I."Sleep, little baby! peacefully rest,Mother is clasping thee close to her breast;Angels watch over thee gentle and mild,Guard thee with heavenly love undefiled.Sleep little baby, safe in thy nest,Sleep little baby! mother's own child."II."Sleep, little baby! fear not the storm,Tenderly mother is holding thy form.Mother's eyes watching thee ever aboveShine like twin stars with fathomless love.Sleep, little baby! safely and warm,Sleep, little baby! mother's own dove."
"Sleep, little baby! peacefully rest,Mother is clasping thee close to her breast;Angels watch over thee gentle and mild,Guard thee with heavenly love undefiled.Sleep little baby, safe in thy nest,Sleep little baby! mother's own child."
"Sleep, little baby! fear not the storm,Tenderly mother is holding thy form.Mother's eyes watching thee ever aboveShine like twin stars with fathomless love.Sleep, little baby! safely and warm,Sleep, little baby! mother's own dove."
When he had ended the song with one soft, long-drawn note, he glanced furtively at Lady Errington, and saw that he had touched the one sympathetic chord of her nature, for those calm blue eyes were full of unshed tears hanging on the long lashes. Eustace delicately refrained from noticing her emotion, but rising from the piano strolled on to the terrace, leaned lightly over the balustrade and gazed absorbedly at the restless water, dark and sombre under the stone wall.
"A perfect night," he murmured after a pause, during which Lady Errington found time to recover herself from the momentary fit of emotion.
"Yes," answered Alizon mechanically, then after a pause, "thank you very much for the song."
"I'm glad you liked it," responded Eustace equably, and again there was silence between them. The moonlight shone on both their faces, on his, massive and masterful with a poetic look in his wonderfully eloquent eyes, and on hers, delicate, distinct and fragile, as if it had been carved from ivory. Light laughter from the two young people at the end of the terrace, a deep murmur of conversation from within, where Sir Guy strove gallantly to entertain his drowsy guest, but this man and woman, oblivious of all else, remained absorbed in their own thoughts.
Of what was she thinking? of her past sorrow, her present happiness, her doubtful future (for the future is doubtful with all humanity)--Who could tell? Eustace, delicately sympathetic as he was, stood outside the closed portals of her soul, into which no man, not even her husband, had penetrated. But men and women, however closely allied, how, ever passionately attached, however unreserved in their confidences, never know one another's souls. There is always a something behind all which is never revealed, which the soul feels intensely itself, yet shrinks from disclosing even to nearest and dearest, and it is this vague secret which all feel, yet none tell, that makes humanity live in loneliest isolation from each other.
Perhaps Lady Errington was thinking of this hidden secret of her soul which none knew, nor ever would know, but Eustace, softened for the moment by the unexpected maternal emotion his song had evoked, was envying his cousin the possession of this cold, silent woman. Had he known her personally before her marriage he might not have cared much about her, save in a friendly way, but his eccentric imagination had endowed her with a vague charm, which no other woman possessed, and the knowledge that she belonged to another man made him bitterly regretful. It was ever thus with the whimsical character of Eustace Gartney. Place something within his reach, and he despised it, place it beyond his hope of attainment, and he would strain every nerve to possess it. He lived in the pursuit of the unattainable, which of all things had the greatest charm for him, and this unattainable vision of charming womanhood filled his soul with passionate anguish and desire.
Suddenly, with a sigh, Lady Errington lifted up her eyes and saw Eustace looking at her, respectfully enough, yet with a certain meaning in his gaze which caused her vague embarrassment, she knew not why.
"Your music has made me dream, Mr. Gartney," she said, nervously opening her fan.
"You are of a sensitive nature, perhaps."
She sighed again.
"Yes, very sensitive. It is a most unhappy thing to be impressionable, one feels things other people count as nothing."
"Other people are wise," said Eustace in an ironical tone, "they take Talleyrand's advice about a happy life, and--are happy."
"What is your experience?"
"The reverse; but then you see I have not taken Talleyrand's advice. It is excellent and infallible to many people, but not to me."
"Why not?"
"I refer you to one Hamlet, who said, 'The time is out of joint.'"
"Hamlet was a morbid, self-analysing egotist," said Lady Errington, emphatically.
"No--you are wrong. He was a man crushed down by melancholy."
"Principally of his own making, though certainly he had plenty of excuse."
"And don't you think I have any excuse for being unhappy?"
Alizon looked at him critically.
"You are young, healthy, rich, famous. No, I don't think you have any excuse. Do you remember my advice to you the other night?"
"About philanthropy, yes. But we did not come to any agreement on the subject, because we were interrupted."
"History repeats itself," said Lady Errington, rising, "for here come Mrs. Trubbles and Guy."
"And Macjean and Miss Sheldon. Farewell, Minerva--Momus is King."
"Wisdom gives place to Folly--well, is not that a very good thing," said Alizon laughing, "you would grow weary of a world without change."
"I daresay. To no moment of my life could I have said with Faust, 'Stay, thou art so fair.'"
