CHAPTER XIVIVIENIt was three o'clock of the afternoon before Rosmead got back to Achree, and he had not eaten any lunch. In the stable-yard he met his sister Vivien, who had gone round to look at some Aberdeen puppies, arrived that very morning."We have been wondering about your absence, Peter," she said with her quiet smile. "Have you had any lunch?""None. I have been up at the Lodge of Creagh. The old General is dead. Come back to the house, and I will tell you about it."A groom came forward to take the horse, and Rosmead, linking his arm in his sister's, walked her away. They were devotedly attached to each other, and the wreckage of his dear and beautiful sister's life at the hands of an unprincipled man had cast a deep cloud over Rosmead which could never wholly be lifted. For every time he looked at her face, every time he thought of the possibilities of her kind nature and of the long years of loneliness in front of her his soul was filled with a holy rage. On such occasions he would have killed his brother-in-law, and thought this no sin.Vivien Rosmead, made for love, uniting in her sweet nature all that is best in womanhood, all that makes for the precious things of life, had been cheated on its very threshold. But why had she been so blind, you ask? Why had not her finer sense warned her of the risk she ran? The answer is the one which has come from the lips of a vast army of sad women who have believed that their love could win and keep a man from his evil ways. In this some few have succeeded but a multitude have failed. Vivien had failed, and the irony and the misery of it had embittered Peter Rosmead beyond all telling."The old General dead!" echoed Vivien in astonishment. "But he was not even ill. His son has been here this morning and said he was very well.""He had a shock, and he died on the spot. Heart failure, I suppose. You are needed up there, Vivien. I want you to go to-day."Vivien looked at him questioningly, and seemed to shrink."But I don't know Miss Mackinnon, Peter. I've never even seen her. She has shown us very plainly that she does not wish to know us.""That is of no consequence. This sorrow lifts the things above all such considerations. She is a woman in need--a woman suffering acutely and terribly, and she is almost utterly alone. If mother were able she would go--you know that. You must take her place. May I go back now and order a trap.""There is plenty of time, Peter," she said, visibly shrinking yet. "It is never quite dark in these long, delightful days. Tell me what happened. Were you there with her when her father died?"Rosmead briefly explained how the death had occurred."And she thinks that it was the letter that killed him? How strange and sad! Did she give you no inkling as to what it contained?""No. But I have my own opinion--or rather suspicions. It has something to do with her brother. As I left the house and he entered it I heard her call him a murderer.""Oh, how dreadful and how unlikely!" cried Vivien in deepening bewilderment. "Malcolm Mackinnon does not strike one at all as that sort of person. He is so transparent--just like a big, jolly schoolboy. I like him so much."Rosmead was not surprised to hear it. Malcolm Mackinnon had paid many visits to Achree, where he had shown the very best and most lovable side of him. He had jested with the gay Sadie, had been serious and kindly and responsible when talking to Vivien, and had sat like an attentive son by Mrs. Rosmead's invalid couch. To Rosmead himself he had been simply a good comrade, and, on the whole, the American had no fault to find with him. Yet, somehow, these words, falling from Vivien's lips, disquieted him not a little."I'm afraid there's something behind it all. Probably Mackinnon has sowed his wild oats, and this is the aftermath. Anyway, the old man is dead, and she is in a dreadful state. Her eyes haunt me. It is a woman she needs--mothering, in fact, and if you could bring her right down here to mother it would be a Christian act. Where's Sadie?""Miss Drummond came to lunch and has taken her away to Balquhidder to show her Rob Roy's grave. Then they are going to Garrion to tea. What a bright creature she is! She kept us laughing right through lunch.""I'm rather glad, on the whole, that Sadie is not about. Well, dear, while you are getting ready I will see mother. I took a message from her to Creagh. Would you like me to go up with you, to drive you and wait outside, perhaps?""Just as you like. But perhaps, as you've only just come down, I had better go alone. We don't want to overwhelm her with Rosmeads."He nodded understandingly, and they parted on the stairs, Rosmead proceeding up one of the winding ways to his mother's room.They had not altered the interior of the old house in any way. They had only spent money to make it comfortable, covered bare stairs and passages with rich carpets of neutral tints, and gathered about them all the comforts and refinements which are at the command of wealth.Mrs. Rosmead occupied the General's chamber, which had a large dressing-room adjoining, and from its quaint little windows she could see the Loch and the hills beyond.She was a gentle, frail old lady, very small and delicately built, but her sweet face in its frame of snow-white hair had great strength.It was from her undoubtedly that Rosmead had inherited his decision of character, his deeply-rooted principles, his inflexible will. He was very like her physically, and he worshipped her. Up till now no woman had ousted her from the shrine of his heart. The relation between them was indeed idyllic and did much to keep the softer side of Rosmead in the foreground.Her keen, fine black eyes, so like his own, lifted themselves inquiringly to his face as he entered."Well, as you have taken such a long time to carry out my behest, I take it that you were well received, my son.""Yes, I was, but that is not what delayed me," he answered as he bent to kiss her.Then in a few words he made her acquainted with the tragedy of the morning. As she listened, full of grief and sympathy, she, unconsciously to herself, watched her son keenly. She saw that he was moved far beyond his wont, that his voice, when he spoke of Isla Mackinnon, vibrated with an entirely new note. And she wondered, and her desire to see the girl was quickened."She is the most desolate creature on God's earth, mother, and if only I could wrap you up in my arms and carry you to Creagh you could heal her with a touch, as you have so often healed your other children."The expression "your other children" impressed her. Could it be possible that already Peter's thoughts and longings had flown as far as the day when he should give another daughter to her heart?"You must bring her to me, dear. It is the only way.""Vivien is going up. Next to you, she will be the best to help her. It is a woman that she needs. All her life long apparently she has been fighting side by side with men.""Fighting!" repeated Mrs. Rosmead with a slight wonderment in her tone."Well, you know, she has had to do everything for and to be everything to the old man.""But how? He has a dear son, Peter. You must not be unjust to young Mackinnon. Oh, I have heard that they say things here in the Glen about him, but when he comes here and sits by me, I believe none of them. He only needs a little guiding, and I think I have gathered from him that his sister has been a little hard on him at times."Rosmead with Isla's most bitter cry in his ears, remained wholly unconvinced."The ins and outs of the story we don't know, mother. Perhaps we shall never know them. But of this I am sure--that Isla Mackinnon would be hard on no man without a cause. She is a splendid creature, and----""Peter, come here."The sweet voice was peremptory, the swift, humorous black eyes were compelling. He came obediently, as of old, to her side."Look straight at me--no, not like that!--very straight, Peter Rosmead. Is this to be the woman?""Yes, mother," he answered, with the simplicity of a big child. "Please God, it is.""Then bring her to me quickly, my son, that I may get to know and love her--ay, and to learn whether she is worthy of Peter Rosmead. I have never yet seen the woman who is."Peter laughed, in no way uplifted by her loving pride. His nature indeed was singularly unspoiled."It can't be done in such a desperate hurry. She is cold and fine, and, like her own hills, she is difficult of approach. I shall have to walk warily and win her slowly. But win her I shall or go unmarried to my grave."Thus did Peter Rosmead quite quietly dispose of the biggest thing that had come into his life. And his mother, watching the firm set of his square chin, the invincible light in his eyes, gloried in his strength, and had not the smallest doubt that he would attain the desire of his heart.Was any pang of disappointment hers? To every mother the moment when her son takes another woman to his heart is one of supreme pain. This is as inevitable as the law of life.But Mrs. Rosmead desired her son to marry, and she had kept him at her side a long time."So Vivien will go up? Is she getting ready now?""I think so.""Well, bring my writing-block and pencil, and I will write a message for Miss Mackinnon."He obeyed her, but she did not show him what she wrote. Nor was he curious to see it. He had never in all his life known her to do the wrong thing or speak the wrong word.She was a woman in whom grace was developed to a very high degree.Vivien came in presently, her slender, graceful figure enveloped in its capacious coat of Harris tweed, and a small neat toque of green velvet crowning her beautiful head."Peter has been telling you, mother. Do you think it is the right thing for me to do--to go to Creagh, I mean? I confess to a little hesitation. I am so afraid of intruding on her. Even the pride of old Virginia