looked at her straightly with a kind of dull fire in his eyes."Vivien, I must speak! I haven't the right, for there is very little I have to offer you. But I love you as my own soul--no, as some higher thing, for my soul is a poor thing to mate with yours. Will you--will you--be my wife?"He had often anticipated this hour and had conned in secret the phrases in which he would plead with this woman for his very life.But all the fine, set phrases fell away from him and left him bare, so that he could only blurt out his immense desire in words that had no grace of diction to commend them. Yet they were warmed by an honest passion, and they reached the heart of the woman to whom they were spoken and awoke some response in her eyes.But she put up her hand as if she would ward off that which she feared."Oh, don't!" she said rather brokenly. "I don't want to hear it. I--I am afraid!""Afraid of what?" he asked.And a new-born tenderness enveloped him and lifted him up from base depths to the full height of the manhood that ought to have been his had he not trailed his heritage in the dust. "Not afraid of me, my--my--darling?" he said, and it was as if the torrent was let loose. "Listen. This once will I speak, and then be silent, if you bid me, for ever. I am not worthy of you. No man could be--but I am less worthy than most. Yet if you would stoop and give the chance to prove what a man might be and could be for your sake I should worship you to the last day of my life and make your happiness, and that only, my chiefest care. For God's sake, don't send me away! At least give me a crumb of comfort. If I had but known there was a woman like you somewhere in the world--my God, if I had only known!"The anguish of his voice appealed to the very woman in her, and, though her face was very white, she stretched out a trembling hand and touched his arm."Don't speak like that. It--it hurts me," she said, and her whole body seemed to quiver as if all the springs of being were stirred. "You have never heard my story. You can't know that I, too, have been down in the depths. I have suffered all, I think, that a woman can suffer. And now, I am afraid! It is--it is so terrible a thing when one is bound and there is no hope."It was all she could permit herself to say, but the unstudied intensity of her words was more self-revealing than any deliberate account of her unhappy married life could have been.Malcolm stood awed before it, and knew for the first time in his life what a white thing the soul of a good woman can be, and how great are the sufferings that can rend it.And in that moment he knew that he had not the right to take her life into his; that there were no floods deep enough to wash him clean enough to mate with this woman who had been down in the depths--and who knew."Don't you see I am so afraid! I could not live through it a second time. I don't know you well. And I am afraid! Let us put it away now, and let us be friends, as we have been.""It can't be," said Malcolm simply. "If that is your final answer, I will go away out of the Glen and never set foot in it again.""Oh, but that would be terrible! It is I who can go, for what does it matter where I live now? This is your place. These are your people. You can't leave them. You ought to be proud that you were born here and that Achree is yours. It is a place that grows into one's heart. I love it more than any place I have ever seen.""Then keep it, stay in it! Come to me, Vivien, and bless it and me," he said, moved to an eloquence which amazed even himself. "I make no pretensions. I have not been what a man should be. But there is nothing I would not try to be and to do for your sake."She shivered slightly, but there was wavering in her eyes."I vowed I would never marry again. I have been often asked," she said simply. "But I have always given the same answer. It is a little harder to-day--that is all."She suffered her eyes to meet his, and the next moment his arms were round about her, and he knew that he had won.It was a strange wooing, and when Vivien crept back to the house, knowing that she had pledged herself to another venture on the sea of matrimony, her eyes had unfathomed depths in them.Yet when she went to her mother's side she said never a word about her own story, but with a little accent of sad wonder in her voice asked, "Mother, Isla Mackinnon is going to marry Drummond of Garrion and who is going to tell Peter?"
CHAPTER XXV
THE ARCH-PLOTTERS
Lady Betty Neil, the aunt of the Drummonds, who lived with them at Garrion, was a Highland lady of the old school. She loved the Gaelic and deplored its increasing disuse in the Glen, she had all the lore of the North country at her finger-ends, and was, moreover, gifted with the second-sight.
Certainly, when she received a peremptory telegram from her nephew on the second day after his departure for London, she evinced neither perturbation nor surprise.
"You go to London, Aunt Betty!" cried Kitty, open-mouthed. "What does he mean? How dare he? Let me see the telegram."
Lady Betty, leaning on her ebony stick with her left hand, produced from her reticule the crumpled piece of pink paper bearing the summons.
"I need you in London. Will meet you to-morrow night. Euston, half-past six."
Kitty looked from the telegram to her aunt's face and back again in sheer amaze. Never had Lady Betty looked more like "an ancestor," which was Sadie Rosmead's name for her.
She was a picturesque old lady of great height and commanding mien, her hair and eyes still as black as sloes, her face beautiful still, in spite of its wrinkles--the face that had once been the toast of a county. She was the Drummonds' nearest relative, their mother's sister, in fact, and, though immensely wealthy, she had no fixed habitation of her own, and she had agreed to live at Garrion, at any rate until Neil brought home a wife.