"Alizon, Mrs. Trubbles is going," said Sir Guy's voice, as the ponderous matron rolled towards his wife like a war-chariot.
"I'm so sorry," observed Lady Errington, taking the lady's hand.
"So am I, dear," said Mrs. Trubbles in a sleepy voice, "but I always go to bed early here, the climate makes me so sleepy. I have enjoyed myself so much--so very much. Yes."
"Next time you visit," whispered Otterburn to Victoria, "bring a chaperon who is wide-awake."
"I will--you shall choose my chaperon, Mr. Macjean."
"You mightn't like my choice," said Macjean wickedly.
"I mean a lady, of course," replied Victoria demurely, "not an irreverent young man like--well, never mind."
"Like me, I suppose?"
"I never said so."
"No, but you looked it."
Victoria laughed, and departed with Mrs. Trubbles and her hostess to put her wraps on, while the three gentlemen had a short smoke and conversation, after which they all separated for the night.
Eustace walked silently back in the moonlight with Mrs. Trubbles who did all the talking; and the young couple behind them talked Chinese metaphysics.
"I looked into my mind,And what did I find?The waifs of the life I had left behind."The tears of a girl,A blossom--a curl,The heart of a woman who married an Earl."Ambitions and fears,Gay laughter and tears,Dead sorrows, dead pleasures of long perished years."Ah, folly to sighFor passions that die,Sir Poet, 'tis best to let sleeping dogs lie."
"I looked into my mind,
And what did I find?
The waifs of the life I had left behind.
"The tears of a girl,
A blossom--a curl,
The heart of a woman who married an Earl.
"Ambitions and fears,
Gay laughter and tears,
Dead sorrows, dead pleasures of long perished years.
"Ah, folly to sigh
For passions that die,
Sir Poet, 'tis best to let sleeping dogs lie."
"I suppose," said Eustace to his friend, "that as we are here we may as well see something of the place."
"But we have seen a lot," objected Angus, removing his post-prandial cigarette.
"Do you think so?" observed Gartney serenely; "it strikes me that your 'seeing a lot' has been principally confined to pottering about this place in company with Miss Sheldon."
Otterburn looked a trifle sheepish at this very pointed remark, and resumed his cigarette with a nervous laugh.
They were seated under a mulberry tree, looking at the lake flashing in the brilliant sunshine, listening to a noisy cicada that was singing to itself in an adjacent flower-bed, and watching the brown lizards chasing one another over the hot stones of the parapet.
"Where do you want to go to?" asked the Master, after a pause.
"I was thinking of driving to Cantari. It's a queer old village, dating from the time of Il Medeghino."
"Who the deuce was he?"
"A pirate of this ilk, who used to sweep the lake with a fleet of ships."
"It wouldn't take a very big fleet to do that," said Otterburn, staring at the narrow limits of the lake. "I daresay one of our ironclads could have knocked the whole show to kingdom-come in no time."
"Very probably," replied Eustace dryly, "but luckily for Il Medeghino there were no ironclads in those days, and a good thing too. Torpedoes, Gatling guns, and dynamite have taken all the romance out of war. But this is not the question. What about Cantari. Will you come?"
"Well, I hardly know--I--do you think Miss Sheldon would care to come?"
"She might, only I'm not going to ask her. There's not much amusement in watching her flirting with you in some old church. Besides she'd admire the altar-cloth because it would make such a lovely dress, and the jewels of the shrine because they would look so charming on her own neck. No. I am not going to have my enjoyment spoilt by the everlasting chatter of a woman's tongue."
"You're horribly severe," said Angus wincing. "You don't like Miss Sheldon."
"As a pretty woman, yes. As a companion, no. She's a coquette.'
"Oh, I don't think so."
"Don't you? Well, wait a week. Your disenchantment will soon commence."
"She's a true woman," declared Macjean hotly.
"And therefore capricious. My dear lad, the two things are inseparable. But once more--for the third time. What about Cantari?"
The young man looked at the blue sky above, the blue lake below, the brilliantly-coloured flowers, and ultimately brought his eyes back to Eustace.
"I'll come if you like," he said awkwardly.
"Oh, don't trouble," replied Eustace curtly, springing to his feet, "I'll go alone," and he walked off in a huff, Otterburn making no attempt to stop him.
"What a cross chap he is," muttered the Master to himself, "he always wants a fellow to be dodging about those old ruins. It isn't good enough when there's a pretty girl about--not much. Life's too short to waste one's chances."
After which slightly egotistical soliloquy, Otterburn pitched his cigarette into a flower-bed and strolled off to the music-room, where he found Miss Sheldon strumming waltzes on a fearfully bad piano.
"Oh, here you are," she cried, rising with alacrity, "I'm so glad. I want to go out for a stroll, and Mrs. Trubbles doesn't. That nuisance of a husband of hers is talking her to sleep with politics."
"He is rather a trial," murmured Otterburn, as they went outside.
"Trial!" echoed Miss Sheldon, with supreme contempt, unfurling her sunshade, "I should just think so. One might as well have married a Blue-Book. Why did she marry him?"
