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Title: The Railway Man and his Children

Author: Margaret Oliphant

Release Date: May 3, 2019 [EBook #59424]

Language: English

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                          The English Library

                                No. 77

                          THE RAILWAY MAN AND
                             HIS CHILDREN

                           BY MRS. OLIPHANT

                           _IN TWO VOLUMES_



               _VOLUMES BY THE SAME AUTHOR PUBLISHED IN_

                          The English Library

                           (_In the Press_)


                 THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR       2 Vols.

     _Copyright Edition_




                            THE RAILWAY MAN
                           AND HIS CHILDREN

                                  BY

                             MRS. OLIPHANT

                               AUTHOR OF
   “_KIRSTEEN_,” “_WITHIN THE PRECINCTS_,” “_AT HIS GATES_,” _ETC._

                           _IN TWO VOLUMES_

                               VOLUME I.


                                LEIPZIG
                        HEINEMANN AND BALESTIER
                           _LIMITED, LONDON_

                                 1892




                            THE RAILWAY MAN

                           AND HIS CHILDREN




CHAPTER I.


The news that Miss Ferrars was going to marry Mr. Rowland the engineer,
ran through the station like wildfire, producing a commotion and
excitement which had rarely been equalled since the time of the Mutiny.
Miss Ferrars! and Mr. Rowland!--it was repeated in every tone of wonder
and astonishment, with as many audible notes of admiration and
interrogation as would fill a whole page. “Impossible!” people said, “I
don’t believe it for a moment”--“You don’t mean to say----” But when
Mrs. Stanhope, who was Miss Ferrars’ friend, with whom she had been
living, answered calmly that this was indeed what she meant to say, and
that she was not very sure whether she was most sorry or glad--most
pleased to think that her friend was thus comfortably established in
life, or sorry that she was perhaps stepping a little out of her
sphere--there remained nothing for her visitors but a universal gape of
amazement, a murmur of deprecation or regret--“Oh, poor Miss Ferrars!”
the ladies cried. “A lady, of such a good family, and marrying a man who
was certainly not a gentleman.” “But he is a very good fellow,” the
gentlemen said; and one or two of the mothers who were conscious in
their hearts, though they did not say anything of the fact, that had he
proposed for Edie or Ethel, they would have pushed his claims as far as
legitimate pressure could go, held their tongues or said little, with a
feeling that they had themselves escaped the criticism which was now so
freely poured forth. They were aware indeed that it would have come upon
them more hotly, for it was they who would have been blamed in the case
of Ethel or Edie, whereas Miss Femurs was responsible for herself. But
the one of them who would have been most guilty, and who indeed had
thought a good deal about Mr. Rowland, and considered the question very
closely whether she ought not as a matter of duty to endeavour to
interest him in her Ethel, whose name was Dorothy, took up the matter
most hotly, and declared that she could not imagine how a lady could
make up her mind to such a descent “Not a gentleman: why, he does not
even pretend to be a gentleman,” said the lady, as if the pretention
would have been something in his favour. “He is not a man even of any
education. Oh I know he can read and write and do figures--all those
surveyor men can. Yes, I call him a surveyor--I don’t call him an
engineer. What was he to begin with? Why he came out in charge of some
machinery or something! None of them have any right to call themselves
engineers. I call them all surveyors--working men--that sort of thing!
and to think that a woman who really is a lady--”

“Oh come, Maria, come!” cried her husband, “you are glad enough of the
P.W.D. when you have no bigger fish on hand.”

“I don’t understand what you mean by bigger fish, Colonel Mitchell,”
said the lady indignantly; but if she did not know, all the rest of the
audience did. Matchmaking mothers are very common in fiction, but more
rare in actual life, and when one exists she is speedily seen through,
and her wiles are generally the amusement of her circle, though the
woman remains unconscious of this. And indeed poor Mrs. Mitchell was not
so bad as she was supposed to be. She was a great entertainer, getting
up parties of all kinds, which was the natural impulse of a fussy but
not unkindly personality, delighting to be in the midst of everything;
and it is certain that picnics and even dinner parties, much less
dances, cannot be managed unless you keep up your supply of young men.
There were times when her eagerness to keep up that supply and to assure
its regularity was put down quite wrongly to the score of her daughters,
which is an injustice which every hospitable woman with daughters must
submit to. A sort of half audible titter went round the little party
when Colonel Mitchell, with that cruel satisfaction so often seen in
men, gave over his wife to the criticism of society. A man never stands
by the women of his family in such circumstances; he deserts them even
when he does not, as in this instance, actually betray. There was one
young man, however, one of the staff of dancers and picnic men, who was
faithful to her--a poor young fellow who knew that he had no chance of
being looked upon as a _parti_, and who made a diversion in pure
gratitude, a quality greatly lacking among his kind.

“Rowland,” he said, “is one of the best fellows in the world. He does
not shine perhaps among ladies, but he’s good fun when he likes, and a
capital companion.”

“And Miss Ferrars, dear,” said one of the ladies soothingly, “is not
like my Ethel or your Dorothy. Poor thing, it is just as well, for she
has nobody to look after her: she is, to say the least, old enough to
manage matters for herself.”

“And to know that such a chance would never come again,” said one of the
men with a laugh--which is a kind of speech that jars upon women, though
they may perhaps say something very like it themselves. But to think of
Miss Ferrars making a last clutch of desperation at James Rowland the
engineer, as at a chance which might never occur again, was too much
even for an afternoon company making a social meal upon a victim, and
there was a feeling of compunction and something like guilt when some
one whispered almost with awe, “Look! there they are.”

The party in question were seated in a verandah in the cool of the day
when the sun was out of sight. They had all been gasping in
semi-darkness through the heat, and now had come to life again to enjoy
a little gossip, before entering upon the real business of dining and
the amusements of the evening. The ladies sat up in their chairs, and
the men put themselves at least in a moral attitude of attention as the
two figures went slowly across the square. One feels a little “caught”
in spite of oneself by the sudden appearance of a person who has been
under discussion at the moment he or she appears. There is a guilty
sense that walls have ears, and that a bird of the air may carry the
matter. It was a relief to everybody when the pair had passed and were
seen no more. They went slowly, for the lady had a couple of little
children clinging to her hands.

Miss Ferrars was of an appearance not to be passed over, even though she
was quite old enough, as her critic said, to manage matters for
herself--so old as to have no prospect of another chance did she reject
the one unexpectedly offered to her at present. She was a woman a little
more than the ordinary height, and a little less than the ordinary
breadth--a slim, tall woman, with a very pliant figure, which when she
was young had lent itself to all kinds of poetical similes. But she was
no longer young. She must have been forty at the least, and she was not
without the disadvantages that belong to that age. She did not look
younger than she was. Her complexion had faded, and her hair had been
touched, not to that premature whiteness which softens and beautifies,
but to an iron grey, which is apt to give a certain sternness to the
face. That there was no sternness about her, it was only necessary to
see her attitude with the children, who clung to her and swayed her
about, now to one side now to the other, with the restless tyranny
peculiar to their age, while still she endeavoured to give her
attention and a smile to the middle-aged person by her side, who, truth
to tell, was by no means so patient of the children’s presence as she
was. It was the little boy, who was next to Mr. Rowland, and who kicked
his legs and got in the way of his footsteps, that brought that colour
of anger to his face, and many exclamations which had to be repressed to
his lips. Those dreadful little Stanhopes! Miss Ferrars had been by way
of paying a visit to the friend of her childhood, and it was very kind,
everybody said, of Mrs. Stanhope to stretch such a point for a friend,
and to keep her so long. But there were many who knew very well what
Evelyn Ferrars had not said even to herself, that she was the most
useful member of the Stanhope household, doing everything for the
children, though not a word was said of any such duties as those which
had insensibly been thrown upon her. Nobody breathed such a word as
governess in respect to Mrs. Stanhope’s friend: but people have eyes,
and uncommonly sharp ones sometimes at an Indian station, and everybody
knew perfectly to what that long visit had come.

Mr. Rowland was a man of another order altogether. He was not tall, and
he was rather broad--a ruddy weatherbeaten man, much shone upon by the
sun, and blown about by all the winds. It was not difficult to see at a
glance the difference between the two, which the critics in Colonel
Mitchell’s verandah had pointed out so fully. He was dressed as well as
the gentlemen of the station, and had an air of prosperity and wealth
which was not often to be seen in the lean countenances of the soldiers;
but he was not like them. He was respectable beyond words, well off, a
sensible, responsible man: but he was not what is called a gentleman in
common parlance. You may say that he was much better, being a good and
upright and honest man; but after all that is but a begging of the
question, for he might have been all these things and yet a gentleman,
and this would have been in every way of the greatest advantage to him.
It would have done him good with the young men under him, and even with
the overseers and foremen of his works, as well as with the handful of
people who made society in the station. Fortunately, however, he was not
himself conscious of this deficiency, or if he was, accepted it as a
matter of fact that did no real harm. He did not, as Mrs. Mitchell said,
even pretend to be a gentleman. As he walked along by the side of the
lady who had accepted him as her future husband, a great satisfaction
betrayed itself in every look and movement. His face was lighted up with
a sort of illumination as he turned it towards her--not the transport of
a young man, or the radiance of that love-look which makes the most
homely countenance almost beautiful, for he was perhaps beyond the age
for such exaltation of sentiment; but a profound satisfaction and
content which seemed to breathe out from him, surrounding him with an
atmosphere of his own. Perhaps there was not the same expression upon
the face of his betrothed. It is true that she was disturbed by the
children, who hung upon her, dragging her now in one direction now in
another; but at least her face was quietly serene, untroubled--peaceful
if not glad.

This was the story of their wooing. Mr. Rowland, though he was not
looked upon by the Society of the station as quite their equal, was yet
invited everywhere, dining with everybody: and was treated with the
utmost hospitality, so that no one could have suspected that any
suspicion as to his worthiness was in the minds of these friendly people
whom such a sudden event as this threatened marriage had moved to
discussion of the claim to be one of them, which indeed he had never
made, but which they had all awarded in that ease of social arrangement
which herds together a little masterful alien community in the midst of
that vast continent peopled by races so different. To be an Englishman
is of itself in India a social grade, and thus Mr. Rowland the engineer
had many opportunities of seeing Mrs. Stanhope’s friend, both in Mrs.
Stanhope’s house and the houses of the other magnates of the station. He
had met her at all the entertainments given, and they were many, and he
had almost immediately singled her out, not because of her beauty nor of
the dependent position which touches the heart of some men, nor indeed
for any reason in particular, except that he did single her out. Such an
attraction is its own sole reason and explanation. It was not even
choice, but simple destiny, which made him feel that here, by God’s
grace, was the one woman for him. I do not deny that when this
middle-aged and perfectly honest and straightforward man asked her to
marry him, Evelyn Ferrars was taken very much by surprise. She opened
wide a pair of brown eyes which had not been without note in their day,
but which had long ceased to expect any homage, and looked at him as if
for the moment she thought him out of his senses. Did he know what he
was saying--did he by any strange chance mean it? She looked at him with
scarcely a blush, so great was her surprise, making these inquiries with
her startled eyes; and there can be no doubt that her first impulse was
to say no. But before she said it a sudden train of thought darted out
from her mind, one crowding after the other an endless succession of
ideas and reflections, presented to her in the twinkling of an eye, as
if they had been a line of soldiers on the march. And she paused. He was
scarcely aware of the hesitation, and resumed again after that moment of
silence, pleading his own cause, very modestly yet very earnestly, with
a seriousness and soberness which were much more effectual than greater
enthusiasm would have been. But by this time she was scarcely aware what
he said; it was her own mind that had come into action, saying to her a
hundred things more potent than what he was saying, and changing in a
moment all the tenor of her thoughts. Evelyn was not perhaps much more
of a free agent than Rowland was in this moment of fate. She felt
afterwards that she had been stopped and her attention attracted as by
the flash of one of those sun-signals of which she had been hearing. She
was altogether in a military atmosphere in the Stanhopes’ house, and
everybody had been explaining that process by which the sun’s rays are
made to communicate messages from one distant army to another. She was
stopped with the no on her lips by the flash and radiation through the
air of that message. She had not any code of interpretation to note in a
moment what it meant. But she paused, almost to her own astonishment;
and when she found her voice, it was to ask for a little time to think
before she gave her final reply.

When a woman does this, it is almost invariably the case that she
decides for the suitor, even the doubt being, I suppose, a point in his
favour, and increasing a disposition--a bias towards him rather than
away from him. Evelyn had, like most other Englishwomen, a lively and
wholesome feeling that love alone justified marriage, and that any less
motive was a desecration of that tremendous tie. It is an excellent
thing for a race that this superstition should exist, and I am far from
desiring to see any lower ground accepted as the basis of a connection
upon which the purity and character of all other affections depend. But
yet when reason is allowed time to speak, there are many other things
which may be permitted to have a voice, and a woman may at least be
allowed to take into consideration at forty, arguments which at twenty
would be indignantly refused a hearing. What Evelyn Ferrars felt as she
retired from that interview which had opened to her so many and such
extraordinary new suggestions for thought, it is difficult to describe.
She had become all at once a sort of battlefield--to keep up the
military simile--in which that “No,” which had been her first conception
of the situation, stood like a force entrenched and on the defensive,
somewhat sullen, holding fast upon the mere fact of its existence,
emitting a dull roar of artillery now and then, while the attacking
forces scoured the plain in endless evolution, pressing on and on. The
first flash of the sun-signal, which she had not been at first able to
interpret, turned out to mean a rapid identification of her own
position, which was a thing she had not allowed herself to think of,
while it was without remedy. It was not what she had anticipated when
she ventured in her loneliness to come up country in answer to her
friend’s warm invitation. She had come out to Calcutta with her brother,
the last survivor of her family after the breaking up of home at her
father’s death; and when he too died soon after, cut off by the sudden
stroke which ends so many promising careers in India, the despair of the
solitary woman left in a strange place with few friends and little
money, and nobody to come to her help, had been almost without a gleam
of light. And in that emergency the Stanhopes had been very kind. The
wife had written imploring her heart-broken friend to come to her,
offering her all that the affection of a sister could do to supply her
loss; the husband had come, what was even more kind, to do what he could
for her, and to take her, if she consented, home. They had been more
than kind. There had been no alloy of interested motives in that first
impulse of generous compassion. It was good to think how frank, how
full, how affectionate it had been.

But--oh what a pity, what a pity, that these beautiful impulses and
sincere moments of loving kindness should ever be shadowed by the cold
shade of after-thoughts! From the moment when Mrs. Stanhope weeping
received poor Evelyn into her arms, and lavished upon her the caresses
and endearments of the most devoted friendship, to that in which Miss
Ferrars became the unpaid governess, the useful dependent, and at the
same time a member of the family who was apt to be _de trop_, who was
not wanted between husband and wife, who was always there and could not
be kept to her schoolroom and out of the way as an ordinary governess
would have been--was unfortunately not very long. And indeed it was
nobody’s fault. The consciousness that she was getting a great deal out
of her friend, and that the tables were more or less turned, and it was
Evelyn who was conferring the benefit, did not make it easier to Mrs.
Stanhope to keep up the effusion and tenderness of the first welcome:
and Captain Stanhope was often cross, troubled by harassments of his
own, and wishing his wife’s friend anywhere but where she was,
notwithstanding the fact that her presence was “everything for the
children.” The situation had grown more and more strained, but there
seemed no issue out of it: for it takes a great deal of money to take
your passage from the centre of India to England, even when you know
where to go and have your living assured when there. And Evelyn had
nothing, neither a house to go to nor enough money for the journey.
There were moments when she would have given anything in the
world--which is a mere figure of speech, for she had nothing in the
world to give--to be able to go away, and relieve her friends of her
inconvenient presence; and there were moments when she felt that she was
of too much use in the house to deprive them of her services, as if she
grudged the expenditure. It was scarcely possible to imagine a position
more painful and trying. It was nothing to her that her whole life was
absorbed in the service of her friends and their children. Many women
are able to make this kind of sacrifice and to stave off all thoughts of
the future and what is to become of them after--with a heroic obedience
to the Gospel precept of taking no thought for the morrow. But that was
not all. For she was at the same time, as she felt, an inconvenience to
the very people for whom she was spending her strength: they wanted her
very room for other uses. They did not want her constantly between them
spoiling their _tête à tête_--always to be considered when there was
company, and to be invited with them when they went out. The very
children got to know that aunt Evelyn, as they called her, was _de trop_
in the house, and yet could neither go nor be sent away.

And here suddenly was the opening of a door which made all things
possible. When that mental heliograph flashed in her face, and she
became aware of what it meant, Evelyn, for almost the first time,
retired into her room and locked her door, and for a whole hour turned a
deaf ear to the demands made upon her. The children came and called in
every tone of impatience, Edith, the eldest, tap-tapping upon the closed
door for ten minutes continuously, and little Bobby kicking, to the
great derangement of the thoughts going on within; but for the first and
only time Evelyn held fast. She had plenty to do in that house, more
than ever she had done before in her life. In the previous crises of
that existence it had been other people who had done the thinking, and
there had been little left for her but to submit. Now, however, the
matter was in her hands, and no one else could help her. It was hard
work getting her head clear enough to put this and that together; for
the mere idea of marriage was very startling and indeed terrifying to
the middle-aged woman who had put it out of all her calculations years
ago, and who had retained merely the old youthful superstition that its
only warrant was love. But was that really so? After all it was not so
simple a thing that it could be thus dismissed and classified. It was a
very complicated thing and involved many duties. It was not merely an
emotional matter, but one full of practical necessities and exertions.
To be a true and helpful companion through all the chances of life: to
govern a household: to secure comfort and peace of mind and consolation
in all circumstances and occurrences for the partner of life: to care
for him and his interests as nobody else could do: to adopt his
obligations and help him to serve God and to serve men--Evelyn Ferrars
felt that she was capable of all that. It was a worthy office to fulfil,
and it was surely the chief part. As for the other side it was
undeniable that she shrank from it a little. But he was not young any
more than herself. The hour was scarcely over when Mrs. Stanhope herself
appeared at the door, half with the air of a mistress who has a right to
all her retainer’s time, and half with that of a friend anxious to know
what was the matter.

“The children tell me they cannot make you hear,” she said. “I came
myself to see if you were ill, or if anything is wrong.”

“You have come just when I wanted you,” said Evelyn, “if I may shut the
door on the children for ten minutes more. Helen, something very
wonderful has happened, and I have been trying to think what I must do.”

“What has happened?” said Mrs. Stanhope in alarm.

“Mr. Rowland has asked me to--to marry him,” said Evelyn. She did not
blush as women do, even when their feelings are but little stirred. She
was too anxious to learn what her friend’s verdict would be.

Mrs. Stanhope uttered a cry, and rising up hastily, caught Evelyn in her
arms. “Oh,” she said, “I shall lose you, Eve!” The words and the embrace
were full of compunction, of kindness, and remorse; but Evelyn felt the
relief, the thankfulness, that suddenly flooded her friend’s breast, and
her decision was no longer in any doubt.




CHAPTER II.


“Mr. Rowland,” said Evelyn with a little tremor, “the first thing I
would like to say to you is that we are neither of us very young.”

“Miss Ferrars,” said the engineer, “you are just as young as it is best
and most beautiful to be.”

There came a light like the reflection of a sudden flame over a face
which she at least thought to be a faded face. She had never at her
youngest and fairest received such a compliment, and how it could have
come from a plain man who had so little appearance of any poetry about
him was bewildering. It was indeed difficult to resume the middle-aged
matter-of-fact tone after such an unexpected break.

“I am forty-two,” she said, “and I have not been without experiences in
my life. I want you to know what my past has been, before--”

“Whatever you please to tell me,” he said with an air of deep
respect--“but I must say it is not necessary. I am quite satisfied; your
experiences may have been painful--the world isn’t over good to people
like you. If you will give me your companionship for the rest of our
lives, that is enough for me, and far more than I can ever deserve. I
have had my experiences too--”

“I must tell you, however, my story,” she said. Women, especially those
who have lived in the virginal age for so long, are very conscientious
in these matters. They have a much greater respect for love than
ordinary people, and think it dishonourable to keep back the knowledge
from a future husband of how they have been affected in this way during
their past. The love that may have touched them years before they had
even heard his name, seems to their over delicacy as if it must be a
drawback to them in his eyes--a really guilty secret of which a clean
breast must be made before the new and real history is allowed to begin.

“I was,” she said with a little hesitation, “engaged to be married at
the usual age. It is a long time ago. My father had not met with any
misfortunes then. We were living at home. That makes so great a
difference in every way. We were of course well known people, friendly
with everybody; everything about us was well known. You know in a county
people are acquainted with everything about each other--you can’t
conceal it when anything happens to you, even if you wished to conceal
it.”

“I never had anything to do with a county,” he said, with a sort of
respectful acquiescence, interested but not curious--“but I can
understand what you mean.”

“Well: when my father speculated and was so unfortunate (it was really
more for my sake than for any other reason that he speculated--and then
he was drawn on) it became impossible to carry my engagement out. The
gentleman I was engaged to, was not very well off then. We had to think
what was best for both of us. We agreed that it would be best to break
it off. I should only have been a sort of millstone round his neck.
People might have expected him to help papa. And his own means were
quite limited then. He had not been supposed a good match for me in my
wealthy days--and when the tables were turned in this way, we both
thought it was better to part.”

“And did the fellow let you go--did he give you up? The wretched cad!”
cried James Rowland, adding this violent expression of opinion under his
breath.

“You must not speak so, Mr. Rowland; it was a mutual agreement. We both,
I need hardly say, felt it very much. I--for a long time. Indeed, it has
had an influence upon all my life. Don’t think I have regretted it,” she
said eagerly, “for if we had not done it by mutual agreement as we did,
with a sense of the necessity--we should have been forced to do it. For
as it turned out, I could not have left my father. He was very much
shattered. It cost him a great deal to give up his home. He had been
born there, and all his people before him.”

“And you, I suppose, were born there too, and all your people before
you?”

“I? Oh! that was nothing! Wherever one is with one’s own belongings,
there is home. It doesn’t matter for anything else. But it was more sad
than words can say for poor papa. He had to move into the village to a
little house. He bore it like a hero, thinking that it was best not to
hide himself as if he had done any wrong. Misfortune and loss are not
wrong. I want you,” she said, gently, having raised her head for that
one profession of faith, but dropping into the usual quiet tone again,
“to know exactly all about us before--”

“And did you ever see that--man again?”

The adjectives that were implied in the pause James Rowland made before
he brought out the word “man” were lost upon Evelyn, who probably could
not have imagined anything so forcible, not to say profane.

“Yes,” she said quietly, “often. We could not help it, to go anywhere he
had to go through our village. He removed very soon, which was the
kindest thing he could have done.”

“The vile cad!” said James Rowland between his teeth.

“What did you say?” she asked with a startled look: but the engineer did
not repeat those words.

“I am sure I for one am very much obliged to him,” he said, getting up
and walking about the room. “I’m not the man to object. He did the best
thing he could have done for me. And you nursed your poor father till he
died; and then you came from one trouble to another.”

“Oh, do not speak of that! My poor Harry--my darling brother! to lose
his home and his inheritance, and to be banished away from all he loved;
and then just when life was beginning to smile a little, to die! I
cannot speak of that!”

Mr. Rowland walked about the room more quickly than ever. She had
covered her face with her hands, and the hot heavy tears were falling
upon her dress like rain. After many hesitations he came up to her, and
put his hand on her shoulder. “Is that so bad,” he said, “if we really
believe that the other life is the better life? We say so, don’t we? and
no doubt he’s got something better to do there than railroads, and likes
it better, now he’s there.”

She looked up at him startled, though the sentiment was common enough.
It is a fine thing to be matter of fact on such a subject, and gives
faith a solid reality which is denied to a more poetical view.

“I’m not sorry for him,” said Rowland. “I’ll hope to know him some day.
I’ve always heard he was a fine fellow, incapable of anything that
was--shoddy.” Our engineer used very good English often, but now and
then he knew nothing so forcible as the jargon which has got so much
into all talk now-a-days, and is a pitfall for a partially educated man.
“But,” he said, pressing his hand upon her shoulder, in a way which
perhaps a finer gentleman would not have used to call her attention,
“There is this to be said, my dear lady. You’ve had a great deal of
trouble, but if I live you shall have no more. No more if I can help it!
As long as James Rowland is to the fore nothing shall get at you, my
dear, but over his body.”

He said it with fervour and with a momentary gleam as of moisture in his
eyes; and she, looking up to him with a certain surprise in hers in
which the tears were not dry, held out her hand. And thus their bargain
was made: with as true emotion, perhaps, as if they had been lovers of
twenty rushing into each other’s arms. No trouble to get at her but over
his body! it was a curious touch of romance and hyperbole in the midst
of the matter of fact. And how true it turned out! and how untrue!--as
if any one living creature could ever come between another and that fate
to which we are born as the sparks fly upwards. But the idea of being
thus taken care of, and of some one interposing his body between her and
every assailant, was so new to Evelyn that she could not but smile. She
was the one that had taken care of everybody and interposed her delicate
body between them and fate.

“And now,” said he, “it’s my turn. I was ready when you began. I’ve
more to say, and less; for nobody has ever done me wrong. I am a widower
to start with. I don’t know if you had heard that----”

“Yes--I heard it--”

“That’s all right then; you did not get to know me under false
pretences. But you must know that I wasn’t always what I am now. I am
not very much to brag of, you will say now--but I’m a gentleman to what
I was,” he said, with a little harsh emotional laugh.

“Don’t please talk in that way, you offend me,” she said; “you must
always have been a gentleman, Mr. Rowland, in your heart.”

“Do you think you could say Rowland plain out? No? Well after all it
would not be suitable for a lady like you--it’s more for men.”

“I will say ‘James,’ if you prefer it,” she said with a moment’s
hesitation.

“Would you? Yes, of course I prefer it--above all things: but don’t
worry yourself. Well, I was saying--Yes I’ve been a married man. She
lived for five years. She was as good a little thing as ever lived, an
engineer’s daughter, just my own class. We worked at the same foundry,
he and I. Nothing could be more suitable. Poor Mary! it’s so long since:
I sometimes ask myself was there ever a Mary? did I ever live like that,
getting up in the dark winter mornings, coming home to the clean kitchen
and the tidy place, bringing her my week’s wages. It’s like a story you
read in a book, not like me. But I went through it all. She was the best
little wife in the world, keeping everything so nice; and when she had
her first baby, what an excitement it was!” The honest middle-aged
engineer fixed his eyes on space and went on with his story, smiling a
little to himself, emphasizing it a little by the pressure of Evelyn’s
hand which he held in his own. Curiously enough, as it seemed to her
looking on, not much understanding a man’s feelings, wondering at
them--he was more or less amused by his recollections. She felt her
heart soft for the young wife whose life must have been so short: but he
smiled at the far-off, touching, pleasing recollection. “She was a
pretty creature,” he said, “nice blue eyes, pretty light hair with a
curl in it over her forehead.” He gave Evelyn’s hand another pressure,
and looked at her suddenly with a smile. “Not like you,” he said.

She had a feeling half of shocked amazement at his lightness: and yet it
was so natural. Such a long time ago: a picture in the distance: a story
he had read: the little fair curls on her forehead and the clean
fireside and the first baby. He was by no means sure that it had all
happened to himself, that he was the man coming in with his fustian suit
all grimy, and his week’s wages to give to his wife. It was impossible
not to smile at that strange condition of affairs with a sort of
affectionate spectatorship. Mr. Rowland seemed to remember the young
fellow too, who had a curly shock of hair as well, and, when he had
washed himself, was a well looking lad. With what a will he had hewed
down the loaf, and eaten the bacon and consumed his tea--very
comfortable, more comfortable perhaps than the well known engineer ever
was at a great dinner. He had his books in a corner, and after Mary had
cleared the table, got them out and worked at diagrams and calculations
all the evening to the great admiration of his wife. He half wondered,
as he told the story, what had become of that promising young man.

“Not like you,” he said again, “but much more suitable. If I had met you
in those days, I should have been afraid to speak to you. I would have
admired you all the same, my dear, for I always had an eye for a lady,
with every respect be it said. But she, you know, poor thing, was just
my own kind. Well, well! there’s always a doubt in it how much a man is
the happier for changing out of his natural born place. But I don’t
think I should like to go back: and now that you don’t seem to mind
consorting with one who was only a working man----”

Evelyn was a little confused what to say. She was very much interested
in his picture of his past life, but a little disturbed that he too
should seem no more than interested, telling it so calmly as if it were
the story of another: and she had not the faculty of making pretty
speeches or saying that a working man was her deal and the noblest work
of God. So she, on her side, pressed his hand a little to call him out
of his dream. “You said--the first baby?”

“Oh yes, I should have said that at once. There are two of them, poor
little things. Oh they have been very well looked after. I left them
with her sister, a good sort of woman, who treats them exactly like her
own--which has been a great thing both for them and for me. I was very
heart-broken, I assure you, when she died, poor thing. I had always been
a dreadful fellow for my books, and the firm saw I suppose that I was
worth my salt, and made a proposal to me to come out here. There was no
Cooper’s Hill College or that sort of thing then. We came out, and we
pushed our way as we could. It comes gradually that sort of thing--and I
got accustomed to what you call society by degrees, just as I came to
the responsibility of these railroads. I could not have ventured to take
that upon me once, any more than to have dined at mess. I do both now
and never mind. The railroad is an affair of calculation and of keeping
your wits about you. So is the other. You just do as other men do, and
all goes well.”

“But,” she said, pressing the question, “I want you to tell me about the
children.”

“To be sure! there are two of them, a boy and a girl. I have got their
photographs somewhere, the boy is the eldest. I’ll look them up and show
them to you: poor little things! Poor May was very proud of them. But
you must make allowance for me. I have been a very busy man, and beyond
knowing that they were well, and providing for them liberally, I have
not paid as much attention as perhaps I ought to have done. You see, I
was full of distress about her when I left England; and out here a man
is out of the way of thinking of that sort of thing, and forgets: well
no, I don’t mean forgets--”

“I am sure you do not,” she said, “but are you not afraid they may have
been brought up differently from what you would wish?”

“Oh, dear no,” he said cheerfully, “they have been brought up by her
sister, poor thing, a very good sort of woman. I am sure their mother
herself could not have done better for them than Jane.”

“But,” said Miss Ferrars, “you are yourself so different, as you were
saying, from what you were when you came to India first?”

“Different,” he said with a laugh. “I should think so, indeed--oh, very
different! things I never should have dreamt of aspiring to then, seem
quite natural to me now. You may say different. When I look at you--”

She did not wish him to look at her, at least from this point of view,
and it was very difficult to secure his attention to any other subject;
which, perhaps, was natural enough. The only thing she could do without
too much pertinacity was to ask, which was an innocent question, how
long it was since he had come to India first.

“A long time,” he said, “a long time. I was only a little over thirty.
It was in the year----, seventeen years ago. I am near fifty now.”

“Then your son?” she said, with a little hesitation.

“The little fellow? Well, and what of him?”

“He must be nearly twenty now.”

He looked at her with an astonished stare for a moment. “Twenty!” he
said, as if the idea was beyond his comprehension. Then he repeated with
a puzzled countenance, “Twenty! you don’t say so! Now that you put it in
that light, I suppose he is.”

“And your daughter--”

“My little girl--” he rubbed his head in a bewildered way. “You are
very particular in your questions. Are you afraid of them? You may be
sure I will never let them be a subject of annoyance to you.”

“Indeed, you mistake me altogether,” said Evelyn. “It will be anything
but annoyance. It will be one of the pleasures of my life.” She was very
sincere by nature, and she did pause a moment before she said pleasures.
She was not so sure of that. They had suddenly become her duty, her
future occupation, but as to pleasures she was far from certain.
Children brought up without any knowledge of their father, in the sphere
which he had left so long ago, and which he was so conscious was
different, very different from all he was familiar with now. It was
curious to hear him enlarge upon the difference, and yet take so little
thought of it in this most important particular. Her seriousness moved
him at last.

“I see,” he said regretfully, “that you think I have been very
indifferent to them, very negligent. But what could a man do? I could
not have them here, to leave them in the charge of servants. I could not
drag them about with me from one province to another. What could I have
done? And I knew they were happy at home.”

“You must not think I am blaming you. I see all the difficulty, but
now--now you will have them with you, will you not, and take them back
into your life?”

He looked at her with eyes full of admiration and content. “Is that the
first thing you want me to do,” he said, “the first thing you have at
heart?”

“Yes,” she said simply, “and the most natural thing. Your children. What
could they be but my first interest? They are old enough--that is one
good thing--to come to India without pause.”

He rose from her side again and returned to his habitual action of
walking about the room. “I knew,” he said, “from the first moment, that
I was a lucky man, indeed, to meet with you. I have always been a lucky
man; but never so much as when you made up your mind to have me, little
as I deserve a woman like you. I’ve that good in me that I know it when
I see it: a good woman from the crown of your head to the sole of your
foot. There’s nothing in the world so good as that. Now, I’ll tell you
something, and I hope it will please you, for it’s chiefly meant to
please you. I am very well off. I can settle something very comfortable
on you, and I can provide for the young ones. If it pleases you, my
dear, we’ll turn our backs on this blazing India altogether, and go
home.”

“Go home!” she said, with startled eyes.

“You’d like it? A country place in England or Scotland--better still, a
house that would be your own--that you could settle in your own way,
with all the things that please ladies now-a-days. I’ll bring you home a
cartload of curiosities that will set you up in that way. And then you
could have the children, and put them through their facings. Eh, my lady
dear? You’d like that? Well, I can afford it,” he said with subdued
exultation, with his hands in those pockets which metaphorically
contained all that heart of man could desire. His eyes glowed with
pleasure, with triumph, with a consciousness that he was making her
happy. Yes! this was what every English lady banished in India must
desire. A house in her own country, with every kind of greenness round,
and every comfort within--with beautiful Indian stuffs and carpets, and
curious things--and the children to pet and guide as she pleased. He was
again the spectator, so to speak, of a picture of life, which rose
before him, more beautiful than that of old--himself, indeed, the least
lovely part of it, yet not so much amiss for an old fellow who had made
all the money, and who could give her everything that could please her,
everything her heart could wish for. His eyes, though they were not in
themselves remarkable, grew liquid and lustrous in the pleasure of that
thought.

As for Evelyn, she sat startled holding her hands clasped in her lap,
with many things beyond the satisfaction he imagined in her eyes. Home
in England meant something to her which could never be again. She said
somewhat faintly--“In Scotland, if you would please me most of all.” At
which words, for Rowland was a Scotsman, he came to her in a glow of
pleasure and took both her hands and ventured, for the first time, to
touch her forehead with his lips. The touch gave this elderly pair a
little shock, a surprise, which startled her still more.




CHAPTER III.


Those two people had both a good deal to think about when they parted.

As for Evelyn the agitation of telling her own story and the
extraordinary commotion which had been produced in her mind by the
suggestion of going home, affected her like an illness. As she escaped
from the inroad of the Stanhope children, all much surprised and
indignant at being kept out, a thing which had never happened in their
experience before, and made her way almost like a fugitive to the
seclusion of her own room, she felt all the languor and exhaustion of a
patient who had gone through a severe bodily crisis. It was over and she
felt no pain--on the contrary that sensation of relief which is one of
the most beatific in nature, had stolen through her relaxed limbs and
faintly throbbing head. The ordeal was over, and it had been less
terrible than she had feared. The man whom she had consented to marry,
and with whose life her own would henceforward be identified, had not
disappointed her, as it was possible he might have done. He was not a
perfect man. He had been careless, very careless of those children who
ought (she thought) to have been his first care. But otherwise he was
true. There was no fictitious show about him, no pretension. He had
been, she felt sure, as good a husband to that poor young creature who
was dead as any man could be. Poor Mary! her story was so simple, so
pretty and full of tenderness as he told it. Evelyn had liked him
better for every word. Had she lived!--ah, had she lived! That would
have been a different matter altogether. In that case James Rowland
would probably have become foreman at the foundry, and remained a highly
respectable working man all his life, bringing up his children in the
natural way to follow his own footsteps. Would it have been perhaps
better so? It would have been more natural, far more free of
complications, without any of the difficulties which she could not help
foreseeing. These difficulties would be neither few nor small. Two
children brought up by their aunt Jane, in an atmosphere strongly
shadowed by the foundry, to be suddenly transplanted to a large country
house full of luxury and leisure, and the habits of an altogether
different life--and not children either but grown up, eighteen and
twenty! She drew a long breath, and put her hands together with an
involuntary drawing together of her forces. Here was a thing to look
forward to! But as for Rowland himself he had come through that ordeal,
which was in one sense a trial of his real mettle, carried on before the
most clear-sighted tribunal, before a judge whose look went through and
through him, though not a word was said to put him on his guard, most
satisfactorily, a sound man and true, with his heart in the right place
and no falseness about him. It was true that in one respect he was very
wrong. He had neglected the children: on this subject there could be no
doubt. He had no right to forget that they were growing up, that their
homely aunt, who was as good to them as if they were her own, was not
all they wanted, though it might have been sufficient when they were
little children. Miss Ferrars did not excuse him for this, but she
forgave him, which was perhaps better.

She regarded the prospect thus opening before her with a half amused
sensation of dismay and horror. Oh, it would be no amusing matter! Her
mind took a rapid survey of the situation, and a shiver ran over her. It
would be she, probably, who would have to bear the brunt. He perhaps
would not remark, as a woman would, though he was their father. “A kick
that scarce would move a horse may kill a sound divine.” Their defects
would probably not be apparent to him, and he would have the strong
claim of paternal love to carry him through everything. On the whole,
perhaps, it was better that there should be something to do of this
strenuous description. It would keep the too-much well-being in hand.
Two people very well off, able to give themselves everything they
wanted, contented (more or less) with each other, were apt to fall into
a state of existence which was not elevated, especially when they were
middle-aged and the glamour of youth and happy love, and all the
sentiment of that period did not exist for them. Evelyn looked upon
married life with something of the criticism of a woman long unmarried.
It was often a selfish life. Selfishness never comes to such a climax as
when it is practised by two, in each other’s interests, and does not
seem to be selfishness at all. When the horizon is limited by the wants
and wishes of _us_, it is more subtly and exquisitely bound in, than
when the centre is _me_. In such circumstances people are incapable of
being ashamed of themselves, while a selfish solitary sometimes is. But
the children! that restored the balance. There would be enough to keep a
woman in her sober senses, to neutralise the deadening effects of
prosperity, in that. As she laid herself down upon her bamboo couch to
rest a little, she laughed to herself at the picture of too great quiet,
too perfect external well-being that had been in her mind. There would
be a few thorns in the pillow--it would not be all repose and
tranquility. She might make her mind easy about that.

The other thing that moved her was the suggestion of going home. Home
meant to Evelyn the county in which she had spent her life, the house in
which she had been born. Nothing more likely than that the very dwelling
was in the market, that he might buy it--that she the last Ferrars might
recover possession of the house of her fathers. She had heard something
to this effect with that acuteness to catch a half-said inference in
respect to anything that is of personal interest which is so remarkable.
Had it concerned any property on earth but Langley Ferrars, she would
never have caught the words: but because it was about her old home she
had heard what two men were saying in the crowd of a station hall--“A
property in Huntingdonshire,” “dirt cheap,” “last man couldn’t keep it
up.” She had divined from this that her home was to be bought, that it
could yet be recovered. Oh no, no, she cried to herself, covering her
face with her hands, not for anything in the world! To go back there
where she had been a happy girl, where all her dreams of love and
happiness had taken place, where the famous oaks and bucks of Selston,
which was _his_ home, were visible from the windows! Oh no, no--oh no,
no: that indeed was more than she could bear. In Scotland it would be
another matter. It was no doubt the very thing which a kind man without
very fine preceptions would do, to buy back her home for her, to take
her there in triumph. A thrill of almost physical terror came over her.
“Oh no,” she said to herself, “oh no, no, no!” These were the two things
that disturbed the dreamy calm of that sensation of trial over, the kind
of moral convalescence in which she found herself. They came through the
misty quiet with flashes of alarm. But, on the whole, Evelyn felt as if
she had been ill and was getting better, slowly coming round to a world
which was changed indeed, and had lost something, but also had gained
something, a world with no vague outlines in it or uncertainty, but
clearly defined, spread out like a map before her. Perhaps there was
something to regret in the old solitude to which her subdued life could
retire out of all its troublesome conditions, and be its own mistress.
But solitude, though it may be soothing, is not cheerful: and if she
relinquished that, there was surely something in the constant
companionship of one who had the highest regard for her, thought the
very best of her, looked upon all her ways and words with admiration
which should make up. He was a good honest man. He rang as true as a
silver bell. There was nothing in him to be ashamed of. He was kind and
genuine, with right thoughts and no false shame, but for that
unaccountable failure about the children--a man as good as any she had
met with in all her life. And to say there was no romance about the
business, was to say the most foolish untruthful thing. Why it was all
romance, far more than the girl and boy love-story, where they ran away
with each other in defiance of every consideration! Here was a sober
man, long accustomed to his own way, and to moving lightly unimpeded
about the earth, a prosaic man, thinking a good deal of the world, who
had suddenly turned aside out of his way, to take note of a neglected
woman in a corner, and to raise her up over the heads of all the people
who had pitied her. She would have been more than woman had she not felt
that. To be able to do favours where she had received them, to give help
with a liberal hand where she had been compelled to accept it in little,
and perhaps with a grudge. Was it not romance that she who had nothing,
should all at once, in the twinkling of an eye, have much and be rich,
when she had been poor. It was in reality as great a romance as if he
had been King Cophetua and she the beggar maid--almost more so, for
Evelyn Ferrars was not beautiful as the day. She was to her own
consciousness faded and old. This was stating the case much too
strongly, but it was how a woman, such as she was, judges herself. If
James Rowland was not a romantic lover, who was? He was more romantic
than any Prince Charming that ever could be.

Mr. Rowland himself went away from this interview with feelings which
were almost in a greater commotion than those of Evelyn. He was excited
by going back upon the old life which had died out of his practical mind
so completely, and which was to him as a tale that is told--yet which
lay there, all the same, an innocent sweet memory deprived of all pain,
a story of a young man and a young woman, both of whom had disappeared
under the waves and billows of life--the young man, a well-looking
fellow in his way, just as much as the young woman who had died. Mr.
Rowland, the great engineer, was not even much like him, that hardheaded
young fellow with his books, working out his diagrams on the clean
kitchen table, and studying and toiling over his figures. How that
fellow pegged away! James Rowland at forty-eight never opened a book.
His calculations for practical work came to him as easy as a. b. c. He
read his paper and the magazines when he saw them, but as for scientific
works, never opened one, and did not think much of theoretical problems.
And then the little house that was not far from the foundry, and the
little clean bright pretty wife always ready and looking out for her
husband, and the baby crying, and the young man coming in in his grimy
fustian--it was a pretty picture, a charming story such as brings the
tears to the eyes. She died, poor thing--they always have a sad end
these little tales of real life. This was how he could not help looking
at that story which he had just told though it was the story of his own
life. Now that he thought of it he could have given a great many more
details, although he had also forgotten many. It was a pretty story.
There were a great many such stories in the world, and when the wife
died and the little house fell to pieces, it was not at all unusual that
the poor young fellow went to the bad. It was a good thing he had not
done so in this case.

And then there came back to him with a shock that strange discovery
about the children. Good heavens! to think they were grown up, those
little things! The little one was a baby when he had seen her last--his
paternal feelings had not been very strongly roused. To put them with
their mother’s sister and persuade her to take the full charge of them
had been evidently far the best thing to do. She was a good sort of
woman who had no children of her own, and they were to her as if they
had been her own, which was everything that could be desired. To make
sure that they wanted for nothing, and that they should have kindness
and affection _par-dessus le marché_ was everything. Even now he did not
see what more he could have done. He could not have brought them to
India, where for a long time he had no settled place, and where, as
everybody knows, children cannot live. He had done on the whole the very
best thing for them. But it was startling to think that they were
children of eighteen and twenty. Their aunt had sent him their
photographs on various occasions, and he had replied in a way which did
not displease her by adding on twenty pounds to his next cheque, and
beseeching her to have them better dressed. Queer little things they had
looked, not like the children at the Station. He had taken it for
granted that Jane had not much taste for dress, but that when she grew
up, the little one would change that. They got to know by instinct what
was becoming as they grew up, those little things: so he was easy in his
mind on that subject. Perhaps he had not thought of going home till it
came suddenly into his mind, to please Miss Ferrars. Of course that was
what would please her most, to have a home in England. She looked like a
home in England. She was not a Station lady, full of picnics and dances.
A large peaceful country house with fine trees and a beautiful garden,
and a green fragrant park in which she could walk with him, that was
what looked most like her: and she should have it! If Mr. Rowland had
heard of Langley Ferrars which was in the market, I know very well what
he would have done. He would have telegraphed to his man of business in
London, regardless of expense, directing him to lose not a moment in
securing that place. It would have been the most natural thing in the
world for him to do. When a man is rich, a man of James Rowland’s mind,
giving presents is his easiest way of showing his kindly feelings--and
it is not a bad way. And all the explanations in the world would never
have got it into his kind head that she would not have liked such a
present as that. Her own home restored to her, where she could live at
ease, not poorly as her ruined father, poor gentleman, had been
compelled to do--but lavishly if she liked, carrying things with a high
hand, showing all the neighbours, who perhaps had looked down upon her
in her poverty, how well she had done for herself. There was nothing
which would have pleased James Rowland more than this. But fortunately
he never had heard that Langley Ferrars was in the market. He was not
even aware indeed at this early period where his future wife had lived,
or what the name of her home had been.

But she had said Scotland, which would be the best of all: and then
suddenly had appeared before his eyes a vision of a house which he had
often looked at when he went down the Clyde upon a holiday, or when
there was some work at Greenock which he was entrusted with, as
sometimes happened. Who can tell what visions of this kind steal into
the brains of the working men in their noisy excursions, or the foundry
lads with their sweethearts? Oftenest it is a cottage, perhaps a little
cockney villa on the edge of a loch. “I’d like to tak’ ye there,” said
with glowing eyes and all the ardour of youthful dreams: or, “Eh, man,
if there was a bit housie like yon ahint ye, to gang back to when ye
were past work,”--such speeches are common in the mouths of the
excursionists, who live and die, and are contented enough, in the high
“lands” and common stairs of the huge dull town. But James Rowland had
been more ambitious. What he had remarked most had been a house, with a
white colonnade round it, standing up on a green knoll at the end of a
peninsula which overlooked the Clyde. There was one special spot from
which he remembered to have watched for it, through the opening in the
trees, not saying anything to any one, not even to Mary, but watching
till it became visible--not a villa, nor a cottage, but a great house,
with beautiful woods round it, and soft green lawns sloping downwards
towards the noble river-sea, which just there flowed out into the
opening of a loch. It suddenly came before him in a moment while he
walked through the cantonments towards his own lodging in the arid
_enceinte_ of the Station. Such a contrast! He felt as if he were again
standing on the deck of the river steamboat, watching for the white
walls, the pillars of the colonnade, as they appeared through the trees.
He knew exactly at what moment the trees would stand aside, ranged into
groups and lines, and the house would come into sight. He thought that
if he had been blind, he would yet have known exactly when that opening
came.

That was the place for him! His heart gave a leap, almost as it had done
when Evelyn Ferrars had given him her hand. It was the next thing
almost--the fulfilment of a dream older by far than his knowledge of
Evelyn Ferrars. Rosmore! To think that he should come to that; that it
should be possible for him, the lad who had watched it so often coming
in sight, to call it his own! But it was not yet sure by any means
whether he would ever call it his own. He was rich enough to buy it, to
improve it, to fit it up as it never had been fitted up before, but
whether he would get it or not, remained still to be seen. The owner
would have to be tempted with a fancy price, more money than it was
worth or could bring: for the owner was a great personage, a man who was
not to be supposed ready to offer one of his places to a chance buyer.
Rowland did not mind the fancy price, and he enjoyed the thought of the
diplomacy that would be required, and all the advances and retirings. It
would be a home fit for _her_. She would bring the best people round
her wherever she was. It should be hers, that home of his dreams,
settled on her--her dower house--when he was out of the way: but he did
not wish to think of being out of the way. He preferred to think of
happiness and dignity and rest in that stately yet modest place, not too
grand, quite simple indeed, not like the castellated absurdities of the
Glasgow merchants. Among houses, it was like _her_ among women, the most
unpretending, the most sincere, everyway the best!

And, then, with a sudden prick of his heart, he remembered the children.
Oh, the children! To think that they could be so old as _that_, and that
it had remained for her to find it out! Twenty! It was not possible
little Archie could be that age. What a little chubby fellow he was,
with a face as round as an apple, and little rosy cheeks--so like Mary,
her very image. It had always been pleasanter to think of him like that,
than to identify the little scrubby boy in the photographs poor Jane
kept sending; or the lean lad who, he now remembered, had appeared on
the last one. He had torn it up, as certainly a libel on his son, not at
all the kind of picture which he could have wished to set up on his
chimney-piece, and point out complacently to visitors as “my boy.” He
remembered this incident of the photograph perfectly now, and that he
refused angrily to accept that as a portrait of Archie. “The photograph
you sent me was a mistake, I suppose,” he had written to his
sister-in-law; “it is quite impossible it could be my boy;” and he
forgot what explanation she made. He was not, indeed, very attentive to
her letters. He glanced at them to see that the children were well, but
he had seldom patience to read all the four pages. Jane’s style and her
handwriting, and the very look of her letters had been vexatious to him
for many years past. They suggested having been written on a kitchen
table with a pen that was greasy. The very outside of them coming in the
bag along with his business letters and his invitations gave Rowland a
little shock. He preferred that other people should not see him receive
these queer missives, the very envelopes of which looked common, not
like the others. Now it occurred to him, with a pang, that it was no
mistake, that the unwashed-looking lad, with the vulgar, ill-cut clothes
was probably his son after all. The idea was horrible to him, but he was
glad for one thing that he had torn the photograph up, and could not be
made to produce it to show Evelyn what manner of youth Archie was--if he
was like that! And then the baby, whom he had always thought of as the
baby, with all the tenderness that belonged to the name. Tenderness! but
something else as well--indifference, forgetfulness--or he could never
have been so blind, and suffered them to grow up like that. It was a
very tormenting and uncomfortable thought, and Rowland was anxious to
shake it off. He said to himself that photographs never do justice to
the subject; that perhaps the boy might be a fine boy for all that: and
finally contrived to elude the whole disagreeable subject by saying to
himself how clever it was of her to have made that out about their age!
What a clever woman she was; not learned, or that sort of thing, but
knowing so much, and so perfect in her manner, and such a true
native-born lady. This was her grand quality above all. She said just
the right thing, at the right time, never compromising any one, hurting
nobody’s feelings. He was himself rather given to treading on people’s
toes, and making afterwards the astonishing discovery that they felt it,
even though he had meant no harm. But she never did anything like that.
She would know how to manage that business about the children, and he
had a happy persuasion that everything would go right in her hands.




CHAPTER IV.


After all this record of thinkings it will be a relief to do something:
which is generally the very best way, if not to settle a problem, at
least to distract the attention from it. Mr. Rowland could not now do
anything to alter the fact, that he had allowed his children to grow up
in a different sphere from that which he intended them to occupy, and
that probably the first meeting with them would contain many
disenchantments and disappointments. No amount of thinking could now
alter this fact, and dwelling upon it was not a way of making himself
happier or adding in any way to the advantages of the moment. Like most
men who have a great deal to do, and who must keep their brains clear
for inevitable work, he had the power of putting disagreeable things
away and declining to look at them. “Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof,” is always the maxim of philosophy, whether we take it in
its highest meaning or in a lower sense; and it appeared to Mr. Rowland
that the best thing he could do was to carry out his marriage with all
the speed that was practicable, and to wind up his affairs (already
prepared for that end) so that his return home might be accomplished as
soon, and with as much pleasure to everybody concerned, as possible. As
he was a very direct man, used to acting in the most straightforward
way, his first step was to call on Mrs. Stanhope, who stood in the place
of Evelyn’s relations, in order to settle with her the arrangements he
wished to make.

“I should like, with Miss Ferrars’ consent--which I have not asked till
I should have talked over the matter with you--that the marriage should
take place as soon as possible. I can trust to her excellent sense to
perceive that we can have no possible reason to wait.”

“Oh, Mr. Rowland!” said Mrs. Stanhope. “Of course it is quite reasonable
on your part: but I don’t think that Evelyn would like it to be hurried.
It is not as if you might be ordered off at a moment’s notice, like us
poor military people. There is no reason to wait of course; but you can
afford to take your time.” She said this more from the natural feminine
impulse of holding back in such matters, and not allowing her friend to
be held cheap, than from any other reason.

“If you mean that you want some time to fill Miss Ferrars’ place----”

“Mr. Rowland!” said Mrs. Stanhope again, this time with great
indignation, “what do you mean by Miss Ferrars’ place? I have known
Evelyn all my life, and she is my dearest friend. Do you think I could
fill up her place if I were to try?--and I certainly don’t mean to try.”

“I meant, of course, in respect to your children,” said Mr. Rowland
dryly. “You may do without your dearest friend by making an effort; but
you can’t do without a governess. Excuse me, I am a plain man, and call
a spade, a spade.”

This brutality of expression reduced Mrs. Stanhope to tears. “I have
never treated her like a governess,” she said. “If Evelyn’s good heart
made her help me with the children, it was not my asking, it was her own
idea. She did it because she liked it. I implored her not to take them
out, feeling that you might imagine something of that sort. Men like
you, Mr. Rowland, who have made a great deal of money, always, if you
will excuse me, impute interested motives. I foresaw as much as that.”

“Yes,” he said cheerfully, “we are given to think of the money value of
things. Not of friendship, you know, and all that, but of time and work,
and so forth. We needn’t enter into that question, for I’m sure we
understand each other. And I don’t want to put you to inconvenience. How
much time will it take you to fill Miss Ferrars’ place?”

Mrs. Stanhope was a clever little woman. She thought for a moment, in
natural exasperation, of dismissing him summarily, and refusing to have
anything to say to a man who had treated her so; and then she thought
she would not do that. He was rich--he might be useful some time or
other to the children; it would be foolish to make a breach with a
friend who would remember nothing but the best of her (she did Evelyn
this justice), and who would be kind to the children when they went
home, and invite them for their holidays. So she subdued the natural
anger that was almost on her lips, and gave vent to a harsh little laugh
instead.

“You do always take such a prosaic view, and reduce everything to matter
of fact,” she said. “I can’t afford to have any one in Evelyn’s place,
if you desire to speak of it so. Evelyn has helped me with the children
for love--I must do the best I can for them by myself when you take her
away.”

“Ah well,” said Mr. Rowland, “then it is a real sacrifice, and you will
suffer. I dare say you have a great deal to do. Would not little Molly
Price be a help to you? She is a nice little girl, and she has nobody
belonging to her, and I don’t know what the poor little thing is to do.”

Mrs. Stanhope made a pause before she replied, looking all the time
keenly in the engineer’s face as if she would have read his meaning in
that way. But he was impassible as a wooden image. “Molly Price is a
very nice little girl,” she said slowly, trying all the time to make out
what he meant, “and she would be of use, though far different from
Evelyn. But how could I take up a girl like that, without any means of
providing for her. I had thought of it,” Mrs. Stanhope admitted, “but to
take up her time just when she might be doing better for herself, and
to give her false expectations as to what I could do for her--when it
only can be for a few years, till we send the children home.”

“I see,” said Mr. Rowland; “but the fact is that Molly has a little
income of her own, and all she wants is a home.”

“A little income of her own!”

“Yes,” he said, meeting with the most impenetrable look the lady’s eager
scrutiny. “Did you not know? enough to pay for her board if necessary.
She only wants a home.”

“I don’t know what you can think of me,” said Mrs. Stanhope with a
little haste. “I should never ask her for any board. She would have her
share of whatever was going; and of course if she liked to help me with
the children’s lessons--”

“You would allow her to do it, without any compensation? Don’t explain,
my dear lady--I know the situation perfectly. And in return for that
little arrangement you will help me in getting Evelyn to consent to a
speedy marriage. As soon as we understand each other, everything will be
perfectly straight.”

“You are such a dreadful man of business. I am not accustomed to such
summary ways,” said Mrs. Stanhope, with again a half hysterical laugh.
She was very much afraid of him after this experience. No doubt
everybody in the station had seen through her actions so far as Evelyn
Ferrars was concerned, attributing design and motive where none had
existed, and not making any allowances for the unconscious, or only
half conscious way in which she was led into taking an advantage of her
friend. But nobody had ever ventured to put it into words. She was
overawed by clear sight and the courage, and also a little by the
practical help of this downright man.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m nothing if not a man of business. Well now, there
is another matter. I want it to be a very grand affair.”

She looked at him with eyes more wide open than ever, and with
perceptions more fine than his, and a little gasp of restrained horror
in the thought--what would Evelyn say?--Evelyn who hoped it would be got
over so quietly, that it might not be necessary to let people know: as
if everything was not known from one end to another of the station
almost before it was fully shaped in the brain from which it came!

“Yes,” he said, “I see you’re horrified--and, probably, so would Miss
Ferrars be: so I want you to take the responsibility of everything, and
put it on the ground of your gratitude to her, which must take some
shape. I need not add, Mrs. Stanhope, if you will do this for me, that a
cheque is at once at your disposal--to any amount you may think
necessary.”

Anger, humiliation, injured pride, a quick perception of advantage, a
rapid gleam of pleasure, the thrill of delightful excitement at the
thought of a great deal of money to spend, all darted through Mrs.
Stanhope’s mind, and glittered in her eager eyes. The disagreeable
sentiments finally died away in the others which were more rational. To
have the ordering of a great entertainment regardless of expense, and
everybody at her feet, the providers of the same, and the guests, and
indeed the whole community eager either for commissions or invitations!
This was a temptation more than any woman could resist.

“Mr. Rowland,” she said, “you are a very extraordinary man. But I must
warn you that Evelyn will not like it, and she knows that we cannot
afford it. Oh, I will try, if you have set your heart upon it, and just
say as little to her as possible. I suppose something like what Mrs.
Fawcett had when Bertha was married? And you must give me a list of all
the people you want to invite.”

“The Fawcetts’ was a very humdrum affair,” said Rowland critically,
“quite an ordinary business. We must do a great deal better than that.
And as for the invitations, ask everybody--beginning with the Governor.
He’ll be at Cumsalla about that time, and it will be a fine opportunity
for him to visit the station in a semi-official way: and the General
commanding, and the Head of the district, and----”

“The Governor and the General!” Mrs. Stanhope gasped. She lay back in
her chair in a half-fainting condition, yet with a keen conviction
running through her mind like the flash of a gold thread, that to
receive all these people in his own house, at a magnificent
entertainment, would be such a chance as never could have been
anticipated for Fred!

“_Carte blanche_,” said Mr. Rowland, pressing in his enthusiasm her limp
and hesitating hand.

Evelyn Ferrars came in a moment after with the children. She gave a
smile to her future husband, and a glance of surprise at her friend,
who had not yet recovered that shock of emotion. “What are you
plotting?” she said: but did not mean it, though it was so near their
real occupation. As for Mr. Rowland he was equal to the occasion, his
faculties being so stirred up and quickened by the emergency that he was
as clear about it as if it had been a railway or a canal.

“We are plotting against you,” he said, “and I think I have got Mrs.
Stanhope to enter into my cause.”

She looked from one to another with a little rising colour, divining
what the subject would be. For once in her life Mrs. Stanhope was the
dull one, not understanding her ally’s change of front. She thought he
was about to betray the conspiracy into which he had just seduced her,
and that Evelyn’s dislike and opposition would put an end to the
delightful commotions of the marriage feast. “Oh,” she cried, “don’t
tell her. She will never consent.”

“She is so very reasonable that I hope she will consent,” said Rowland.
“My dear, it is just this, that there is no reason in the world why we
should wait. I would like to be married as soon as the arrangements can
be made. I think you won’t refuse to see all the arguments in favour of
this: and that there are very few against it.”

Evelyn grew red and then grew pale, and finally with a little catch in
her breath asked how long that would be?

“About three weeks,” said Rowland, holding her hand and patting it as if
to soothe a child.

Her limbs trembled a little under her, and she sat down in the nearest
chair. “It is a little sudden,” she said.

“My dear----let’s get it over,” said Rowland, his excitement showing
through his usual sobriety like a face through a veil. “It’s a great
change, but it is the first that is the worst. You and I, as soon as
we’re together, will settle down into each other’s ways, and be very
happy. I know _I_ shall, and some of it’ll rub off upon you. There’s
nothing in the world you can wish for that I shan’t be ready to do. It
is only the first step that will be a trouble. Let’s get it over,” he
cried, with a quiver in his voice.

This is not the usual way in which a man speaks to his bride of their
marriage, but it is a very true way if people would be more sincere. And
especially in the circumstances in which he and she stood, not young
either of them, and taking fully into consideration all the mingled
motives that go to make a satisfactory union of two lives. Mrs.
Stanhope, to whom the conventional was everything, listened in horror,
wondering how Evelyn would take this; but Evelyn took it very well,
agreeing in it, and seeing the good sense of what her betrothed said. It
was the first step that would be the worst. After that habit would come
in and make them natural to each other. And to get over that first step,
and to settle down quietly to the mutual companionship in which she too
felt there was every prospect of satisfaction and content, would no
doubt be a good thing. It was somewhat overwhelming to look forward to
such a tremendous change so soon. But she agreed silently that there
was no reason for delay, and that all he said was perfectly reasonable.
“I cannot say anything against it,” she said quietly. “I have no doubt
you are right. It seems a little sudden. I could have wished a little
more time.”

“To think of it?” he said quietly. “Yes, my dear, if you had not made up
your mind, that would be quite reasonable. But you have quite made up
your mind.”

“Yes,” she said, “I have made up my mind.”

“Then thinking of it is no longer of any use--because it is in reality
done, and there’s no way out of it. So the best thing is to carry the
plan into execution, and think no more. Come,” said Rowland with an air
of great complaisance, “I’ll yield a little I’ll say a month--that will
leave quite time enough for everything,” he said, with a glance at Mrs.
Stanhope to which she replied with a slight, scarcely perceptible nod of
the head. And then it was all arranged, without difficulty and without
any knowledge on Miss Ferrars’ part of the negotiations that had gone on
before. Evelyn was much overwhelmed by the present her friend insisted
upon making her, of her wedding dress, which turned out to be of the
richest satin, and trimmed with the most beautiful lace, to the
consternation of the bride, who remonstrated strongly. “How could you
think of spending so much money? it is robbing the children--and it is
far too grand for me.” “My dear,” said Mrs. Stanhope, the little
hypocrite, “if you think how much you have done for the children, and
saved me loads of money! I can afford that and more too out of what I
have saved through you.” Evelyn was confounded by this generosity, both
of gift and speech; but as the dress did not arrive until the day before
the ceremony, there was not much time to think about it, and her mind
was naturally full of many subjects more important. The same cause kept
her even from remarking the extraordinary fuss in the station on the
wedding day--the flags flying, the carpets that were put down for the
bride’s procession, the decorations of the chapel. She scarcely saw them
indeed, her mind being otherwise taken up. And when the Governor was
brought up to her to be introduced, and the General followed him, both
with an air of being royal princes at the least, amid the obsequious
court of officers, Evelyn was easily persuaded that it was because they
had chosen this day to make their inspection, and that their presence at
the station was quite natural. “How fortunate for you that they are both
here together,” she said to Mrs. Stanhope. “Now surely Fred will get
what you want so much for him.” “Oh, he will get it, he will get it!”
Mrs. Stanhope cried, hysterically. “Thanks to you, you darling, thanks
to you!” “What have I to do with it?” said Evelyn. She was now Mrs.
Rowland, and her mind was full of many things. It was a nuisance to have
so many people about, all drawn, she supposed, in the train of the great
men. As for the great men themselves, they were, of course, like any
other gentlemen to Evelyn: they did not excite her by their greatness.
She was a little surprised by all the splendour, the sumptuous table,
the crowd of people; but took it for granted that one half at least was
accidental, and that though it was quite unappropriate to an occasion so
serious as a middle-aged marriage, it might be good for Fred Stanhope,
who had so long been after an appointment, which always eluded his
grasp.

Thus the bride accepted, without knowing it, the extraordinary honours
that were done her, while all the station stood amazed by the number and
greatness of the guests. The Lieutenant-Governor came without a murmur
to compliment the great engineer. He would not have done it for Fred
Stanhope, who was Brevet-Major, and thought himself a much greater man
than Rowland. Neither would the General commanding have come to Fred
unless he had known him in private, or had some special interest in him.
But they all collected to the wedding of the man who had made the
railroads and ditches--a proof, the military people thought, how
abominably they were neglected by Government, though it could not
sustain itself without them, not for a day! They were, however, all of
them deeply impressed by the greatness that had come upon Miss Ferrars,
whom they had pitied and patronised, or even snubbed during her
humiliation--by the splendour of her dress, and of the breakfast, and of
the bridegroom’s presents to her--and still more, by the manner in which
she received the congratulations of the big wigs without the least
excitement, as if she had been all her life in the habit of entertaining
the great ones of the earth. “Give you my word,” said the little
subaltern Bremner, who was an ugly little fellow, and had not much to
recommend him, “she was not a bit more civil to the best of them than
she was to me.” “Looked as if she had been used to nothing but swells
all her life,” said another. “And as if she thought one just as good as
another.” On the whole, it was this that struck the company, especially
the gentlemen, most--that she was just as civil to a little lieutenant
as she was to the General commanding. The ladies had other things to
distract their minds, the jewels, the bridal dress, the table. Such a
commotion had never been made in the Station before by any marriage: the
Colonel’s daughter’s wedding feast was nothing in comparison: and that
this should all be for the poor lady who had been nothing more than
nursery governess to the Stanhopes, was quite bewildering. When the pair
went away, the whole Station turned out. It was, of course, quite late
when they started, as they were only going as far as Cumsalla. The
Station was lit with coloured lamps, which blazed softly in the evening
dusk, turning that oasis in the sand into a magical place. And the big
moon got up with a bound into the sky, as she sometimes does when at the
full, thrusting her large round lustrous face into the centre of all, as
if to see what it meant. “By Jove, she’s come out to look at you too,”
said the bridegroom to his bride. He was considerably excited, as was
but natural--enchanted with the success of all his plans, and the
_éclat_ of the whole performance. It was altogether a trying moment--for
perhaps something of a vulgar fibre in the man was betrayed by his
eagerness that it should be “a grand affair,” and his delight in its
success.

But fortunately Evelyn was not in possession of her usual
clear-sightedness, and she was still of opinion that the presence of the
great people had been accidental, and the extraordinary sumptuousness of
all the preparations a piece of loving extravagance on the part of the
Stanhopes, which should not, if she could help it, go without its
reward. “I hope,” she said, “the moon is loyal, and means it as a
demonstration for the Lieutenant-Governor, as all these rejoicings have
been already to-day.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Rowland; “all the demonstrations have been for
you. The Governor and the General were only my--I mean, Fred Stanhope’s
guests.”

Evelyn thought her husband must have had too much champagne: but she
would not let this vex her or disturb her, seeing that it was so great
an occasion. She calmed him with her soothing voice, and did not show
the faint movement of fright and alarm that was in her breast.

“I am very glad they were there, anyhow,” she said, “for Fred’s sake. I
hope he will get that appointment now. It was a fortunate chance for
him.”

“It was no chance at all,” said Rowland, half piqued at her obtuseness.
“I dare say it will be good for him as well: but it was all to do honour
to you, my dear. I was determined that you should have all the honour
and glory a bride could have. These swells came for you, and all that is
for you, the illuminations, and everything. But when I saw you among
them, Evelyn, I just said--how superior you were to everything of the
sort. Talk about women’s heads being turned! You went from one place to
another, and looked down upon it all like a queen.”

“Hush! hush!” she said; “indeed I did not look down upon anything. I did
not think of it. I am very different from a queen. I am setting out upon
a great voyage, and my mind is too full of that to think of swells, as
you call them. You are the swell that occupies me most.”

“You are _my_ queen,” said Rowland in his pride and delight, “and I am
not good enough to tie your shoe: for I’ve been thinking of a great
flash to dazzle them all, while you were thinking of--look back, there’s
the bouquet going off! nobody in this presidency has seen such fireworks
as they’ve got there to-night. I wanted every black baby of them all to
remember the day of Miss Ferrars’ wedding. And now when I look at you,
I’m ashamed of it all, to think such folly as that should be any honour
to you!”