must pale before that of Glenogle.""Your heart will dictate the fitting word, my child. Give this to the poor girl, and if she will come to us here to rest awhile in the house where she was born we shall try not to make her feel that we have taken her home from her."Rosmead tucked his sister in, and, just as the horse was about to start, he spoke again."You won't be discouraged if it is a little difficult at first, Vivien? Try to think only of her desperate need.""Poor old Peter," she said whimsically. "I never saw him so much in earnest about anything. I do believe he would like nothing better than to be going back himself."Their eyes met in a smile, and she drove off, waving her hand.He drifted about the place all the afternoon, conscious of a growing restlessness that he could not shake off, his thoughts all the while following Vivien to the Moor of Creagh.When she arrived at the small plain house, which she now saw for the first time, a vast pity filled her heart. Creagh had beautiful surroundings, but nothing could make it a home. It was bare and uninviting--a mere shelter; and Vivien, who loved beautiful places, and who had the whole art of the Home Beautiful at her finger-ends, wondered how Isla could have borne to exchange the old-world charm of Achree for this.She had not heard the whole story of the transaction. Rosmead had preserved a singular reticence regarding the terms of his tenancy of Achree, and Vivien merely thought that the Mackinnons either wanted the money badly or had some other family reason for letting their ancestral home.The blinds were all down, but, as she directed the man to stop outside the gate, she could see the open door at the end of the short avenue."Wait here, Farquhar. I will not disturb them by driving up to the door."She left her heavy coat on the seat, and in her neat, plain suit of blue serge walked up the short approach to the open door, where Diarmid, who had heard the rumble of wheels, stood waiting to receive her."Not at home," were the words ready on his lips, but something in Vivien's face arrested his attention."I am Mrs. Rodney Payne, Mr. Rosmead's sister, and I have come at my brother's request to see Miss Mackinnon. Do you think she would see me for a few minutes?"Diarmid hesitated for a moment. Then he was wholly vanquished by the light in the strange lady's eyes."Ma'am, if you'll step inside, I'll see," he said respectfully. "She's sittin' up there in the room with him, and we can do naught with her. Maype, if she would see you, it might be better for her.""Where is her brother?"Diarmid shook his head."He hass been out of the house for 'oors, ma'am, and we are all to pieces here in Creagh, and there's nothing but dool and woe upon my folk."Vivien's eyes became moist at this expressive phrase which, falling pathetically from the old servant's lips, adequately summed up the whole affairs of the Mackinnons."I am afraid," she said very gently, "that if you take my name to Miss Mackinnon she will not see me. I am going to take a great deal upon myself. If you will just show me the way I will go to her without announcement. She can only send me away.""Yes, sure, an' that is so, but I do not think, seeing you, ma'am, that she will do that," said Diarmid earnestly, and he held open the door for her to pass in as if she had been a queen.They trod the narrow stairs very softly. On the half-landing Diarmid paused and stood aside while he pointed with finger that trembled slightly to the closed door of the room where Mackinnon slept his last sleep.Vivien braced herself, for the thing she was about to do was not only unusual, but might very easily be misconstrued. She took a little quick breath as her fingers closed upon the handle of the door. The next moment she turned it, slipped in, and closed it behind her again.The blinds of the front window only were down, but the sun, now veering westward, shone in at the window in the gable-end and lay in a soft yellow flood upon the quiet room. A shaft of sunshine even lay athwart the bed, touching as it passed Isla's motionless figure, where she sat upon a chair by the bed-side, her hands lightly clasped on her lap, her eyes staring straight in front of her, unseeing, uncomprehending, a look of almost hopeless misery upon her face. At sight of a strange woman in the doorway, however, she sprang up, quivering with indignation. She would have pointed to the door, to which she tried to hasten, but something in Vivien's beautiful face--some unimagined quality of rarest sympathy deterred her. She stopped with the very words of dismissal frozen on her lips.Vivien approached quickly, laid a tender hand on her shrinking shoulder and spoke."My dear, my dear! I am Vivien Rosmead, I too have suffered. Come out into the sunshine and let us talk. If even we do not talk we can cry together, and that will help us both."Isla was powerless to be angry. Her brief indignation at the intrusion of a stranger upon her most sacred privacy passed as a tale that is told."It is very kind of you, but--but--I hardly know you, and there is nothing to be said or done. Everything is over--that is all.""I too have thought so, dear," said Vivien softly. "Come, my poor darling. He does not need you any more. Come, and let us talk and think of those who do."Isla suffered herself to be led away.Afterwards, looking back upon that incident, she was amazed at herself, at the quiet compelling power which Vivien, in common with all the Rosmeads, seemed to possess, and against which ordinary folk could not stand for a moment.Vivien's arm was about her slender body as they descended the stairs. She it was who guided her out into the flood of the sunshine which, meeting them at the door, seemed to envelop them in a quiet radiance.Isla, as if dazzled, put up her hands to ward it off."It is cruel," she said in a low, difficult voice. "How can there be any brightness when I am like this? It is very cruel.""Where shall we go?" asked Vivien softly. "Shall we go to some spot where we shall be very, very quiet and undisturbed? I should like you to forget who I am, even what has brought me, and just to be as if I did not exist. If you feel like talking, then talk. But if you want to be quiet, I can be quiet too. Oh, my dear, I can be very, very quiet. I have been through the deeps, where there is nothing possible but dumb silence."Isla then remembered the tragedy of Vivien Rosmead's life, and her own pity and sympathy which in times past had never failed any in need, awoke to newness of life. The frozen springs of her being leaped again with life, and, with an almost unconscious desire to help, she slipped her hand through Vivien's arm."Why is it that life is so full of hideous suffering for women?" she asked with a vague passion. "I used to believe in God--in all things beautiful and good. Now I believe nothing.""Your faith will come back. Even I say that," said Vivien softly. "I don't want to belittle your suffering, dear, but it is of an impersonal kind. The woman who cannot be blamed if she loses faith is the one who has been cheated in her own self, whose womanhood has been flouted and scorned, whose love has been trampled on and despised. That is where the silent deeps are. May I say just what I will?""Surely," answered Isla, lifted clean out of herself by something tragic and mysterious in that other woman's face."Your father was an old man, full of years and honour. His life had become a little burdensome to him, and though I never saw him, I know that his fine spirit must have fretted at his forced inactivity. What you must do now is to dwell upon his rejuvenation. He has gone where there is no death, where his powers will be restored, where once more all things are possible."Isla's hungry eyes never for a moment left the speaking face of the woman at her side.All the time they were moving slowly, but surely, away from the house up to the wide spaces of the great moor where the great silence dwelt."Tell me more," was the mute question of Isla's eyes and lips.CHAPTER XIITHE HAND IN THE DARK"It is all true--what you say," said Isla with a little shiver. "But what is to become of me? He was my life, my work, my all. I have nothing further to do in the whole wide world. My life is over.""There is your brother," Vivien ventured to say.She immediately saw that she had made a mistake--that here undoubtedly lay the sting and the crux of the whole sad situation.Isla impatiently shook herself, almost as a dog might shake from him the element of water he dislikes. She made no remark, however, except to move her head in impatient dissent."I have no money, no prospects, no friends, I shall have to go out into the world and earn my bread. But how? That is the curse of people in our position--we are taught nothing, we are trained to take for granted that the world exists for us, that we are in some sense a privileged class. Then there is a crash, and if we go under is it to be wondered at or are we to be blamed?"Vivien listened in the sheerest wonder. She had no idea that things were at such a low ebb with the Mackinnons. Remembering Malcolm's airy inconsequence and his jokes about his hard-up state, which seemed to sit lightly enough upon him, she was even inclined to think Isla must be exaggerating.It was not easy for Vivien Rosmead to realize poverty. She had been reared in a luxurious home, and had married a millionaire, and, though she had never lacked in sympathy or benevolence towards the poor, she had not known one ungratified whim. She knew that poverty existed, but it was impossible to associate its more sordid aspects with Isla Mackinnon."But, surely out of the estate there must be ample provision for so small a family?" she ventured to say. "Achree is not a small place. The rent of it alone----""It is mortgaged to the hilt," interrupted Isla with a