"For the sake of contrast, probably."
"It's not impossible. Where is the amiable Mr. Gartney?"
"Gone geologizing, or ruin-hunting. Something of that sort!"
"Alone?"
"Entirely."
"Then he's in very good company."
"Oh, I say, you know," said Angus, making a weak stand for the character of his absent friend, "Gartney isn't a bad fellow."
"I never said he was."
"No--but you think----"
"It's more than you do, or you wouldn't stand there talking such nonsense," said Victoria severely. "Come and buy me some peaches."
So Otterburn held his tongue in the meekest manner, and bought her peaches, which they devoured comfortably by the lake, talking of everything, except Eustace Gartney.
In the meanwhile that gentleman, considerably upset in his own mind by what he termed Macjean's selfishness (he was quite oblivious of his own), had gone round to some stables in the village, selected a carriage, and was now being driven along the dusty white road in the direction of Cantari.
The driver, a swarthy young man with a somewhat dilapidated suit of clothes, a shining hard hat, and a good-natured smile, called the weak-kneed animal which drew the vehicle "Tista," and "Tista" was the nearest approach to a skeleton ever seen outside the walls of a museum. Peppino (the driver) encouraged Tista (the horse) by first shouting and then abusing him in voluble Italian.
"Ah, pig of a horse why go so slow? Child of Satan, is not the corn of the illustrious Signor waiting for thee at Cantari?"
It might have been, but Tista seemed to have his doubts about the truth of this statement, for he did not mend his pace, but ambled complacently on, stopping every now and then to whisk a fly from his hide. At last, in despair, Peppino got down from his perch and trudged up the hill beside Tista, who shook his bells bravely and made a great show of speed over the irregular road.
"Hadn't you better carry him?" asked Eustace in Italian, observing this comedy in sarcastic silence. "I don't think he'll live as far as Cantari."
Peppino touched his hat, grinned at the wit of the English milord, and without any reply went on abusing the stolid Tista with the brilliant vocabulary of a Texus mule driver. At last Tista with much difficulty managed to gain the top of the hill, whereupon Peppino mounted his perch once more, cracked his whip in grand style, and his attenuated horse proceeded to tumble down the incline.
Tista neither galloped, cantered, nor walked, but simply tumbled down the hill, being considerably assisted in his descent by the weight of the carriage behind. Then came a stretch of comparatively level road, running along the side of the lake, where Tista resumed his ambling, and after a deliberate journey the three, horse, driver and passenger, reached Cantari.
Here Eustace left his carriage at the Albergo Garibaldi, and, lighting a cigarette as a preventative against the evil odours of the village, strolled through the narrow streets with listless curiosity.
Cantari is situated on the side of a steep mountain which slopes sheer into the lake, and in fact some of the dwellings are built on stone piles over the tideless waters. All the houses, grey and weather-worn are huddled together as if for warmth, and from the bright green forests high above there falls a great sheet of foaming water, which descends through the centre of the village by several stages until it plunges with a muffled roar into the lake.
A perfect labyrinth of streets, narrow and gloomy, with tall grey houses on either side, cobbled stone pavements sloping from both sides to an open drain in the centre, and high above a glimpse of blue sky rendered all the more brilliant by the chill darkness of the place below. Then endless flights of rugged stairs, worn into hollows by the heavy feet of many generations, long sombre passages with humid walls, and slender stone bridges throwing a single arch across the tumbling white torrent raging below in dusky depths of cruel seeming. Heavily barred doors set in the massive walls, and higher up, rows of grated windows like those of some oriental seraglio, with open green shutters, just catching a fleeting glimpse of sunlight; still higher, iron railed balconies over which white linen hung out to dry, and highest of all, the vivid red of the tiled roofs, round which swooped and twittered the swift swallows.
In these dreary streets and alleys a perpetual twilight ever reigns, adding to the uncanny feeling of the place. Now and then a gaudily-dressedcontadina, all red skirt, gold earrings and barbaric colouring, clatters down in her wooden pattens; dark-browed, mobile-faced men lounge idly against the walls, laughing gaily, and at intervals sleek grey donkeys, laden with baskets piled with the vivid colours of vegetables and fruit, climb painfully up the steep ascent.
"It's like the Middle Ages," mused Eustace, as he toiled upward. "All kinds of dark deeds could take place in these winding streets. I wouldn't be surprised to see a band of the Baglioni waiting for some foe of their house in these dark corners, or to meet Dante climbing these steep stairs dreaming of Hell and Beatrice. Stradella might sing in the moonlight under that high balcony, where doubtless at night a peasant Juliet chatters love in villainous patois to some dark-browed Romeo."
A sudden turn of the stairs brought him into the brilliant sunshine and on to a little piazza hanging midway on the green mountain between the blue lake and the blue sky. Severally on three sides, an albergo, a café, a church, and on the fourth a wondrous view of sparkling waters, cloud-swathed hills, and distant pinnacles of Alpine snow.