These devoted sentiments, however, were not the prevalent feeling at the
Station, where there was a ball after the fireworks with everything of
the most costly and splendid description, and where the health of the
bride and bridegroom was drank with acclamations in far too excellent
champagne. The ladies who had daughters looked out contemptuously over
the heads of the subalterns to see if there was not another railway man
in the background who would give a similar triumph to one of their
girls. But young railway men are not any more satisfactory than young
soldiers, and there was not another James Rowland far or near. When it
was all over, Helen Stanhope rushed into her husband’s arms with tears
of joy, “You have got it, Fred,” she said, “you have got it! and it’s
all on account of that kind thought you had (for it was your thought)
when you went and fetched Evelyn Ferrars home out of her misery. It’s
brought a blessing as I knew it would.”

Fred pulled his long moustache, and was not very ready in his reply. “I
wish we hadn’t got so tired of it, Nelly. It might be a kind thought at
the first, but neither you nor I kept up to the start. God Almighty
didn’t owe us much for that.”

“Oh, don’t be profane,” cried his wife, “taking God’s name in vain! She
didn’t think so. What would she have done without us? And it’s all
thanks to her that we have got it at last.”




CHAPTER V.


Rowland was able to carry out the programme which he had made for
himself. He was a man to whom pieces of what is called luck are apt to
come. Luck goes rather against the more serious claims of deserving, and
is a thing which many of us would like to ignore--but it is hard to
believe there is not something in it. One man who is just as worthy as
another gets little that he wants, while his neighbour gets much; one
who is just as unworthy as another gets all the blows while his fellow
sinner escapes. Mr. Rowland had always been a lucky man. The things he
desired seemed to drop into his mouth. That white house on the
peninsula looking down upon Clyde, with its noble groups of trees, its
fine woods behind, its lochs and inlets, and the great noble estuary at
its foot, proved as soon as he set his heart upon it procurable. Had you
or I wanted it, it would have been hopeless. Even he, though his luck
was so great and he possessed that golden key which opens so many doors,
was not able to move the noble proprietor to a sale; but he was
permitted to rent it upon a long lease which was almost as satisfactory.
“I should have preferred to buy it outright and settle it upon you,
Evelyn,” he said to his wife as they sat at breakfast in their London
hotel, and he read aloud the lawyer’s letter about this coveted
dwelling. “But when one comes to think of it, you might not care for a
big house in Scotland after I am out of the way. It was to please me, I
know, that you fixed on Scotland first. And then you might find it a
trouble to keep up if you were alone.”

“There is no occasion for thinking what I should do when I am alone,
thank heaven,” said Mrs. Rowland; “there is little likelihood of that.”

“We must be prepared for everything,” he said with a beaming face, which
showed how little the possibility weighed upon him. “However, perhaps it
is just as well. Now, my dear, I will tell you what I am going to do. I
am going up to the North to see after it all. You shall stay comfortably
here and see the pictures and that sort of thing, and I shall run up and
prepare everything for you, settle about Rosmore on the longest term I
can get, look after the furniture a bit: well--I should like, you know,
to look after the children a bit, too.”

“To be sure you would,” she said cheerfully. “You know I wanted you to
have them here to meet us; but I understand very well, my dear James,
that you would rather have your first day with them alone.”

“It’s not that,” he said rising and marching about the room--“it’s not
that. I’d rather see you with them, and taking to them than anything
else in the world--but--perhaps I’d better go first and see how the land
lies. You don’t mind my leaving you--for a few days.” He said this with
a sort of timid air which sat strangely on the otherwise self-confident
and consciously fortunate man, so evidently inviting an expression of
regret, that Evelyn could scarcely restrain a smile.

“I do mind very much,” she said: and he was so genial, so kind, even so
amusing in his simplicity, that it was strictly true. “I don’t like at
all to be left alone in London; but still I understand it perfectly, and
approve--though I’d rather you stayed with me.”

“Oh, if you approve,” he said with a sort of shame-faced laugh of
satisfaction, “that is all I want; and you may be sure I’ll not stay a
moment longer than I can help. I never saw such a woman for
understanding as you are. You know what a man means before he says a
word.”

It was on his wife’s lips to tell him that he said innumerable words of
which he was unaware, about quite other matters, on every kind of
subject, but all showing the way his thoughts were tending, but she
forbore; for sweet as it is to be understood, it is not so sweet to be
shown how you betray yourself and lay bare your secrets unwittingly to
the eye of day. It was not difficult to divine that his mind was now
very much taken up by the thought of his children, not merely in the way
of love and desire to see them, but from an overmastering anxiety as to
how they would bear his wife’s inspection, and what their future place
in his life would be. In his many thoughts on the subject, he had
decided that he must see them first and judge of that. During the three
months in which he had been seeing with Evelyn’s eyes and perceiving
with her mind, various things had changed for James Rowland. He was not
quite aware of the agency, nor even that a revolution had taken place in
him, but he was conscious of being more and more anxious about the
effect which everything would produce on her, and specially, above all
other things, of the effect that his children would produce. And he had
said and done many things to make this very visible. For his own part he
thought he had concealed it completely, and even that she gave him
credit for too much feeling in imputing to him that eagerness to see
them, to take his boy and his girl into his arms, which she had just
said was so natural. He preferred to leave that impression on her mind.
The feelings she imputed to him would have been her feelings, she felt
sure, had she been coming home to her children after so long a
separation. He could not say even to himself that this was his feeling.
He had done without them for a very long time, perhaps he could have
gone on doing without them. But what would Evelyn say to them? Would
they be fit for her notice? Would they shock and startle her? What
manner of beings would they seem in her eyes? It was on the cards that
did she show any distaste for them, their father, who was their father
after all, might resent it secretly or openly--for the claims of blood
are strong; but at the present moment this was not at all in his
thoughts. His thoughts were full of anxiety to know how they would
please her, whether they were worthy to be brought at all into her
presence. Mrs. Rowland would fain have assured him that his anxiety was
unnecessary, and that, whatever his children were, they would be her
first duty; but she was too understanding to do even this. All that she
could do to help him in the emergency, was to accept his pretext and
give him her approval, and tell him it was the most natural thing in the
world. Useless to say that she was anxious too, wondering how the
experiment would turn out. Whether the lowly upbringing would be so
great a disadvantage as she feared, or whether the more primitive laws
of that simpler social order would develop the better faculties, and
suppress the conventional, as many a theorist believes. She was no
theorist, but only a sensible woman who had seen a good deal of the
world, and I fear that she did not believe in that suppression of the
conventional. But whatever it was, she was anxious, as was natural, on a
matter which would have so large an influence upon her entire life.

“I’ll tell you what you can do to amuse yourself,” he said, “when you’re
tired of the pictures and all that. Go to Wardour Street, Evelyn, and if
you see anything that strikes your fancy, buy it. Buying is a great
amusement. And we shall want all sorts of handsome things. Yes, I know.
I’d put it into the best upholsterer’s hands and tell him to spare no
expense. But that’s not your way: I’ve learnt as much as that. And then
there are carpets and curtains and things. Buy away--buy freely. You
know what is the right thing. What’s the name of the people in Regent
Street, eh? Well go there--buy him up if you please--the whole shop. _I_
don’t care for those flimsy green and yellow things. I like solid,
velvet and damask, and so forth. But what does that matter if you do? I
like what you like.”

“Do you want me to ruin you, James?” she said.

He laughed with that deep laugh of enjoyment which moneyed men bring out
of the profoundness of their pockets and persons. “If it pleases you,”
he said. He was not afraid. That she should ruin him, was a very good
joke. He had no desire for an economical wife. He wanted her to be
extravagant, to get every pretty thing that struck her fancy. He had a
vision of himself standing in the drawing-room which looked out upon the
Clyde, and saying to everybody, “It’s my wife’s taste. I don’t pretend
to know about this sort of thing, except that it costs a lot of money.
It’s she that’s responsible.” And this anticipation pleased him to the
bottom of his heart.

He went away next day, taking the train to Glasgow, not without sundry
expressions of contempt for the arrangement of the Scotch trains, and
the construction of the railways. “We do things better in India,” he
said. He was very compunctious about going away, very sorry to leave
her, very anxious that she should have everything that was possible to
amuse her while he was gone; and exceedingly proud, yet distressed, that
she should insist upon coming to the railway with him. It was such an
early start for her, it would tire her, it was too much trouble, he
said, with a beaming countenance. But when the train started, and Mr.
Rowland was alone, he became suddenly very grave. He had not consented
to her wish to have the children to meet them in London, because of the
fancies that had seized him. If he could only have gone on paying
largely for the children, knowing nothing but that they were happy and
well, he would on the whole have been very thankful to make such an
arrangement. But not only would it have been impossible to do so, but
his wife would not have permitted it. She it was who talked of duty in
respect to them, who planned everything that would have to be done. For
his part, he would have been quite content to let well alone. But how
often it happens that you cannot do that, but are compelled to break up
rational arrangements and make fictitious ones, visibly altering
everything for the worse. Rowland in his prophetic soul felt that this
was what he was about to do. He was going to take his children out of
the sphere they belonged to, to transport them to another with which
they had nothing to do. And his mind altogether was full of
compunctions. He had not after all shown their photographs or their
letters to his wife. It would be less dreadful, he thought, that they
should burst upon her in their native vulgarity and commonness all at
once, than that she should be able to divine what like they were, and
look forward to the meeting with horror. Naturally he exaggerated the
horror Evelyn would be likely to feel, as he depreciated her acuteness
and power of divining the motive which made him so certain that he could
not find the photographs. Evelyn knew the situation, indeed, almost as
well, perhaps in some ways better, than he did. She divined what was to
be expected from the two young people brought up upon a very liberal
allowance by the aunt whose husband had been a working engineer in the
foundry. She was sincerely sorry for them, as well as a little for
herself, wondering how they would meet her, feeling it almost impossible
that there should not be a little grudge and jealousy, a determination
to make a stand against her, and to feel themselves injured and
supplanted. She followed her husband in her mind with a little anxiety,
hoping that he would not show himself too enlightened as to their
deficiencies. And then there would be their aunt to reckon with, the
mother’s sister, the second mother. How would she bear it if the young
people whom she thought perfect failed to please their father? It would
be thought to be the stepmother’s fault even before the stepmother
appeared on the scene.

Evelyn returned to her hotel after seeing her husband off, with a
countenance not less grave than his, and a strong consciousness that the
new troubles were about to begin. She had shaken off her old ones. As
for that familiar distress of not having any money, it had disappeared
like last year’s snow. It is a curious sensation to be exhorted to be
extravagant when you have never had money to spend during your whole
life, and there are few ladies who would not like to try that kind of
revolution. Evelyn felt it exhilarating enough for a short time, though
she had no extravagance in her; but she soon grew tired of the attempt
to ruin her husband which gave him so much pleasure. She bought a few
things both in Wardour Street and in the shop in Regent Street to which
he had alluded, finding with a little trouble things that were not
flimsy and diaphanous. But very soon she got tired, and by the third day
it was strongly impressed upon her that to be alone, even with unlimited
capacity of buying, is a melancholy thing. She had said to herself when
she came to London that to recall herself to the recollection of old
friends was the last thing she would desire to do. There was too much
sorrow in her past: she did not want to remind herself of the time when
she, too, used to come to London for the season, to do as everybody did,
and go where everybody went. That was so long ago, and everything was so
changed. But it is strange how the firmest resolution can be overset in
a moment by the most accidental touch. She was sitting by herself one
bright morning, languid, in the bare conventional sitting-room of the
hotel, which was by no means less lonely because it was the best
sitting-room, and cost a great deal of money in the height of the
season. She had received a letter from her husband, in which she had
been trying hard to read between the lines what were his ideas about his
children, whether they had pleased him. The letter was a little stiff,
she thought, guarded in its expression. “Archie is quite a man in
appearance, and Marion a nice well-grown girl. They have had every
justice done them so far as their health is concerned,” Mr. Rowland
wrote; but he did not enter into any further details. Was he pleased?
had the spell of nature asserted itself? did he fear her criticism, and
had he determined that no one should object to them? Evelyn was much
concerned by these questions, which she could not answer to her own
satisfaction. The thing she most feared was the very natural possibility
that he might resent her interference, and allow no opinion to be
expressed on the subject, whatever might be his own. And it vexed her
that he said nothing more, closed his heart, or at least his lips, and
gave no clue to what he was thinking. It was the first time this had
occurred--to be sure, it was the first time he had communicated his
sentiments to her by way of writing, and probably he had no such freedom
in expressing himself that way as by word of mouth. Whatever the fact
might be, Evelyn felt herself cast down, she scarcely knew why. She
vaguely devined that there was no satisfaction in his own mind, and to
be thrust away from his confidence in this respect would be very painful
to her, as well as making an end of all attempts on her part for the
good of the children.

Evelyn was in this melancholy mood, sitting alone, and with everything
suspended in her life, feeling a little as if she had been brought away
from India where she had at least a definite known plan and work, to be
stranded on a shore which had grown cold, unknown, and inhospitable to
her, when in the newspaper which she had languidly taken up she saw
suddenly the name of an old friend. She had said to herself that she
would not seek to renew acquaintance with her old friends: but it is one
thing to say that when one feels no need of them, and another to reflect
when you are lonely and in low spirits, that there is some one in the
next street, round the next corner, who would probably receive you with
a smile of delight, fall upon your neck, and throw open to you the doors
of her heart. Evelyn represented to herself when she saw this name that
here was one of whom she would have made an exception in any
circumstances, one who would certainly have sought her out in her
trouble, and would rejoice in her well-being. She half resisted, half
played with the idea for half the morning--at one time putting it away,
at another almost resolved to act upon it. And at length the latter
inclination carried the day. Part of the reluctance arose from the fact
that she did not know how to introduce herself. Would any one in London
have heard of the wedding far away at an obscure station in India? Would
any one imagine that it was she who was the bride? She took out her new
card with Mrs. James Rowland upon it, in a curious shamefacedness, and
wrote Evelyn Ferrars upon it with an unsteady hand. But she had very
little time to entertain these feelings of uncertainty. It was so like
Madeline to come flying with her arms wide open all the length of the
deep London drawing-room against the light, with that shriek of welcome.
Of course she would shriek. Evelyn knew her friend’s ways better, as it
proved, than she knew that friend herself.

“So it is you! At last! I meant to go out this very day on a round of
all the hotels to find you; but I couldn’t believe you wouldn’t come,
for you knew where to find me.”

“At last!” said Evelyn astonished. “How did you know I was in London at
all?”

“Oh, my dear Eve, don’t be affected,” cried this lively lady, “as if a
great person like Mr. Rowland could travel and bring home his bride
without all the papers getting hold of it! Why, we heard of your
wedding-dress and the diamonds he gave you, almost as soon as you did.
They were in one of the ladies’ papers of course. And so, Evelyn, after
waiting so long, you have gone and made a great match after all.”

“Have I made a great match? indeed I did not know it. I have married a
very good man which is of more consequence,” said Evelyn, with almost an
air of offence. But that, of course, was absurd, for Lady Leighton had
not the most distant idea of offending.

“Oh, that goes without saying,” she said lightly; “every new man is more
perfect than any other that went before him. But you need not undervalue
your good things all the same. I suppose there were advantages in
respect to the diamonds? He would be able to pick them up in a way that
never happens to us poor people at home.”

“I dare say he will be glad to tell you if you want to know; but,
Madeline, that is not what interests me most. There are so many things
I should like to hear of.”

“Yes; to be sure,” said Lady Leighton, growing grave; “but, my dear, if
I were you I wouldn’t inquire--not now, when everything is so changed.”

“What is so changed?” said Evelyn, more and more surprised.

Her friend made a series of signals with her eyes, indicating some
mystery, and standing, as Evelyn now perceived, in such a position as to
screen from observation an inner room from which she had come. The
pantomime ended by a tragic whisper: “He is there--don’t see him. It
would be too great a shock. And why should you, when you are so well
off?”

“Who is there? And why should I not see, whoever it is? I can’t tell
what you mean,” Mrs. Rowland said.

“Oh, if that is how you feel!” said her friend; “but I would not in your
place.”

At this moment Evelyn heard a sound as of shuffling feet, and looking
beyond her friend’s figure, saw an old man, as she supposed, with an
ashy countenance and bowed shoulders, coming towards them. At the first
glance he seemed very old, very feeble; some one whom she had never seen
before--and it took him some time to make his way along the room. Even
when he came near she did not recognize him at first. He put out feebly
a lifeless hand, and said, in a thick mumbling tone: “Is this Evelyn
Ferrars? but she has grown younger instead of older. Not like me.”

Evelyn rose in instinctive respect to the old man whom she did not know.
She thought it must be some old relative of Madeline, some one who had
known her as a child. She answered some indifferent words of greeting,
and dropped hastily as soon as she had touched it, the cold and flabby
hand. It could be no one whom she had known, though he knew her.

“Oh, Mr. Saumarez,” said Lady Leighton, “I am so sorry this has happened
I do hope it will not hurt you. Had I not better ring for your man? You
know that you must not do too much or excite yourself. Let me lead you
back to your chair.”

A faint smile came over the ashen face. “She doesn’t know me,” he said.

Oh, heaven and earth, was this _he_? A pang of wonder, of keen pain and
horror, shot through Evelyn like a sudden blow, shaking her from head to
foot. It was not possible! the room swam round her, and all that was in
it. _He!_ The name had been like a pistol shot in her head, and then
something, a look, as if over some chilly snowy landscape, a gleam of
cold light had startled her even before the name. “Is it----is it? I
did not know you had been ill,” she said, almost under her breath.

“Yes, it is my own self, and I have been ill, extremely ill; but I am
getting better. I will sit down if you will permit me. I am not in the
least excited; but very glad to see Mrs. Rowland and offer her my
congratulations. I am not in such good case myself,--nobody is likely to
congratulate me.”

“I do not see that,” said Lady Leighton. “You are so very much better
than you have been.”

“That’s very true. I may be congratulated so far. I should offer to
call at your hotel on Mr. Rowland, but I fear my strength is not to be
trusted. I am more glad than I can tell you to have seen you looking so
well and happy, after so many years. Lady Leighton, I think I will now
accept your kind offer to ring for my man.” He put out the grey
tremulous hand again, and enfolded that of Evelyn in it. “I am very
glad, very glad,” he said with emphasis, in a low but firm tone, Lady
Leighton having turned away to ring the bell, “to have seen you again,
and so well, and so young, and I don’t doubt so happy. My wife is dead,
and I am a wreck as you see----”

“I am very sorry, very sorry.”

“I knew you would be: while I am glad to have seen you so well. And I
have two children whom I shall have to leave to the tender mercies of
the world. Ah, we have trials in our youth that we are tragical about;
but believe me these are the real tragedies of life,” he said.

And then there came something almost more painful still. His servant
came into the room and put on his coat and buttoned him into it as if he
had been a child, then raised him smartly from his chair, drew an arm
within his own, and led him away. The two ladies heard them go slowly
shuffling downstairs, the master leaning upon the servant. Evelyn had
grown as pale as marble. She remembered now to have seen an invalid
chair standing at the door. And this was he who had filled her young
life with joy, and afterwards with humiliation and pain. “Oh,” she
cried, “and that is he, that is he!”

“I wish I could have spared you the sight,” said Lady Leighton, “but
when he saw your card--he looked at it, when I dropped it out of my
hand: people ill like that are so inquisitive--I knew how it would be.
Well, you must have seen him sooner or later. It is as well to get it
over. He is a wreck, as he says. And oh the contrast, Evelyn! He could
not but see it--you so young-looking, so happy and well off. What a
lesson it is.”

“I don’t want to be a lesson,” said Evelyn, with a faint smile. “Don’t
make any moral out of me. He was a man always so careful of himself.
What has he done to be so broken down?”

“Can you ask me what he has done, Evelyn? He has thought of nothing but
himself and his own advantage all his life. Don’t you think we all
remember----”

“I hope that you will forget--with all expedition,” cried Evelyn
quickly. “I have no stone to cast at him. I am very very sorry.” The
moisture came into her kind eyes. Her pity was so keen that it felt like
a wound in her own heart.

“Oh, Evelyn, I would give the world this had not happened. I did all I
could to keep you from seeing he was there. Such a shock for you without
any warning! I know, I know that a woman never forgets.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Rowland, hastily, “that has nothing to do with it. I
never was sentimental like you; and a spectacle like that is not one to
call up tender recollections, is it? But I am very sorry. And he has
children, to make him feel it all the more.”

“Yes,” said Lady Leighton doubtfully, “he has children. I must tell you
that he still has a way of working on the feelings. Oh, poor man, I
would not say a word that was unkind; but now that he has nothing but
his troubles to give him an interest, he likes, perhaps, to make the
most of his troubles. I wish you had not had this shock to begin with,
dear Evelyn, your first day at home.”




CHAPTER VI.


Does a woman never forget? It was not true perhaps as Lady Leighton said
it, but it would be vain to say that Evelyn was not moved to the bottom
of her heart by the sight of her former lover. He, about whom all the
dreams of her youth had been woven, who had deserted her, given her up
in her need, and humiliated her before all the world. To see him at all
would not have been without effect upon her, but to see him so
humiliated in his turn, so miserable a wreck, while she was in all the
flush of a late return to youth and well-being, happy in a subdued way,
and on the height of prosperity, gave her a shock of mingled feeling,
perhaps more strong than any she had experienced since he rent her life
in two, and covered her (as she felt) with shame. But it was not any
re-awakening of the extinguished fire which moved Evelyn. She could not
forget, it was true, and yet she could easily have forgotten, the
relation in which she had stood to him, and her old adoration of him, at
all times the visionary love of a girl, giving a hundred fictitious
excellencies to the hero she had chosen. This was not what had occurred
to her mind. Had she seen him in his ancient supremacy of good
fortune--a well-preserved, middle-aged Adonis, smiling perhaps, as she
had imagined, at her late marriage with a rich _parvenu_, keeping the
superior position of a man who has rejected a love bestowed upon him,
and never without that complacent sense of having “behaved badly,” which
is one of the many forms of vanity--the sight would not have disturbed
her, except, perhaps, with a passing sensation of anger. But to see him
in his downfall gave Evelyn a shock of pain. It was too terrible to
think of what he had been and what he was. Instead of the sense of
retribution which her friend had suggested, Evelyn had a horrified
revulsion of feeling, rebellious against any such possibility, angry
lest it should be supposed that she could have desired the least and
smallest punishment, or could take any satisfaction from its infliction.
She would have hated herself could she have thought this possible. There
is an old poem in which the story of Troilus and Cressida, so often
treated by the poets in its first bloom, has an after episode, an
administration of poetic justice, in which all the severity of the
mediæval imagination comes forth. The false Cressida falls into deepest
misery in this tragic strain, and becomes a leper, the last and most
awful of degradations. And while she sits with her wretched companions,
begging her miserable bread by the roadside, the injured Troilus, the
true knight, rides by. Evelyn, though I do not suppose she had ever
seen Henryson’s poem, felt the same anguish of pity which arose in the
bosom of the noble Greek. If she could have sent in secret the richest
offering, and stolen aside out of the way not to insult the sufferer
even by a look, she would have done it. Her pity was an agony, but it
had nothing in it akin to love.

Lady Leighton, however, did not leave her friend any time to brood over
this painful scene. She had no intention to confine to a mere
interchange of courtesies this sudden reappearance upon the scene of a
former companion whom, indeed, she could not help effectually in the
period of her humiliation, but to whom now, in her newly acquired
wealth, Madeline felt herself capable of being of great use. And it must
not be supposed that it was purely a vulgar inclination to connect
herself with rising fortunes, or to derive advantage from her friend’s
new position that moved her. It was in its way a genuine and natural
desire to further her old companion, whom she had been fond of, but for
whom she could do nothing when she was poor and her position desperate.
The love of a little fuss and pleasant meddling was the alloy of Lady
Leighton’s gold, not any mercenary devotion to riches or thought of
personal advantage. It was certainly delightful to have somebody to push
and help on who could be nothing but a credit to you; to whom it would
be natural to spend much money; and who yet was “one of our own set” and
a favourite friend.

On the second day accordingly after that meeting which had been so
painful an entry into the old world, Lady Leighton came in upon Evelyn
as she sat alone, not very cheerful, longing for her husband and the
new home in which she should find her natural place. She came with a
rustle and bustle of energy, and that pretty air of having a thousand
things to do, which is distinctive of a lady in the height of the
season. “Here you are, all alone,” she said, “and so many people asking
for you. Why didn’t you come to luncheon yesterday? We waited half an
hour for you. And then we expected you at five o’clock, and I had Mary
Riversdale and Alice Towers to meet you, who had both _screamed_ to hear
you were in town. And you never came! And of course they thought me a
delusion and a snare, for they had given up half a dozen engagements.
Why didn’t you come?”

“I am very sorry,” Evelyn said.

“That is no excuse,” cried her friend. “You were upset by the sight of
that wretched Ned Saumarez. And I don’t wonder; but I believe he is not
half so ill as he looks, and up to a good deal of mischief still.
However, that is not the question. I have come about business. What are
you going to do about a house?”

“About a house?”

“I came to be quite frank with you to-day. When your husband comes back
you ought to have something ready for him. My dear Evelyn, I am going to
speak seriously. If you want to know people, and be properly taken up,
you must have a house for the rest of the season. A hotel is really not
the thing. You ought to be able to have a few well chosen dinner
parties, and to see your friends a little in the evening. There is
nothing like a speciality. You might go in for Indian people. Let it be
known that people are sure to meet a few Eastern big wigs, and your
fortune would be made.”

“But----” cried Evelyn aghast.

“Don’t tell me,” said Lady Leighton solemnly, “that you don’t want to
know people, and be properly taken up again. Of course you don’t require
to be pushed into society like a mere millionaire who is nobody. You are
quite different. People remember you. They say to me, ‘Oh, that is the
Miss Ferrars of the Gloucestershire family.’ Everybody knows who you
are. You have nothing to do but to choose a nice house--and there are
plenty at this time of the season to be had for next to nothing--and to
give a few really nice dinners. Doing it judiciously, finding out when
people are free, for of course it does happen now and then that there
will be a day when there is nothing going on, you can manage it yet. And
everybody knows that your husband is very rich. You could do enough at
least to open the way for next season, and make it quite simple. But, my
dear, in that case you must not go on wasting these precious days,
without deciding on anything and living in a hotel.”

“You take away my breath,” said Mrs. Rowland. “I have not the least
desire to be taken up by society. If I had, I think what I saw the other
day would have been enough to cure me; but I never had the smallest
thought--my husband is rich, I suppose, but he does not mean to spend
his money so. He means to live--at home--among his own people.”

Evelyn’s voice, which had been quite assured, faltered a little and
trembled as she said these last words.

“Among his own people!” said Lady Leighton, with a little shudder. “Do
you mean to say----! Now, my dear Evelyn, you must forgive me, for
perhaps I am quite wrong. I have heard about Mr. Rowland. I have always
heard that he was--that he had been----” Madeline Leighton was a person
of great sense. She saw in Evelyn’s naturally mild eyes that look of the
dove enraged, which is more alarming as a danger signal than any
demonstration on the part of the eagle. She concluded hastily, “A very
excellent man, the nicest man in the world.”

“You were rightly informed,” said Mrs. Rowland, somewhat stiffly. “My
husband is as good a man as ever lived.”

“But to go and settle among--his own people! perhaps they are not all as
good as ever lived. They must be a little different to what you have
been used to. Don’t you think you should stipulate for a little freedom?
Frank’s people are as good as ever lived, and they are all of course, so
to speak, in our own set. But if I were condemned to live with them all
the year round, I should die. Evelyn! it is, I assure you, a very
serious matter. One should begin with one’s husband seriously, you know.
Very good women who always pretend to like everything they are wanted to
do, and smother their own inclinations, are a mistake, my dear. They
always turn out a mistake. In the first place they are not true any more
than you thought me to be the other day. They are cheating, even if it
is with the best of motives. And in the end they are always found out.
And to pretend to like things you hate is just being as great a humbug
as any make-believe in society. Besides, your husband would like it far
better if you provided him with a little amusement, and kept his own
people off him for part of the year.”

“I don’t think Society would amuse him at all,” said Evelyn, with a
laugh. “And besides, he has no people that I know of--so that you need
not be frightened for me--except his own children,” she added, with
involuntary gravity.

Lady Leighton gave vent to an “O!” which was rounder than the O of
Giotto. Horror, amazement, compassion were in it. “He has children!” she
said faintly.

“Two--and they, of course, will be my first duty.”

“Girls?”

“A girl and a boy.”

“Oh, you poor thing!” said Lady Leighton, giving her friend an embrace
full of sympathy. “I am so sorry for you! I hope they are little
things.”

Evelyn felt a little restored to herself when she was encountered with
such solemnity. “You have turned all at once into a Tragic Muse,” she
said; “you need not be so sorry for me. I am not--sorry for myself.”

“Oh, don’t be a humbug,” said Lady Leighton severely; “of all humbugs a
virtuous humbug is the worst. You hate it! I can see it in your eyes.”

“My eyes must be very false if they express any such feeling. To tell
the truth,” she added smiling, “I am a little frightened--one can
scarcely help being that. I don’t know how they may look upon me. I
shouldn’t care to be considered like the stepmother of the fairy tales.”

“Poor Evelyn!” said Lady Leighton. She was so much impressed as to lose
that pliant readiness of speech which was one of her great qualities.
Madeline’s resources were generally supposed by her friends to be
unlimited: she had a suggestion for everything. But in this case she was
silenced--for at least a whole minute. Then she resumed, as if throwing
off a load.

“You should have the boy sent to Eton, and the girl to a good school.
You can’t be expected to take them out of the nursery. And for their
sakes, Evelyn, if for nothing else, it is _most important_ that you
should know people and take your place in society. It makes all my
arguments stronger instead of weaker: you must bring Miss Rowland
out--when she grows up.”

Evelyn could not but laugh at the ready advice which always sprang up
like a perpetual fountain, in fine independence of circumstances. “Dear
Madeline,” she said, “there is only one drawback, which is that they are
grown up already. My stepdaughter is eighteen. I don’t suppose she will
go to school, if I wished it ever so much--and I have no wish on the
subject. It is a great responsibility; but provided they will accept me
as their friend----”

“And where have they been brought up? Is she pretty? are they
presentable? She must have money, and she will marry, Evelyn; there’s
hope in that. But instead of departing from my advice to you on that
account, I repeat it with double force. You _must_ bring out a girl of
eighteen. She must see the world. You can’t let her marry anybody that
may turn up in the country. Take my word for it, Evelyn,” she added
solemnly, “if it was necessary before, it is still more necessary now.”

“She may not marry at all--there are many girls who do not.”

“Don’t let us anticipate anything so dreadful,” said the woman of the
world. “A stepdaughter who does not marry is too much to look forward
to. No, my dear, that is what you must do. You must bring her out well
and get her off. Is she pretty? for, of course, she will be rich.”

“I don’t know. I know little about the children. My husband has been in
India for a long time. He does not himself know so much of them as he
ought.”

A shiver went through Lady Leighton’s elegant toilette. She kissed her
friend with great pity. “I will stand by you, dear,” she said, “to the
very utmost of my ability. You may be sure that anything I can do to
help you;--but put on your bonnet in the meantime I have a list of
houses I want you to look at. You can look at them at least--that does
no harm; if not for this season, it will be a guide to you for the next.
And it is always more or less amusing. After that there are some calls I
have to make. Come, Evelyn, I really cannot leave you to mope by
yourself here.”

And Evelyn went. She was lonely, and it was a greater distraction after
all than buying cabinets in Wardour Street, and looking over even the
most lovely old Persian rugs. Looking at houses, especially furnished
houses, to be let for the season, is an amusement which many ladies
like. It is curious to see the different ideas, the different habits of
the people who want to let them, and to contrast the house that is
furnished to be let and the house that is furnished to be lived in,
which are two different things. Lady Leighton enjoyed the afternoon very
much. She pointed out to her friend just how she could arrange the rooms
in every house, so that the liveliest hopes were left in the mind of
each householder; and by the time they got back to Madeline’s own house
to tea, she declared herself too tired to do anything but lie on the
sofa, and talk over all they had seen. “It lies between Wilton Place and
Chester Street,” she said. “The last is the best house, but then the
other is better furnished. That boudoir in Wilton Place is a little gem:
or you might make the drawing-room in Chester Street exceedingly pretty
with those old things you are always buying. The carpets are very bad, I
must allow, but with a few large rugs--and it is such a good situation.
Either of them would do. And so cheap!--a mere nothing for millionaires
like you.”

Evelyn allowed, not without interest, that the houses were very nice.
She allowed herself to discuss the question. Visions floated before her
eyes of old habits resumed, and that flutter of movement, of occupation,
of new things to see and hear, which forms the charm of town, caught her
with its fascination. To step a little, just a little, not much, into
the living stream, to feel the movement, though she was not carried
away by it, was a temptation. At a distance it is easy to condemn the
frivolity, the hurry, the rush of the season; but to touch its
glittering surface over again after a long interval of banishment, and
feel the thrill of the tide of life which is never still, which quickens
the pulse and stimulates the mind, has a great attraction in it. Evelyn
forgot for the moment the shock which had so driven her back from all
pleasant projects. She allowed herself to see with Madeline’s eyes. No
doubt it might be pleasant. It was now June, and a month of society in
the modified way in which a late arrival, so long separated from all old
acquaintances can alone hope to enjoy it, would not be too great an
interruption to the home life, and it would leave time to have
everything done at Rosmore. And it would postpone a little the
introduction to many new elements of which she was afraid. She had been
disappointed when her husband left her, to have the entrance upon her
new life postponed at all, and the period of suspense prolonged. But
that feeling began to give way to other feelings--feelings more natural.
After the unutterably subdued life she had led in India, and before the
novel and strange existence which was now waiting for her as the mother
and guide of human creatures unknown to her, might not a moment of
relaxation, of individuality, be worth having? She had been Mrs.
Stanhope’s friend without any identity, with a life which was all bound
up in the obscure rooms of the bungalow; and she was Mr. Rowland’s wife,
the mother of his children, the head of his house, in an atmosphere
altogether novel to her, and which of her, in her natural personality,
knew nothing. Society was not her sphere, yet it was the nearest to any
sphere in which she could stand as herself. And she allowed herself to
be seduced. She thought that perhaps for a little James might enjoy it.
Chester Street is very near the Park. To walk out in the June mornings,
when even the London air is made of sunshine, to the Row and see the
dazzling stream flow by--the beautiful horses, the beautiful
people--girls and men whom it was a sight to see--to meet every five
minutes an old acquaintance, to hear once more that babble about people
and personal incidents which is so trivial to the outsider, but always
attractive to those who know the names and can understand the situations
about which everybody talks! And in the evening, to sit at the head of
the table with perhaps a statesman, perhaps a poet, somebody of whom the
whole world has heard, at her right hand, penetrating even the society
chatter with a thread of meaning! Evelyn forgot for the moment various
things that would not be so pleasant--that her husband would like to
entertain a lord, but would not probably know much more about him,
however great he might be--that he might be inclined to tell the price
of his wine, and laugh the rich man’s laugh of satisfaction at the
costliness of everything, and the ruin that awaited him in London. These
little imperfections Evelyn was perhaps too sensitive of, but on this
occasion they stole out of her mind. She began to discuss Chester Street
with a gradually growing satisfaction. Or Park Lane? There was a house
in Park Lane--and for a hundred pounds or two of rent, if he liked the
scheme at all, James would not hesitate. She was quite sure of him so
far as that was concerned.

“Chester Street has its advantages,” said Lady Leighton. “It is such a
capital situation; and yet quite modest, no pretension. It is more like
you, Evelyn. So far as Mr. Rowland is concerned, I feel sure, though I
don’t know him, that he would prefer Belgrave Square, and the biggest
rent in London.”

“How do you know that?” said Evelyn with an uneasy laugh.

“Because I know my millionaires,” said Lady Leighton gravely. “But for
the end of the season, and an accidental sort of thing as it will be, I
should not recommend that. Next year if you come up in May, and on quite
_lancé_; but for this year, when you are only feeling your way--Chester
Street, Evelyn! that’s my idea--and a few small parties, quite select,
to meet some Indian man. I don’t want you to have just a common success
like the vulgar rich people. Dear, no! quite a different thing--a
success _d’estime_--a real good foundation for anything you might like
to do after. You might take Marlborough House then--if you could get
it--and stick at nothing.”

“We shall not attempt to get Marlborough House,” said Evelyn, with a
laugh, “nor even anything more moderate. Mr. Rowland does not care for
town. But I confess that you have beguiled me, Madeline, with your
flattering tongue. I think--I should rather like--if he approves of the
idea.”

“My dear, it is surely enough if you approve of the idea. He is not
going to make you a black slave.”

“My husband is sure to approve of what I do,” said Evelyn, with a little
dignity. “But I prefer to consult him all the same. He may have formed
other engagements. It may be necessary to go up to Rosmore at once. But
I confess that I should like--if there is nothing else in the way.”

“And that is all,” cried Lady Leighton, “after all my efforts! Well, if
it must be so, telegraph to him--or at least tell him to answer you by
telegraph: for that house might still be swept up while you are
hesitating. Oh, I know it is rather late for a house to be snapped up.
But when you want a thing it immediately becomes a chance that some one
else will want it too. I shall look for you to-morrow to luncheon,
Evelyn: now, mind that you don’t fail me, and we’ll go out after and
settle about it, and do all that is necessary. Shouldn’t you like now to
go and look at a few more Persian rugs? and that little Chippendale set
you were telling me of? The next best thing to spending money one’s self
is helping one’s friend to do it,” said Lady Leighton. “Indeed, some
people think it is almost more agreeable: for you have the pleasure,
without the pain of paying. Come, Evelyn, and we can finish with a turn
in the Park before dinner. I always like to get as much as possible into
every day.”

It was indeed a necessity with the town lady to get as much as she could
into her day. If she had not gone to choose the rugs on her friend’s
account, she would have had to make for herself some other piece of
business equally important. There was not an hour that had not its
occupation. Looking at the houses had filled the afternoon with bustle
and excitement: and doing all that was necessary, _i.e._, rearranging
all the furniture, covering up the dingy carpets, choosing new curtains,
etc., would furnish delightful “work” for two or three. Lady Leighton
had never an hour that was without its engagement, as she said with a
sigh. She envied her friends who had leisure. She had not a moment to
herself.

And Evelyn wrote a hurried letter to her husband about the Chester
Street house, and the pleasure of staying in town for a week or two, as
she put it vaguely, and introducing him to some of her friends. She even
in her haste mentioned Lord and Lady Leighton, knowing that he had a
little weakness for a title--a thing she was sadly ashamed of when she
came to think. But the best of us are so easily led away.




CHAPTER VII.


The bustle of this afternoon’s occupation, which left her no time to
think before she was deposited at her hotel for her late dinner, put
serious thoughts out of Evelyn’s mind; and even when that hasty meal,
over which she had no inclination to linger, was ended, and she had
relapsed into the comfort of a dressing gown, and lay extended in an
easy chair beside the open windows, hearing all the endless tumult of
town, half with a sense of being left out, and half with
self-congratulations over her quiet, she was little inclined to
reflection. The echo of all that she had been doing hung about her, and
that pleasant little commotion of choice, of arrangement and
organization, which is involved in a new house and new settlement,
absorbed her thoughts. They went very fast, setting a thousand things
stirring. There is nothing that moves the woman of to-day more than the
task of making a house pretty and harmonious, and forming a version of
home out of any spare hired dwelling. Evelyn had anticipated having this
to do for Rosmore. But James had somehow taken it out of her hands. He
had gone to prepare it for her, not thinking that she would have liked
much better to have a share in the doing. And now to think of having her
little essay for herself, and setting up a temporary home out of her own
fancy, turning a few bare rooms into a place full of fragrance and
brightness, pleased her fancy. She listened to the carriages flying past
with an endless roll of sound, so many of them conveying society to its
favourite haunts, to one set of brilliant rooms after another, to new
combinations of smiling faces and beautiful toilettes, with a half
melancholy half pleasing excitement. To be above, and listen to that
sound, is always slightly melancholy, and Evelyn could not but think a
little of the pleasure of emerging from the silence of solitude, of
seeing and being seen, of finding friends from whom she had been long
parted, and a dazzling vision of life which was all the brighter from
being partially forgotten, and never very perfectly known. From where
she sat she could see the glare of the carriage lamps, and now and then
some glimpses of the persons within--a lady’s white toilette surging up
at the window or a brilliant shirt front looking almost like another
lamp inside. It amused her to watch that stream flow on.

And then there came over her a dark shadow, the vision of the man who
had been so young and so full of life when she saw him last, and who was
so death-like and fallen now. The thought chilled her suddenly to the
heart. She drew back from the window, and wrapped herself in a shawl,
with the shudder of a cold which was not physical but spiritual. In the
midst of all that ceaseless loudness of life and movement and pleasure,
and of the vision which had visited her own brain of lighted rooms, and
animated faces, and brilliant talk--to drop back to that wreck of
existence, the helpless man leaning upon his servant’s arm, bundled up
like a piece of goods, unresisting, compelled to submit to those cares
which were an indignity, yet which were necessary to very existence! The
echo came back to Evelyn’s heart. If there was in her mind, who in
reality cared for none of these things, a little sentiment of loneliness
as she saw the stream of life go by, what must there be in his, to whom
society was life, and who was cut off from all its pleasures? Her
imagination followed him to the prison of his weakness, his melancholy
home, with this imperative servant who tended and ruled all his
movements, for his sole society. God help him! What a condition to come
to, after all the experiences of his life!

Should she ever meet him again, she had asked herself, partly with a
vaguely formed wish of saying some word of kindness to so great a
sufferer, partly with a shrinking reluctance to give herself the pain of
looking upon his humiliation again? But it was almost as great a shock
as on the first meeting to see him coming along the park as she walked
to Lady Leighton’s next day. He was being drawn along in his wheeled
chair by the man who had bundled him up so summarily on the previous
occasion. Evelyn would have hurried on, but he held out his hand
appealingly, and even called her name as she endeavoured to pass. “Won’t
you stop and speak to me?” he said. It was impossible to resist that
appeal. She stood by him looking down upon his ashy countenance, the
loose lips and half-open mouth which babbled rather than talked, and
which it required an effort at first to understand. “Will you sit down a
little and talk?” he said. “It’s a pleasure I don’t often have, a talk
with an old friend. Sit there, and I’ll have my chair drawn beside you.
I hope you won’t think yourself a victim, as I fear some of my friends
do----”

“Oh no,” she said anxiously, “don’t think so: I--was going to see
Madeline--but it will not matter----”

“Oh, she can spare you for half an hour.”

It was with dismay that Evelyn heard this, but how could she resist the
power of his weakness and fallen estate? He had his chair drawn up in
front of the one she had taken, very near her, and with a gesture
dismissed his servant, who went and took up his position with his back
against a tree, and his eyes upon the master who was also his patient.
The sight of this reminder of his extreme weakness and precarious
condition was almost more than Evelyn’s nerves could bear.

“We are a wonderful contrast, you and I,” he said; “you so young and
fair, just entering upon life, and I leaving it, a decrepid old man.”

“You know,” she said, “that I am not young and fair any more than you
are old. I am grieved to see you so ill; but I hope----”

“There is no room for hope. To go on like this for many years, which
they say is possible, is not much worth hoping for, is it? Still, I
would bear it for various reasons. But I am not likely to be tried. I am
a wreck--and my wife only lived two years--I suppose you knew that.”

“I had heard that Mrs. Saumarez died.”

“Yes--I’d have come to you for consolation had I dared.”

“It was better not,” said Evelyn, while a subdued flash of indignation
shot out much against her will from her downcast eyes.

“That was what I thought. When a thing does not succeed at first it is
better not to try to get fire out of the ashes,” he said didactically;
“but between us two, there is no difficulty in seeing which has the best
of it. I should like to call and make Mr. Rowland’s acquaintance. But
you see the plight in which I am. It is almost impossible for me to get
up a stair----”

“My husband--does not mean to remain in London,” she said hurriedly. “We
are going to Scotland at once.”

“To a place he has bought, I suppose? I hear that he has a great
fortune--and I am most heartily glad of it for your sake.”

She replied hurriedly, with a slight bow of acquiescence. It was the
strangest subject to choose for discussion: but yet it was very
difficult to find any subject. “You told me the other day,” she said,
“about your children.”

“I am very thankful to you for asking. I wanted to speak of them. I have
a boy and girl, with only a year between them--provided for more or
less; but who is to look after them when I am gone? Their mother’s
family I never got on with. They are the most worldly-minded people. I
should not like my little Rosamond to fall into their hands.”

There was a pause: for Evelyn found that she had nothing to say. It was
so extraordinary to sit here, the depositary of Edward Saumarez’s
confidences, listening to the account of his anxieties--she who was so
little likely to be of any help.

“How old is she?” she managed to ask at last.

“Rosamond? How long is it since we were--so much together? A long time.
I dare say more than twenty years.”

“Something like that.”

“Ah well,” he said with a sigh, “I married about a year after. They’re
nineteen and twenty, or thereabouts. Rosamond, they tell me, ought to be
brought out; but what is the good of bringing out a girl into the world
who has no one to protect her? Nobody but a worldly-minded aunt who will
sell her for what she will bring--marry her off her hands as quickly as
possible; that is all she will think of. It may seem strange to you, but
my little girl is proud of me, dreadful object as I am.”

“Why should it seem strange? It would be very unnatural if she was not.”

“She is the only one in the world who cares a brass farthing whether I
live or die.” As Evelyn raised her eyes full of pity, she was suddenly
aware that he was watching her, watching for some tell-tale flush or
gesture which should give a tacit denial to what he said. He, like Lady
Leighton, was of opinion that a woman never forgets, and dreadful object
as he allowed himself to be, the man’s vanity would fain have been fed
by some sign that the woman beside him, whom he had abandoned so basely,
whose heart he had done his best to break, still cherished something of
the old feeling, and was his still. He was disconcerted by the calm
compassion in her eyes.

“Eddy is as cold as a stone,” he said; “he is like his mother’s people.
He doesn’t see why an old fellow like me should keep dragging on. He
minds no more than Jarvis does--less, for I am Jarvis’s living, and to
keep me alive is the best thing for him. But it would be better for
Eddy, he thinks, if I were out of the way.”

“Please do not speak so; I don’t believe that any son really entertains
such thoughts.”

“Ah, that shows how little you know. You have not been in society all
these years. Eddy is philosophical, and thinks that I have very little
good of my life, which is true enough, and that he would have a great
deal, which is quite as true.”

“Even if it were so, he would not be his own master--at nineteen,”
Evelyn said.

“Twenty--he is the eldest. Of course he would be better off in that
case. He would have more freedom, and a better allowance; and he would
be of more importance, not the second but the first.”

“Oh,” she cried with horror, “do not impute such dreadful motives to
your own child.”

He shook his head, looking at her with an air of cynical wisdom--a look
which made the countenance, so changed and faded with disease, almost
diabolical to contemplate. Evelyn turned her eyes away with a movement
of horrified impatience. And this was not at all the feeling with which
Saumarez meant to inspire the woman who had once loved him. He was
unwilling even now to believe that she had entirely escaped out of his
power.

“Evelyn,” he said, putting forth again that large nerveless hand, from
the touch of which she shrank--“let me call you so, as in the old days.
It can do no one any harm now.”

“Surely not,” she said; “it could do no one any harm.”

He had not expected this reply; if she had shrank from the familiarity
and refused her permission, he would have been better pleased. Helpless,
paralytic, dreadful to behold, he would fain have considered himself a
danger to her peace of mind still.

“I have to accept that,” he said, “like all the rest. That it doesn’t
matter what I say, no man could be jealous of me. Evelyn!--I like to say
the name--there’s everything that’s sweet and womanly in it. I wish I
had called my little girl by that name. I thought of it, to tell the
truth.”

“Nothing could have been more unsuitable,” cried Evelyn, with a flush of
anger. “I hope you did not think of it, for that would have been an
insult, not a compliment to me. Mr. Saumarez, I think I must go on.
Madeline expected me at----”

“Oh, let Madeline wait a little! She has plenty of interests, and I have
something very serious to say. You may think I am trying to lead you
into recollections--which certainly would agitate me, if not you. You
are very composed, Evelyn. I ought to be glad to see you so, but I don’t
know that I am. I remember everything so well--but you--seem to have
passed into another world.”

“It is true. The world is entirely changed for me. I can scarcely
believe that it was I who lived through so many experiences twenty-two
years ago.”

“I feel that there is a reproach in that--and yet if I could tell you
everything--but you would not listen to me now.”

“I am no longer interested,” she said gently, “so many things have
happened since then: my father’s death, and Harry’s. How thankful I was
to be able to care for them both! All these things are between me and my
girlhood. It has died out of my mind. If there is anything you want to
say to me, Mr. Saumarez, I hope it is on another subject than that.”

The attempt in his eyes to convey a look of sentiment made her feel
faint. But fortunately his faculties were keen enough to show him the
futility of that attempt. “Yes,” he said, “it is another subject--a very
different subject. I shall not live long, and I have no friends. I care
for nobody, and you will say it is a natural consequence of this that
nobody cares for me.”

She made a movement of dissent in her great pity. “It cannot be so bad
as that.”

“But it _is_. My sister’s dead, you know, and there is really nobody.
Evelyn, I have a great favour to ask you. Will you be the guardian of my
boy and girl?”

“The guardian--of your children!” She was so startled and astonished
that she could only gaze at him, and could not find another word to say.

“Why should you be so much surprised? I never thought so much of any
woman as I do of you. I find you again after so many years, unchanged.
Evelyn, you are changed. I said so a little while ago: but yet you are
yourself, and that’s the best I know. I’d like my little Rosamond to be
like you. I’d like Eddy, though he’s a rascal, to know some one that
would make even him good. Evelyn, they are well enough off, they would
not be any trouble in that way. Will you take them--will you be their
guardian when I am gone?”

Evelyn was not only astonished but frightened by what he asked of her.
She rose up hastily. “You must not think of it--you must not think of
it! What could I do for them? I have other duties of my own.”

“It would not be so much trouble,” he said, “only to give an eye to them
now and then; to have them with you when you felt inclined to ask
them--nothing more. For old friendship’s sake you would not object to
have my children on a visit once a year or so. I am sure you would not
refuse me that?”

“But that is very different from being their guardian.”

“It would not be, as I should arrange it. You would give them your
advice when they wanted it. You would do as much as that for any one,
for the gamekeeper’s children, much more for an old friend’s--and see
them now and then, and inquire how they were getting on? I should ask
nothing more. Evelyn, you wouldn’t refuse an old friend, a disabled,
unhappy solitary man like me?”

“Oh, Mr. Saumarez!” she cried. He had tried to raise himself up a little
in the fervour of his appeal, but fell back again in a sort of heap, the
exertion and the emotion being too much for his strength. The servant
appeared in a moment from where he had been watching. “He oughtn’t to be
allowed to agitate himself, ma’am,” said the man reproachfully. Evelyn,
alarmed, walked humbly beside the chair till they came to the gate of
the Park, terrified to think that perhaps he had injured himself, that
perhaps she ought to humour him by consenting to anything. He was not
allowed to say any more, nor did she add a word, but he put out his hand
again and pressed hers feebly as they parted. “Can I do anything?” she
had asked the servant in her compunction. “Nothing but leave him quite
quiet,” said the man. “It might be as much as his life is worth. I don’t
hold with letting ‘em talk.” Saumarez was one of a class, a mere case,
to his attendant. And Evelyn felt as if she had been guilty of a kind of
murder as she hurried away.

She found Lady Leighton waiting for her for lunch, and slightly
disturbed by the delay. “I have a thousand things to do, and the loss of
half-an-hour puts one all out,” she said, with a little peevishness;
“but I’m sure you had a reason, Evelyn, for being so late.”

“A reason which was much against my will,” said Evelyn, telling the
story of her distress, to which her friend listened very gravely. “I
should take care not to meet him again,” said Lady Leighton, with a
cloud on her brow. “You listen to him out of pure pity, but weak and
ailing as he is, it would be sweet to his vanity to compromise a woman
even now.”

“I do not understand what you mean,” said Evelyn; “he could not
compromise me, if that is it, by anything he could do, were he all that
he has ever been.”

“You don’t know what your husband might think,” said her friend; “he
wouldn’t like it. He might have every confidence in you--but a man of
Ned Saumarez’s character, and an old lover, and all that--he might
say----”

“My husband,” said Mrs. Rowland, feeling the blood mount to her head,
“has no such ideas in his mind. He neither knows anything about Mr.
Saumarez’s character, nor would he even if he did know. You mistake my
feeling altogether. It is not anything about my husband that distresses
me--it is the trust he wants me to undertake of his children.”

“Oh, you may make yourself easy about that, Evelyn. That was only a
blind. It is little he thinks about his children. He’ll get you to meet
him and to talk to him, professedly about them--oh, I don’t doubt that!
but that’s not what he means. You don’t know Ned Saumarez so well as I
do,” cried Lady Leighton, putting out her hand to stop an outcry of
indignation; “you don’t know the world so well as I do; you have been
out of it for years, and you always were an innocent, and never did
understand--”

“Understand! that a man who is dying by inches should have--such ideas.
A man on the edge of the grave--with a servant, a nurse, looking after
him as if he were a child.”

“It’s very sad, my dear, especially the last, which is incredible, I
allow. How a man like that can think that a woman would--But they do all
the same. You might be led yourself by pity, or perhaps by a little
lingering feeling--or--well, well, I will not say that, I don’t want to
make you angry--perhaps by a little vanity then, if I may say such a
word.”

“Madeline, I think you know far too much of the world.”

“Perhaps,” said Lady Leighton, not without a little self-complacence. “I
have had a great deal of experience in life.”

“And too little,” said Evelyn, “of honest meaning and truth.”

“Oh, as for that! but if you think you will find truth or honest
meaning, my dear, in Ned Saumarez, you will be very far wrong; and if he
can lead you into a mess with your husband, or get you talked about----”

“He will never get me into a mess with my husband, you may be certain of
that, Madeline.”

“Oh, if you will take your own way, I cannot help it,” cried Lady
Leighton. “I have done all I can. And now come down to lunch. At all
events we must not quarrel, you and I.”

The lunch, however, was not a very successful one, and Evelyn refused to
take any further action about Chester Street, and was so determined in
her resistance that her friend at last gave up the argument, and with
something very like the quarrel she had deprecated, allowed Mrs. Rowland
to depart alone for her hotel, which she did in great fervour of
indignation and distress. But as she walked quickly along the long line
of the park, she perceived with a pang of alarm and surprise, the
invalid’s chair being drawn across the end of the ride, into the same
path where she had met Saumarez an hour or two before. Was it possible
that Madeline could be right? Was he going back to wait for her there?
She stood but for a moment and watched the slow mournful progress of the
chair, the worn-out figure lying back in it, the ashen face amid the
many wraps. A certain awe came over her. She had been long out of the
world, and had never been very wise in such matters: and who could
believe that a man in the last stage of life should be able to amuse
himself by schemes at once so base and so frivolous? She turned back
half-ashamed of herself for doing so, and went home another way. It
might be, she said to herself with a compunction, that all he meant was
after all what he thought his children’s interest: then with a thrill of
self-suspicion asked herself, was this the vanity by which Madeline, too
clear sighted, had suggested she might be moved? Oh, clearly the world
was not a place for her! The mere discussion of such possibilities
abashed and shamed her. Her simple husband, who could not cope with
these fine people, and upon whom probably they would look down--her
home, far from all such ignoble suggestions, her own difficulties, which
might be troublesome enough, but not like these--how much better they
were! Her heart had been a little caught by the aspect of the old life
from which she had been separated so long, and she had begun to think
that with all the advantages her new position gave her, it might be
pleasant to resume those of the old one, and venture a little upon the
sea of society, which looked so bright at the first glance. Had she
yielded to this temptation no doubt the good Rowland would have followed
her guidance, pleased with anything she suggested, delighted for a time
with the fine company, giving up his chosen life for her sake. And it is
very probable that, had Lady Leighton foreseen the disgust with which
her warning would fill her friend’s mind, she would have been chary
about giving it, and would have preferred to let Evelyn take her chance
of compromise and danger. The worst of society is, that it deadens the
mind to the base and vile, taking away all horror of things unclean, by
inculcating a perpetual suspicion of their existence. But no such
deadening influence had ever been in Evelyn’s mind. She sent another
letter to her husband by that afternoon’s post, which, in the midst of
various tribulations of his own, made that good man’s heart leap. She
told him that she had changed her mind about staying in London, that it
was odious to her: that she counted the hours till he should return,
that she longed for Rosmore, and to see the Clyde and the lochs, and the
children, and “our own home.” James Rowland, though he was not a
sentimental man, kissed this letter; for he was in great need of
consolation, having in full measure his own troubles too.




CHAPTER VIII.


Evelyn scarcely went out at all next day. She paid a visit to some of
the old furniture shops in the morning, which was a direction quite
different from that in which she would be subjected to any painful
meeting--and realised once more her husband’s simple maxim that there
was great diversion in buying. She did buy within a certain range,
expensive articles--things which she knew Madeline Leighton would covet
but could not afford, with a kind of pleasure in the unnecessary
extravagance which she was half ashamed of, half amused by when she
realised it. The old marqueterie was solid and beautifully made, and had
borne the brunt of years of usage; it was not a hollow fiction like the
fabric of society which Lady Leighton and such as she expounded as
unutterably vile, yet clung to as if it were the only thing true. Evelyn
declared to herself that she would have no house in Chester Street. To
cover up the old faded carpets with pretty Persian rugs, and make the
dingy rooms fine with temporary fittings up which did not belong to
them, was, like all the rest, a deception and disgust. The pretty things
should be for her own house, where they would be placed to remain as
long as she lived, where they would be like herself, at home. But except
the time she spent in these shops, which was not very long, she did not
go out all day. And she had, it must be allowed, got very tired of her
own company, when in the afternoon the door was opened suddenly, and a
servant appeared to announce some one, a young lady, about whose name he
was very doubtful, for Mrs. Rowland. He was followed into the room by
the slim figure of a girl looking very young but very self-possessed and
unabashed, with an ease of manner which Evelyn was not accustomed to see
in her kind. This young lady was dressed very simply, as girls who are
not “out” (as well as many who are) are specially supposed to be. The
grey frock was spotless, and beautifully made, but it was absolutely
unadorned, and she had not an ornament or a ribbon about her to break
the severe grace of her outline. But to make amends for this, she had
the radiant complexion which is so often seen in English girls--a
complexion not yet put in jeopardy either by hot rooms and late hours,
or by the experiences of Ascot and Goodwood and Hurlingham; her hair was
very light, not the conventional gold. She came forward to Evelyn with
the air of a perfect little woman of the world. “I am Rosamond
Saumarez,” she said, holding out her hand; “my father told me I was to
come to see you.” Evelyn stumbled up to her feet with a startled
sensation, bewildered by a visit so absolutely unexpected. The young
lady took her extended hand, and shook it affably, then with a little
air of begging Mrs. Rowland to be seated, like a young princess, drew
forth for herself a low chair.

“He said I need not explain who I was, for that you would know.”

“Yes,” said Evelyn, “you must forgive me for being a little confused.”

“Oh, I dare say you were having a little doze. It is so warm; and don’t
you find the noise soothing? There is never any break in it: it goes on
and on, and puts one to sleep.”

“I don’t find it has that quality,” said Evelyn, half affronted to have
it supposed that she was dozing. “It is strange for me,” she said, “to
meet your father’s children. I knew him only as a young man.”

“Oh yes, I know,” said the young lady, nodding her head with an air of
knowing all about it, which confused Evelyn still more.

“He told me he had two children, I think. Are you the eldest?” she asked
almost timidly.

“Oh no, Eddy is the eldest: but I’m the most serious. I have got the
sense of the family, everybody says. Eddy is with a crammer trying hard
to pass the army examination; but he never will: he hates books, and is
very fond of his fun. That may be natural, but you will agree that it is
not very good for getting on in life.”

“I suppose not,” said Evelyn.

“No, certainly; and so much is thought of doing something now-a-days. I
suppose father was not very much in the way of working when you knew
him, Mrs. Rowland: and yet he is as hard upon Eddy as if he had done
nothing but what was good all his life.”

“Your father is a very great sufferer, I fear,” said Evelyn, who had
entirely lost her presence of mind, and did not know what to say.

“Oh no, not so much as you would think. Of course he’s very helpless:
Jarvis has to do everything for him. But I don’t think he really
minds--not so much as people would think. He likes to be pitied and
sympathized with, and to look interesting. Poor father; he thinks he
looks interesting; but perhaps you thought it went too far for that.
Some people are quite afraid of him as if he might die on their hands.”

“Oh no,” cried Evelyn, faltering; “nobody would be so cruel; but it must
be very terrible for you.”

“Well,” said Miss Saumarez, “we have been used to it a long time, it
looks quite natural to us. But some people are frightened. It isn’t a
thing, however, that kills, I believe. It may go on for years and
years.”

“And you”--Evelyn felt that it was almost an irreverence to talk to this
young lady as to a school-girl, but still it was to be supposed she was
one--“you are still in the school-room, busy with lessons yet?”

“I don’t think I have ever been much in the school-room,” said the girl.
“It has been rather difficult to manage my education. Father liked to
have me at home when I was a little thing. I used to make him laugh. We
tried several governesses, but they were not very successful; either
they preferred to take care of _him_ or they quarrelled with me. I don’t
think I was a very nice child,” said Miss Rosamond impartially. “It
wasn’t a good school, was it, to have all kinds of pettings and bon-bons
because I was funny and could make him laugh, and then turned out, as if
I had been a little dog, when he was cross.”

“My dear!” said Evelyn, dismayed.

“Oh, I am afraid you think me _awful_,” said Rosamond, “but really it is
all quite true.”

“It is a long time since I was a girl like you,” said Mrs. Rowland, “and
we were not allowed to be so frank and speak our mind; that is the chief
difference, I suppose.”

“Oh, I have always heard from all the old ladies that I am dreadful. But
certainly the thing we do now-a-days is to speak our mind--rather a
little more than less, don’t you know. We don’t carry any false colours,
or pretend to pretty feelings, like the girls in the story-books. What
humbugs you must have been in your time!”

“I don’t think we were humbugs,” said Evelyn. She was beginning to be
amused by this frank young person, who made her feel so young and
inexperienced. It was Evelyn who was the little girl, and Rosamond the
sage, acquainted with the world and life.

“Father says so; but then, he thinks all people are humbugs. He says we
really can think of no one but ourselves, whatever we may pretend.”

“But you mustn’t believe in that,” said Evelyn. “It is a dreadful way of
looking at the world. Nobody can tell how much kindness and goodness
there is unless they have been in circumstances to try it, which I have.
You must not enter upon life with that idea, for it is quite false.”

“What! when father says so? Oughtn’t I to believe that he knows best?”

“Oh, when your father says so!” said Evelyn, startled. “My dear, I don’t
think your father can mean it. He may say it--in jest----”

“Oh, don’t be afraid, Mrs. Rowland,” cried the girl, cheerfully. “I
don’t take everything he says for gospel. He’s a disappointed man, you
know. He never got exactly what he wanted. Mother and he did not get on,
I am told: and there is every appearance that Eddy will be a handful, as
I suppose father was himself in his day. And then he’s paralysed. That
should be set against a lot, shouldn’t it? I always say so to myself
when he is nasty to me.”

“I am very glad that you do,” said Evelyn, with tears in her eyes. “It
should indeed stand against a great deal. And as you grow older you will
understand better how such dreadful helplessness affects the mind----”

“Oh,” cried Rosamond, breaking in, “if you think there’s any softening
of the brain or that sort of thing, you are very very much mistaken. If
you only knew how clever he is! I have heard him take in people--people,
you know, like my uncle the bishop, and that sort of person, with an
account of pious feelings, and how he knows it is all for his good, and
so forth. You would think he was a saint to hear him--and the poor
bishop looking so bothered, knowing too much to _quite_ believe it, and
yet not daring to contradict him. It was as good as a play. I shrieked
with laughter when he was gone, and so did father. It was the funniest
thing I ever saw.”

“My dear!” cried Evelyn again, wringing her hands in protestation; but
what could she say? If she had been disposed to take in hand the
reformation of Edward Saumarez’s daughter, it could not be by adding to
her unerring clear sight and criticism of him. “Do you see much,” she
said, in a kind of desperation, “of the bishop?” with a clutch at the
moral skirts of some one who might be able to help.

“Oh no, only when he comes to town. They don’t ask us now to the Palace,
for I am sure he never can make up his mind about father, whether he is
a real saint or--the other thing. Aunt Rose is the relation you know,
not the bishop. It is by mother’s side, so they naturally disapprove of
papa.”

Evelyn did not at all know how to deal with this girl, who was so
cognisant of the world and all its ways. Rosamond was even more a woman
of the world than Madeline Leighton. She believed in less, and she
seemed to know more, and her calm girlish voice, and the pearly tints of
her infantine radiance of countenance produced upon the middle-aged
listener a sensation of utter confusion impossible to describe. She
asked hurriedly, with an endeavour to divert the easy stream of words to
another subject, “Have you any friends of your own age, my dear, to
amuse yourself with?”

“Oh plenty,” said Rosamond, “quantities! There are such crowds of girls;
wherever one goes, nothing but women, women, till one is sick of them. I
have a very great friend whom I see constantly, and who is exactly of my
way of thinking. As soon as we are old enough we both mean to take up a
profession. I have not quite decided upon mine, but she means to be a
doctor. She is studying a little now, whenever she can get a moment, and
looking forward to the time when she shall be old enough to put down her
foot. Of course they will try to forbid it, and that sort of thing. But
she has quite made up her mind. As for me, I have not such a clear
leading as Madeline. I am still quite in doubt.”

“Madeline,” said Evelyn. “I wonder if by chance that is Madeline
Leighton whom I saw the other day?”

Miss Saumarez nodded her head. “But you must promise,” she said, “not to
betray us to her mother. Of course we quite allow that we are too young
to settle upon anything now. She is only seventeen. I am nearly two
years older, but then, unfortunately, I have not the same clear
vocation. And of course something must be allowed for natural
hindrances, as long as father lives.”

“I hope you will never leave him,” said Evelyn warmly. “It is true I am
old-fashioned, and do not understand a girl with a profession; but
everybody must see that in your case your duty lies at home.”

“If anybody who was a very good match wanted to marry me,” said the girl
with a laugh, “would you then think that my duty lay at home?”

Evelyn felt herself reduced to absolute imbecility by this bewildering
question. “My dear--my dear--you know a great deal too much; you are too
wise,” she said.

“But that’s not an answer,” said Rosamond; “you see the logic of it, and
you daren’t give me an answer. You just beg the question. I must go away
now; but father told me I was to ask you if I might come again.”

“If you care to come to such an old-world, old-fashioned, puzzled person
as I am,” said Evelyn, with a troubled smile.

“I should like it, if I may. Father says you are the real good, and a
great many people I know only pretend. I should like to know better what
the real good was like, so I will come again to-morrow, if I may.”

“Come, but not because I am the real good. I am a very puzzled person,
and you who are only a little girl seem to know a great deal more than
I.”

Rosamond smiled, for the first time, a bright and childlike smile. She
had smiled and even laughed in the course of her prelections as the same
required it. But for the first time her face lighted up. “Oh, perhaps
you will find there is not so much in me as you think,” she said, giving
her hand to the middle-aged and much-perplexed person before her, after
the fashion of the time. I forget what the fashion of the time was in
those days. People had not begun at that period to shake their friends’
hands high into the air as if they were grasping a pump handle. Evelyn
stood and looked after her aghast, not capable of sitting down or
changing out of that pose while the girl went away. She crept out, half
ashamed of doing so, into the balcony, to watch her as she appeared in
the crowded road outside: and after a moment, Rosamond came forth,
accompanied by a large mastiff, who performed several gambols of joy
about her as she stepped out into the stream of people. Evelyn watched
her going along, keeping, so to speak, the crown of the causeway, she
and her dog giving place to no one. She was on her right side of the
pavement, and to be hustled out of her course was an impossibility. Her
strong, confident step, her half masculine dress, jacket and hat like
those of a youth, were wonderful and terrible to the woman who had never
moved anywhere without an attendant. She stared after this wonderful
young creature with a bewilderment which almost took from her the power
of thought.

Later in the day Lady Leighton came in, penitentially, and in a softened
mood. “I was very silly to frighten you,” she said; “I can’t think what
made me such a fool. I forgot that you were you, and not any one else. I
was right enough so far as ordinary society goes, only not right in
respect to Evelyn Ferrars.”

“Evelyn Rowland, doubly removed from your traps and snares of society,”
said Evelyn with a smile.

“Well--be it so;--but I hope you are not really going to give up that
delightful plan about the Chester Street house, because I was silly and
spoke unadvisedly with my lips. If punishment were to come upon a woman
for every time she did that----”

“No great punishment,” said Evelyn. “You will come and see me in my own
house, and that will be better than seeing me at Chester Street--or not
seeing me--you who have never a moment to yourself.”