That he had found one now she did not doubt, and she hoped that he had. Isla Mackinnon was a woman after her own heart. Neil had confided to her the nature of the business that had taken him to London, but he had enjoined silence.
"Kitty can't hold her tongue, as you know, Aunt Betty. Besides, she's too thick at Achree at present, and I don't want them to get wind of it. This is a business that has to be done on the quiet."
"Aunt Betty, what took Neil to London?" quoth Kitty with a severe expression on her piquant face. "You and he are keeping me in the dark. It isn't fair."
"Neil has his reasons, my dear, and they are good ones, depend on it."
"But you can't go to London by yourself, auntie! The thing's outrageous! It can't be contemplated for a moment. I must go with you to take care of you."
"No, I'll take Lisbeth, and I must go and arrange matters with her now."
Lady Betty was now seventy-four, but she was as straight and supple as a young birch tree. She carried a stick--not because she needed it, but because it was her whim to do so and because it had been given to her by an old sweetheart for a wager. She had never parted with it. It was her faithful companion by day, and at night it stood in a handy corner by her bed. Lady Betty had never married. But had any married wife a life so full of romance? This is not Lady Betty's story, however.
She sniffed a love story afar off and rose to it with the keen scent of a war-horse for the fray. There she would be in her element--keen, shrewd, sympathetic, and full of common-sense. Neil had made no mistake in sending that telegram. He knew the hour had come, and the woman.
Aunt Betty was as gay as a young girl over her preparations, which were so elaborate that Kitty felt called upon to remonstrate.
"Mind your own business, my dear. I know mine. A lassie like you can afford to rise and run. A woman like me must uphold the dignity of her age and position. Neil has not said what he wants me for. I must be prepared for any emergency."
Kitty was speechless, consumed with curiosity and inordinately jealous. She travelled to Stirling, however, to put her aunt on the London train, and on the way back drove to Achree to acquaint the inmates with the astounding news of Lady Betty's departure for London, that gave her one hour's rare enjoyment and partly consoled her for being left behind.
Lady Betty arrived at Euston as fresh and gay as when she had left Garrion in the raw of the winter morning, driving down Balquhidder in a blast of half-frozen rain.
And Neil was on the platform to greet her, overjoyed at sight of her clever old face.
"You are a brick, Aunt Betty. But I knew you would come. How did you get rid of Kitty?"
"Not easily, my lad. But I did manage it. Lisbeth is here. Where are we going, and where can she ride? We want to talk together in the cab, you and I."
"I have a brougham waiting. It's quite fair, and Lisbeth can go on the box. We are going to Brown's Hotel."
Lady Betty nodded an approval. She was known at Brown's. In the old days, when she had been a figure in London society, she had often spent a season there.
"It's Isla Mackinnon, of course. Where is she?"
"She's with an old servant of Achree living in a place off the Edgeware Road, from which you will fetch her to-morrow," said Neil quietly.
"And do what with her?"
"That's for you to say."
"Tell me about her.--everything you can or will. I must know how I stand, and where. It's not for nothing that an old woman of seventy-four rises and runs at a young man's bidding."
Neil nodded comprehendingly, and in his quickest and most graphic way he put her in possession of the facts.
"It's an unco story," she said, folding her slender hands with an unusual grip on the ebony stick. "It's not a story that Donald Mackinnon would have liked to bear in connexion with his one ewe lamb. I'm glad he's in Balquhidder," she said brusquely. "But the spunk of the lassie! There's grit there Neil Drummond! She'll fight--ay, and starve, but nobody shall know of it. That's the true spirit that has made Scotland great! It's in the women yet, Neil, but it's scarce, very scarce among the men."
Neil had no time for platitudes. His head was a whirl of plans.
"Does Isla know I'm coming?" asked the old lady then.
"Yes. She expects you to-morrow."
"Has she left herself in your hands, then, lad?" asked Lady Betty with a curious straight glance under which Neil reddened.
"So far. She's run down, body and spirit, Aunt Betty. I want you to realize that before you see her. She--she has lost grip. My God, to see Isla Mackinnon like that! It makes me itch to get with my two hands at Mackinnon's throat!"
"Leave him out of the count, Neil. His Maker will deal with him, I dinna doubt," said the old lady quietly. "Then, she's to be turned over to me to do with what I think fit."
"Yes, and what she will agree to."
"But this is a big thing, Neil. Does it mean that one day she will come to Garrion?"
"Please God, it does mean that. But only a brute would think of himself at such a time. She must first be made well in body and spirit, Auntie Betty. I'll come in later."
"But if she's let you do all this she must like you, Neil. Isla Mackinnon is not the woman to take favours of this kind from frem folk."
"Wait till you see her," he pleaded, and she said no more.