Thoroughly tired out by his climb, Eustace sat thankfully down in an iron chair, put his feet on another, and ordered some wine from a dreary little waiter who emerged from the café to attend to his wants. While waiting, Eustace tilted his straw hat over his eyes, weary with the vivid colours of the landscape, and fell fast asleep. The waiter brought the wine, saw that the English gentleman was asleep, so retired cautiously without waking him.
In the pale blue sky the restless swallows flashed in rapid circles or twittered around the sloping eaves of the houses. On the hot stones of the little piazza slept the restless brown lizards, and in the centre a fountain of sparkling water splashed musically in its wide stone basin, all carved in Renaissance style with vines and masks and nude figures of frenzied Bacchanals. The sun dipped behind the arid peak of a great mountain, and threw its shadow on to the mountain village, while the mellow bells began to ring slowly in the slender campanile. Eustace awoke with a start, to find that he had been asleep for some considerable time, and after drinking his wine, and feeing the dreary little waiter, went across to have a look at the church before descending.
It was exactly the same as any other Italian church, frescoes of angels, and saints, and wide-eyed cherubim, side altars, before which burned the low, steady flame of oil lamps, high altar glittering with jewels and flowers, painted windows, faint odour of incense and all such things. A woman was kneeling at the confessional, within which sat a severe-looking priest, and Eustace, catching a glimpse of this, took a seat in the shadow near the door lest he should disturb them.
"If I could only believe like that," he thought to himself as he enviously watched the kneeling woman, "how much happier I should be; but it is impossible for me to shift my burden of sins on to the shoulders of another man. This is the age of disbelief, and I am of it, but I would give the whole world to be able to return to the primitive simple faith of these peasants, to believe in miracles, in the intercession of saints, in the canonization of pious people, and in all those beautiful fables which make their lives so bright."
The still church, the faint fumes of incense, the sudden flash in the dusky shadows of cross and pictured face, all influenced his singularly impressionable nature. He felt lifted up from the things of this earth into a higher region of spirituality, and in the exaltation of the moment felt inclined to kneel down on the cold pavement and lift up his voice in prayer. But the mocking spirit of disbelief, the spirit which denies, damped this sudden impulse of strong faith, and he sat there in the cold twilight, pitying himself profoundedly with the self-commiseration of an egotist, for the weariness of his life, which came from the selfishness of his own actions.
"How infinitely dreary is this life of ours, with its cant and humbug, its hollow aspirations and unsatisfying rewards. We try to make ourselves happy and only succeed in rendering ourselves cynical. If there were only some chance of compensation in the next world, but that is such a doubtful point. We are like wanderers on a lonely moor misled by false lights--false lights of our own creation. We know nothing, we can prove nothing, we believe nothing--not very gratifying after eighteen centuries of Christianity. After all, I daresay that old Greek philosopher was right, who said 'Eat, drink, for to-morrow we die.' Still, one grows weary of eating, and drinking, and other things--especially other things. Marriage, for instance--I ought to marry, and yet--it's such a hazardous experiment. I would tire of the best woman breathing, unless I chanced on the other half of myself, according to Plato's theory. That, I'm afraid, is impossible, though it certainly hasn't been for the want of trying. I've loved a good many women, but the passion has only lasted the life of a rose."
At this moment of his reflections he chanced to raise his eyes, and saw in front of him a picture of the Madonna, with the calm look of maternity on her face, and this sight turned his thoughts in the direction of Lady Errington.
"It is curious that I should be so attracted by that woman. I wonder what can be the reason. She is not particularly brilliant, nor clever, nor exquisitely beautiful, and yet she seems to satisfy that hunger of the soul I have felt all my life. One can think, but not describe a woman's character, even the most shallow woman's; there is always something that escapes one. Alizon Errington has that something, and it is that which attracts me so powerfully. That calm, reposeful, sympathetic nature which appeals so strongly to a worn-out soul. If I were ill, I would like her to sit beside me and lay her cool hand on my forehead--she is like moonlight, dreamy, restful and indescribable.
"Perhaps she is the woman of my dreams, the impossible ideal which all men imagine and no man ever meets. If this should be the case, Fate has played me a cruel trick in making her my cousin's wife. She does not love him--No!--she loves nothing except a vague fancy, which will turn to a passionate reality when she becomes a mother.
"Guy is living in a fool's paradise, for he takes her sympathetic nature for a loving one. Some day he will be undeceived and find that he loves a statue, a snow queen, who can never respond to his passion. When she becomes a mother she will find her soul, which will only awaken at the cry of a child; but at present she is an Undine--a faint, white ghost--the shadow of what a woman should be.
"Do I love her?--I don't know. There is something too spiritual about this new passion of mine. It is as evanescent as the dew, as unreal as moonlight; there is no flesh and blood reality about such platonisms. I am no Pygmalion to worship a statue. Still, if the gods endowed this statue with life--What then? It is difficult to say. I would love her. I would adore her, and yet--she is the wife of my cousin and I--I am the fool of fortune."