sort of dull scorn. "I could not and would not take a penny from it.""But surely you have relatives. Is not Sir Thomas Mackinnon of Barras a relative of yours? Some friends of ours had Barras for two seasons running.""He is my uncle, but I couldn't be dependent on him. He is not rich, and he has his own family to provide for.""He cannot be poor. I saw the account of his daughters' presentation frocks in the fashion papers last week," said Vivien with a slight smile."Oh, that means nothing! They got the loan of a house for the season, and a very clever maid of Aunt Jean's, married in London, made their frocks. You are so rich in America that you haven't an idea of the makeshifts some of us have to practise here," said Isla, waxing amazingly eloquent and convincing for Vivien's enlightenment.Vivien did not care what the theme, so long as it roused even a passing interest in the girl's mind."Well, I am sure that something will happen to provide a way," she said hopefully. "It is impossible to imagine Glenogle or any of the glens without you. Have you any idea, I wonder, just how they regard you? I do not go about very much, but my sister Sadie, who has made friends for miles round, is always bringing home some fresh tales about the devotion of the people to their dear Miss Isla. Only yesterday she said quite dolefully, 'We may as well give up the ghost, Vivien. If angels and archangels came to bless Lochearn and Glenogle, they would have to walk behind Isla Mackinnon.'"In spite of herself, Isla smiled."It does not mean so very much--only that I have lived all my life among them.""It means everything," said Vivien clearly. "It means that you are in their hearts, that none of them could bear hurt or sorrow to come near you.""Oh, but that is the hurt of it all!" cried Isla most pitifully. "The more we love people the more it hurts us to know that we are powerless to keep suffering or sorrow away from them. I would have laid down my life for my father, but I could not prevent Mal----I could not prevent others from breaking his heart.""You did what you could, though," said Vivien, again struck by the bitter allusion to Malcolm. "Now I want to give you a message from my mother. She wishes very much to see you. If only she had been able she would have come to-day instead of me. What she wishes to say is that if you would like to take your dear father down to Achree for the last few days we can go out. It seems an odd thing to say--but we should be glad to go out. We can go to the hotel, or even back to Glasgow for a few days, or even weeks. My mother came down so comfortably in the motor that it would not be a trouble, or even a risk for her to return in it. So, dear, just say the word, and we shall be gone to-morrow so that you and your dear ones may come home to your own place. This is a note from my mother to you in which she proposes this!"Isla took the note with a murmured word of acknowledgment. She was much moved. She stood still on the green tops of the heather, and something indescribable swept across her face. She stretched out her arms so that they fell on Vivien's shoulders, and when she was drawn into her tender embrace she laid her head down on her breast."Oh, now I know what dear people you are! God bless you! I should like to do that if it would not hurt or trouble you. Then all the people he loved and who loved him can come and see him before they take him away to Balquhidder. Oh, thank you, thank you, I want to come and see your dear mother. I will go back with you now if you will take me."She was like a creature transformed, and while the sight touched Vivien Rosmead inexpressibly it also filled her with a great sadness. For, if this was how Isla Mackinnon regarded the house of her fathers, what must it be to her to see strangers in it and to have before her eyes the prospect of losing it altogether?"Come, then," said Vivien with alacrity. "The evenings are so long and golden now that we can easily bring you back before dark. My brother will drive you himself.""I am thinking," said Isla, and as they turned to go, it almost seemed as if the spring had come back to her step, "I am thinking why should you go out? There is plenty of room for us all. If you would only lend us one or two rooms for a few days and let us have the freedom of the house----""It would not be the same at all," said Vivien decidedly. "What you want is to shut the door upon the outside world and forget all about us, to have only your own people about you and to have to consider nobody but them. It is only in this way that my mother will arrange it. I am sure that you will find that this is the best arrangement?""It is a great thing for you to do," said Isla breathlessly. "I have never heard or known of anybody who would think of a thing so beautiful.""Oh, nonsense. There are many far more beautiful things done in the world every day, and nobody hears of them. It will cost us nothing, you see. And, moreover, it is the right thing to do. It would be clearly wrong for the Chief of the Mackinnons to be carried to his last rest from this lonely and inaccessible place, beautiful though it is. He ought to be--he must be, borne from the house of his fathers.""Yes, yes," said Isla, with a little sob in her voice. "To think that you feel like that, that--you understand everything! Now, I'm so very glad that you have Achree."Her hardness had melted and the desperate hunted look had gone from her eyes. Once more she was alert, full of affairs, thinking of all there was to do and ready for all emergencies.As she drove down Glenogle beside the smart groom on the front seat of the dogcart her face did not once lose its uplifted look.Her eyes swam in tears as Vivien and she swept through the familiar gates of Achree."Tell me, dear Mrs. Rodney Payne, was it your mother her own self, who thought of this--this beautiful thing?""No, my dear," answered Vivien quietly, "it was my brother. He is like that. He thinks always of the thing that will make most people happy and of how to do it in the happiest way.""I thought he was like that when he was up at Creagh with me to-day," said Isla simply. "What it must be to have a brother like that--a brother who thinks of others first!"But she paused there, and it was as if she rebuked herself.Peter Rosmead, from the window of his dressing-room, where he was getting ready for dinner, was thunderstruck by the vision of Isla Mackinnon driving up to the door."Bravo, Vivien!" he said to himself, and his pulses quickened as he made haste with his black tie, achieving a bow less pleasing than usual to his fastidious taste.He had reached the bottom of the stair when his sister and Isla came in by the hall door; and, seeing him for the first time in evening dress, Isla was immediately struck by his air of distinction."I have come to see your mother, Mr. Rosmead," she said simply. "I can't say any more. Your sister must explain and say all that is necessary for me. Where shall I find your mother?"It was Peter who took her to the door of his mother's room, nay, who entered it with her. Isla herself saw no significance in that simple and natural act, but Peter, who intended it to be significant, felt a high courage, an indefinable joy at his heart."Mother, this is Miss Mackinnon. Vivien has been so fortunate as to get her to come down."Isla stood still just inside the door, looking wistfully--even questioningly at the small elegant figure on the couch, at the beautiful, softly-coloured face framed by its white hair, and her eyes had a yearning look.She had never known her mother and, though Aunt Jean had been passing kind, there was little softness about her. Certainly she had never sought to mother the self-reliant, independent Isla, even when she was only a long-limbed girl, needing guiding and making many mistakes.Sweetness and love had been the rule of Mrs. Rosmead's life. By these she had won and kept her children so near and close to her that they kept nothing hidden from her.Her eyes, too, were full of questioning as they travelled to the girl's pale pathetic face. Peter had been no common son to her, and it was to no common woman that she could give him up."Come here, my dear. You have no mother. I have room for you in my heart," she said.And Rosmead, with smarting eyes, went out by the door and closed it very softly behind him."God bless her! God bless them both!" he said very softly, under his breath, as he went down to Vivien."I am all blown to pieces by the winds of the Moor of Creagh, Peterkin," she said. "If you are very good you can come up and sit in my dressing-room while I make myself decent. Then I can tell you what happened."This dear intimacy, so precious to them both, had never been more precious than on that night. Half an hour later Isla sat down to eat with them in the old familiar room, and by that time the distress, the strain, the awful hopeless misery had gone from her face. She talked quite rationally and naturally of all the affairs of the Glen, and when she said that she would like to go home as soon after dinner as they could conveniently let her away, Peter asked whether he might have the privilege of driving her.She thanked him with her eyes."Where I have to be grateful for so much there are not any words left," she said simply. "I will say good-bye to your mother, if you please, only until to-morrow.""You are coming back to Achree to-morrow, then?" said Rosmead, when, with exceeding care and gentleness, he had tucked her into the comfortable cart."Yes, to-morrow. May we talk of it as we go up? I don't know how to thank you for so kindly driving me home. When I think of what otherwise it would have been like, I am quite speechless.""So much the better," he answered with a smile. "Look back, dear Miss Mackinnon. The girls are waving to you."Isla turned round in her seat and