“That is true. I never have a moment to myself,” said Lady Leighton. “I
am going off now to St Roque’s to see about getting Mr. Pincem, the
great surgeon, to look very specially after a favourite patient of mine:
and then I must come back to Grosvenor Place to a drawing-room meeting:
and then--but I can sandwich you in between the two, Evelyn, if you want
to go over any of those houses again.”

“I don’t want to go over any of them again, thanks. I was quite
satisfied with Chester Street if I had wanted any. Perhaps, however, I
ought to let the people know.”

“Oh, never mind the people,” said Lady Leighton, “if you actually mean
to give it up and throw me over; for it is me you ought to think of.
And why? because I told you that Ned Saumarez, though he is paralysed,
was as great a flirt as ever----”

“Don’t let us have it all over again,” said Evelyn, “I take no interest
in it. By the way I have just had a strange visitor--his daughter,
Madeline. She tells me that your daughter is her dearest friend.”

“His daughter? Oh, Rosamond! yes, she and Maddy run about everywhere
together, and plot all manner of things.”

“Are you not afraid of their plottings, two wild girls together.”

“I afraid! oh dear, not I; they will probably both marry before they
have time to do any mischief. That puts all nonsense out of their head.
I know! they are going to walk the hospitals, and heaven knows what;
relieve the poor and also see life. I never contradict them--what is the
use? Somebody will turn up in their first or second season with enough
of money and sufficiently presentable. And they will be married off, and
become like other people, and we shall hear of their vagaries no more.”

“They will then have every moment occupied, and more things to do than
hours to do them in, Madeline, like you.”

“Precisely like me,” said the woman of the world; “and an excellent good
thing, too, Evelyn, if you would allow yourself to see it. Do you think
it would be so good for me if I had more time to think? My dear, you
know many things a great deal better than I do, but you don’t know the
world. There are as many worries in a day in London as there are in a
year out of it. That is, I mean there are in society, both in London and
the country, annoyances such as you people in your tranquillity never
can understand. I am not without my troubles, though I don’t wear them
on my sleeve. I do what is far better. I am so busy, I have not time to
think of them. There are troubles about money, troubles about the boys,
troubles about--well, Leighton is not always a model husband, my dear,
like yours. And it will be well for the girls if they do as I do, and
don’t leave themselves too much time to think.”

“They seem,” said Evelyn, glad to turn the seriousness of this speech
aside and not to seem curious (though she was) about her friend’s
troubles, “to exercise the privilege of thinking very freely at their
present stage. But this poor girl has no mother, and no doubt she has
been left a great deal to herself.”

“I know you don’t mean that for a hit at me,” said her friend; “though
you may perhaps think a woman with so much to do must neglect her
children. Madeline is every bit as bad as Rosamond, my dear. They mean
no harm either of them. They want, poor darlings, to work for their
living and to see life. It is a pity their brothers don’t share their
youthful fancies. The boys prefer to do nothing, and the kind of life
they see is not very desirable. But by the blessing of Providence
nothing very dreadfully bad comes of it either way. The girls find that
they have to marry and settle down, like their mothers before them; and
the boys--well, the boys! oh, they come out of it somehow at the end.”

And to the great amazement of Evelyn, this woman of the world, this busy
idler and frivolous fine lady suddenly fell into a low outburst of
crying, as involuntary as it was unexpected, saying, amid her tears:
“Oh, please God, please God, they will all come through at the end!”

Mrs. Rowland was a woman who had known a great deal of trouble, but when
she was thus the witness of her friend’s unsuspected pain, she said to
herself that she was an ignorant woman and knew nothing. She had not
believed there was anything serious at all, not to say anguish and
martyrdom, in Madeline Leighton’s life. She held her friend in her arms
for a moment, and they kissed each other; but Evelyn did not ask any
question. Perhaps Lady Leighton thought she had told her everything,
perhaps she had that instinctive sense that everybody must know, which
belongs to the class who are accustomed to have their movements
chronicled, and all they do known. For she offered no explanation, but
only said, as she raised her head from Evelyn’s shoulder and dried her
eyes, with a little tremulous laugh in which the tears still lingered,
“I am as sure of that as I am that I live. If we didn’t think so, half
of us would die.”

Not two minutes after this she returned to the charge again about the
house in Chester Street. “Will you really not think of it again, Evelyn?
It would be such a pleasure to have you near: and, my dear, I should
never say a word about any Platonic diversion that amused you. On the
contrary, I’d flirt with Mr. Rowland and keep him off the scent.--Oh,
let me laugh: I must laugh after I have cried. Well, if you have
decided, I don’t mind saying that you are quite as well out of Ned
Saumarez’s way. Sending the girl to see you was a very serious step. And
he is a man that will stick at nothing. Perhaps it is all the better
that you are going away.”

“That is the strongest argument you could use,” said Evelyn, “to keep me
here.”

“Perhaps that was what I intended,” said Lady Leighton; “but, dear, how
late it is, I must go----” She had reached the door when she suddenly
turned back. “What time did you fix for our visit to you, Evelyn? I must
work it into our list. Without organisation one could never go anywhere
at all. It must be between the end of October and the middle of
December. Would the 10th November to the 20th suit you? or is that too
long. One must be perfectly frank about these matters, or one never
could go on at all.”

“It must be when you please, and for as long as you please, dear
Madeline,” said Mrs. Rowland. She added, “I fear, you know, it will be
rather dull I don’t know whether there is any society, and James----”

“I will put it down 10th to 15th,” said Lady Leighton, seriously noting
this consideration. And then she gave her friend a hasty embrace, and
hurried away.

How strange it all was! Evelyn felt as if she had peeped through some
crevice behind the lively bustling stage, and suddenly seen what was
going on behind the scenes. There had been little behind the scenes in
her own life. It had been sad, but it had all been open as the day. And
now, when she stood at the beginning of a new life, she had nothing to
wound, nothing to make her reluctant that any word should leap to light,
even that story of hers which had been so near tragedy, of which Edward
Saumarez had been the hero. She almost blushed at the importance she had
given that story, now that she had seen again the man who had been the
hero of it. It seemed to lose all the dignity and tragic meaning which
had been the chief thing in her life for so long.

While Evelyn was thinking this, a letter was put into her hand, in which
her husband bade her do exactly as she pleased about the Chester Street
house. “If you like to stay there for a little, my dear, and see your
old friends, I shall like that best; and if you prefer to come home with
me at once, and take possession of Rosmore, that is what I shall like
best. It is for you to choose: and in the meantime I am coming back to
town, to do whatever you like to-morrow night.”

To-morrow of the day on which the letter was written meant that very day
upon which Evelyn received it. She had not pretended to be in love with
her good middle-aged husband, she, a subdued middle-aged woman. But what
a haven of quiet, and plain honest understanding, and simple truth and
right she seemed to float into when she realised that he was coming back
to her to-night.




CHAPTER IX.


James Rowland left his wife in London with a certain satisfaction which
was very unlike the great affection he had for her, and the delight
which day by day he had learned more and more to take in her society. He
was a man full of intelligence and quickness of mind notwithstanding
various roughnesses of manner; and he never had known before what it was
to have such a companion; a woman who understood almost all he meant,
and meant a good deal which he was delightfully learning to understand:
bringing illustrations to their life which his imperfect education had
kept from him, and making him aware of a hundred new sources of
satisfaction and pleasure. But his very admiration for Evelyn had
deepened in his mind the first stab of anxiety which her hand had
involuntarily given. He had never got over the shock of finding out that
his children, instead of being the little things he had invariably gone
on thinking them to be, had reached the age of early manhood and
womanhood, and that he knew nothing whatever about them. He had tried at
first to laugh at this as a simple evidence of his own folly, but the
little puncture of that first wound had gone on deepening and deepening.
He felt it only in occasional thrills at first, when it had given him
about as much annoyance as a stray pang of rheumatism; but as he
travelled home, every day’s nearer approach made the ache a little
keener. It was the only thing in his experience of which he had said
nothing to Evelyn--although from the day of their arrival in London it
had begun to gnaw him like the proverbial fox under his mantle. He grew
restless, unable to settle to anything, continually wondering what they
would be like, how they would receive him, if they would be a credit to
him or the reverse, how Evelyn would receive them, and how they would
take to Evelyn. Their stiff little letters about his marriage, which
were almost the first letters of theirs which he had read with any
attention, had been received at Suez on the way home. And they had
redoubled his anxiety and his restlessness. He did not show them to
Evelyn, which was very significant of their unsatisfactory character to
himself. Had they been “nice” letters, he would have been too anxious to
place them in her hands, to see her face light up with interest. But
they were not, alas, nice letters. They were very stiff formal
productions. They acknowledged that their father had a right to please
himself, and that they had no claim to be taken into consideration.
“What we expected was different, but it is you, as aunt Jane says, that
are the master, and we hope that your lady will not look down upon us,
or keep us away from you.” This was not the sort of thing which he could
show to Evelyn, anxious as she was to do everything a mother could do
for his children. And all this made him very restless: he wanted to
escape from her, to go and inspect them before she saw them, to try
even, if that were possible, to lick them into shape before they came
under her eyes. He had not been afraid of the venture of his new
marriage, nor of the perils by land and sea to which he was continually
exposed; but he was very much afraid of the effect of the boy and girl
whom he felt himself to have neglected, and who were now rising up as
giants in his path. In these circumstances Rowland snatched anxiously at
the pretext of going to see Rosmore and prepare it for his wife’s
reception. What he really wanted was to see the children and decide what
could be done to prepare them.

It was consequently with a sense of escape that he waved his hand to
Evelyn from the carriage window, thinking, with a touch of pride, what a
lady she looked in her plain dress, standing there upon the platform to
see him off, among the crowd, not one of whom was like her. He was very
proud of his wife. He thought she looked like a princess standing there
so simple, with no outward sign to show what she was, but a look, to
which any one would bow down. But, as the train rushed away into
distance, and the long lines of the houses and streets flew past, James
Rowland laid himself back, and thanked Heaven that he had escaped, that
he had found a pretence to get away, and that he would thus be able to
see the worst for himself. Dwelling upon this view of the subject so
long had made him scarcely conscious of any pleasure in the anticipation
of meeting his children. Had he not been married, had he come back
without any special direction of his thoughts towards them, he would no
doubt have looked forward with a certain pleasure to meeting his two
little things, and perhaps the disenchantment of finding them grown up
would have amused him, and paternal feeling excused the imperfections
which he now so much feared to find. It never, however, could have
pleased Rowland to find in his son a half-educated lout, or in his
daughter a pert little girl, on the original level of the foundry, which
was the haunting fear in his mind now; so that in any case a great
disappointment would in all probability have awaited him. His
apprehensions became stronger and stronger as he approached the end of
his journey, when they would be proved right or wrong. He recalled to
himself what the aunt had been, whom in his foolishness he had been so
glad to confide them to, as one who would cherish them as if they were
her own--a rosy-cheeked, cheerful lass, with a jest for any lad who
addressed her; perfectly modest and good, but with the freedom of the
overflowing young community, which above all things loved its fun--not
equal to his Mary, who had always showed a little shrinking from the
fun, and never kept company with any one but with him alone. Jane
appeared very clearly before him as he searched the memories of his
youth--a trig, comely, clever lass, full of health and spirits. She
would be, no doubt, buxom now, terribly well off by means of the lavish
cheques he had sent, and his daughter would be much as she had been. Oh,
she had been a good steady lass, there had been nothing to find fault
with; but to think of a daughter like Jane filled the good man with
horror. What could he do with her? What could Evelyn do with her? Cold
beads of perspiration came out on his forehead. And then the lout of a
boy! This was how he had got to think of them who ought to have been
the stars of his horizon. And it would not be their fault, it would be
his fault. He was thankful to the bottom of his heart that he would see
them first, and get the shock over, and have time to think how it could
be broken to Evelyn. But he was not the less afraid of the first sight
of them, afraid of proving all his prognostications true.

He had not warned his sister-in-law of his arrival, and it was again an
escape to him to postpone the meeting till next day, and in the meantime
to go to the best hotel he could find. This was many years ago, and I
don’t know what may be the case now: but then the hotels in Glasgow were
not very excellent, that great city being, I suppose, too much occupied
with its manifold business to make preparation for tourists and idle
visitors as Edinburgh does; and Mr. Rowland did not find himself in the
lap of luxury to which that masterful rich man was accustomed. This
probably discouraged him still more, for it must be said that next
morning, instead of going to see his children, he took an early train
and went down to Rosmore, thus putting off for another day the
possibility of ascertaining definitely what there was to fear. He was
conscious that it was a cowardly thing to do: and it was an unnatural
thing--heartless, even, some people might say; but then his terrors for
the moment had taken the place of his merely instinctive and quite
undeveloped paternal love.

Rosmore was not disappointing, that was certain! He took a steamer from
the opposite side of the Clyde, in order that he might see it first, as
he had been used to do when he was a young man, and all such
advancement seemed as far above him as the throne. His heart beat as the
rustling, bustling, crowded steamboat came to the spot where the white
colonnade had always been visible among the noble groups of trees, which
withdrew a little just there, and stood about in clumps and gatherings
to let the view be seen. There it stood upon its green knoll unchanged,
the sloping greensward stretching down towards the salt, dazzling,
water, the windows caught and shining out in the sun. It was by good
fortune--which everybody knows is not invariable in these regions--a
beautiful day, and to Rowland it seemed paradise to see the heavy clouds
of the foliage open, and the white pillars come in view. He landed upon
the side of the peninsula, where a little salt water loch runs up into
the bosom of the hills. It is characteristic of a Scot in all countries
that he never sees a landscape which does not remind him, to its own
disadvantage, of some landscape at home. But Rowland, who had been a
great deal about the world, went a step further and declared to himself
that he had never seen anything to equal that “silver streak” of
sea-water, with the noble line of mountains stretching across the upper
end. They were beautiful in themselves, their outlines as grand against
the sky and intense sunshine as if they had been as lofty as the
Himalayas; but this was only half their fascination. It was the
capricious Northern lights and shadows that made them so delightful, so
unlike anything but themselves. In the East the sunshine drags and
becomes tedious: it goes on blazing all day long without change. But
the North is dramatic, individual, full of vicissitude, making a new
combination every minute, never for half an hour the same. He stood and
watched the clouds flying over the hills, like the breath of some
spell-bound giant, now one point and now another coming into light; and
the little waves dancing, and the soft banks reflected like another
enchanted country under the surface of the water. The sight uplifted in
his bosom the heart of the homely man who had no raptures to express,
but felt the beauty to the depths of his being. “I’ve travelled far, but
I never saw anything like it,” he said to the agent, who had met him on
the little pier, and who backed him up with enthusiasm, partly because
he was of the district too, and prone to believe that there was nothing
equal to Rosmore in the world, and partly because he was a good man of
business, and liked to see a wealthy tenant in such a good frame of
mind.

But it would be difficult to describe the emotions of James Rowland as
he walked through the beautiful woods and entered the house. He had
never been in the house before. Naturally, at the time when he first
conceived his passion for it, the young foundry man, however clever,
could never have had any means of entering into such a place; and to
tell the truth, he did not much know what was required by a family of
condition in an English or rather Scotch house. He knew the luxury of
the East, and how to make a bungalow comfortable, but the arrangements
of a mansion at home were strange to him.

He followed the agent accordingly with a little awe, which he carefully
concealed, through the suites of rooms, libraries, morning rooms,
boudoirs, all sorts of lavish accommodation, with the uses of which he
was practically unacquainted. But he did not betray his ignorance. On
the contrary he was very critical, finding out the defects in the
old-fashioned furniture as if he had been accustomed to such things all
his life.

“This looks as old as Methuselah,” he said. “Why, the things must be
mouldy. I should think they can’t have been touched for a hundred
years.”

“More than that,” said the agent, “and that’s just why the ladies like
it. It is called Countess Jean’s boudoir. Everything is just as it was
when she came home a bride. The ladies will not have it touched.”

“Oh, I know that decayed style is the fashion,” said Mr. Rowland without
winking an eyelid: “but you can’t imagine we will put up with these old
hangings? You must have them cleared away.”

“Well do that, if it’s your desire; but the hangings are real
tapestry--the oldest in Scotland. The Earl will be just delighted to
have them back.”

“Now I look at them,” said Rowland, “I believe my wife will like them.
For my part I like fresh colours and rich stuffs. I like to have bright
things about me, I find it all a little dingy, Mr. Campbell. You must
put your best foot forward and have it put in complete order. And a
great many other things will be wanted. We have got a boat load,” said
the engineer with exhilaration, “of Indian toys and stuff. My wife’s
fond of all that sort of thing. We have curios enough to set up a
shop.”

“Ah,” said the agent respectfully, “you have had unusual opportunities,
Mr. Rowland: and ladies are so fond of picking things up.”

“Yes,” said Rowland, “my wife has wonderful taste--she knows a good
thing when she sees it.”

“Which is very far from being a general quality,” said the appreciative
agent “Mrs. Rowland, I make no doubt, will turn Rosmore into a beautiful
place.”

“It is a beautiful place to begin with,” said the new tenant; “and it
would be a strange place that would not be improved when my wife got it
into her hands,” he added with a glow of pride. He wanted much to
confide to the agent that she was a lady of one of the best English
families, and full of every accomplishment; but his better sense
restrained him.

What exultation he felt in his bosom as he stood under the white
colonnade and gazed at the great Clyde rushing upon the beach at the
foot of the knoll, and the steamer crossing (which it did by the
influence of some good fairy just at this moment) the shining surface,
and all the specks of passengers turning in one direction to catch that
glimpse of Rosmore. So many times had he gazed at it so--and now for the
first time, in the other sense, here he was looking down upon the
landscape from his own door. It was not the satisfied appetite of
acquisition--it was something finer and more ethereal--a youthful ideal
and boyish sentiment carried through a whole life. He had dreamed of
this long before there had been any conscious aim at all in his mind;
and now he had actually attained the thing which had so pleased his
boyish thoughts. James Rowland took off his hat as he stood under the
white colonnade. The agent thought he was saluting somebody in the
passing steamer, and murmured, “They’ll not see you; it’s farther off
than it looks;” but Rowland was saluting One who always sees, and who
does not so often as ought to be receive thanks thus warm and glowing
from a grateful heart. “And for Evelyn too, who is the best of all!” he
said within himself.

The agent gleaned enough to perceive that Mr. Rowland was exceedingly
proud of his wife, and formed an exaggerated, and consequently rather
unfavourable opinion of this unknown lady. He thought she must be a
_connoisseuse_ with her boat load of curiosities, which indeed, to tell
the truth, were things that Rowland had “picked up” himself in many
advantageous ways, before he had even seen his wife, and which Evelyn
was not acquainted with at all. Mr. Campbell thought she must be a
fantastic woman, and would, as he said, transmogrify the good honest old
house, and turn it into a curiosity shop, or “chiney” warehouse--which
was an idea he did not contemplate with pleasure. However, this was no
reason why he should undervalue so rich and so easily pleased a tenant.
He made the most ample promises as to what should be done, and the
expedition with which everything should be accomplished--and accompanied
Rowland to the boat, introducing him to the minister and to various
local authorities on the way. “This is Mr. Rowland that has taken
Rosmore. Ye’ll likely see a great deal of him, for he means to make his
principal residence here.--It’s the great Rowland, the Indian engineer
and railway man,” he said aside, but not quite inaudibly, in each
new-comer’s ear.

The local potentates looked with admiration and interest at the
new-comer. Any possible inmate of Rosmore would have been interesting to
the minister, who had not much society in the parish, and had a natural
confidence in the social qualities of a man who was so rich. The
“merchant” who had long dreamt of a railway up the side of the loch,
which would bring Glasgow excursionists in their thousands to Rosmore,
gazed with awe on the new inhabitant who had but to look upon a country
destitute of means of locomotion, and lo, the iron way was there. Other
points of interest abounded in the new inhabitant. He would quicken life
in the parish in every way: probably his very name would secure that
second delivery of letters for which the whole peninsula had been
agitating so long. The steamboat would certainly call summer and winter
at the pier, now that the House would be occupied and visitors always
coming and going; and the decoration of the church, which was so much
wanted, would, the minister thought, be secured now that such a wealthy
inhabitant had been added to the resources of the parish. They all gave
him a welcome which was as flattering as if he had been a royal prince.
“It’s been a distress to us a’ to see the House standing empty so long,
and I’m very glad to make Mr. Rowland’s acquaintance. It will be good
for us a’ to have a man like him among us.” How did they know what
manner of man he was, except that he was rich? But James Rowland did
not ask himself that question. In his present mood he was very ready to
believe that, as he was delighted to come, so his new neighbours would
be delighted to have him there; and he knew as well as they did that it
would be a good thing for them to have a rich and liberal new
parishioner at hand. He liked the looks of the minister, and the
schoolmaster, and the merchant, and he was pleased that they should like
him. He walked down to the pier attended by a little train; and it was
quite a feather in the cap of Mr. Foggo of Pitarrow, one of the smaller
heritors of the parish, that he happened to be going across to the other
side, and would consequently travel with the great man. “I’ll talk to
him about the kirk and see what he’s willing to give,” said this
gentleman, exhilarated by the thought that a good subscription from the
newcomer would save a good deal of money to the heritors. “But only
don’t be hasty; don’t be rash; don’t let him think that his siller is
the first thing we are thinking of,” said the minister. “Gangrel body!
what would we be thinking of _but_ his siller,” said the laird. But
this, which was the only thing that was not complimentary, was not said
aloud.

Thus Rowland was escorted to the boat, the frequent messenger between
that solitude and the busy world, while Pitarrow followed, giving way to
him as if he had been the Earl himself. The boat already felt as if it
partially belonged to him, the crew, too, being all interested and
impressed. He looked back from the deck upon the line of the Rosmore
woods, and the profile of the house, which showed itself through them,
a different view yet a delightful one: and listened with affability
while the different places on the loch were pointed out to him. The
evening was perfect as the day had been. The light had died off the deep
waters of the loch, though it still played upon the hills, and its low
rays struck full in the eyes, so to speak, of the white colonnade,
bathing the house in a dazzle of light. What a place to come home to, to
settle down in, to see from afar as he approached, and recognise as his
own! He figured to himself returning from an absence, hastening through
the woods, received by Evelyn at the door. What a beautiful dream to be
fulfilled at last! What a refuge from all the labours and the tumults of
life! He listened vaguely to what Pitarrow was saying, and granted
cordially that it would henceforward be his duty to come to the aid of
the parish and to help to beautify the church, and would have given him
a cheque on the spot, had there been pen and ink handy. But of course he
had not taken his cheque-book with him upon that day’s excursion,
important as it was.

He got to the railway in this blissful state of mind, uplifted, his feet
scarcely touching the ground. And then all at once his face grew sad and
set. The light went out of it and a blank came in place of the animated
and lively expression. He had done all that he wanted to do for the
moment at Rosmore. Now another duty awaited him, a duty he should have
turned to first, which was indeed the most important duty of all. Now
there was no longer any escape for him: he must see his children, and
that without any further delay.




CHAPTER X.


Next morning James Rowland woke with the churning of the waves under the
little Clyde steamboat in his ears, as if he were again on the deck
waiting for the opening in the trees, and the sight of the white
colonnade on the summit of its knoll, which brought with it the dazzle
of the sunshine, the purity of the sweet fresh air, the twitter of the
birds. How pleasant to have such a vision at waking, to realise with
delight that all those pleasant things were henceforth to be the
everyday circumstances of his life! But the next moment a cloud came
over his face, for he recollected what it was that must be his
occupation to-day. No shirking it any longer--no possibility of
persuading himself that something else ought to be done first. That had
been possible the first day: to see that their future home was
comfortable--to make sure that it would be ready for them, surely that
was a duty? But now he had accomplished it, and knew all about the
house, there was nothing further to keep him back. I hope the reader
will not think this perplexed father unnatural or unkind. As a matter of
fact, he would have been, and probably would be, after this first
obstacle was got over the kindest, the most fond of fathers. It was the
consciousness of the great gulf between what, when he last saw his
children, would have been right and natural for them, and what would be
suitable and indeed necessary now--between what he himself was then,
and what he was now, that overwhelmed him. They might be, in their
hearts, everything the prudent father could desire, and yet be quite out
of place at Rosmore, where he himself, if a little unpolished, would
nevertheless be quite in his proper place. If they had been but the
little children he remembered, who could have been trained into
anything! Alas, these possibilities were all over. He dressed himself
slowly, sighing from time to time, with an oppression on his heart that
he could not account for, wishing now, after all, that Evelyn had been
with him, who perhaps would have known better how to deal with the
emergency. And he breakfasted very slowly, reading the _Herald_ in
detail, and brooding over the paragraphs of local news which he did not
understand after so many years of separation from Glasgow and its
interests. At last the moment came when he could delay no longer. He had
read the papers; he had finished his breakfast: he rose with a sigh and
took his hat.

There is a street in Glasgow which I remember long ago, and which was
then called the Sauchiehall Road. Something picturesque in the name has
kept a place in the recollection of a child, over--let us not imagine
how many years; but it may be that a recollection so far off has
confused the outlines of the street, or that in this age of change it
may be completely altered, perhaps overrun with tall tenements, perhaps
fallen into irremediable decay. In like manner I am not sure that it was
the Sauchiehall Road in which the young Rowlands lived with their aunt,
though I think it was; and the reader may here excuse the possibility
of topographical error. It was a street in which there were many,
according to a description exclusively and characteristically Scotch,
“self-contained” houses of a small description, such as are not very
usual in Scotland. So far as I remember, they were of a generally grimy
kind, built in that dark complexioned stone which adds so much gloom to
the often cloudy skies and damp atmosphere of the western city. These
houses presented an aspect of faded gentility, and of having seen better
days. But they were at the same time very attractive to people without
any pretence at gentility, to whom the dignity of a front door and a
house self-contained, in distinction to the more usual circumstances of
a flat, was very tempting.

It was in one of these houses that Mrs. Brown, who was Rowland’s
sister-in-law, had established herself with her charges. It was one that
was supposed to be among the best of the long row. It had a yard or two
of what was called garden in front, almost filled with an elderberry
tree, on which there were some dusty indications of coming blossom; and
as the house had been recently painted, and had a bank of flowers in the
parlour window, it was easily distinguishable from its neighbours, which
were generally faded and dingy in appearance. To describe the beating of
the heart with which Mr. Rowland knocked at that freshly painted green
door would be almost more than words are equal to: a lover at the crisis
of hope and fear, not knowing what was to be the answer to his suit,
could not have been more agitated than this sober-minded, middle-aged
man. It occurred to him at the last moment not to give his name, but to
trust to his sister-in-law’s recognition of him, and thus have his first
view of his children entirely without any warning. He had scarcely done
this, however, before he began to think that to have given them the
fullest warning would have been better, so that his first impressions
should have been of their very best aspect prepared to please him. But
this was only after it was too late to change.

“Wha’ll I say?” said the servant girl, so decidedly bearing that aspect
that she could not have been called the maid, or the servant, or
anything but the girl. She was wiping her hands with her apron to be
ready to take a card, and a cap had been stuck on rather at random upon
a mass of curly and not very well-tended hair.

“You can say it’s a gentleman to speak to Mrs. Brown,” said Rowland,
stepping into the parlour, which was rather dark with its flowers banked
up against the window, though the flowers themselves seemed to flourish
luxuriantly. There was something horribly familiar to him in the aspect
of the room. He had seen nothing like it for many years, and yet he
recognised it in a moment. It was the best room of the respectable
mechanic--the parlour in which his wife put all her pride. There was a
round stand, covered with a glass shade, of wax flowers in the centre of
the table, and it stood upon a still larger mat surrounded with raised
flowers worked in crochet in coloured wools standing primly up around.
There were a few books laid round like the rays of a star: the _Course
of Time_ and other grimly orthodox productions of that character. The
chairs and sofa were covered with long “antimacassars,” also worked in
wool in stripes of different colours; the mantelpiece was loaded with
small pieces of china--girls with lambs, jugs with little pictures upon
them, and other such impressive articles, and photographs. Hung over it
in the place of honour, Mr. Rowland shivered to see his own portrait,
flanked on one side by the picture of a bungalow in which he had once
lived, and on the other by a group of football players, with names
written underneath, one of them being conspicuously marked as “Archie.”
Rowland, however, was breathing too quickly to allow him to go up to it,
and prepare himself for the appearance of his son. He felt more like
running away, and keeping up a fiction of being in India still.

While he was looking round him in consternation and alarm, he was
suddenly aware that the door had opened, and a little bright figure in
coloured muslin and many floating ribbons had come in. She twisted
herself as she walked, with a swaying and movement of all the
bright-coloured ribbons, and came forward with an apparent intention of
shaking hands with the stranger. But stopping at the distance of a step
or two, said with another twist, “Oh, I thought I knew you! Was there
anything you might be wanting that I could do?”

“I am waiting to see Mrs. Brown,” he said.

“Oh! that’s aunty,” said the girl. She looked at the elderly visitor
with a slight air of contempt, as if a man who could prefer to see aunty
instead of herself was a most curious specimen of humanity. And then
she laid down upon the table a parasol she had been carrying, and her
gloves, and a small basket of flowers. “I’ve just been out to the
nursery garden to get a flower,” she said, “I’m awfully fond of flowers.
D’ye like them?--Will I give you one for your buttonhole--if you’re one
of aunty’s friends?”

“You are very kind,” said the tremulous father, “but had you not better
wait till you see if aunty recognises me for one of her friends?”

“Oh, it’s no matter,” said the girl, “a flower is neither here nor
there--and she’ll not be fit to see a gentleman for a good while. She
likes to put on her best gown, and her cap with the red ribbons, like
the lady in the ‘Laird of Cockpen’--D’ye know the song?”

“I used to know it long ago--before I went to India----”

“Oh, you’ve come from Ingia? Papa’s out there--I wonder if you’ve come
from papa. Archie and me, we are always wishing he would send for us. It
would be awful fun. But he says he’s coming home. I hope he’ll not come
home. I hope he’ll send for us out there. Isn’t it far better fun out in
Ingia than it is here?”

“I don’t know about the fun here. Do you remember your father?” he
asked.

“No,” said the young lady indifferently, “I was a little baby when he
went away; and he must think I’m a little baby still, for he never sends
me things that you might think he would. I’ve seen girls that had grand
necklaces and things, and bangles. Bangles are very much worn here now.
But papa never sent me any. I had to buy what I wear.”

She held out a wrist to him laden with these ornaments of the flimsiest
description, wires of silver manufactured to suit a sudden demand.

“I am sure that he would have sent you things like these had he thought
you cared.”

“What for would I not care?” said the unconscious girl with great
reasonableness. She turned the bangles round and round upon her
outstretched arm, holding it up to see how they looked, and not
unwilling, perhaps, that the visitor should see how slim and white it
was. The girl was pretty in her way. She had a wonderful amount of
ribbons, a necklace with several lockets suspended round her neck, and
about a dozen bangles on each arm. What with looking at these, letting
them drop upon her arm to judge the effect, glancing at her figure
reflected in the little flat glass on the mantelpiece, and casting
stealthy looks aside at the stranger to see how all these pretty ways
moved him, she had the air of being so fully occupied that there was no
wonder it did not occur to her to compare his elderly brown face with
the portrait of her father hanging over the mirror on the wall.

“Is your brother at home?” Mr. Rowland said.

“Archie! oh no, he’s never at home. It’s past the season for football,
perhaps you know, but he’s taken to cricket to fill up his time. He’s
not a dab at cricket,” the girl said with a laugh. “It’s more an English
game than a Scotch game, and Archie is awfully Scotch. He goes on about
the flag and that nonsense. Now, I never mind. I like people just to be
pleasant, whether they are English or Scotch.”

“That is the most sensible way,” said the father.

“Do you hear Aunty,” said the girl, “rummaging about to get herself
dressed, as if you would ever notice what kind of a gown she had on! I
always put on a nice frock in the morning, and then I am fit to be seen
all the rest of the day.”

“But perhaps,” said Mr. Rowland, “you have had more advantages than your
aunt has had. You have been at school, and learnt a number of things.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve been at school,” said the girl. “I was at Miss Gibb’s in
St. Vincent Square. It’s rather a grand place; but I have my doubts
about what we learnt there. Aunty sent me because it was so grand--the
parents coming in their carriages--Mr. MacColl’s daughters, that has the
splendid shop in Buchanan Street, and people like that. Miss Gibbs only
took me because she was told about papa being so rich. The MacColls have
a pony trap of their own, and a boy in livery to drive about with them,”
said Marion, with a discontented face. “If my papa is really so rich, I
don’t see why I shouldn’t have a pony trap too.”

“When he comes home----” Rowland began.

“Oh, when he comes home! I once thought I would like that, though both
Archie and me would have liked it better if he had sent for us out to
Ingia. But maybe you don’t know what has happened? Papa has married
again! He’s married a governess, or something of that kind, that has
just caught him for his money. Aunty says there are no fools like old
fools. And what will we be now? We might just as well be anybody’s
children as belong to a man that has got a new wife. She is just sure to
put him against us, to get all the money for herself----”

It was all Rowland could do not to spring up and silence with an angry
hand this little pert voice, with its ignoble complaint. He was very
angry, but he subdued himself. “I should like to see your brother,” he
said curtly, for just then the door had been heard to open by a
latch-key, and some one had come in.

“Archie,” said Miss Marion, elevating her voice, but without any other
movement. “Come in here. Here’s a gentleman that knows papa.”

The door of the room was ajar. It was pushed open, more gently than
might have been expected, by a tall lad, his face highly coloured by the
still unsubdued flush of violent exercise. His countenance was of a
milder, perhaps feebler, type than that of his sister, and his dress and
manner were something between those of an assistant gentleman in a shop
and a young clerk. His clothes were good enough, but not very well made
or carefully kept. Rowland’s heart gave a leap, however, when this head
looked in, for the boy had his mother’s eyes--kind, honest, well-meaning
eyes, devoid of guile. They looked in with an inquiry in them, and then
brightened up. The door opened wide, and the young man came in and went
up to Rowland, holding out his hand: “If he’s from papa,” he said, a
little broadly--(papaw would be nearer the sound, yet not so much as
that), “he’s very welcome.” In the delightful revulsion the father felt
unspeakably grateful, though there was little to call forth that
sentiment.

“I’ve been telling him,” said Marion, holding up her arm again in order
that her bangles might drop back with a tinkle, which evidently was
agreeable to her, “that we’re very disappointed that papa didn’t send
for us to Ingia, and then we would have taken care of him and stopped
this awful marriage, which will just be our destruction. And it would
have been awful fun out there.”

“You will think we’ve no business to speak of his marriage in that way.
And neither we have,” said the youth. “He’s old enough to judge for
himself.”

“Old enough!” said Marion; “just so old that the parliament should stop
people from making such fools of themselves. But there’s no fools like
auld fools, as aunty says.”

“I don’t go so far as that,” said Archie, with an air of impartiality,
“but of course it was a great disappointment. We’ve been brought up to
think everything would be ours; and then, as my aunt says, there will
perhaps be a large young family, and everything spoiled for May and me.”

A flush such as would not have misbecome a young lover--a glow of warmth
and pleasure--came over Rowland. He scarcely noticed the boy’s
reflection, for the curious shade of gratification which the last part
of his speech gave him. A large young family;--not that perhaps: but the
suggestion seemed to fill his veins with new life.

It was at this moment that a sound was heard upon the stairs, announcing
Mrs. Brown’s speedy appearance; a rustling of silk, and tinkle of
ornaments, and some half-whispered remarks to the servant girl--“Ye
tawpy! why did ye no show the gentleman into the drawing-room? He’s just
in the parlour, and that’s not the place for visitors. When I give a
ring to the bell, mind that ye’re ready wi’ the cake and wine.”

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Brown, appearing in the room, and using her full
and sonorous voice, “May, what tempted ye to bring a gentleman into this
small bit of a room--just a family parlour, no fit for visitors, and the
drawing-room standing useless up the stair? I havena heard your name,
sir, but I’m sure I’m glad to see ye. I was in the middle of some femily
business, and I could not get away before.”

Her appearance, however, contradicted this excuse. Mrs. Brown had put on
a silk dress of a brilliant colour, which she called ruby, and which
glistened and rustled exceedingly. She wore a big locket on her ample
bosom; her watch, a large one, was twisted into her belt, depending from
a long and heavy gold chain, which was round her neck. She had a number
of rings upon her fingers. Her cap was an elaborate construction trimmed
with ribbons of the same colour as her dress. Her appearance, indeed,
as, large and ruddy and full of colour, she came in through the narrow
doorway, turned the very atmosphere in the room to a rosy hue.

“Jane,” said Rowland, rising from his chair.

She gave a scream, and gazed at him with wondering eyes. “Wha are
ye?--wha are ye?--for I’m sure that I’ve seen ye before. The lass has no
sense to ask a visitor his name.”

“Is it possible that ye don’t know me, Jane?”

“God bless us!” she said, “it’s just Jims Rowland himself! Eh, man, I’m
glad to see ye, Jims. Is it just you!--bairns, it’s your papaw. Lord
bless me that I should been such a time putting on my cap, and Jims
Rowland waiting for me down the stair.”

“Papa-w!” with about half of a W at the end of the last syllable, said
Archie.

“Papa!” said Marion. They were both discomfited, but the girl least. She
fell back a little upon the bodyguard as it were of her brother. “It was
_you_ that said that about the new family,” she whispered in Archie’s
ear.

“I am not denying it,” said Archie. “He had no business to come in like
this and take us unawares.”

Mrs. Brown gave Rowland a fat hand to shake and then she subsided into a
chair and began to cry: “Eh, to think it should be you! and sae mony
years come and gane since ye parted with us a’--and such things as have
happened. Ye was but young then and your heart was running on many a
thing out of common folks’ way--and to see ye back again looking little
the worse, and a’ your fancies fulfilled! It’s just the maist wonderful
thing I ever heard of. But eh! Jims Rowland, you’re an awfu’ changed man
from what ye were when ye went away.”

“I am seventeen years older,” Rowland said.

“It’s no that--but you’re far different. You were a heartbroken lad
then. ‘Twas for the loss of your wife, my bonnie sister Mary--and now
you’re back with a new lady to put out her very name from the airth.”

“I think,” said Rowland in his own defence, “that not to marry again for
more than sixteen years was surely enough to show my respect for her
memory.”

“I never thought you would have married again,” said Mrs. Brown. “Mony a
time it’s been said to me, ‘He’ll get another wife out yonder’--but I
would never believe it. I just could not think it true. Eh man, when ye
had a bonny dochter o’ your ain grown up, and just real well qualified
to be the mistress of her faither’s house----”

“Jane,” said Mr. Rowland, with seriousness, “I have a great regard for
you. You’ve been, no doubt, a careful guardian of the children--but I
cannot answer to you for what I do.”

“Na, na, I never imagined it. Ye just acted to please your ain sel’,
considering nobody. I’m no finding fault--I’m just wondering. And
there’s the bairns. What think ye of them? Are they no a credit to any
house? and a pleasure to the eyes, and a comfort to the heart?”

She drew Marion forward with a vigorous hand, and placed the two side by
side, confronting their father, who sat and gazed at them helplessly.
Two well-grown, well-looking young creatures they were indeed. But
Rowland gazed at them with a gradual dying out of all light from his
face: his lip dropped, his eyes grew blank. What could he say? Nothing:
there was little to find fault with, nothing that could be expressed in
ordinary words. A sort of dread came over him as he looked at them, the
boy and girl of whom he knew nothing; who had speculated on him, a being
of whom they knew nothing, as to what he would do for them, send for
them to India, which would be awful fun, or disappoint them of their
lawful expectation of being his heirs. He might never have known what
were their sentiments, and perhaps would have remained remorseful all
his life, thinking himself to blame in not responding to their
affection, but for this unintentional revelation. And now it astonished
him to find himself in face of the two who had formed such clear
opinions of their own as to what his duty was, and how he had deviated
from it. They thought his duty was to take care of and provide for
them--and he thought their duty was to regard their unknown father with
affection and submission. And neither one nor the other had come true.
He could not make any reply to their aunt’s appeal. He got up and went
to the window, and walked about the little room, knocking against the
furniture. “This is a pokey little place you are in,” he said, by way of
getting rid of some of the vexation in his mind. “I could have wished
that you had been in a better house.”

“It’s a very good house,” said Mrs. Brown. “This is just the femily
parlour--but if ye’ll come up to the drawing-room, ye’ll see what a nice
room it is. It’s just as pleasant a house as there is in Glasgow, if
maybe no so big as in some of those new crescents and squares out on the
Kelvin Road. But everybody knows that the Sauchiehall Road is one of
the best pairts. What ails ye at the house? it is just a very good
house, quite good enough for the bairns and me.”

Rowland could make no reply. He stood and stared blankly out of the
window into the elderberry tree, and said no more.




CHAPTER XI.


“You will stay to your dinner?” Mrs. Brown said. The moment that these
words, prompted by an inalienable Scotch hospitality, whose promptings
are sometimes less than prudent, had left her lips, she reddened
suddenly, and cast an alarmed look at Marion, who, for her part, was
still standing contemplating her father, with a look in which a little
defiance was concealed under a good deal of curiosity. The girl was
considering how to approach and mollify this unknown parent, who, after
all, was papa, the giver of all things, and upon whom was dependent the
comfort, not to say grandeur, of life to come. It was a pity she had
spoken so unadvisedly about his wife, but that, after all, was his own
fault. Marion had some experience in novels, which supply so many
precedents to the ignorant and young, and knew what a meeting between a
father and his children ought to be. He ought to have taken them into
his paternal arms. She, the girl, ought to have thrown herself upon his
bosom in tears and rapture. He ought to have lifted his eyes to the
skies or the ceiling, and have said: “Just like this was her mother when
I saw her first!” None of these things had been done, and the girl was a
little at fault. To look at his back as he stood at the window,
evidently out of temper, discouraged and discouraging, was a thing that
suggested no kind of original procedure to her mind. And she was
consequently of no manner of comfort to her anxious aunt, who had
instantly remembered that the midday dinner of the family was nothing
but hotch-potch. And how was she to set down a rich man, who fared
sumptuously every day, to a dinner of hotch-potch? Marion’s mind was
occupied with much more important things. How was she to do away with
the disadvantages of that first introduction, and make herself agreeable
to papa? A girl in a novel, she began to think, would steal up to him
and put her arm through his, where he stood looking out into the
elderberry tree, and lean her head upon his shoulder, and perhaps say
“Dear papa!” But Marion’s courage was not quite equal to that. As for
Archie, he simply stood still and stared, too completely taken by
surprise to make any movement whatever, contemplating his father’s back
with unspoken disappointment and dismay.

“Weel,” said Mrs. Brown, after waiting in vain for a response, seizing
dexterously the opportunity of escape; “I’ll just leave ye to make
acquaintance with one another, for I have things to see to in the house;
and Marion, you’ll just see that your papa has a glass of wine, for the
dinner, as you’re aware, is no till two o’clock. I’ll send in the girl
with the tray--she ought to have been here before now--and I’ll leave
you two to entertain your papaw.”

Then there followed another rustling of the silken gown, and tinkle of
the long gold chain, with its bunch of _breloques_, after which came
another tinkle, that of glasses, as “the girl” brought in a tray with
two decanters, a large plate of shortbread, and one of another kind of
cake. The wax flowers had to be lifted from the centre of the table to
make room for this, and the process occupied a little time and a good
deal of commotion, of which Rowland was conscious with increasing
irritation and annoyance. He began to feel, however, that the position
was ridiculous, and that to stand at the window, with his back to the
other occupants of the room, was certainly not to make the best of the
situation in any way. He turned round accordingly, and threw himself
into a chair, which rocked under him. The strangeness alike and
familiarity of the scene were more bewildering to him than words could
say. Mrs. Brown, in the wealth which he had supplied, had done all she
could to be genteel, poor woman, according to her lights. The tray with
the port and sherry was her best rendering of what a proper reception
ought to be. In the foundry days it would no doubt have been a little
whiskey and a bit of oatcake. The instinct was the same, but, according
to all the good woman knew, this was the most lofty and cultured way of
setting it forth.

“Will you take port wine or sherry wine, papa?” Marion said.

“I will take nothing, thank you. Shut the door, I beg. I want to speak
to you, my dear.” He turned towards her, but his look stopped short at
Archie--at Archie, the loutish lad whose lowering forehead was bent,
over his mother’s honest blue eyes.

“I did wrong not to tell you at once who I was. I suppose I had some
absurd idea that you might recognise me. To make up for this, I’ll
forget all the foolish things you have said about my wife. As they arise
from simple ignorance, and you have had unfortunately no acquaintance
with ladies, I’ll look over all that, and well begin square.”

Marion listened, standing with the decanter in her hand. “Will you
really take nothing, papa; not a little sherry to keep you going till
dinner-time?” she said.

“My Aunt,” said Archie, “is a very good woman; she has been everything
that is kind to us, and my own mother’s sister--more than the grandest
lady in the land. If she is not a lady, neither was my mother, I
suppose?”

“Your mother was--like nobody else, nor to be compared with anybody
else,” said Rowland hastily. “But you are quite right to stand up for
your aunt. I don’t doubt she has been very kind to you.”

“Oh,” said Marion, turning her head, “no more than was just her duty,
papa. We’ve done a great deal for her. There is just as much to be said
on the one side as the other. You can take a piece of shortbread,
Archie, and a wee drop of the sherry wine will do you good.”

The lad pushed her hand away somewhat rudely. “I wish,” he said, “you
wouldn’t interrupt what papaw says.”

The girl broke off a little piece of the cake for herself. She poured
out a little of the port and sipped it. “Aunty will be vexed if she
thinks it hasn’t been touched,” she said, munching and sipping. Rowland
turned his look from her to that pair of blue eyes which were like his
Mary’s. They were the only comfort he had in the strange circumstances.
He addressed himself to them as to something in which there was
understanding in this uncongenial place.

“I am afraid, my boy,” he said gently, “that we’ve all been wrong. I
first for forgetting that you were growing into a man. It was only my
wife’s enquiries, anxious as she was to hear everything about you, that
showed me my dreadful mistake in this respect. And your aunt has been
wrong, which was very excusable on her part, in forgetting that your
bringing up, for the position you are likely to have, should have been
different. Where have you been at school?”

“I’ve been at a very good school,” said Archie; “it’s no fault of the
school. I’ve maybe been a little idle. Aunty always said--that is, I
thought, as there was plenty of money, what was the use of being a
galley slave. So I just got through.”

“And what _is_ the use,” said Marion, “of toiling like the lads that
have to go up for exams, when you are such a rich man, papa, and he will
never need to work for his living. It’s always a nice thing to get grand
prizes; but he was not going in for anything, and what for should he
have risked his health, that was of far more consequence?”

“Let’s alone, May. I was maybe wrong, but that was my own opinion,
papaw.”

“Don’t say papa,” said Rowland, glad to give vent to a little of the
intolerable impatience that possessed him. “Call me father. You talk
about exams, and working for your living. Do you know what a young man
of the upper classes, far better than you, is doing at your age?--I
don’t mean the fops and the fools--I hope,” he said with some vehemence;
“a son of mine will never be either the one or the other. Do you know
what they do? They work in their colleges till they are older than you,
or they go and travel, or they’re away with their regiment. There are
idle ones, but they are no credit, any more than an idle working lad is
a credit. Are you doing anything, boy?”

Archie’s countenance fell a little. “I’m in two or three debating
societies,” he said; “there’s a great many students in them. We have
very good debates. I’ve read a paper twice; on the Scotch question and
about local government.”

“What’s the Scotch question?” said Mr. Rowland; but like other careless
inquirers, he did not wait for an answer. “At your age,” he said, “you
are better employed learning than teaching, in my opinion.”

“Oh, papa,” said Marion, who had finished her cake and her wine, “it’s
not teaching! He doesn’t get anything for it. He subscribes to keep up
the society. It’s quite a thing a gentleman might do.”

“Hold your tongue, May!” said her brother.

“Quite a thing a gentleman might do!--and he is not a gentleman, but
only a wealthy engineer’s son,” said Rowland with a sudden flash of
mortified pride. The boy in his badly-cut clothes filled him with an
exasperation not less keen that it was mingled with tenderness for his
mother’s eyes, and the ingenuous expression in his own countenance.
“I’ve been a fool!” he said; “I thought, I suppose, that you would take
my rise in life like nature, and start from where I ended. I hoped you
would turn out like--the lads I’ve been accustomed to see. How should
you? They all started from gentlemen’s houses, and had it in their vein
from their birth.”

His two children stood opposite to him listening to this tirade, which
they only half heard and did not half understand. They were quite
bewildered by his heat and vehemence and apparent displeasure. What was
it that made him angry? Marion thought that her brother was very like a
gentleman, and he thought that she was very like a lady. It was the
utmost length of their ambition. The MacColls, whose father had the
splendid shop in Buchanan Street, were not so like ladies as May, though
they had a carriage with a pair of ponies. And as for Archie, he was of
opinion that he was himself one of those manly and independent thinkers,
whose mission it was to pull down the aristocrats, and to abolish caste
wherever it might appear.

Mr. Rowland took another turn to the window, and wiped his forehead and
came back to his chair. He was very anxious to subdue himself, since the
defects of the two young people were not their fault, nor were they at
all likely to be cured in this way. He tried even to put on a smile as
he said to Marion, “And what are you doing with yourself?”

“Oh,” said the girl, “I’m just like Archie. I am doing nothing to speak
of. Aunty has always said it was not necessary, and there is very little
to do. It’s no profit making our things at home, for you can buy them
cheaper in the shops. At first Aunty used to make Archie’s shirts, but
they never fitted him, and it was no saving. So I just fiddle about and
plague everybody, Aunty says.”

“And who are the people you plague?” said her father.

“Oh!” The young lady hung her head a little and blushed and laughed.
“Well! there’s Archie and Aunty first of all; and then there’s Archie’s
Debating Boys, as we call them; and the Philosophers--fine philosophers
to be so minding what a lassie says!” She laughed again consciously. “I
am sure I never say a word to them but nonsense,” she cried.

Mr. Rowland drew a long sigh out of the bottom of his heart. He had not
thought much of the young ladies at the Station, the General’s daughters
and the others; but Marion, as she stood with her head down and that
foolish laugh, conscious of her effect upon the Philosophers, and proud
of it, was still another species less honourable to womankind. What
Evelyn would say! flashed across his brain like an arrow. But it was not
her fault, poor thing; and he could not mend it. It was his duty, at
least, as her father, to bear with her, to find no fault. For, after
all, this was the natural outlet for a girl who had no other interests
in her life.

“You must have,” he said, “a little sense to talk to me now and then,
for I am past the time for nonsense. There is nobody,” he added with a
little hesitation, “who will teach you that better than my wife.”

“Oh!” said Marion; then she raised her eyes quickly, “she will be
awfully clever, and know everything--for wasn’t she a governess when you
were married to her, papa?”

“No, she was not a governess,” he said quickly. “That is a delusion
which you seem to have got into your minds. Let me hear no more of it.
She was a Miss Ferrars, of Langley Ferrars, one of the oldest families
in England--as different from me in origin as she is superior to me in
every quality. If you were in the very least like her, I should hope one
day to be proud of you, Marion. But you will have to get rid of a great
many defects first.”

Marion made a little _moue_ which was not unnatural. It was of course a
very unwise speech on her father’s part--but it is difficult under such
exasperation to be always wise. She felt it, however, more prudent to
take no notice, but to do her best to find out what were his intentions;
which was a matter of the utmost importance to all.

“If you please, papa, are we going to live on here with Aunty?” she
asked.

The question gave him a startling sensation of relief: was it possible
that this might be done? Would it not be kinder to leave them in the
life to which they were accustomed? Poor Jane would probably break her
heart if her children were taken away. They were more her children than
his, he reflected; and money was no object. He could arrange their
income so as to give Archie the freedom of a young man, without obliging
the poor boy to qualify himself suddenly for the rarified atmosphere of
Rosmore. This calculation passed through Rowland’s mind with the speed
of light. What a happy untying of the knot would it be! He would not
require to saddle himself with the discomfort and disappointment which
probably would result from any attempt to prepare them for Rosmore. And
they would not like Rosmore. It would be dull for them. No debating
societies or philosophers’ clubs to enliven their evenings. And the
arrangements of the house would be so different. Oh, if he could but
solve the question that was before him in that easy way!

But then there occurred to him--the person who would suffer most, the
one and only person who would oppose any such compromise with his
duty--Evelyn! He dared not appear before her with the information that
he had left his children behind because it was their original sphere,
because they would be no credit, an impracticable pair. He could imagine
the look with which she would listen, the astonishment in her face. As
likely as not she would get her bonnet at once, and, before he could
stop, set out to fetch them home. That was the sort of thing she would
do. She would have no evasion, not even that about breaking their aunt’s
heart. In that case, she was capable of suggesting that the aunt should
be brought to Rosmore, but not that the responsibility of the children
should be shuffled off. What a world of thoughts can be disposed of in a
minute or two! This whole course of argument, question and reply, ran
through his mind while Marion’s short question was being put, and before
he could make up his mind what to say in reply. He played with it for a
moment, still keeping that blissful possibility before him--“What would
you like best?” he asked.

The girl and the boy looked at each other--they too had a multitudinous
flood running through their minds, rushing like a mill race. They had an
agreeable life enough so far as their instincts went: nothing to
do--which, being on the very edge of the world that has to work hard for
its living, and does not like it, was delightful to them, just as work
is delightful to those whom nature provides with nothing to do. But then
they were tired of this life all the same, as most people are, if the
possibility of a fundamental change is put before them. And though they
were rather afraid of their father, and what he might require from them,
the excitement of the change to a great house, horses and carriages, and
all the splendour they had dreamt of was a strong counterbalance. They
did not take Aunty Jane’s heart much into consideration: and it would
certainly be a terrible break-down from the vague future of glory before
them, which all their friends believed in, did they step back into the
monotony of Sauchiehall Road and the guardianship of Aunty Jane. They
consulted each other with their eyes, and then Marion replied, “We
would rather be with you, papa.”

“It is with me you ought to be,” said Rowland, with a sigh. “I have
taken a house down the Clyde, which you may have seen if you have ever
been down that way. You see it from the water as you come across. It is
called Rosmore----”

“Rosmore!” they both said with bated breath.

“You know the place? It is a place I’ve always wanted since I was a lad
like Archie. I used to stand on the deck and glance at it, but never
said a word to anybody. That’s where I am going to live.”

“For a little while--for the salt water?” said they.

“For altogether; for as many years, I hope, as I live.”

“Oh!” they said again together, looking at each other. Rosmore was far
more splendid than anything they had imagined. They had been with their
aunt down to a cottage on the peninsula for the benefit of what Mrs.
Brown picturesquely called “the salt water,” _i.e._, the sea-bathing: so
they knew something of what it was. It was very grand, but perhaps a
little oppressive to imaginations accustomed only to the cottage. Their
eyes, looking at each other, had a question in them. They were overawed,
but a little frightened too.

“I suppose--there will be a carriage, or a gig, or something. It is a
long, long way up from the pier.”

“There will, I hope, be carriages enough for anything that is required,
and horses to ride, and most things that may be found necessary.
Archie, I hope,” said the father, unconsciously replying to Marion, “can
ride?”

At this the boy burst into a great laugh. “I do not know, for I never
did try,” he half sang, half said, with a big voice, inclining to be
bass, but uncertain yet. His face grew red and his eyes shone. He
communicated his pleasure to his sister by a look, but this time she did
not respond.

“And I----” she said, with a contraction of her soft girlish forehead,
“will have to bide at home.”

“No,” said Rowland, feeling at last a little pleasure in the idea of
changing so entirely the lives of his children, and surrounding them
with every good thing, “you will find plenty of pleasant things to do.
But,” he added, pausing, “what will become of the poor Aunt Jane if I
take you both away?”

They looked at each other again, and repeated in different tones the
same “Oh!” Marion uttered that exclamation with a toss of her head, and
a tone of indifference. “Aunty has made plenty out of us,” she said.

Archie here, for the first time, took the words out of her mouth. “She
has aye expected it,” he said. “It would vex her more if you didn’t take
us.”

“Are you sure of that? She has been like a mother to you.”

“But mothers expect,” said Archie, “that their families should go away.”

Marion shrugged her little shoulders. “She’ll be free then to go to the
saut water or wherever she likes,” she said, “and not say she is doing
this or doing that, not for herself, but for him and me.”

“Then you are not sorry to leave her solitary?” said Rowland.

They consulted each other again with their eyes, with a sort of frank
surprise at the question. “Oh, she’ll have her friends,” said Marion;
and she added, “It could never be thought that we would stay here with
her, when our papa had come and was wanting us, and a grand house and
horses and carriages. That’s very different from Sauchiehall Road.”

Archie looked as if he saw something more in the question--but he did
not say anything. He was slow of expression, and perhaps not even so
nimble of thought as his sister. He looked, however, a little wistfully
at his father, studying his countenance.

“And what will become of her?” Rowland said.

“Oh, she will just bide on,” said Marion; “she has always expected it.
She has her friends. There’s the church quite near, and she’ll go to all
the prayer meetings. She aye says she has no time as long as we’re here,
but that when we’re away, she will go to them, every one. But I think
she’ll change her mind,” said the girl with a laugh, “and go out to her
tea.”

Archie had caught his father’s eye, and was much confused. “It’ll not be
any the worse for her?” he said.

Before the question could be answered, Mrs. Brown came in, a little
flushed but beaming. “The dinner is just ready,” she said. “Bairns, did
I not tell you to take up your papaw to the drawing-room till the cloth
was laid. And you’ll be hungry, Jims, just off your journey.” She spoke
as if she supposed him to have come straight from India without any
chance of a meal upon the way.

The dinner was a curious mixture of what was excellent and what was bad.
The hotch-potch, for which Mrs. Brown apologised, was excellent. It is a
soup made with lamb and all the fresh young vegetables, which, in the
characteristic Scotch _cuisine_, supplies the place in summer of the
admirable broth. Rowland had never tasted anything better; but it was
followed by what Mrs. Brown called a “made dish,” which was as bad as
the other was excellent, but of which the good woman was very proud.
“You see my hand has no forgotten its cunning,” she said, with a smirk
across the table; and Rowland then recollected with dismay that in the
distant ages, almost beyond his own recollection, Jane, his wife’s elder
sister, had exercised the craft of a cook.

“Weel,” she said, after the meal, herself taking him upstairs to the
glories of the drawing-room, “you’re satisfied? you would be ill to
please if you were not, with these two bonnie bairns. And just as good
as they are bonnie--Archie as steady as a rock, aye in to the minnint,
though thae student lads are no that careful. Eh, Jims, what a pleasure
it would have been to my poor sister to have seen them grown up like
that.”

This softened, even while it exasperated Rowland--for no doubt poor
Mary’s imagination, like her sister’s, could have gone no further than
the pert intelligence of Marion and the steadiness of her boy. “I should
have liked better if they had been kept to some occupation,” he said,
“not suffered to lead useless lives.”

“Eh!” said the aunt in astonishment, “useless! but what would ye have
them to be, and you a rich man? You wouldna have had me bring them up
like a puir body’s bairns? They are just as well conditioned as can be,
bidable, and pleased with what’s set before them. I’ve had no trouble
with them: they will never have given me a sore heart but when they’re
taken from me--Oh, I’m no saying a word! It’s your right and it’s your
duty too. They maun go, and I’ve aye counted upon it--and God’s
blessing’ll go with them. They’ve never given me a sleepless night nor a
day’s trouble. Oh, man, be thankful! There’s no mony that can say as
much. The first sore heart they’ll give me is when they go away.”

The good woman sat down upon one of the many gilded and decorated chairs
of which she was so proud, and put her handkerchief over her face as she
might have done the apron which she was no longer happy enough to wear,
and lifted up her voice and wept: “My hoose will be left to me
desolate,” she said, “me that has been, though with none of my ain, a
joyful mother of children. But I’ll no say a word. It’s just what I’ve
known would happen this many and many a year. And it’s my pride and
pleasure to think that I give them back to you, everything that two good
bairns should be.”

Rowland was silenced once and for all. He had not a word to say to the
woman thus deeply conscious of having fulfilled her trust. There was
something pathetic in the thought that the two children who were so
unsatisfactory, so disappointing and incomplete to him were to this kind
woman the highest achievement of careful training, everything that boy
and girl could be, and that their mother would have been of the same
opinion had she lived to see this day.




CHAPTER XII.


Rowland went back to his hotel in the evening in much depression, yet
excitement of mind. He had taken his two children out with him in the
afternoon, with a remorseful desire to please them in any way he could,
since he could not feel towards them as their father ought to feel. It
was difficult at first to make out how he could please them best, and at
last it was Marion’s indications of desire that were the rule of the
party. He procured the smartest carriage the hotel could supply, with a
pair of horses, and drove them about, Marion in the fullest rapture of
satisfaction, increased by her father’s presents to her of various
articles which she admired in the shop windows as they passed. It amused
him, and yet hurt him to see the air with which she got down from the
carriage and swept into the jewellers and the haberdashers. Her eyes
swam in a rapture of light and happiness. She raised her little flowing
skirt, which was more like Sauchiehall Road than the temples of fashion
which she visited, with an air that suggested velvet. Poor little
Marion! it was impossible to be more happy than she was, turning over
the pretty things presented to her, and choosing whatever she pleased,
while papa, with his pocket-book full of notes, stood by. She had taken
him to Mr. MacColl’s “splendid shop” in Buchanan Street, with a sense
that the school friends who had overwhelmed her with their grandeur
might be thereby somewhat subdued in their pretensions; and it was
ecstasy to her to buy the most expensive things, and to feel the
superiority of the position of patron. “It is a very good shop,” she
said, so that all the young gentlemen and young ladies behind the
counter might hear, “and I will advise mamma, when she comes, to
patronize Mr. MacColl.”

Archie, who dragged behind, much bored and ashamed of himself, opened
wide eyes at the introduction of this name, and Rowland, for his part,
had a sudden pang of anger to think that this vulgar little girl should
venture to speak of his Evelyn so--before he recollected, poor man, that
the vulgar little girl was his own child, and that it was most desirable
that she should give that character and title to his wife. “Will I say
the things are for Miss Rowland of Rosmore?” she whispered to him.
“Certainly not,” he said with irritation. And yet he had no right to be
angry with the poor little thing who knew no better. He encouraged her
in her purchases by way of compensation to her for his unfatherly
thoughts. “And now, don’t you think you might buy a silk dress or
something for the poor aunty?” Marion tossed her little head.

“She got yon ruby silk just six months ago, and she’s got more in her
drawers than she can ever wear;” and sinking her voice a little--“it’s
all off _us_. She would never have had a silk--”

“Hush, child!” said Rowland imperatively; but Marion was not to be
hushed.

“It’s quite true, papa. She has just dresses upon dresses, and last
winter she made down one of hers for me--me that it all belonged to! She
said I was too young to have silks for myself. I never put on the horrid
old thing! I would have thought shame for your daughter, papa!”

“There are worse things than wearing old dresses that my daughter might
be ashamed of,” he said hastily. But then he repeated to himself that it
was not her fault: it was his fault--his alone, that he had neglected
his children, and how could he ever make up to them for that unfortunate
beginning? To please Archie they drove to a cricket match going on in a
field in a remote part of the town, where Mr. Rowland’s carriage made a
great sensation, with the coachman in the hotel livery. Rowland himself
was a little ashamed of the turn-out. But even Archie, though much
simpler than his sister, jumped down from the carriage with a swagger,
and strolled across the ground with an ineffable air of splendour and
superiority, which made his father--oh, his poor father!--so conscious
of all these weaknesses, laugh. It was a rueful laugh; and to see Marion
sit and bridle and plume herself, with little touches of re-arrangement
to her hat and her tie and her gloves, looking as well as she knew how,
as a fine lady and patroness of the humble but lively scene should look,
was such a painful amusement as the poor man could never forget. He
could not help being amused, but it was rueful fun. And then he said to
himself, repressing at once the levity and the pain, that had he never
left them, he would have been as proud of them as Jane was, and never
would have found out the imperfections.

Archie brought several of his friends in their cricketting clothes up to
the carriage to see his sister, and to be introduced to papaw. Poor
Archie could not make up his mind to abandon that “papaw.” “Father”
seemed almost disrespectful to so great a personage as the rich Rowland,
the great engineer. He was very anxious, however, to explain, _sotto
voce_, that several of the young men in their flannels who gathered
round Marion, and to whom she dispensed smiles and small jokes, like a
Duchess at Lord’s, were “students,” a description which slightly
mollified Rowland. Students were better than shop-boys, which was what
Archie himself was painfully like. Never had Mr. Rowland encountered a
harder piece of work in his life than to smile and tolerate the small
talk of his children and their friends. He could not help comparing them
to the people he had been accustomed to in late years,--people, he said
vehemently to himself, perhaps not worth half so much! These lads, if
they were students, were probably maintaining themselves, living like
Spartans, not to draw upon the limited resources at home. How much
nobler and finer than the young officers and civilians he had been in
the habit of seeing in that same guise, yet how different! That he, a
man of the people himself, should so see the difference; that he should
be so pained by it, and by the fact that his son was at home in the one
strata of company, and would be quite out of the other! How painful, how
miserable, how ridiculous, how wrong altogether it was! He exerted
himself to talk to some of them, and said angrily to himself that they
were much more conversible than the subalterns, at whom he would have
thrown a jibe, whom he would not have taken the trouble to talk to! But
what of that? Archie swaggered about the ground proud and inwardly
uplifted because of the carriage, the pair of horses, the pretty sister,
and papaw. Had he dared to ask them all to Rosmore, where they might see
the family in their glory, his cup of triumph would have been full; but
he did not quite venture upon such a strong step as that.

Then they drove home in triumph to the Sauchiehall Road, where the
people next door and next again, looked out of their windows to see the
splendid vehicle dash up to Mrs. Brown’s, and the baskets of fruit and
of flowers that were lifted out. She herself came out to the door to
meet them, with her dress rustling, and her gold chain tinkling, and her
ruby ribbons floating behind her. “Weel!” she cried, “ye’ve gotten back!
and have ye had a grand drive? and eh, the bonnie flowers; but what an
extravagance, for they would cost just a fortune; and a handfu’ of
sweetpeas is just so pleasant in a room. And the pine aipples! Jims, my
man, you’re just a prodigal: but we cannot be severe on you, a man just
new come home.” She was very anxious that he would come in “to his tea.”
But poor Rowland had borne enough for one day. He made the excuse of
business to do and letters to write. “Ou, ay, ye’ll just have Madam to
write to, and tell her all about your bonnie bairns,” Mrs. Brown said,
with a cloud upon her brow.

Yes, thank Heaven, he had madam to write to; but whether he would tell
her or not about the children was a matter upon which he could not make
up his mind. He drove back to his hotel in solitary splendour, still
somewhat ashamed of the hotel carriage, the pretension of the showy
vehicle, and the shabby horses. Should he tell Evelyn all about the
children? It seemed almost a disloyalty to poor Mary who was gone, to
confide his disappointment in her children to any one, above all to the
wife who had taken her place, though at so long an interval of years
that he felt no disloyalty in that. If Evelyn had been with him, her
sympathy would have been his best solace, and she would have found
something to say that would have been a comfort to him. He was certain
of that--something that would prove to him that things were not so bad
as they seemed, that they would mend. But to put it in black and white,
to put the disappointment of his soul into words, was what he could not
do. He did not even feel sure that he wanted her to know it. If he could
only keep his opinions to himself, pretend that they were all he could
desire, and leave her to find out! It was quite possible that she would
be more tolerant than he; her pride would not be injured as his was by
the shortcomings of those who were his own. She would not feel the
mortification, the disappointment, and perhaps she would not even see so
much to find fault with in them. She had finer insight than he had; she
was more charitable. She would see all the good there was, and not so
much of the vulgarity. What did she know about vulgarity? She would
think, perhaps, it was characteristic, original, Scotch. Rowland had
listened often grimly enough to such fashionable views of manner and
deportment. He had heard a man, whom he considered a brute, explained
away in this manner. Evelyn might take that view. So he locked up his
chief trouble in his own mind, and wrote to her that delightful letter,
telling her that whatever she did would be right, whether to stay in
town or to set up at once at Rosmore. He was not sure himself that he
did not look upon that suggestion of staying in town as a relief and
postponement for which he would be grateful. Yet what did a little time
matter, one way or another? Sooner or later the step would have to be
taken; the permanent household formed. Indeed, he felt that it would be
natural for the children to expect that their father should take them to
London, and let them see something of the world, which was a suggestion
at which he shivered more than ever.