She ate an astonishingly big dinner, insisting on going down to the restaurant, dressed in an elegant gown of rich black satin, with priceless lace on the bodice and a diamond star glistening among its filmy folds. Many looked in the direction of the handsome young man and the still handsomer old lady and wondered who they were.
Aunt Betty slept like a tired child the whole night long and rose at eight o'clock when Lisbeth brought her morning tea, every faculty alert and braced for the day's work.
At half-past ten the brougham came again, and Neil drove with her to the end of the Edgeware Road, where he got down, saying that he would meet her at lunch at Brown's, whither she was to bring Isla if she could persuade her to come.
Agnes Fraser herself joyfully opened the door to Lady Betty Neil. She was graciously recognized, and her welfare was asked for before Isla's name was even mentioned.
"Miss Isla is in her own room, my lady. Will you come up? A very dark mornin', isn't it? I hope you are not very tired wi' your journey."
Lady Betty suitably replied, and, with the aid of the ebony stick, she climbed to "The Pictur Gallery," where Isla was sitting over the fire, very white and spent, but with a more restful look on her face than it had worn for many a day.
She sprang up at the opening of the door.
"Lady Betty, Lady Betty! You came all this way to see me!" she cried breathlessly, holding out both her hands.
"Wheesht, my dear--that's nothing. I loved your father well. I just missed being your mother: and if I had been there would have been none of this gallivanting. Where can I sit?"
Isla drew in the most comfortable chair she could find, and the old lady sat down and assumed her most characteristic attitude, in which the ebony stick played a prominent part.
"We're not going to talk about what's past, Isla, nor even about what's to come. Our concern is with the present moment. Now I have plumed my feathers and flown from Balquhidder, I've no mind to go back until the sun begins to shine again. Will you go with me to-morrow to the south of France? I've not been there for eleven years. We'll go to Monty, my dear, and have a fling with the bravest of them. It stands to reason that I can't go alone. Will ye go?"
Isla sat very still, and from the expression of her face her thoughts could not have been gathered. Perhaps the old lady partly guessed them. The gift of second-sight brings in its train a sort of sixth sense that enables its possessor to be sure about things that other people only wonder about.
"But I have no money, Lady Betty, and it is Kitty that you ought to take."
"Kitty can come by and by. Besides, she has been so many times there that she is not caring about going any more. As for the money, I have plenty, and soon I shall not need it. We don't take it with us when we lie down in Balquhidder, my dear. And to spend a little here and there while we have it--why, that's a big pleasure, and it is one that you ought not to deny an auld wife."
It was delicately done. Isla raised her swimming eyes and capitulated in a moment. The prospect allured her beyond any power of hers to tell, and no feeling of obligation to Lady Betty troubled her. One fine nature responds to another. It was what Isla herself would have done in similar circumstances--what, indeed, she had often done on a small scale in the glens when she had the chance. The kinship of good deeds was between them, and there is none closer.
An immense satisfaction shone in the old lady's eyes at this unexpectedly easy capture of the fort. They positively glowed with her inward triumph, and, without so much as alluding to the odd circumstances that had brought them together, she proceeded to expatiate on what they would do when they got away to the sunshine. This was the crowning touch of the wisdom that comes from the second-sight.
Isla was sick to death of herself and of the sordid problems of her life. What she wanted was to get away from everything that would remind her of them, and, above all, from the people that would talk about them.
"I have no smart clothes for the Riviera, Lady Betty. But take me as your maid."
"Lisbeth is here," was the grim answer. "I can get a maid for the hiring, but companions and friends have to be won. I suppose you have things to cover you, and, if I mind rightly, the shops at Nice were not that bad, though they put it on for the English. But you and me will get the better of them. Come then, my dear, and we'll go back to Brown's to lunch and talk about all our plans."
Then an odd shyness seemed to come over the girl.
"Neil will be there, Lady Betty?"
"Yes, I suppose that he will."
"Then, will you excuse me? I--I haven't got over things yet. Did he tell you how he found me?"
"In a general way he did, but Neil has not his sister's gift of the gab. You have to fill in with him. Of this you may be sure, Isla--that Neil Drummond will not tell to me, or to anybody a thing that would vex or humble you. He has set you up there!" she added with a slight upward inflection of her eyebrows as well as of her voice. "So come, and remember that you and I are not women with a past, but only with a future."
Cackling at her own joke, she carried off Isla, who met Neil in the luncheon-room of the restaurant in a way which commanded Lady Betty's highest admiration. Isla Mackinnon was no fool. She was neither hysterical nor emotional. Lady Betty knew that in what the girl had done her reason had fully justified her, though her method perhaps had been at fault. She guessed that in the sunny days to come she would hear the full story, or at least enough of it to enable her to fill in all the gaps.