blew a kiss on the wings of the evening breeze."Is it Mrs. Hylton P. Rosmead--eh, Vivien?" said Sadie whimsically. "Did you ever see anyone more mightily pleased with himself than our Peterkin?"Vivien smiled, but said neither yea nor nay."What have you arranged with my mother, then?" asked Rosmead."We are to come down to-morrow evening, Mr. Rosmead. She says you will take her to Glasgow in the car to-morrow. Are you quite sure it can be done comfortably?""Quite. Then, you and your brother will bring him down to Achree to-morrow? I suppose Mr. Mackinnon will make all the necessary arrangements."Isla was silent, a little chill creeping all over her and causing her to shiver. Her companion bent over her anxiously."I had forgotten Malcolm," she said quite frankly. "I have always been used to arrange things for my father, you see.""I understand. But now your brother is the head of the house," said Rosmead gently. "Probably I shall see him when we get up to Creagh, and can make the final arrangements with him. I should like to tell him that the Achree stables are at his disposal. We shall all go to-morrow by the car, and so you will be perfectly free of the house.""Thank you very much," said Isla.But her voice was very low, and the spiritless note had crept into it again. Rosmead found the sudden change difficult to grasp, and it confirmed him in the opinion that there was some serious breach between the brother and sister."When do you propose that the burial shall take place, and where will it be?""The Mackinnon burying-place is at Balquhidder, of course," she said, as if surprised at the question. "I have not thought about the day, but probably now it must be Monday."They became silent then, driving in the track of the young moon towards the hills and the moor of the great silence. Isla felt no need of speech. A great sense of peace and comfort was hers as she nestled there by Rosmead's side, the thick frieze of his driving-coat making for her a buttress from the wind. She, who had so long cared for others was fully conscious of the sweetness of being cared for. She was in no haste for the drive to end.Up at the Lodge of Creagh there was desolation and woe--and there also was the brother between whom and herself there was a great gulf fixed. She had not seen him since she had driven him forth from her presence with hard words, and she had no idea of the dreary vigil he had kept, wrestling with remorse and shame up there on the heather of Creagh.Rosmead was perfectly happy. He loved this woman with a great and growing love, and her nearness to him filled all his being. To render her the smallest service was such a joy to him that just then he asked for no more. All the chivalry of a singularly chivalrous race, all the fine gallant tenderness of the best in old Virginia was uppermost in Rosmead that night, which for both was a night of remembrance."I shall always think of this night," said Isla very low as they drew near to the gate of Creagh. "This afternoon I thought it would close in despair. It is you and your dear people who have lifted me out of it, and God will bless and reward you. I never can."Rosmead, greatly daring, took the small gloved hand which lay outside the rug and raised it to his lips. But no word did he speak, good nor bad.Presently Isla made a little exclamation of surprise."There is a machine of some kind at the door, Mr. Rosmead. Don't you see the lights?" she said rather excitedly. "I wonder who it can be at this time of night. It must be nearly nine o'clock.'"Close on it. Probably it is some neighbour calling on your brother.""It might be Mr. Drummond from Garrion. I know of nobody else who would take the trouble," said Isla.A minute later she proved her surmise to be right. The high-stepping Garrion roans were champing their bits and pawing the ground in front of the narrow doorway.Rosmead sprang down and with great tenderness helped Isla to alight."You will come in of course, as you wish to see my brother.""I will come in if you desire it, but I do not forget that older friends may have the prior right, Miss Mackinnon.""I do desire it. It will be a help to me," she said.And together they passed over the threshold. Diarmid hastened out to meet them, and behind, from the library, came Malcolm and Neil Drummond.Rosmead, while apparently observing nothing, took note of two things--the curious, half-shrinking, half-defiant expression on Malcolm Mackinnon's face, and the distinct antagonism that marked the manner of Neil Drummond towards himself."So you have come back, Isla?" said Malcolm awkwardly. "Neil and I were just discussing whether we should come to Achree to fetch you.""Mr. Rosmead was so kind as to bring me up, and I think he wishes to speak to you, Malcolm," said Isla. "Good evening, Neil."Neil came forward with outstretched hand, his honest eyes full of deepest sympathy and compassion."I need not say what I feel about this, Isla. I heard it at Strathyre this evening, at six o'clock, and I couldn't believe it. I was only on my bicycle, so I went home straight and got the horses. My dear, this is a terrible thing."Isla nodded and, seeing that Malcolm had disappeared into the library with Rosmead, she asked Neil to come to the little dining-room which he and Malcolm had recently left, and where the remains of Malcolm's evening meal still stood on the table.Drummond closed the door, and Isla sat down, as if very weary. He was surprised to behold her so calm and self-possessed."What took you away to Achree, Isla?" he asked jealously. "Malcolm has been frightfully anxious about you.""He needn't have been. I left a message with Diarmid," she answered listlessly."But it seemed odd for you to go there to these new people. They are not your friends, Isla. We have a better right.""Not my friends!" she said in tones of wonderment. "You say that because you don't understand--because you don't know what they are. I think there cannot be many people like them in the world, Neil. Do you know that they are all turning out of Achree to-morrow--even the frail invalid mother--and going right back to Glasgow on their motor-car in order that we may have Achree to ourselves for the funeral?"Drummond looked the surprise he felt."Are they, though? That is uncommonly good of them," he admitted, though only half-heartedly. "Then, you go back to Achree to-morrow with the poor old General?""Yes. Mr. Rosmead is arranging the whole matter with Malcolm now, I expect. I am very tired, Neil. I think I shall have to go to bed soon.""Yes, of course--poor dear girl, you must be! Kitty sent her love. She would have come over with me, she said, only she was not sure whether you would be able to see people. She will come over to-morrow if you'll give her leave.""Very kind," murmured Isla, thinking of the woman who had not waited for leave--who had come of her own free will and gathered her to her heart. "I don't think she should come to-morrow, Neil," she said, rousing herself with an effort on perceiving his disappointment. "I shall be busy most of the day, you see. To-morrow night, perhaps--if you don't mind. It will not be so far to come to Achree as up here. Give her my love."Drummond shifted rather restlessly from one foot to the other."Isla, I hate to say it, but it is what I feel. I'm beastly jealous of these American outsiders. You must not let them absorb you. Of course we know that their money can do a lot of things. We can't all afford thousand pound motors for quick transit, but our hearts are in the right place and we'd go down on our knees to serve you--every one of us."Isla's eyes suddenly filled with tears."I know, Neil. Don't trouble about it. They have been very kind. Of course I know that if you had had Achree you would have done just the same thing. Was that Malcolm calling? We had better go out."Neil opened the door, and they passed into the narrow hall again, where Malcolm and Rosmead stood together.For just the fraction of a moment nobody spoke."Mr. Rosmead has told me of their great, unheard-of kindness, Isla," said Malcolm in a queer strained voice, "and we have arranged it all. To-morrow afternoon--late about six o'clock we shall take him down to Achree. Mr. Rosmead is to run his fast motor to Callander in the morning in order to make the necessary arrangements. I have told him we can't thank him.""No," answered Isla very low, "we can't.""That's all right," said Rosmead cheerily. "Good night then, Miss Mackinnon. Go to bed and have a good sleep. Good night, Mr. Drummond.""Good night," said Neil, and he affected not to see the outstretched hand.Rosmead took no offence. He was too big-hearted, and perhaps he had an inkling of how it was with the young man."I had better go, too, I suppose," said Neil a little stiffly, and Isla bade them both good night.When Malcolm returned from seeing them off he could not find Isla, and when he went upstairs her door was shut.He tapped lightly at it, and she opened it just a few inches."You'll excuse me to-night, won't you, Malcolm?" she said gently but coldly. "I am very tired. I couldn't discuss anything to-night. To-morrow we can talk things over, but I want just to say that I am sorry I spoke as I did this afternoon. He would not have liked it, I am sure."Malcolm had not a word to say. He murmured good night and went downstairs to the lonely hearth, where he tried to extract some comfort from his pipe.But his quiet was disturbed by the low sound of his sister's sobbing from the room above.
CHAPTER XI
VIVIEN
It was three o'clock of the afternoon before Rosmead got back to Achree, and he had not eaten any lunch. In the stable-yard he met his sister Vivien, who had gone round to look at some Aberdeen puppies, arrived that very morning.
"We have been wondering about your absence, Peter," she said with her quiet smile. "Have you had any lunch?"