Poor Rowland! being only an engineer, though a distinguished one, and a
man of the people, though risen to great wealth, and sometimes even
objected to in his own person as not a gentleman, it was very hard that
he should be thus sensitive to the breeding of his children, and feel
their imperfections as keenly as the most accomplished “smart” man could
have done. Perhaps had he not married and learned to see through
Evelyn’s eyes, this catastrophe might not have happened. And he had been
so long parted from the children that there was little real love, only
the vague instinct of partiality to counteract the shock: and that
instinct of partiality often makes everything worse, giving a double
clear-sightedness, and exigence of impossible perfection to the
unfortunate parent whose fatherhood is mortifying and miserable to him,
not a thing of pride but of shame. These were much too strong words to
use--but they were not too strong from Rowland’s point of view. The only
comfort he had was in his boy’s eyes, which were like his mother’s. And
even that thought was not without a pang, for it thrust upon him the
question whether the mother, had she lived, would not have been like
Jane. Had it been so, it was evident that Rowland himself would not have
been what he was. He would have stayed on in the foundry and become a
foreman, and perhaps in course of time would have ascended the social
scale to a house in the Sauchiehall Road: and his son would have been a
clerk in an office, and he himself would have been very proud to think
that Archie had friends who were “students” and was steady, and read
papers at the Debating Society. His brain seemed to whirl round as he
thought of all that which might have been. It is usually the better
things which might have happened to us that we think of under that
formula--but there is another side in this, as in all human matters.
And when Rowland thought what might have been the natural course of his
life had Mary lived, it gave him a giddiness which seemed to suspend all
his powers. Would it perhaps have been happier so? He would have been
very fond of his children, and proud to think that they were taking a
step above himself in the world--and Mary would have grown stout like
her sister, and would have had, perhaps, a rustling silken gown like
Jane’s, and produced with pride a bottle of port-wine and a bottle of
sherry-wine when she received a visitor. And he himself would have been
proud of his family and contented with his moderate means. He would have
taken Archie and May to the saut water, and pointed out to them the
opening in the trees and the house upon the knoll with the white
colonnade, and Mary would have said with a laugh, “Hoot, your father’s
just doited about that white house on the brae.” What a difference, what
a wonderful difference! And which would have been best?

James Rowland, tenant of Rosmore, with a name known over India, and his
money in all manner of lucky investments, and Evelyn Ferrars for his
wife, thought of all this with a curious strain of sensation. He was in
many respects an imaginative man. He could realise it all as distinctly
as if he saw it before him. He knew the kind of man he would himself
have been--perhaps a better man than he was now--a straightforward,
honourable man, limited in his horizon, but as trustworthy, as honest
and true as a man could be. And he would have known all the real good
there was in his children then, and they would have been free of the
vulgarities and meanness they had acquired by their false position and
mistaken training. It was very startling to think how different, how
altered everything might have been. Was he thankful that poor Mary had
died? That which had been such a blow to him, driving him out of the
country, had been the foundation of all his fortune. It had been the
most important event, the turning point in his life. He would never have
seen Evelyn, or would have contemplated her afar off as a fine lady, a
being to be admired or made light of, but neither understood nor known.
How his head went round and round!

It was naturally the same subject that suggested itself to his mind when
he woke next morning to a new day, a day not like the last in which
everything was unassured, but one in which certainty had taken the place
of doubt, and he had no longer vague and exciting possibilities to think
of, but only how to nourish and adapt the drawbacks which he knew. These
cost him thought enough, all the more that the practical part of the
matter had now to be determined, and every decision of life was so close
to him that the sense of perspective failed, and it was impossible to
realise the relative importance of things: how he should manage to
satisfy their Aunt Jane, being for the moment of as great consequence as
how he should order the course of their future existence.

He was received in Sauchiehall Road with great eagerness, Archie
hurrying to open the door for him, while both Mrs. Brown and Marion
appeared at the window as soon as his step was heard, full of nods and
becks and wreathed smiles. Mrs. Brown wore another and different “silk,”
one that was brocaded, or flowered, as she called it, the foundation
being brown and the flowers in various brilliant colours; and Marion had
put on the trinkets he had bought to please her on the previous day in
addition to those she had worn before, so that she too tinkled as she
walked. Rowland received their salutations with as much heartiness as
was possible. But he was scarcely prepared for the questions with which
Marion assailed him, dumbly backed up by Archie from behind, with his
mother’s eyes pleading for every indulgence. “Oh you’re walking, papa?”
the girl cried with disappointment, “I thought you would have come in
the carriage.”

“It would be a great nuisance for me to have always to move about in a
carriage,” he said. “Besides I can’t say that I am proud to be seen
behind such horses, a pair of old screws from a hotel.”

“Oh, you’re not pleased with them! I thought they were beautiful,” said
Marion, “and they go so splendidly--far far better than a cab or a geeg.
We were making up in our minds where we were to go to-day.”

“Where you were to go?”

“To show you everything, papa,” said Marion. “You must see all the
sights now that you are here. Archie and me were thinking----”

“I knew the sights,” he said interrupting her, “before you were
born--but if you want the carriage, Archie can go and order it and take
you where you please--I have many things to consult your aunt about.”

“To consult--Aunty!” Marion opened her eyes wide, and elevated her brow,
but this impertinence did not disconcert Mrs. Brown--

“They just take their fun out of me,” she said, with a broad smile;
“they think I’m a’ of the old fashion, and ken naething. And deed it’s
true. They’re far beyond me with their new fangled ways. But ye see your
papaw is no altogether of your way of thinking, Mey.”

Marion nodded her little head again and again in astonished
acquiescence; but by this time it had dawned upon her that to drive
everywhere in “the carriage,” she and Archie alone, would perhaps be
still more satisfactory than with the grave countenance beside her of a
not altogether understood papa--who did not enter into their fun, or
even understood their jokes. The brother and sister accordingly hurried
out together well-pleased, and Marion established herself in Rowland’s
room at the hotel while Archie ordered the carriage. The girl turned
over all her father’s papers, and examined closely the photograph of
Evelyn which stood on his mantelpiece. “That’ll be her,” she said, and
took it up and carried it to the window to see it better--“but no great
thing,” she added under her breath, “to have made such a catch as papa!
Dear bless me, she’s a very ordinary woman--nothing to catch the eye.
She’ll have plain brown hair, and no colouring to speak of, and not even
a brooch or a locket round her neck. What could he see in a woman like
that?”

“It’s a nice kind of a face,” said Archie.

“So is Aunty’s a nice kind of a face--and plenty other people--but to
catch a man like papa!”

Mrs. Brown had no greater pleasure in life than to see her children go
out together in their best clothes, bent upon enjoyment. She stood at
the window and watched them, as she did on every such opportunity. It
was her way, even of going to church and performing the weekly worship,
which was all she thought of in the light of religious observance--to
watch them going, dressed in their best, with their shining morning
faces, and Marion’s ribbons fluttering in the air, and to laugh with
pleasure, and dry her wet eyes, and say “the blessin’ of the Lord upon
them!” The humble woman did not want a share in their grandeur, not even
to see the sensation they made when they walked into church, two such
fine young things. She was content with the sight of them walking away.
It was only when she turned her eyes, full of this emotion and delight,
upon James Rowland’s disturbed and clouded face, that she began to
understand that all was not perfectly, gloriously well.

“Bless me! oh, Jims! a person would think you were not content.”

“If you mean with the children,” he said, “I don’t see any reason I have
for being content.”

“Lord bless us!” said Jane, thunderstruck. She added after a moment, “I
canna think but it’s just your joke. No to be satisfied, and far more
than satisfied! If you’re no just as prood as a man can be of the twa
of them--I would just like to know what you want, Jims Rowland. Princes
and princesses? but so they are!”

“It is quite just what you say,” he replied, hanging his head. “It’s my
fault or it’s the fault of circumstances, that makes a thing very good
in one place that is not good at all in another. But never mind that;
the thing to be considered is, what is the best way of transplanting
them to so different a kind of life.”

“Oh, there is no fears of that,” said Mrs. Brown; “if you were
transplanting them, as you say, from your grand life to be just in the
ordinar’ as they’ve been with me, I wouldna say but that was hard; but
it’s easy, easy to change to grandeur and delight; there’s few but’s
capable of that.”

“If it was all grandeur and delight!” said Rowland; “but there is not
very much of the first, and perhaps none at all of the other. No delight
for them, I fear. A number of rules they will have to give in to, and
talk, dull to them, that they will have to listen to, and no fun, as
they call it, at all; I don’t know how they will like being buried in a
country place.”

“They will have horses and carriages, and everything that heart can
desire--and servants to wait on them, hand and foot.”

“Oh, yes, they will have horses, but, I suppose, they won’t be able to
ride; and carriages they don’t know how to drive; and a road to take
exercise upon, which to me is beautiful, but which leads to nothing but
a view, and not half-a-dozen people to be seen all the way. Marion will
not like that. I may get the boy broken in, but the girl--I don’t know
what my wife will do with the girl!”

“Ye are no blate,” cried Mrs. Brown, “to speak of my Mey as the girrel!
or what your wife would do with her. It’s that that’s ruined you, Jims
Rowland--your wife! What had you ado with a wife, a strange woman, when
your own dauchter was growing up, and old enough to sit at the head of
your table and order your dinner to you! It sets you well to get a wife
that will not know what to do with the girrel! What would my sister Mary
say to think that was the way you spoke of her bonnie bairn. Man, I
never knew ye had such a hard heart!”

“The question has nothing to do with my hard heart, if I have a hard
heart,” said Rowland. “We’d better leave that sort of thing aside. The
question is, how are they to be brought into their new life?”

Mrs. Brown wiped her eyes, and held up her head. “The thing is just
this,” she said, “I see no other way, nor any difficulty, for my part:
ye’ll just take them home.”

“Ah!” said the agitated father walking up and down the room, “it is very
easy to speak. Take them home, but when, and how? without any breaking
in? without any preparation to a life they don’t understand and won’t
like?”

“Bless me! are you taking them to be servants, or to learn a trade!”
cried Mrs. Brown.




CHAPTER XIII.


It was very difficult for Rowland to decide what course he ought to
pursue practically at the moment after these bewildering experiences. He
was a man who had a great contempt for what he would himself have called
shilly-shallying, and for the impotence which could be mastered by
difficulties, and could not make the most of a trying situation. He
would a little time before have scoffed at the possibility of any such
thing happening to himself. No such thing had ever happened in the
course of his work, which had involved many interests far more important
than the interests of two insignificant creatures--girl and boy: which
had sometimes been weighted with the responsibility of life and death
for many; and yet he had not paused and hesitated as now. Two
insignificant creatures, girl or boy, will blot out earth and even
heaven from you, standing so near as they do, annihilating all
perspective. What short work would he have made with them had they been
a gang of navvies, or more difficult, a staff of clerks or engineers!
But Marion and Archie were a very different matter. They had a right not
only to all he could do for them, but to himself and everything that was
best in him. Nothing could do away with that claim of nature. Not
disapproval, dissatisfaction on his part, not even unworthiness on
theirs. And they were not unworthy, poor things. Their only fault it
was, and it was not their fault, that their father was in one
atmosphere and they in another. Not their fault! he it was who had left
them in that atmosphere--condemned them to it, and he must bear the
penalty.

They enjoyed their day in the carriage, driving about wherever they
liked, displaying their grandeur to admiring friends--at least Marion
enjoyed it to the bottom of her heart. And she was _bon prince_ in her
elevation. She waited in all her splendour at the door of a little
house, where everybody came to the window to stare at “the carriage”
while a sick girl was hastily dressed in her best--and took the invalid
out for a drive. There was a vain kindness in the girl, and a warm
desire to bestow favours which was partly the product of vanity and
partly of a better inspiration. She was really proud and happy when the
colour came faintly into the cheeks of her ailing friend, although she
never failed afterwards to attribute her recovery to “yon drive I took
you.” The kindness was vulgar, and fed conceit, yet it was kindness in
its way. Archie was not perhaps so happy. He soon tired of “the
carriage,” and desired to be left at the cricket ground, which they
again visited, and joined his friends, not without a certain glow of
superior rank and importance about him from the fact of his being
dropped there by the carriage, yet glad to escape from a position that
was tiresome.

They all dined that evening with Mr. Rowland at his hotel--Mrs. Brown in
such splendour of apparel that her brother-in-law was abashed by her
appearance. Marion was fortunately more simply arrayed, and her father
tried to believe that it was her own good taste which made the
difference. The poor man felt all their little solecisms at table with
double force, as remembering that he had once himself felt all the
perplexity which paralysed Archie as to what he was to do with his knife
and fork and table-napkin, and the finger-bowl which was put before him
at dessert. As for Mrs. Brown, she showed no perplexity at all, but
frankly broke every rule, stuck her fork into the potato she preferred,
helped herself to the salt with her knife, and then ate her peas with it
in the most assured simplicity, unconscious of criticism.

“Will you give me a little of that, sir,” she said to the waiter. “I’m
no just sure what it is, but I would like to try. I tell the bairns no
to be prejudiced, but just to try everything.”

Rowland felt that the imperturbable waiters were laughing in their
sleeves at this strange party. But Marion gave him a little comfort.
Marion was as sharp as a needle. She had all her wits about her. She
divined from the smallest indication what was the right thing to do; but
then she had read a great many novels, in some of which the very
circumstances in which she now stood were set forth. Novels are a great
help to an intelligent young lady endeavouring to acquire the manners of
society to which she has been unaccustomed. Between these several
sources of enlightenment she came out with credit from the ordeal, which
made Archie feel himself a clown, and which Jane blundered through
without being aware. This somehow eased the weight of trouble in
Rowland’s heart.

“And what are ye gaun to do the morn?” said Mrs. Brown, lying back in
an easy chair with her cap strings unloosed, and a genial glow upon her
countenance after her abundant meal. “Have ye some ferlies to let your
father see? But he just knew them all before ye were born.”

“I am afraid I have no time to see ferlies,” said Rowland. “I’ve seen a
great many in my time. I am engaged to-morrow: and I must get back to
London as soon as I can. I can’t leave my wife alone.”

“Oh, man, ye might first let the bairns have their turn,” said Jane,
with a cloud on her brow. But alarmed by the darkness of that which
gathered on his, she added hastily, “They might take a trip down the
water if ye’re so busy. Ye canna expect them to settle to anything and
you here.”

Then Rowland had a momentary struggle with himself. He came out of it
victoriously on the side of virtue. “I am going,” he said, “to Rosmore
to-morrow. Perhaps you would like to come with me, and see the house.”

There was a cry of eager acceptance from Marion of this proposal, and
Archie gave his father a look of pleasure. Mr. Rowland was emboldened to
add--“We must make the most of it, for in a day or two I must go to
London.”

“That’s just what they would like best of all,” said Mrs. Brown.
“Archie, puir laddie, would just give his little finger for a look of
London. I’ve always said no, for it’s a place full of temptations. But
to be with his own father makes a great difference.”

“And me,” said Marion. “Ah, papa,” she added, studying his countenance,
“I want to see London; but far more, I want to see mamma.”

“Don’t say----!” said Rowland, and then stopped. He felt a sort of pang
of indignation to think of this girl calling Evelyn by that name. This
girl--his own girl--his child! He stopped short with a hard drawn breath
of vexation. Of course she must say mamma if she would--or mother, a
more sacred title. And it would be necessary for Evelyn to submit to
it--Evelyn would desire it. Between these two certainties he felt
himself caught as in a vice.

“I am sorry,” he said, “that I can’t take you with me to London--it is
out of my power.”

“Dear, man,” said Mrs. Brown, “you that just have your pockets full of
money, how can it be out of your power? It’s a journey that costs dear,
and living in a hotel is just ruination; but you’re no one to consider
that. You mauna say it’s out of your power.”

“Money is not everything,” said Rowland shortly.

“Eh no--far be it from me to say it is; but in the matter of taking your
two children upon a veesit, what else is there to think o’? Na, na,
there are plenty things it canna buy. It can neither bring ease o’ body
nor peace o’ mind; but railroad tickets to London--Hoot! it’s siller
alone that’s wanted--and you that has just your pockets full!”

“It is out of the question,” said Rowland, and then he stopped suddenly
once more, for he had encountered the wistful look in Archie’s eyes--the
eyes that were his mother’s. It cost him an effort to repeat his
negative in the face of that silent appeal. “I cannot do it,” he said
hastily. “Another time--but not now. However, if you would like to come
with me and see the house--”

This proposal was accepted _faute de mieux_, and he set off next morning
accompanied by the two young people, who by this time had become a
little accustomed to him, and had learned to adapt themselves a little
to his “ways.” Marion at least had learned to note when he was worried
and put out, and though she was not yet at all aware what points in her
conduct disturbed him, or that it was her conduct that disturbed him,
her quick perception had already noticed that something did from time to
time derange his equanimity, and that it was his children who were the
cause.

“It will be Archie,” she said to herself. Already, so quick is the
contagion of a new sentiment, Marion had begun to be dissatisfied about
Archie’s clothes. His coat was rough and badly made in comparison with
his father’s coat; his boots were clumsy, his linen dingy. All these
things she had found out for herself. Archie was not bad-looking: he was
rather handsome than the reverse; but he had not at all the same
appearance as his father, who was old and without any graces. This
Marion discovered all by herself. She had not attained to any such
enlightenment on her own account.

When they got out at Rosmore pier, other revelations began. They found a
dog-cart awaiting them with a beautiful horse and a groom, the
perfection of whose get up was more than words could tell, though they
were not learned enough to perceive that. Only a dog-cart!--Marion felt
that she was coming down from the glories of “the carriage;” but the
obsequiousness of everybody around reconciled her a little to the less
dignified vehicle. The drive through the woods overawed the young
people. They gave each other a look of unmingled gratification and
dismay. When they reached the house itself, the dismay perhaps was
uppermost, but they did not as yet venture to say a word. Nothing could
be more beautiful than the situation of the house, or the woods which
approached it, when everything was in the full height of summer; the sun
blazing over a country in which at almost every corner there was a burn
to toss back a dazzling ray. From the colonnade the view had been opened
a little by judicious clearing, and the broad Clyde, like a silver sea,
lay glistening at the foot of the knoll, with all its passing boats and
sails, and the background of the smoky but not unpicturesque town
throwing up its towers and spires on the other side of the estuary. They
were impressed for a moment in spite of themselves, and lingered looking
at the view while their father went indoors.

“It’s awfully bonnie,” said Archie.

“So it is,” said Marion, holding her breath a little. They stood side by
side overawed, not venturing to say any more. Indoors they were still
more silent, following their father from room to room. In every one of
them were workmen, and every kind of luxurious article was being added
to the original furniture. By-and-bye they became bewildered by the
number of rooms and their names--dining-rooms and drawing-rooms were
comprehensible, but the libraries, morning rooms, boudoirs, studies,
made their heads go around.

“And what’s this?” said Marion in bewilderment.

“This is Mrs. Rowland’s own sitting-room,” said a polite functionary
with what the young people characterised as an English accent.

“What does she want,” said Marion, almost angrily, “with another
sitting-room? when she’s got the dining-room and the drawing-room, the
morning-room and the library.”

“Oh, that is just the thing, Miss,” said the functionary; an enigmatical
saying which made the girl stare at him for a moment in perplexity, but
added no light.

They wandered upstairs and downstairs, wondering where their own places
were to be in the middle of this bewildering space and unaccustomed
luxury. There were some small back rooms in the corner of a wing, to
which instinctive suspicion naturally pointed as the “holes” that would
be allotted to them.

“That’s where she’ll put us,” said Marion, “to get us out of the way.”

Archie did not make any reply, but he thought it very likely. To tell
the truth, those back rooms were larger and quite as well fitted up as
the rooms in Sauchiehall Road.

Rowland almost forgot their existence as he went over the house,
examining what had been done, pointing out what there was still to do.
So much of his ideal was in it, of which nobody knew save himself. He
had furnished the house in fancy many a time, fitted it up in such a
way as house was never fitted up before. It filled him at once with
sweet delight and disappointment, to see the reality growing before him.
It was not, and could not be, ever so fine as his dreams, and yet it was
Rosmore, and it was his. He went about anxious, yet elated, looking out
from every window to _savourer_ over and over again the well-known
prospect--the Clyde, visible in a different aspect from every corner;
the boats upon its dazzling surface, which seemed to hang in space,
which seemed to pause and quiver, as if upon the wing, as they crossed
the openings, to give the passengers a sight of the house. He knew what
was being said on the deck of the steamboats that rustled across and
across. “Oh, ay, it’s let--and maybe it will be sold--to Jims Rowland,
that was once a lad in a foundry in Glescow, nae mair, and now is the
great Railway Man from India, and has come hame very well-off, and
gotten the place he had aye set his heart upon. Oh, my lord doesna like
to part with it, nae doubt, but siller is not a thing to be turned from
the door.” He knew that was what was being said. He had heard it
himself, or something very near it; it kept singing in his ears like a
pleasant tune--“Jims Rowland, that was once a lad in a Glescow foundry,
and has gotten the place he had aye set his heart upon.” Yes, it was
what he had set his heart upon, and it was his at the last. And to make
it perfect was all his intent and thought. He forgot again that natural
difficulty which his own neglect and forgetfulness had gone so far to
make--the two standing under the colonnade, where they had strayed
after their examination of the newly furnished rooms, and looking out
again with a sullen shade over their eyes upon “the view.”

“Well?” he said, coming suddenly upon them, full of his own elation and
excitement, “and what do you think of the house?”

There was a pause; and then Marion answered him. “Oh, the house is very
well, papa. It is a great big house, and there is a fine view.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“I don’t know what more I can say. It will be awfully lonely in the
winter-time, and when it’s raining; but perhaps you will only come here
in the summer, and have another place for the dark days.”

“The dark days,” he repeated with a little trouble. “You don’t know much
about it, I’m afraid,” he added with an attempt to be jocular; “the fine
folk go to London in the summer, and spend what you call the dark days
in the country. That’s the right thing to do.”

“But it’s awfully foolish,” said Marion with a very serious face.

Archie did not say anything in articulate words, but he made a sort of
murmur of assent.

“Now if it was me,” said the girl, “I would live here in the summer and
take one of the new houses, the new big houses out by the Park, or on
the Kelvin Road; they’re grand big houses, bigger than this, just like
palaces, to spend the winter in; and where we could go to all the grand
parties, and be near the football ground--where there was aye something
going on. There will be very little going on here.”

“Unless there might, maybe be a curling pond,” suggested Archie, but
very dubiously, and with a sigh.

Rowland was struck with a certain reasonableness in this suggestion,
which chilled his enthusiasm a little in spite of himself. “Come and
have some luncheon,” he said, “and afterwards we can talk of that.”
Lunch was set out for them in a small room, one of the many which had
bewildered Marion. There was already a tribe of servants in possession,
and the small, well-ordered table and silent servants overawed the young
people once more. The new butler had the air of a minister (he had,
indeed, though Marion did not understand these fine distinctions, the
airs of a Dean at the least), and it was all that the girl could do not
to call him sir. She accepted what he handed to her meekly with a
reverential submission to his better knowledge. As for Archie, he had
committed himself, but fortunately not so as to be comprehended by any
one but his sister, by offering the gentleman in black a chair.

“Well,” said their father again, “so you think Rosmore will be dull, and
there will be nothing going on?”

“That was my opinion,” said Marion firmly. Archie was not to be reckoned
upon in company as a steady backer up, and she thought it wisest not to
give him the opportunity of betraying her. “The rooms are very pretty,
and there’s a beautiful view; but you cannot be always looking at the
view. And it’s very rainy down here. It rains mostly every day. And then
there are so many trees. In the winter-time it will be terrible dark,
and not a shop on this side, or a place to go to.”

“You will have to lay in all your stores, my dear, before the winter
comes.”

“No, not that,” said Marion; “but the shops are always a diversion; it
is not for buying things. And there will be no parties to go to.”

“Have you many parties,” said Rowland with a laugh, “where you are?”

Marion gave a glance round, feeling it necessary to keep up her dignity
before the solemn servants. “Oh, yes,” she said, “plenty! We go out a
great deal. There was a ball last week at the MacColls. I was all in
white; at my age, just new _out_, that’s aye the proper thing.”

“So you are _out_, are you,” said Rowland somewhat grimly; “the MacColls
are----”

“Oh, papa, they are people of great consideration,” said Marion stopping
him; “it is a real good name, well-known everywhere.” Marion was making
very rapid progress. She was proud at their first interview of knowing
the MacColls, who had the great shop in Buchanan Street. Now she had cut
adrift the shop and sheltered her friends under the ægis of a well-known
name, with all the skill of a leader of society. “But there’s nobody
here,” she said, spreading out her hands and shaking her head.

“How do you know there is nobody here? There seem a number of houses as
far as I can see.”

“Not of people like us, papa,” said Marion; “not of houses that mamma
could visit at.” She had her eye upon the butler, who was visibly
impressed, and to whom she was consciously playing. “There are only
Glasgow people coming for the salt water--I mean for the sea-bathing;
and the Manse, and the like of that; no gentlemen’s houses. Of course it
was only _that_ I was looking for,” she added with the air of a
princess. Archie sat opposite and regarded his sister with wide-open
eyes. He did not know her in this new development. As a person of rank
standing on her dignity, Marion was to him a new revelation. He admired
yet wondered at her.

As for her father, he burst into a laugh which was louder and more
boisterous than became his usual character. “You might perhaps,” he
said, “recommend the place to your friends, the MacColls, for the salt
water.”

“Papa!” said Marion in dismay. The butler was just going out of the room
followed by his attendant footman. She watched him till he was quite
gone, and the door softly closed behind him. Then she said in a lower
tone, “I have always read that the servants know more about you than you
know yourselves, and I took care to say very little about the MacColls;
for though they are well-off, they are not--in our position, papa.”

“Oh May!” said Archie in consternation.

It was the comic side of this speech which first struck her father. He
laughed once more loud and long. “You will soon be quite fit for a
society lady,” he said. But immediately fell into absolute gravity
again, with a face blank as wood; discouraging and repressive, had
Marion been sensitive. It was very amusing, but one does not desire to
be so amused by one’s own child.

“I was thinking chiefly,” Marion resumed with dignity, “of mamma. She
will expect some society, and there will be none; just the Manse, and a
house or two like that, scarcely genteel, not in Our Position. We might
do very well, Archie and me, though it would be dull; but she will be
expecting to go out to her dinner, and to be asked to parties, and show
off all her grand gowns. And there will be nobody. And not even a shop
to go to, to spend an hour in an afternoon. And you cannot always be
looking at the view. It is mamma that I am thinking about,” Marion said.

He did not again bid her not to speak of Evelyn so; for was it not the
best thing he could hope for, that his child should think of his wife as
of a mother? but his heart revolted all the same, and the girl’s
commonplace prettiness, her little assured speech, even the undeniable
sense that there was in her remarks, sense of the most prosaic kind, yet
genuine enough in its way, exasperated him. He said dryly, “I think I
can take my wife in my own hand.”

“Yes,” said Marion; “but maybe it will be a great disappointment to her,
when she knows that it is so bonnie a place and all that and then comes
here, so far away, and finds that there is nothing but the view.”

Sense! undeniably it was sense, in its petty, miserable way; and what if
it might be true? After all, he had only known Evelyn on one side of her
character. She was much superior to himself in a hundred ways. She had
the habits of a life very different from his, the habits of good
society, of knowing “the best people.” Rowland himself, in his rough
practical way, had not a very profound admiration for the best people.
There were even more bores among them, he thought, than among the most
simple, and their views were not more elevated. But then Evelyn knew no
other life than theirs, and to bring her down here to an unbroken
solitude, or to the society of the sea-bathers, the people who came for
“the salt water,” might perhaps be a dangerous experiment. A cold shiver
ran over him, while his daughter prattled on in her cool precocious
wisdom. How could he tell that she would be sufficiently compensated by
“the view” as to forget everything else, or that she would be able to
bear from morning to night the unbroken enjoyment of his own society,
and of Marion and Archie? His mind went away into a close consideration
of her previous life as far as he knew it. The society at the Station
was perhaps not very choice, but it was abundant. The people there knew
people whom she knew, were acquainted with her own antecedents, and the
kind of life to which she had been accustomed, a life which he himself
did not know much about, much less his daughter and his son. A woman
brought up in a great country house, overflowing with company, such as
people in humbler positions know only by books, accustomed to go up to
town for the season, to make rounds of visits, etc., etc.--would not she
perhaps expect all that to begin over again after the period of her
humiliation was over, when she had become the wife of a rich man? And
if instead she found herself seated opposite to him for life, with his
two children only to diversify the scene, though it was in a beautiful
house with a beautiful view! how would Evelyn bear it? Nothing but a
view! The little monkey! the little wretch! Rowland in his heart was
still a man of the people, and he would have liked to take Marion by the
shoulders and give her a shake. And yet, probably, she was right.




CHAPTER XIV.


There were a great many hours to be got through still before the evening
steamer which would take them across the loch on their way back to
Glasgow. And after the luncheon was over, Archie and Marion did not know
what to do with themselves. They went out together and walked about the
grounds, not without a feeling of elation now and then as they looked
back upon the great house with all its velvet lawns, and the commotion
of furnishing and arranging which was going on. There were carts
unlading at the door which had come all the way from Glasgow, round the
head of the loch, a very roundabout way, with delicate furniture which
could not bear the transfer from railway to steamboat, and with the
great boxes containing Mr. Rowland’s curiosities; the Indian carpets,
curtains, shawls, carved ebony, inlaid ivory, and other wonderful
things. Had the young people been aware what were the content of these
boxes, they would no doubt have felt that some amusement was possible
in the unpacking of them. But, indeed, I doubt whether Marion’s interest
would have held out long unless there had been pickings--a bracelet, or
a brooch, or an Indian chain among the more curious matters to indemnify
her for time lost over the carpets or even the shawls, which, as
altogether “out of the fashion” (so far as Marion knew) would have had
no interest to the girl. But they did not have this source of
entertainment, for they were totally unaware what was in the boxes which
Marion thought probably contained napery, a kind of wealth not without
interest yet scarcely exciting. They stood about for a time in front of
the door watching the unpacking of the big chests and crates until that
amusement palled. And then they went round to look at the stables, in
which as yet there were only two horses, one of which had brought them
up with the dog-cart from the ferry. Archie examined this animal, and
the rough and useful pony which acted as a sort of four-legged
messenger, with an assumption of knowing all about horses, which was
very superficial and imperfect, and did not at all deceive the groom who
was in charge, and to whom one glance at the young master had been
enough. But Marion did not even pretend an interest which she did not
feel, and soon went out yawning and stood at the door, half-despising,
half-advising her brother. She felt a little ill-used that there was no
carriage which she could order out as she had done with delight, the
carriage from the hotel. There would be carriages to come, no doubt, but
they would not be for her, and Marion knew that she herself must
relapse into a very secondary place. She called to Archie, while he was
improving his mind by questions to the groom, with great impatience,
“Are you going to stay there all day? with nothing to see,” said Marion.
And then she broke in upon the conversation, yawning largely, “Is there
anything here to see?” The groom informed them of certain points which
were considered interesting by visitors, the Chieftain’s Jump, and the
Hanging Hill, where there was a “graun point o’ view.” “Oh, I’m not
caring about the view,” said the girl pettishly, “but we’ll go and see
the Chief’s Jump. It’ll always be something to do.” It proved, however,
not very much to do, and the young lady was disappointed. “It’s only a
rock,” she said with much impatience; “is there nothing, nothing to see
in this dull place?” The groom was a native of the parish, and he was
naturally offended. “It’s a great deal thought of,” he said, “the
family--that is the real family--the Earl when he’s doun, and the young
ladies, brings a’ the veesitors here. It’s a historical objeck as well
as real romantic in itsel.”

“I am not caring for historical things: and I don’t call that romantic,”
said Marion.

“Maybe,” said the groom, “you would like to go down the wood to auld
Rankine’s cottage, that has the dougs?”

“What dougs?” cried Archie, pricking up his ears.

“Weel they’re just auld Rankin’s breed. He’s no historical, nor yet is
he romantic: but Miss here will maybe relish him a’ the better. He’s a
funny auld fellow, and the place is just fu’ o’ dougs--terriers: it’s a
grand breed--a wee delicate, being just ower weel bred: but awfu’
thought upon by the leddies. The Earl and Lady Jean they get them for a’
their grand friends.”

“I am just sick of the Earl and Lady Jean,” said Marion, stamping her
foot.

“That’s a peety,” said the groom, calmly, “for you’ll no live long here
without hearing o’ them. Will I let ye see the way to auld Rankine’s?
They’re funny bits o’ things.”

“I would like to see the dougs,” said Archie mildly.

Marion yielded, being not without a little hope of amusement hereby. But
she took, and pinched, his arm as they went on, saying under her breath,
“For any sake don’t say that--don’t say dougs! It’s so common, so
Glesco! You are dreadfully Glesco--the man will think you are just like
himself.”

“What am I to say?” said Archie indignant, shaking his arm free of her
hand.

“Say dogues,” whispered Marion, drawing out the long O. She was very
careful herself to be as English as possible. It had always been her
ambition, though the success was perhaps scarcely equal to the desire.
She threaded her way through the woods with delicate steps, protesting
that it was very damp and a very long way. It was a delightful way
through narrow woodland paths, where the hawthorn, which in Scotland is
neither called nor has much to do with May, was, still in the height of
June, breathing fragrance over the copse, and where the wild rose-buds
were beginning to peep upon the long branches that overhung the path.
Now and then they shook a drop of moisture upon the passer by, for,
needless to say, it had rained that morning, leaving little pools full
of reflections in the hollows. Marion gave little jumps when a drop came
upon her face, and went upon the tips of her toes past the damp places:
but it was always “something to do.”

Old Rankin’s cottage was in the depths of the wood that encircled
Rosmore. He had been a gamekeeper before “his accident.” It was supposed
in the peninsula that everybody must know about old Rankin’s accident,
so that no further account was ever given. It was a red-roofed cottage,
looking comfortable and cheerful among the grass, with a big ash tree in
a plot of grass before the door, and honeysuckle covering it on the
southern side where the sun came. In northern regions people are
indifferent about the sun. It is a curious fact, but it is so. “Where
the sun does not go the doctor must,” says the Italian who has almost
too much; but the Scot turns his back upon it sturdily and does not
mind. The sunshine caught only one corner of Rankin’s cottage, and no
windows looked that way. It was buried deep in the greenness, adding
itself a little ruddy reflection to brighten the atmosphere. In the room
on the left side of the door Rankin himself lay upon his bed, with a
large head and shoulders appearing out of the tartan rugs that covered
the rest of his person. He had a head like an ancient prophet or bard,
with a high bald forehead, and a long grey beard, and with supple long
arms which seemed to reach to all the corners of the room. Naturally
there was a fire burning, though the day was warm. The mistress of the
house came trotting forward, and dusted two chairs with her apron for
the visitors. “You’re kindly welcome,” she said, “Come ben, come ben.
He’s aye weel pleased to see company.” The good woman did not require
any introduction of the visitors; but this the groom, more formal, made
haste to give.

“It’s the young lady and the young--lad from the Hoose,” he said. The
pause before his description of Archie was significant. In that coat
which Sandy felt was not so good as his own, how was any one to
recognise a gentleman? Sandy could not disguise his sentiments. He could
not give a false designation even to his master’s son.

“I am Miss Rowland,” said Marion, graciously, “of Rosmore.”

The big grey head and beard were shaken at her from the bed, even while
its owner, waving his long arm, pointed out the chair on which she was
to sit down. “No of Rosmore, if you’ll excuse me, my bonnie young
leddy,” he said. “Ye may say Miss Rowland, Rosmore, and that will be
right enough: but tenants never can take the name of the laird.”

“My papa,” said Marion half angrily, “is going to buy the place. He is
rich enough to buy it ten times over.”

“He may be that,” said Rankin with polite doubt. Then he added, “You
will maybe be wanting a doug.”

“We would like to see them,” said Archie.

“Oh, I’ll let you see them, though it’s no a thing I do in a general
way. Them that visit at the House, they are a’ keen for a sight of my
dougs; and I have one here and one there over all the country; a
quantity in England. They’re wonderful little beasts, though I say it
that maybe shouldna--here’s one of the last batch.” He put down his hand
somewhere behind his back and produced a small, round, struggling puppy
of a light fawn colour, with brown ears, newly arrived at the seeing
stage of its babyhood, and sprawling with all its four feeble limbs, and
the tail, which looked like a fifth, in his large hand. Put down upon
the bed, it began to tumble helplessly over the heights and hollows of
Rankin’s large, helpless figure. The sight of it moved Archie, and
indeed Marion, in a lesser degree, to greater delight than anything had
yet moved them at Rosmore.

“Oh the bonnie little beast!” cried Archie; “oh the clever little
creature! Look, May! look at its little nose, and the bits of paws, and
the long hair.” He threw himself on his knees to get the puppy within
reach, which paused in its tumbling on the mountainous ridge of one of
the old keeper’s knees, to regard the simple young face brought so close
to its own with that look of premature sagacity common to puppies.
Marion put out her gloved hand to distract the attention bestowed on her
brother. “It’s just like a little baby,” she said.

“Baby! a baby’s a little brute: it’s ten times nicer than any baby that
ever was born. Here, doggie! Man, keep your feet! Eh, look, May! it’s
tummilt off the bed. The little beastie! I’ve got it; I’ve got it. Are
ye hurt, my wee man?”

“Poor little doggie!” said Marion, patting with a finger the puppy which
Archie had placed on her knee. The two young creatures, bending over the
animated toy of the little dog, made a group which was pretty enough.
And Rankin and the groom looked on sympathisingly, flattered by their
applause. To Rankin the puppy was like a child of his own.

“Oh, ay,” he said, “it’s no an ill specimen. Here’s”--and he dived once
more into the hidden reservoir from whence came a sort of infantile
murmur which had puzzled the visitors at first--“another. It’s a
variety. Now ye see the twa kinds: them that are no licht in the colour
are dark. I could scarcely gie ye my opinion which is the bonniest:
What’s ca’ed the Skye breed are just the sauvage dougs that would have
eaten up the country by this time if they hadna received a check by
being made leddies’ pets of. One o’ my name was the first to tak’ the
business in hand, and improve the breed. Yon lang, low-bodied creaturs,
with nae legs to speak of, are the original stock, as the wild bushes
are the stock of the rose tribe. My anes are an awfu’ improvement in
pint o’ symmetry--and temper too. They have langer legs and no sae short
a temper. Ye’ll hear a’ the world ower of the Rosmore breed. It’s just
celebrated from one end o’ the country to anither. Lady Jean she was aye
coming with orders; but I’m no fond of taking orders especially from
foreign countries, like England and the like. I canna bide to send my
dougs where they are ill fed or kept careless. There was ae lady that
let twa o’ them, ane after the ither, get lost. She was a friend o’ the
minister. I canna understand decent folk keeping on with sic friends.
And as for the feeding o’ them, leddies are just maist inveterate, and
ruins their health, whatever I can say. They’ll feed my doggies, just
fresh from their guid halesome parridge, with sweet biscuits and bits of
sugar, and every silly thing they can think of, and syne they’ll write
and say the dougs are delicate. Naething of the kind! the dougs are nane
delicate. It’s just the traitment; if you can think o’ onything mair
foolish than that--beasts used to guid fresh country air, shut up in
rooms with carpets and dirt of a’ kinds, and when they’re dowie and aff
their meat, a dose o’ strong physic! And they ca’ that a kind home. I
ca’ it just murder! and that’s a’ I’ve got to say.”

Rankin had worked himself to a point of vehemence which brought the
moisture in great drops to his forehead, for the day was warm and so was
the fire. But it cannot be said that his visitors were much affected by
it. Sandy the groom, indeed, formed a sympathetic audience, but Archie
and Marion were too young and foolish to be interested in the old
gamekeeper. They played with the puppies, each choosing one. Marion held
fast the one of light colour--Archie secured the dark grey. Their
comments on their respective prizes ran on through Rankin’s speech.
“Mine’s the bonniest!”--“No, I like mine best. Look at its funny little
face.”--“Mine has no een at all--just a little spark out under the
hair.”--“And look, the little brick that it is, showing fight,” said
Archie in great triumph and elation.

The old gamekeeper wiped his brow, and looked on with a smile of grim
amusement at the mimic fight going on between those two little balls of
animated fur, “I would ca’ those two Donal’bane and Donal’dhu--as ye
might say in a less cultivated tongue, Whitey and Darkie,” he said
benevolently. “If ye would like to have the pair of them, I’ll not say
no to the Hoose, even when it’s in a tenant’s hands. But ye maun mak up
your minds, for I haven’t a doggie about the place that’s no bespoke
afore it’s born, and I owe my duty to Lady Jean first.”

“I’m tired hearing of Lady Jean,” said Marion petulantly, throwing her
puppy upon the bed.

“Aye, my Missie, are ye that?” said old Rankin: “ye’ll be tireder afore
you’re done, for Lady Jean’s muckle thought of in this parish: and a
tenant is just a tenant and nae mair--there’s no continuance in them.
Your papaw and you will be just here the day and gane the morn. Ye canna
expect to be thought upon like our ain folk.--Are ye wantin’ the puppy,
Maister---- what’s the name, Sandy? I hae never maistered the name,”
added the gamekeeper with polite disrespect. “Oh ay, now I
mind--Rowland”--he pronounced the first syllable broadly like a street
row--“I’m no sure,” he added thoughtfully, “but I may have ken’t your
papaw before he went abroad.”

Archie paid no attention to this talk. He had a puppy in each hand
comparing them, wondering which he might venture to buy. Dared he go to
such an expense as to buy? Mrs. Brown, though lavish in many ways, had
not been liberal in the matter of pocket money, and to spend money for
a dog, a creature that would cost something to feed, and could do
nothing to make up for the cost of it, would have seemed to her the most
wicked of extravagances. Archie was forced by the habit of his life into
a great timorousness about money. He did not feel himself justified in
spending even a shilling. He looked at the little dogs and longed and
hesitated. He had taken one up in each hand with a wild impulse of
expenditure, of buying both--unheard of extravagance!--and then he put
one down, feeling the cold shade as of Aunty Jane come over him. Then he
bethought himself that his father was a rich man--ay! but then he would
probably like to spend his money himself, not to give it to his son to
spend. Then Archie put down the other dog upon the bed. But he did not
abstract his eyes from the pleasing prospect; and presently a tempting
demon suggested to him that about such a big house dogs would be wanted
for the purpose of watching, if for nothing else; and he took one, the
little dark grey one, up again. It was the bonniest little doggie he had
ever seen--ready to play already, though it was such a small puppy,
looking as wise as Solomon, though it was so silly; the greatest
diversion possible in this dull country place, where there never would
be anything to do. And two of them would be funnier still. Archie took
up the rival in his other hand. He held them as if he were weighing them
against each other like pounds of flesh, but no such thought was in his
mind: he wondered if perhaps Rankin might not want to be paid at once.
In case of delay there were a hundred chances that the money might be
procured somehow. He might even ask his father--or Mr. Rowland might
make him a present. He had bought a great many things for Marion, who,
being a lassie, could be gratified in that way more than was possible
for a man. A man didn’t want silks and things, or even brooches and
rings, though Archie would not have disliked a pin. What a man liked was
manly things--maybe a bonnie little beast of a doug. What bonnie little
beasties they were! and they would be capital watch-dogs when they grew
up. Would it do if he were to ask papa? If May wanted such a thing, she
would ask in a moment. She might perhaps do it on her own account if she
took a fancy to little Light and little Dark. Poor Archie was so
absorbed in this question that he did not know what Rankin said.

He was roused by a sweep of the gamekeeper’s long arm, which swung over
the bed for a moment, then suddenly came down upon one of the puppies
and conveyed it swiftly away. Archie followed his movements with a gape
of disappointment as he took up the coveted grey. He put out his hand to
avert the second withdrawal. “Eh, man, leave the little beastie,” he
said.

“Would you like to have it? You have naething to do but to say sae.”

“I have no money--with me--to pay for’t,” said Archie, with the
profoundest sense of humiliation. He had come into his fortune, so to
speak; but he had never felt so poor before.

The gamekeeper answered with a laugh. “There’s plenty of time for ye to
put your siller in your pouch, my young gentleman--for I’ll no send ane
of them out for sax weeks to come--or maybe mair. Ye can come and see
them when you like, but I’ll no risk my credit for a wheen pounds, me
that never sends out a doug but in the best condition and able to fend
for themselves. Will I keep the twa for ye? Ye maun speak now, or for
ever hold your tongue, for every puppy I have is ordered long before
it’s born.”

Archie looked at his sister, endeavouring to catch her eye, but Marion
refused him all help. She betook herself to the task of buttoning her
glove, which required all her energies, and then she got up shaking out
her skirts: “I’ll die,” she said, “if I stay longer here--it’s so hot,
and there’s a smell of dougs. You can come when you’re ready. I want the
fresh air.”

“Dear me,” said Rankin with scorn; “this’ll be a very delicate Miss! and
ower grand for the likes of us. Lady Jean never minded the smell of the
dougs. Sandy, man, what made you bring such a grand lady here? Are ye
for them, or are ye no for them?” he added, severely, turning to Archie.
“It’s no of the least consequence to me--but you’ll have to say.”

Archie, with his hair standing on end at his own audacity, gave the
order hurriedly, and went out after his sister, with a sort of
despairing sense that he had now committed himself beyond recall, and
that the stories he had read in books about the miseries of men who had
large sums to make up and no prospect of finding the wherewithal, were
about in his dread experience to come true. The gamekeeper and the
groom discussed the abrupt withdrawal after their fashion, and with no
particular precaution not to be heard by the subjects of their
discourse.

“Yon’s a queer pair to be gentry,” said Rankin. “I would have said a lad
and a lass from Glesco in an excursion; just the kind that comes doun at
the fair-time, and has nae manners nor education. I’m no much accustomed
to that kind--A smell o’ dougs! set her up! Mony a leddy has sat there
and had her crack, and never a word about the dougs, poor things. The
smell of a mill would maybe be more in her way.”

“Whisht, man,” said the groom, “they’re maybe listening. Where could
they get their manners or their eddication? They’re just Jims Rowland’s
bairns that my father knew when he was in the foundry; and they’ve lived
a’ their lives with Jane Brown, that was ance the auld man’s joe, and
micht have been my mother if a’ things had gane straight--think o’ that!
I micht have been their cousin, and I’m just the groom in the stables.
‘Od! I could have brought doun Missie’s pride if I had been a drap’s
blood to her. They’re no a preen better nor you and me.”

“In the sicht o’ heaven,” said Rankin, “there’s no one person better
than anither: I dinna just rank myself with the commonality. But I’ll
allow that the auld family has the pull of it even with me. There’s
something about Lady Jean now--ye canna say what it is, and yet it maks
a difference. I’m a man that has seen a’ kinds. The real gentry, and
what ye may call the Glesco gentry, and them that’s just shams through
and through. The Glesco gentry has grand qualities sometimes. They just
never care what they spend. If ye put a fancy price upon a little doug,
they just say, ‘Oh ay, nae doubt you have great trouble in rearing
them,’ and gies ye your price without a word. The tither kind’s no that
liberal--they canna bide to be imposed upon. They just stiffen up, and
they say, ‘That’s mair than I thought of giving, and good day to ye.’
But I canna bide them that would and then they wouldna, that just
hankers and grudges and have nae money in their pouches. Without money,
nae man has any right to take up my time coming here.”

Archie heard this diatribe as he stood outside, waiting under the
protection of the great ash tree till a passing shower should have blown
over, with a sense of the truth of it which went over him in a great
wave of heat and discomfiture down to his very boots. That was just what
he was, a sham with nothing in his pocket, combining all the defects of
the Glesco great people with an absolute want of that real foundation on
which they stood. He had no education, no manners, nothing upon which
any claim of superiority could be put forth. Superiority! he did not
mean that. Poor Archie felt himself the equal of nobody, not even of
Sandy the groom, who, at least, had an occupation of his own and knew
how to do it. And no money in his pocket! that was perhaps the worst of
all. He had always heard a great deal about money all his life. Mrs.
Brown had an unlimited reverence for it, and for those who possessed it.
She had no particular knowledge of the gentry. But to be able to pay
your way, to be able to lay by a little, to have something in the bank,
that was the height of her ambition. And though she highly disapproved
of large expenditure, she admired it as the most dazzling of greatness.
“He just never minds what he spends,” she had said of Rowland a hundred
times, almost with awe. Archie had been accustomed to admire this
quality in his father from his earliest consciousness. And to stand on
the soil which to him was his father’s (though the people of the place
were so strong upon the fact that he was only a tenant), almost within
sight of the great house which was being fitted up regardless of
expence, and to have nothing in his pocket, filled the lad with the
bitterest shame and humiliation. “If I had only five pounds--or knew
where to get it,” he said to himself with a gesture of disgust and
despair. “Five pounds,” said Marion, who heard him though he did not
want to be heard, and repeated it in her usual clear very distinct
voice, not lowered in the least, “What do ye want with five pounds? and
why don’t you get it from papa?” Archie thought he heard a laugh from
the cottage which proved that the men inside had heard. It wrought him
almost to fury. He dashed out into the rain and left her standing there
astonished. Marion did not care for what the groom and the gamekeeper
said. She was quite confident that she had only to “ask papa,” and that
whatever she wished would fall into her lap. She had not, like Archie,
any difficulty in asking papa. After a few moments of hesitation she too
stepped out of the shelter of the ash, and followed her brother through
the wood. The shower was over, the sun had come out again, every branch
and leaf was glistening. The birds had taken up their songs at the very
note where they left off, with renewed vigour. Marion too broke out into
a little song as she went on. The boughs as she brushed past scattered
shining drops like diamonds over her, which she eluded with a little run
and cry. Even the woodland walk was thus more amusing than she thought.




CHAPTER XV.


Mr. Rowland, when his children left him, was left with a very
uncomfortable prick of thought, a sort of thorn lacerating the skin, so
to speak, of his mind. The suggestion which had been thrown at him as
the Spanish bullfighters throw their ornamented darts, stuck as they do,
and kept up an irritating smart, though it was not, he said, to himself
of the least importance. No society! He came out to the colonnade in the
intervals of his anxious work of supervision, and looked round him
wistfully. He walked indeed all round the house, looking out in every
direction. Towards the west there were visible, by glimpses among the
trees, some houses of the village of Kilrossie, a high roof or two, and
the white spire of the newly built church; to the east, on the other
side of the loch, another village-town extended along the edge of the
gleaming water, shining in the sunshine. Plenty of human habitations,
fellow-creatures on every side: but society! Wealth has a very curious
effect upon the mind in this respect. The people who came to the
handsome houses at Kilrossie for the bathing season were many of them
much superior to James Rowland in birth and education, and quite equal
to him in intelligence, except in his own particular sphere; yet this
man who had been only a man in a foundry when those good people were
enjoying the advantages of the saut water, and all the luxuries of
comparative wealth, would now have felt himself humiliated had he been
obliged to accept the society of the good people at Kilrossie as all he
might hope to attain. Their neighbourhood was rather a trouble than an
enlivenment to his mental vision. And the county people, who had their
“places” scattered about at intervals, were in many cases neither so
well off, nor so intelligent as these: and they would look down upon the
railway man, while the others would regard him with respect. There was
no possibility of doubt as to which of the two he would be most
comfortable with. And yet he slurred them over cursorily as if they were
not there, and sighed into the sweet vacant air which contained no
loftier indication of society. How proud he would have been to have
known the Kilrossie people fifteen years ago--how it would have elated
him to be asked under their roof! and now their presence irritated him
as a set of imposters who perhaps would thrust themselves upon him in
the guise of society: that was not the society for which he cared.

The prick of the banderilla discharged by Marion’s trifling little hand
was in him all day: and in the afternoon when he had done everything he
could, and given all his orders about the arrangement of the furniture,
he too went out to take a walk and to spy out the nakedness of the land.
He did not go into the woods as his children had done, nor would the
dogs have had any charm for him. He went down to the village, where
there certainly was no society except in the one house which held modest
sway over the cluster of whitewashed and red-tiled cottages--the manse,
where the minister represented, if not the wealthier yet the educated
portion of the community, and might at least furnish information, if
nothing else, as to the prospects and possibilities of the place. In
spite of himself Rowland’s discouragement reflected itself in his
countenance, making him, as so often happens, look angry and
discontented. There was something even in the way in which his heel
spurned the gravel, making it fly behind him, which betrayed the
unsatisfied state of his mind. He had scarcely emerged from his own gate
when he met the minister in person, who turned with him and walked along
the country road by his side with great complaisance, partly because he
was glad to meet any one on that not much frequented road, and partly
because it was a good thing to make a friend of the inhabitant of “The
House.” The shower which had caught Marion and Archie at Rankin’s
cottage, made the two gentlemen pause for a few moments but no more
under the shade of an overhanging tree. A shower is too common a thing
in that country to disturb any one. It discharged its harmless volley,
and then cleared away with rapidity as if the sportive angel who had
that brief job in hand was glad on the whole to get it over; which is
very often the way with the sky officials in that particular in the west
of Scotland. The cloud blew away in a second, dispersing what was left
of it in floating rags of white, which fled towards the hills, leaving
the sky radiant over Peterston on the other side of the loch, and the
loch itself as blue, reflecting the sky, as was that capricious
firmament itself--for the moment. The road ran inland, with fields of
wheat between it and the margin of the shining water, beyond which rose
the low banks of the loch, and further off a background of mountains. If
it was not quite equal to the great “view” of Rosmore House, this
prospect was at least very fine, soft and clear, in all the harmony of a
blueness and whiteness such as a rainy climate confers; and Mr. Rowland
too, like his daughter, was comforted by the singing of the birds, which
all burst forth again with unusual energy after the subduing influence
of the shower. He said, “It is certainly a beautiful place,” as he
paused for a moment to look over the green field at the little steamers
which seemed to hang suspended in the beatific air, one on the surface
of the water, one reflected below.

“Yes, it is a lovely place,” said the minister with a sigh.

He was a middle-aged man dressed in careful clerical fashion like an
Anglican priest--a costume new and rather distressing to Rowland, no
such thing having been thought of in his early days before he left
Scotland. At that period a white tie (or neckcloth, to use the proper
phraseology) rather limp, and a black coat often shabby, were all that
were thought of as necessary. But Mr. Dean, which was the name of the
minister of Rosmore, liked to be called a clergyman rather than a
minister, and would not at all have objected to hold the ecclesiastical
rank which is denoted by his name. He was of the new school. He had a
harmonium in his church, and a choir which chanted the psalms. He was
very advanced, and his wife still more so. He shook his head a little as
he made this reply. Yes, it was a lovely place--but--this latter word
was inferred and not said.

“I want to ask you,” said Rowland, by no means reassured by this, “about
the society.”

Mr. Dean now shrugged his shoulders a little. “You have perhaps heard of
the chapter about snakes in Ireland,” he said.

“I have always understood there weren’t any.” It is a very unjustifiable
thing to cut in this way a quotation out of another person’s mouth. Mr.
Dean was a little disconcerted, as was natural. “Well,” he said, “that’s
just the thing, there is none. I answer the same to your question: there
is no society. I hope that Chamberlayne did not bring you here on false
pretences.”

“I cannot remember that I asked him anything about it, nor would it have
made any difference if I had. Society or not, it’s always this place
I’ve set my heart upon. But what do you do and the other people in the
place?”

“Well,” said Mr. Dean, with a glance at his companion’s face, “the
House, as we all call it, has been our great resource. Lady Jean--you
must hear her quoted everywhere, and, I dare say, are sick of her
name.”

“No; I have not heard her quoted.” He remembered that he had not cared
anything about it, who was quoted, his whole heart being fixed upon the
house.

“She’s very good company,” said the minister. “She was always our
resource. And sometimes the Earl was here. I don’t want to speak evil of
dignities, but his lordship was perhaps less of an acquisition. And they
had visitors from time to time. That’s the great thing,” Mr. Dean added
with perhaps just a touch of condescension to the simplicity of the
millionaire, “in the country. You just fill the house, and one amuses
the other. My wife and I have seen a great many interesting people in
that way, which was a little compensation to us for being buried here.
You will come in and take a cup of tea. This is the nearest way.”

The Manse garden was on the slope of the hillside, but the Manse itself
was tucked in below, in what was supposed to be a sheltered position,
out of the way of all sunshine, or other impertinent invasions. It
surprised Mr. Rowland to see several pony carriages about, and to hear a
noise of talk coming out into the garden all perfumed with sweetpeas and
roses. He looked at the minister with an inquiring air.

“Oh, I don’t call this society,” said Mr. Dean, “though perhaps you will
be of a different opinion,” he added. He was a little supercilious in
his tone to the railway man, who was a rich person and no more; not that
the minister had any inclination to break any tie that might be formed
with “the House.” He was not himself fond of tea parties, and his
expression had made it plain that dinners were chiefly to be found, if
anywhere, at Rosmore.

“I have inveigled Mr. Rowland in for a cup of tea. I did not know you
had guests.”

“Dear me, Henry!” said Mrs. Dean; “of course you knew. It’s my day:
everybody in the parish knows, if you don’t. But I am very glad to see
Mr. Rowland; he has just come at the very nick of time. I was saying to
Mrs. Wedderburn, so much depends on who is at the House.”

“It is just the centre of everything,” said a fat lady who was thus
referred to. She gave Mr. Rowland a little bow, half rising from her
chair. “We all defer to the House,” she added with an ingratiating smile
to which Rowland answered as best he could with a bow which was as
deferential as hers was condescending. There were a dozen of people or
more in the room, which was not very large, and hot with the fumes of
tea. There were two or three matronly persons like Mrs. Wedderburn, and
a few who were younger, and two men who were making themselves useful
and handing the tea and the cake. There were also some queerly dressed,
middle-aged ladies, of the class to which Scotch society owes so much,
the rural single woman, individual and strong-minded: and there were
some with a great air of fashion and the consciousness of fine clothes.
These last Rowland set down, and justly, as sea-bathers from Kilrossie.
One of the others was the minister’s wife from the next parish, also
unmistakeable. His name caused a little rustle of interest among them,
as he made his bow all round.

“I’m sure you’re very welcome among us,” said another lady rising up
from the window where she sat. “Since we cannot have our dear Lady Jean,
we’re well content to have a tenant that is creditable and a well-known
name. You are just new from India, and our climate will be a great
change to ye, at least for the first.”

“Oh, I am well accustomed to the climate,” said Rowland. “I don’t think
that will trouble me much.”

“You’re really then a west-country man to begin with? so we’ve heard;
but Mrs. Rowland, I’m afraid, will not be so used to it. Nor perhaps
your young folk. You’ll think me bold,” added his interrogator, “but we
hear there are young folk?”

“My wife is not Scotch,” said Rowland; “but the difference between
Rosmore and an English county is not so very great.” He longed to say
who she was--one of the oldest families--but the same pride which
suggested this statement held him back.

“Oh,” said the ladies, two or three together; and then Mrs. Dean,
bringing him his cup of tea, took up the parole.

“You’ll soon learn the weakness of a country neighbourhood, Mr. Rowland.
We never rest till we’re at the bottom of everything. We had heard it
was a lady from India that was to be the mistress of ‘the Hoose.’”

And now his opportunity arrived. “I will give you all the information in
my power,” he said smiling. “My wife was a Miss Ferrars of Langley
Ferrars, a very old family--Leicestershire people. She is a lady from
India just as I am a man from India. We arrived about a fortnight ago.
Is there anything else I can satisfy the ladies about?”

He knew of old that there was no such way of discomfiting the curious as
to proclaim your own story, whatever it might be. And he had recovered
his spirit, which Marion and Archie had subdued. Society at the station
had endeavoured to keep him in his place, but in vain. Even the attachés
and aid-de-camps had not been able to manage that. He was a little
amused at the thought of this little rural tea party questioning him,
sitting upon his claims to be considered one of them.--One of them! His
suppressed sense of the absurdity of this gave a gleam of mischief to
his eyes, and quite restored him to his own self-opinion, which had been
so rudely interfered with of late. He stood with his back to the
fireplace, which, even when there is no fire, is a commanding attitude
for a man, and regarded them all with a smile.

“We are all looking forward to calling,” said fat Mrs. Wedderburn, who
did not like the trouble of much talking, yet evidently felt that it lay
with her to inaugurate every subject.

“That we are,” said his other questioner, who was called Miss Eliza by
the other ladies. “I’m just a very pushing person, and ye’ll excuse me.
Is it true, Mr. Rowland, what the folk say, that from a boy ye had set
your heart on Rosmore House?”

“Quite true,” he said promptly, “when I seemed to have as much chance
of it as of the moon. They say there’s nothing like boding of a golden
gown--for you see there I am--”

“It’s a wonderful encouragement to the young,” said Miss Eliza. “The
minister should put it into one of the papers he’s aye writing. Did ye
not know that our minister was a leeterary character? Oh, that he is!
and a real prop to the constitution; for though he may not be always so
in the pulpit, he’s real sound in politics--that’s what I always say.”

“Miss Eliza,” said the other clergyman, “you must not raise a _fama_
about a reverend brother. We’re all sound till we’re proved otherwise,
and Presbytery proceedings are against the spirit of the time.”

“Oh,” said Miss Eliza, “Mr. Dean knows well what I think. There’s no man
I like so well to hear, but his views are whiles very papistical. He
would just like to be the bishop and more. He’s no sound for Presbytery.
He would like vestments and that kind of thing, and incense, perhaps,
for anything I can tell. I would not wonder but he would put on a white
surplice, if that is what they call it, if he could get one over his
decent black gown.”

“I was an Episcopalian before I married Mr. Wedderburn,” said the fat
lady. “I do not regret it, for Mr. Dean knows we are all uncommonly well
pleased with him. And a surplice would become him very well.”

“It’s a very becoming thing,” said another of the ladies. “We’re very
glad to come to hear Mr. Dean, but we’re all Episcopalians when we’re at
home.”

“It’s the fashion,” said Mrs. Wedderburn, folding her fat hands.

“I’ve no desire to enter into that question. I’m saying nothing but that
the minister is no very sound on certain points. I’ve said it to his
face, and he just laughs, as you see. But, bless me! this conversation
has wandered far from where it began, for I was asking Mr. Rowland, in
the interests of all the nieces and the nephews, whether he had not, as
we’ve been informed, some young folk.”

Rowland had dropped out of the talk a little, and had forgotten that he
was being cross-examined. He woke up suddenly at this question with a
start. The lingering smile disappeared from his mouth. He put up
shutters at all his windows, so to speak. The light went out in his
eyes. “Yes,” he said in a voice which he felt to be as dull as his
countenance was blank; “I have a son and a daughter.”

“That was just what I heard,” said Miss Eliza with triumph. “We have
usually some young folk staying with us up at the Burn. My sister and
me, we are overrun with nieces and nephews. It’s just a plague. There is
scarcely a boat but brings one at the least. I hope your two will come
and see them. There is aye something going on; a game at that tennis, or
whatever they call it, or a party on the water, or a climb up the hills.
If they will just not stand upon ceremony, but come any day----”

“When they are here,” said Rowland stolidly; “as yet they are not here.
The house will not be ready for a week or more.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. We thought--there were so many waggons coming
and going, and the dog-cart out at the pier.”

“I hope you don’t think,” he said, “that I would take home my wife
either in a waggon or a dog-cart?”

The ladies looked at each other, and there came a faint “oh!” that
universal British interjection which answers to every emergency--from
some unidentified person. But a sort of awe stole over the party. Who
was this lady that could not be taken home in a dog-cart? Lady Jean had
been driven from the pier in a dog-cart many and many a day. Did the
woman who had married this foundry lad from Glesco, this railway man,
that had made his fortune in India, did she think herself better than
Lady Jean?

Mr. Rowland walked away through his own woods, much amused by this
incident generally. They were not his own woods: they were the Earl’s
woods, which was a reflection very unpleasant to him. If money could
smooth over the difficulty, they should be his own woods still before he
was done with them; and in the meantime he had a long lease, and a
strong determination to call them his own. He looked at every tree, and
put a mental mark upon it, to prove to himself that he was right. There
was a great silver fir, an unusually fine tree, near the gates, at which
he paused, saying to himself, “this is not mine,” with an assumption
that all the rest were, which was strange in such a sensible man; but
his mind had a little twist in it so far as Rosmore was concerned. He
smiled at the little society of the place with a sense of superiority,
at which they would have been extremely indignant. The Miss Elizas of
the peninsula were nothing to him, and their gracious intention of
calling upon his wife, gave him such a feeling of the ridiculous, that
he laughed aloud as he went on. Call upon Evelyn! Mr. Rowland had
perhaps as exaggerated an idea of Evelyn’s claims as the village people
had a humble one. They had heard that she was a governess whom he had
picked up in India; and he was of opinion that she was a very high-born
lady, as good as the Queen. He chuckled to himself as he realised how
she would look amid the ladies who came to Kilrossie for the
sea-bathing, and the ladies of the parish: Miss Eliza with her big rusty
hat and shawl, and the two ministers’ wives. Evelyn with the look of a
princess, and her beautiful dresses, that were like nothing else in the
world, which her mere putting them on gave the air of royal robes to!
This was his way of looking at the matter, which probably would not have
been at all the way of the county ladies, who had a general idea what
was the fashion, though they did not take the trouble to adopt it. But
to Mr. Rowland whatever Evelyn wore was the fashion, and it was she, he
felt, who ought to be everybody’s model, to dress after, as far as it
was in vain flesh and blood to follow such an ideal. Lady Jean herself
would be but a rural dowdy in presence of Evelyn. He thought of the
impression she would make. The startled “oh!” of wonder which would
burst from all their lips when she was first seen. It would be something
altogether new to them to see such a lady! It restored him to his
natural spirits and self-confidence to think of this; indeed, his pride
in his wife was the very apex of Rowland’s self-esteem and proud sense
of having acquired everything that man could hope to acquire, and all by
his own exertions and good judgment. He reflected to himself with
satisfaction that he had owed nothing to anybody; that it was all his
own doing, not only his success in life, _i. e._, the fortune he had
made, but all those still more dazzling successes, which he could not
have got had not the fortune been made. Nobody, for instance, had ever
suggested Rosmore to him: no benevolent teacher, or other guide of
youth, had pointed out to him the house with the white colonnade as an
inspiring object and stimulus to ambition. Himself alone had been his
counsellor. Nor had anybody indicated to him at the Station the pale and
graceful woman who was Mrs. Stanhope’s dependent and poor friend. He had
for himself found out and chosen both the wife and the house. This
triumphant thought returning to his mind wiped out the impression of the
morning, and even the recollection that he had gone out to hunt for
society, and had--found it! He remembered this a little later with a
sense that it was the best joke in the world. He had found it! Mrs. Dean
had a “day,” as if she lived in a novel or Mayfair; and the neighbouring
gentry and the sea-bathers, when they came in force, elated her soul as
if they had been all out of the peerage. He wondered, with a laugh to
himself, what Evelyn would say to Miss Eliza and the fat Mrs.
Wedderburn, and went back to Rosmore in high glee, really oblivious for
a time of the two “difficulties,” the irreconcilable portion of his new
life, whom he had left there.




CHAPTER XVI.


To describe the blank which fell upon the successful man as he went
briskly up through the woods, which in his heart he called his own,
reflecting upon his success and how he had won it all unaided, his happy
selection of a house, his still happier luck in a wife, and saw the pair
of limp young figures without interest in anything, vaguely standing
about in front of the colonnade, would be too much for words. They stood
a little apart, Archie with his hands in his pockets, Marion drawing
lines in the ground with the end of her parasol. They were not even
looking at “the view.” The air of caring for nothing, finding no
interest in anything, was so strong in them both that they might have
been taken as impersonations of ennui, that most hopeless of all the
immoralities. They did not know what to do with themselves--they would
never know what to do with themselves, Rowland thought in despair. They
would stand about his life as they were doing about the vacant space in
front of the house, empty, indifferent, uninterested. Going wrong, he
said to himself (heaven forgive him!) was almost better than
that--anything is better than nullity, the state of doing and being
nothing. The outline of them against the light struck him as he came up
to them like a dull blow.

“Well,” he said, “what have you been doing since I saw you last?”

“Nothing,” said Marion, with a slight look up at him, and a yawn, “for
there is nothing to do.”

“No--thing,” said Archie with hesitation and a less assured, more
anxious look. He wanted to speak to his father about those puppies, if
he could only venture: but he did not dare.

“You might have explored the woods,” said Rowland, “or gone down to the
loch, or taken a boat, or rambled up the hill--there’s a hundred things
to do.”

“The woods are very damp: I would have spoiled my shoes: and the hills
very craggy: it would have torn my frock: and Archie, he is too lazy to
row a boat, and too grumpy to speak. Will it soon be time to go back to
Glasgow? You might have taken me with you, papa.”

“It is a pity I did not: for there was company at the Manse, and I have
an invitation for you.”