With a dreary laugh he rose from his seat, feeling cramped and chill in the grim shadows. He went outside, but the sunlight had died out of the sky and all the beautiful, brilliant world was dull and grey; the magic light had passed away from on land and water, leaving a sombre, weary earth, across which the wind blew cold and bleak.
"Rose-coloured spectacles! Rose-coloured spectacles!" he muttered, plunging into the gloomy stairs of the street. "If I could only buy a pair."
Peppino and Tista were waiting for him at the Albergo Garibaldi, and in a few minutes he was on his way back to the Villa Medici.
The sun had disappeared behind the distant hills, and in a rose-coloured sky hung the faint shadow of a waning moon, looking thin and haggard amid the fast-fading splendour.
"She is like the moon," he sighed sadly, "like the pale, cold moon. As fair--as calm--and as lifeless as that dead world."
"Say 'Yes' or 'No'Before we part.Come joy or woe,Say 'Yes' or 'No.'I love thee so!Hope fills my heart.Say 'Yes' or 'No'
"Say 'Yes' or 'No'
Before we part.
Come joy or woe,
Say 'Yes' or 'No.'
I love thee so!
Hope fills my heart.
Say 'Yes' or 'No'
There was no doubt that Angus Macjean was very much in love with Miss Sheldon, which to wiseacres would appear rather foolish, seeing that he had only known her three weeks. But as, according to Kit Marlowe, "He never loved who loved not at first sight," Otterburn had fulfilled such practical advice to the letter, and however rapidly love had sprung up in his heart in that short space of three weeks, it had become sufficiently powerful to dominate all his other faculties.
As to the wisdom of this sudden passion, he was somewhat doubtful, for two reasons, one being that he did not know whether Victoria would accept him, and the other that even if she did, his father might refuse to sanction the match, a very probable contingency, seeing that the old Lord had already settled the matrimonial future of his heir.
Under these circumstances Otterburn, much as he was in love, felt rather embarrassed as to the manner in which he should proceed. He adored this bright-eyed, piquant beauty with all his soul, so, according to the neck-or-nothing traditions of Love, should have thrown all other considerations to the winds, but having inherited from his father a vein of Scotch caution he deemed it wise to proceed with due circumspection.
Gartney might have advised this half-hearted lover, but Otterburn knew that neither his lady-love nor his friend liked one another, so thought it useless to ask for an opinion which would be diametrically opposed to his own desires. Seeing, therefore, that there was nothing satisfactory to be obtained from Eustace, Otterburn made up his mind to find out indirectly what Johnnie Armstrong thought of the matter.
It may appear strange that he should condescend to speak of such a subject even indirectly to his servant, but then Johnnie was much more to him than a servant, being an old and faithful friend of the family, who had seen him grow up from childhood, and regarded himself in the light of a humble adviser to the young heir in the absence of Mactab, to whom Johnnie deferred as spiritual adviser.
According to this view of the matter, which would have been quite incomprehensible to Eustace, who regarded his valet as a useful machine, Johnnie was no ordinary servant, and although Angus did not intend to ask him right out how he thought such a union would be received at Dunkeld Castle, yet he knew that once Johnnie's tongue was set going he would soon find out all he wanted to know.
Johnnie, in himself, represented the home authorities, and feeling very doubtful in his own mind as to the views that might be taken of the affair, after much cogitation Angus determined to ascertain the sage Johnnie's opinion on the subject, and one morning, while he was dressing, broached the idea in a most artful way.
He was standing before the mirror brushing his hair, and Johnnie was hunting for some special necktie he had been told to find, when the following dialogue took place.
"Johnnie," asked Angus, without turning his head, "were you ever in love?"
Johnnie paused for a moment and rubbed his bald brow with one lean red hand.
"Weel, Maister," he said, with habitual Scotch caution, "I'll nae gang sae far as tae say I michtna hae been. There wis reed-heeded Mysie, ye ken a canty lass wi' a braw tocher. Ye'll mind her, sir, doon the burn near Kirsty Lachlan's but an' ben."
"Can't say I recollect her," replied Angus carelessly. "All the girls are red-headed about Dunkeld. Well, did you love Mysie?"
"Maybe I did," said Johnnie coolly, "an' maybe she would hae made me a decent gudewife if it hadna been for that blithering Sawney Macpherson--the gowk wi' the daft mither--whae yattered her saul oot wi' his skirlin' about her braw looks, an' sae she married him. It wasna a happy foregathering," concluded Mr. Armstrong spitefully, "for Sawney's ower fond o' whusky, an' the meenister had him warned fower times i' the Kirk o' Tabbylugs."
"How do you like the Italian girls?" asked the Master, who had been listening with some impatience to Johnnie's long-winded story.
"A puir lot, Maister, a puir lot. Feckless things whae warship the Scarlet Wuman wi' gew-gaws an' tinkling ornaments in high places. They're aye yelpin' fra morn till nicht wi' idolatrous processions an' graven images."
As these religious views of the godly Johnnie did not interest Otterburn, he proceeded:
"What do you think of Miss Sheldon, Johnnie?"