Neil's manner was also admirable, and they appeared just like a happy little family party, of which the old lady was the life and soul.
That evening after dinner, over the fire in Lady Betty's sitting-room, she indicated to her nephew his course of action.
"It will not be a good thing for you to come with us just now, Neil. We can make the journey by ourselves and get settled. Then I'll write."
Disappointment immediately wrote itself large upon his face. He had already wired to Garrion for another trunk to be sent and he had looked forward to being the director of the little travelling party to the south.
"I am understanding Isla better than you, my dear, and just at the present moment the sight of you humiliates her just a wee bit. She canna forget how you found her and the weakness she thought she betrayed. She has to get over that, and she will do it all the quicker if you are not on the spot."
"But, hang it all, Aunt Betty, to go back to Garrion--and Christmas without you, too! I won't do it!"
"I didn't lay down the law as to times and seasons. What is at the back of my mind is that you will bring Kitty to Nice, or to Monte Carlo, or to wherever we have settled ourselves, and spend Christmas with us. Then folk will not have any talk about us, because I, of course, can do as I like and nobody dare say a word."
Neil's face brightened as he consulted his pocket-diary.
"This is the fifth, so we shall come inside of three weeks."
"You will come when I bid ye--not a moment sooner or later," she said severely. "Don't forget how you hauled the old wife from the Garrion fastnesses to the gay world again. Now she must have her revenge."
When Neil did not answer she leaned forward on the ebony stick, and her eyes grew soft and luminous.
"Listen, lad. Ye may trust your Aunt Betty. She is not without knowledge of a woman's heart. If Isla is to be won it will take time and some skill. Her heart is asleep, but if I can waken it it shall be done. Do you think I am to be idle in these three weeks? I think ye may safely leave her in my hands. I will be true to your cause, for I would dearly like to see her in the house of Garrion for all our sakes as well as for her own."
It was Neil's turn to capitulate, which he did with all the grace he could muster.
Next day at two o'clock of the afternoon he saw his aunt and Isla off by the boat-train at Charing Cross, and thereafter he got ready for his own return at night to Scotland. There was nothing to keep him in London now, and he had left certain loose ends of his affairs at home which would be none the worse of his handling.
At the station Isla had broken down, trying to thank him with a faint, wavering smile on her pathetic lips.
"Don't, Isla, for God's sake, don't! It's down on my knees I'd go to serve you, and besides, we made the pact--didn't we?--that day long ago when we went to Glasgow together and lunched at St. Enoch's. I've lived on the memory of that day all these months. Don't grudge me what I've been able to do now. Besides, it's nothing but what Highland folk are doing for one another every day."
Lady Betty, observing the emotional moment, frowned upon him warningly from the background, and he tried to restrain himself. When the train fairly moved out Isla leaned out of the window to wave to him, and when she drew back to her seat her eyes were still wet.
"I've a job with that laddie, Isla. He's very thrawn. I'm often thinking I'll wash my hands of him and Kate. What with his dour temper and her tongue, my life is not as peaceful as a woman of my years has the right to expect."
"Neil--a dour temper, Lady Betty!" cried Isla spiritedly. "This is the first I have heard of it, and I don't believe it now!"
"It's there, my dear. And forby, in some things he hasna the sense of a paitrick on the moor. I'm tired of them both, I tell ye, and glad to get away."
Oh, the wily old plotter! Isla would have argued the point with her and was only restrained from doing so by her sense of decency. But this was the line of diplomacy Lady Betty started on--belittling Neil up to a certain point and voicing her relief at being rid of his company until Isla waxed furious and championed him both by spoken word and in her secret thoughts all the way south.
Lady Betty, a real diplomatist in her way, took care, however, not to overact her part. She would throw in at intervals a judicious word which had the odd effect in casting a full glare of sunshine on all that was best of Neil and so giving unexpected glimpses of his fine young manhood. Then, after a time, she left the subject in order that her words might filter down to the bed-rock of Isla's heart.
Very grey and dour seemed Balquhidder and the Garrion hills when Drummond drove up in the snell winter morning, meeting a bitter wind that seemed to skin his face.
"All right at home, Hamish?" he asked the groom, and, being answered in the affirmative, he spoke no further word until they turned in at the Garrion gate.
"Miss Kitty is at Achree, sir. They came and fetched her away the day you left," observed Hamish stolidly.
"Why didn't you tell me that at the station?" inquired Neil rather hotly, to which question the man answered never a word.
"I took the telegram over last nicht, sir, and she will come back to-day," he said after a moment in the same stolid fashion, wondering what had happened in London to shorten his master's usually placid temper.
Kitty arrived in the Achree motor, alone, about luncheon-time.
"I want to hear all about Isla, Neil," she cried. "I thought I should find her here. What have you done with her and Aunt Betty?"
"They have gone to the South of France."