“Oh papa!”

Archie too looked up with a certain lightning of his preoccupied face.

“Yes--if you are not too fine for it. It is to go to some place that is
called the Burn, to a lady whose name is Miss Eliza, who has a number of
nieces and nephews, and something always going on, tennis, or boating,
or dancing.”

“Oh, papa!” Marion’s eyes shone; but presently a little cloud came over
her. “I have not had much chance of learning tennis. The MacColls can
play, they’ve got a nice ground of their own--they have just everything!
But there’s no club you can get into out of the Sauchiehall Road, and
you want shoes and things. I never was in the way of learning.” A little
furtive moisture glistened in Marion’s eyes.

“I could let you see the way,” said Archie.

“Oh yes, laddies learn everything,” said his sister with an offended
air; and then she perceived that she had been guilty of an unauthorised
word. “I mean young gentlemen,” she cried.

“For heaven’s sake, whatever you mean, don’t say that,” said Rowland
hastily. “However it is not a desert, as you thought: there is balm in
Gilead. When you come back and settle down, you must make friends with
Miss Eliza.”

“Is she a lady, papa? I would not, not for anything, make friends out of
our own sphere.”

Rowland laughed loud and long. He said, “I am glad you have such an
exalted idea of your sphere; but how about the MacColls?”

“I am not meaning,” said Marion, with dignity, “to keep up with the
MacColls. They’re just acquaintances, not to call friends. They never
even ask me to their grandest parties. If they were friends, they would
have let me learn tennies and all that. I have always meant to let them
know that when my papa came home, they were not good enough for me.”

“Well--perhaps it’s legitimate--if they thought you not good enough for
their grand parties, and no question of friendship in the matter. But
you, Archie, you’ve got some friends?”

“Yes,” said the lad with hesitation. He had no friend whom he would not
have sacrificed on the altar of the puppies. “There are some of the
students--but I perhaps will have little chance of seeing them
after----”

“If you please,” said Sandy, the groom, who had been loitering near,
“will I put in the horse? for yonder’s the steamer leaving the loch
head, and she’ll sune be here.”

“Never mind the horse: we’ll walk,” said Rowland, at which Marion gave
him a look of wonder and reproach. Walk! a dog-cart was not much, but it
was always a more dignified thing than to think a young lady like
herself capable of walking like a common person to the pier.

“And, sir,” said Sandy, “about the little dougs--Rankin would be glad to
know.”

“The little dougs?”

“The young gentleman will have tell’t ye. It’s Rankin’s little dougs
that are kent for a grand breed--and there’s aye somebody wanting them.
He would like to ken one way or anither afore the young gentleman goes
away.”

“It’s some little terriers,” said Archie, coming forward a step, “we
were looking at them. They’re very bonnie little beasts. I thought that
maybe--there would be watch-dogs wanted about the house--or--just for
the fun of them--they’re--fine little things. I--I--thought it might
be--a good thing.”

Rowland looked severely at his son as he stammered and hesitated. He
replied coldly, “If you want the dogs, I suppose that is enough.” He
waved his hand to Sandy, dismissing him. “Now Marion, are you ready, for
your walk?”

Marion pouted and protested that she was sure she could not walk so far,
but Rowland was inflexible. “It will be something to do,” he said
grimly. And with a troubled countenance and trembling limbs Archie
followed.

A more beautiful walk could scarcely have been conceived. Here and
there, as they descended the hill, they came out upon an open space
where the lovely loch, with the great range of hills at the head lying
full in the western sun, stretched out before them. Its surface
glistened with gleams of reflection, repeating everything from the white
scattered houses on its banks to the whiter clouds that goated on the
surface of the sky. A boat or two, between the dazzling atmosphere above
and the still more dazzling reflection below, lay like a thing
beatified. Woods and hills and shining water--there was nothing wanting
to the perfection of the scene. “Every prospect pleases, and only man is
vile:” and troubled--troubled, full of care--wanting for something
wherever he is.

The successful man marched along with his head high, his pretty little
daughter running with her short steps by his side, the house of his
choice behind him, the wife of his choice awaiting him, and so well off,
able to do whatever he pleased, the admiring, curious people said.
Whatever he pleased! yes, to buy furniture of the rarest description,
horses and carriages, even Rosmore itself, if he could by any means
procure that it should be brought to market; but not with all his wealth
able to expand the little vulgar nature of the girl, or open the
disturbed heart of the boy beside him. Poor rich man! to whom his wealth
could give no pleasure while this constant irritation gnawed at his
heart.

He took them back to Sauchiehall Road, not exhilarated by their day’s
outing; and while Marion recovered her fatigue and began really to enjoy
Rosmore in describing its grandeur to her aunt, he took Archie aside for
a few brief words. “What was that about the dogs?” he said. “Did you pay
for them, or have they to be paid for, or what did the groom mean? I
won’t have any familiarity with the grooms. Why should I be consulted as
if you couldn’t settle such a matter for yourself?”

“I never wanted you to be consulted,” said the boy, retiring within
himself.

“What did it mean then? Remember I consider you old enough to take the
responsibility of your own actions. If you want anything, get it: if I
don’t approve, I’ll let you know my opinion. If I find you spending too
much, I’ll put a stop to it. But I am not to be consulted about every
trifle as if you were a child.”

Archie was so struck with the irony of this address as applied to
himself, that his wounded feelings and strained temper burst out into a
harsh laugh. “As for spending,” he said, “much or little, you may set
your mind at rest, for I’ve nothing to spend.”

Rowland took out his pocket-book with a look of doubt, glancing from
Archie to Mrs. Brown. “You must have your allowance of course,” he said.
“You’ve had it, I suppose, for years past?”

“A shilling a week or sometimes half-a-crown,” said Archie, prolonging
the laugh which was the only witness of emotion his boyish pride and
shyness permitted him to indulge in. “But I’m not asking you for money,”
he said harshly. The puppies flitted in vision before his eyes, and
counselled a softer tone, but he could not, in spite of the puppies, put
forward a finger to touch the crisp piece of paper which his father held
out to him.

“I’ll see about that,” said Rowland. “Here, in the meantime.”

“I am not wanting your money.”

“You young ass! take what I give you. I’ll see that you have at your
command in future, a proper sum.--Here!” Rowland, who was much out of
temper too, flung the note at the boy, who let it drop upon the floor.
“And try to behave like a gentleman,” he said, exasperated, “and not
like a sullen dog, as you’re doing now.”

He did not mean to be so severe. He was tired and sick of it all, as he
said to himself as he hurried away. The boy was not true, he was not
genuine, not frank nor open. The father was very angry, disappointed:
yet in the dark, as he walked back to the hotel, there gleamed somehow
upon him, he did not know how, a reflection, a gleam from poor Mary’s
blue eyes, that had so long been hidden in the grave.

Meanwhile, the party in Mrs. Brown’s parlour had been disturbed by a
sense of something sulphurous in the air, and by the flutter of the
piece of paper which had been thrown at Archie like a blow. All demand
for explanation or possibility of interference had been stopped by the
rapid leave-taking and departure of Rowland. “Are you not going to stay
to your supper? and me prepared the table for you, and everything
ready!” Mrs. Brown had said in great disappointment and dismay; but
Rowland had not yielded. He had letters to write, he said, that
unanswerable reason for everything. When the sound of his quick steps
had died out upon the pavement, Mrs. Brown came back with a blank
countenance into the parlour, where Archie still sat with the bit of
white crisp paper at his feet.

“There’s been some quarrel atween you,” she said. “Tell me no lees:
you’ve been setting up your face to your father, that’s just a gentleman
and far above ye, as ye whiles do to me.”

“I tell no lies,” said the boy.

“That means ye just acknowledge to it, ye thrawn, vexatious callant?
What’s that bit of paper lying at your feet?”

“Its of no consequence,” said Archie.

“But it is of consequence when I say so. Give it to me!”

“I will not touch it,” said the boy.

“Then I’ll touch it!” She stooped suddenly with a nimbleness for which
Archie was unprepared and snatched the paper.

Then she gave a loud scream. “Preserve us a’! It’s nae less than a
twenty-pound note. Lord, laddie, what did you say to him that he’s given
you a twenty-pound note?”

“Give me the note!” said Archie hoarsely, holding out his hand.

“Atweel and I’ll do nothing of the kind. What was it for? Twenty pound!
to the like of you that never had twenty pence! Archie Rowland, what is
the meaning of this? It’s a thing I will no put up with to have notes
(nots Mrs. Brown called them) lying about my carpet and naebody
condescending to lift them up.”

“Let him be, aunty,” said Marion; “he’s in one of his ill keys; he was
real disagreeable to-day, and would do nothing. I have had just a very
dismal day because he would never rouse himself up.”

“He may rouse himself or not as he likes,” said Jane; “but I’ve gotten
possession of the not, and I’ll just keep it till I find out what it’s
for.”

“It’s my note,” said Archie.

“And ye leave it lying at your feet! Twenty pounds! that would put pith
into many a man’s arm, and courage in his heart. Besides, what would ye
do with all that siller? I’ll give ye a shilling or twa, and I’ll just
put it by. Your father must be clean gyte to put the like o’ that in the
power of a callant like you.--Come ben to your supper. I’ll wager ye
havena had a decent bite nor sup the haill day.”

“I’m wanting no supper. I’m wanting my note,” Archie said.

“Ye can have the one but no the other. The table’s a’ set and ready.
Come in, ye fool, and take your supper. We’ll no wait for you, neither
Mey nor me.”

Archie sat by himself with his head in his hands for some moments after
they had gone away. Mrs. Brown had carried the lamp with her, but it was
not dark. The days are long in June, and the soft visionary light, which
was neither night nor day, came through the bars of the Venetian blinds,
making the little shabby room faintly visible. He was tired, he was even
hungry, but he would not stoop to the degradation of owning it, now that
he had said he would have no supper. This added to the general sum of
wretchedness in Archie’s mind. It had all ended so miserably, the day
which began so well. He was aware that he had been a fool. He had been
tempted with the puppies--which even now, when he thought of them,
tempted him still, filling him with a sort of forlorn pleasure in the
recollection, and making him feel how silly it was to have let his “not”
be taken from him--though he knew he had no money to pay for them. And
then he had not had the courage to tell his father that he wanted them.
Surely he who had bought May so many things would have given this little
gratification to Archie, had he gone rightly about it. But he had been a
fool. What was he always but a fool? He had got himself into several
scrapes because he had not had the courage to ask anything from Aunty
Jane. And now when he had gotten the opportunity--the note that was his
own, that nobody else had any right to, to think that he had let that
be taken out of his hand! He would never get a penny of it, Archie knew;
yes, a shilling perhaps, or maybe half-a-crown, like a little bairn. And
what good were they to him, when he had twenty pounds--twenty whole
pounds of his own--to get the little dogs with, and many another luxury
besides, and pay up his subscriptions to his clubs, which were always in
arrears, and maybe treat some of the lads to a dinner without having to
account for every penny? But he had let it be taken from him, and
farewell to the doggies and everything else that was pleasant. Oh what a
fool he was, what a fool! He went up to his room, and tumbled as he was
upon his bed, in his best clothes, though he was hungry, and smelt the
supper, and wanted it, with all his vigorous young appetite. Happily for
Archie, in this painful complication of circumstances, it was not very
long before he fell asleep.

Next morning Mrs. Brown received Rowland in the parlour above. “I am
wanting to speak to you, Jims,” she said, “you’re no used to the charge
of young folk, and I maun speak out my mind. Ye mayna take it well of
me, but at any rate I will have delivered my soul.”

“Well,” said Rowland, “I hope that will be for your comfort, however
little it may be for mine.”

“It will be for baith our goods, if ye will take my advice. Jims, what
was that you threw at Archie last night before you went away?”

“Did I throw it at him? That was a curious thing to do; but I don’t
suppose it was intentional on my part.”

“What was it, Jims? Answer me that.”

“And may I ask what it matters to you, whatever it was?”

“It matters a great deal to me. I have been like a mother to him, and
I’ll no have the laddie to be led away. I know very well what it was. It
was an English note, and I’ve got it here. Eh, Jims Rowland, knowing the
world as ye must know it, how daur ye put the means of evil in that
boy’s innocent hands!”

“This is very strange,” said Rowland, “to be brought to book because I
give my son a little money.”

“Do ye ca’ twenty pounds a little money! My patience! a sma’ fortune,”
said Mrs. Brown.

“My dear Jane, this is one of the things, unfortunately, that we have
made a great mistake about. My boy should have been accustomed to a
little freedom, a little money of his own. It is all very unfortunate.
He will be plunged into spending money when he is quite unacquainted
with the use of it. It is the very worst thing.”

“And that’s a’ my faut ye’ll be thinking,” said Jane, grimly.

“I don’t say it is your fault. It is my fault as much as yours. I
thought of securing them kindness and motherly care. I should have
remembered there was something more necessary. You have been very kind
to them, Jane.”

“Kind!” the good woman flushed with a high angry colour; “Kind! that’s a
bonny word to use to me. A stranger’s kind that says a pleasant word.
The first person in the street that’s taken with their winnin’ ways is
kind, if you please. But me! that has given them a’ the love of my
heart, that has been a mother to them and mair----!”

“I beg your pardon,” said Rowland, “I am very much obliged to you: I
know you have been all that.”

“A mother, and mair,” said Mrs. Brown. “No mony mothers would have done
for them what I’ve done, watching every step they took, that ye might
find them good bairns, no spendthrifts, nor wasters of your substance,
but knowing the value of money, and using their discretion. I’ve given
him the siller for his clubs and things, for I’m told that’s the fashion
now-a-days, and he’s aye had a shilling in his pouch for an occasion. If
he had been my own I would never have held him with half as tight a
hand, for he would have been making his week’s wages if he had been a
son of mine, and wouldna have been depending upon either you or me.”

“That’s just the pity of it,” said Rowland. “He has fallen between two
stools, neither a working lad nor a gentleman’s son. That proves, Jane,
we have both been in the wrong, and I, more than you, for I should have
known better. We have made a terrible mistake.”

“I’ve made nae mistake,” said Mrs. Brown. The tears were near which
would soon choke her voice, and she spoke quickly to get out as much as
she could before the storm came. “You may be in the wrang, Maister
Rowland, but I’m no in the wrang. I’ve just acted on principle from
beginning to end, to save him from the temptation of riches. They’re a
great temptation. If he had been learned to dash his way about like
young MacColl, or the most of the lads that have had a father before
them, what would ye have said to me? You will see that laddie dashing
about a’ Glesco in his phaeton, or whatever ye ca’t; and his grandmother
was just a howdie in the High Street, nae mair. Would ye have likit
that, Jims Rowland? folk saying ‘set a beggar on horseback,’ and a’ the
rest, to a son of yours, and calling to mind the stock he came of, that
was just working folk, though aye respectable. I’m no the one to bring
up a lad to that. If ye had wanted him made a prodigal o’, ye should
have pit him in other hands. I’ve just keeped him in his right place.
And ye tell me it’s a mistake, and my fault and terrible wrong. Lord
forgive ye, Jims Rowland! How dare ye say it’s a mistake to me, that has
been a mother to them--and mair!”

Rowland, like other men, was made very uncomfortable by the sight of the
woman crying, but he held his ground. “I am very sorry to seem
ungrateful, Jane. I am not ungrateful. You’ve given them a happy
childhood, which is everything. But we must try a different system now.
I can’t have a young man stumbling and stammering before me, as if he
had something on his conscience. I am not going to watch every step he
takes. He must learn to take steps on his own account, and understand
that he’s a responsible creature. If you have taken his money from
him----”

Mrs. Brown jumped up as if she had received a blow. She rushed to the
door of the room, which she flung open, calling upon “Archie! Archie!”
in a voice broken by angry sobs. The lad came stumbling downstairs not
knowing what was wrong, and appeared with his still somewhat sullen
face, asking “What’s the matter?” in a tone which was half-alarmed and
half-defiant. She seized him by the arm and dragged him into the room,
then flying to a little desk, opened it, flinging back the lid, and
seizing the unfortunate bit of paper, flung it again in Archie’s face.
“Hae;” she said, “there it’s till ye. Me taken his money? Me that have
just done everything for them, and never thought of mysel’. Me! taken
his money!” Mrs. Brown’s voice rose to a shriek, and then she fell into
a chair and burst into a more renewed and violent passion of tears.

“What have ye been saying to her to make her like that?” said Archie,
turning to his father. “I was not wanting your money, and if she put it
away it was no harm. Her take your money! She cares nothing for money
but to get things for May and me. Aunty,” he said, going up to her,
putting his hand on her shoulder, “I’ll just put a notice in the
_Herald_ to-morrow. If he is my father, I’ll not be dependent upon him.
What right has he to fling his dirty money in a man’s face, and come
into this house like a wild beast and make you cry. He made his money
himself, and he can spend it himself. I’ll make what I want for mysel’.”

But oh the puppies, barking with their ridiculous noses in his hand,
sprawling over old Rankin’s bed! They suddenly came before Archie’s
mental vision, and made his voice waver. No such luxuries as Rankin’s
puppies could be in the lot of a poor young clerk in an office, making
perhaps a pound a week--and he the great railway man’s son that was
rolling in wealth!--a sense of the great injustice of it made Archie’s
voice harsh. Who should all that money be for but for him? And the rich
father, the hoped for incarnation of wealth, was there scolding about a
miserable note, accusing Aunty Jane of having taken the money! The lad
went and stood at the back of her chair, putting himself on her side,
defying the other who thought so much of his filthy siller! Let him keep
his siller! he had made it himself and he could spend it on himself.
Archie for his part would do the same. But as he uttered these noble
sentiments, an almost overwhelming sense of the wickedness of it, of the
cruelty of the unjust father, and of the unimaginable wrong to himself
flooded Archie’s mind. He could have cried too with anger and the
intolerable sense of wrong.

Rowland stood for a minute or two contemplating the scene, and then he
burst into a laugh. The climax was too ridiculous, he said to himself,
for any serious feeling. And yet it was not a pleasant climax to come
to, after so many years.




CHAPTER XVII.


The husband and wife met with perhaps a greater sense of satisfaction
and pleasure than either had anticipated feeling when they parted.
Marriage is a curious thing notwithstanding all the ill that is said of
it. They had not been long married; they had not been exactly what
people call in love with each other; nor was James Rowland at all a
sentimental person. Yet there is something in that old-fashioned
expression which speaks of making two persons one flesh, which has a
most powerful influence. They meet as people only can meet whose
interests are one, who are fain to confide everything that affects them
to the bosom of the other, who is theirself. The thing is indescribable;
it is simple as a b c to those who have experienced it. It would
probably be impossible without the other circumstances of the union, yet
it is superior to all the rest--the most essential, the most noble. Both
these persons had been disturbed and troubled by various matters
peculiar to themselves; Rowland by the problem of his children, Evelyn
by other problems not unlike, yet so different from his. When they met,
there seemed an instant lull in these disturbances. The two-fold being
was now complete, and was able to deal with all problems.

Rowland had travelled by night, as busy men so often get the habit of
doing, and Evelyn superintended the excellent breakfast he always made,
and looked on at the satisfaction of that admirable appetite with much
complacency, before she asked any questions. She was not a woman who was
fond of asking questions. She awaited confidences, and did not press
them; which is a very good way for those who can do it, but not perhaps
very easy to an anxious mind. The difference of her position from that
of a mother was, that she was interested without being anxious, and this
made her also more charitable in judging, and probably would make her
less hard upon the shortcomings of the children. She was very much
interested, but she was calm, and it was not to her a question of life
and death. It was not till he had eaten the very last spoonful of
marmalade and piece of roll, of which he was capable, that she said
“Well?” looking with a smile into his eyes.

“Well--,” he said with satisfaction, pushing back his seat from the
table, “you’re ready to hear all about my troubles, Evelyn?”

“I hope they are not very bad troubles.”

“That will be very much as you take them, my dear. They might be bad
enough, but I’ve great confidence in my wife. In the first place, the
house is, I think, perfection; but you may not agree with me--you know I
have not your refinement. It stands on a green knoll overlooking the
Clyde, with a background of the most beautiful hills in the world, and
for the foreground the grand Firth--and all the wealth and life that
pass over it---- But,” he said pausing, and with a half shamefaced
laugh, “I’ve told you all that before.”

“Yes, you have told me before; but that does not take away my interest.
Tell me more.”

He took her hand with a grateful pressure, and so began to tell her
about the arrangement of the house, and other matters on which she was
not informed before, to all of which she listened with much grace and
satisfaction, nodding her head as one thing was reported to her after
another. I do not say that Mrs. Rowland did not exercise a natural
privilege, and suspend her judgment on one or two points. It was only
natural that she should know better what the internal arrangements of a
great house should be than he did. But she received it all as if in
every way he had done well; which was the case so far as she yet knew.
“There is one thing, however, I must tell you of, Evelyn,” he said, “and
your feeling about that will of course make all the difference. You may
not feel inclined to put up with it. And in that case it matters very
little about anything else. It is you that must be the judge.”

“What is this great thing?” she said with a smile.

“It is a great thing, my dear. I dare say even I might not like it,
though, having your society, I’m very indifferent. It is that I’m afraid
there is very little society at Rosmore.”

She burst out into a pleasant laugh. “Society--is that all? Dear James,
I thought you were going to say there was no good water, or that the
drainage was bad, or something of that sort.”

“We’d soon have managed that,” he said, laughing too with relief, “sunk
a well or turned the whole place upside down; that would have presented
no difficulty. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to me that you take
it so easily, Evelyn. It was--it was--Marion who put it into my head.
She said, ‘There will be nobody that mamma will like to associate with
here.’ That was all her own doing--not suggested in any way by me: for I
did not know whether you would like it, if a little girl you never saw
before called you, right out--”

“Like it!” said Evelyn--Perhaps, to tell the truth, she had winced a
little. “Of course I should like it. It shows an inclination to adopt
me, which is the very best thing I could have hoped for. Tell me about
her, James. The house is very interesting, but the children are more
interesting than the house.”

“You take a load off my mind when you say so. I would give a thousand
pounds that the first was over--that you had met them and made
acquaintance with them. She’s eighteen, and he’s twenty. The boy is
rather a cub--and the girl--”

“My dear James! it’s very likely they are not made up exactly to your
taste: how could they be? They are very young, and it will be quite
exciting to put them a little into shape--into our shape. Society,
indeed!--Society, whatever it was, would not be nearly so interesting as
that. Tell me everything about them, James.”

Encouraged by this, Mr. Rowland began to tell her his experiences with
the children; but by some means it came about that, he could not tell
how, their faults got slurred over, and their good qualities magnified
in his hand. How did it happen? He could not tell. He had Marion’s
impertinent little _minois_ before him every word he said, yet he
managed to give an inoffensive saucy look to Marion--a saucy look which
fathers do not dislike, though mothers may object to it. And then the
boy--

“Archie disarms me,” he said, “because I can’t help seeing in him his
mother’s eyes. I’m afraid he’s a dour fellow and sullen, and you can’t
be expected to be mollified as I am. It takes away my anger when I look
at him. And yet I had cause to be angry.”

“Tell me,” she said.

And then Mr. Rowland told the story, beginning at the apparition of the
groom with his question about the dougs, and ending with Archie’s
defence of his aunt, who had taken his money from him, against the
father who had given it. As he told this, it seemed to himself less bad
as an indictment against Archie than he had supposed. What was it, after
all, that the boy had done? The enormity disappeared as it was put into
words. And Evelyn sat smiling, from time to time shaking her head.

“It appears to me,” she said, “that if Archie was wrong, as no doubt he
was, Archie’s father was also a little to blame.”

“Do you think so?” he said eagerly. He was glad to think that perhaps
this might be so.

“You would not like him to be disloyal, not for twenty bank-notes? He
might have swallowed the injury to himself of having that money flung in
his face--”

“Injury!”--Mr. Rowland’s countenance fell.

She put her hand upon his, smiling--“Yes, Sir Stern Father. That’s not
your rôle, James: you were born to be a most indulgent father, giving in
to them in everything. And you must henceforward take up your right
rôle, and let me be the repressive influence.”

He took her hands between both his. It was not a very strong support, so
far as physical force went, and yet for the first time James Rowland
felt their soft fingers close upon his in a way that expressed not their
usual soft gentleness, but strength. He felt himself suddenly holding on
to that hand as if it were his sheet anchor, which indeed it was.

“To tell the truth,” he said, “I think perhaps I looked at them through
what I supposed were your eyes, Evelyn, seeing how unlike they were to
you, how little worthy to live with you, to have the rank of your
children. It was that, at all events, made me hard upon poor little May.
It’s not her fault if she is more like Jane Brown than she is like a
lady, or anything that had even been near you.”

“Whom should she be like but the person who has brought her up? I am
delighted to hear that they are so loyal. I would not have that changed
for anything in the world.”

“I am not so sure about their loyalty,” said Rowland, recalling to mind
Marion’s strict impartiality in respect to her aunt and detachment from
her. But he felt sure that Evelyn would be able to explain that away
also; and put his foot upon it. No need to make the child out worse than
she was; and a rush of paternal kindness came over him now that the two
were out of his sight. It was not their fault. He said, “I don’t doubt
you’ll do wonders with Marion, my dear. The little thing is very quick.
Even in the day or two I was with them, a change came over her. She kept
her eye upon me, and without a word just adopted manners. No, I don’t
think I am partial. Indeed I found that I was quite the reverse.”

I am afraid that a cold shudder, unsuspected by her husband, passed over
Evelyn, in which, if there was horror, there was also a distinctly comic
element. What sort of a wonderful creature must the girl be who “adopted
manners” from good James, the most excellent man, but not a model of
refinement. She could not but laugh, yet shivered a little as well.

“I am more afraid of Marion than of Archie,” she said, “for he will
chiefly be your concern. I shall have only the consoling part, the
petting to do with him. I hope your little May is a magnanimous little
person, who will not mind being pulled to pieces for her good; for I
suppose I shall have to do that--if you are right.”

She added these last words with a little quick awakening to possible
danger. He had not been at all complimentary to his little girl. Yet was
it possible that there was a faint little cloud, a suspicion of a cloud
on his face, to be taken at his word, and to have even his wife express,
nay repeat what was his own opinion? She was very quick to see these
almost imperceptible changes of countenance, and with a little start and
catching of her breath, awoke to a sense of risk, which she had never
realised before.

“I have a story of my own to tell you,” she said hastily, “in which I
shall have to crave a great deal of forbearance on your part, James, and
pardon for what I have taken upon myself to do, or rather to consent to.
I thought of asking your permission first, but then I felt that anything
of this kind might seem a want of confidence in you.”

His face had changed in a moment to the widest of smiles, and brightest
of aspects. “Fancy!” he said, “anything for which you should have to ask
my permission, any wish of yours that it would not be my highest
pleasure to do.”

“Thank you,” she said, “dear. I felt sure you would back me up: and now
I have got this pretty speech to the boot, to make me happy. James, do
you remember a story I told you when you first spoke to me, when you
asked me first, in Helen Stanhope’s house?”

“About?”--He paused and added, “Yes: you have seen him again?”

“I have seen a man paralysed, in a Bath chair, moved, dressed, fed,
ordered about by a servant. The ghost, or far worse than the ghost, the
wreck of a man.”

“And that was he?” A certain gleam--was it of satisfaction?--was for a
moment in James Rowland’s eyes. But it was only for a moment, and the
next they were subdued by the most genuine sympathy. “My poor dear!” he
said.

“It was a great shock to see him, you may suppose: but that is a small
matter. He has two children, like ourselves.”

The light sprang up in his eyes, and he thanked her with a sudden kiss
upon her hand.

“A boy and a girl, about the same ages. The girl I have seen--a strange
specimen to me of a new generation I have no knowledge of; the boy, I
fear, a very careless boy. Of all things in the world it has occurred to
Mr. Saumarez, of all people in the world, to desire to confide these
children to me.”

“It shows that he has more sense than I could have thought.”

“Their mother, of course, is dead, and he thinks he will die soon. I
hear from others that how he lives at all is a wonder, though they think
him likely to go on living; but he wishes me to take the guardianship of
his children----”

“And you have accepted?”

“No, I have not accepted. That was too much to do, without your approval
at least: even with it I doubt if I could take such a responsibility. It
is not so bad as that. But I have pledged myself to ask them to Rosmore,
for a long visit, to make their acquaintance thoroughly. They are young
people who are, according to their slang, up to everything. I have been
in great doubt since, whether it would be a good thing for--our two.”

James Rowland’s eyes flashed again. After all there are some things
which the experiences of a lifetime cannot do away with. As a point of
fact, he knew well enough that the higher classes as he had seen them,
chiefly in India, were fundamentally not a bit superior to the lower
classes as he knew them by more intimate experience; and yet, risen
from the ranks as he was, it gave him the strangest sensation of
pleasure to hear that two young aristocrats, children of Society, “up to
everything,” were about to become his guests. Even the flavour of
something a little wrong which was conveyed in these words, rather
heightened than diminished the pleasure. A good thing for--our two.
Surely it would be a good thing: it would teach them manners far more
effectually than if they were to observe their father’s ways to the end
of the chapter. It would smarten up Archie, and let him see what a young
man should look like in his new sphere.

“My dear,” he said, “if that is all you are in doubt about, I think you
may set your mind at rest. Two young people who are up to everything,
will probably find it very dull at Rosmore; but so far as we are
concerned, and the two--it can be nothing but an advantage. Ask as many
people as you like: there is plenty of room in the house, and there will
be plenty of carriages and horses, and plenty of things to see, though
there is nothing to do, as Archie says.”

“That is a very advanced thing for Archie to say: it is the fashionable
complaint.”

“Is it?” said Rowland, brightening more and more. He began to think that
perhaps he had been too severe upon the young people, that his anxiety
had made him see blemishes which perhaps did not exist. It was quite
possible that well-made clothes, and a little money in his pocket, would
make entirely a different figure of Archie; and little May--well perhaps
little May wanted still less. She was as sharp as a needle. She would
pick up everything without letting it be seen that she did not know it
to begin with. The thought flashed through his mind that in a week she
would have made herself an exact copy of Evelyn, and what could a girl
do better than that? Marion was not like her own mother at all; she had
not those eyes which gave Archie, though he did not know it, so much
power. But she was very clever: she could make herself whatever she
wanted to be.

The Rowlands had a great deal before them in the few days which they
were to spend in London, before going, as Mr. Rowland proudly said,
home. There were a great many things still to buy, which could be got
only in town, though the Glasgow people had been indignantly sure that
nothing was to be had in London (to call London _town_, was an arrogance
which was not to be endured) which could not be much better procured in
Glasgow. Rowland, however, was precisely the man to be of a contrary
opinion, and he had a list as long as his arm of things that were still
wanted. Plate, for one inconsiderable item, and carriages on which
Evelyn’s judgment was necessary, and for which orders had to be given at
once. He approved of her purchases, but thought them far too few and
unimportant. “I believe you are afraid of spending money,” he said, with
a long rich laugh. This rich laugh of contempt at all small economies
and insignificant expenditure is offensive in many people, but it was
not offensive in James Rowland--perhaps, indeed, to the wives of the
millionaires, who are thus allowed _carte blanche_, and egged on in the
way of pleasant extravagance, it is never offensive. Evelyn entered
into the joke of being niggardly, of spending too little. “As if there
was not enough to come and go upon,” he said, with perfect satisfaction.
When any one was by, especially any one who was not rich, who could not
afford these liberalities, she might blush a little and restrain with a
look, or a touch upon his arm, the large utterances of her good man; but
when they were alone, she did not find it offensive. She went with him
from one shop to another, quite pleased with herself and him. He was
really a satisfactory person to go shopping with. He found nothing too
costly so long as it was good, and threw over cheap things with a fine
contempt that was refreshing to behold, especially to one who for a long
time had been obliged to take cheapness much into consideration. One day
he took her into Christie’s, and bade her look if there was anything
good enough for her boudoir at home, and stood by smiling with pride in
his wife’s taste and superior knowledge, while she was inspecting those
treasures which he declared he did not understand. But he did understand
bric-a-brac, it turned out, much better than Evelyn did, though perhaps
his taste in pictures was not so pure.

Thus the days passed by; and though those pleasures depended very much
on the depth of Mr. Rowland’s purse, they could scarcely be called
vulgar pleasures, although Evelyn sometimes at the end of the day
blushed to think how she had enjoyed herself. Was it the fact of
spending money, an operation which in itself seemed to give pleasure to
her husband, or was it the acquisition of so many valuable and beautiful
things which was delightful? It was complicated, as everything human
is, with the contrast of previous life, with the pleasure of pleasing
him by being pleased herself, even perhaps a little by the obsequious
respect by which their progress was attended. This was a poor view, and
we are poor creatures, the best of us--for there was something even in
that. As for the purchases themselves, Evelyn knew that a cracked pot, a
scrap of an old picture, a bit of clumsy carving, was capable of giving
quite as much pleasure as all the treasures of art which accumulated in
their rooms at the hotel. Happily there is compensation in all things,
and the highest of all delights, in bric-a-brac at least, is not to him
who buys whatever strikes his fancy, regardless of expenses, but to him
who “picks up” an unexpected gem, for a few pence or shillings, in some
ignoble corner where no such treasure could be suspected to be.

And they dined out in the evenings, at the Leightons, of course, and at
other places where the great railway man found himself a sort of lion,
to his great astonishment, where he expected modestly to be received,
chiefly on his wife’s account, in spheres which were not his. In this
point of view Mr. Rowland was delighted, and Evelyn was as proud of her
husband as he could be of her, which was saying a great deal. Like many
other people in this world, Rowland was not in the least vain of the
real work he had done. He was aware that he had been very lucky in many
things, in the means he had employed, in the curious natural facilities
which always came in his way; but his own skill and patience and thought
did not seem to come into his mind as deserving of special distinction.
“Oh, of course, since it was my business, I tried to do it the best I
could,” he said, as if that were the most natural thing in the world. It
was his assistants who were the wonderful fellows; he was so fortunate
in always getting hold of the best men; no man but had been true to him,
as Brutus says. Evelyn sat by and listened with such light in her eyes
that her friend, Lady Leighton, looked at her in wonder. “Why, you are
in love with him!” said that woman of the world.

There was one meeting, however, in which Evelyn’s feelings were
exercised in a more complicated and difficult way. She had kept safe
from all encounter with Saumarez, whose invalid chair she had seen
repeatedly in the distance with a sense of an escape, until the very
last day, which Rowland had insisted upon devoting to amusement alone.
“Why shouldn’t we begin with this ‘Row’ which I hear everybody speaking
of?”

“Oh, it is too early for the Row.”

“Never mind; it seems to be pretty, and to have pretty people about it.
I want to sit down on a chair and look at them.”

“As if you were a man to sit long quiet on a chair!”

“Come along, Evelyn. I believe you’re jealous of the pretty girls,” he
said with his big laugh. How well she had known how it would be!
Saumarez had no objection at any time to be seen of the crowd. He had
grown to feel his helplessness a distinction as he would have felt
anything else that belonged to him. But his time for his promenade was
before the fashionable hour, and the Rowlands had not gone half the way
along before the well-known chair became visible slowly approaching.
Evelyn gripped her husband’s arm.

“James, I see an invalid chair there in front of us, with three ladies
standing round it. I rather think it must be Mr. Saumarez. He is sure to
see us; he will ask to be introduced to you.”

“Well, my dear: if you would rather not let’s turn back; otherwise, it
makes no difference to me. Yes, I might almost say I have a kind of
curiosity--but not if it trouble you.”

“How should it trouble me?” said Evelyn. But yet it did, though there
was no reason for it. What was her reason? A half vexation that her
husband should see him so humiliated, so helpless and pitiful a
spectacle; a half terror to see her husband reflected through his eyes.
But there was no help for it now.

“Make me acquainted with Mr. Rowland, my dear lady,” Saumarez said. “I
have wanted to make his acquaintance ever since I heard--how lucky a man
he was.”

“You may say that,” said Rowland heartily, “the luckiest man, I think,
in the whole world.”

“You say so,” said the invalid, “to the man who can perhaps best
understand you in the whole world, being the unluckiest man in it, I
should think; a failure in everything beside you, who are a success in
everything. You must let me congratulate you, as one of your wife’s
earliest friends. I am just sufficiently older than she is to have held
her in my arms as an infant.”

“For heaven’s sake, none of that!” Evelyn exclaimed under her breath,
with a flash of overpowering offence. He eyed her with a smile in those
two brilliant eyes.

“To have petted her as a little girl, to have--admired her as a woman:
nobody can know so well as I what a prize you have got, Mr. Rowland.”

James was a little surprised, and slightly, faintly disturbed. “I hope I
know that,” he said, “and my great good fortune.”

“And I hope,” said Evelyn, “that I am not considered likely to enjoy all
this, listening to those mutual compliments. I, for my part, am fully
alive to my own good fortune. James, I think we must go on. We have to
be at Madeline’s.”

“Madeline,” said Saumarez with a laugh, “is always Mrs. Rowland’s
excuse. She is constantly going to Madeline’s if one tries to detain her
for a moment. But you must wait till I tell you how kind she has been to
my children. It cannot but do a young girl good to be in Mrs. Rowland’s
society; and I am doubly grateful for my motherless Rose. I hear you’ve
got Lord Clydesdale’s place at Rosmore.”

Mr. Rowland did not like to hear it called Lord Clydesdale’s place.
“Until the moment when we can get him to sell it to us,” he said.

“Ah, will he sell? That’s a different matter. A rich tenant paying a
good rent, that’s one thing--but Clydesdale won’t sell. I hope you are
not calculating upon that.”

“We shall see,” said Rowland, not well pleased.

“Yes, we shall see. And must you really go--to Madeline? Lay me at her
ladyship’s feet. I will go and give her ladyship my opinion of--things
in general, one day very soon.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Rowland to his wife, “I don’t think much of
that--old friend of yours. Cripple or no cripple, he’s got a devil in
his eye.”

“You cannot think less of him than I do, James,” said Evelyn, holding
fast by her husband’s arm. She knew very well what he had meant when he
had said he would give Madeline his opinion on--things in general; and
she knew what barbed arrow he had intended to place in her heart when he
spoke of holding her in his arms as an infant. To think that she should
have been in that man’s arms a happy girl, considering herself happy in
his love! She shuddered as the thought passed through her mind.

“Are you cold, Evelyn?” Rowland said with surprise.

“Only with the moral cold that is in that man’s horrible atmosphere,”
she said.




CHAPTER XVIII.


“Yes, he is rather a dreadful spectacle,” said Lady Leighton. “Now, one
wonders he likes to exhibit himself about the world, where he once was
so well known in another way. There’s nothing so strange as human
vanity, Mr. Rowland. I think he rather likes to show as a sort of prize
example of suffering and misery. It’s a distinction in its way. He had
the distinction of being one of the handsomest men of his day, and of
behaving more badly than almost anybody else, and now he’s the most
deplorable sufferer--always the first, you know, whatever he’s at.”

“You are a little hard upon him, Lady Leighton.”

“Not a bit too hard. I know the man so well. We’ve always been very good
friends----”

“What! Though he behaved more badly than almost anybody else?” Rowland
said, with a laugh. Evelyn, who, knowing what her friend meant, and
still smarting as she was from the previous encounter, felt it almost as
an added injury, looked on with the gravest face, feeling herself unable
to speak.

“Well!--you don’t know society as I do. You’ve spent your life in
primitive countries, where men fly at each other’s throats when they
disapprove of each other. We don’t do that here. We carry on our
relations all the same. Sometimes, however, we speak very plainly, I am
glad to say. Ned Saumarez knows exactly what I think of him, but he
comes to see me as if we were the dearest of friends.”

“I don’t understand society,” said Rowland, “and I don’t think I should
ever know that part of it. How is anybody to know which you prefer, the
good or the bad, if you treat them just the same?”

“Oh, everybody knows what I think of him, including himself,” said
Madeline, lightly; “that’s one of our refinements. And so you are going
to have Rose and Eddy to visit you in the country. You are a couple of
bold people--with a boy and a girl of your own. Of course there will be
fallings in love.”

Rowland laughed again, opening his mouth in simple enjoyment of the
joke, as he took it. “I think I can answer for my two,” he said.

“Oh, you can’t answer for anybody!” said Lady Leighton, somewhat
sharply, “Rose is a girl of the period, and scorns that kind of
thing--so does my Mabel, save the mark! They are both going to do all
sorts of things as soon as they are out--walk the hospitals! I don’t
know what absurd projects they have. But Eddy, I warn you, is a _mauvais
sujet_, Evelyn. He is like his father. He makes love to everybody. I
don’t know what age Miss Rowland is----”

“Eighteen,” said her father.

Lady Leighton threw up her hands. “His natural prey! And she has been
brought up in the country, I suppose, and believes anything that is said
to her----”

“She has been brought up,” said Rowland, a little displeased with the
turn the conversation was taking, “in Glasgow, which is a very different
thing from the country, and perhaps not so much given to the innocence
of faith.”

“Oh!” said Lady Leighton, making a dead pause. She had not the least
idea how a girl could be brought up in Glasgow, any more than if it had
been Timbuctoo. The country she comprehended: town she comprehended--but
Glasgow! A “smart” lady’s information stops long before it comes to such
a point as that.

“Perhaps,” said Evelyn, troubled by all this, “I have been imprudent. It
is awkward, anyhow, to have these young people coming to us so soon,
when we are scarcely settled; but it is hard to say no, when one is
appealed to, for the good of others.”

“I hope,” said Rowland, “it is an appeal you never will refuse. It
shocks me rather to hear you now discussing your future guests. Don’t
they become sacred as soon as you invite them, like the strangers in a
Bedouin’s tent? That’s our old Scotch way.”

“Mr. Rowland, you are a darling,” said Lady Leighton, “quite too great a
darling, Evelyn, for this wicked world. I am so glad you have invited
me! But is it not the Scotch way to tear one into little pieces after
one is gone? The balance must be kept straight somehow.”

“It is not the way in my house,” he said, with a certain severity, not
liking that little scoff at the Scotch way, though he had brought it on
himself. Rowland had no objection to have his fling at his fellow-Scot
when occasion served. He had vituperated the Glasgow tradesman largely
for being slow, for being behind the time. He had thought everything
“provincial”--the hardest word to be applied to such a huge and
important place; but he felt offended when any one else followed his
example. Evelyn had begun to know the look in his face.

That afternoon when they had completed all their last _emplettes_,
chosen everything, ordered everything they wanted, and were seated
together over the little tea-table which has once more become, though
under changed circumstances from those of the eighteenth century, one of
the confidential centres of life in England, a visitor appeared who
disturbed their talk, and gave to the astonished Rowland another new
sensation. He was tired with much movement, declaring that London
fatigued him more than the hottest of the plains, and that the shops
made a greater call on his energies than any railway or canal he had
ever had to do with; and the rest and comparative coolness of the room
was pleasant to them both, the beginning of the day having been unlucky,
and a disagreeable turn given, as sometimes happens, to all its
occurrences. There is something in luck after all, and perhaps the
primitive people who turn back from the day’s adventure at sea and
labour on land, because they have met an ill-omened passenger--an evil
eye--have more reason in their superstition than is generally supposed.
That morning’s encounter with the invalid in his chair had been bad for
the Rowlands. They had found nothing they wanted. The persons they
desired to see had been out of the way. The commissions they had given
were not executed to their mind. Everybody knows that sometimes, without
any apparent cause, this will be the case to the trial of one’s temper
and the confusion of all one’s arrangements. Some one else had snapped
up the picture which they had selected at the picture-dealer’s. There
had been nothing successful that they had done that day. Rowland, of
course, was too enlightened and modern to think of anything like an evil
eye. But Evelyn was old-fashioned, and not without a touch of natural
and womanish superstition. She set it down to the score of Saumarez and
that meeting which she had wished so much to avoid; and the thought
oppressed her more than the contrarieties of the day. “It was all our
unlucky meeting with that man,” she even went so far as to say, when she
came in, jaded and disappointed, feeling the unsuccessful day all the
more that everything hitherto had been so very much the reverse. “Do you
think he threw a spell upon us?” Rowland said with a laugh. “He doesn’t
look at all unlike an old magician, to say the truth.” Evelyn’s little
outburst of temper somehow soothed her husband. And though he grumbled a
little at the heat, which was worse than Indian, and declared that the
English were asses never to have introduced the punkah, yet he soon
recovered his elasticity of mind. And when the door opened and Miss
Saumarez was announced, he was lounging in the easiest way upon a sofa,
and discoursing to his wife, as he loved to discourse, upon the
beautiful country to which he was about to take her, and the views from
the colonnade which encircled Rosmore.

“Miss Saumarez.” There walked in a tall girl in the simplest of dresses,
but without a soil or sign of dust, or crease, or crumple of any
description, perfectly self-possessed, yet perfectly unpretending, with
that air of being and knowing that she was the best of her kind, which
is born with some people, and to others is utterly beyond the
possibility of being acquired. Rosamond would not have been fluttered,
she would have known perfectly what to do and how to behave herself, had
she walked into the presence of the Queen instead of into that of James
Rowland, who, very much flustered, and conscious that he had loosed his
necktie a little, and that his collar was not so stiff as it ought to
be, got up in much surprise and discomfiture. Evelyn rose slowly from
her low chair, with a feeling more wretched still. A sort of sick
loathing of the very name, and of the connection she had so foolishly
allowed herself to be drawn into, overwhelmed her; and it was all she
could do to keep this sensation out of her face as Rosamond came forward
and offered a peachy cheek to her kiss. The young lady took in the
aspect of things in a moment.

“I am afraid I have disturbed you,” she said, “just when you are tired
and resting. I asked the man if it was a good time, but he did not know.
They never know anything, those servants in a hotel. But I will go away
directly, as soon as I have asked one little question. Thank you very
much, but I don’t think I had better sit down.”

She had a high-bred voice, soft but perfectly clear, with the finest low
intonation. She spoke very quietly, but Rosamond always had the gift of
being heard.

“Yes, yes, you must sit down,” said Rowland, awakening to a more
agreeable sentiment as he handed her a chair.

“We have just come in,” said Evelyn. “You must forgive me: we have had a
very tiring day.”

“It is so hot and dusty, I do not wonder. One feels as if one were
breathing dust and noise and people, anything but air. But you have it
hotter in India,” she said, turning her face towards Rowland, with a
little gracious acknowledgment of his presence, and of what and who he
was.

“It is hotter, but there are more appliances. I was saying to my wife we
should have had a punkah.”

“Something that the poor natives pull and pull to give you air? I have
heard of that--but who punkahs them?” said Rosamond, with a sweet
severity, as if calling upon him to give an account of tyranny and
selfish misgovernment, presumably, yet perhaps not inexcusably his
fault.

“I am afraid we don’t think much on that subject,” said Rowland; “they
are natives, you know, and like it, not the punkah, but the heat.”

“Ah! there is, of course, always something to be said on both sides of a
question. Dear Mrs. Rowland, I came to you from my father, who gets a
great fidget with his illness. Since he cannot move himself, he likes to
keep some one always in motion. It was to ask when we were to go to you,
Eddy and I. I thought it would be better to wait until you let us know,
but father thinks those who are to be obliged should take all the
trouble, which of course is just, too. So will you please think it was
not wanton intrusion, but to save you the trouble of writing a note.”

“I’ll answer for my wife, that she could not be otherwise than glad to
see you,” said Rowland, astonished to see that Evelyn hesitated.

Miss Rosamond gave him a pretty bow and smile, but it was evident that
she considered his judgment an exceedingly small matter, and did not at
all accept his answering for his wife, as he ignorantly thought himself
quite qualified to do.

“Indeed, you must not think I take your coming as intrusion. And, of
course, you must arrange your visits beforehand.”

“It is scarcely that,” said Rosamond. “We have not many visits to
arrange: people don’t ask a girl who is not out, except it is for
charity, like you. And Eddy is rather a pickle: I have not concealed
that from you. Nor is it to tell us the very day, as if I were putting a
pistol to your head. Indeed, I only came because I was sent. Father is
often exceedingly tiresome, but it is easier to do what he tells one
than to argue with him that it is not what one ought to do.”

“We have scarcely had time yet to consider what we shall be doing. Our
house, you know, is scarcely in order yet. I hardly know what
accommodation there is, or how we shall arrange matters. I know nothing
yet but what I have been told. But as soon as we are quite settled,”
said Evelyn, “you may be sure that I will let you know.”

“To be sure,” said Rosamond; “I knew my instinct was right. Now, that is
just what I wanted. I shall be able to satisfy father.”

“But, my dear,” cried Rowland in horror, “of course you will be
delighted to see this young lady whenever she pleases. There is plenty
of accommodation, and we could be doing nothing in which we should not
be glad to have the pleasure of her company.”

“Let me settle, please, James,” said Evelyn, a little crossly. “These
things want arranging, as Rosamond quite knows.”

Consternation filled the mind of the man who did not know the ways of
society. To allow an intending guest to feel as if by any possibility
she might not be welcome at any time, overwhelmed him with dismay. He
got up and walked to the window to free himself at least from
responsibility--to be no party to such an astounding act of
inhospitableness. Certainly that was not “our Scotch way.” He stood
there a little, with his back to them, listening to the soft voices
running on. He was very susceptible to the music of these mellow,
well-bred voices. And the girl’s had no sound of offence in it, neither
had Evelyn’s any hardness. He stood looking at the street, while they
had it out between them, calculating the times and seasons. Not for
about a month did the Saumarez family leave London. Miss Rosamond had to
go to her grandmother’s, and it was the time of Eddy’s examination; so
that arrangement was necessary on both sides. He stood there feeling
more and more every moment what an ignoramus he was. He would have
bidden the young people to come at once, to accompany him through all
the difficulties of settling down, had he had his way; and to accept
such an invitation would have disturbed all their plans as well as
Evelyn’s. Well, well! in this respect it was evident that the calm
society way was the best. And yet, middle-aged as he was, and acquainted
with the world as he believed himself to be, he felt that he would not
have liked to have a proposed visit from himself discussed and regulated
like this.

“I hope you have settled,” he said, coming back from the window, when
the soft ripple of the voices came to a little pause.

“Oh, yes, the 5th of October; thank you very much,” said Rosamond.
“That will suit us quite, extremely well. Father will still be at Aix,
and Eddy’s exam. will be over, and I shall have finished with
grandmamma. Thank you so very much, dear Mrs. Rowland. Now I see father
was right in making me come--though I did disturb you at the first.”

“Only because I was a little cross, my dear, and tried--”

“I don’t believe she is ever cross--is she?” said Rosamond, appealing to
Rowland. “We shall see how you put up with Eddy. Eddy is enough to make
any one cross. Of course he will break down in his exam.: he always has
done it, and he always will. There are some boys who seem to go on like
that on purpose that everybody may see they will not take the trouble.
There seems some pride among boys as to not taking trouble. They are
ashamed to say they have worked for anything. And father seems to
understand it, but I do not.”

“Neither do I, Miss Rosamond,” said Rowland; “you and I will agree. I
think a young fellow should be flogged that goes on like that.”

“I should not like Eddy to be flogged,” said Rosamond, in her cool,
even, sweet voice. “Of course he was flogged at Eton--swished, as they
call it--and he did not mind one bit. They rather like it. They are
proud of what is a shame, and ashamed of things they ought to be proud
of. That’s one of the things Eddy says ‘that no girl can understand.’”

Rowland approached the table where the tea still stood, and where the
young lady was eating bread and butter in her composed and reasonable
way. “Do you go to a great many balls?” he said, in the tone which he
might have applied to a child.

Rosamond regarded him from top to toe with her calm luminous eyes. She
paused a moment as if wondering at such extreme fatuity. Then she said,
“I am not out yet,” with great seriousness. A few minutes later she
unbent. “I do not wonder you are surprised. I am eighteen, but father’s
condition stops him from doing many things--that he does not care to do.
Grandmother is too old to go to Court, and nobody has cared very much to
take me. I shall perhaps be presented next year.”

“By-the-bye,” said Rowland, looking with eagerness at his wife.

“What is it, James?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said, going off again to the window. Both of the
ladies divined at once what he wanted to say; Evelyn with a faint
regretful sense of the excitement which he betrayed; Rosamond with a
much more prosaic feeling that here was something which they wanted to
consult each other about. She would have liked to stay to hear what it
was, but a better instinct persuaded her that it was time to go away.

“You have some one with you?” said Evelyn, as she rose to go.

“I have Champion: he always takes care of me. I do not often bring him
out at this hour; but he is quite sufficient for a protector. Ah, might
I bring Champion? He does nothing wrong, never misbehaves, nor attempts
to lie on sofas. He is a gentleman. _Might_ I bring him? It would be
such a favour, for the house will be shut up, and grandmamma cannot bear
dogs.”

“Is it a dog?--to be sure!” said Rowland, “I suppose that’s in my
department, Evelyn. My son Archie and you will get on very well, if you
are fond of dogs.”

“Oh!” said Rosamond. There was something in that monosyllable which
implied a good deal more. “Oh,” it seemed to say, “you have a son
Archie, and he is fond of dogs? I don’t make much account of your son
Archie--still--” There was all this in the varying of her tone; but she
did not ask any questions. She presented her peachlike cheek once more
to Evelyn to be kissed, and she offered her hand with a little
inclination of a curtsey to Rowland. He went downstairs with her, though
she remonstrated, and watched her untie her dog from the railings with a
sense of wondering, wistful admiration. “Oh,” he breathed in his heart,
“if Marion was but like that!” He burst into words when he got upstairs.
“Oh, if I could but see Marion like that!” This exclamation was quite
unintentional and involuntary: he was startled into it, and almost
regretted he had said it the moment the words were out.

“Why!” said Evelyn, wondering. Then she added, “I hope Marion will end
by being something much better than that.”

“Better!” he paused a little. “I wish I saw her at all like that. The
voice, and the manner, and the dress. That girl talks almost like you:
how composed she is--taking everything just as it ought to be taken:
understanding--You have something about you, people in your class--you
are more philosophical--you seem to know what things mean, even a child
like that: while Marion--poor little Marion--she is ready to cry or fly
into a passion about anything--nothing--and to say little impertinent
senseless things--Even the very dress--”

“Dear James, I say what I mean. Probably dear little Marion is far
better in her naturalness than this. I mean nothing against Rosamond.
She is made up of so many things. She is natural too, but it is a nature
which is full of art. You would not like Marion to understand as she
does, poor child. As for the dress--”

He had received this with much shaking of his head. Marion’s
naturalness! If only Evelyn might find it so. He thought Rosamond much
more natural for his part, and he was very grateful to his wife for the
“dear little Marion,” which indeed was more the fruit of opposition in
Evelyn than of an affection which she could scarcely have been expected
to feel for a girl whom she had never seen. He caught at the last words
as something to which he could reply--“The dress?”

“I have been thinking about that. It is a great pity you did not bring
them both up with you to town, James, for that purpose. It was almost
certain there would be deficiencies in dress.”

He smote upon his thigh in disgust with himself. “If I had only thought
of that! Indeed I did think of it; but I thought--in short I got out of
heart a little with the whole concern. I thought--I would keep you from
disappointment as long as I could; keep you from seeing what they are;
what little, common, foolish--Evelyn, I have had a terrible
disappointment, a hideous sort of undeception. It is all my own
fault--that I should have been such a heartless fool as to leave them
there all these years!”

Evelyn got up to support him in this sudden break-down. She put her arm
round the big shoulders, which it would not half encircle. “James, dear
James! what nonsense you are talking. Your children and your Mary’s--no,
no, my good man! you are excited; you are over-anxious; you have judged
the poor dear children too hardly. Shall we stay another week and have
them down here, and set the clothes to rights? Fancy you, of all people
in the world, being so much influenced by a question of clothes!”

“If it were only that!” he said, holding her close to him, almost
weeping on her shoulder. It was safer not to investigate what it was
that made the strong man’s eyes so wet and sore. Evelyn did not attempt
any such prying, but let him hide himself--he so much stronger than she
was--in her soft hold, and swallow the sob that was in his capacious
heart. No one ever guessed but in that moment, what it was to James
Rowland to have lost his ideal children, the little things with all
their sweetness whom he remembered, and to have found the common-place
young man and woman whom he now knew. Evelyn’s tender sympathy,
compassion, and presently the tremulous laugh with which she began to
jest and tease him about his devotion to externals, his fancy for fine
clothes, brought him at last to himself. He was a little ashamed to feel
his eyes red, to know that he must look almost like a woman who had been
crying when he raised his head to the light. But all that Evelyn did to
betray her knowledge was a little kiss upon his eyes, which she gave him
heartily, as if in spite of herself. And then they sat down to consider
the question, which was decided at last in favour of “going home,” as
Evelyn called it, there to take such steps for a complete renewal of
Marion’s wardrobe as her taste and knowledge would suggest. It was easy
to talk of the clothes, to which she had playfully directed the
conversation--too serious and too emotional to be otherwise discussed:
but both of them were very well aware that a great deal more was meant.

It was some time after that, when the gravity of the situation had been
dissipated, and lighter thoughts and talk came in, that he asked her
with a little shamefacedness, whether she had gone through that
ceremonial to which Rosamond Saumarez had referred. “I suppose you have
been--presented, as they call it,” he said with a laugh.

“Oh, yes--at the proper time, when I was a girl. I was only at one
drawing-room after that. We were too poor to afford the dress.”

“You are not too poor now to afford--whatever you please in that
way--Evelyn:” he laughed, abashed and shy, but eager, “should you think
it right to--go again.”

“Oh, yes,” she said by no means so earnestly. “I hope you would not
dislike it, James.”

“Dislike it!--to show one’s reverence and homage to the Queen? Good
heavens, no! if a man felt good enough--It seems as if it should be a
kind of duty, Evelyn.”

“Yes,” she said, not so fervent even now; “but not this year. I can take
Marion next spring.”

He laughed so that he almost cried. “And I suppose I shall have to get
myself up in some ridiculous costume or other to go with you--me and
little Mey--a pair of guys--before the Queen!”




CHAPTER XIX.


This sudden glimpse into her husband’s deeper nature which it was so
easy to lose sight of in his genial and easy exterior, touched Evelyn
more than words could say. She entered into his profound discontent with
the tenderest sympathy, a little appalled by it indeed, and by the
prospect of struggling in her own person with the two grown-up children,
who were so much more difficult a problem at the age they had now
reached than had they been younger. She contemplated the prospect with
no little dismay. The words of his faltering disclosure, “little,
common, foolish,” were of all others the words most difficult to
reconcile with any higher or generous quality. The only thing that
seemed to have broken the shock to James was that the boy had his
mother’s eyes. But what, Evelyn said to herself with a little shudder,
would the mother herself have appeared to Rowland now, if she had been
living all these years stagnant in their old world, growing fat and
prosaic, while he had gained so many new experiences? And how much might
his disappointment have to do with herself, and that faculty of seeing
things through other eyes which comes with sympathy and close
intercourse. He might not have required so much from his little Marion,
poor child, if it had not been for Evelyn. So much the greater, then,
was her responsibility who had accustomed him to a different standard,
and so unintentionally brought to him an acute pang. Evelyn said to
herself that, however _desillusioné_ her husband might be, she must try
to keep a motherly glamour in her own eyes. She must endeavour to suffer
long and be kind, to think no evil--neither to be disgusted nor
discouraged. It was perhaps partly her fault. She must take it upon her
own shoulders and refuse to see anything that was undesirable to be
seen. But it was very difficult for her to form any just idea of what
was the special trouble which she had to expect--even of how the
littleness and commonness would show themselves. She thought of a wild
girl speaking broad Scotch, a young man with sinewy limbs, and perhaps
(forgive her ignorance) a kilt, speaking the language which in books is
put into the lips of the Celt. They were not Celts, she knew, and
Glasgow was not a place for gillies and wild Highlanders. But of the
gillies and wild Highlanders she did know a little, though of Glasgow,
nothing, no more than if it had been in the South Seas. She tried to
compose the imagination which painted a highly coloured tableau, full
of red hair and freckles, and a wonderful primitive speech. Always, she
felt she must recollect, James might have judged them less severely but
for herself, though she in her own person would be the last to throw any
cold shade upon them. It is needless to say that this new light shed an
illumination that was much less tempting upon the house of which he was
so proud, and which her discriminating judgment soon made out, according
to the graphic description of Marion, to be chiefly “a view.” She had
learned to recognise the imposing object it must be from the Clyde
steamer after the description which her husband had given her so often,
and from the same source she recognised the corresponding view from the
colonnade upon the Clyde and the passing boats. These were the chief
things he had told her--and no society, and that unkempt, uncultured
two. In her innermost retirement Evelyn shuddered a little at what was
before her.

It was not a very pleasant prospect, especially with Rosamond’s clear
eyes observing everything in the interior, and carrying back her report
to the world. However, all this had to be faced courageously. She had
undertaken the burden, and she must fit it to her back. No one could
help her with it, nor was it fit that she should desire to elude it. It
was henceforward her work in the world, and to comfort her husband in
his discontentment; to charm it away; to persuade him that things were
better than he thought; and, lastly and chiefly, to make them so, was
her occupation, the trust she had received. She did not confess either
to him or any one the alarm it gave her. She laughed him quietly out of
his depression. “You will see things will arrange themselves,” she said.
But it must be confessed that when Evelyn set out, surrounded by every
luxury, with a railway director to hand her into a special carriage, and
all the officials, great and small, bowing down before the great Indian
railway man, she was disposed to think all this honour and glory
something like a farce, considering what she was going to. Had she
travelled in the simplest way, nobody taking any notice, with the
humblest quiet house awaiting her, without these “complications,” how
much more light-hearted would she have been! But fortunately James liked
the attention of the railway people: a King’s Cross director was an
important functionary in his eyes. The inspectors and porters to him
were like the regiment to a military man. It was agreeable to have the
recognition that he was somebody, that his life had not been spent in
vain.

Meanwhile, the news of the approaching arrival had a very great effect
in Sauchiehall Road, whither Mr. Rowland had written directing that
Marion and Archie should proceed to Rosmore on Tuesday, to be there when
he arrived with his wife. “You can go down in the morning,” he wrote,
“and tell the housekeeper we shall be at home for dinner. Nothing more
than this will be needed, she will know what to do. You can occupy the
rooms you preferred when you were at Rosmore with me, but with this
reservation, that Mrs. Rowland may make other arrangements when she
comes.” This perhaps was not a very judicious way of presenting his
wife to his children, but few men are judicious in this particular. He
intended that they should understand at once that Evelyn was sovereign
mistress of the house.

“Mrs. Rowland,” said Aunty Jane, “and the housekeeper!” her voice sank
below her breath in apparent awe, but this was only the cloak of other
emotions. “Oh, the ingratitude,” she cried, “of men--though many and
many a time has he thankit me for being so good to you bairns, that have
been like my ain. And now he has gotten a housekeeper, and never even
offered me the place: there is nae gratitude in men.”

“You the place--of the housekeeper? She’s just a servant,” said Marion.

“And what am I but just a servant? I’ve been ane, ye needna deny’t, to
you: it’s been aye your pleasure that has been followed, no mine: and I
was a servant lass before I was married, and thought no shame. No: I
have nane of your silly pride about words. A housekeeper with a good
wage and a good house behind her, and the command of all the orders, is
a very responsible person. He might at least have given me the offer,
and I would have thought it no discredit. It would have been a grand
provision for me at my age.”

“I would never have consented,” said Archie, for once taking the first
word. “A servant in my father’s house!”

“Nor me,” said Marion, “it’s just out of the question. I would never
have spoken to him if he had dared to offer that to you.”

“I would have thought it nae discredit,” said Mrs. Brown. “And ye’ll
maybe, with all your pride, tell me what’s to become of me now? It’s
little, very little, I have laid away. My heart was aye set on to do ye
full justice. A’ my young days ye have had the best of them. I’ve seen
many a good place go past me, and even a good man, but I would never gie
up my trust; and now ye are going away without a tear in your e’e, or a
word in your mouth for your auld aunty--that was just too faithful to
you. And I’ll have to take a place somegate for my living. He might have
given me the offer at the least.”

“If you think my father will leave you without a provision,” said
Archie----

“A provision!” said Marion, more doubtfully, “that’s a great thing--but
a little assistance you may be quite sure--and we’ll always come and see
you, and bring you anything we can. Aunty, ye need not be taking up time
with little things of yours when there’s us to settle about. We must go,
as papa says we are to go. Is there anything I will be wanting to wear?”

“We might all die and be buried, and Mey’s first thought would be what
she would have to wear!”

“That’s reasonable enough,” said the aunt; “she would want mourning if
ony one of the family--but we needna think of that till the time comes.
There wouldna be much wanted for me,” she went on, beguiled, however, by
the doleful, delightful subject, though it was contrary to her own
injunction; “there’s little crape ever wasted on a poor aunty in these
days. ‘Oh, it’s no a very near relation--just our aunt,’ they will say,
and oot in a’ the colours of the rainbow in six months or less.”

“Aunty Jane,” said Marion, in her calm little voice; “it’s no a funeral
we’re thinking of, but to go down to Rosmore on Tuesday to meet
papa--and mamma.”

“I wouldna stoop to call her mamma. I would call her just Mrs. Rowland,
as he says.”

“I have settled in my mind about that,” said the girl, “but not about my
frock. Will I wear that one he bought me at MacColl’s shop? The body’s
not made, but Miss Peebles would do it if she got her orders to-night;
or I might wear my silk? If you would tell me what you think about that,
and just let the other things alone.”

“Ye have nae mair feeling,” protested Mrs. Brown, “than a little cat--as
ye are.”

“But a cat has no need to take thought about its dress,” said Marion,
philosophically, “and see, I’m wanting to make a good impression. My
silk would maybe look too grown up, and trying to be grand; and it’s a
very rustling silk, like your red one, aunty. But I notice that very
soft silks are the fashion, and white is becoming to me. If the body was
made like that one of Janet MacColl’s----”

“With plenty of nice red ribbons----”

“No red ribbons at all,” cried Marion, “but just muslin work, and all
white. In white,” she continued, with natural perception, “you cannot go
far wrong. I wish I was as easy in my mind about Archie. His trousers
are all bags at the knees, and there’s something about his coat--Papa,”
said Marion, “is an old gentleman, but there’s something quite
different about his coat.”

“I would just imagine sae,” said Mrs. Brown with contempt. “What is he
caring about his coat, a man of his age, whereas Archie’s but a young
lad! I would buy a pair of lavender gloves, Archie. With all that money
in your pocket ye may weel allow yourself a pair of gloves, and Marion
too.”

“Oh, I will buy her as many gloves as she likes,” said Archie, with
something of the tone of the millionaire--as he felt himself to be. He
had the remains of the twenty pounds in his pocket after having got many
gratifications out of it, including the dinner to the lads, which had
been highly successful, but not very costly, and he was on the whole
very well satisfied with himself.

“I canna remember,” said Mrs. Brown, “that ye have offered gloves or
onything else, or so much as a flower, to me. But that’s a very
different question,” she added, with satirical briskness; “I’m just
mysel’ the old glove that ye toss away. It’s done its part, poor thing,
but ye’ve nae mair use for it.--Mey, slip the new frock on ye that I may
see how it looks, and then you could run to Miss Peebles. If she canna
do it, I will just have to cobble it up for you mysel’.”

“I’m going to have no cobbling up,” said Marion decisively. “She must
just do it, whether she can or not. She would be very fain to get jobs
from Rosmore.”

“Aunty, did ye mean yon--about my never giving ye anything?” said
Archie, when May had gone.

“Me, laddie? No, no, I didna mean it. I was just in a girning humour.
She doesna see it, and you dinna see it; and maybe I think more than I
should about the dirty siller, and how I am to make my living after
having been used to owre muckle comfort and ease. But it’s just my life
that’s going from me,” cried Mrs. Brown, putting her handkerchief to her
eyes. “If I did speak about the housekeeper’s place, it was no for the
grand situation nor the wages, nor even the perquisites, it was just
that I would have been near my bairns. I would have seen my bairns--them
the young lady and the young gentleman, and me the servant woman; but I
could have seen them every day, and now the Lord kens if I’ll ever see
them mair.”

“Aunty, we’re not savages nor brute beasts: how can ye think ye will
never see us mair?”

“My laddie,” she said in her tears; “it’s no only that you’ll be taken
from me, but I’ll have to think of mysel’ too. I canna keep up a house
like this over my head, nor a servant to do my work. I will have to get
lodgers, or take a place, or do something for my bread. I will maybe
leave Gleska a’ thegither,” she added in a tone of despair as who should
have said leave paradise; “for I have my little pride like other folk,
and I wouldna like them that have kent me here, with every comfort about
me, to see me taiglin’ after a wheen lodgers, or standing about the
register office looking for a place.”

“Aunty Jane, ye cannot for a moment think that my father would leave you
like that without a provision. If he does, I will leave _him_.”