"She's nae sae bad."
"Oh, nonsense. She's an angel."
"Weel, I've seen waur."
Johnnie was evidently determined not to commit himself in any way, so Angus spoke straight out.
"What would you say if I married her, Johnnie?"
"Losh me," ejaculated Armstrong in dismay, "ye'll be clean daft to dae sic a thing. The auld Lord would never forgie ye, Maister. An' Mistress Cranstoun----"
"Oh, hang it. I'm not going to marry her," retorted Angus, snatching a necktie from Johnnie's paralysed grasp.
"I misdoubt me what the godly Mactab wull spier----"
"D-- Mactab."
"Hech! just listen tae him," cried Johnnie, with uplifted hands. "The meenister whae brocht him up in the psalms o' David an' led him by mony waters through the paraphrases."
"Hold your tongue!" said the Master, stamping his foot. "I didn't ask you to make any remarks."
"What's your wull then?" demanded Johnnie sourly.
"Do you think there'll be a row if I married her?"
"Aye I--that I do."
"She's very pretty."
"Ye mauna gang like th' Israelites after strange wumen."
"She's got plenty of money."
This artful remark appealed to Johnnie's strongest passion, and he considered the question.
"Weel, I'll nae say but what that micht dae ye some gude," he said cautiously, "but, oh, Maister, it's nae the auld Lord I fear, it's the meenister o' Tabbylugs, as ye weel ken. If ye but get the richt side o' his lug, maybe ye can tac' this dochter o' Belial tae Kirk--if no, I fear me, Maister, there'll be the deil tae pay."
Angus made no reply to this speech, as he knew what Johnnie said was perfectly true, so having thus ascertained exactly how his marriage to Victoria would be taken, he rapidly finished his dressing and ran downstairs, leaving his faithful henchman shaking his grizzled head in dour Scotch fashion over the probable anger of Mactab.
"The daft bit laddie," commented Johnnie, folding up his master's clothes, "tae fly i' the face o' Providence aboot a lass. An' that auld Jeezebel whae dodders after her would like it fine, I'm thinking, tae see the lass Leddy Otterburn. I'll no tac' the responsibility on me. The laddie ma gang tae the auld Laird an' the meenister, an' they'll nay say aye, I misdoot me the Maister 'ull gang his ain gait for aw their skirling."
Meanwhile Angus was standing at the front door of the hotel, thinking over the conversation he had just had, and having a considerable amount of common sense saw that Johnnie Armstrong was correct in his remarks about Mactab. Being a man of great shrewdness and genuine piety he had attained a strong influence over the somewhat stern nature of Lord Dunkeld, who knew that Mactab's advice if not always palatable was essentially sound.
Lord Dunkeld had set his heart on the marriage of his only son with Miss Cranstoun, as that ill-favoured damsel was heiress to the estate adjoining that to which Angus was heir, and such a match would considerably increase the territorial possessions and influence of the Macjean family in the Border land.
Nevertheless Angus, though not a fortune hunter, knew that Victoria Sheldon was very wealthy, and in this democratic age an excellent match in every way, so provided his father was satisfied regarding the birth of the young lady (and the fact that her mother was a Macjean was greatly in her favour), there was a chance of success, especially if Mactab approved, of which, however, Angus was doubtful, for the minister greatly admired Miss Cranstoun owing to her assiduous attendance at the Kirk.
"Deuce take the whole lot of them," grumbled Otterburn, as he thought over all this. "I wish they'd let a fellow fix up his own life. One would think I had no feelings the way they order me about. That Cranstoun girl is as ugly as sin, and I don't see why I should marry her just because she's got the next estate to ours. Why doesn't my father marry her himself if he's so jolly anxious to get the property? As for Mactab, he ought to mind his own business instead of meddling with mine. Hang it, I won't stand it. I'm not engaged to that Cranstoun thing, so I can do as I like. Victoria goes away to-morrow, and Lord only knows when I'll see her again, so I'll take the bull by the horns and ask her to marry me. If she won't, there's no harm done, and if she will, the whole lot at Dunkeld can howl themselves hoarse for all I care."
Having, therefore, made up his mind in this impulsive manner, Otterburn, in order to give himself no time to change it, walked off in search of Victoria, to offer her the heart which his father fondly trusted was in the keeping of Miss Cranstoun of that ilk.
Miss Sheldon was seated in the Chinese room writing letters, and so absorbed was she in her occupation, that she did not hear Otterburn enter.
It was a lofty, fantastical apartment, with an oval roof tinted a dull grey, on which were traced red lines of a symmetrical pattern to resemble bamboo framing, and the walls were hung with Chinese paper, forming a kind of tapestry on which the artist, ignorant of perspective, had traced strange trees, brilliant birds, impossible towers, bizarre bridges, and odd-looking figures. In the four corners of the room, on slender pedestals, sat almond-eyed, burly mandarins, cross-legged, with their long hands folded placidly on their protuberant stomachs, and pagoda-shaped hats, with jingling bells on their pig-tailed heads. Chinese matting on the floor, lounging chairs of bamboo work, oblong tables, on which stood barbaric vases of porcelain, all gave this room a strange Eastern look, suggesting thoughts of crowded Pekin, the odour of new-gathered tea, and a vision of queer towers rising from the rice plains, under burning skies.