"None. I have been up at the Lodge of Creagh. The old General is dead. Come back to the house, and I will tell you about it."
A groom came forward to take the horse, and Rosmead, linking his arm in his sister's, walked her away. They were devotedly attached to each other, and the wreckage of his dear and beautiful sister's life at the hands of an unprincipled man had cast a deep cloud over Rosmead which could never wholly be lifted. For every time he looked at her face, every time he thought of the possibilities of her kind nature and of the long years of loneliness in front of her his soul was filled with a holy rage. On such occasions he would have killed his brother-in-law, and thought this no sin.
Vivien Rosmead, made for love, uniting in her sweet nature all that is best in womanhood, all that makes for the precious things of life, had been cheated on its very threshold. But why had she been so blind, you ask? Why had not her finer sense warned her of the risk she ran? The answer is the one which has come from the lips of a vast army of sad women who have believed that their love could win and keep a man from his evil ways. In this some few have succeeded but a multitude have failed. Vivien had failed, and the irony and the misery of it had embittered Peter Rosmead beyond all telling.
"The old General dead!" echoed Vivien in astonishment. "But he was not even ill. His son has been here this morning and said he was very well."
"He had a shock, and he died on the spot. Heart failure, I suppose. You are needed up there, Vivien. I want you to go to-day."
Vivien looked at him questioningly, and seemed to shrink.
"But I don't know Miss Mackinnon, Peter. I've never even seen her. She has shown us very plainly that she does not wish to know us."
"That is of no consequence. This sorrow lifts the things above all such considerations. She is a woman in need--a woman suffering acutely and terribly, and she is almost utterly alone. If mother were able she would go--you know that. You must take her place. May I go back now and order a trap."
"There is plenty of time, Peter," she said, visibly shrinking yet. "It is never quite dark in these long, delightful days. Tell me what happened. Were you there with her when her father died?"
Rosmead briefly explained how the death had occurred.
"And she thinks that it was the letter that killed him? How strange and sad! Did she give you no inkling as to what it contained?"
"No. But I have my own opinion--or rather suspicions. It has something to do with her brother. As I left the house and he entered it I heard her call him a murderer."
"Oh, how dreadful and how unlikely!" cried Vivien in deepening bewilderment. "Malcolm Mackinnon does not strike one at all as that sort of person. He is so transparent--just like a big, jolly schoolboy. I like him so much."
Rosmead was not surprised to hear it. Malcolm Mackinnon had paid many visits to Achree, where he had shown the very best and most lovable side of him. He had jested with the gay Sadie, had been serious and kindly and responsible when talking to Vivien, and had sat like an attentive son by Mrs. Rosmead's invalid couch. To Rosmead himself he had been simply a good comrade, and, on the whole, the American had no fault to find with him. Yet, somehow, these words, falling from Vivien's lips, disquieted him not a little.
"I'm afraid there's something behind it all. Probably Mackinnon has sowed his wild oats, and this is the aftermath. Anyway, the old man is dead, and she is in a dreadful state. Her eyes haunt me. It is a woman she needs--mothering, in fact, and if you could bring her right down here to mother it would be a Christian act. Where's Sadie?"
"Miss Drummond came to lunch and has taken her away to Balquhidder to show her Rob Roy's grave. Then they are going to Garrion to tea. What a bright creature she is! She kept us laughing right through lunch."
"I'm rather glad, on the whole, that Sadie is not about. Well, dear, while you are getting ready I will see mother. I took a message from her to Creagh. Would you like me to go up with you, to drive you and wait outside, perhaps?"
"Just as you like. But perhaps, as you've only just come down, I had better go alone. We don't want to overwhelm her with Rosmeads."
He nodded understandingly, and they parted on the stairs, Rosmead proceeding up one of the winding ways to his mother's room.
They had not altered the interior of the old house in any way. They had only spent money to make it comfortable, covered bare stairs and passages with rich carpets of neutral tints, and gathered about them all the comforts and refinements which are at the command of wealth.
Mrs. Rosmead occupied the General's chamber, which had a large dressing-room adjoining, and from its quaint little windows she could see the Loch and the hills beyond.
She was a gentle, frail old lady, very small and delicately built, but her sweet face in its frame of snow-white hair had great strength.
It was from her undoubtedly that Rosmead had inherited his decision of character, his deeply-rooted principles, his inflexible will. He was very like her physically, and he worshipped her. Up till now no woman had ousted her from the shrine of his heart. The relation between them was indeed idyllic and did much to keep the softer side of Rosmead in the foreground.
Her keen, fine black eyes, so like his own, lifted themselves inquiringly to his face as he entered.
"Well, as you have taken such a long time to carry out my behest, I take it that you were well received, my son."
"Yes, I was, but that is not what delayed me," he answered as he bent to kiss her.
Then in a few words he made her acquainted with the tragedy of the morning. As she listened, full of grief and sympathy, she, unconsciously to herself, watched her son keenly. She saw that he was moved far beyond his wont, that his voice, when he spoke of Isla Mackinnon, vibrated with an entirely new note. And she wondered, and her desire to see the girl was quickened.
"She is the most desolate creature on God's earth, mother, and if only I could wrap you up in my arms and carry you to Creagh you could heal her with a touch, as you have so often healed your other children."
The expression "your other children" impressed her. Could it be possible that already Peter's thoughts and longings had flown as far as the day when he should give another daughter to her heart?
"You must bring her to me, dear. It is the only way."
"Vivien is going up. Next to you, she will be the best to help her. It is a woman that she needs. All her life long apparently she has been fighting side by side with men."
"Fighting!" repeated Mrs. Rosmead with a slight wonderment in her tone.
"Well, you know, she has had to do everything for and to be everything to the old man."
"But how? He has a dear son, Peter. You must not be unjust to young Mackinnon. Oh, I have heard that they say things here in the Glen about him, but when he comes here and sits by me, I believe none of them. He only needs a little guiding, and I think I have gathered from him that his sister has been a little hard on him at times."
Rosmead with Isla's most bitter cry in his ears, remained wholly unconvinced.
"The ins and outs of the story we don't know, mother. Perhaps we shall never know them. But of this I am sure--that Isla Mackinnon would be hard on no man without a cause. She is a splendid creature, and----"
"Peter, come here."
The sweet voice was peremptory, the swift, humorous black eyes were compelling. He came obediently, as of old, to her side.
"Look straight at me--no, not like that!--very straight, Peter Rosmead. Is this to be the woman?"
"Yes, mother," he answered, with the simplicity of a big child. "Please God, it is."
"Then bring her to me quickly, my son, that I may get to know and love her--ay, and to learn whether she is worthy of Peter Rosmead. I have never yet seen the woman who is."
Peter laughed, in no way uplifted by her loving pride. His nature indeed was singularly unspoiled.
"It can't be done in such a desperate hurry. She is cold and fine, and, like her own hills, she is difficult of approach. I shall have to walk warily and win her slowly. But win her I shall or go unmarried to my grave."
Thus did Peter Rosmead quite quietly dispose of the biggest thing that had come into his life. And his mother, watching the firm set of his square chin, the invincible light in his eyes, gloried in his strength, and had not the smallest doubt that he would attain the desire of his heart.
Was any pang of disappointment hers? To every mother the moment when her son takes another woman to his heart is one of supreme pain. This is as inevitable as the law of life.
But Mrs. Rosmead desired her son to marry, and she had kept him at her side a long time.
"So Vivien will go up? Is she getting ready now?"
"I think so."
"Well, bring my writing-block and pencil, and I will write a message for Miss Mackinnon."
He obeyed her, but she did not show him what she wrote. Nor was he curious to see it. He had never in all his life known her to do the wrong thing or speak the wrong word.
She was a woman in whom grace was developed to a very high degree.
Vivien came in presently, her slender, graceful figure enveloped in its capacious coat of Harris tweed, and a small neat toque of green velvet crowning her beautiful head.
"Peter has been telling you, mother. Do you think it is the right thing for me to do--to go to Creagh, I mean? I confess to a little hesitation. I am so afraid of intruding on her. Even the pride of old Virginia must pale before that of Glenogle."
"Your heart will dictate the fitting word, my child. Give this to the poor girl, and if she will come to us here to rest awhile in the house where she was born we shall try not to make her feel that we have taken her home from her."