“Oh, Archie, hold your peace; it’s not your part to speak.”

“I will!” cried the boy, flushing red. “I will never go near his grand
house. He may do what he likes, he will get nothing out of me. I was
just in an awful state of delight when he was coming home,” said Archie;
“you know I was. It was the king enjoying his ain again, like the songs.
I thought everything in the world was coming right” He turned a little
aside and dashed something out of the corner of his eye. “Aunty,” he
said in an altered voice, “I will confess to you that I am real
disappointed in my father. He’s no the man I expected. He’s like other
men, crabbed and thinking of himself. Even when he does a kind thing, as
he did about that money, it’s in such a way that you just want to fling
it back in his face!”

“Oh dinna say that,” cried Mrs. Brown alarmed; “you mustna say that. He
has his ain ways of thinking, but he’s a good father, Archie. Look how
he has kept you all your lives with every luxury; he’s grudged you
nothing. It was just for me to say what you wanted, and as much as you
wanted it was aye ready; never an objection in his mind. Oh, no, no! you
must never say that! To turn you against your papaw is the last thing in
the world that would please me. Look what he’s done for us a’ for years
and years. I always kent it had to stop some time or other. At first I
thought when he came hame, we would just all go to him and keep
thegither. I didna realise what a grand wealthy gentleman he had grown.
I thought of the siller and nothing else. I expected he would be just
like what he was in the foundry, but rich, and that’s what I brought you
up to expect. It was just a dreadful mistake. I saw it all the moment I
set eyes upon him. I just divined it before that when I heard of his new
wife. It’s my fault: you’ve not been brought up as ye ought to have
been, for I didna understand things, Archie. Now I understand. But oh,
my bonnie man, dinna take up a grudge against your papaw! He’s been as
kind to me as ever he could be. Now he’s done wi’ me, and I’m no more
wanted. I’ve nae claim upon him that he should provide for me, a great,
muckle, strong woman, no fifty, quite able to work. But for the Lord’s
sake, Archie, whatever you do, dinna you turn on your papaw!”

“Aunty Jane,” said the lad who was half sobbing too, “I think he’s a
just man, and, as you say, he has never grudged money. If he provides
for you, I’ll give you my word I’ll do justice to him. I’ll listen to no
prejudice. I’ll just give him my best attention, and maybe we’ll come to
understand one another. But if he doesn’t, God forgive him for it, for
I’ll not. I’ll come back here, and I’ll take a situation, and we’ll fend
together. You shall have no lodger but me; you’ll be housekeeper to
nobody but me. This shall just be the test for him, if he’s the man I
thought him or no. And if it’s no, he may search the world for a son:
he’ll get none of me!”

“Oh, my ain laddie!” said Mrs. Brown, choked by tears and emotion. She
could say nothing more, for at this moment the door opened and Marion
entered, wearing the skirt of the pretty dress which her father had
allowed her to buy at Mr. MacColl’s splendid shop. The stuff intended to
make the “body” was wound round her shoulders. She resembled exceedingly
one of the figures which make so fine an appearance in the shops. It was
an ideal which would certainly have satisfied her highest desires. She
was too much absorbed to notice the emotion of the others. “You see,”
she said as she came in, “the skirt is very nice and wants no altering.
It is just my length, which is a providence. I think this is far better
than my silk.”

Mrs. Brown awakening to a new interest, got up and walked round her,
inspecting the garment closely. Perhaps she was glad of the occasion of
concluding an interview which was agitating to both; but the attraction
of the half-made dress would have been a great one in any circumstances.
Archie took the opportunity to escape, neither having nor pretending to
have any interest in the matter, while a very keen and close discussion
went on about the manner of “making up the body.” In respect to this
these ladies were not of the same mind, Mrs. Brown being reluctant to
accept Marion’s new theory of simplicity, which the sharp little girl
had picked up somehow since the change which had come in her fortunes.
Aunty Jane wanted bright ribbons, a sash, a bow at the throat “to
brighten it up,” as she said. But Marion held her own. It was only at
the close of the controversy that she found out that anything had been
amiss. She turned upon her aunt as if she were making an accusation.
“Your eyes are red,” she said; “you’ve been crying!” with a tone in
which there was a certain sense of injury, as of one who had been left
out.

“Weel if I have been crying, it’s naething extraordinary,” said Mrs.
Brown; “naething to call for your notice.”

“What is it that’s the matter now?”

“You have just not as much heart as would lie on a sixpence, to ask me
such a question. There’s your father will be just like you. He will
think nothing about it. He will think I should just give ye up as I took
ye; the one as pleasant as the other. Oh, it is very little that folk
kens, when they begin, how it’s to end.”

“But I suppose,” said Marion, “you would like us to have the advantage
now that he has come home? You never expected we were just to bide on
with you.”

“Oh, no, I never expected it: I’m no just a fool for all the way that ye
set up your little neb to me.”

“Well,” said Marion, “then what have ye to complain of, Aunty Jane? You
knew all the time: it was always his meaning to come home; and ye have
always spoken about it. Bot Archie and me, we’ve learned to look forward
to it; and ye would like us to lose all the advantage now!”

“It’s you that just canna understand. It’s maybe not your fault. I was
very muckle taken up with mysel’ and what I had to put on, when I was
your age. No your mother: she was aye different. It’s me rather that
you’re like--for all that ye’ll think shame to speak to me in the street
three months after this day.”

“What for should I think shame to speak to you,” said Marion; “for
everybody knows ye belong to us, Aunty Jane? There would be no reason
for that: we cannot hide it if we wanted to hide it. It would just be
bringing odium on ourselves.”

“And that’s a’ ye have to say?”

“What more should I say? I’ll just go and take off the skirt, and run
round to Miss Peebles about the body; for between this and Tuesday
there’s very little time.”

“There is none to lose, that’s true. Ye had better tell her that ye want
it on Monday night, for they’re never to be lippen’t to, thae
mantua-makers.”

“That will be the best way.” But perhaps she felt a little compunctious;
for she paused at the door to throw a look back and a word. “I think ye
may make your mind easy, Aunty Jane, that papa will not do a shabby
thing either to us or to you.”

Mrs. Brown raised her hand to dismiss the subject with a certain natural
pride. But though she would not discuss it with Marion, in whose
calculations affection was not taken into account, it was not without a
certain comfort that she adopted this conclusion. No, he would not do a
shabby thing. It had never been his character. Even when he was a
working man, Jims Rowland had never been shabby. He might be a wee hard
to them that offended him, but shabby--no. There was comfort in that. So
that perhaps, after all, Marion’s matter-of-fact consolation was
practically of more importance than her brother’s feeling. “She’s no an
ill creature after all,” Mrs. Brown said to herself.

The “body” was fortunately done in time, and the dress put on with much
satisfaction when Tuesday came, which proved to be, fortunately, a fine
day--a day on which a white dress was not inappropriate. Mrs. Brown wept
plentifully as the young pair left her. To them it was only a “ploy,”
but to her it was the parting--the end of her brighter life. She looked
after them with maternal pride, proud of their good looks and their best
clothes, and even the new boxes that were piled upon the top of the cab.
She might have been invited to go down with them to break the parting a
little. He might have thought of a little thing like that, not to treat
her just as if she were an old nurse, to be dismissed when they were
done with her. Jane looked after them with streaming eyes. They were not
thinking that it was good-bye: they had left half of their things
behind: they were coming back--oh, very often, and certainly in a day or
two, they both said. It was only a ploy to them. And so well as they
looked, two young things that anybody might be proud of. She thought of
Rowland’s triumph in showing them to his wife, and how astonished that
proud lady would be to see the two, just so lady-like and so
gentleman-like! That was Mrs. Brown’s view of the case, and it gave her
consolation in the middle of her woe.

The young people were surprised that their appearance in the boat and at
the pier, where they landed, was not the subject of any demonstration.
If their father had been received as a person of importance, how much
more should they who were not elderly or old-fashioned like him, but in
all the triumph of their youth--his heirs, to whom everything would
eventually belong. There was, however, only the dog-cart, no more,
waiting for them at the pier, with Sandy the groom, who was too friendly
by half, and not nearly so much impressed as he ought to have been with
their importance. They spent an hour or two by themselves, which would
have hung very heavy on their hands had not Archie darted down to see
the dogs, and Marion employed herself in arranging her “things” in her
room, which was nearly as large as the whole area of the house in
Sauchiehall Road. And then the important moment came. The dog-cart had
been good enough for them, but it was not good enough for Mrs. Rowland,
and it was in the great new resplendent landau that Marion solemnly
drove down, all alone, and looking important enough to fill the whole
carriage, to meet the lady whom she called mamma.




CHAPTER XX.


Evelyn came fully up to her husband’s expectations, which were not
small, in the way of admiration. She had not, indeed, been thinking much
about the beauty of the country, her mind being fully occupied by
matters more important, so that the Clyde, and the loch, and Rosmore,
burst upon her more or less as a surprise. She delighted Rowland, whose
whole being was on the watch to see what she would say, by her
exclamations. “What a beautiful situation! What a lovely view the people
must have who live there. What is--Oh!” She broke off abruptly, seeing
the flush of pleasure and broad smile of happiness which came over his
face. “So that is Rosmore,” she added: “I can see it in your face!”

“Ay, that’s just Rosmore,” he said, with a thickness in his voice; “and
this is just the spot, if this confounded boat would stand still for a
moment, where I have watched for it appearing since ever I was a lad,
and wished and wondered if it would ever be mine.” He put his arm
through hers, as he had a way of doing, and held her close--“And now it
is mine; and you are mine, Evelyn, that was still more unlikely by far.”

“You must not flatter me by comparing me to that beautiful place; and I
pray God you may be very happy in it now you have got it. It is
certainly an ideal place.”

“Is it not?” cried Rowland, delighted. It is to be feared that he did
not at that moment remember his poor homely Mary, who had been with him
so often when he watched for the opening in the trees, and worshipped
his idol afar off. “Toots, nonsense,” Mary had said, with a laugh at his
absurdity, so many times. He did not think of her, but Evelyn did, with
a curious tenderness for the simple little woman who, probably, by this
time would have developed into a stout and matter-of-fact matron, and
disappointed her husband as much as his children had done, although the
love between them had been as true and full of natural poetry as any,
_dans les temps_. Evelyn was quite aware of her husband’s shortcomings,
and that there were various superficial failures in him which justified
the superficial judgment that he was “not a gentleman,” that most
damning of English criticism; but she knew at the same time how it was
that the fact of his son not appearing a gentleman was the source of
grief to him, and how critical his eyes would be, and how exacting his
demands in this respect. Poor little Mary! Perhaps it was as well that
she had died in the far-off poetical time. Evelyn felt a little moisture
in the corner of her eye, and made a promise in her heart to the wife of
James Rowland from the foundry, who was so different from James Rowland,
the great railway man from India. “I will do what I can for them, Mary!”
was what Evelyn said. Her husband saw the little glimmer on her eyelash,
and pressed her arm with fond delight and pride. “I can never be
thankful enough,” he said, “Evelyn, for the way you enter into your
rough husband’s feelings--my bonnie lady of Rosmore!” That was the very
foundry lad who spoke, the very poet of the ironworks whose imagination
ran in the ways of iron and steel, and who had attained for himself so
incalculable a triumph--everything, and more than everything, that heart
could desire--Rosmore, and its bonnie lady! His emotion touched his
wife, not displeased--as what woman would be?--to feel herself the very
crown of his acquisition; yet her heart went back all the more to poor
Mary, whose arm he had probably held in the same way while he glowered
with adoration at the white colonnade from the deck of this very
steamboat (if steamboats live so long), and who had said, “Toots, Jims,
what nonsense!” with her Glasgow accent, thinking that in that
particular her husband, who was so clever and soon might rise to be
foreman, was little better than a fool.

After this ecstatic moment was over, they both fell into silence, a
little anxious for the approaching meeting: he for what she would think
of his children: she for what the children would turn out to be. She had
begun to doubt a little whether the son would be an unkempt lad in a
kilt, like the nephew with whom Mrs. Reuben Butler, once of that same
parish, had made disastrous acquaintance. The shabby young men about
Glasgow and Greenock had not been of the kind of the Whistler, as
indeed, on second thoughts, her reason convinced her Archie was not the
least likely to be: nor would Marion probably have the red hair and the
short tartan frock, which had been her first idea of what was the
probable appearance of the girl with whom Rowland had been so much
disappointed. The sight in the distance of a white and a dark speck on
the Rosmore pier, as the boat crossed the shining loch, brought
Rowland’s heart to his mouth and made him almost incapable of speech.
“Yon will be them,” he said with a parched mouth, gripping her arm. And
Evelyn did not feel disposed to say anything, or to remark upon the
beauty of the hills, though they lighted up in all their purple hollows,
and threw out all their blue peaks, as if to catch her attention. Nature
has a wonderful charm, if there is not some human emotion before her to
pre-occupy both heart and eye. The range of mountains at the head of the
loch were after all not of half so much importance as the little white
figure on the pier head, of which scarcely the first fact of its
existence was as yet perceptible, or the taller one that already seemed
to sway and lounge with idle limbs beside her. Evelyn kept her eyes
fixed upon them as she drew nearer and nearer, and gradually a feeling
of relief stole into her heart. There was nothing so very alarming that
James should have made such a fuss! “My dear James,” she said turning to
him, “I suppose you did it for a joke: your Marion is a dear little
girl.” He pressed her arm close, but he could not say anything: his
middle-aged heart was beating. “Archie I must study more at leisure, but
he looks very nice too,” she added with more of an effort. Perhaps,
after all, the boy would have been better in a kilt, with his hair over
his eyes, like the Whistler in the “Heart of Midlothian.” She looked on
breathless as the steamboat drew to the pier. Certainly they would rush
on board to greet their father, to bring him home in triumph, even if
they were less anxious to make her acquaintance; but Marion and Archie
did not budge an inch. They stood there, on the defensive, a little
defiant, staring, waiting till they were spoken to; and in the bustle of
the arrival, the haste of the transference from the quickly departing
steamboat to the land, with all the baggage which Rowland, with his
habits of personal superintendence did not think the maid and man whom
they had brought able to deal with, Evelyn found herself flung upon the
two without any introduction. She put out her hand to her step-daughter.
“You are Marion, I am sure,” she said, drawing the girl towards her and
kissing her on both cheeks. “I am very glad to see you, my dear.”

“And so am I--to see you--mamma,” said the girl reddening and staring.
The name felt to Evelyn like a stone flung in her face.

“And this is Archie,” she said, transferring Marion’s somewhat unwilling
hot, little gloved hand to her left, and holding out the other to the
boy. He for his part made no answer, but gave her a quick look, and then
withdrew his eyes. “Your father is too busy to think about us till the
luggage is all right,” she said; “but I hope we are going to be, we
three, very great friends.”

“Oh, we’ll be all that,” said Marion with a laugh, working her hand out
of Evelyn’s hold. Archie made no reply; he too drew his hand away from
her as soon as she had shaken it, which was the only thing, so far as he
was aware, that any one could want to do with another person’s hand. He
gave her a second look as he did this, which Evelyn did not perceive,
but in which Mary’s eyes made a little, a very little essay of a reply
to her, had she but seen it. She stood by them a moment, not knowing how
to proceed further, with the little crowd of the pier pressing round,
and the wheelbarrow for the luggage knocking against the group. “Is that
our carriage?” said Evelyn. “Don’t you think the best thing you could do
would be to put your sister and me into it, until your father gets
through his troubles?” Put her into it! Archie had not an idea what she
meant. Was he to lift her up and set her down in it, like a doll? He
stared and hung about on those loose legs of his, which could not even
stand firm, and followed her awkwardly to the carriage, where the
footman stood opening the door. What was there for Archie to do? The
footman was there to help them in, if they needed to be helped in. He
followed them, and hung about, the most unnecessary personage. The
footman belonged to the turn-out, he was in his proper place; but where
was the need of Archie? Evelyn took pity upon him, when she saw his
helpless looks. “Go and see if you can be of use to your father,” she
said. Of use to his father! when there were two servants with his
father. It was their business, not Archie’s. He turned and went
reluctantly back again, with his idle legs and his hands in his pockets.
The Archie of Sauchiehall Road would have picked up a portmanteau and
carried it in with the greatest cheerfulness; but this was the Archie of
Rosmore.

“Well, there you are,” said Rowland, shaking hands with him cursorily.
“Just show Stanchion, will you, where the cart is for the luggage. I
suppose they’ve sent something to bring him up and Mrs. Rowland’s maid.”

Archie knew nothing about it, and said so. “You said you had given all
the directions.”

“So I did, but you might show the man the way at least,” said Rowland,
hurrying forward to the carriage. Archie stood among the crowd, with the
boxes and barrows bumping at his legs, for a full minute more, then, as
his better angel began to get the advantage, took one hand out of his
pocket, and made a step to the tall and fussy valet, who stood among a
mountain of boxes. “Yonder’s the cart from the House,” he said, pointing
to the highway, where the cart and dog-cart stood among the trees. “It’s
no use telling me yonder’s the cart. You’ll better lend a hand, young
man, or how are them boxes to get there?” said Mr. Rowland’s gentleman,
who prided himself in being a better gentleman than his master. To
understand the rage that boiled up in Archie’s breast, it would be
necessary to fathom the angry contempt with which a Scotch clerk of the
humbler kind, but capable of being a great merchant one day, or even the
Scotch artisan, regards a domestic servant, however magnificent. Archie
could have slain Mr. Stanchion where he stood. He did not laugh, as his
father’s son ought to have done, at the mistake. As he swung round on
his heel, his father called out from the carriage, “Hallo, Archie, Mrs.
Rowland wants to know if you’re coming with us: make haste.” He stared a
moment with a sullen countenance, and then, turning again, walked
quickly off without a word.

“He says he would rather walk,” said Evelyn, “which is what young men
generally do.”

“I did not hear him say a word.”

“Nor me, papa,” said Marion, with a laugh. She thought Archie’s “sulks”
were a good joke, and, to do her justice, saw no harm in them, nor
anticipated any consequences from his ill temper. “We just never mind,”
she added, feeling mistress of the position, “when he’s in an ill key.”
And Marion was very gracious to her father and his wife as they drove
home. She pointed out to Mrs. Rowland various points of view. “That’s
the Chieftain’s Leap, but it’s nothing to see, just a red scaur, and
trees growing all about; but a little further on is a good view of
Greenock and the docks and the big chimney smoking, and up there you can
see down upon Kilrossi, where everybody goes for the salt water--for the
sea-bathing, I mean.”

“The salt water is a very picturesque description,” said Evelyn, “and
full of local colour.” She laughed at herself for her own words, but it
was better to make talk of any kind, than to see that cloud settling
down on her husband’s face.

“And down there,” said Marion, “is Rankin’s cottage, the old gamekeeper
who has the dogues. He is a cripple creature himself since he had his
accident, but the dogues are very nice little things. Archie has bought
two. He says they will be good for watch-dogs about the House. And
Rankin himself is a very funny old man to talk to--but I do not care for
him, for he is always on about Lady Jean.”

“Who is Lady Jean?”

“Oh, she is the Earl’s sister; old, and not pretty, and not married. I
don’t know why they make such a fuss about her. There’s no interest in a
person like that.”

“Don’t you think you might let somebody get in a word from time to
time,” said Rowland; “I have heard nothing but your little voice since
ever we arrived.”

“Well, I hope my little voice is better than nothing, papa. And you will
not hear very much from Archie. He is just as sulky as he can be about
Aunty Jane. He thinks she should have come down here with us, to see us
settled, and make acquaintance with mamma, and all that. The very idea!
but boys have so little sense. That is not what Aunty Jane cares so much
about herself. She is more concerned in her mind about what she is to do
next.”

“Is Aunty Jane the lady who brought you up? Indeed, then, I do think,
James, that she has not been very nicely treated. She has been so
devoted to the children. It was the least thing you could do to ask her
to bring them home, and let me show how we appreciated her goodness and
affection. You must give me the address, Marion, and I will write
to-morrow.”

“Oh,” said Marion with a gasp, raising herself bolt upright, “that’s not
necessary--that’s not at all necessary. Aunty never expected----”

“I am afraid I must take upon myself to be the judge of what is
necessary,” said Mrs. Rowland with the sweetest smile in the world. Her
soft peremptoriness was for her husband as well as for his daughter. For
Rowland, too, had responded with a gasp to the suggestion of inviting
Jane, and his wife’s gentle assumption of supreme authority took him as
much by surprise as it did Marion. He began, too, with an anxious
“But----,” but got no farther. Jane at Rosmore was something which his
imagination could not reach.

“_But_ is not a word which exists in autocratic countries,” said Evelyn
laughing. “Constitutional surroundings alone encourage such expressions,
and I’ll have no dissent in Rosmore. Didn’t you hail me Lady as we came
over that glorious Firth?”--Evelyn would not perhaps have used the words
had she not meant to reduce her husband to instantaneous submission. She
thought, indeed, that the Firth was very fine, but her usual principles
were against hyperbole. It would be hard, however, to refuse to a good
woman the legitimate use of certain weapons because they are used to a
large extent by women who are not good. And the “glorious Firth” and his
wife’s smile together were far more than James Rowland could make head
against. I do not think indeed that such artillery was needed. He had
not the least objection, but on the contrary, the greatest pride and
pleasure in thinking of her as the autocrat and supreme mistress of
Rosmore, to ask any splendid visitor she liked, even Royalty, should it
cost him half his fortune. It was, however, a little bewildering when it
was not Royalty but Jane Brown.

“But I don’t think she can come,” said Marion’s little monotonous voice
coming in, “so you may put your mind at rest, papa, for she would not
like to leave the house with just Bell in it. She is thinking of selling
the things, for she will not want to keep up a big house like that when
there is nobody but herself, and no allowance; but she will have to take
care of them all the more not to let them be spoiled by a servant-lass.
And she will think she has not good enough clothes----.” Marion here
made a very perceptible examination of Mrs. Rowland’s dress, which was
not “a silk” nor “a satin,” but simple grey stuff and made in the most
unassuming way: “I don’t see that,” she continued with an obvious
comparison, “for she has some very nice silks, and she might come very
well, so far as that goes. But for another thing, she could not spend
the money. When it was for us, she never minded; but she always grudges
a railway ticket for herself.”

“What do you mean about selling her things, and no allowance?” said
Rowland hastily; but he added, “We need not discuss that here. But of
course, my dear, what you decide upon must be done.”

“So I intend,” said Mrs. Rowland, with a laughing bow to him, as of a
queen to a king. “We shall have a great deal to settle when we get home,
and I hope that everybody will be pleased with my despotism.”

“Oh, as for that,” said Marion, taking upon herself again the role of
expositor, “I’ve always read that a lady should be the mistress in her
own side; the gentleman, outside; and she’s not to meddle with him; but
the lady----”

“I assure you I shall meddle with him, Marion. The flower garden, for
instance, I shall take entirely into my hands. In short, I don’t know
the thing in which I shall not meddle.”

“The lady,” said Marion, raising her voice a little, “should have all
the house to manage, and the children, and all within her own sphere.
The books all say that woman’s sphere is Home.”

“With a great many capital letters.”

“You may be meaning some joke with your capital letters, but I’m saying
just what I’ve read. It’s nothing about politics nor business--not that
kind of thing; but to sit at the fireside and give her orders, and
everybody to be at her beck and call.”

“Excellent, Marion; you have said your lesson very well, and I hope you
mean to be at this lady’s beck and call.”

“I don’t know,” said Marion, “that it means the grown-up children: for
when you get to be eighteen or so, you are supposed to be able to judge
for yourself. But it was no lesson. It was just what I’ve read in books.
I have always been very fond of reading books.”

“You could not do better, my dear; and we must read some books
together,” said Evelyn. Then she thought there had been enough of Marion
for the moment. “The woods are beautiful,” she said, “and I see, James,
the mountains you told me of. Is that Ben Ros--that great shoulder
rising over the loch, or the peak in the distance that is so blue and
misty? You must tell me when we have time, every name. I think I should
prefer to stop the carriage and walk the rest of the way.”

“That is just what I would like you to do,” said her husband, “for every
step’s enchanted ground.”

Marion did not know what to do, whether to join them in this walk, as
curiosity suggested, or to drive home in state, as if it were she who
was the mistress of everything. The paths, however, were damp in places,
as they usually were, and she reflected that she could walk when she
pleased, but that if her pretty white dress was marked with mud, it
would have to be washed, and that nothing, not even a white dress,
looks so well after it is washed. And also her shoes were thin: they
were worked with beads, and she wore them over a pair of openwork
stockings. The boggy parts would be just ruination to her pretty shoes.
Mrs. Rowland had strong leather ones, and a grey dress that would take
no harm. “For my part,” she said, “I would be better in the house, for I
have a headache. I would like to come too, but if I got my feet wet, it
would give me a cold, and I might never get well.”

“By all means drive home,” said Evelyn. “Your shoes are much too thin
for walking, and see that tea is ready when we come in. Now, James.”

He took her away to the opening, from which the loch was visible, and
pointed out to her, hill by hill, the whole range, lying under the
evening sunshine and the flying shadows; now one peak coming out, now
another, now a sudden gleam, like some sun-signal calling forth an
unseen knoll into glory, among all the other unnoticed slopes, now a
deep purple mantle of royal wealth coming down over the great veiled
shoulder of a chosen mountain. During the few minutes they stood there
gazing, a hundred transformations took place upon those heights. At what
strange games were those Titans playing, veiling themselves, unveiling,
retiring into mist, breaking out as with a shout, into the sudden light.
Evelyn, for a moment, forgot everything as she gazed at this rapid drama
of the hills. She was recalled to herself by the tremble in Rowland’s
arm as he held hers. He had been as happy and proud in her enthusiasm
as if the beloved mountains were part of himself: but there was
something more important to him even than the hills. He gave her arm a
close pressure as she was silent for a moment, and said close in her
ear, with a tremor in his tone, “Evelyn, what do you think of them?”

The question brought her back to a prospect more near and important than
the hills, one that she had been glad to put aside for the moment in
favour of this wonderful and delightful scene. The moment at least was
something gained, and she said to herself that she never would forget
it--this first glimpse at the surroundings of her home. The other now
had to be faced again, the interior landscape, which was not so
delightful. “I think, dear James,” she said, “that they are both very
shy and very strange between us two. They don’t know me at all, and you
so little. Nature works, of course, on your side, but even Nature must
have a little time. And for me, Nature is rather against me than for me.
We must wait before we form any judgment.”

“But your first impression is--bad, or if not bad, yet----”

“It is not bad at all! Don’t take up false ideas. They are both so
shy----”

“Shy! Evelyn! do you think what you are saying? Marion shy!”

“It is because she is shy that she chatters, poor little girl! Did you
never know that was a form it took? Archie is silent, and she chatters.
He is a little--rude, and she is a little--talkative. It is all from
the same cause. You did not tell me what a pretty little thing she was,
James.”

“Pretty!--do you think she is pretty? She is not the least of your kind,
Evelyn.”

“I hope she is of a better kind. Next spring, when she has learned to
make her courtesy, and is dressed regardless of expense; for I will take
_carte blanche_, I warn you, so far as Marion is concerned--you shall
see! She will make a sensation at the drawing-room.”

A glow of beatitude came over James Rowland’s face. He almost hurt her
arm with the pressure he gave it. “You think so? You really think so,
Evelyn--before the Queen?” The warmth ran to his very heart, and came
back in a sort of dew of happiness to his eyes. His little girl before
the Queen! perhaps to be noted by that mother sovereign herself with a
kindly eye. _His_ child! and he there to look on, paying the homage it
would be more than his duty to pay. He stood for a moment clasping
Evelyn’s arm, too glad to speak. And then--for the pain is more
persistent than the pleasure--he added in a low confidential tone. “But
the boy--is just a lout, poor lad?” It sounded like an assertion, but it
was a question, and of the most anxious kind.

“He is no lout, you unjust, abominable parent. I see at once the eyes
you told me of--his mother’s eyes.”

“One would think, to hear you, that you had seen his mother!”

“I have through your eyes, James. I will never forget that first day.
And I thought of her as we came across the Clyde.”

“It was more than I did, Evelyn--with you there.”

“She must have been there with you often, and thought you were talking
nonsense; and now you have got all you ever dreamed of----”

“And more!” he said; “and more!” again pressing her arm.

“And now we have got to make it up,” said Evelyn, “to the two whom she
has left to you--and to me, through you, James.”

“She was an innocent, simple creature, Evelyn!”

“She was your wife, James. Don’t go into the house which you have
dreamed of for so long without thinking of her who never lived to be its
mistress.”

Rowland took off his hat. “I had a sore heart to lose my poor Mary,” he
said; “God bless her in Heaven, where she is; but I have got the best
blessing a man can have in Rosmore.”




CHAPTER XXI.


Mrs. Brown did not come to Rosmore, though she received a letter from
Mrs. Rowland which dissolved her at the first moment of reading in tears
and gratitude, but which afterwards she began to fear must have “some
motive,” though it was difficult to imagine what. For why should the
lady be so kind to her? she asked herself. There are a great many good
people in the world, and especially women, who are haunted with this
idea of a “motive,” and cannot shake themselves free of it. Jane was
herself an innocent person enough, acting upon impulse continually. But
all the more was she anxious to investigate the supposed mysterious
meaning and suggestion of self-interest which could have dictated
Evelyn’s kind and simple letter. “I should have wished that you had come
with the children to settle them in their new home, where, of course,
there will always be a room for you, their affectionate guardian, who
have been a mother to them; but at least I hope you will come now, and
that you will approve of all my arrangements for them.” It was difficult
to find anything in this that could be objected to, and Jane wept over
it at first, as has been said; but then her habitual distrust came in.
“What will the woman be wanting with me? It will be to give herself
credit with Jims, and throw a’ the blame on me--but I’ll no fa’ into the
snare,” she said to herself, falling into it instantly, if snare it was.
When Archie appeared in the afternoon to fetch her, she shook her head.
“Na, na, I’m no gaun--no a fit. It’s just some plan for exposing your
poor mammaw’s family, and letting him see we’re no to be evened to
_her_. No, no, I will never set my fit within Rosmore.”

Archie himself, though he had gone to Glasgow on Mrs. Rowland’s gentle
compulsion to escort his aunt, was not perhaps very anxious that she
should come. Though he was full of affection for her, it is to be feared
that already the cold eye of the butler had worked its effect upon
Archie. He felt himself grow red and a cold dew come over his forehead
when he thought of that functionary holding his silver dish at Mrs.
Brown’s elbow. What unutterable things would be in his eye! Archie felt
that Morris looked at himself with a pitying wonder. What, then, would
he feel for Mrs. Brown? Therefore he was not disposed to press the
matter. As for Mrs. Rowland, the lively prejudice with which he had met
her, had been kept up with difficulty in her presence, and he could
throw no light on the motive she could have in asking Mrs. Brown. There
was, alas, no difficulty whatever in proving to the most casual observer
that Mr. Rowland’s family, which in this case was Mrs. Brown’s family,
could not in any way be “evened” to the new wife who was supreme at
Rosmore. To bring Mrs. Brown to make that doubly sure was a work of
supererogation. Archie did not say this to his aunt, but with a burning
sense of disadvantages which he had never suspected before he felt it in
his own breast.

“And how is Mey getting on?” said Jane, when this question was decided.

“Oh, well enough. She is just copying everything she sees, like a little
parrot, as she is.”

“There’s no harm in that,” said Jane, “for I suppose the leddy’s real
well-bred and a’ that. It would be nothing but that he marriet her for.
He was aye an ambitious man, Jims Rowland. But eh! he’s a good-hearted
man--just ower good. I got a letter from him this morning, and he says
the allowance will just go on, and I’m to keep the house, and make
myself comfortable.”

Jane’s ready tears flowed forth upon this argument. “It’s awfu’ kind,”
she sobbed; “I wouldna say a word against one of them, nor do a thing to
vex him. If he had been my ain brother, he couldna have been more
kind--I’m just at my ease for life; and if you could tell me ony thing I
could do to please him----”

“Maybe it would please him,” said Archie doubtfully, “if you were to
come to Rosmore.”

“Na, na, I’ll no do that--just to graitify that prideful woman. But ye
can tell him that I want the house for his, and that whatever use can be
made of it to send things to, or to come for a night’s lodging instead
of one of thae dear hotels--it will be ready. There will be beds ready,
and linen aired ready to put on, night and day,” said Mrs. Brown in the
fervour of her gratitude. “And ye can say to _her_, Archie, that I’m
very much obliged, but that I have not sleepit out of my own house for
years, which is just the real truth, as ye can certify, though maybe
it’s no just the reason in the present case; and ye may say I will be
glad to see her if she comes to Gleskie--which is no perhaps exactly the
case, but we maun be ceevil. Mind ye must always be ceevil, whatever
happens. It would give her a grand hold upon ye, if ye were ever wanting
in respec’.”

“I’ve no reason to think she’s wanting any hold upon me,” said Archie,
with a little irritation.

“Eh!” said his aunt, holding up a warning finger, “she’s laying her
spell on you too! I’ll no go near her, or she might make a fool o’ me.
It’s easy enough to make a fool o’ me. I just greet at a kind word--I
canna help mysel’. When I got her letter wi’ a’ its fine words, I just
grat till I was blin’; but then I asked myself what for should she be
that ceevil to me?”

“It was maybe only for kindness after all,” said Archie.

“Dinna you be a born idiot to trust in that. Na, na, it’s no without a
motive, take my word for it,” Jane said.

It was hard, however, for the closest observer to find out what the
motive could be. Evelyn had no small effort to make to overcome her own
natural objections to the society of the two young people, one of whom
studied her like a pattern book, while the other eyed her from his
corner with a hostility scantily veiled by that attempt to be “ceevil”
which his aunt had enjoined upon him. Archie’s attitude, however, was on
the whole less trying than that of Marion, who studied and copied Mrs.
Rowland’s manners, her tone, as far as she could master it, her little
tricks of gesture, till Evelyn became ridiculous to herself; which is a
very curious experience. When she saw little Marion with her slight
person throw back her head as Evelyn was aware she had herself the habit
of doing, and drop her hand by her side, which was another peculiarity,
swaying it slightly as she walked, a trick for which Evelyn had suffered
much in her youth, the laugh which burst from her in spite of herself
was not pleasant. Evelyn was tall, while Marion was little; she was
forty, and Marion was eighteen. She belonged a little, she was aware, to
a bye-gone school, which had been stately rather than piquant, and
Marion’s infantile prettiness was adapted to a quite different
principle. It was ludicrous to watch growing and increasing day by day
the travesty of herself which was before her eyes in her husband’s
little girl. Sometimes her impatience with the copy was so great that
the woman’s instincts of outraged personality were upon her, and she
could have seized and shaken the folly out of the little flatterer and
imitator. But I need not say that this was the merest flutter of nerves
on Evelyn’s part, and that she never really departed from her _rôle_ of
patience. The worst of it was that James began gradually to perceive,
and not only to perceive, but regard with delight, this imitation
process. “I really think she is growing a little like you, Evelyn!” he
said, when his wife had been driven nearly to an end of her toleration,
and it was all she could do to keep from her countenance a
contraction--which Marion would probably have reproduced next day, to
the confusion of all concerned.

In this way, however, a great superficial improvement was notable in the
girl. She learned in an inconceivably short time how to manage all the
circumstances of her changed life, adapting herself to everything as one
to the manner born. No temptation of being respectful to the butler ever
came to Marion. She treated him and the rest of the fine servants as if
they were cabbages; which was her rendering of the easy and genial
indifference with which Mrs. Rowland received the services she had never
been accustomed to consider extraordinary. Evelyn’s manner to the maid
in her room, though she might not say a word to her, was the easy
composure of a woman perfectly considerate and friendly, and ready on
any occasion to show her natural interest in the fellow-creature so near
to her, both by word and deed. But Marion’s indifference went the length
of insult, though she had no intention of anything but to follow exactly
her stepmother’s example. The demeanour of the one was just that kind of
quiet familiar affability and ease which characterises a relationship in
which there is no desire, on the part of the superior at least, for any
more demonstration than is felt, or unnecessary intercourse; but
Marion’s was a kind of brutality by which the inferior was made to feel
as if she had no existence at all except as a ministrant to certain
wants. Thus the little girl achieved that polish of the Tartar, which,
when scratched, shows the savage through.

Archie was not at all of this kind. And sometimes when Evelyn looked up
suddenly and found him with his averted head, shoulder turned the side
she was sitting on, and blank of dull opposition, she felt it almost a
relief. Now and then some sentiment on her part, something quite
unthought of which she said or did, and which probably had no connection
whatever with himself, would make him look full at her with those eyes
which Rowland had called his mother’s eyes--the honest soft blue, not
too profound, but clear as the sky, in which at least the perception of
the heart was not wanting, whether it was accompanied or not by any
higher light of the spirit. What Archie knew or did not know it was
difficult to say, for he never spoke when he could help it, and then
chiefly in answer to questions which were seldom of an intellectual
kind. Something had been said at first about the University, or rather,
as both Archie and his father called it, “the College,” which meant, as
Evelyn came slowly to understand, the same thing--only so far different
that Glasgow or Edinburgh was the University meant, and not Oxford or
Cambridge. That his son should go to “the College” had been Rowland’s
intent, but the idea seemed to drop all the more completely, of course,
that it was the summer vacation, and nothing could be done for the
moment. Archie, however, instead of exerting himself like Marion to
acquire a new, if it should happen to be a fictitious standing ground,
remained a sort of unknown quantity in his father’s house. With all the
efforts she could make Evelyn did not succeed in forming anything but
the most slight acquaintance with her stepson, and neither (which was
more extraordinary still) did his father attain to more than an
acquaintance. Sometimes Archie would be drawn into an expression of
opinion on a political subject, which naturally was, as a rule, in
opposition to his father, and at once crushed by him; upon which the boy
with not unnatural wrath returned into his shell more closely than
before. One time, indeed, Evelyn had found herself on the very verge of
attaining his confidence, or so at least she thought. It was on the
day--momentous day--when Rankin judged the two little dogs to be
sufficiently mature to be sent home to their master. They were brought
up to the great door, which was at one end of the colonnade. Nothing
more amusing could be than the two little bundles of fur and fun
deposited at her feet by Sandy the groom, who was delighted with his
errand, though a little discomposed to find nobody but “the mistress.”

“They’ll be for the young gentleman,” he said shamefaced.

“What delightful little things,” said Evelyn, who, like all
well-conditioned persons, loved dogs. “Go and find Mr. Archibald, Sandy.
I’ll take care of them till he comes.”

When Archie appeared in great haste and for once glowing with pleasure,
he found her seated in the centre of a great rug on the floor of the
hall with the two little dogs in convulsions of delight beside her,
barking, biting, rolling and struggling upon the soft carpet, and
undaunted with the something so unknown to them--a lady in a soft silken
dress to play with. Perhaps the little things recognised only this of
Evelyn’s many excellences, that she wore an exceptionally soft gown--not
like Jenny Rankin’s rough homespun. Dogs are very susceptible to this
superiority of texture.

“Come and look at your doggies, Archie,” she said without looking up. “I
have taken possession of them, or they have taken possession of me.
Where did you find such delights? There is nothing so nice as a puppy,
except a baby perhaps--and you, I know, would not appreciate that.”

“Why would I not appreciate that?” said Archie roughly (being thereto
moved by suggestions from Aunty Jane.)

Mrs. Rowland gave a glance up at the clouded countenance of the sullen
boy, surprised but saying nothing, and he ended as he generally did
when alone with her, by feeling ashamed of himself.

“They’re Rankin’s doggies--a particular breed,” he added more civilly
than usual to make up. “He’s the old gamekeeper, and he’s given himself
up to dogues ever since his accident.”

This was quite a long speech for Archie to make.

“He has given himself up to it with great success,” said Evelyn. “You
must take me to see him. These are just at the most delightful stage. I
said there was nothing so nice except a baby. But kittens are almost as
nice before they grow to be cats.”

“They cannot be so nice,” said Archie, “because they do grow to be cats;
and these will be dogues when they’re grown up.”

Evelyn pondered a little over this dogmatic proposition before she
answered: “You put it in an original way, but I think I agree with you,
Archie. And what are these little things called--or have they got
names--or shall we confer some on the spot?”

“Rankin hasn’t much imagination: he calls them just Roy and Dhu--that
means red and black in Gaelic. But you spell the last D-h-u.”

“Roy and Dhu are very good names,” said Evelyn. “I would keep to them, I
think: they sound well even if Rankin has not much imagination.”

“He has a great deal of Gaelic,” said Archie: “he writes things in
papers about poetry and stuff. He discourses to me sometimes, but I
never mind.”

“Then you don’t care for poetry and stuff?”

“How should I, in Gaelic, which I don’t understand?” The conversation,
however, was thus getting upon general topics, which Archie eschewed,
and he suddenly awoke to the danger of being drawn into a tête-à-tête
with his stepmother. “The dogues will be spoiling your dress, and a
bother to you.”

“I have never confessed to your father,” she said, “that I am very fond
of dogs. I don’t think he likes them. Suppose you and I set up a little
kennel of our own. You will want dogs for the shooting when the time
comes, and I have not seen one about the place.”

“No, there are none. Gilmour--that’s the gamekeeper--has two or three.
He says there’s a good deal of shooting,” said Archie, led out of
himself by the interest of this subject, about which he had gleaned a
little further information. It excited and charmed the lad, for he was
full of eagerness to do things like other young men of his age, but
afraid to show his ignorance to begin with.

“Your father has not said much about it. He is not a shooting man, you
know. You will have to go out with the gamekeeper and bring us our first
grouse.”

“I’ll not bring in many grouse,” he said almost under his breath.

“You are not a good shot? Never mind: you are young enough to mend that.
The great thing is to keep cool and not get flurried, I believe.”

“Oh, I don’t suppose lassies”--he corrected himself quickly with a
violent blush--“ladies know much about it.”

“Perhaps not,” said Evelyn, “but my father was one of the best shots in
Northamptonshire. It is not a very great distinction,” she added with a
smile. “I could quite forgive a man for not shooting at all.”

“It’s no a crime,” said Archie, as if to himself, and with a tone of
defiance.

“Oh no, quite the reverse--neither one way nor another. I think,” she
added with a little hesitation, “that your father, though he does not
shoot himself, would be pleased if you showed a little enthusiasm about
it. Forgive me for saying so. It is worth while taking a little trouble
to please him, he cares so much--”

“Not for me,” said Archie, setting his pale face within his high collar
like a rock.

“Oh, you silly boy!--more for you in that way than for any living
creature. And very naturally, for are not you his heir--his
successor--to represent him in anything he does not do himself?”

“For pride, then,” said Archie, throwing down rather roughly upon the
rug one of the dogs with which he was playing, “not for anything else.”

“Oh, poor little doggie,” said Evelyn, seeing it inexpedient to continue
this subject, and then she added more lightly, “What are they to be
called then, Archie? Roy and Dhu?”

“Whatever you like,” cried the young man. “I care nothing for them now:
they are just little brutes that fawn on anybody. You may call them Red
and Black, if you like, like the cards. I don’t care if I never saw them
more.”

And he turned upon his heel and strode away. But these were words too
dignified and tragical to suit with Archie’s appearance, which was not
that of the hero of romance who grandly does those things. To turn on
your heel and stride away, you ought to be six feet at least, with chest
and shoulders to match. Archie was about five feet six, stooped, and was
badly dressed. He had not yielded to any soft compulsion on this point,
as Marion had done so easily. He had begun to perceive it himself, nay,
he could see that the youngest footman’s cut of livery suit was better
than his. But he clung to his old suit all the same.

The shooting which Mr. Rowland had taken along with Rosmore was not very
great--a few grouse on the hillside, a few partridges late in the
season, some pheasants as tame as poultry in those delightful woods
which were so pleasant to wander in (when your shoes were thick and you
did not mind the damp), but not sufficient to entertain many birds. I
don’t know how rich men generally who have made their money, and have
not been used to those luxuries, arrange about the shooting in the fine
“places” which they buy and retire to when their portion is
made--whether they fall naturally into the habit of it, and shoot like
the other gentlemen, or whether it is a matter that lies heavy on their
mind. It certainly lay very heavy on the mind of Archie, who was too shy
to acknowledge that he knew nothing about that mode of exercise, and
therefore went out with the keeper when the dreadful moment came in
great perturbation, not frightened, indeed, for his gun, or for shooting
himself, which would have been a certain deliverance, but for cutting a
ridiculous figure in the eyes of Roderick, the gamekeeper, who talked
to him, the inexperienced Glasgow boy, as he would have talked to any
young gentleman who had been accustomed to the moors from his cradle.
Archie did not reflect that Roderick knew perfectly where he had come
from and how he had been bred, and that this assumption that he knew all
about it was indeed pure ridicule on the keeper’s part, which would have
been completely divested of its sting if the lad had possessed
sufficient courage to say that he was a novice. But he did not, and the
consequence was a few days of utter humiliation and weariness, after
which Archie became painfully capable of shooting within a few yards of
the bird, and once actually brought down a rabbit, to his great
exultation yet remorse. Poor rabbit, what had it done to have its
freedom and its life thus cut short? But the lad durst no more express
this sentiment than he durst say that he had never fired a gun in his
life before that terrible Twelfth when he went out for the first time on
the hillside and barked his unaccustomed shins, and made his arms ache
and his head swim with the fatiguing, sickening, hopeless day. Rowland
had been warned that there was no game to be had which would justify him
in inviting company. “Me and the young gentleman--twa guns--we will want
nae mair--just enough to keep up a bit supply for the hoose,” Roderick
said, with a twinkle in his eye. And as Archie made no protest, his
father thought that somehow or other the boy who had never had anything
to do all his life must know how to manage his gun.

There were some ideas of going out to the hill with luncheon, which
Evelyn, however, seeing the terror and despair at once in the lad’s
eyes, discouraged.

“No,” she said, “men only pretend to like it when there’s a party: they
never like it when they mean serious work.”

“Do you ever desire work, Archie?” said his father, “Come in with a good
bag, there’s a good fellow.”

“If I might speak a word, sir,” said Roderick, “the finest fallow in the
world will no bring up a cheeper if there’s nane to come.”

“Well, well, start early, and good luck to you,” said Rowland.

And they all came out to meet the pair returning in the afternoon,
Archie more dead than alive, with his hands blistered and his shins
scratched, and the look of absolute exhaustion on his face, but somehow
with a bird or two in his bag which he was not conscious of, still less
of how they got there.

“Ou ay, there’s aye a hare or twa,” said the gamekeeper; “but it was
very warm on the hill, and Mr. Archibald is not used to the work, as few
gentlemen are the first day. I’ll take your gun, sir, and I’ll take your
bag, and the ladies will give ye a lift hame.”

Archie obeyed, and clambered into the carriage, the most dilapidated
sportsman, perhaps, that the evening of the twelfth ever saw.

“Well, sir, had ye good sport?” said his father, feeling a glow of pride
in the performances of the boy.

“Oh, I don’t know if you call that good sport,” the lad said with a
gasp.

But this was set down to modesty, or fatigue, or crossness, which
unfortunately had grown of late to be a recognised quality of Archie.
And Mr. Rowland himself took down a brace of grouse to the Manse next
morning, a proud father handing out “my son’s birds,” as if Archie had
been the finest shot in the world. But this was not Archie’s fault, who
knew nothing of the transaction. He managed to be able to carry his gun
like other feeble sportsmen after that terrible initiation. Thus both
Mr. Rowland’s children learned to adapt themselves to the duties of
their new sphere.




CHAPTER XXII.


Rowland’s ideas of the absence of society in his new home were
confounded by the number of visits his wife received within the first
six weeks of their stay at Rosmore. It had, I have no doubt, been noised
abroad that the wife of the great railway man was, in the loose but
convenient phraseology of the time, “a lady,” and that there was
therefore no appreciable peril to the gentility of her caller, from
making her acquaintance. Lady Jean, of course, was one of the first to
call upon her brother’s tenant. Her arrival was attended by
circumstances of which James Rowland could never think afterwards
without shame and humiliation. Indeed it all but happened to him to turn
the little shabby old lady who was trudging through the woods in short
petticoats and a waterproof to the kitchen door as the natural entrance.
Lady Jean was a little woman of about fifty, who had long ceased to
take the least pride in her appearance, or to care what people thought
on the subject. This last presumption was of course quite unnecessary in
the parish of Rosmore, where everybody knew who she was, and where, had
she gone about in cloth of gold, it would have made no particular
difference. She wore tweed accordingly with the most reckless
indifference to quality (I believe the quality was generally good--it
came in bales from Romans and Paterson, which the Glasgow shopkeepers
thought disloyal to them, and unpatriotic)--one society gown after
another being manufactured for her as need arose; and she was fond of
giving a gown-piece to any girl that might strike her fancy, walked
well, and was, as she expressed it in pregnant Scotch, “purpose-like.”
This is not to say that Lady Jean could not be every inch the Earl’s
sister when occasion demanded, and strike terror into the Radical
multitude, or that she did not possess, and occasionally wear, a
wardrobe more fitted to her condition.

Her arrival at Rosmore had nearly led to disastrous effects, as I have
said. For when Mr. Rowland saw the little old lady nimbly climbing the
hill, with the tweed petticoats reaching to her ankles, and her hat
bearing traces of encounters with several showers, he had not a doubt in
his mind that she was a friend of the housekeeper or some of the
servants. He had said “Hi!” and he was hurrying along partly out of
kindness, for the way to the servants’ entrance was shorter than the one
which swept round to the front of the house, when he saw Archie meet and
pause to answer the old lady’s questions. His father, deeply critical,
yet not so critical as he would have been had he known who the visitor
was, saw his son turn and accompany her, taking off his hat, which
Rowland thought unnecessary (though to be over civil was always better
than being rude) not to the servants’ door, but up to the left hand, to
the front of the house. He had another “Hi!” on his very lips, but
stopped, thinking he might as well leave it to Archie, no great harm
being possible. If the housekeeper’s friend did get admission at the
great door, what then? He gave a regretful thought to the evident fact
that Archie was more at home with the old lady than he was with people
in his own position. Mr. Rowland shook his head sadly over this, and
said to himself that it was in the boy’s blood, and that he would never
make a gentleman: yet comforted himself next moment and justified Archie
by declaring to himself with some warmth that he had a better opinion of
a lad when he was civil to those who had but little claim to the
civility of their neighbours.

Consequent upon this, however, a little curiosity about this old lady
came into Rowland’s mind. She was perhaps some ancient sempstress--some
old pensioner of “the family,” which was a title only accorded by the
public in general to the Clydesdale family, not to the interlopers at
present at the house. The old person was very nimble, whoever she was,
and she had “neat feet,” Mr. Rowland remarked, who had always an eye for
a good point in a woman--very neat feet--shod with strong, purpose-like
shoes. If Marion would only learn to have shoes like that instead of
the things like paper she went about in. He went on very much at his
leisure, following till the old lady disappeared under the colonnade. It
would do her good to get a glimpse of the hall with its Indian carpets
and wonderful hangings. It’s fine to show a poor old body like that once
in a way what wealth can do. It would be a thing for her to make a great
gossip about in the village when she got home. Mr. Rowland was still
smiling with the pleasure of this benevolent view when he saw Archie
come out again. “Who is that old dame you were showing in? I’m glad to
see you so civil,” said the father.

“Civil!” said the young man. And then he added with his usual look of
suppressed indignation, “I’m surprised you did not know her: it is Lady
Jean.”

“Lady Jean!!” But a thousand notes of admiration could not express the
dismay of Rowland when he found out that he had very nearly called out
“Hi!” to Lady Jean.

Lady Jean was greatly pleased with Mrs. Rowland, whom she described as
“probably a little too English for this place--but very well meaning,
and a gentlewoman. It appears I once knew her grandmother,” said Lady
Jean. This, so far as the point was concerned, was as good as a patent
of nobility. Her grandmother!--it added the charm of antiquity to all
the rest--though, indeed, Lady Jean was not more than a dozen years
older than Mrs. Rowland. Evelyn had besought the Earl’s sister to let
her take charge of “the poor” in the village, which gave Lady Jean
occasion for a lecture, which pleased her. “But I must ask you not to
call them the poor. They are neighbours not so well off in this world’s
goods as we are. ‘Poor folk’ is an allowable phrase, meaning a large
class; and it is mostly neighbourly kindness, not charity, that you will
be called on to give. Something off your own table to the sick and
ailing--that’s a fashion of speaking--something off your housekeeper’s
table, not French dishes, will be the best, and a helping hand with the
schooling, and a kind thought of the old people. That is what you want
here.”

“But that is very much what is wanted everywhere,” Evelyn said.

“Very true, but there are Scotch susceptibilities which you must
respect,” said Lady Jean. She liked to make this explanation, and then
to laugh at it, with a twinkle in her eye.

But her conclusion was that Mrs. Rowland was a most creditable person.
“Rich, oh richer than anybody has a right to be--but not much the worse,
considering--just a well-looking, well-mannered gentlewoman.”

Nothing could be more satisfactory than this report. It ran up the loch
and across the mountains. The Duchess heard of it in her quarters among
the hills. It flew east to another duchess on the lowland side. Of
course I need not say to people who know the country which was the one
duchess and which the other. In the course of time they both called,
which was a prodigious distinction: and so did all the smaller gentry,
and some of those great Glasgow potentates who build themselves new
castles upon the banks of the Clyde. Some of them were very fine
gentlemen indeed, but they were “mixed,” and some were only “Glasgow
builders” of a kind quite unknown to Evelyn. One whose carriage would
have made a sensation in Hyde Park, even in the days of hammercloth,
with two powdered footmen behind, had the manners still of the
blacksmith he had originally been. Mr. Rowland rather liked these
personages, especially the old gentleman who had been a blacksmith. He
stood up in a group with two or three of them who represented among them
heaven knows how many millions, and thrust his hands into his pockets
and talked investments and money. Why should not people talk money who
have more of that than of anything else? Painters talk of their
pictures, and literary men of their books. Why not millionaires of that
which makes them so? Rowland was very intelligent, and he liked to talk
upon money subjects; but an occasional laying of the heads together with
a few other rich men over the subject of money was refreshing to him, as
it is refreshing to an artist after long deprivation to find himself
once more among his own kind.

With all this flash of fine society, however, which so soon made an end
of Rowland’s fears, it is astounding how much in the foreground of the
picture was Miss Eliza, briefly described as “of the Burn,” in the
nomenclature of the parish. What Miss Eliza’s surname was, and what was
implied by the designation “of the Burn,” it was really quite
unnecessary to add. The same surname is so very general in Scotch west
country parishes, that it confers little distinction in itself. Miss
Eliza came to call in a little wickerwork carriage, called a
clothes-basket by her friends, with a russet pony to draw it and equally
russet groom or stable-boy to look after the vehicle when she made a
call. Miss Eliza drove the pony herself, with Colin generally behind, to
whom she threw a word occasionally when a longer time than usual elapsed
without meeting anybody on the road: but as the kind woman knew
everybody, from the fishwife who came over with her creels from
Kilrossie during the season of the saut water, up to the Earl himself,
when he happened to be seen in those regions, or even the Duchess, who
was a still more rare visitor, there was but little time for her to
entertain Colin with a special remark. “How do you do the day?” she said
with a wave of her whip in salutation of her friends. “How’s a’ with
you, David? I hope the hoast is better, and that you like the
lozenges.--Good morning, Mrs. Dean, and isn’t it just a pleasure to see
such a fine day: grand for the hay, as I have been saying all the way
down the loch, fifty times if I’ve said it once. I’m hoping they’ll get
it all well carted in at Rowanson, and a fine heavy crop it is, just a
pleasure to see.--Eh, is that you, Lizzie, with your basket? It’s awfu’
heavy for you, my poor lass, and you not got up your strength yet. Climb
up beside Colin: I’ll take ye a bittie of the way.--Good day to ye,
minister. Ye see I’ve got Lizzie Chalmers in the basket. Ye must just
give her a good talking to, for she’s come out before she has got up her
strength. Would you like any of her fish at the Manse? I would call and
leave them on my way back, with pleasure, and it would aye be something
for her to take home. I will have some of the herrings and the little
haddies myself, though the haddies are not equal to the Fife haddies,
and the herrings are not so good as Loch Fyne. Oh yes, I am just going
to Rosmore. I hear she’s just an uncommon nice person, and a credit to
the loch-side.--Dear me, there’s Lady Jean. It’s a sight for sore eyes
to see you now, and a sore trouble to think you’re in the parish no
longer, and I can scarcely offer to give you a lift when I have Lizzie
Chalmers in the cart. Isn’t she just a very presentable sort of person?
I’m meaning the new lady at the house, no Lizzie: we all know everything
there is to know about her. And I hope his lordship is quite well, and
you are not finding Ardnachrean damp.--Dear, bless me, there is the
doctor, and I want to ask him about young Rankin, and make him speak his
mind to Lizzie there. Good-day to you all, good-day.”

If it may be suggested that a country lady driving her own machine could
scarcely be likely to meet so much company on a country road, I must say
in my own defence that it was the same day on which Lady Jean had paid
her visit to Mrs. Rowland, which accounted for her; and as for the usual
inhabitants of Rosmore, from the minister down to old David, they were
all to be met with in the afternoon, within a few hundred yards. Lizzie
Chalmers, it is true, was from Kilrossie, and did not come every day,
but she was the only one of the party with the exception of Lady Jean
who was not to be met with about the same hour on the same road every
day.

“Is he any better, doctor?” said Miss Eliza, coming down upon the doctor
with a little rush of the russet pony, prompted by a smarter than
ordinary flourish of the whip. “Yes, I was afraid it was his own fault,
the foolish fellow. Men are just idiots rushing upon destruction, and
him so sensible when he is _himself_. There is Lizzie Chalmers, behind
me in the basket, just as silly in another way, coming out with her
heavy creel before she is well over her trouble. I would wish you to
speak very seriously to her, doctor. You must just lay me out my
herrings and haddies, and the codfish for the manse, it will make your
creel the lighter. And Colin, fill you that long basket with grass to
make a nice caller bed for the fish.--And here we are at the gate of
Rosmore, and to take you further would just be to take you out of your
way. Help her out, Colin, and you can put out the biggest codfish--if
it’s too much for them, I’ll make them a present of it, and they can
send the rest to that ne’er-do-weel’s poor wife, poor thing. And Lizzie,
my woman, here’s another shilling for you. Stay at home and look after
the bairns, and don’t come out to-morrow. Now, Rufus, on you go, my man.
It’s a stiff brae, and I know you don’t like it; but we’ll just make
Colin get out and run. Come away, my bonnie man,” said Miss Eliza, with
a chirrup, as she slanted the pony’s head towards the brae. Having no
one else to speak to, she talked to Rufus, who was very well used to it,
and responded by little shakings of his head and jinglings of his
harness. “Come away,” she added, meaning “go on”; “It’s a stey brae, but
ye must just go at it with a stout heart, and it will be over in a
moment. Come away, my bonnie man! Just jump in to Colin, and not let him
cool after that fine burst, for I like to come in at the door with a
dash, and Rufus can do it if he likes. Now down with ye again, and give
a good peal to the bell.--Will Mrs. Rowland be in this afternoon?” she
added, with a sweep of the whip towards the footman at the door. Then
Miss Eliza got down a little more dexterously than an inexperienced
spectator would have looked for. She went into Rosmore in the same
cheerful manner, talking all the way. The footman, it is true, was
English, and an unknown quantity, but even to him Miss Eliza found
something to say.

“They will be in, both Mrs. Rowland and the young lady? That is very
lucky for me, for in a fine day like this most people are on the road.
They will be using the long drawing-room with the view? Well, I do not
blame them: it is best, though Lady Jean used to keep it for
company.--Who will ye say? Oh, there is my card, that is the most
sensible way.--My dear Mrs. Rowland, I am very glad to make your
acquaintance. We have heard just everything that is good of you, and I
have been most anxious to welcome you to the parish. And this is Miss
Rowland? Dear me, how delighted all the young folk will be to hear of
such an addition. And now that you have got settled down a little, I
hope you like the house?”

“The house is delightful,” said Evelyn, “and so are the views. My
husband prepared me for the beauty of the country, but he said very
little about the excellence inside.”

“He would know but little,” said Miss Eliza. “They’re not noticing about
houses, the men folk. And as for the views, we have been settled here
this forty years since we came quite young creatures ourselves; but I’ve
never tired of this. I’ve never got indifferent, as you generally do,
with what you’ve seen every day: it’s just as new to me now as it was at
the first.”

“It is a beautiful country,” said Evelyn civilly.

“Is it not--just a blessed country! Eh, if the people were but equal.
‘Every prospect pleases,’ you remember the hymn says, ‘and only man--’
No, no, I will not say that man is vile: that is a great deal too
strong. What I complain of in very religious folk is that they are
censuring their neighbours, when perhaps, if the truth was known, their
neighbours--But we must not pursue that subject. Man is not vile, but
he’s not so satisfying as the everlasting hills.”

“Oh,” said Marion, with the little fictitious intonation which copied
Evelyn’s, “but men are more amusing than the mountains.” She herself was
not by any means so amusing in her diction since she had become an echo
of Mrs. Rowland in her gesture and voice.

“The young ladies,” said Miss Eliza with a laugh, “are mostly of that
opinion, and I should not say nay, for I have not less than six nephews
coming to-morrow for tennis, and everything that they can find that is
diverting. They are either at the college, for there’s a summer session
in the scientific classes, or else they’re in offices, and they come
down to us on Saturday to play. I hope you’ll come up to the Burn, you
and your brother, to meet my young men. There will be a view or two as
well. And after the diversion there will be a kind of supper, and then
they will see you home.”

Marion did not know how to act in such an emergency, but it was
understood that the invitation was accepted. And Miss Eliza returned
after half-an-hour’s talking, full of the genius of the mistress of the
house, and the wealth of its fitting up. “There would need to be
something very sustaining in the sense of good old blood in your veins,
and a family that has existed for generations,” she said, “for if I was
Lady Jean, I could not bear to see how the house is changed, just by the
railway man. For it was always a bare, cauldrife sort of house. I used
to feel that there were not carpets enough on the floor, nor coals
enough in the grate. Now it’s just all blazing and shining with
warmth--curtains that just clothe the place, and pictures on the walls,
and grand carpets that your foot sinks in. It may not be such good
taste, but it is far more comfortable. And Mrs. Rowland is a most
personable woman, and him a very good sort of a man.”

“And the daughter, Aunt Eliza?” cried the miss, to whom this was the
most interesting part of all.

“The daughter--well she’s just a young lady like the rest. I asked her
to come to-morrow, and you can judge for yourself,” Miss Eliza said.

The minister and his wife formed a still more interesting part of the
immediate society of the little place, and puzzled Evelyn, who had been
brought up in the somewhat narrow creed of her country to ignore
everything but “the Church,” and to look with small respect upon
dissenters in general as a community of uneducated people. She did not
at all know what to make of the trim and well dressed pair who called
upon her, he in garments almost more sacerdotal than if he had been a
priest of All Saints, Elizabeth Street, and she with the fashionable cut
of her dress shadowed by the inevitable mackintosh. This was the Scotch
minister whom she had met with in pictures in a very different aspect,
but of whom she knew nothing in real life except that she had a puzzled
comprehension that he did not belong to “the Church,” but yet was--what
was he?--a kind of vicar or rector after another fashion, like yet quite
unlike the vicars and rectors whom she knew. Mrs. Rowland had her
limitations like others, and did not know what to think. But she was, as
ever, charmingly polite, and did her best to please these bewildering
neighbours. She apologised for not having yet been to church, giving
some excuse of tiredness or headache. As a matter of fact the headache
had been a result of the same bewilderment which made her so curious and
so unassured about the position of Mr. Dean. A Scottish gentlewoman in
England would have had no such ignorance; which is a curious fact, and
one, perhaps, which proves the superiority of the wealthier and more
remote ecclesiastical economy.

“I dare say,” said Mrs. Dean, “that you were not sure if you should come
to our church. There is an Episcopalian Chapel in Kilrossie. As you are
English, Mrs. Rowland, it’s perhaps there you should go.”

“Indeed, I cannot say,” said Evelyn, “I have never gone anywhere but to
the parish church--but--I don’t quite understand--”

“We both understand perfectly,” said Mrs. Dean, “that you would miss the
ritual and your beautiful prayer-book. We have a great sympathy for
that. There is nothing in the prayer-book, I am sure, that would be a
stumbling-block to my husband, and he sometimes takes a collect just
straight out of it without any kind of clipping or trimming. There is a
great movement in Scotland, which perhaps you are not acquainted with,
to improve the baldness of our services, and make them more generally
attractive. We have a harmonium,” Mrs. Dean said with pride, “and I am
happy to say that our choir is beginning to chant just extraordinarily
well. You will see no such terrible difference as maybe you think.”

Evelyn held her peace, being more and more bewildered with every word.
She wondered what Mrs. Reuben Butler, _née_ Jeanie Dean, who was once
the minister’s wife of this parish, would have thought of this
statement. She only bowed in reply, not being for her own part at all
qualified to speak.

“Alexander will explain to you far better than I can, and you will find
no intolerance in him. He perhaps agrees better with you,” she added,
with a smile, “than with the old-fashioned folk who insist upon keeping
up all the difference.--Alexander, Mrs. Rowland would like you to
explain the way we’re trying to bridge over the debateable land between
our establishment and the other. Just come here. I will change places
with you.” The good wife, with these words, rose and took a chair beside
Rowland, to whom her husband had been talking, which was very
self-denying on the part of the minister’s wife, there being nothing at
all novel in the gentleman of the house, whereas there was a great deal
that was novel in the lady, and therefore interesting. She relinquished
the post to the minister, who was perhaps better able to expound--was he
better able to expound?--the problem of that ecclesiastical movement in
Scotland which is so much more puzzling to unsophisticated English
understandings, prepared for polemics and opposition, than the good old
conventional figure of the Presbyterian Calvinist, which is a primitive
type that everybody knows.

“I don’t know what there is to explain,” said Mr. Dean, taking, nothing
loth, the chair his wife had vacated: he too preferred the mistress to
the master of the house. “Our services--but then Mrs. Rowland will
understand them better when she has seen them.”

“Oh, I was very tired after my long journey--and I had a headache.”

“She was not out of her bed,” replied Rowland, as if his wife were being
blamed.

“I am sure,” said Mr. Dean, “that if I was Mrs. Rowland, I should not go
through the tedious drawl of the old-fashioned Scotch church on any
account, or listen to a sermon an hour long, which is what some of our
neighbouring clergymen still indulge in. But it is modified in Rosmore
church, and I promise you you shall not have more of me than twenty
minutes. We have very decent music, thanks to my wife. In short, for a
country service in an out-of-the-way place like this, I’m glad to think
that we are making it much more attractive.”

“Attractive?” Evelyn said, more bewildered than ever. “To whom were they
intended to be attractive? To the persons to whom they were addressed?”

“It is in no way necessary,” said the minister, “that music and
everything that is pleasant should be appropriated by one body. We can
take up our inheritance in that way just as fitly as the Episcopalians.
I am not a bigoted Presbyterian,” he said, “even in the way of Church
government, which is really the only peculiar part of our economy. I
think it is just as good as the other. I don’t think that either of them
is divinely appointed. I am used to presbytery, you are used to
bishops--very well. We need not go to loggerheads about that. I know a
bishop or two, and I’ve always found them very friendly, without being
inclined to bow down to kiss the pastoral ring any more than the papal
toe.”

“You are not so peaceably inclined when you come home from a Presbytery
meeting, Alexander,” said the wife of his bosom. “For my part I am
rather fond of the lawn sleeves. I think equality of ministers is just
as great nonsense as equality generally. Don’t you think so, Mr.
Rowland? When young Lord Rosmore says to me we are all born equal, I
just say to him, Bah! As if anybody in his senses would put my husband
and Johnny Shanks at the head of the loch upon the same level! You will
remember Johnny Shanks? just a nobody; whereas Alexander----”

“My wife,” said Mr. Dean, while this was going on, “likes the decorative
side. Lawn sleeves and gaitered legs take her fancy. But if there is one
thing convenient in our simplicity, it is that we are saved all the
millinery questions. And that, I think, goes for a great deal.”

Evelyn had never been ecclesiastically minded, and was but vaguely aware
what the millinery question meant. As for the rest, though she was an
intelligent woman, these two people might as well have talked Hebrew to
her: there was no understanding in her mind.




CHAPTER XXIII.


It was October when the young Saumarez’s arrived at Rosmore. October is
very lovely in the west of Scotland. The trees are thinned but still
glowing, the birches like lamps of gold among the darker woods,
scattering round them, as the leaves drop, a golden underground that
gives out light. The great line of mountains at the head of the loch
were lightly touched with snow. The villas on the banks came out more
brightly from the thinned foliage, and stood reflected in the shining
water, with all the tints round them of red rowan berries and dazzling
autumnal leaves. The air had a clearness as of the rarified air of high
altitudes. There had not been any rain for ten days, so remarkable a
fact that the district in general was beginning to fear the failure of
its wells.