"Oh!" said Kitty, and her piquant face fell. "I don't call that fair of Aunt Betty. She might have taken me."
"If you're a good girl and don't talk too much between now and Christmas," said Neil provokingly, "I'll take you myself to be there in time for Christmas."
Kitty danced in ecstasy.
"Oh, I shall be glad. It's going to be a frightfully dismal Christmas here this year, and nobody is going to do any entertaining. The Rosmeads are all down in the mouth because their brother can't get away for Christmas, and now it may be Easter, or even later, before they see him. Bridge-building seems to be a very unsatisfactory business, though you make so much money at it. Peter Rosmead has to work like a navvy. He goes down into caissons--and things in diver's clothes to the bottom of the river. That's where the difficulty is. Things are always happening--silting, and queer things like that. Then the work has to be done all over again. He seems annoyed about it, but he'll keep on at it. He hasn't got that square jaw for nothing," cried Kitty breathlessly. "Well, tell me all about Isla Mackinnon. What has she been doing all this time?"
"Nothing particular. There isn't any romance or tragedy--or anything. She was simply living with an old servant of Achree and getting very sick of it. She would have come home soon, anyway."
"Did she seem glad to see you?"
"Isla doesn't say much at any time. But, yes--I think she was glad. Have you seen anything of Mackinnon at Achree, Kitty?"
"Why, yes. I've seen him every day. He spends the most of his time there, and I think it's going to be a match between him and Vivien."
The colour rose a little in Drummond's cheeks.
"I should have thought that she would have had enough of matrimony after her experience," he observed drily.
"I should have thought so, too, Neil. And at first I was angry at Malcolm, thinking he was only after her money. But now anybody can see that he cares. I wonder how long it will be before we hear the news, and what Isla will say."
Drummond had got fresh food for reflection. Knowing what he did of Malcolm Mackinnon, he wondered just how much or how little the Rosmeads guessed. It was a certain fact that had they known the whole truth about Malcolm Mackinnon he never would have been permitted so much intimacy at Achree.
But the thought uppermost in Neil's mind was an unholy joy that caissons, and silt, and other queer things, as Kitty put it, were keeping Peter Rosmead safely out of the way at the bottom of the Delaware River. He would not have minded much though he had never come up again.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LURE OF VIVIEN
Six weeks later, on a snowy January day, Neil Drummond rode one of his big roans to the Lodge of Creagh, where he had a luncheon appointment with Malcolm Mackinnon. It was one o'clock when he breasted the last bit of rising ground and beheld in front of him the little house standing sheer on the edge of the Moor of Silence, its bleak outline silhouetted against the clear grey of the sky.
The smell of Margaret Maclaren's baked meats was in his nostrils as he turned in at the gate, whetting the appetite he had gained in his long ride from Garrion.
Neil never looked better than when astride a horse, and he was the best judge of horse-flesh in all the Glen. In fact, that was his one extravagance. He was looking particularly well that day. There was an air of buoyancy about him which would not be repressed. He had whistled and sung all the way from Balquhidder and had given Pride of Garrion her head in a way which that damsel particularly liked and in which she had seldom before been indulged. Her sleek sides were wet with foam as she ran quivering to the door, tossing her pretty head, the breath coming fast in her delicate nostrils, life brimming over in every pore and muscle.
Malcolm, who had been watching, opened the door immediately, bade him good day, and in a word expressed his pleasure at sight of him.
They walked together to the stable, where Neil himself rubbed down his horse, saw that she had a modest drink, covered her up, and then turned, ready to accompany his host back to the house.
"Had a good time abroad--eh?" asked Malcolm with a somewhat covert glance at Neil as they walked.
Neil threw his head up with a joyous air.
"Ripping. It's a bit thick coming back to the grey silence of the glens. It's a white silence with us. We've heavy drifts from Balquhidder up. You're pretty free here."
"It's coming, though," said Malcolm, with an upward glance at the snell skies. "Come inside. The house is small, but it's easily warmed. That's one comfort."
When Neil had washed his hands and brushed his clothes they passed into the little snuggery, where Malcolm sat and smoked of an evening. He had made some little alteration in the arrangement of the house, and the room which the General had used as his library and sitting-room was now converted into a dining-room, which it had originally been. It was a man's house now, the few tokens of Isla's presence having long since disappeared.
Whether Malcolm was able to keep the peace between his two elderly and contentious servants nobody knew. Truth to tell, he never bothered his head about them, and many a storm rose and raged in the kitchen and was followed by many a dead and ominous calm, but of these he seemed to be totally unaware. He had none of those finer shades of feeling which had rendered Isla immediately conscious of any rift in the domestic lute.