Rosmead tucked his sister in, and, just as the horse was about to start, he spoke again.
"You won't be discouraged if it is a little difficult at first, Vivien? Try to think only of her desperate need."
"Poor old Peter," she said whimsically. "I never saw him so much in earnest about anything. I do believe he would like nothing better than to be going back himself."
Their eyes met in a smile, and she drove off, waving her hand.
He drifted about the place all the afternoon, conscious of a growing restlessness that he could not shake off, his thoughts all the while following Vivien to the Moor of Creagh.
When she arrived at the small plain house, which she now saw for the first time, a vast pity filled her heart. Creagh had beautiful surroundings, but nothing could make it a home. It was bare and uninviting--a mere shelter; and Vivien, who loved beautiful places, and who had the whole art of the Home Beautiful at her finger-ends, wondered how Isla could have borne to exchange the old-world charm of Achree for this.
She had not heard the whole story of the transaction. Rosmead had preserved a singular reticence regarding the terms of his tenancy of Achree, and Vivien merely thought that the Mackinnons either wanted the money badly or had some other family reason for letting their ancestral home.
The blinds were all down, but, as she directed the man to stop outside the gate, she could see the open door at the end of the short avenue.
"Wait here, Farquhar. I will not disturb them by driving up to the door."
She left her heavy coat on the seat, and in her neat, plain suit of blue serge walked up the short approach to the open door, where Diarmid, who had heard the rumble of wheels, stood waiting to receive her.
"Not at home," were the words ready on his lips, but something in Vivien's face arrested his attention.
"I am Mrs. Rodney Payne, Mr. Rosmead's sister, and I have come at my brother's request to see Miss Mackinnon. Do you think she would see me for a few minutes?"
Diarmid hesitated for a moment. Then he was wholly vanquished by the light in the strange lady's eyes.
"Ma'am, if you'll step inside, I'll see," he said respectfully. "She's sittin' up there in the room with him, and we can do naught with her. Maype, if she would see you, it might be better for her."
"Where is her brother?"
Diarmid shook his head.
"He hass been out of the house for 'oors, ma'am, and we are all to pieces here in Creagh, and there's nothing but dool and woe upon my folk."
Vivien's eyes became moist at this expressive phrase which, falling pathetically from the old servant's lips, adequately summed up the whole affairs of the Mackinnons.
"I am afraid," she said very gently, "that if you take my name to Miss Mackinnon she will not see me. I am going to take a great deal upon myself. If you will just show me the way I will go to her without announcement. She can only send me away."
"Yes, sure, an' that is so, but I do not think, seeing you, ma'am, that she will do that," said Diarmid earnestly, and he held open the door for her to pass in as if she had been a queen.
They trod the narrow stairs very softly. On the half-landing Diarmid paused and stood aside while he pointed with finger that trembled slightly to the closed door of the room where Mackinnon slept his last sleep.
Vivien braced herself, for the thing she was about to do was not only unusual, but might very easily be misconstrued. She took a little quick breath as her fingers closed upon the handle of the door. The next moment she turned it, slipped in, and closed it behind her again.
The blinds of the front window only were down, but the sun, now veering westward, shone in at the window in the gable-end and lay in a soft yellow flood upon the quiet room. A shaft of sunshine even lay athwart the bed, touching as it passed Isla's motionless figure, where she sat upon a chair by the bed-side, her hands lightly clasped on her lap, her eyes staring straight in front of her, unseeing, uncomprehending, a look of almost hopeless misery upon her face. At sight of a strange woman in the doorway, however, she sprang up, quivering with indignation. She would have pointed to the door, to which she tried to hasten, but something in Vivien's beautiful face--some unimagined quality of rarest sympathy deterred her. She stopped with the very words of dismissal frozen on her lips.
Vivien approached quickly, laid a tender hand on her shrinking shoulder and spoke.
"My dear, my dear! I am Vivien Rosmead, I too have suffered. Come out into the sunshine and let us talk. If even we do not talk we can cry together, and that will help us both."
Isla was powerless to be angry. Her brief indignation at the intrusion of a stranger upon her most sacred privacy passed as a tale that is told.
"It is very kind of you, but--but--I hardly know you, and there is nothing to be said or done. Everything is over--that is all."
"I too have thought so, dear," said Vivien softly. "Come, my poor darling. He does not need you any more. Come, and let us talk and think of those who do."
Isla suffered herself to be led away.
Afterwards, looking back upon that incident, she was amazed at herself, at the quiet compelling power which Vivien, in common with all the Rosmeads, seemed to possess, and against which ordinary folk could not stand for a moment.
Vivien's arm was about her slender body as they descended the stairs. She it was who guided her out into the flood of the sunshine which, meeting them at the door, seemed to envelop them in a quiet radiance.
Isla, as if dazzled, put up her hands to ward it off.
"It is cruel," she said in a low, difficult voice. "How can there be any brightness when I am like this? It is very cruel."
"Where shall we go?" asked Vivien softly. "Shall we go to some spot where we shall be very, very quiet and undisturbed? I should like you to forget who I am, even what has brought me, and just to be as if I did not exist. If you feel like talking, then talk. But if you want to be quiet, I can be quiet too. Oh, my dear, I can be very, very quiet. I have been through the deeps, where there is nothing possible but dumb silence."
Isla then remembered the tragedy of Vivien Rosmead's life, and her own pity and sympathy which in times past had never failed any in need, awoke to newness of life. The frozen springs of her being leaped again with life, and, with an almost unconscious desire to help, she slipped her hand through Vivien's arm.
"Why is it that life is so full of hideous suffering for women?" she asked with a vague passion. "I used to believe in God--in all things beautiful and good. Now I believe nothing."
"Your faith will come back. Even I say that," said Vivien softly. "I don't want to belittle your suffering, dear, but it is of an impersonal kind. The woman who cannot be blamed if she loses faith is the one who has been cheated in her own self, whose womanhood has been flouted and scorned, whose love has been trampled on and despised. That is where the silent deeps are. May I say just what I will?"
"Surely," answered Isla, lifted clean out of herself by something tragic and mysterious in that other woman's face.
"Your father was an old man, full of years and honour. His life had become a little burdensome to him, and though I never saw him, I know that his fine spirit must have fretted at his forced inactivity. What you must do now is to dwell upon his rejuvenation. He has gone where there is no death, where his powers will be restored, where once more all things are possible."
Isla's hungry eyes never for a moment left the speaking face of the woman at her side.
All the time they were moving slowly, but surely, away from the house up to the wide spaces of the great moor where the great silence dwelt.
"Tell me more," was the mute question of Isla's eyes and lips.
CHAPTER XII
THE HAND IN THE DARK
"It is all true--what you say," said Isla with a little shiver. "But what is to become of me? He was my life, my work, my all. I have nothing further to do in the whole wide world. My life is over."
"There is your brother," Vivien ventured to say.
She immediately saw that she had made a mistake--that here undoubtedly lay the sting and the crux of the whole sad situation.
Isla impatiently shook herself, almost as a dog might shake from him the element of water he dislikes. She made no remark, however, except to move her head in impatient dissent.
"I have no money, no prospects, no friends, I shall have to go out into the world and earn my bread. But how? That is the curse of people in our position--we are taught nothing, we are trained to take for granted that the world exists for us, that we are in some sense a privileged class. Then there is a crash, and if we go under is it to be wondered at or are we to be blamed?"
Vivien listened in the sheerest wonder. She had no idea that things were at such a low ebb with the Mackinnons. Remembering Malcolm's airy inconsequence and his jokes about his hard-up state, which seemed to sit lightly enough upon him, she was even inclined to think Isla must be exaggerating.
It was not easy for Vivien Rosmead to realize poverty. She had been reared in a luxurious home, and had married a millionaire, and, though she had never lacked in sympathy or benevolence towards the poor, she had not known one ungratified whim. She knew that poverty existed, but it was impossible to associate its more sordid aspects with Isla Mackinnon.
"But, surely out of the estate there must be ample provision for so small a family?" she ventured to say. "Achree is not a small place. The rent of it alone----"
"It is mortgaged to the hilt," interrupted Isla with a sort of dull scorn. "I could not and would not take a penny from it."