In such an evening, while the sun lavished its last rays upon the loch
and the opposite shore, bathing them in golden light, Rosamond and
Edward came across in the steamboat to the whole Rowland family, which
awaited them on the pier. I am wrong, however, to say the whole family:
for Archie, who had been seized by a strong repugnance to the newcomers
without any reason--a fact which, of course, made it more strong--was
not of the number. He had gone up the loch or the hill with a determined
intention of returning only in time for dinner. If truth had been told,
he was extremely curious, even anxious about the young man who was of
his own age, about whom there could be no doubt that he was a gentleman
born to everything which Archie had not been born to, yet possessed. He
did not think at all about the pretty sister, who probably would have
most engaged the interest of the ordinary youth of twenty. But the more
Archie was curious, the less had he any intention of showing it. He
listened himself to what was said, but he asked no questions. Finally he
started, half an hour before they went to meet the newcomers, for a long
walk up the hill.

“It is too lovely,” said Rosamond, presenting her cheek, as usual, that
Mrs. Rowland should kiss it. “I wish some one had told me that it was a
beautiful place. I never began to look till we got into the steamboat. I
am not in the least tired, thank you. Eddy! where are you, Eddy? One
never knows where to find him. He is always picking up everywhere some
fellow he knows. He is not nice to travel with, because there are so
many fellows he knows.”

Here there advanced from the other end of the boat, and bounded across
the gangway just before it was withdrawn, a short young man, with a
travelling cap upon one side of his head and a cigar in his mouth. He
had to make a jump upon the pier amid a shout of “Take care, will ye!”
and “What are ye doing, lad?” from the man at the pier; and dropped like
a projectile in the midst of the group which, so undistinguished was
Eddy’s appearance, were not looking for him except his sister, who put
out a hand as if to help him. “That was cleverly done,” said Rowland,
opposing his own substantial bulk to arrest the stranger who was
standing in their midst; “but I would advise you, my young friend, to
bestir yourself sooner, and not run such a risk again.”

“Oh, it is his way,” replied Rosamond. “You would not think it, but this
is Eddy, Mrs. Rowland. He is like nobody one ever saw.”

Certainly he was not like his handsome father, the young Edward Saumarez
whom Evelyn remembered so well. She had been half afraid of seeing a
reproduction of his old look. But that was one of the anticipatory
troubles that she might well have spared herself. He was short; his hair
was light and scanty; his eyes half lost under many folds of loose
eyebrows, and a brow which contracted with what some unkind critic has
called the short-sighted soul, was rather small. His nose was turned up
a little. Marion, who, in the interests of Archie, had been looking
forward, half with hope and half with fear, to the arrival of a
beautiful youth--a darling of society, exquisitely clothed and of
distinguished appearance--felt a pang, half of disappointment, half of
relief. Perhaps the relief was the stronger. Archie!--why Archie was
taller, better looking, and more a man than this little shambling
fellow! The foolish father felt much more cordial to Eddy, and grasped
him strongly by the hand.

“You’re welcome to Rosmore, both you and your sister,” he said.

There came an answer from Eddy’s lips which sounded very much like
“Who’s this?” but a glance from his sister brought him to himself, and
he made his bow accordingly.

“I’m very glad to be here, I can tell you,” said Eddy. “Never knew such
a beast of a journey--tumbled out of one carriage into another, and then
Glasgow, and then a boat, and I don’t know all what. How do you do? Been
here long?--and have you got any sport? It’s just like my luck to come
so late.”

“My son,” said Rowland with ineffable pleasure--for he did not feel
ashamed of his son now, quite the reverse in sight of this shabby young
lad, who looked like nothing at all--“has arranged a day for you, and I
think you’ll find a bird or two yet.”

“That’s all right,” said Eddy. “How do you do, Mrs. Rowland! It is very
pretty, as Rose says, but I’m not a man for the picturesque myself. Oh,
you’re going to walk? Excuse me, I’m not much of a walking man: I’ll go
with the ladies, if it’s the same to you.”

“Certainly,” said Rowland amazed, but always with a certain exultation
on Archie’s account. This an example for Archie! the boy was twice the
man this fellow was. It is not good to rejoice in the disadvantages of
other people, but he had been so sure, and professed his pleasure in it,
that Saumarez’s son--a man in the best society--could be a model for
Archie, that the satisfaction in finding him so shabby a little fellow
was more than words could say. He did not need to be ashamed of his own
boy in this company at least. Mr. Rowland started to walk, while the
little man jumped into his place in the carriage, with a certain
elation, as if somebody had given him something he acknowledged to
himself.

“How jolly of you to come to meet us,” said Eddy, “country fashion. We
were wondering, Rose and I, if there would be a dog-cart or something.
Never expected this luxury. Rose, did you see after the luggage? I had
no time to think of it--met a fellow who was with me at Eton--one of the
great plucked, don’t you know--run all over the country in crowds at
this time of the year.”

“Yes,” said Rosamond with her calm air, “he was plucked of course, Mrs.
Rowland. I told you we could not come any sooner because of his exam. Of
course I knew quite well how it would turn out, and so I told father.
But there are some things that people will not believe. I never can see
the good, for my part, of going in for exams. that you are sure not to
pass.”

“Oh,” said Eddy, light-heartedly, “it is always something to do--keeps
you from feeling that you’ve got no centre to your life, don’t you
know. I like a sort of fixed point; if you don’t work up to it, of
course that’s your fault, but all the same an object,--a fine thing.
Don’t you agree with me, Miss Rowland?” said the young man, turning
round a little to look into the face of his companion on the front seat,
who had given up her place to Rosamond without any pleasure, and was now
studying that young lady in every line of her costume, with something of
the same sensation of mingled disappointment and relief which her father
had experienced. Marion was accustomed now to all the subtleties of the
toilette. She was more respectful of Rosamond’s grey gown than she had
been of Evelyn’s travelling dress; but she perceived at a glance that
from this visitor there would be little to learn.

“I don’t know what you mean by an object. I think most gentlemen’s
object is to please themselves,” Marion said.

“That’s what you call epigrammatic, ain’t it,” said Eddy, “and severe.”

“Oh, I just say what I think,” said Marion. She had not had a young man
given her to play with since the days of the students, who laughed at
her saucy speeches, and said among themselves that Rowland’s sister was
clever, much cleverer than he was; and the prospect was agreeable to
her. Not that there was anything attractive in Eddy personally, but
still he was of the kind of mouse to her cat--or cat to her mouse, as
sometimes happens in that sort of exercise. They eyed each other with
furtive glances, both aware of this probable relationship.

“Father has left Aix,” said Rosamond, “they have sent him to some other
place which it is supposed may do him good. Of course so long as he has
Rogers with him we know that he is well attended to. I hope we shall not
stay too long and bore you, Mrs. Rowland. Would it be too much to say a
month? I hope you will be so kind as to tell us if you want our rooms
for other visitors, or get tired of us. Of course people always do in
society, or it would be impossible to get on.”

“Yes, I promise, my dear, I shall tell you if I get tired of you,” said
Evelyn.

“We have been for a fortnight with grandmamma. I think we bored her very
much. She told us she had people coming for the 22nd. But we really
could not get away on the 22nd. One’s grandmother is not the same as any
one else, do you think? However much she may be bored, it is right that
she should put up with it. We don’t go there very much. Once in a year
is not a great deal. She never has anything to say to father: he makes
her so nervous, she says. She will soon say that Eddy makes her nervous
too: when there is no smoking-room, perhaps it may be a little
unpleasant to smell his cigars; but if there is anything at all in being
a grandmother--then she is of course impatient that he has not passed
his exam. I cannot see why, for my part. They ought to have known it
from the first. If you will not even open a book, how can you expect to
pass any exam.?”

“My object, I allow, is to amuse myself,” said Eddy to Marion, dropping
his voice, as it is the right thing to do when you wish to set up a
separate conversation. “I am quite candid, as you are--and, tell me,
isn’t that yours too?”

“I am afraid you will not find it very easy,” said Marion, “to amuse
yourself at Rosmore.”

“What! is there nothing to do?” said Eddy, looking a little dismayed.

“We never see anybody from morning to night but the old maids out of the
village. And we never go anywhere. There was a ball at Campbellton, but
they refused it, and there was one at Eagle’s Craig, but they just went
themselves.”

“Good heavens!” cried Eddy, “what depravity! you never mean to say that
the old people, papa and mamma----”

“They just went themselves!” said Marion with an indignation almost too
terrible for words.

“This must be looked into,” said Eddy, “it is almost beyond belief.”

“I will tell you after,” said Marion, as the conversation on the other
side of the carriage came to a pause.

Thus Mr. Edward Saumarez, jun., procured for himself, without a moment’s
delay, something to do at Rosmore. And Marion Rowland found at once an
additional interest in life. It was quite innocent, and as trivial as
could have been desired. In the evening after dinner she confided a part
of her troubles to him, and then the next day, when the young visitors
were conducted by the young people of the house to see the
neighbourhood, Marion managed so that Rosamond went on with Archie,
while she herself followed attended by Eddy. And the sight of the two
pairs thus arranged was amusing enough. Rosamond went on in advance,
very quickly, with her smooth firm step, and her head held high, as she
walked in London, where, intent upon her own business, this young woman
of the period passed where she pleased, as safe in her own protection
and that, but in a most secondary degree, of her mastiff, as safely as
Una with her lion; while Archie walked by her, a step behind, finding it
slightly difficult to keep up with her long yet graceful steps, and
still more difficult to answer the occasional questions which she
addressed to him without turning her head. Archie for his own part could
not, however he cudgelled his brains, find out anything to say to this
beautiful young lady. He felt her to be miles, nay Alps above him, and
that he could not say anything which did not feel common, vulgar,
mean--like a boy in a shop talking to a princess. He kept striving to
keep up with her, yet never quite kept up with her save when she stopped
suddenly and turned with the same swiftness of movement with which she
walked to look out on the water or up to the hills, when he would outgo
her, and be compelled to swing himself round with an effort to get back
to his place.

“What is the name of that hill?” she asked, all at once coming to one of
those sudden pauses. “That?” said Archie, anxiously turning to quite
another point; “oh that is Ben Ros--or no, I think it is what they call
The Miller--if it is not Ros-dhu.”

“You don’t seem to know very much about them,” said the stately girl,
and then she set off again, certainly indifferent to the blundering
explanation he made that he was afraid he had a bad memory, and that one
person said one thing and one another, so that it was difficult to know.
At another time it was on the seaside that Rosamond paused, demanding to
know the name of the lighthouse in the distance, and what was the
shadowy height to be seen far off down the course of the Clyde. If it
had cost him his life, poor Archie could not remember whether he had
been told that this peak was Goatfell or if it was one of the Cumbraes,
which he knew lay “that way.” And the light: what was it that Roderick
called the light? If he had ever dreamt that he would be interrogated
this way, Archie would have given his whole attention to the acquisition
of local knowledge. A cold perspiration came out upon his forehead, as
he stammered out answers which he was sure were all wrong. “Oh!” said
Miss Saumarez, not even deigning to cast a glance at him. Eddy did not
suffer half so much from his unsuccessful examination as poor Archie did
from this totally unexpected process, which showed him the profound
depth of his ignorance. What a fool she must think him! What an idiot he
was!

“I am afraid, Mr. Rowland, you don’t admire your own country so much as
I do,” Rosamond said at the end of the walk, with a smile that went over
his head like an arrow, which she did not even take the trouble to aim
at him. And he was tongue-tied and could not say a word, could not think
of anything to say; though after she had gone on, a dozen little darts
of words which he might have said, came into his mind, wounding himself
with little pricks instead of compelling her to respect him a little,
as, if they had but come soon enough, they might have done.

Meanwhile the other pair had got on, as Eddy would have said, like a
house on fire. Marion had given him the whole history of the ball at
Eagle’s Craig, to which she had been invited with her stepmother; but to
which Mrs. Rowland had gone alone--with diamonds round her neck and in
her hair.

“She would not have had any diamonds but for papa,” said Marion. “She
was quite nobody when he married her.”

“Oh, now I don’t think that can be true,” said Eddy, “for my governor,
you know--” an impulse of wisdom checked the young man--“couldn’t have
known her, could he, if she had been nobody?”

“Well, at least she was nobody out in India,” said Marion, “and to see
her now! And I had to stay at home--me, papa’s own daughter, and the
only one, and a very good dancer! And it was her that went to the ball,
an old lady, and me, I had to stay at home!”

“It is a sort of thing that would justify an appeal to parliament,” said
Eddy, “but there must have been some sort of reason alleged. Perhaps you
had not a frock?”

“I have dozens of frocks,” said Marion, turning upon him with a gleam in
her eye.

“Or you did not know the people?”

“I know heaps of people; that is, I did not know them myself, but what
does it matter about that when I am papa’s daughter, and he could
just--buy them all up!”

“Oh,” said Eddy, taken a little aback--for though he was accustomed to a
great deal of slang and much frank speaking, it was not generally quite
of this kind. “Then,” he said, “I am at my wit’s end, and I can’t think
what they meant.”

“They said,” cried Marion, “that I was not out.”

“Oh,” said Eddy again.

“But what did that matter--for who would have ever known? And it was a
delightful ball, with a great many officers. And I am a fine dancer,”
said Marion with a deep sigh of mingled indignation and regret.

“Oh, as for that, there is no doubt,” said Eddy, “you are as light as a
feather, and with those pretty little feet--”

“No, I am not as light as a feather: I am just the weight I ought to be,
and my feet are just the same as other people’s; but I know,” said
Marion with conviction, “that I am good at dancing. Archie is not very
good at it, and he is not fond of it.”

“He does not look as if he would be,” said Eddy, with a look at the son
of the house tramping on before them at a considerable distance in close
pursuit of the lady who was in his charge.

“No,” said Marion, “he never was fond of it--are you?”

“Oh, I adore it,” said the young man, “when I have a partner to my mind.
You and I, Miss Marion, would fly like the wind. We’d leave everybody
behind us. I’ll tell you what we must do to make up for that
Ravenscraig--no, Eagle’s Craig business--we’ll make them give a ball
here.”

“A ball at Rosmore!”

“The very thing! while we are here. Rosamond has not come out either,
but, as you say, who will ever know? We may as well have our fun, and
you and she can keep each other in countenance. Nobody will tell--and
what would it matter if they did? Why, girls not out are to be seen
everywhere--always at balls at home. You put on a high dress.”

“No,” cried Marion, “I would rather die than go to a dance in a high
dress.”

“Well, don’t then,” said the complacent Eddy, “anything you please. Oh,
don’t be afraid. I will speak to Mrs. Rowland. I can be as independent
as you like when there’s any occasion for it. And my governor, you know,
poor old chap----”

“Do you mean ‘your papa,’” said Marion.

“Well, I don’t call him so,” said Eddy with a laugh. “There was a story,
don’t you know, about him and your mamma-in-law. The governor behaved
badly, but she has a sneaking kindness for him all the same. That’s why
we are here.”

“Oh!” cried Marion, with a gasp of excitement, “tell me! for I know
nothing about her. I want to know about her. I was sure there was some
story.”

“The governor was a sad dog when he was young,” said Eddy. “Oh, he’s a
nice fellow to blow a fellow up for some trifle not half so bad as
himself. He was up to anything that was naughty. It’s funny, isn’t it,
to hear of these anti-diluvian lovers--my old governor, who can’t move a
limb, poor old chap, and this prim lady here who looks like a saint.”

“As if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,” said Marion; “but I always
knew there was some story. Be quick and tell me, for they are coming
back.”

“I will tell you another time. Can’t we come out to-night in the
moonlight to smoke a cigarette. Did you ever try a cigarette? Oh, all
the girls do! I’ll teach you how. It makes you much better company when
you don’t mind a cigarette.--Hi! here’s Rosamond down upon us. Not a
word to her, whatever I tell you. And your brother coming lagging behind
as if she had given him a touch of the lash. She’s a rare one for that;
keeps a fellow in his place, as if she was too grand to mind.”

“Oh, Archie is just as grand as she is,” said the girl, slightly
offended; “and it is just his way to keep behind. I would like to see
anybody giving my brother a touch of the lash!”

“It is not because he is your brother, but because he is himself,” said
Eddy. “I don’t mean any offence. I mean that’s Rosamond’s way. She is
like the governor, don’t you know. She has got a great deal of the devil
in her. So have you, I should think.”

“Me!” said Marion, much shocked. “I am not what you think at all.”

“Yes,” said Eddy, “I am sure you are what I think. As nice as girls are
made, but plenty of devilry, and a spirit for anything. That is
precisely what I like best.”

“Well,” said Marion, “I will allow that I have a great deal of spirit,
if that’s what you call the----; but you shouldn’t say bad words. Do you
mean that girls are not made so nice as men? for I think you’re very
impudent to say so, and me a girl that you are speaking to.”

“Girls,” said Eddy, with an air of authority, “are sometimes much
better, and sometimes they are a great deal worse than men. There’s no
medium in them. You are one of the nice ones, so of course you are a
great deal nicer than a fellow like me, or even your brother. I am a
dreadful little beggar, and that is the truth.”

“Oh, you like to say ill things of yourself.”

“No, I don’t, if they weren’t true. You hit me off exactly, the very
first thing, when you said men had no object but to amuse themselves.
You must be awfully clever as well as nice. I don’t see what we’re in
the world for but to enjoy ourselves. I’m sure I didn’t ask to come, and
I dare say I shan’t have a very long life, so I mean it to be a merry
one, I can tell you. As for the governor,” said Eddy, “he has no right
to complain. Rose is too good for him, but he deserves to have me to
keep him in mind of how naughty he has been.”

“What have you done,” said Marion, interested, “that is so----naughty,
as you say?”

“Oh, you would like to know?” he said, opening his eyes wide, with a
laugh. “Perhaps if I were to tell you, you would never speak to me any
more.”

“I am not that kind,” said Marion. “I would always speak to you,
whatever you did--if you were sorry.”

“Ah! but the chief thing in me is that I am not a bit sorry,” said
Eddy.--“Are you going back already you two? You go off like a hunter,
Rose, never minding who toils after you. Miss Rowland and I are going
further on.”

“There is a beautiful view up there,” said Rosamond, pointing to the
west, “if you cared about views, and the mountains are beautiful in that
direction, but as you never would look at a landscape in your life----”

“Not when I had mettle more attractive,” said Eddy, with a look at
Marion, and then he laughed out, “When I can combine both, I like it
very much.”

“Mary, it is perhaps going to rain. I would not advise you to go very
far,” said Archie, who was more susceptible than his sister to the light
compliment and the laughter. But Marion stood her ground.

“Since we came to Rosmore,” she said, “it has always been going to rain,
and we can shelter under the trees, and it does no harm. I have promised
to Mr. Saumarez to show him Ben Ros before we go in.”

“I am very anxious to make the acquaintance of Ben Ros,” said Eddy with
a laugh. “_Au revoir_, you people who have accomplished that part
already. I don’t suppose you are deeply attached to Ben Ros--what do
you call him--are you? But it is always a good excuse for a walk--and a
talk.”

“You never call me by my name,” said Marion; “you say just _you_, as if
I were not a person at all.”

“Because you would be angry if I called you by your name.”

“Me, angry! Why I am just Miss Rowland to everybody, servants and all.”

“I suppose you don’t rank me with the servants? I shall say Marion or
nothing--and of course you would not allow me--or May, that is your name
too, and the prettiest of all.”

“May is short for Marion,” she said with a blush.

“And I’m to call you so? Then I shall do nothing but call you by it.
May, May--it is the prettiest name in the world.”

Thus there came into conjunction another two who were not Mr. Rowland’s
two, nor perhaps a two who were very desirable companions for each
other, yet who suited each other, as Mr. Edward Saumarez eloquently
expressed it, down to the ground.




CHAPTER XXIV.


“A ball! It is not Archie, I am sure, who would like a ball,” said Mrs.
Rowland from the sofa, where Eddy had been sitting by her, in an
attitude of respectful adoration for some time. He had cast repeated
startling glances at Marion, calling her observation while he was so
engaged. And Marion, seated at a distance with a book held up in front
of her face, gave way now and then to little bursts of laughter, which
she quickly repressed. It was infinitely ludicrous to Marion that any
one should pretend to advise Mrs. Rowland, a woman of that age; but
Eddy, she thought, played his part to perfection, and it was the
funniest thing in the world.

Rosamond was seated at the piano, playing as it were in an undertone,
and for her own pleasure, various bits of music, one suggesting another,
as one verse of poetry suggests another. She was a good musician, but
she did not attempt to play to so indifferent an audience, though
Rowland was always certainly civil in his desire to “have a little
music,” when he came into the drawing-room after dinner. The good man
knew that this was the right thing, and that Miss Saumarez would expect
to be asked, and sat and yawned dutifully through what he privately
thought to himself “just a terrible jingle,” out of respect to his
guest. But Rowland had not left the dining-room on this occasion. He had
a playfellow of his own who had dined with him, and was now engaging him
in much more congenial talk. Archie was not much more educated in music
than his father; but there was in his unpossessed being a power of
perception, only half developed, of beautiful things. A sonata would
have disconcerted him as much as it did Rowland; but the bits of melody
that Rosamond was playing, and which he called in his simplicity tunes,
seemed to make an atmosphere about her which was poetically appropriate,
and filled the background of the large partially lighted sitting-room.
The group on the sofa, with Marion’s detached figure full in the light
of a lamp, seemed like a group on the stage, carrying on the thread of
some half-comprehended story. Rosamond and the music belonged to a
different sphere. There were shaded candles upon the piano, throwing a
white light upon a pair of white hands, moving softly over the ivory
keys; behind, the curtains were drawn back from one of the rounded
windows, a line of moonlight came in, and in the distance from the
corner in which Archie was seated unseen there was a glimmer visible of
the distant waters of the Clyde, in glistening life and movement under
the white blaze of the moon. Archie’s heart was full of strange and
uncomprehended emotion. He was in a new world, listening to those soft
strains which touched him as the light might touch a being coming to
life, and feeling the vague enchantment of the night, the presence, like
a charm, of the half seen figure, half dark half light, at the piano,
and this subtle atmosphere in which she breathed. He had said very
little to Rosamond in the week during which they had lived under the
same roof. She despised him quite frankly, taking no pains to disguise
it. He read in her looks that she thought him a lout, a fool, a
nuisance, and he was not angry or even surprised that she should think
so. But he had no such thoughts of her. He liked to watch her, as he
liked to look (but this he had never betrayed to any one) at the hills.
He liked this atmosphere of the music, which seemed to have a curious
appropriateness to her--not that he appreciated the music, although she
was playing, he thought, some very pretty tunes, but it suited her
somehow. He had not read much poetry, and could not remember any that
would apply to her as a better instructed man might have done; but the
whole scene had a vague poetry which filled in a dim sort of way
Archie’s inarticulate soul. He listened sitting in what was almost the
dark, listening and listening though he did not suppose she even knew he
was there.

But the sound of one’s own name penetrates distance and music and even
the envelopment of thought in the strangest way. He heard Mrs. Rowland
say that Archie, she could see, would not desire a ball, and the impulse
of opposition sprang up quick and strong within him.

“Why should I not like a ball as well as the rest?” he said out of his
corner, raising his voice that his opinion might be heard.

“There! I told you so,” said Eddy; “who wouldn’t wish for a ball in this
house? The floor in the hall is perfect--it is wasting a good thing not
to dance upon it. I am sure you of all people, dear lady, are not one to
waste good things. Then fancy what a thing for us. We should make
acquaintance with everybody, and probably reap a harvest of invitations.
We are on the prowl. We want to be asked places. The Governor would feel
how nobly you had done your part by us----and----and----”

That shower of fluent words flowed on, but Archie’s attention to it
suddenly failed. For out of the dimness nearer to him, through the sound
of the softly tinkling notes, came a soft but very distinct
question--“Why should you, Mr. Rowland, wish for a ball?”

“I don’t,” he cried abruptly in his surprise.

“Then you gave a false impression. Mrs. Rowland must think from what you
said that you gave the project your support.” She spoke without turning
her head, playing softly all the while, speaking in her usual calm and
serious vein.

“I would not oppose,” said Archie, “what Marion wanted, and you.”

“You are quite right to put Marion first. It is not generally accounted
civil, but it was honest, and I like it from you. I do not care--I am
not fond of dancing. There are so many things more important in this
life. I should have been surprised if you had wished it,” she added
after an interval, during which she had gone on modulating, with her
hands pressed down upon the keys.

“Would you tell me why?” said Archie timidly out of the dim world behind
her.

“Oh,” she said, “not because it is the fashion with a certain sort of
young man, for I don’t suppose you would--” she meant to say “know,” in
her disdain, but moved by some better feeling, said instead “care. But I
should not think you were fond of dancing,” she said, pressing firmly
upon the two bass keys.

“You think,” said Archie, emboldened by the fact that she could not see
him, “that I don’t look much like dancing. And it’s true. I am not good
at it. Marion is, though,” he said after a little pause.

“And what has that got to do with you?”

“Oh!” he said surprised. Then after a pause, “I would naturally like her
to be pleased.”

“You would naturally--like her to be pleased?” Rosamond ceased her
playing and turned right round upon the music stool, facing him. But the
light of the candles was now entirely behind her, shining upon the
ribbons of her sash--shining a line of colour beyond her white figure,
but leaving her countenance invisible as before. “Why?” she said after
an interval, “Why?”

“Why?”

“Yes, yes, why? Don’t I speak plain? Why? I want to know why?”

“But there is no why to it,” said Archie, “it is just so.”

She sat dark against the light and thought over this proposition for
some time. “Well,” she said at length, “but you are inconsistent. You go
against your father in everything, and this lady--who is so out of place
here--”

“Why,” said Archie hotly, “is she so much out of place here?”

“Oh!” said Rosamond, and turning round again she burst into a loud
heroic tuneful strain, filling the still room with a clamour of sound.
In a few minutes more she had changed into a waltz. Then there occurred
a complete transformation scene. Eddy jumped up from his seat by Mrs.
Rowland, and snatched or seemed to snatch Marion from her chair, and the
pair began to fly and flout about the room, as lightly as a pair of
birds. Eddy Saumarez was not an elegant cavalier, but he danced very
well, and Marion had not done herself more than justice when she said
that she was “very good at it.” They threaded the intricacies of the
furniture with the greatest lightness and ease, and whirled from dark to
light and from light to dark, from where Mrs. Rowland sat looking on
with a smile in the full revelation of a large lamp, to where Archie sat
unseen in his corner. Rosamond never turned her head but played on,
varying the tune with an _esprit_ which her brother followed, ducking
and anon sweeping on the light figure of the girl with all the art of an
accomplished performer. Archie taken completely by surprise at first,
watched them with a vague sensation of pleasure in the same, which was
against all his prepossessions. The sudden indignation in his mind died
out. The novelty and suddenness of the movement beguiled him out of
himself. There appeared suddenly at the open door while the dancers
still went on, all preliminary sound being drowned by the music, the
jovial and ruddy countenances of Rowland and his friend, who stood
looking on with broad smiles. “Well done,” cried the master of the house
clapping his hands; and then, as if this had been the signal, Rosamond
concluded in a moment with a resounding chord, and the dancers stopped
short.

“Well, that was a pretty sight--are we to have no more of it?” Rowland
said.

“I think I can manage an old-world waltz,” said Evelyn, “for Rosamond no
doubt would like a turn too.”

“No, thanks--Eddy will never dance with me--and I like the piano best.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” said the master of the house. “Where’s Archie? Get
up, ye lout! can ye see a pretty girl wanting a dance and not be on
your feet in a moment? Come, Evelyn, let us have the old-world waltz,
and see the young ones enjoy themselves.”

“Come on,” said Eddy to his partner. “It will be as slow as a funeral,
but its fine all the same. Come on, and never mind.”

Rosamond stood up by the piano with a perfectly serious face. She turned
half round towards Archie’s corner, who in an agony of incapacity and
reluctance hesitated to make a step towards her. Rosamond did not care
any more for the young man than if he had been a cabbage. He had no
mystery or attraction for her, as she had for him, nor was her _amour
propre_ affected by his hesitation. She said, scarcely looking at him
from the pitch to which her head thrown high seemed to reach, above
every one, “Are we to dance?” in those clear tones of unaffected
indifference and disdain. She knew that she would be bumped against all
the furniture, and expected to be thrown upon the rock of Mr. Rowland
standing in the middle of the room where Eddy and Marion encircled,
brushed with their wings, wound into the gyrations of their
indefatigable whirl; but she was resigned, and ready for the sacrifice.
To poor Archie it was a far more serious affair. He came slowly forward,
slouching his shoulders and bending his head. “You were right in
thinking I was not fit for it,” he said; “if it’s disagreeable to you,
you will remember it’s not my fault.” She put out her hand without a
word and placed it on his shoulder. I have read many rhapsodies about
the manly character of a waltz, in which two people on the verge of
love find themselves suddenly swept together into paradise; but the
unhappy young man who cannot dance, who finds a fair partner suddenly,
in spite of himself, thrust into his awkward arms, who does not know
what to do with her, nor with his own unlucky fate, and the things which
seem suddenly to spring up and put themselves into his way--no one, so
far as I know, has ever found any interest in the sufferings of such an
unlucky hero. He held himself as far apart from her as possible as he
turned her slowly round, wondering if she hated him, if she would ever
again look at him, afraid to glance at her lest he should read disgust
in her face. A time of giddy anguish followed, how long or how short
Archie could not tell. He supposed that Rosamond exerted herself to keep
him up, to guide him blindly about the room; for when those horrible
gyrations were over, and the whirl ceased, and the walls began once more
to settle straight into their places, he heard himself addressed with
noisy congratulations. “Well done, Archie, you’re not such a duffer
after all,” cried his father. “Bravo, Rowland!” said Eddy. Mrs. Rowland
laughed and clapped her hands. “You are far better at it than I
thought,” said Marion. Rosamond alone stood as serious as before, her
breathing a little quickened, looking at it as if she thought she might
have soiled the hand which had been upon his shoulder. He felt as if he
could have struck her as he turned away his head.

“After this,” said Mrs. Rowland, “I must tell you what the children
want, James. I was opposing it as in duty bound, but their little
performance, I am sure, has thrown you on their side: they want us to
give a ball.”

“A ball!” said Mr. Rowland with many notes of interrogation, and then he
added with the broad smile, which in its warmth and ruddiness breathed a
little intimation of being after dinner, “Why not?”

“Ah, I knew you would be on their side. I have been resisting as in duty
bound----”

“And why in duty bound? In your heart,” said Rowland, “it is you who are
always on their side. I may have my little moments of fatherly wrath. A
father is nothing, you know, Ledgen, if he does not find fault.”

“That’s quite so,” said the great ironmaster, who had been dining with
the great railway man. “We must keep up our authority, and discipline
must always be preserved.”

“But she stands up for them through thick and thin,” said the happy man.
“I cannot wallop my own niggers, so to speak, meaning to give my boy a
wigging, but she pushes in, standing up for two. To hear her speak, you
would think my two were angels, and I an old curmudgeon always finding
fault: that’s the beauty of a wife.”

“Well,” said Evelyn, “never mind; I am to give in, I suppose. You know,
James, it will turn the whole house upside down.”

“We’ll put it right again,” he said.

“And probably make a revolution among the servants.”

“We’ll crush the revolution, or get other servants in their places.”

“And you will have no comfort in your life for at least three days--the
day before the performance, the day of the performance, and the day
after the performance.”

“Hoot!” said Rowland, and he said no more.

“It will not be a bad plan at all if ye think anything of my opinion,”
said the ironmaster. “I’m but new in my place myself, a matter of two or
three years. And one of the first things I did was to give a ball. It
was a very popular thing--we just got in everybody. The young folk, who
are very important, who just give you a great lift in reconciling a
place where they are pleased, and the mothers that come with them, and
all the intermediate ones that are neither young nor old, that are
hanging at a loose thread. If your house is a good size, you can ask
anybody; and this is a very fair size,” said the other rich man, looking
condescendingly round the drawing-room, which was certainly not so
immense as his great new-built castle down the Clyde.

“Oh, it’s big enough,” said Rowland, a little wounded in his feelings.
To compare Rosmore to any bran new house with fictitious battlements and
towers, was at once a brutality and a bad joke. “We will get in a good
number here,” he said, looking round him complacently, “and as we have
nothing but Eastern carpets, there will be the less trouble. Well, my
dear, that is settled. I am not such a stern parent as I get the credit
of being, and the bairns shall have their will.”

“I told you I could make her do it,” said Eddy to Marion behind the
shelter of the book of pictures which she had taken up again.

“It was neither you nor her that did it,” said Marion: “it was papa.”

“It was because she put it to him so cleverly. You will see Mrs. Rowland
will always follow my lead. She can’t forget that I am my father’s son.”

“Will you tell me that story?” said Marion, whose curiosity he had
raised and allowed to drop a dozen times.

“Some time or other,” said Eddy. “I like to keep you on the tenter
hooks. You look prettier than ever when you have a fit of curiosity
which makes your eyes shine. Do you know your eyes give out sparks when
you look at me like that?”

“Like a cat?” said Marion, “that is no compliment.”

“Yes, just like a cat, torturing the poor little mouse that she has
fascinated with her big shining eyes.” He opened his own eyes wide with
a threatening movement of his hand, at which they both laughed. “Before
she devours him, she tortures him,” he said. Which was it? he or she?
But poor little Marion had not the faintest idea that she was in the way
of being devoured. She did not require very fine methods; but accepted
the compliments and the badinage in her simplicity. It amused her
extremely to “tease” him, as she thought, to make little rude speeches
and show her innocent power. After all it was innocent enough, and
artless, if without much delicacy or dignity. So much meaning as was in
it was all on Eddy’s side.

There was no question of cat or mouse between the other two, who stood
by each other’s side without movement, without looking at each other,
while the question of the ball was discussed. Rosamond at last said to
her partner, speaking as usual from her full height, and without even
turning her head his way: “You do not dance so very badly, if you would
take time and not be flurried.” It was the same advice which Evelyn had
given him about his shooting, and which he had resented then, as he
resented this counsel now.

“You are very kind to encourage me. I have no desire to learn,” he said.

“Oh, that’s silly,” said Rosamond “Why shouldn’t you learn? Why
shouldn’t you make yourself a little agreeable, Mr. Rowland? No, of
course it is nothing to me. I see you for a few weeks, a great deal of
you, and then perhaps I never see you again. It does not matter to me in
the very least. Still it is a pity to see a man sitting as you do--not
speaking, not taking an interest in anything. What is the good of being
a man at all?”

Archie was very much taken aback by this onslaught. He stared at her for
a moment helplessly. His wit was not quick enough to make any lively
rejoinder as he might have done. All he could say was rather vulgar, and
said with an injured, offended air--“I did not make myself.”

“You ought to make yourself,” said the severe young judge, “if you are
not made properly to begin with; but that is not the question. Don’t you
know it makes everybody uncomfortable to see the son of the house
sitting behind never saying anything. I hate to be made uncomfortable,”
said Rosamond, “it makes me think all sorts of horrid things. But there
is nothing the matter with you. You are not deformed or bad in your
head, or out of health, or badly snubbed. Mrs. Rowland keeps looking at
you: she does not know what to do; and you make _me_ horribly
uncomfortable,” said Rosamond with energy; “that was why I made you get
up and dance.”

“It wasn’t very successful,” said Archie, with a grim smile; “don’t you
wish you had let it alone?”

“No, I don’t wish I had let it alone. I should like to take you by the
shoulders and shake you. Oh, if I were your sister!” She broke off with
a suggestive grind of her white teeth. “Eddy is bad enough,” she added
after a moment. “He’s a little ape: I can do nothing with him; but I
could put up with even Eddy better than I could put up with you--if I
were your sister.”

“But fortunately you are not my sister.”

“No, nor your stepmother either,” said Rosamond with energy, “or I don’t
know what I should do. Can’t you talk a little, can’t you try to dance a
bit, can’t you be like other people? Usually I don’t advise other people
so very much: they chatter for ever and ever, and talk a great deal of
nonsense. But it reconciles one to them. When one sees you--”

“Perhaps I had better take myself off,” said Archie; “and then you will
not have that annoyance any more.”

“You want to try to make me out to be a meddler and a busybody,” said
Rosamond; “but I am not that. I only say what I feel. Why, _you_ should
be the one to make the house pleasant! You are going out to shoot
to-morrow, you and Eddy, and we are to bring you your luncheon out on
the hill. You ought to be all full of _petits soucis_, and make it
pleasant for us; but you will not. I know what you will do. You will sit
down on a stone as far away as you can go, and you will bend down your
brow, and perhaps turn your back, and never say one word.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Archie, red with rage, especially
as she shrugged up her shoulders, and put down her chin, and contracted
her forehead in a manner which he felt to be more or less like himself.

“Yes, you will,” said Rosamond, with the point-blank contradiction of
youth.

“No, I will not,” cried the boy, forgetting everything but his wrongs. A
hot moisture came to his eyes. “I hate shooting,” he said; “I hate
company. I hate all those antics I was not brought up to. What business
have you to come here and want London manners from me?”

“You poor boy,” said Rosamond, shaking her highly poised head. “London
manners,” she said, in a tone of the mildest philosophy, “are often just
what yours are. Men in London ape being rude like you. They pretend to
care for nothing; not to hear what people say to them. It is smart to be
uncivil, don’t you know? If you keep it up, you will be the fashion when
you go to town.”

Archie clenched his fist in the height of his passion; not, of course,
to hit out at Rowland, but at somebody--at the London men--at the
detestable world.

“Oh, you may be angry,” said the young lady, “but it is quite true.
Should you like to dance with me again, Mr. Rowland, for you see Eddy
and Marion are off once more? and Mrs. Rowland plays very well--really
very nicely, for such an old-fashioned thing as she is playing. If you
do not choose to dance, as there is nobody else to take me out, perhaps
you will kindly say so, and then we need not continue standing here.”

Said Archie, with a gasp, with sudden humility, “I can’t dance at all;
do you want to make a fool of me! If you think it is my fault, you are
quite mistaken. I don’t want to be ridiculous. I would talk and do
things if I could----”

“Come along then and try,” said the girl. “Don’t be flurried and
nervous. Let us make for the other end of the room, where there is not
much light--and do remember not to knock against your father. That was
not bad at all; now, one turn more, and then make for the window, and
take me out.”

“You will catch cold,” said Archie, breathlessly.

“Oh, I’m not afraid; and it will make an end of it. Here we are,” she
cried, as they emerged suddenly into the moonlight. “Now give me your
arm, please, and take me round to the back door. Eddy will be after us
in a moment; it will be just the chance for him. That was all very well
for ten minutes, but it would not do to carry it on all night. Oh!” she
said, suddenly, “look! look!”

They had come out suddenly upon the colonnade, and in a moment stood in
another world. Far below the Clyde lay like molten silver, in a ripple
of glistening movement, with the mass of trees, wholly denuded of their
leaves, paving it in on either side. Into the opening glided in a moment
a little pleasure boat, with a white sail catching the white blaze of
the moon. It was wafted by in a moment, as they stood, appearing and
disappearing like a bird across the silver tide. The sky, a wide, vast
vault of blue, flaked with little white clouds, seemed to envelop and
hold that little vignette of earth and sky. In the far distance was the
darkness of heaven’s vault, the smoke of the town on the other side,
with a few lights appearing out of it here and there. Rosamond,
forgetting herself in the sudden sensation, pressed his arm with her
fingers to call his attention. “Did you ever see it like that before?”
she said.

“Never!” said Archie, with a fervour of which he was not himself
conscious, feeling as if all the evil conditions of life had vanished
and paradise come.

Was this another version of the cat and the mouse?


                            END OF VOL. I.


                 PRINTED BY F. A. BROCKHAUS, LEIPZIG.

                 *       *       *       *       *




                          The English Library

                                No. 78

                          THE RAILWAY MAN AND
                             HIS CHILDREN

                           BY MRS. OLIPHANT

                           _IN TWO VOLUMES_




                      _VOLUMES BY THE SAME AUTHOR
                             PUBLISHED IN_

                          The English Library

                           (_In the Press_)

                  THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR      2 Vols.

                          _Copyright Edition_




                            THE RAILWAY MAN
                           AND HIS CHILDREN

                                  BY

                             MRS. OLIPHANT

                               AUTHOR OF
   “_KIRSTEEN_,” “_WITHIN THE PRECINCTS_,” “_AT HIS GATES_,” _ETC._

                           _IN TWO VOLUMES_
                              VOLUME II.

                                LEIPZIG
                        HEINEMANN AND BALESTIER
                           _LIMITED, LONDON_
                                 1892




                            THE RAILWAY MAN
                           AND HIS CHILDREN




CHAPTER XXV.


The luncheon on the hill-side would have been probably as successful as
these parties ever are, had it not been for one incident. In the train
of the little pony cart, which carried the food, and which had to be led
over the rougher parts by Sandy the groom, there appeared a stranger
whom Mrs. Rowland and her visitors had seen at two or three corners on
the way, so long as it was possible to drive: supposed a tourist--which
was a being very little esteemed at Rosmore, where tourists were divided
into two sections, one labelled as being “from Glasgow,” who was at once
the most innocent and the most objectionable; while the other, in the
slang of the district, was called B.T. or British tourist, and was
presumably “from the south,” a flattering appellation which means
England in these regions. This man had been persistently making his way
with much toil, but apparent inoffensiveness to the top of the hill, and
the ladies had not interfered with his freedom. I may say, however
(which is a view not perhaps popularly taken), that there are two ways
of regarding the indiscriminate presence of tourists everywhere as
exemplified in the question of foot-paths. The tourist ought to know
that wherever he appears he is objectionable to the natives of a
country, save to those who sell him provisions, and take him in to
lodge; and that his undesired presence upon private property, is
regarded by all who possess any, whether it be a grass plot or a
hillside, with unmitigated aversion. It is at least as hard for the
proprietor to put up with him, as it is for him to be shut out from one
particular view--which is no better than other views which are to be
procured on other people’s property, or even from the highroad. If it
were then fully understood that there was a hardship on both sides, it
might be easier to come to an understanding. Mrs. Rowland and the young
ladies regarded the figure of the tourist toiling upwards with natural
hostility. “What right has any man on our hill!” Marion said; and there
was one occasion on which Rosamond had actually extended a foot, with
the intention of jumping out of the pony carriage and warning off the
intruder.

“I do not mind in the least telling him that he is on private property,
if you wish it, Mrs. Rowland.”

“My dear, though it is private property, it is only the wild side of a
mountain,” said Evelyn; “the poor man is doing harm to nothing but our
feelings.”

“If he was to be shot,” said the persistent Marion, “we would be blamed
for not warning him.”

Perhaps Mrs. Rowland thought it would not be a bad thing if the
stranger was shot (very slightly), as the best way of proving the peril
of such unauthorised wanderings. But she said nothing and drove on,
until the path was lost in the moor, and the ladies had to get out and
walk.

It was too much of a good thing, however, they all felt, when the same
man was seen to reappear, following closely in the footsteps of Sandy,
who led the pony with the luncheon. They had reached by this time the
appointed spot on the hill, which was high above the loch, a sort of
natural platform, where a circle of grass broke the darker surface of
the heather and underwood. Great bushes of high-growing ling, with the
faded bells all stiffened into russet upon them, stood round this oasis,
which was kept green, and in a wet season something more than green, by
the burn, which made half a circuit round it, leaping downwards from
little ridge to ridge of its course. All around among the heather grew
the sweet gale, or bog-myrtle, sending up a grateful sweetness when any
one crushed a self-sacrificing plant. The sky was of the triumphant yet
not too well assured brightness, which is peculiar to Highland skies--a
sort of heavenly triumph over difficulties, chastened by the sense that
the conquered clouds may blow back at any moment. Deep down, the loch
lay like a blue mirror, with all the little clouds floating upon it like
boats, in reflections, among the grey willows and the yellow autumnal
foliage. Was the grass so velvet, mossy, and beautiful of this little
circle--slightly wet, perhaps boggy, “saft,” as Sandy said? Far from us
be the thought: besides it was heaped with shawls and plaids, and what
did it matter? The only members of the party who thought of the view
were Evelyn and Rosamond. The others were satiated with views. And what
did Eddy and Marion care for anything but their eternal war of words,
their little mutual rudenesses and compliments? About Archie’s
sentiments nobody knew. Sometimes he turned his back to the loch,
sometimes would be seen with his eyes intent, as if he were watching
something on the opposite side.

“Oh!” said Marion suddenly, with a long-drawn breath, “there is that man
again!”

“What man?”

They had all been seated on the dry ridge of the ling, rustling and
stiff with its dessicated flowers, above the less trustworthy level of
the grass, and were watching with interest the broken hobble of the cart
with the baskets, over the uneven ground.

“Roderick will tell him--” said Mrs. Rowland, “and persuade him to go
away.”

“Ay will I, mem,” said the gamekeeper, jocund but grim. “I’ll persuade
him--in the drawing of a breath.”

Here an exclamation from Eddy startled everybody. “Oh, hold on!” was all
the young man said; but his tone had an expression which somehow roused
the attention of every one. He made a spring among the heather towards
the objectionable visitor. “Is it you, Johnson? I thought you were
gone,” he was heard to say. And then it appeared that he had something
private to add to the intruder, for he drew him away under the shelter
of the clump of rowan trees, which lent an illumination of red berries
to the scene.

The luncheon had been spread out, and everything was ready to begin upon
when Eddy, certainly under the circumstances the most useful member of
the party, came back. He was slowly followed by the tourist, and bore a
somewhat embarrassed look. “Mrs. Rowland, may I introduce a friend of
mine, Johnson of--St. Chad’s?” His countenance had been full of
perplexity, but in the momentary pause which preceded the utterance of
the last words, he suddenly recovered himself. “Distinguished don,” he
added, “no end of a scholar. Came up here for a reading party; but some
of them have not arrived yet.”

Mr. Johnson did not come up to Evelyn’s ideas of a distinguished don;
but Mrs. Rowland was aware that appearances are often deceptive in the
case of such great personages, and it did not occur to her that October
was an unlikely moment for a reading party. She was perhaps the only one
who attached any significance at all to the words. She begged Mr.
Johnson to find a seat for himself, and share their luncheon. He was an
insignificant person, with furtive eyes and a sallow complexion, clothed
in the usual tweeds. “I am sure, madam, I am much obliged to you,” he
said; which was somewhat startling; but dons are often very
old-fashioned, as Evelyn was aware.

The conversation went on as if he were not there. He was a taciturn
person, but gave a great and concentrated attention to the basket. To
see him eating and drinking recalled to Evelyn stories which everybody
in her youth had been fond of telling to the disadvantage of the dons.

“You have very little in your bag. I would have killed more myself,”
said Marion.

“Ah, I dare say,” Eddy replied; “you’ve no heart and no conscience, and
what would you care what you killed? A man or two in the bag would have
made it much heavier.”

“As if I would take the trouble to shoot men!”

“And a woman can’t be tried for manslaughter,” said Eddy: and they both
laughed as if, except their own rather poor fun, there was nothing that
was of any interest in the world.

Rosamond kept her stately pose, her lofty manner of treating the subject
under discussion, but she was perhaps scarcely more elevated in her aim.
“Can you tell me the names of the mountains, now?” she said, with an
emphasis which only Archie understood.

And he woke up from that self-absorbed dullness which was the aspect he
presented in general, and pointed out to her peak after peak, not
without an occasional glance at Roderick in the background, who gave him
a nod back again over the young lady’s head. Evelyn looked on,
perceiving all these little details with an unembarrassed attention. It
was seldom she was so free to observe what was going on about her: the
business of a large household, to which she was yet unaccustomed, the
calls of her husband upon her attention, the cares of the mistress of
the house to keep everything going, had lessened her possibilities of
observation. But the position of an elder woman in the midst of a little
company of this description is sometimes almost uncomfortably free.
There is no pretence made of any particular regard to her amusement, and
she is allowed to observe at her leisure. Evelyn perceived, with a
little alarm, the position of affairs. Was it perhaps accidental--a mere
fortuitous conjunction of the two who most attracted each other? Was it
perhaps a plan, a scheme? She had been so long out of the world of
social scheming that she had forgotten its ways. She observed for a
little with a half benign amusement the skirmishing of Marion and Eddy,
the little onslaughts and withdrawals, provocations not much more
refined than a milkmaid’s jibes, responses not in better taste. Mrs.
Rowland had not thought much of the “style” of Edward Saumarez, the
younger, from the beginning--an old-fashioned word, which in the
language of the present day would mean that she thought him “bad form.”
Words change, and so do all forms of expression, but the actual fact
does not alter. As she mentally compared this commonplace young man
whose manners she thought bad and whose person was so entirely without
distinction, with his father--the love of her own youth, the handsome,
distinguished, courtly Saumarez of another day, a sudden rush of painful
feeling came over Evelyn. Was this what he intended? Was it to be so
done that she herself should seem the schemer, the matchmaker, promoting
the advantage of his son and daughter above that of her husband’s
children? Nobody remarked how Evelyn was looking, or inquired what it
was that gave occasion for that sudden flush and paleness. Was this
what it meant--his eagerness to connect his children with her, that she
should invite them, assume the responsibility of them? Evelyn saw
everything that might have been is his mind as with the flash of a
sudden light. He had jilted her, but she had never ceased to care for
him, people would say; as witness the results. Had she not thrown her
husband’s boy and girl, inexperienced, suspecting nothing, made of
money, into the grip of those clever Saumarez?

Evelyn got up from her seat in the horror of the thought that thus came
into her mind, and with the sensation that she must do something at once
to put an end to it. But nobody even remarked her movement, and she sat
down again with a pant of baffled eagerness. Rosamond and Archie sat
with their backs to her, full of their own subject: the dull boy was
awakening under that siren’s touch; while Marion and Eddy kept up a
deafening chatter about something much more interesting than the
mountains or waters--themselves; each moving on the lines that answered
best. Was the plan laid out in all its details? Had they come with their
constructions to captivate these two homely Rowlands before the other
harpies had so much as got note of them, to anticipate all competition?
It was just such a heartless scheme as he might have conceived in his
unsoftened, unchastened suffering. And Madeline Leighton’s words came
back upon Evelyn’s mind with a sudden horror: “He will compromise you,
if he can, with your husband.” How angry she had been, thinking only of
the ordinary sense of these words. Ah! here was another sense--a sense
she had never dreamt of! If Eddy Saumarez with his bad little record,
his short story of as much folly as could be crammed into a life of
twenty, asked Marion’s father for her hand and fortune--and Archie, with
the power of sullen opposition which was in him, proclaimed his
intention of marrying Rosamond, to whom would her husband turn as the
cause of these premature engagements? Who would be blamed by the world?
Would any one believe that she had not thought of such a contingency?
Would James----James, whose soul trusted in her? Oh, villain and
traitor! was this his way of punishing her for having escaped from his
influence, for the late happiness that had made her so much better off
than he was? Madeline’s warning had not been strong enough or clear
enough to save her. Evelyn clasped her hands in her lap till the
pressure hurt her, and looked on helpless at the work which was going so
briskly on at her side, the work which she would be believed to have
planned--with eyes which could scarcely endure the sight.

“I have always observed,” Rosamond was saying, with the air of a sage,
“that the more you take an interest in anything, the more amused you
are. Everything is tiresome when you don’t take an interest. My father
is an instance. He is never out of his chair: he can’t do anything
without Rogers, not even raise himself up. You would think he had a
dreadful life: but he has not: he watches the people, and knows
everything that happens. I am a little like that myself. Now Eddy has no
such interest in anything. He likes horses and billiards and that sort
of thing, and bad company generally.” Rosamond gave a glance behind at
Eddy’s acquaintance, who was making a perfectly good luncheon, and
keeping up a furtive observation of everybody round him. “I don’t like,”
she said, “the looks of that man. Do you think he belongs to any
college? I don’t.”

“He is not like the college men I have seen,” Archie ventured to say.

“No, of course he is not: he is more like a scout out on a holiday.--As
you are so kind as to pay some attention to what I say, Mr. Rowland,
please remember that Eddy is not at all to be relied upon. He would
think it was quite a good joke to bring in a man like that. Don’t let
him, whatever you do, have an invitation to the ball.”

“If your brother asks for it--” said Archie.

“Never mind my brother: you will do a great deal better if you trust
me,” said Rosamond. There was a little pause, and then a murmur from
Archie, which Evelyn could not hear; but she drew her own conclusions.
It was: “And am I not doing that with all my heart!”

“Oh!” Rosamond said, elevating her eyebrows slightly, casting for almost
the first time a glance down upon him. It seemed to give her some
surprise, not unmingled with apprehension, and she drew a little further
off from the heather, and caught a branch of the gale, as if disturbed
for once in her composure. The scent of it, as the girl crushed it in
her hand, rose to Mrs. Rowland and remained in her consciousness ever
after as something associated with anxiety and care.

Meanwhile Marion and Eddy were chatting so continuously, sometimes in
confidential whispers, sometimes with outbursts of sound and laughter,
that no one could be any the wiser as to what they said. “He is no more
a don than I am,” Eddy was confessing; “it was the first thing I could
think of to give him a countenance. There never was a more villainous
one than he has by nature. No, I won’t tell you what he is: he’s mixed
up with all sorts of people. What a lark to have him asked to the ball!
Do you think she would do it? To introduce him everywhere as Johnson of
Chad’s, and see how he would behave! I shall not let you dance with him
though, or any nice girl I know.”

“Oh, I would dance with him if he asked me,” said Marion. “If you think
that I would be guided by you!”

“I know more about that than you do,” said Eddy. “You shan’t, I can tell
you: for one thing, I mean to dance with you myself all the night. We go
so well together, you and I. And I know how to square the
chaperons--especially with _her_. She won’t dare to say anything against
me.”

“If you think that I would let her interfere!” said Marion; “but you are
not to get things all your own way. I’ll just dance with whom I
please--and maybe not with you at all.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Eddy.

“Yes, we’ll see about it,” cried the girl, and then there was a great
laugh, as if this had been the wittiest observation in the world.

If Evelyn did not hear this, she saw it, with all the advantages of
spectatorship seeing more in the game than the actors themselves were
aware of, probably more (which is the drawback of spectatorship), than
had any existence. Would James think she was in the plot? Would he
believe it was of her invention, or that she had carried it out
consciously for the advantage of the others? In her first hurried
discovery of this aspect of affairs, it did not occur to Evelyn that
James was a man of an old-fashioned type, who believed in true love, and
might sympathize with his children if they were impressed by such an
influence, more than with any wise counsel or hesitation as to means.
She herself, whatever her sentiments might be, belonged to a world more
moved by conventional laws. She thought that she saw him with reproach
in his face, looking at her as he never had done, severely,
reproachfully--he to whom she owed so much, not only wealth and
consideration, but tenderness and kindness, and absolute trust--Trust!
that was the greatest of all: and he would think that she had betrayed
him.

Mr. Johnson, so-called of St. Chad’s, finished the substantial part of
his banquet about this moment, and with a glance at the pastry which was
visible, laid out upon the white cloth, stirred a little in his nest of
heather, making the long spikes of the ling rustle, and calling forth
again that pungent sweetness of the gale. Mrs. Rowland, to whom
incivility was impossible, and who, though doubtful, still felt it more
comprehensible that a distinguished don might be of evil appearance
than that Eddy Saumarez could have told her a lie, turned towards him to
see what were his wants. He was not without an ambition to shine in
polite conversation, and Evelyn’s was not the aspect to discourage such
attempts. He said, waving his hand as if to include the whole party,
“This is a very cheerful way, if you will let me say so, of meeting for
the first time.”

“Yes?” said Evelyn, interrogatively.

“It’s a beautiful scene,” said the stranger, “and the pie was excellent.
What a nice way for ladies to join in sport, when the men’s tired and
ready to be tumbled over at the first shot--ha, ha,--as seems to be the
case, ma’am, in your vicinity.”

“Sir?” said Mrs. Rowland.

“I don’t want to give offence,” said Johnson of St. Chad’s, “but I
should say, if ever there was one, that there is a case.” He indicated
with his eyebrows the chatting pair, too busy to pay attention to their
neighbours, on Mrs. Rowland’s other side.

“A case? I do not really know what you mean,” she said hurriedly.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the man, “if I remark what I oughtn’t.
These sort of things are generally remarked--but some people takes them
very serious,” he added, nodding his head confidentially.

“Takes them serious!” If this was a college don, he had certainly a very
strange way of speaking.

“I think you are mistaken,” said Mrs. Rowland, “I don’t know of anything
that is going on--except luncheon. May I offer you some of these, as
your friend is too busy to see that you have what you want.”

“Ah, he is a fellow that knows what _he_ wants,” said the don
admiringly, “and doesn’t trouble himself what other people thinks. Thank
you very much, I’ll take some grateful--” he added “ly,” after he had
drawn a breath, making a little choke over the word--“gratefully, that’s
what I mean. A man gets out of his manners never seeing a lady for--a
whole term sometimes,” he said.

Was he a college don? More and more puzzled was poor Evelyn, who could
believe in anything rather than that she had been told what was not
true. But whatever it was, she felt that it was better not to leave this
person to his false ideas in respect to the young people. “Perhaps I
ought to tell you,” she said, “that you are making a mistake. There is
no case, if that means an--engagement, or anything of that sort. My son
and daughter are very young, and so are their friends. They are boys and
girls together--no one, on either side, would hear of anything of the
kind.”

“Oh!” said the man, who was certainly not a gentleman, whatever else he
might be. He put down his plate and gave a keen look across Mrs. Rowland
to Eddy, who was far too much engaged to notice anything. “Oh!” he said
again; then after a pause: “I’m an old hand,” he added, “it may be you
that are mistaken, ma’am, and not me.”

Mrs. Rowland did not think proper to say more. One way or other it must,
she thought, be a matter of entire indifference to this disreputable
looking stranger what were the circumstances of Eddy Saumarez. She rose
from her throne of heather, taking no further notice of the visitor, and
disturbing the party altogether, to the resentment of everybody. “I have
only just begun to have my lunch,” said Marion--and “Is it really time
to be going?” Rosamond asked with a fine tone of surprise. The young men
said little; but their faces showed their feelings. “That is the worst
of it,” said Eddy, in an audible whisper, “a chaperon is sure to spoil
sport. She doesn’t mean any harm, but she does it by instinct.” And of
the two pairs no one budged. Evelyn was alone among these young
conspirators, and the vulgar commentator who had sought to make himself
agreeable by putting her terrors into words. She wandered a little
further upon the hillside, and gathered a handful of the white Grass of
Parnassus, and the little blue orchid which is to be found on these
hills, to give herself a countenance, not knowing how to act or what to
do; whether to speak to her husband or to endeavour in her own person to
divide the bonds which had grown up so fast. But how could she do this?
What did they care for what she said, these independent young people?
What hold had she over them, one way or another? And yet it would be
said that she had been the chief actor in everything, that it was she
who had thrown them together; she who had plotted to throw James
Rowland’s wealth into the hands and house of the Saumarez. The thought
was intolerable; her whole mind cried out against it, protesting that
it was not to be borne; but how was she to free herself from this knot
in which she was enveloped? What was she to do?




CHAPTER XXVI.


It need scarcely be said that the young Saumarez had been early made
acquainted with Rankin’s cottage in the wood, and with the wonderful
qualities of the “sma’” family which he kept about him. The humours of
Roy and Dhu were by this time among the most cheerful features of the
house at Rosmore. That little pair went tumbling over each other with
ferocious curiosity into every corner, sniffing and investigating: they
gave each other the word when, in the far distance, a carriage began to
grind, or a footstep to disturb the gravel approaching the door--and
flew like two balls of fur, with two little pairs of gleaming eyes and
no legs to speak of, helter-skelter, head-over-heels to defend the house
with ferocious, if infantile, barking. They walked out with Mrs. Rowland
when she went out upon the lawn, making futile efforts to get upon the
edge of her dress, and so be carried along as in a triumphal car on the
silken train that touched the ground. They superintended every setting
out and returning home, all but opening the door of the carriage when
their mistress appeared. Archie had given them up to her with a sort of
revulsion of feeling, kicking them from him when he found that the
doggies hung on to his stepmother’s skirts in spite of all other
blandishments. He addressed them only in kindly intercourse when she
was out of the way, but when she appeared, gave a kick to one and tossed
the other down out of his hands. They had this quality that they never
were hurt, always came up again in a jovial entanglement of legs and
hair, and were not too proud to talk to any one who would talk to them.
Even the solemn butler, of whom Archie always continued to stand in awe,
had been seen in a corner on his knees with a supply of biscuits,
endeavouring to teach them to beg; which was an unsuccessful effort,
since the little soft unformed backbones were as yet unfit for the
effort. The young visitors, it is needless to say, were at once
initiated into the worship of Roy and Dhu, and to become the happy
possessors of other members of the family had early become the ambition
of both Rosamond and Eddy--genuine on her part, perhaps only a pretext
on his. For the worship of the dog is a very widespreading and varied
rite, followed by some out of a real understanding of those faithful,
little-discriminating, and often puzzled retainers of humanity, but by
many out of pure vacancy and for love of the inferior company of grooms
and kennel-keepers, who are the retainers, in their turn, of the nobler
breed. It was natural that Eddy should gravitate towards a place where
the dull hours were to be got through by such means. And Rosamond liked
the little humorous creatures, and was amused by the old gamekeeper, and
had pleasure in the quaint unknown aspect of the cottage life. Besides
all these, when they escaped one morning together from the house, at a
moment when Marion was out of the way, and Archie occupied, there was a
little pleasure in the mere act of escaping and in the opportunity for
consultations of their own. More than half their month in Rosmore was
now over, and they had occasion for a little mutual understanding. It
was a crisp morning of late October, very still, hoar frost white in all
the hollows, and not yet melted into dew on the trees. Heaps of yellow
leaves had come down in the night, and lay like gold at the foot of the
now thin and trembling birches. The red trunks of the fir trees came out
warmly in the sharpness of the atmosphere, and the big branches of the
rowan berries drooped in consciousness of the approaching fall.

“What luck,” said Eddy, “to get off for once without those other two, as
old Rowland calls them, at our heels.”

Rosamond assented briefly, but added, by way of qualification, “It is
you generally who are at Marion’s heels.”

“Look here, Rose,” said the brother, “you know the governor better than
I do. What was his object in sending you and me here?”

“To get rid of us for a month, and have no responsibility,” said
Rosamond promptly.

“Oh, come, that’s not reason enough for him. Did he mean me to make up
to this little thing here? I suppose she’s made of money--at least the
father is; but what he’ll give her for her fortune is an unknown
quantity. I don’t think he is very fond of her; do you? And I say, how
old is Mrs. Rowland?--something would depend on that.”

“How should I know how old Mrs. Rowland is; and what would it matter if
she were as old as--father himself?”

“She must be near it,” said Eddy thoughtfully, “or he would not have
gone after her in his young days. Of course if she has no children,
don’t you see, it makes all the difference. Let’s assume that she’ll
have no children: then he must leave all his money between those two,
and that would not be bad. If I am to marry for money, I don’t mean to
let myself go cheap.”

“You would be worth so very much to any woman!” said Rosamond in high
disdain.

“I am worth a decent sum,” said Eddy, “which is more than you are, for
as much as you think of yourself; I and the old tumble-down house, which
is what silly people like you admire so much--when the Governor hops
off. If this new place does him a great deal of good, as he believes it
will, I shan’t have such a good chance.”

“Poor father!” said Rosamond, but with perfect composure, “it is a pity
to raise his hopes.”

“So I think,” said Eddy: “when you’ve had _that_ before you for so long,
you ought to be able to make up your mind to it. And it isn’t as if he
did not have his fling in his day. However, the question is, what did he
mean when he sent us here? Was it you or was it me?”

“What do you mean by me?” said Rosamond with irritation; “father knows
quite well what I am going to do.”

“Oh yes, I believe you!” said Eddy, “doctoring or something, isn’t it?
That is all bosh. You must just do like the rest. The question is, will
old Rowland divide the money? when the one would be as good as the
other, and I shouldn’t mind very much. But if the girl has only a little
bit of a fortune, and the boy all the rest--that indicates you, my dear;
and as you are always admiring the country, I suppose you are making up
your mind to your fate?”

“I would not marry Archie Rowland if there was not another man in the
world,” said Rosamond calmly. “Indeed, you may say there is not another
man in the world, for I have no intention of marrying at all.”

“Then you are treating him as badly as can be,” said Eddy, “and you
ought to be turned out of the house.”

“I!” said Rosamond, raising her calm eyebrows a little. “Why? It is only
men who are pulled up for behaving badly. I am bringing him into shape.
He is a great deal better already, and you will see he will behave quite
decently at the ball.”

“If we could only find out,” said Eddy, who after all was but moderately
interested in that side of the question which did not concern himself,
“whether old Rowland means to divide the money! I should think he would,
an old fellow with a sense of justice and who has made his own money.
Why shouldn’t the girl have as much as the boy?”

“Why shouldn’t I have Gilston as well as you? That,” said Rosamond,
“cuts both ways.”

“That’s quite a different thing,” said Eddy. “Gilston isn’t money, the
more’s the pity; I wish it was.”

“You may be very glad it is not; for it would soon be gone in that case,
and nothing would be left.”

“Well,” said Eddy, reflectively, “it’s always bait to catch a fish; no
money, but a fine old house in the country, and a good name. The
question is,” he said with much gravity, “whether it’s good enough to
spend all that upon this little girl here, and perhaps find out at the
end that she was no such prize after all? Why can’t one go honestly to
the man and ask him, ‘What do you mean to give your daughter?’”

“You might try,” said Rosamond, with a laugh.

“And get turned out of the house! They would do it in France and never
think twice; but in England it must be love, forsooth--Love!” said Eddy,
with great disdain. “What is there to love in a little chit like that?”

“She is a pretty little thing,” said Rosamond, philosophically, “and she
is quick enough. She would soon be just like other people, if she were
about in town for a little. But Eddy, what is the use of talking when
you are far too young to marry? At your age father could not have
intended that.”

“I shall soon be old enough to be pulled up,” said Eddy, “on my own
account. Don’t you know I’ll come of age in the beginning of the year?
After that no one can come on the governor for my infant wants, don’t
you know. I wish they would: he wouldn’t give them a farthing, and I
should get all the fun; but they are far too cute for that. This Johnson
fellow, don’t you know----”

“The don?” said Rosamond; “has he lent you money? I thought these men
had never any money to lend.”

“Oh, that depends!” said Eddy. He burst into a great laugh, but
immediately restrained himself. “He could get me into a pretty scrape if
he liked, so I must keep friends with him. I mean to get Mother Rowland
to ask him to the ball.”

“How dare you call her Mother Rowland?” said the girl, stamping her
foot.

“Oh, dare! I dare do--whatever suits me,” said the young man. “Look
here,” he added, “I don’t want you to dance with him all the same.”

Rosamond turned upon her brother and gave him a look of scorn. It was
not often that she condescended to look at any one to whom she was
talking; but her glance was very direct and keen when she took the
trouble. And she did not make any reply. They were by this time at the
entrance to the gamekeeper’s cottage, and she swept in at the always
open door. “May we come in?” she condescended to say, but did not pause
for an answer. Old Rankin was sitting up in bed, taking his forenoon
refreshment: which he himself described as “supping a wheen broth.”

“Oh you’re welcome, my young leddy. Ye will have come about the dowg;
but I think it is mair civil, in an ordinary way, if you would just chap
at the door.”

“That’s what I say,” said Eddy; “but she takes her own way. I hope
you’re better, Rankin, and no rheumatism. It’s not so cold, for there’s
no wind this morning; but the hoar frost is still lying under the
trees.”

“Ay,” said Rankin, “there will be rain the morn. These white frosts aye
brings rain, no to say that it’s ever sweered to come. I’m muckle
obliged to you for asking for me. You’re the only one of the young folk
at the House that ever minds I am a man. And a very ill man. They think
I’m some kind of a creature for producin’ dowgs.”

“I am very sorry for you,” said Rosamond; “my father is like you, he
cannot move; but he does not like people to ask him how he is.”

“Ay, ay, ye hae a father like me? Poor gentleman, I’m sure he has my
compassion,” said Rankin, “especially if he has no favourite purshoot
like mine that makes the time pass.”

“Well, let us see your favourite purshoot,” said Eddy; “let us see them.
They are great fun, the little beasts.”