Drummond stretched himself in the lounge-chair before the blazing peat with a sigh of content. He was in the mood to be at peace with the whole world and to give every man more than his due. It occurred to him as he looked at Malcolm, on whose face the full light from the window fell where he sat, that he had improved in looks of late. The coarseness had disappeared from his features, and there was an expression of refinement and delicacy which had been at one time wholly absent.
It was such an improvement that Drummond decided that Mackinnon's looks had been underrated. The keen, hard, simple life, in conjunction with the pursuit of a certain lofty ideal, had wrought its saving grace in Malcolm Mackinnon, as it will in any man who gives it fair play.
"Surely you didn't stop away as long as you intended," said Malcolm as he lit up his pipe, while waiting for Diarmid's summons to eat.
"I was there three weeks--long enough to idle about, though I could have stopped three years," said Drummond significantly.
"Your sister didn't come home with you?"
"No. They haven't any plans just yet. Aunt Betty talks about staying over Easter, and if they stop as long of course I'll go back."
"Nice, is it, or Monte Carlo?"
"Their headquarters are at Nice. My aunt has taken a villa. The old lady is going strong, and she is looking younger every day. What a warrior she is! She could give points to most of the girls one sees. She knows how to enjoy life at seventy-five. She had her birthday when I was there, and she had a dinner party of twelve. She has unearthed all sorts of old friends on the Riviera, and more are turning up every day. The latest is a Russian princess, whose mother was a Scotswoman somewhere away back in the dark ages. They're all having the time of their lives."
Neil was making talk, and they both knew it. It was not to rehearse these trivial items that he had come up that day to the Moor of Creagh.
Just then Diarmid made timely diversion by announcing that luncheon was served. His manner was irreproachable and dignified, and it could not have been excelled in the most distinguished establishment.
It was a great day for Diarmid, and he waited behind his young master's chair with a secret pride, for the Laird of Garrion was a guest worthy of honour.
The luncheon, though simple, was excellent, and they both enjoyed it to the full. A modest bottle of claret with the cheese just unloosed their tongues, and when Diarmid had left them Neil looked across the table very earnestly at Mackinnon's face.
"I don't suppose it will come as a very great surprise to you, Malcolm."
"What?" asked Malcolm with a start.
"About Isla."
"What about her? You saw her, of course. I didn't like to harry you with questions, but I suppose she's all right with Lady Betty. She has never written. I have managed, somehow, to commit the unpardonable sin where Isla is concerned. I'm sorry, but there isn't anything I can do now but wait her pleasure. You see it was she who cut the knot, so to speak."
Neil nodded as he crumbled the biscuit on his plate.
"I don't know whether you know, Malcolm, that I have always wanted Isla. I've asked her to marry me on the average about twice a year for the last three or four years. Last year, I believe, I asked her six times."
"Such persistence deserves its reward, and I hope you've got it, old chap," said Malcolm, but his tone lacked warmth.
He could not understand the man who wanted Isla. To him she seemed lacking in most, if not all, of the qualities which make a woman desirable.
"She has said 'Yes' at last, Malcolm, and that's why I am here to-day," said Neil.
And his hand trembled ever so slightly as it rested on the sheer white of the tablecloth.
"Well, and what's going to happen next?" said Malcolm with a curious dry note in his voice. "I'm glad, of course. It--it's a mighty relief to me to hear that anything is likely to anchor Isla or settle her. Though nobody may have given me credit for it, Neil, I've had many a bad hour--ay, and day--about her up here."
"I suppose you have," said Neil. "But, all the same, I can't help saying that I don't think you ought to have left her as long as you did--in London, I mean. That's all past, however, and there isn't any use of going back on it now. It's the future, thank God, that concerns us. I hope ours is going to be very bright."
"She has agreed to marry you, then? Is it likely to be soon?"
"What I should like, and what I'm hoping for, is that it may take place at Nice. I've had to leave the details to Aunt Betty, and they're safe with her. She's the most ripping General on earth. I owe this happiness to her, I don't doubt. There's a Scotch church there, and we could go south a bit for the honeymoon and get back to Garrion for the summer."
"It sounds all right, and in that way you would escape all the fuss and talk of the glens," said Malcolm musingly.
"I wanted to see you, Malcolm, because you're the head of the house, and I must lay the position before you."
"Oh, but there isn't any need, Neil,--between you and me, I mean. I haven't the right. Isla has always managed her own affairs, and she wouldn't like my interference now, I'm sure. Of course, anything I can do I should like to do if I'm permitted. I'd go out to Nice to give her away if she asked me."
"We'll come to that later. I want to tell you that after I'm married we'll have Garrion to ourselves. My aunt will get a place for herself somewhere and take away Kitty. I'm not a very rich man, and you know what Highland estates are in these times. But--again it's Aunt Betty to the rescue. She says she'll give us ten thousand pounds as a wedding gift and that there will be more to come later on. So you see you needn't have any anxiety about Isla's financial position."