"But surely you have relatives. Is not Sir Thomas Mackinnon of Barras a relative of yours? Some friends of ours had Barras for two seasons running."
"He is my uncle, but I couldn't be dependent on him. He is not rich, and he has his own family to provide for."
"He cannot be poor. I saw the account of his daughters' presentation frocks in the fashion papers last week," said Vivien with a slight smile.
"Oh, that means nothing! They got the loan of a house for the season, and a very clever maid of Aunt Jean's, married in London, made their frocks. You are so rich in America that you haven't an idea of the makeshifts some of us have to practise here," said Isla, waxing amazingly eloquent and convincing for Vivien's enlightenment.
Vivien did not care what the theme, so long as it roused even a passing interest in the girl's mind.
"Well, I am sure that something will happen to provide a way," she said hopefully. "It is impossible to imagine Glenogle or any of the glens without you. Have you any idea, I wonder, just how they regard you? I do not go about very much, but my sister Sadie, who has made friends for miles round, is always bringing home some fresh tales about the devotion of the people to their dear Miss Isla. Only yesterday she said quite dolefully, 'We may as well give up the ghost, Vivien. If angels and archangels came to bless Lochearn and Glenogle, they would have to walk behind Isla Mackinnon.'"
In spite of herself, Isla smiled.
"It does not mean so very much--only that I have lived all my life among them."
"It means everything," said Vivien clearly. "It means that you are in their hearts, that none of them could bear hurt or sorrow to come near you."
"Oh, but that is the hurt of it all!" cried Isla most pitifully. "The more we love people the more it hurts us to know that we are powerless to keep suffering or sorrow away from them. I would have laid down my life for my father, but I could not prevent Mal----I could not prevent others from breaking his heart."
"You did what you could, though," said Vivien, again struck by the bitter allusion to Malcolm. "Now I want to give you a message from my mother. She wishes very much to see you. If only she had been able she would have come to-day instead of me. What she wishes to say is that if you would like to take your dear father down to Achree for the last few days we can go out. It seems an odd thing to say--but we should be glad to go out. We can go to the hotel, or even back to Glasgow for a few days, or even weeks. My mother came down so comfortably in the motor that it would not be a trouble, or even a risk for her to return in it. So, dear, just say the word, and we shall be gone to-morrow so that you and your dear ones may come home to your own place. This is a note from my mother to you in which she proposes this!"
Isla took the note with a murmured word of acknowledgment. She was much moved. She stood still on the green tops of the heather, and something indescribable swept across her face. She stretched out her arms so that they fell on Vivien's shoulders, and when she was drawn into her tender embrace she laid her head down on her breast.
"Oh, now I know what dear people you are! God bless you! I should like to do that if it would not hurt or trouble you. Then all the people he loved and who loved him can come and see him before they take him away to Balquhidder. Oh, thank you, thank you, I want to come and see your dear mother. I will go back with you now if you will take me."
She was like a creature transformed, and while the sight touched Vivien Rosmead inexpressibly it also filled her with a great sadness. For, if this was how Isla Mackinnon regarded the house of her fathers, what must it be to her to see strangers in it and to have before her eyes the prospect of losing it altogether?
"Come, then," said Vivien with alacrity. "The evenings are so long and golden now that we can easily bring you back before dark. My brother will drive you himself."
"I am thinking," said Isla, and as they turned to go, it almost seemed as if the spring had come back to her step, "I am thinking why should you go out? There is plenty of room for us all. If you would only lend us one or two rooms for a few days and let us have the freedom of the house----"
"It would not be the same at all," said Vivien decidedly. "What you want is to shut the door upon the outside world and forget all about us, to have only your own people about you and to have to consider nobody but them. It is only in this way that my mother will arrange it. I am sure that you will find that this is the best arrangement?"
"It is a great thing for you to do," said Isla breathlessly. "I have never heard or known of anybody who would think of a thing so beautiful."
"Oh, nonsense. There are many far more beautiful things done in the world every day, and nobody hears of them. It will cost us nothing, you see. And, moreover, it is the right thing to do. It would be clearly wrong for the Chief of the Mackinnons to be carried to his last rest from this lonely and inaccessible place, beautiful though it is. He ought to be--he must be, borne from the house of his fathers."
"Yes, yes," said Isla, with a little sob in her voice. "To think that you feel like that, that--you understand everything! Now, I'm so very glad that you have Achree."
Her hardness had melted and the desperate hunted look had gone from her eyes. Once more she was alert, full of affairs, thinking of all there was to do and ready for all emergencies.
As she drove down Glenogle beside the smart groom on the front seat of the dogcart her face did not once lose its uplifted look.
Her eyes swam in tears as Vivien and she swept through the familiar gates of Achree.
"Tell me, dear Mrs. Rodney Payne, was it your mother her own self, who thought of this--this beautiful thing?"
"No, my dear," answered Vivien quietly, "it was my brother. He is like that. He thinks always of the thing that will make most people happy and of how to do it in the happiest way."
"I thought he was like that when he was up at Creagh with me to-day," said Isla simply. "What it must be to have a brother like that--a brother who thinks of others first!"
But she paused there, and it was as if she rebuked herself.
Peter Rosmead, from the window of his dressing-room, where he was getting ready for dinner, was thunderstruck by the vision of Isla Mackinnon driving up to the door.
"Bravo, Vivien!" he said to himself, and his pulses quickened as he made haste with his black tie, achieving a bow less pleasing than usual to his fastidious taste.
He had reached the bottom of the stair when his sister and Isla came in by the hall door; and, seeing him for the first time in evening dress, Isla was immediately struck by his air of distinction.
"I have come to see your mother, Mr. Rosmead," she said simply. "I can't say any more. Your sister must explain and say all that is necessary for me. Where shall I find your mother?"
It was Peter who took her to the door of his mother's room, nay, who entered it with her. Isla herself saw no significance in that simple and natural act, but Peter, who intended it to be significant, felt a high courage, an indefinable joy at his heart.
"Mother, this is Miss Mackinnon. Vivien has been so fortunate as to get her to come down."
Isla stood still just inside the door, looking wistfully--even questioningly at the small elegant figure on the couch, at the beautiful, softly-coloured face framed by its white hair, and her eyes had a yearning look.
She had never known her mother and, though Aunt Jean had been passing kind, there was little softness about her. Certainly she had never sought to mother the self-reliant, independent Isla, even when she was only a long-limbed girl, needing guiding and making many mistakes.
Sweetness and love had been the rule of Mrs. Rosmead's life. By these she had won and kept her children so near and close to her that they kept nothing hidden from her.
Her eyes, too, were full of questioning as they travelled to the girl's pale pathetic face. Peter had been no common son to her, and it was to no common woman that she could give him up.
"Come here, my dear. You have no mother. I have room for you in my heart," she said.
And Rosmead, with smarting eyes, went out by the door and closed it very softly behind him.
"God bless her! God bless them both!" he said very softly, under his breath, as he went down to Vivien.
"I am all blown to pieces by the winds of the Moor of Creagh, Peterkin," she said. "If you are very good you can come up and sit in my dressing-room while I make myself decent. Then I can tell you what happened."
This dear intimacy, so precious to them both, had never been more precious than on that night. Half an hour later Isla sat down to eat with them in the old familiar room, and by that time the distress, the strain, the awful hopeless misery had gone from her face. She talked quite rationally and naturally of all the affairs of the Glen, and when she said that she would like to go home as soon after dinner as they could conveniently let her away, Peter asked whether he might have the privilege of driving her.
She thanked him with her eyes.
"Where I have to be grateful for so much there are not any words left," she said simply. "I will say good-bye to your mother, if you please, only until to-morrow."
"You are coming back to Achree to-morrow, then?" said Rosmead, when, with exceeding care and gentleness, he had tucked her into the comfortable cart.
"Yes, to-morrow. May we talk of it as we go up? I don't know how to thank you for so kindly driving me home. When I think of what otherwise it would have been like, I am quite speechless."
"So much the better," he answered with a smile. "Look back, dear Miss Mackinnon. The girls are waving to you."
Isla turned round in her seat and blew a kiss on the wings of the evening breeze.