Otterburn was not thinking of the Flowery Land, however, as his mind was too full of Victoria, and he stood silently watching her graceful head bent over her writing, until, by that strange instinct which warns everyone that someone is near, she raised her eyes and saw him standing close to the door. "Oh, good morning," she cried gaily, as he advanced. "Sit down for a few moments, and don't interrupt me. I'm engaged in a most unpleasant task. Writing to Aunt Jelly."
"Why! is it so disagreeable?" said the young man, sitting down in one of the light chairs, which creaked complainingly under his weight.
"Very," replied Miss Sheldon, nodding her head and pursing up her lips. "Very, very disagreeable. Being my guardian, she always seems to think I'm in mischief, and I have to report myself once a week to her like a ticket-of-leave man, or rather woman."
"Do you tell her everything?" asked Otterburn, rather aghast.
"With certain reservations. Yes!"
"I hope I'm included in the reservations?"
"Well, yes. At least, I've not yet sent Aunt Jelly a portrait of you."
"And shall I ever gain that enviable distinction?"
Miss Sheldon shrugged her shoulders with a laugh.
"Do you think it enviable to be dissected for the benefit of a carping old woman? I'm sure I don't. Besides, as you are a friend of Mr. Gartney's, you will meet his dreadful aunt on your return to England, and she can criticise you herself, instead of gaining an impression second-hand from me."
"If I do meet her, I hope the criticism will be favourable."
"Why so?"
"Because you are her ward."
"I don't see the connection," replied Victoria, with feminine duplicity, but her heightened colour showed that she understood his meaning, and Otterburn, being by no means deficient in understanding regarding the sex, immediately took advantage of the secret sympathy thus suddenly engendered between them.
"I'm a very plain sort of fellow, Miss Sheldon," he said, with a certain boyish dignity, "and I can't talk so glibly about things as most men, but I think you can guess what I want to say to you."
He paused for a moment, but as Victoria made no observation, he drew a long breath, and continued:
"I love you, and I want you to marry me--if you'll have me."
In spite of the brusqueness of this declaration, crude in the extreme, adorned with no fine flowers of speech or passionate protestations of eternal love, Victoria felt that he spoke from his heart, and that this manly declaration was more to be believed than any sickly, sentimental speech of honey and spice. Still, she made no sign to show how deeply his honest straightforwardness had touched her, but scribbled idly on the blotting-paper with her pen, whereupon Otterburn, emboldened by her silence, gently took the hand which was lying on her lap, and went on with increasing hopefulness of tone.
"I trust you do not think me presumptuous in speaking so soon, but although I have only known you a few weeks, yet in that time I have learned to love you very dearly, and if you'll only become my wife, I'll do everything in my power to make you happy."
She withdrew her hand from his grasp, and throwing down the pen on the table, turned her clear eyes gravely on his face, then, without any maidenly confusion or any mock modesty, she answered him calmly, although the tremulous quivering of her nether lip showed how deeply she was moved.
"You are doing me a great honour, Mr. Macjean, and I assure you I appreciate the manner in which you have spoken, but--it cannot be."
"Oh, surely----"
"No," she replied, lifting her hand to stay his further speech. "I am only a girl, I know, but then I have been brought up in the Colonies, and in these matters I think Australian girls are more self-reliant than those in England."
She might have been a schoolmistress delivering a lecture on manners, so coldly did she speak.
"I like you! I respect you, but I do not love you, and I could marry no man without loving him. We have only known each other three weeks, so are in total ignorance of each other's character. No, Mr. Macjean, much as I thank you for the honour you have done me--the greatest honour a man can offer a woman--yet I must say no."
"Can you give me no hope?"
"I don't think it would be wise to do so. We part to-morrow, and may meet others we like better, so it would be foolish for either you or myself to bind ourselves in any way."
Otterburn, seeing from her cool, composed speech that her mind was made up, arose to his feet with a look of despair on his bright, young face, upon which she also arose from her chair, and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.
"Believe me, you will think as I do later on," she said in a friendly tone; "forget that this conversation has ever taken place, and let us be on the same footing as before. We part to-morrow, as I said before, but it is more than probable that we will meet in London--if so, let us meet as friends."
The composure with which she spoke irritated Otterburn fearfully, the more so as it was so unexpected. This brilliant, piquant creature, who should have been all fire and passion, talked to him as if he were a schoolboy, and argued about love as if she was an elderly dry as-dust professor of science. Perhaps Victoria knew this, and, as she did not wish to marry Otterburn, thought that such a cold-blooded way of discussing his passion, from a worldly point of view, would have the effect of making him care less about her refusal to marry him.