"I couldn't have any in any case if she was in your hands," said Malcolm with difficulty. "Ten thousand pounds and Garrion clear! By Gad, Neil, you're a lucky beggar! Try to put yourself in my place for a moment and see whether you wouldn't have some crumbs of pity for a poor devil who can't make ends meet and who is just as anxious to have a home as you can possibly be."
A something swept over Malcolm's face--a spasm of infinite yearning which oddly moved Neil Drummond. Happiness brings out all that is best in a man. He forgot all his doubts of Malcolm Mackinnon, all his secret and open blame of him, and he was able even to bury his anger against him for his treatment of Isla as he stretched his hand across the table to grasp Malcolm's.
"Never mind, old chap. The luck will turn. It's bound to sooner or later, you know. No man goes through the hards from first to last."
Malcolm shook his head.
"I suppose most men get the luck they deserve," he said a little heavily.
Later, these words recurred with poignancy to Drummond's mind.
They smoked another pipe of peace together in the den afterwards, and about half-past three Drummond took his horse once more and rode through the fine powder of the newly-fallen snow towards the home that was now illumined by so many stars of promise.
A strange restlessness was upon Malcolm Mackinnon when he was left alone, and, after a little deliberation, he took to his horse--the poor common cob that had so often filled Drummond with compassion for the man who had to mount it--and rode slowly down Glenogle.
Though not bred in any of the glens, the cob had learned the way to Achree and needed no guiding when he came to the gate. Achree, with the delicate powder of the snow lying upon it and lightly touching the exquisite tracery of the trees, was a dream-place that looked the fit cradle for a thousand lovely hopes.
Malcolm took his horse to the stables, and when he presented himself at the door asked for Mrs. Rodney Payne.
"She has gone to the village, to the post, sir," the man answered.
This information caused Malcolm to turn about and walk away without another word. What he had to say were perhaps better said in the open, where none could hear and where there would be room to breathe and to think. He had a die to cast that day which would make or mar the rest of his life.
It was below the Darrach Brig he met Vivien walking alone with step a little fleet, the snow sprinkled over her long coat and lightly powdering her beautiful hair. She was pleased to see him, but her colour did not rise, nor were there about her any of the signs the impatient lover can interpret to his own joy.
That was the lure of Vivien. She was so still, like the waters of Loch Earn on the quiet autumn days or in the hush of the early morning when the dawn was waking upon its breast.
"It is not a day for you to be out in. We are going to have a great storm. At Creagh, Diarmid predicts the drift of the year. You must be more careful of yourself."
"Oh, but I love it!" she cried, her eyes lighting up. "There is something ethereal in it all. I should like to walk on and on in it to the limit of the world. Have you been at the house, and is there nobody at home?"
"I asked only for you," he made answer, greatly daring.
But still the clear paleness of her face had no touch of flame upon it.
"I had Drummond to lunch. Perhaps you met him? He went down the Glen in front of me. I didn't ride with him, because I couldn't pit my sorry old hack against his fine bit of horse-flesh."
"He does have lovely horses, and he loves them--and don't they know it!" said Vivien musingly. "Even a horse thrives best in an atmosphere of appreciation and of kindly care."
"And that's a true word, Mrs. Payne. May I tell you about Drummond and what was his business with me to-day? It was a bit of family business, but I hope you will do me the honour to be interested in it."
"Surely, if you care to tell me I shall be interested," she answered without a moment's hesitation.
"You know, of course, that he has just come back from Nice?"
"I knew he had gone anyhow, because Sadie has had budgets from Kitty."
"And you know, too, that my sister is there with Lady Betty Neil?"
"Yes," she answered quietly, "I knew that, too."
"She is going to marry Drummond," said Malcolm then, not looking at her.
It did not occur to him that she could have any acute personal interest in the news. As for Rosmead, in his absence he had in more senses than one dropped out of the count.
"She is going to marry Neil Drummond!" said Vivien after a while, and her voice was a little faint as if the news staggered her. "How very extraordinary and unexpected!"
"Why do you say that?" he asked anxiously.
"Well, because, somehow, one never expected to hear that in this world. Did you?"
"I wasn't surprised. He has been in love with her since they were children. He told me he had asked her six times last year."
"Oh!" said Vivien with a little gasp. "Then one can only hope that they will be very happy," she added, as if recovering herself by an effort of the will.
But her reception of the news was all very half-hearted, and Malcolm was deeply disappointed.
"I thought you would be pleased."
"I am, if you are. I suppose you would like Mr. Drummond for a brother-in-law."
"Drummond is a very good sort. But what chiefly pleases me is that Isla will have a proper home at Garrion and the position she ought to have. It's a fine old place, and Drummond will be a rich man one day when Lady Betty Neil is done with her money. She is to give them ten thousand pounds as a wedding present."