"Is it Mrs. Hylton P. Rosmead--eh, Vivien?" said Sadie whimsically. "Did you ever see anyone more mightily pleased with himself than our Peterkin?"
Vivien smiled, but said neither yea nor nay.
"What have you arranged with my mother, then?" asked Rosmead.
"We are to come down to-morrow evening, Mr. Rosmead. She says you will take her to Glasgow in the car to-morrow. Are you quite sure it can be done comfortably?"
"Quite. Then, you and your brother will bring him down to Achree to-morrow? I suppose Mr. Mackinnon will make all the necessary arrangements."
Isla was silent, a little chill creeping all over her and causing her to shiver. Her companion bent over her anxiously.
"I had forgotten Malcolm," she said quite frankly. "I have always been used to arrange things for my father, you see."
"I understand. But now your brother is the head of the house," said Rosmead gently. "Probably I shall see him when we get up to Creagh, and can make the final arrangements with him. I should like to tell him that the Achree stables are at his disposal. We shall all go to-morrow by the car, and so you will be perfectly free of the house."
"Thank you very much," said Isla.
But her voice was very low, and the spiritless note had crept into it again. Rosmead found the sudden change difficult to grasp, and it confirmed him in the opinion that there was some serious breach between the brother and sister.
"When do you propose that the burial shall take place, and where will it be?"
"The Mackinnon burying-place is at Balquhidder, of course," she said, as if surprised at the question. "I have not thought about the day, but probably now it must be Monday."
They became silent then, driving in the track of the young moon towards the hills and the moor of the great silence. Isla felt no need of speech. A great sense of peace and comfort was hers as she nestled there by Rosmead's side, the thick frieze of his driving-coat making for her a buttress from the wind. She, who had so long cared for others was fully conscious of the sweetness of being cared for. She was in no haste for the drive to end.
Up at the Lodge of Creagh there was desolation and woe--and there also was the brother between whom and herself there was a great gulf fixed. She had not seen him since she had driven him forth from her presence with hard words, and she had no idea of the dreary vigil he had kept, wrestling with remorse and shame up there on the heather of Creagh.
Rosmead was perfectly happy. He loved this woman with a great and growing love, and her nearness to him filled all his being. To render her the smallest service was such a joy to him that just then he asked for no more. All the chivalry of a singularly chivalrous race, all the fine gallant tenderness of the best in old Virginia was uppermost in Rosmead that night, which for both was a night of remembrance.
"I shall always think of this night," said Isla very low as they drew near to the gate of Creagh. "This afternoon I thought it would close in despair. It is you and your dear people who have lifted me out of it, and God will bless and reward you. I never can."
Rosmead, greatly daring, took the small gloved hand which lay outside the rug and raised it to his lips. But no word did he speak, good nor bad.
Presently Isla made a little exclamation of surprise.
"There is a machine of some kind at the door, Mr. Rosmead. Don't you see the lights?" she said rather excitedly. "I wonder who it can be at this time of night. It must be nearly nine o'clock.'
"Close on it. Probably it is some neighbour calling on your brother."
"It might be Mr. Drummond from Garrion. I know of nobody else who would take the trouble," said Isla.
A minute later she proved her surmise to be right. The high-stepping Garrion roans were champing their bits and pawing the ground in front of the narrow doorway.
Rosmead sprang down and with great tenderness helped Isla to alight.
"You will come in of course, as you wish to see my brother."
"I will come in if you desire it, but I do not forget that older friends may have the prior right, Miss Mackinnon."
"I do desire it. It will be a help to me," she said.
And together they passed over the threshold. Diarmid hastened out to meet them, and behind, from the library, came Malcolm and Neil Drummond.
Rosmead, while apparently observing nothing, took note of two things--the curious, half-shrinking, half-defiant expression on Malcolm Mackinnon's face, and the distinct antagonism that marked the manner of Neil Drummond towards himself.
"So you have come back, Isla?" said Malcolm awkwardly. "Neil and I were just discussing whether we should come to Achree to fetch you."
"Mr. Rosmead was so kind as to bring me up, and I think he wishes to speak to you, Malcolm," said Isla. "Good evening, Neil."
Neil came forward with outstretched hand, his honest eyes full of deepest sympathy and compassion.
"I need not say what I feel about this, Isla. I heard it at Strathyre this evening, at six o'clock, and I couldn't believe it. I was only on my bicycle, so I went home straight and got the horses. My dear, this is a terrible thing."
Isla nodded and, seeing that Malcolm had disappeared into the library with Rosmead, she asked Neil to come to the little dining-room which he and Malcolm had recently left, and where the remains of Malcolm's evening meal still stood on the table.
Drummond closed the door, and Isla sat down, as if very weary. He was surprised to behold her so calm and self-possessed.
"What took you away to Achree, Isla?" he asked jealously. "Malcolm has been frightfully anxious about you."
"He needn't have been. I left a message with Diarmid," she answered listlessly.
"But it seemed odd for you to go there to these new people. They are not your friends, Isla. We have a better right."
"Not my friends!" she said in tones of wonderment. "You say that because you don't understand--because you don't know what they are. I think there cannot be many people like them in the world, Neil. Do you know that they are all turning out of Achree to-morrow--even the frail invalid mother--and going right back to Glasgow on their motor-car in order that we may have Achree to ourselves for the funeral?"
Drummond looked the surprise he felt.
"Are they, though? That is uncommonly good of them," he admitted, though only half-heartedly. "Then, you go back to Achree to-morrow with the poor old General?"
"Yes. Mr. Rosmead is arranging the whole matter with Malcolm now, I expect. I am very tired, Neil. I think I shall have to go to bed soon."
"Yes, of course--poor dear girl, you must be! Kitty sent her love. She would have come over with me, she said, only she was not sure whether you would be able to see people. She will come over to-morrow if you'll give her leave."
"Very kind," murmured Isla, thinking of the woman who had not waited for leave--who had come of her own free will and gathered her to her heart. "I don't think she should come to-morrow, Neil," she said, rousing herself with an effort on perceiving his disappointment. "I shall be busy most of the day, you see. To-morrow night, perhaps--if you don't mind. It will not be so far to come to Achree as up here. Give her my love."
Drummond shifted rather restlessly from one foot to the other.
"Isla, I hate to say it, but it is what I feel. I'm beastly jealous of these American outsiders. You must not let them absorb you. Of course we know that their money can do a lot of things. We can't all afford thousand pound motors for quick transit, but our hearts are in the right place and we'd go down on our knees to serve you--every one of us."
Isla's eyes suddenly filled with tears.
"I know, Neil. Don't trouble about it. They have been very kind. Of course I know that if you had had Achree you would have done just the same thing. Was that Malcolm calling? We had better go out."
Neil opened the door, and they passed into the narrow hall again, where Malcolm and Rosmead stood together.
For just the fraction of a moment nobody spoke.
"Mr. Rosmead has told me of their great, unheard-of kindness, Isla," said Malcolm in a queer strained voice, "and we have arranged it all. To-morrow afternoon--late about six o'clock we shall take him down to Achree. Mr. Rosmead is to run his fast motor to Callander in the morning in order to make the necessary arrangements. I have told him we can't thank him."
"No," answered Isla very low, "we can't."
"That's all right," said Rosmead cheerily. "Good night then, Miss Mackinnon. Go to bed and have a good sleep. Good night, Mr. Drummond."
"Good night," said Neil, and he affected not to see the outstretched hand.
Rosmead took no offence. He was too big-hearted, and perhaps he had an inkling of how it was with the young man.
"I had better go, too, I suppose," said Neil a little stiffly, and Isla bade them both good night.
When Malcolm returned from seeing them off he could not find Isla, and when he went upstairs her door was shut.
He tapped lightly at it, and she opened it just a few inches.
"You'll excuse me to-night, won't you, Malcolm?" she said gently but coldly. "I am very tired. I couldn't discuss anything to-night. To-morrow we can talk things over, but I want just to say that I am sorry I spoke as I did this afternoon. He would not have liked it, I am sure."
Malcolm had not a word to say. He murmured good night and went downstairs to the lonely hearth, where he tried to extract some comfort from his pipe.
But his quiet was disturbed by the low sound of his sister's sobbing from the room above.