They stood looking at one another for a moment, the man angry at what he considered her unjustifiable treatment, the woman composed, but withal a trifle frightened at the tempest she had provoked.
"Well, we part friends?" she said, holding out her hand with a quiet smile.
Angus looked at her with a glance of anger in his eyes.
"Coquette!" he growled out between his clenched teeth, and, taking no notice of her extended hand, left the room quickly.
Left to herself, Victoria sat down and thought over the scene. The declaration of Angus had touched her by its manly honesty, but, as she had not thought of marrying him, her mode of refusal had certainly been the best possible in order to cool his passion. His anger, however, and the fast word he had uttered, opened her eyes to the situation, and she saw that her determination to spite Eustace, by taking his friend away, had been more serious than she imagined.
This reflection made her angry with herself, and of course she vented her rage on Angus, simply because she had treated him badly.
"Stupid boy," she said to herself, angrily, "he might have seen I was not in earnest. I never gave him to understand that I would marry him. These men are so conceited, they think they have only got to throw the handkerchief like the Sultan. The lesson will do him good. Yet he is a nice, honest boy, and I'm sorry we did not part friends. Never mind, I expect he'll come back shortly. I'm sure he ought to, and beg my pardon--if he's got any sense of decency--foolish boy."
She tried to write but felt too angry with herself, Angus and the whole world, to do so, therefore she ran up to her own room, worried herself ill over the whole affair and ultimately ended up in having a good cry and a fit of self-commiseration.
Meanwhile, Otterburn' in a towering passion, walked outside, and seeking a secluded seat under a spreading oak, sat down in a most doleful mood.
"The heartless coquette," said this ill-used young man aloud, staring dismally at the lake. "I wonder what she thinks a man is made of to be preached at? I asked for love and she gave me a sermon. Good Lord! I thought she would have cried and made a fuss like other girls, but she didn't, confound her! Fancy talking about ignorance of character and all that stuff, when a fellow's dying of love, and as to being friends, that's not my style. I'm not going to run after her like a poodle dog, and be driven away every two minutes. I'll see Gartney, and we'll go away at once. I'll never see her again, never! never! never!"
"That's emphatic, at all events," said a quiet voice at his elbow, and on turning round, he saw Eustace standing near him complacently smoking a cigarette.
"Oh, it's you," said Otterburn, in an ill-tempered tone.
"Yes! forgive me, but I couldn't help overhearing the last few words you spoke. I--I hope you've been successful in your wooing."
"I don't know what you mean," retorted Angus sulkily, stretching his long legs out, and thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets.
"I beg your pardon," replied Eustace, ceremoniously. "I have no wish to force your confidence."
The Master made no reply, but glared savagely at his boots, while Eustace, taking in the situation at a glance, stood silently beside him, not without a secret gratification that Otterburn had been punished for his base desertion of friendship for love. This was so like Gartney, whose colossal egotism saw in the successes or failures of others nothing but what tended to his own self-glorification.
"Gartney," said Otterburn, suddenly looking up, "I'm deadly sick of this place."
"Everyone seems to be of your opinion," answered Eustace, complacently; "the Erringtons go to-day, and Mrs. Trubbles to-morrow--of course la Belle Victoria accompanies them--aren't you inconsolable?"
This was cruel of Eustace, and he knew it.
"No, I'm not," retorted Angus, doughtily, "she's not the only girl in the world. I wish to heaven you'd talk sense. Tell me when are we going to start?"
"When you like."
"For Vienna?"
"I'm rather tired of Vienna," said Gartney, listlessly, "I've been there four times and it's always the same. If you don't mind, I'd rather we tried a fresh locality."
"I don't care," said Otterburn, with a scowl. "I'll go anywhere--to the devil if you like."
"That's looking too far ahead," replied Eustace ironically. "What do you say to Cyprus? I've been reading Mallock's book about it and it seems one place not in the grip of Cook's tourists and Baedeker's Guide Books. We can take the train to Venice, and go down the Adriatic."
"Very well," said Macjean, rising, with a huge sigh. "If you don't mind, I'll go to Milan to-day. You can follow to-morrow."
"All right," said Eustace quietly, judging it best to let his young friend go away for a time and get over his disappointment in solitude. "I will come with you to Como, and can see both you and the Erringtons off at the same time."
"Then I'll go and tell Johnnie to get my traps together."
"Certainly, but look here, old fellow, although you have not honoured me with your confidence I can guess your trouble, but don't worry about it."
"Oh, it's all very well for you," said Otterburn, reddening, "you're not in love."
"I'm not so sure of that," murmured Eustace in a dreary tone, whereupon Angus laughed scornfully.
"It doesn't sound like it--by-the-way, you can say goodbye to Mrs. Trubbles for me."
"And Miss Sheldon?"
"Hang Miss Sheldon and you too!" retorted Otterburn, and thereupon bolted, so as to give Eustace no opportunity of making further remarks.
"Love!" quoth Eustace the philosopher, "does not improve manners. Macjean is like a young bear with a sore head, and Miss Sheldon--well, she's got another scalp to hang in her wigwam."