"'The Ancestor' has come up to expectation," said Vivien with a little smile. "Have you heard from your sister? Is she very happy?"
"I haven't heard from her," he answered lamely. "I'll be writing this evening. May I send her a message from you?"
"If you like. But I shall write myself--unless she is coming home soon."
"That is unlikely. Drummond talks of a marriage at the Scotch church at Nice. In that case I, of course, would have to go there. But nothing can be arranged till I have heard from Isla."
"Don't you feel a little sore because she did not write to tell you herself?" asked Vivien straightly and in a puzzled voice.
The relations between Mackinnon and his sister had always puzzled and saddened Vivien, and in her heart of hearts she had sometimes blamed Isla. At other times, recalling the glimpse of the real woman she had obtained on that never-to-be-forgotten day at the Lodge of Creagh, she wondered whether there was not something in the background which, if known, would have explained everything and justified Isla.
"Well, you see, we are not a writing family, and I was so long abroad that we got a little out of touch," said Malcolm lamely again.
Vivien was fully conscious that there was evasion in the answer, but it was not her business to probe into depths with which she had no personal concern.
Quite suddenly Malcolm stood still on the road and looked at her straightly with a kind of dull fire in his eyes.
"Vivien, I must speak! I haven't the right, for there is very little I have to offer you. But I love you as my own soul--no, as some higher thing, for my soul is a poor thing to mate with yours. Will you--will you--be my wife?"
He had often anticipated this hour and had conned in secret the phrases in which he would plead with this woman for his very life.
But all the fine, set phrases fell away from him and left him bare, so that he could only blurt out his immense desire in words that had no grace of diction to commend them. Yet they were warmed by an honest passion, and they reached the heart of the woman to whom they were spoken and awoke some response in her eyes.
But she put up her hand as if she would ward off that which she feared.
"Oh, don't!" she said rather brokenly. "I don't want to hear it. I--I am afraid!"
"Afraid of what?" he asked.
And a new-born tenderness enveloped him and lifted him up from base depths to the full height of the manhood that ought to have been his had he not trailed his heritage in the dust. "Not afraid of me, my--my--darling?" he said, and it was as if the torrent was let loose. "Listen. This once will I speak, and then be silent, if you bid me, for ever. I am not worthy of you. No man could be--but I am less worthy than most. Yet if you would stoop and give the chance to prove what a man might be and could be for your sake I should worship you to the last day of my life and make your happiness, and that only, my chiefest care. For God's sake, don't send me away! At least give me a crumb of comfort. If I had but known there was a woman like you somewhere in the world--my God, if I had only known!"
The anguish of his voice appealed to the very woman in her, and, though her face was very white, she stretched out a trembling hand and touched his arm.
"Don't speak like that. It--it hurts me," she said, and her whole body seemed to quiver as if all the springs of being were stirred. "You have never heard my story. You can't know that I, too, have been down in the depths. I have suffered all, I think, that a woman can suffer. And now, I am afraid! It is--it is so terrible a thing when one is bound and there is no hope."
It was all she could permit herself to say, but the unstudied intensity of her words was more self-revealing than any deliberate account of her unhappy married life could have been.
Malcolm stood awed before it, and knew for the first time in his life what a white thing the soul of a good woman can be, and how great are the sufferings that can rend it.
And in that moment he knew that he had not the right to take her life into his; that there were no floods deep enough to wash him clean enough to mate with this woman who had been down in the depths--and who knew.
"Don't you see I am so afraid! I could not live through it a second time. I don't know you well. And I am afraid! Let us put it away now, and let us be friends, as we have been."
"It can't be," said Malcolm simply. "If that is your final answer, I will go away out of the Glen and never set foot in it again."
"Oh, but that would be terrible! It is I who can go, for what does it matter where I live now? This is your place. These are your people. You can't leave them. You ought to be proud that you were born here and that Achree is yours. It is a place that grows into one's heart. I love it more than any place I have ever seen."
"Then keep it, stay in it! Come to me, Vivien, and bless it and me," he said, moved to an eloquence which amazed even himself. "I make no pretensions. I have not been what a man should be. But there is nothing I would not try to be and to do for your sake."
She shivered slightly, but there was wavering in her eyes.
"I vowed I would never marry again. I have been often asked," she said simply. "But I have always given the same answer. It is a little harder to-day--that is all."
She suffered her eyes to meet his, and the next moment his arms were round about her, and he knew that he had won.
It was a strange wooing, and when Vivien crept back to the house, knowing that she had pledged herself to another venture on the sea of matrimony, her eyes had unfathomed depths in them.
Yet when she went to her mother's side she said never a word about her own story, but with a little accent of sad wonder in her voice asked, "Mother, Isla Mackinnon is going to marry Drummond of Garrion and who is going to tell Peter?"