“I am no reduced to that stage of intelligence,” said the gamekeeper,
“to call the breeding o’ dowgs a purshoot. I just leave that to nature.
What I really am, and I’m proud o’t, is an antiquary. There’s no many
things ye can bring to me in the way of antiquities that would puzzle
me. I’ve seen when half o’ this,” he laid his hand on a paper on the
bed, “was my writing--whiles questions and whiles answers. It’s maybe no
a profitable kind of study. I make nothing by it in the way of money;
but it’s real entertaining. I’m just as pleased when a number comes in
with me, answering a’ the scholars and putting them right, or them
answering me and putting me right, as if it was so much siller in my
pooch.”

“Oh ay,” said his wife, in the background, “you have had an awfu’ troke
with the papers, John Rankin; but it would have sert ye muckle better if
you had written something that would be of use, and got a little by it.
Good siller is out o’ place in nobody’s pooch.”

“Do you mean to say that you--write for the papers?” said Rosamond.

“That do I, my bonny leddy; and ye should just recommend a study like
mine to your father, poor gentleman. You’ll see many a thing from me
there. I’m Ros-beg, that’s the name I took; which means the little Ros,
just as Rosmore means the muckle Ros, and Ben Ros the hill. I’m grand
upon Hieland antiquities, and considered one o’ the first authorities.
Ye’ll see, ye’ll see,” said Rankin, waving his hand as he held out the
paper to his visitor. It was a very well-known paper, one in which a
great many questions are put and answered. The reader will not need to
be told its highly respectable name.

“Is it you that has written all this about some bard--Donald--I can’t
say his name? And there’s an answer from Ben Cruachan, and one from Mr.
Davies, and G. Johnson--oh, Eddy! St. Chad’s, Cambridge!”

“I say,” Eddy had begun, “hand us out some of the doggies, and don’t
talk;” but when he saw the page which Rosamond held out to him, he
laughed out till the cottage rang. “Oh ho,” he said, “Johnson! Here is
a lark! Johnson! Now we’ll have some fun. I say, gamekeeper! Johnson’s
here.”

“What is your will, sir?” said Rankin, with great dignity. The purveyor
of dogs could take a joke, but not the contributor to _Notes and
Queries_. In the latter capacity, John Rankin veiled his bonnet to none.

“Why, Johnson, I tell you. Johnson’s here! Don’t you know what I mean?
Johnson, the don,” and Eddy laughed again till the tears ran down his
cheeks. “I’ll bring him to see you, old fellow. You shall have your
fight out, and I’ll back you, old boy, to him, six to one.”

“My learned correspondent!” said Rankin, with a look of excitement. And
then he turned to Rosamond. “Your brother is a wild laddie, but I
suppose what he says is true?”

“I suppose so,” said Rosamond, with great gravity, while Eddy did his
best to subdue the convulsions of laughter into which he had fallen. His
sister was impatient of Eddy’s joke, and of the whole matter. “Let us,
please, see the little dogs,” she said.

“Yes; but I’m far more interested about the other thing,” said Rankin,
“for I would like well to put forth my views in a mair extended form.
The space of the paper is real limited. They will sometimes leave out
just your maist conclusive argument. Dod! but I’d like a crack with Mr.
Johnson fine.”

“I wish you would not laugh like a fool,” said Rosamond, frowning. “What
is there to laugh about? Mr. Johnson is not nearly so nice-looking as
Mr. Rankin, and I think he’ll be disappointed in him. But you need not
go on making a ridiculous noise in this way. I wish to have one of the
little dogs to give to a lady I know. She will be very kind to it. She
is my grandmamma. She likes her dogs better than anything else in the
world.”

“The dogues are fine creatures,” said Rankin; “but no to be made a first
objeck. I dinna agree with that. A leddy that likes her dogs better than
anything else will just probably spile them, baith their health and
their moral nature. Ye will observe, mem, that I am not wanting to sell
my dogues. I have aye plenty of customers for them: the first houses in
the land has my dogues. It’s no as if I was keen to sell. She will no
doubt feed them in a ridiculous way--sweet biscuits and made dishes,
instead of good porridge and a bone at a time. Na, I think I’ll no give
you one for your grandmammaw, though I dinna like to disappoint a bonnie
young leddy. If it was for yoursel’ now--”

“I would like to have this one for myself,” said Rosamond, as the little
half-blind puppy curled on her lap and nibbled at her fingers. “It will
be like little Roy at Rosmore.”

“That will it!” said old Rankin in the fervour of generous acquiescence,
“or may be even finer. And ye shall have it, ye shall have it! I will
give ye my directions, and ye’ll make a principle of carrying them out.
If ye do that, ye’ll keep the little beastie in good health, and aye
clean and pleasant--and he’ll be a pleasure to ye a’ his days. There are
no finer bred dogues in a’ Scotland, though I say it that maybe
shouldn’t. And if ye’ll be guided by me, ye’ll just call him Roy too. It
is a fine handy little name. I call them all the same, like Dandy
Dinmont’s terriers in Sir Walter, as maybe ye will remember. It’s a kind
of token of the race: and ye may make real pleasant acquaintances about
the world, or maybe, wha kens, be directed to a braw gentleman that will
make ye a fine partner for life--just by the circumstance of having twa
doggies by the name of Roy, baith from Rosmore!”

Rankin ended with a faint guffaw partly at his own humour, partly in the
emotion of giving up to a stranger one of his cherished infants. He
dived again into the mysterious receptacle in which the puppies feebly
squeeled and whined, within reach of his hand, and produced, all warm
and blurred from that nest, another ball of fur. “Ye can tak’ your
choice,” he said; “this ane is of the line of Roy as well as that ane.
It is the last I have, and I dinna see my way to pleasure Lady Jean till
maybe geyan weel on in the next year. If ye were to fancy the twa, I
wadna grudge them to ye: for I think you know what you’re about with
dogues. Would you like to have it? Oh, it’s not to please me but to
please you. I can dispose of the double of what I have got, or am like
to get. There’s not a person comes to Rosmore but is keen for one of
Rankin’s dogues. But I’m that pleased with you and your sense, that, if
ye like, I’ll let you have the twa.”

Rosamond accepted the favour in her stately way. “Have we any money,
Eddy?” she said. It did not in the least trouble her when her brother
for answer turned his pockets inside out “It does not matter in the
least,” she said. “I should like to have them both, and the money will
come somehow.” She was not touched with doubt as Archie had been about
the possibilities of paying. She was aware that she was poor, and had
not a penny; but most things she wanted were procured for her in one way
or another. This had been Rosamond’s experience since ever she
remembered, and naturally it gave her mind a great calm.

“And yon you were saying about Mr. Johnson?” said the gamekeeper,
turning to Eddy when the bargain was made.--“Wha’s that chapping at the
door?” he added impatiently. “Some gangrel body with an e’e to the
dogues, and muckle Roy out there just a senseless beast that bids a’
body welcome, and hasna a bark in him. Janet, woman! wha’s that chappin’
at the door?”

“It’s I,” said a voice that made Eddy start “It’s a friend--of your
master’s, my good man.”

“My maister’s!” said Rankin, “Wha’s that, I would like to ken? Janet,
just shut the door upon his nose, the uncivil person. My maister’s! It
will be some English towerist body that kens no better,” he added
condescendingly with a wave of his hand. “You may let him come in.”

“Why, Rankin,” cried Eddy, “you are in luck! This is the very
gentleman--of St Chad’s, Cambridge. Johnson, come in--you’re in luck
too, I can tell you. Here’s the champion that holds another view. You’re
on the Welsh side, aren’t you?--here’s the great authority, Ros-beg,
that takes the other view.”

“What?” said Johnson, coming in a little blinded from the winterly
sunshine outside into the comparative gloom of the cottage, where the
window was half covered with the drawn blind to keep out the sun. Mrs.
Rankin had a notion, shared by many simple housekeepers, that the sun
puts out the fire. “Eh--ah, who are you? I’ll swear that’s Eddy
Saumarez’s voice.”

Rosamond rose up from her place by the gamekeeper’s bedside, and put
back the puppy. The very sound of this man’s voice offended her. To be
sure it was the usual thing for everybody to say Eddy Saumarez. She had
seen him discussed by that name in the sporting papers, the horrible
crumpled things which he left about--there was nothing surprising in it;
but there was something exasperating in the sound of his voice.

“Oh, Miss Saumarez,” he said, stepping back a little. Her presence
startled him as much as his appearance exasperated her.

“I think,” she said, “as you’ve found your friend, I’ll go back by
myself, Eddy. And good-bye, Mr. Rankin. I will pay the greatest
attention to your instructions when you send me the dogs.”

Then without taking any notice of the intruder, except by the slightest
of bows, Rosamond turned and walked away. She waved her hand to Janet,
but Janet was accustomed to scant ceremony, and was not offended.
Rosamond was vaguely uneasy about this man and his frequent
re-appearance, and Eddy’s intention of having him asked to Rosmore. Of
course Mrs. Rowland would do it, if she were asked. Rosamond was not
aware of the impression he had already made on Evelyn’s mind. Nor had
she any doubts as to the truth of Eddy’s description. Everything, she
was aware, had changed at the University as at other places. There were
no tests, and anybody might become a don. Of course, if he was a don,
there was no reason why he should not be given an invitation for any
entertainment. But only she, Rosamond, would not countenance him. She
would neither dance with him nor talk with him. His appearance meant no
good to Eddy if he were a hundred times a don. Eddy was a boy whom it
was impossible to keep out of mischief, whatever happened. If anything
went wrong, she felt sure her father would hold her responsible, which
would be extremely unjust, for what could she do? Thus she reasoned with
herself as she walked very quickly through the woods, hurrying home.
Home! is was not home. In about ten days or so, this visit would be
over, and if Eddy played any tricks, probably Mrs. Rowland would never
ask them again. And Eddy was almost certain to play tricks of one kind
or another. His flirtation with Marion must come to some end. And what
_did_ father mean by sending him there? Was it intended that he should
marry Marion? was Marion rich enough to make father wish that Eddy
should marry her? These questions became disagreeably present with
Rosamond as she walked back to the house, and gave her a great feeling
of insecurity and discomfort of every kind. It really was not safe to go
anywhere with Eddy: he was sure to get himself into scrapes and have
disreputable acquaintances appearing after him. A curve of annoyance
came over Rosamond’s smooth brow. It did not occur to her, however, as a
thing possible, that any blame in any other way could turn upon herself.




CHAPTER XXVII.


“Come along, Johnson,” said Eddy; “don’t be shy. The nature of great
scholars, Rankin, is that they’re dreadfully shy, don’t you know. A man
that you couldn’t put out by the heaviest argument will give in at the
sight of a young lady. That’s like our friend here: he thinks every
woman he sees is going to bite him, or--marry him, perhaps, out of hand,
as you do in Scotland, don’t you know.”

“There is a great deal o’ nonsense prevalent about Scotch marriages,”
said Rankin. “It’s nothing of the kind. Come away ben, Mr. Johnson, I’m
real glad to see you. Dod! he’s no so lo’esome in his ain person that he
should be frichtened for the leddies; but study’s mair embellishin’ for
the mind than the body. Come in by, sir, and gi’e me a shake o’ your
hand. You and me’s had mony a controversy, but nane sae bitter but that
we may meet as friends.”

“Eh! what’s the man saying? What have I got to do with him?” cried
Johnson, stumbling in, with eyes as yet unaccustomed to the light.

“I tell you,” said Eddy, “of course you never expected to find here the
great Ros-beg, your opponent on the question of--What question was it,
Rankin? Don’t attempt to hide your honours, Johnson, my boy. Everybody
here knows you’re Johnson of St. Chad’s. You have only got to behave
yourself as such, and recognise the power of learning wherever you see
it. This, I tell you, is Ros-beg, your adversary on----”

“I say, Eddy, none of your humbug! I’ve got to talk to you on serious
business, and here you are agoing on with your pranks to drive a man out
of his senses.”

“I have nothing to do with it,” said Eddy. “This gentleman here in the
bed, though you mightn’t think it, is a great scholar, Johnson. He’s
driven you into a corner and holds you there. We know what you mean when
you pretend ignorance. It’s because you’re shut up. You might find an
argument if you were in your own study among all your books at St.
Chad’s; but here, face to face with the great Ros-beg, you’ve not got a
word to say.”

“Be canny with him, be canny with him, sir,” said Rankin, a glow of
complacency on his face. “A man’s no to be expected to be ready wi’ his
weepons just at a moment’s notice. Coming into a Highland cottage, how
was he to think he was to be confronted by an adversary? Na, na; great
allowances must be made. Sit down, sir, and tak’ time and come to
yourself.”

“By Jove!” said Johnson, with most un-don-like force, “I think you mean
to drive me mad, Eddy Saumarez! One day it’s with your ladies, and
another day it’s with this old----”

“Let him get it oot, let him get it oot,” cried Rankin. “Oh, ay! it’s
easier to abuse your opponent than to answer him; that’s a trick weel
kent in controversy. An auld--what, sir?--get it oot; it will ease your
mind, and it will do me nae hairm.”

“Johnson, you fool, can’t you see that you’ve got a character to keep
up,” cried Eddy, half-choking with laughter. The youth was full of
mischievous delight in his mystification, but he was not without a
meaning behind it, which was the thing most interesting to his present
victim.

“I see your game, Mr. Eddy,” said Johnson: “but you aint going to get
the better of me. Be done with that stuff, and come out and let us have
a bit of serious talk. You know as well as I do what’s hanging over your
head. If you can’t bring him something to stop his mouth, that old cove
will---- or give him security as you’re to be married before a certain
day. I don’t mind who I speak before. If you’ll not listen to me one
time, you’ll have to listen another!” cried Johnson, working himself up
into energy. Eddy stood facing the light with the ruddy glow of the
flames playing over him, his somewhat worn and pale young face broadened
with laughter. The effect of his youth, and perhaps a special impishness
of nature, gave him a delight in mischief which the most serious
emergency could not destroy.

“I told you,” he said, “this man’s always got his thoughts filled with
marrying--especially in Scotland, where you can always do it at a
moment’s notice. When he’s not in terror for himself he’s in terror for
me.”

“Ye may deliver your soul o’ a’ such terrors,” said Rankin angrily.
“There’s naebody will marry ye here but the minister, and him no afore
a’ inquiry’s made. There’s an awfu’ deal o’ nonsense prevalent about
Scotch marriages. It’s a question I would have no objection to argue oot
with ye, if ye prefer that to a mair learned subject,” said the
gamekeeper with a disdainful wave of his hand.

“I argue!” cried Johnson; “I’ll not argue; it aint my line. I’m not a
parson, nor I aint a lawyer; I’m a plain man, by Jove! I’ve got my own
business, and I know how to do it; and this I tell you, Master Eddy, if
you aint ready with that cash, and before the month’s out, come by it as
ye will----”

“Can’t you hold your d----d tongue! Can’t you see what’s expected of
you!” said Eddy in a rapid whisper.--“Rankin,” he said, raising his
voice, “I’m ashamed of my man. He hasn’t pluck enough to come up to the
scratch. The sight of you has routed him hand and foot. There’s no
spirit left in him at all.”

“He never said a truer word,” said Rankin, “than when he said he couldna
argue. I’m glad he has that much knowledge o’ himsel’. It was aye a
wonder to me that the editor let him in wi’ his _disjectae membrae_ and
hotchpotch o’ reasoning. I’m no surprised, for my pairt; but after this
exheebition, I’m thinking it would be just as weel to tak’ the cratur
away. It’s a’e thing to ha’e the gift o’ sound argument, which is no
given to everybody, and it’s anither thing to be ceevil to a man in his
ain house. Maybe, however, he thinks because I’m here in a cottage and
no able for any exertion, that it’s no me. But I can gi’e him evidence
that it’s me.” Rankin put up his hand to a box of papers fastened
within his reach by the wall, and dived into it, much as, on the other
hand, he dived into the nest of his dogs. “There’s the editor’s ain hand
of write addressed to John Rankin, Esquire, which will maybe convince
him. No that it matters a brass bodle to me, if a man, when he’s worsted
in arguments, forgets his mainners. It’s just of as little consequence
as the yelping of thae beasties of dogues.” Rankin took the puppies, who
had been stumbling, with little whines and sniffs, over the heights and
hollows of his own person, and dropped them one after another into what
seemed some invisible pocket, their disappearance acting as a sort of
energetic punctuation to his words. The letter, which he had flung
towards the stranger, was indeed directed as he had said, and disclosed
as it fell on the bed a number of proof-sheets or cuttings, very
conclusive to the instructed eye. But Mr. Johnson did not look at them
at all. He said, “What have I to do with the old--gentleman’s letters,”
substituting that word for “fool,” which he had intended to use, on the
compulsion of Eddy’s eye.

“Then, good-bye, Rankin, I’ll soon come back,” said Eddy, shaking the
old gamekeeper’s hand; “but, look here, I’ll bring no more of my grand
friends to see you from the Universities, if you are going to crumple
them up like this.”

Rankin laughed the satisfied laugh of the controversialist who has
demolished his adversary. “He hadna a word to say for himself, no’ a
word. It’s one thing compiling nonsense out o’ books in a library, and
meeting a man face to face. Ye just saw for yoursel’ that the beggar
hadna a word to say.”

“Eh me,” said Janet, who had gone out to the door to see the visitors
fairly off, “that was an awfu’ like man to be one of your great
scholars, as ye call them. I’ve seen the college gentlemen in my young
days, and fine lads some o’ them were. I wadna have believed that was a
college gentleman if it had been tell’t to me.”

“And what do you know about it?” said Rankin, scornfully. “There’s the
evidence that he just would not face me, the moment he heard who I was.
I never thought he had the root of the maitter in him. Just a blethering
retailer o’ other men’s opinions, no fit to haud his ain in any real
controversy. I’m a wee disappointed, for it would have been a grand
sensation to have it oot with ane of those Oxford ignoramuses in my ain
house; but ye see he could not put out a finger without his authorities
at his back.--I think I’ll maybe take a pickle mair broth.”

“If yon’s a college man and a gentleman,” said Janet, “I’ll just allow
that I never was mair deceivit in my life.”

Eddy took his friend’s arm as they issued out from the shadow of the
cottage. “Why didn’t you show fight?” he said, “you fool! You can act
well enough when you like. Why didn’t you be civil and draw him out?
He’d have done all the talk himself, and you’d have saved your character
as a college fellow and a don.”

“There’s been enough of this nonsense,” said Johnson. “I tried it on
with the lady the other day, and I put my foot into it. She didn’t
believe I was a don, as you call it, any more--than any other person
would. What was I to say to that old fool? I didn’t know what he was
talking about. Look here, we must have some talk serious, none of your
humbug. I have my orders as clear as daylight. If he can’t pay up--”

“I know,” said Eddy, impatiently, “I know! I’ve heard all that before.”

“You’ll not hear it again, my fine fellow, or else it’ll be before the
judge for something that is more ticklish than debt. Don’t you know
there’s that little bit of paper as was refused at the bank. No assets,
just your luck to keep you from the Old Bailey. But he’s got it all the
time. If you’re safe to marry the railway man’s daughter, perhaps I
might get him persuaded to wait. For I’m your friend, Eddy Saumarez, you
know as I always stand your friend when you don’t play any of your
tricks. I can’t go bail for him that he’ll do that; for what with
putting him off, and never answering his letters, and letting things
swing, he’s in the temper of the very----; but if it’s certain and
settled, and the figure of her fortune known, and all that--”

“You saw for yourself how things were going,” said Eddy, not without a
faint blush of shame, “the other day on the hill.”

“Oh, I saw you, fast enough--carrying on. But when I said to the lady,
‘That’s a case if ever there was one,’ she looked at me as if she could
have knocked me down. ‘If you mean it’s an engagement,’ she says, as
sharp as anything, ‘you’re mistaken, and it wouldn’t be allowed for a
minute on either side.’”

“You put that into her head, you everlasting fool!” cried Eddy. And then
with an effort of self-control, or rather with the natural facility of
his easy temper, he added, bursting into a laugh, “She’s the stepmother,
and they hate her all round. The more she opposes it the more it’s sure
to be, so you see there’s more things in heaven and earth, Johnson, than
are in your philosophy. What she says is just the thing that will never
come to pass. I say, if you’ll behave a little decent, and get up the
character, I’ll make her send you an invitation to the big ball!”

“The ball!”

“I know you’re fond of high life, and seeing smart people: and you can
act when you like. Now look here, put a good face upon it and let’s have
a little more time. Write to him that you’ve got a promise of having
everything settled if you wait till after the 30th, and that you’re
going to a ball at Rowland’s house under my wing; and then you’ll wire
about the engagement and all that as soon as ever it comes off. You’ll
never have such a chance again,” said Eddy; “_crême de la crême_, my
boy, and all that sort of thing.”

“People of the place,” said Johnson, with a sneer.

“People of the place! Well I hope when it’s Clydesdale and his lot,
that’s good enough for you. And perhaps you call the Duke of Arran one
of the people of the place. So he is, for it all belongs to him: and the
Huntingshaws and the Herons, who, I rather think, have been heard of
even in London town.”

“Oh, well,” said Johnson, with half eager, half reluctant acquiescence;
“but if that lady is the one to give the invitations, you will never get
her to ask me.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Eddy, complacently, “I think I know what
I’m about.”

“You know a deal too well what you’re about. For a fellow of your age,
you are the oldest fellow and the most artful I ever knew. I do believe
it’s only to gain time, and that there’s nothing in it. Carrying on with
a girl is nothing to you; you can get ‘em to believe you when another
fellow hasn’t even the chance to have a hearing. There’s that tall one,
your sister, looks at me as if I was the dirt under her feet. I’ll tell
you what, if you’ll make her give me a dance at this thundering ball of
yours, I’ll do it--whatever the Governor may say.”

“Well you can ask her,” said Eddy, in lightness of heart, “like any
other gentleman. You don’t want an introduction, because you’ve met her
before. A woman can’t refuse without being ill-bred, and nobody could
ever say of the Saumarez that they were ill-bred. Of course she’ll dance
with you--if you ask her,” he said, with a laugh.

“What’s that laugh for?” said Johnson, suspiciously.

“Oh come, if a man isn’t allowed to laugh! It’s for the fun of the
thing. I’ve seen you in a good many queer circumstances, but I never saw
you at a society ball dancing with girls--of that sort, don’t you know.
I’ll get you an introduction to the Duchess,” cried Eddy, “and you can
ask her to dance. By Jove what fun it will be! I shouldn’t wonder if you
had what they call a great success. But mind, whatever you do, you must
learn up the part.”

“Where shall I get it?” said Johnson. The idea of success in the world
which was “smart” turned his head. The thought went through his mind
that it might be but the beginning of triumph. The Duchess, if she found
his dancing to her mind, might invite him during the season. She might
ask him to the Cumbraes, that princely mansion. The light swam in
Johnson’s eyes. He felt as if he were on the verge of a new world. He
could learn a part with any man, and mind his cues and enter into his
_rôle_. Where could he get it? He ran over all the plays he knew, which
was saying a good deal, but he could not remember the part of a don.
“Hang it all,” he said, “I wish you had introduced me as a plunger or a
Guardsman, or something of that sort. I could have got ‘em as easy as
look at ‘em; but I don’t remember no don.”

“There are plenty in novels,” said Eddy.

“Oh, novels!--I don’t read any except the yellow kind. I say how d’ye
dress the part? Is it a long coat and a white tie? or what is it? I
don’t know nothing about it,” said Johnson, falling in his anxiety into
the dialect of his kind.

“In the evening,” said Eddy, “all gentlemen dress alike, except when
they’re parsons. Johnson of St. Chad’s is not a parson. Probably in the
day time he wears an easy coat, and smokes a pipe. But we’d better leave
that. You only want your evening things--I suppose they’re decently
cut--and a flower in your coat; but mind you have not a bouquet like a
coachman at a drawing-room.”

“I think I know enough for that,” said the novice; “but you’d better get
me one of those dashed novels if I’m to learn up the part.”

They walked on in silence for a few minutes towards the moor; great
visions filled the mind of Johnson. “I say,” he resumed after a while,
“couldn’t you get me asked for the shooting one day? The young fellow
aint much of a swell, whatever the rest of them may be; and I should
like to shoulder a gun on a real moor, just for once in a way. It’s a
thing to have done. The Governor would like it too. ‘My son’s up
shooting in Scotland,’ he’d tell everybody, ‘with some of his smart
friends.’”

“He can say it all the same, whether or not,” said Eddy.

“That’s true; but it feels much nicer when there’s something in it. I
say--I don’t mind standing a sovereign to the gamekeeper, if you’ll
manage that. I’d give a sovereign any day to have some birds to send up
to town with that heather stuff round ‘em, and a label, ‘From A.
Johnson, Esquire.’”

“You had better give the sovereign to me,” said Eddy, “if I am to take
the trouble of it. Well, I’ll try--and you’ll have to get up that part
too, Johnson, the don on the moors.”

“Oh, I aint frightened for that. Do they ask you to shoot at the
Cumbraes--that’s the Duke’s place?” said Johnson, with greater and
greater visions of delight rising before his eyes.

“They don’t ask me, but they might ask you,” cried Eddy, with a peal of
laughter. “‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ When once you get to know a
Duke, all the rest follows like clockwork.”

“That was what I thought,” Johnson said modestly. He marched on by
Eddy’s side for some time over the heather. Then he paused, and looked
his companion in the face. “Mind,” he said, “I don’t say as I shan’t
like all this very much, and if I get on, I shall never forget as it was
you as launched me, Master Eddy. But that’s not to interfere with
business: you’ll have to keep to your day and square your account, or
else the Governor will be down upon you, and there’s not a little thing
in the whole affair as won’t be brought to the light of day.”

“And who will that harm most?” said Eddy. “I’ll pay up, of course; but
who do you think would suffer most--I, only a boy when you got me into
your accursed hands, or _him_, an old bloated, money-lending, sixty per
cent., blood-sucking----”

“Keep a civil tongue in your head. Do you think he’ll mind what the
papers may say? Look here, Eddy Saumarez, why don’t you go to your
Governor and make a clean breast of it, and settle it up so as nothing
should ever be brought against you again? You’ve got a lot of relations
that wouldn’t like to be dragged through the mud.”

“Do you think they mind what the papers may say?” said Eddy,
sardonically; “when that’s the case on both sides, there can’t be much
to be done either way.”

“Well, smart people don’t, somehow,” said Johnson, “no more than we
do--they’re so used to it. It aint my business to dictate how you’re to
do it, but somehow you’ll have to do it. You may get the money how you
please, but you must get it, and not a moment later than the 31st. Now
that’s settled, I can give my thoughts to getting up the part.”

When he was left by his companion, Eddy went up by himself upon the
moors, which was a kind of excursion he did not usually enjoy. He went
up breasting the hill like a deer or a mountaineer, nor caring where he
went, through ling and bracken, among the prickly whins, and over the
treacherous quagmires of moss and bog. Something was in his mind which
made him indifferent to all the accidents of the way. When he had
reached the very top of the ridge he threw himself down upon the dark
heather with his face upon the ground, falling as if he had been shot,
and lay there for a few moments motionless as if he had died. Nature
accommodates herself very easily to any vagary of rest. The dark figure
seemed for a moment to disturb and break the line of vegetation, but had
not been there a moment before the grasses and the ling seemed to take a
new beginning, starting up from under him, the long myrtles rustling
their heads, the Grass of Parnassus waving its white stars. So they
would have done had he been dead, covering him over, hiding him in the
bosom of the soil. He lay for a little while thus, harmonised and
composed into quiet under the still touch of the hill, so that when he
got up again he seemed to leave a broad and angry void where he had
been. What passed in his mind while he buried his face in the coolness
of the earth, and hid himself from the eye of day, it would be hard to
tell--perhaps only the working of his quick brain as to what he could do
in the emergency in which he found himself, perhaps compunction,
miserable thoughts of the past, more miserable reflections on the
future. But nothing of this was visible when he raised himself from that
momentary collapse. He sat down upon the heather with his face towards
the lake, and pondered, clutching at his hair with both his hands,
setting his elbows on his knees. What was it he was thinking of out
there upon the lonely moor, not a living creature near him except the
wild creatures on the hills, the insects in the moorland vegetation. His
short-sighted eyes roamed vaguely over the heather, pausing upon here
and there a gleam of water in a hollow, turning instinctively, like a
child toward a light, to the deep loch lying far below. But he saw
little or nothing with these wandering eyes. They were bent upon
visionary objects, seeing scenes and visions which had nothing to do
with the moor or the loch of Rosmore.

Presently Eddy took something from his pocket, a piece of paper with a
few words upon it, which he studied intently. His eyes came back from
their roaming to fix themselves intently, with the contraction of the
eyebrows which marked their defect, upon the paper. They were sharp eyes
though they were short-sighted, seeing everything within their limited
range with a keenness and mastery of every detail quite unusual, a
power of observation which was more precious than the longest sight.
What was it he was trying to master? A few uninteresting words, nothing
of the slightest importance. Then he took out a pencil and wrote
something, repeating the same characters again and again. What was it?
He kept the paper so cautiously in his hand that had he been startled by
any intruder he could have doubled it up in a moment, and hidden it in
his hollowed palm. It was somewhat strange to see such a precaution
taken on the wide stretch of moor, which was as desolate as a moor could
be, some part of it dark with the blistered stems of heather which had
been burned, the rest dewy and glistening with the moisture with which a
few days of rain had soaked the country. The very insects were hushed by
the cold of the October afternoon. A few desolate cheepings low among
the heather betrayed a lowly nest here and there. In the distance a road
came like a black ribbon over a corner of the slope. Eddy sent another
anxious look round him, and returned to his paper, writing the same
letters over and over again. Was it the name of his love? What was it?
He held it so carefully under the shadow of his hand that even had some
one risen silently from the heather, and looked over his shoulder, it
would have been difficult to see.

This was not exactly what happened. What happened was that--coming along
the dark road in the distance, Eddy spied a figure, which made him start
to his feet and hastily return to his pocket the little document. He
sat down again, but with his face that way, watching who it was who was
approaching. There was something in the outline and the gait, those
points which are all the short-sighted have to go upon, which seemed to
indicate a person he knew. It was not the moment which Eddy would have
chosen to encounter Archie Rowland, but there was something in his own
occupation just suspended, and in the curious fancy which had brought
him here, the object which he only knew, which made him eager to disarm
any possible suspicion on the part of his hosts at Rosmore--which
impelled him at least not to avoid the meeting. Suddenly he got up and
began waving his arms about to attract the attention of the passer-by,
who, pausing and standing still a moment to consider who called him, at
length decided to change his course and came towards the figure thus
signalling to him across the summit of the hill.




CHAPTER XXVIII.


Archie came over the hill, lifting his feet high among the heather. He
had changed in his aspect a little since the old Glasgow days. For one
thing he had changed his tailor, which always makes a great difference.
And three months of the fresh Highland air and outdoor exercise, and
something too of the growing habit of a little authority and command,
and that of having things done for him, of saying to this man, go, and
he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, had changed the looks of
Archie. And another more subtle influence had changed him. His brow had
cleared of an overhanging cloud, once too ready to come down at a
moment’s notice. He held his head more erect. It was not perhaps that he
was in reality more sure of himself--but at least he had somehow
acquired the air of being so--and he was of course more accustomed and
at ease in the habits of his new life.

He could not think why he had been called in this way; and did not
indeed recognise Eddy, whose presence here on the top of the moor was
the last thing any one could have expected. Eddy was not fond of long
walks. To stroll down to the beach with his hands in his pocket, and
when he had got there, to sit on a rock and throw stones into the water,
was the hardest exercise he generally indulged in, except a day’s
shooting now and then, when he showed himself, notwithstanding his
indolence, as to the manner born--a thing which Archie could never do.
But how he should have got up here without any motive was a thing which
young Rowland could not understand. “Is it you?” he cried with surprise
when he came near enough to recognise his guest.

“It’s just me--which I perceive is the formula here,” cried Eddy. “I’ve
no right to invite you to sit down, as this is your own place; but I can
recommend that ling bush. It’s dry, and there is no gorse about to prick
into your vitals. Are you in a hurry, or can you wait a bit here.”

“Oh, I am in no hurry,” said Archie. “It’s not easy to be in a hurry
when you’ve got nothing to do.”

“Do you think so? I’m always in a hurry and always late--though I have
nothing to do.”

“I suppose it’s according to a man’s nature,” said Archie.

“Everything is that if you go to the bottom of things. You’re one of the
restless fellows that want to be doing--I don’t. I love idleness,” said
Eddy, stretching himself back over the ling, with his arms extended over
his head and his eyes on the sky. The sky was covered with clouds, yet
there was a break of blue just over Eddy’s head, which he regarded
complacently as if it had been made for his special use.

“I was surprised to see you up so far--it’s a good climb from the loch
side.”

“So it is;” said Eddy, “it was not for want of something to do. So long
as there’s a billiard table handy, thank heaven, you never need be
without occupation. If there’s nobody to have a game with, you can at
least be improving your own play.”

“I did not think of that,” said Archie.

“No, for you don’t appreciate billiards,” cried the other, “which is a
pity, for it’s a fine game. I say, Rowland, when are we to have another
day’s shooting? This ball takes up a lot of time; but I hope you’ll take
me out on the hills at least one day again before I go?”

“When you like,” Archie said shortly.

“Well, that’s curt,” said Eddy with a laugh. “And I always like, don’t
you know. By the way, I’ve got a sort of a--favour to ask you. I don’t
know what you’ll say.”

Archie did not make any reply but looked up, waiting without much
excitement for the demand, whatever it might be.

“Well it’s this,” said Eddy embarrassed, which was almost a new
sensation to him, and gave him a sense of youth and freshness which in
its way was delightful. “I don’t know what you’ll say to me for asking
such a thing. It’s not as if you had your governor out and a lot of big
wigs. A couple of young fellows doesn’t matter.”

Archie kept his face towards his companion with the same look of
indifferent expectation, but he said nothing to help him on.

“It is not even like an invitation to the house; and the ladies probably
will not be coming out again.”

There was faintly indicated on Archie’s countenance a question as to
this latter statement--a sort of interrogating curl in the curve of his
eyebrows; but the young man was chary of his words, and spoke no more
than was indispensable.

“It is getting late in the season you know,” said Eddy, “and cold for
them.”

“They don’t mind the cold,” said Archie.

“Well it’s rather cutting up here, and Mrs. Rowland--isn’t so young as
the girls. However, I’m afraid they didn’t care for my man when he
appeared before. It was bad taste I allow, thrusting himself into the
midst of our party. But I don’t pretend that he’s much in the way of
breeding. He’s a good fellow--enough--and he never had any opportunity
of this sort of thing when he was younger. It’s that man Johnson, don’t
you know. He’s hanging about here. I am always knocking up against him.
He would be awfully pleased if you’d ask him to come with us out
shooting. And I don’t think he’ll do much harm.”

“Oh,” said Archie, “the college man.”

“Yes,” replied Eddy, wincing a little, “the college man.” He had not
minded at all promulgating that fiction to the ladies. It was immense
fun. To do him justice it had been struck off on the spur of the moment,
without any intention; but to say it to Rowland, two fellows on the
hillside, was a different matter. He began to pull up the tenacious
roots of the ling with both hands, struggling with them, and did not
meet Archie’s eyes. Nothing could be more innocent than Archie’s eyes,
which suspected nothing. Archie had scarcely been conscious of Johnson’s
presence at all. He had made no mental remarks as to the breeding or
want of breeding of the stranger. He had no theories about a College
Don. It is doubtful, indeed, whether he had any clear impression as to
what that character was. Eddy added quickly, “He’s a little uncouth.
They don’t see much society, these fellows. I would not mix him up with
the ladies: but he would be awfully pleased--and when it’s only two
young fellows on a moor, you and me--”

“Oh, I have no objections,” said Archie. “Ask him if you like, Saumarez;
it was hardly necessary to take the trouble of asking me.”

“You are an awfully good fellow, Rowland!” said Eddy, struck with a
faint and very temporary sense of shame.

“Oh, if that’s all,” cried Archie with a smile which lighted up his
face. It pleased him that anybody should think so, and still more that
Eddy Saumarez should think so. In the exhilaration of that encouragement
he went a little further, as the simple giver pleased with his own
liberality is so apt to do.

“If there is anything else we can do for him? I’ll tell Roderick to see
that it’s all right. And we can go out any day you like. I’m not such a
hearty sportsman as you. If it wasn’t a kind of duty--but it’s pleasant
when somebody enjoys it,” he said with a glow upon his brightened face.

“I enjoy it--down to the ground,” said Eddy. “It’s not that there’s so
very much game; but then one has it all one’s own way. Nobody poking in
before you, saying, ‘My bird?’ and then a young fellow has to give in.
You’re a lucky dog, Rowland--the cock of the walk so far as the moor
goes, and thought no end of at home.”

“Do you think so?” said Archie, with a sort of painful gratification.
“I’m afraid that’s more than I can believe. I’m a disappointment to my
father, Saumarez. I don’t know what he expected, but he expected
something very different from me.”

“They are always like that,” said Eddy, with the air of an authority.
“They put you in a certain grind, and then they look out for something
quite different. I am just the product of my training; but the Governor
jaws at me as if I were a monster: though if all tales be true, he could
have given me odds, at my worst.”

Eddy spoke with the composed expression of a man whose worst had been
very bad, and who had fathomed all the secrets of life. Archie could not
but look on with a certain respect, though his blameless mind recoiled a
little from this man of knowledge. He had no experiences of his own save
of the most trifling kind, to produce.

“The worst of it all,” said Eddy, “is the money. We have all that’s
nice, you know, in the way of living, and places to go to and so forth,
but never any money in our pockets. I don’t know if the Governor himself
is much better. It all goes on quite smoothly, and I suppose it gets
paid. I don’t know. I never have a penny to bless myself with.”

“Oh, there’s no want here in that way,” said Archie. He took out a card
case from his pocket, and took a piece of paper from it. “Here is
something my father gave me this morning, for extra expenses he said. I
told him I had no extra expenses, but it was no use. And I don’t know
what to do with it,” Archie said; “you can’t buy anything at Rosmore.
I’ll pay it into my bank, which is his bank too, and there it will lie.”

“Good life, Rowland! No use!” cried Eddy, with eager eyes fixed upon the
cheque. He took it out of his companion’s hand, and examined it,
gloating over every line. “One hundred pounds, James Rowland,” he cried.
“I wish I had a few signatures like that. I wish he’d take a few pieces
of paper out of his pocket of this description and offer them to me.”

“I dare say he would,” said Archie, calmly, “if he knew you were in such
great need of them; but you are just romancing on that score.”

“Romancing!” cried Eddy. “I romancing! It shows how little you know. You
can’t think, Rowland, what temptations a young fellow is subjected to.
And then all sorts of harpies about, thirsting for your blood. Before
you know where you are, they’ve got you hard and fast, and after that
you never dare call your soul your own. Why this fellow John----, I mean
a man in London, has got his horrid thumb on me!--Romancing!” cried
Eddy, “I’d give my little finger for a bit of paper like that--and one a
day as long as they lasted for ever and ever.”

To see Archie’s countenance while his companion was speaking was an
experience in its way. He raised himself erect the first minute out of
his habitual lounging and careless attitude. His brow cleared more and
more. He pushed his hat back, revealing it with the heavy ruddy hair,
pushed back too, and standing up in a thick crest: his eyes so often
overcast, or gleaming out in sudden gleams, half-timorous half-defiant,
were bent steadily upon Eddy’s face with something celestial in their
blueness--his mother’s eyes. He had never looked out upon the world so
openly, so free, with so little self-consciousness, since the first day
when his father’s heart had risen at the first look of him in the humble
parlour at Sauchiehall Road; and there was something of a new-developed
soul, something higher, something deeper in that look now.

“Would ye that?” he said, in his native tone and accent. He took up the
paper where Eddy had laid it down, spread out upon the ling for
admiration. “Your little finger would be of no use to me,” he said; “but
if ye want this so much, and I don’t want it at all, take it, Saumarez.
You are very welcome to it, and it’s little use to me.”

Eddy raised his eyes suddenly, with a gleam of eager covetousness, to
the other’s face. They were hazel eyes, with a peculiar reddish gleam,
and flashed out like lanterns on the steadfast blue of Archie’s look.
Then a flush came over his face, and his eyelids, which were full and in
many folds, went over these two lamps like curtains drawn. “Rowland, you
cover me with shame,” he said, in a voice only half audible, trembling
in the air.

“What for?” said Archie: as his countenance brightened, his tone went
back more and more to that obnoxious Glasgow, which his father so
disliked to hear. But though it was Glasgow, there was the very soul of
music in Archie’s voice. It became soft and round and dewy and liquid,
with the qualities of all melting things in one. “What for? when you
want it so much, and me not at all. I have nothing to do with it; and
you----”

“I have a hundred things to do with it,” cried Eddy, “if I could only
tell you!--if you would only understand! But you wouldn’t--an honest
fellow like you, that never had a thought you were ashamed of. Oh, yes,
it’s life or death, that is about what it is! I could perhaps grapple
on, and struggle out. Perhaps--I don’t know if it would be enough----
Oh, I say, Rowland, it’s too great a temptation. Put it away, back in
your pocket. What does it matter what becomes of a wretched fellow like
me!”

There was just enough reality in this struggle against himself to give
to Eddy what was generally absent from his best endeavours--an air of
truth. He did try to work himself up to the point of refusing this
sudden windfall which had dropped into his very hand.

“Well,” said Archie, “don’t give it up for that. I have a little more in
the bank. It is not very much; it’s about fifty pounds more. My father
gives me an allowance. It’s a new thing for me to have all that money,
and I just never spend it. What would I spend it upon here? I got two of
Rankin’s little dogues--but they’re paid for, the little dashed beasts
that have taken to--somebody else--that don’t care a button for me.
Come, take it, lad: and if you’ll come to my room when we get home, I’ll
give ye a cheque for the rest. If it was to buy anything, ye might
demur, and say as well me as you; but when it’s to free you of something
on your mind----”

“I should think it was on my mind,” Eddy said, not looking up at the
other face which beamed benignant upon him. Archie perhaps, was never so
much at ease with himself, so conscious of power and faculty, so
flattered and gratified during his whole life.

“Well--and I have nothing on my mind,” he said with a happy laugh. He
doubled up the cheque and thrust it into Eddy’s hand. “And just come to
my room as soon as you get back--or perhaps----” He paused a little,
wondering, as he had a favour to confer, which was the best way. “I’ll
tell ye what’s the best. I’ll come to yours, and then there will be no
difficulty,” Archie said.

He went down over the shoulder of the hill to Rosmore, never feeling for
a moment the roughness of the way, laughing at himself as he stuck in a
bog or stumbled over a rock, elated, happy, twice the man he was when he
threaded slowly through the harsh bushes of the ling to where Eddy
awaited him. What a half-hour that had been! He had never been able to
be of use to any one all his life. The experience was quite new to him,
delightful above all words. He did not even remember for some time that
it was Rosamond’s brother whom he thus had it in his power to deliver
from mysterious and unknown troubles. The first recollection of that
additional inducement produced upon him indeed rather a sobering than an
exciting effect. He divined instinctively that to Rosamond this would be
a horror and humiliation. Heaven forbid she should ever know! He felt
nothing but delight in being able to do something for Eddy, but the
thought of Rosamond covered him with sudden cold dews of alarm. Never,
never, must Rosamond know. She would blame him for it, Archie foresaw.
It would raise a mountain of horrible obstacles between them. She would
resent the mere possibility of such a link between her brother and
himself. He must warn Eddy in the first place, who was so careless, who
might let it out at any moment; and in the next, he must take every
precaution that no one should ever discover what had passed. Even his
cheque might be compromising to Eddy; there must be no way of betraying
him, no possibility left. He turned over in his mind, as he hurried
home, all the precautions that could be taken to conceal the
transaction. Archie was not a man of business. He had little knowledge
of the ways of banks and the manner of passing money from one hand to
another. But when the heart is concerned, the mind becomes ingenious.
And he had thought it well out, and how it was to be done, so that
whatever secrets might be revealed, nothing of this should ever come out
against Eddy, before he had reached home.

Eddy himself was too much ashamed of the part he was playing to walk
home with the young man who had thus come to his help. There was so much
grace left in him that he could not do that. He made the excuse that he
was going a little way up the loch to speak to Alick Chalmers, the
universal agent, about something that was wanted for the decoration of
the ball-room, and when Archie had left him he stood watching his
progress over the hill till he was out of sight. He had been really
touched by Archie’s kindness, and by the absolute trust that young
Rowland had showed in him, and something of compunction, something of
unwonted tenderness was in Eddy’s eyes as he looked after that good
Samaritan. “What a good fellow he is,” he said to himself; “but Jove!
how badly he carries himself. To think he should treat a man like that
whom he knows so little as he knows me; but I ought to have gone with
him, for he’ll be on his nose before he gets down to the road.”

He could not but laugh at the manner in which Archie cannoned off a big
boulder and nearly rolled down the hill at one point in his progress.
His heart was still touched, but yet to be as awkward as that, was what
no man had any right to be. Then he threw himself down on the heather
again and thought, steadily following out with puckered eyebrows and a
set face the scheme which had sprung to being in his brain when he set
his eyes on the cheque which now kept him warm against his bosom. How
much fun and frolic there was in that bit of paper, if he could have
used it for his own pleasure. It gleamed across him that he might yet
use it for his own pleasure and let everything slide; but there are some
things that are more necessary than pleasure even to the most sordid
mind. He had hailed this money as a benediction from heaven when it
first dropped so unexpectedly into his hands, to enable him perhaps to
arrange his most pressing affairs and deliver himself from a galling
presence. But by the time Eddy rose from his seat among the heather, the
most lively feeling he felt in his mind was resignation, and a sense
that he was giving up his personal wishes in the noble way of paying an
old debt, when he might have got so much fun out of the money! It was a
wonderful change of view.

He took his way to the upper end of the loch, but not to see Alick
Chalmers. He went on for a mile or two on the crest of the hill, and
then dropped down upon a little cluster of houses on a little knoll
among the harvest fields where the scanty crop was only being gathered
in in the end of October. Johnson came out of one of those houses as the
young man approached.

“If you’ve anything particular to say, let us go up the hill,” he said.
“It aint safe talking in these little holes. They can hear you in the
other room, if not next door.”

“What makes you think I have anything to say?”

“Well, there’s those invitations you promised me,” said Johnson.

“Promised you! I said I’d ask for you. I’ll get them if you’ll do what I
want for me.”

“Not a farthing more money, Master Eddy; it’s no use speaking. To
mention it even, would be as much as my place is worth.”

“You fool! who’s talking of money?” said Eddy.

They mounted up slowly till they came to a little green knoll, a sort of
oasis in the waste of the heather.

“There’s nobody can listen here,” he said. “I’ve brought you a payment
on account, Johnson. Look here, if you’ll get him to take this, and wait
for the rest till I can get it----”

“I daren’t make such a proposal, Master Eddy; he’ll have all or
none--the whole sum, every penny--or he’ll write and expose you.”

“Hold your tongue, I say. Look at it first and see--it’s as good as
sovereigns counted out upon the table--it’s not like a bill or that
sort----”

“You don’t suppose he’d take a bill of _you_!”

“You needn’t be so dead sarcastic,” said Eddy. “He’s had many a worse
fellow than me to deal with. Look here, Johnson, a hundred pounds
down--or perhaps I could make it a hundred and fifty. It’s a pity to
refuse good money. If anything were to happen to me to-morrow; if you
were to put some shot into me, for instance, on Friday on the moor----”

“Do you mean?” cried Johnson, his unwholesome white face lighting up
with pleasure. “I can’t do what you want, Mr. Eddy, for it don’t depend
upon me: but I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, man. It’s the
thing I’ve wished most.”

“And do you think,” said Eddy, “I’m going to do that for nothing? Not
such a fool, my fine fellow. A hundred and fifty, Johnson--down; and as
good as gold paid over the counter. Wire him that it’s an offer, and
that you’ll be able to push business among the swells you will meet. I
can introduce you to half the bigwigs about----, and if you don’t make
something out of them.--But I must have that confounded paper back.”

“I don’t wonder that you say so; but it’s no use speaking. If I----it
depended upon me! and Master Eddy, if I can do you a good turn another
time I will. You never can tell when you may want a good turn.”

“I want this good turn--that confounded bit of paper, and a little ease
of my life. Look here!--and there’s more where that came from.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Johnson. He took the cheque out of the young
man’s hands and examined it closely. “Yes,” he said; “it’s as good as
gold. Lord, what a pity, when he was doing it, he didn’t go a little
bit farther and add a nought! Another nought, and just a little bit of
change in one word. Bless us all, how easy he could have done it--a
touch of the pen.” Johnson put his hand on the cheque, pointing out
lightly here and there where the improvement could have been made. “The
one would be just as easy to him as the other,” he said “And think! then
you would be set right in a moment; that bit of paper given up, and
everything squared. When you have a friend like this, why can’t you get
him to do something that’s of real use? A hundred’s nothing; I would
advise you to keep that for yourself. It might be of use to you for
pocket-money. It’s of no use to us.”

“It’s precisely a hundred pounds’ worth of use,” said Eddy.

“Ah! if you take it in that way; but _he_ wouldn’t take it in that way.
He would say it’s the tenth part of our claim, and I’m not going to let
a young fellow like that (he would say--mind, it’s not me) off for a
tenth of our claim. How much more money (he would say) d’ye think we’d
get out of him after he had his bit of paper back. No, no, Master Eddy,
no use to try on that little dodge, he’s far too old a bird. But, so far
as I am concerned, if there’s anything in a moderate way I could help
you in, after what you’re going to do for me----”

“How do you know I’ll do it for you now? It’s nothing for nothing in
this world,” said Eddy, fiercely. “If you don’t help me, why should I
take any trouble? Your day’s shooting and your ball depend upon me, and
I’m willing to see you through these and introduce you to all the
bigwigs, but if I get nothing in return----”

“Only a word of advice,” said Johnson. “Go back to your friend, Master
Eddy, and get him to alter that thing there; he could do it with a
scratch of his pen. Another nought, and there’s nothing easier for a
man, when it’s his own writing, to change a word. If it looks blotchy,
don’t you know he puts his initials to show it’s all right--I’ve seen it
done a dozen times--that’s all he’s got to do, and everything would be
square. Take it back to him, Master Eddy, that’s my advice.”

“I think you’re the devil in person, Johnson,” was what Eddy replied.




CHAPTER XXIX.


On the evening of the same day Archie Rowland knocked at Eddy’s door. It
had been an evening of the lively order, which had now become habitual
at Rosmore. Eddy and Marion had carried all before them. After a long
discussion of the details of the ball, the decorations in which Eddy was
collaborating with Mrs. Rowland, and fertile in a thousand suggestions,
Rosamond had again struck up a waltz on the piano, and the two gayest
members of the party had immediately started off. There were present
some of Miss Eliza’s many nieces and nephews from the Burn, and in a few
minutes two or three couples had “taken the floor,” winding in and out
of the furniture, with difficulties which increased the mirth. Mr.
Rowland himself had come in from the dining-room while this lively scene
was going on, and had looked upon it benignantly for a minute or two in
the doorway, but had ended by going away, amused but perhaps a little
bored by this unreasoning invasion of his quiet, as the father of a
family not unfrequently does, not displeased that his children should
enjoy themselves, but with an odd sense of bachelorhood and detachment
as he takes refuge in his library, supposing him to have one. Evelyn had
been looking on too, still more benignant, glad that the youthful
members of the party should be occupied anyhow, ready to take her place
at the piano, and help them to keep it up, yet a little disturbed by the
withdrawal of her husband, and instantly conscious, sympathetically,
that the too-prominent and continual amusement of the young people had
its disadvantageous side. Probably had she been their mother, she would
have taken their part more warmly, and with a vague blame in her mind of
the man who could not blot himself out as she did, for what pleased the
children. Archie, to whom this evening, in the greater number of
performers, Rosamond could not offer herself as a partner, felt like his
father, a little annoyed and very much amazed with himself for feeling
annoyed. How much better, he said to himself, to be like Saumarez, able
to give himself up to what other people wished, to amuse them, and make
the evening “go off” for the guests. Archie felt that he himself would
never be up to that. He would never be able to forget himself and throw
off all his cares, and sacrifice himself on the altar of his guests. A
secret longing forced itself upon him to get rid of them all, to be
quiet, even as in the dull evenings before the arrival of the visitors.
The evenings had been very dull, but still--. As for the old life in
Glasgow, Archie somehow did not go back to that--it had retired so very
far away out of his ken. If it had been thirty years ago instead of four
months it could not have become more completely impossible, a thing got
into the abyss of the past, not to be thought of any more.

It was late when he walked softly through the dim corridor upstairs, in
which one lamp only was burning low, making a sort of darkness visible.
Everybody was asleep, or at least so it appeared from the absolute
stillness of the house. He felt as if his step now and then coming upon
a plank in the flooring which creaked, must startle the people retired
in those silent rooms like the tread of a thief in the night. Nothing
could be more unlike a thief than Archie was, stealing along in the dark
to give away all he possessed in the world to a man whom he did not by
any means love, who was his neighbour only in the broadest sense of the
word, one who wanted something which he possessed. He had made out all
his generous foolish plans, as to how it could be best done, so that
nobody need ever know that he had come to Eddy’s aid, not even a
banker’s clerk. He knocked softly at the door from underneath which
there was a glimmer of light, the only one in the long corridor where
any sign of life was to be seen. His knock was not responded to for the
first moment. He heard a little rustle and movement of paper, and then
he knocked a second time, and again after a little interval Eddy came
and opened the door.

“Oh it’s you, Rowland,” he said, admitting him instantly.

Eddy had been sitting at a writing table, with a number of papers before
him, over which he had tossed a newspaper, the first thing that came
handy, when he heard Archie’s knock. There was no reason why he should
have covered up his papers so. What he had been lost in contemplation
of, was Archie’s cheque, which was stretched out before him in his
blotting book, and which he was poring over with no doubt the grateful
sensations which a man has when a friend holds out to him, when he is
drowning, a helpful hand. He had been looking at it with his head on one
side, and a look of earnest and fixed observation, sometimes making a
visionary line with his pencil in the air, here and there. Perhaps a
little regret about that nought that was wanting might be in his mind.
Eddy was very hard pressed. The bit of paper which the money-lender had
in his possession, which he held over the unfortunate young man’s head,
demanding a ransom as cruel and extravagant as any blood-money, was
enough to ruin Eddy for ever and ever. No aid or succour from his
friends would enable him to get over it, and he dared not on account of
this examine the demand made upon him, or attempt to have it ratified.
He must pay it or he himself must sink to the very pit of social
annihilation. Eddy was very well known to be a little _mauvais sujet_,
as his father had been before him. Still that was a thing which society
could ignore: it could even have permitted him to marry an heiress,
with a sensation of pleasure in having him so well disposed of; but the
bit of paper in the usurer’s hand was a different matter. That was a
thing which could not be admitted, and could not be forgotten. At all
hazards, at all costs, that must be got rid of. If there only had been
that other nought, if only a _t_ had been prefixed to the _h_ of the
hundred, and sundry other unimportant alterations made! It was
impossible not to think of this, not to see how easy it would have been,
had Mr. Rowland been possessed by so good an idea. What a pity! what a
pity! Eddy with all his thinking could not imagine a plan by which
Rowland could be made to do that: and yet how easy it would be! He threw
the Glasgow paper over it when he heard the knock at the door.

“Oh, is it you, Rowland? Come in. I was just looking at the--paper
before I went to bed.”

“Its little interest it can have for you--a Glasgow paper,” said Archie
with a smile. And then he said, “I’ve come to speak about what we were
saying this afternoon on the hill.”

“Yes?” said Eddy. He has repented already, he said to himself with a
deep drawn breath.

Archie stammered and hesitated, and blushed as he sat down at the table.
He began to rustle and pluck at the corner of the paper unconsciously
with those awkward fingers which he never knew what to do with. “I’ve
been thinking,” he said, and could get out no more.

“Look here,” said Eddy nervously, “if you’ve been thinking, Rowland, as
would be quite natural, that you were taken by surprise to-day on the
hill, that you handed over that cheque to me in a moment of weakness,
and that now on thinking it over you felt that you had been a fool, and
that my troubles were no concern of yours--don’t beat about the bush. I
have been thinking just the same myself. Its monstrous you should be put
out about a fellow’s concerns whom you had never seen a month ago, and
never may see again. Say it out, there’s a good fellow; don’t hesitate
and spare my feelings. I agree beforehand in every word you say.”

Archie stood open-mouthed while his companion delivered very rapidly
this little oration, in which there was a great deal of genuine feeling:
for Eddy thought it was almost inevitable that such a rash piece of
generosity should be repented of, and yet was in so much mental
excitement concerning the matter altogether, that his mind was full of
impatient resentment against the man whose action (mentally) he
approved, and whom he believed to be doing the most natural thing in the
world.

“I suppose,” said Archie, “it’s the natural thing, because a man is a
little behind in his company manners, and all that, and can’t ride, or
shoot, or dance, or anything as well as you; that you should make sure
he is a cad all round, as you say.”

“What do you mean?” cried Eddy, with his sharp eyes doing all he knew to
read a face, to him altogether inscrutable in the simplicity of its
single-mindedness.

“So long as you don’t ask me to discuss what _you_ mean,” said Archie,
with a careless disdain which stung the other: for, indeed, the lad was
desperate in the feeling of being unable to get himself understood,
whether from one side or another. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “the
best way of getting that money without compromising--any person. It’s a
transaction between ourselves that nobody has anything to do with. My
father might ask to see my bank book. I am perhaps doing him the same
injustice that I think you are doing me; but he might, for my own good,
if he thought I was spending too much. Now, I don’t want him to poke
into this, and find perhaps your name, or---- Therefore I was thinking,
suppose we go up to Glasgow, you and me? There’s these things that you
want for the ball--that would be a very good excuse. And then I can draw
out the money myself, in notes or gold, or whatever you please, which
will leave no record on the books, so that I will be in it alone if
there should be any remarks, and not you. Do you see? Here’s the cheque
for the other fifty pounds. You can have it that way if you like, of
course; but I can’t help thinking it would be better my way.”

“Rowland,” said Eddy, giving him one glance, then withdrawing his eyes
quickly, as from an inspection he could not bear; “do you do all this
for my sake?”

“I don’t know that it’s for any one’s sake. It’s just the easiest
way--not to compromise any one. If I’m asked for an explanation, I can
give it in my own way--about myself. But if I am asked for an
explanation about you, I neither could give it, nor would I: you see
the difference. It’s just a plain business view.”

“It is not a common kind of business,” said Eddy; “it’s the first time I
ever heard that sort of thing called business. You’re a queer fellow,
Rowland; but I think you must be about the best fellow I ever knew.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Archie. “I have something I don’t want, and
you want something you haven’t got. We niffer, that’s all. Oh, I suppose
you don’t understand that word, it’s Scotch. We exchange, that’s what it
means.”

“And what do I give in exchange?” said Eddy. The question was asked
rather of himself than of Archie, who made no reply, except a little
shame-faced laugh. Young Saumarez reflected a little, with working
eyebrows and twitching mouth. He said at last, “I’ll take you at your
word, Rowland; this will make it a debt of honour. I’ll take you at your
word. A thing that’s got no evidence, that you couldn’t recover, is the
only thing that presses on a man’s conscience. I’ll take you at your
word.”

Archie again gave vent to a little laugh of embarrassment, and confused
relief. He did not enter into the reasoning. Debts of honour, or debts
of any kind, were unknown to him. It had driven him almost distracted to
think how he was to pay for the two little puppies from Rankin--the
doggies which he always thought of with a little bitterness, who had
abandoned him and gone over to the enemy. No more than Eddy could have
understood that difficulty, could Archie understand how it might be
supposed he was securing himself against loss by astutely giving the
character of a debt of honour to the money he was bestowing upon his
fellow-creature who was in need. He said simply, “We will consider this
as settled, then; and we’ll run up to Glasgow to-morrow. I can show you
the place: it is not like London, perhaps; but there’s things in it you
couldn’t see in London. There’s a boat about ten o’clock.”

“Oh, I say! that means getting up in the middle of the night.”

“Well, there’s one at twelve. We’ll get there before the bank shuts.
You’ll not be able to see so much of the town.”

“I can live without that,” said Eddy.

“Well, Glasgow’s a very fine place,” said Archie gravely, not wishing to
permit any disparagement of his native town: and then he rose from the
table. He had already unconsciously pulled the newspaper half away, and
as he rose up his movement displayed it altogether, and he could not
help seeing, notwithstanding Eddy’s eager half-movement to cover it
again, the cheque lying opened out upon the blotting-book underneath. He
said hastily, “You were just going to send it away----”

“Yes,” said Eddy, his heart beating, not understanding the question, but
seizing at it as he would have done at any means of escape.

“Then I just came in time,” said Archie, with a pleased smile.

Eddy took up the cheque, with a feeling of despair clutching at his
heart. “You had better have it back,” he said.

“You can bring it up with you,” said Archie; “nobody is likely to ripe
your pockets and see what’s in them in the middle of the night.”

With this enigmatical speech, which Eddy did not in the least
understand, Rowland bade him a hurried good-night, and took himself
away.

Ripe his pockets: what did that mean? but this problem did not occupy
much of the precious time which Eddy had to give up to thinking. He
found the pencil lying where he had left it, the cabalistic pencil which
he had been waving over Archie’s cheque, hoping perhaps to convey thus
into it the alterations which James Rowland could have made so easily,
which would have cost that millionaire so little, and done Eddy such a
world of advantage. A malison on all millionaires! What they might do
with a sweep of the pen, without ever feeling it, without knowing that a
crumb had fallen off their well-covered tables for a dog to eat! Eddy
flung the pencil from him in his indignation. The fellow meant very
well, he allowed that. There was advantage in keeping this little
transaction quite dark, in obliterating all traces of the loan or gift
given him in this way. But, confound the fellow, all the same! Eddy
flung his pencil out of his hand, and it fell on the floor at the foot
of the table where Archie had been sitting. The dumb articles that one
throws away generally have a prompt revenge over us in having to be
groped after next minute; and this was what happened to Eddy. But as he
stooped to pick it up, his heart began to beat with a wild commotion
which almost choked him: for there at the foot of the table, underneath
the chair which Archie had pushed away, lay a long booklet in a green
paper cover. There could be no doubt to the most ignorant what it was.
It was Archie’s cheque book, which he had brought in, in case Eddy
should, after all, have preferred his money that way, with a cheque
written out for Archie’s spare fifty pounds on the first page, and a
dozen more blank cheques behind. The blood mounted up to Eddy’s face. It
came in such a rush that he could scarcely see for the moment; and yet
he knew very well what it was, and the inconceivable opportunity which
the devil--was it the devil, or that something not always benevolent
which people call providence, had put into his hand?

He scarcely went to bed at all that night. Hosts, armies, legions of
thoughts came up and possessed him like an invaded country, marching and
counter-marching through his mind. It was not without a struggle that he
yielded, it was not without many struggles. Half-a-dozen times at least
he was the victor, and rejected conclusively, triumphantly, the idea set
before him; and then the landscape would change, the perspective alter,
and regrets, doubts, convictions that wrong was right, specious
arguments to show how entirely it had always been so, would rise up and
bring back the rushing tide of battle. And then there were things he had
to do. He went to bed only when the morning grey had come up over the
little town on the other side of the loch, bringing it out of the
darkness with a curious furtive aspect, stealing into the light as if
it had been lying in wait for this moment, which indeed was quite true.
He tossed himself on his bed, and courted sleep ineffectually for half
an hour, but after that time it came with all the force of a despot. He
slept, as men or boys sleep only at twenty, till the day was bright all
over the loch. At twenty! oh heavens, was that all the age he was, that
haggard little grey face waking up and remembering in the great pale
shining of the light.

He went into Archie’s room on his way downstairs and put back the cheque
book which he had found. Archie had breakfasted an hour before, and
explained to the family that he was going to Glasgow by the mid-day
boat, and Saumarez with him, to see after those things for the ball.

“You seem to be getting great friends with Eddy,” Mrs. Rowland said in
the pause which followed this speech. The words were simple enough, but
they went with a wave of interest round the table.

“Well, no harm Evelyn, no harm,” said Rowland, pleased that his boy was
making friends in what the poor man in his heart called “our own
position.”

Marion put on a little conscious look, blushed a little and smiled a
little, as if she knew the private cause of this friendship--while
Rosamond opened a little wider her steady eyes, and turned them with an
inquiry upon Archie. He did not shrink from the attention thus attracted
towards him: his heart was soft to Eddy, to whom he was about to do so
great a service. It is a wonderfully softening process to be very good
to any one, and makes us think better of the objects of our kindness.
Eddy had become more interesting to Archie than he had ever thought it
possible he would find him; and this not for any one’s sake, not even
for Rosamond’s but for his own. The only effect, curiously enough, of
this incident was to deepen his dislike to his stepmother. She was the
one to question and object, he thought. Perhaps she thought him not good
enough for Eddy--most likely, as Eddy was of her own kind. Eddy, though
so late that the party had all dispersed from the table, except Mrs.
Rowland herself, who was reading her letters, and Marion, who was making
pretence of looking over the fashion papers in order to wait for his
appearance, was in great spirits and full of the expedition he was about
to make.

“Rowland is going to show me everything,” he said. He made a very bad
breakfast, eating nothing, but he was full of talk and apparent
enjoyment, and begged the ladies to give him commissions. “Archie may
forget, but I will not forget.” He insisted that Marion and his sister
should walk down to the pier to see them off.

“Come along, Rose,” he called to her as they all came out on the
colonnade, “don’t you see I am going out sight-seeing. I am a British
tourist. I am not sure that I am not a Tripper--and Rowland is taking
care of me. Come and see me safe into the boat.” He continued in an
extremely cheerful condition all the way to the ferry, keeping up a fire
of banter.

“The laddie’s fey, I think,” said old Saunders on the pier, who resented
too much liberty.

“And Eddy, I don’t think you are well. I think you are feverish,” said
Rosamond.

“You don’t say those sisterly things,” said Eddy to Marion.

“Oh,” cried the girl, “I just never mind. What would I do if I were to
make myself uneasy about everything? It is time enough when there is any
occasion. And Archie would never mind what I said.”

“But I should mind always,” said Eddy, lowering his voice.

“You! but you would not like me to ask you if you were feverish.”

“I should tell you I was always feverish--with rage, when I saw you
wasting your attention listening to fellows like that nephew. It is that
that has made my head ache,” cried Eddy. “I thirst for his blood.”

“He has never done you any harm,” said Marion demurely.

“Thank heaven no one is coming to-night. I shall have you all to myself
to-night. There will be no nephews about. I shall make Archie take me to
where you used to live.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t like that at all,” said Marion. “It’s not a place to
see. We were put there when we were little children, when it didn’t
matter where we lived. Don’t go to any such place. There’s nothing to
see.”

“There would always be some trace of you,” said Eddy, making great use
of his eyes. And then they both burst into a laugh.

“You’re so silly that one doesn’t know how to speak to you,” said
Marion, “but for all that don’t go there.”

Rosamond walked along with her long tread in stately seriousness after
them. She said, “You are very kind to take Eddy in hand. He wants so
much to be steadied, and get a little solidity. I would much rather have
him with you than with more----” She paused a moment, and looked her
companion over with her steady gaze.

“How? You mean better company,” he said.

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean--people in the world: he is so much
better out of the world, and seeing nobody he ever knew before.”

“Among the natives,” said Archie with a laugh.

Rosamond did not contradict him or look as if he had made any mistake.
She said with a sigh, “Eddy wants a great deal of looking after. I wish
I could find some one to pay a little attention to him. He will be good
for a few days, and then he will go all wrong, as if he had never pulled
up before.” She sighed, and added, “keep him safe for me to-day. Don’t
let him go and roam about spending money.”

“I will do my best.”

“Are you a man that spends money yourself, Mr. Rowland. People don’t do
that in Scotland, do they? They are different.”

“They cannot do that,” said Archie, with a laugh, “when they have
nothing in their pockets to spend.”

“I beg your pardon. I thought you had quantities of money,” Rosamond
said.




CHAPTER XXX.


There was not very much conversation between the two young men as they
went to Glasgow. Eddy, indeed, would talk for a few minutes from time to
time in his usual way, but presently would fall into silence, from which
he roused up feverishly with suppressed excitement in his eyes, to
rattle on once more for a brief time, asking hasty and often absurd
questions, and making fun of the answers which Archie in puzzled
seriousness made. Humour had not much share in Archie’s constitution. He
had been light-hearted enough in his earlier development, and joked like
the rest in the rather noisy fun of the class to which he belonged; but
his father’s return, and the revolution that had taken place in his
existence, had taken all the fun out of Archie, and made life very
serious to him. Eddy’s “chaff,” the light art of turning everything into
ridicule, which, when there is no sympathetic ear to hear, falls so flat
and sounds so dreary, perplexed his grave companion. Archie concluded
charitably and not untruly that it was excitement that produced this
varying behaviour, the dead silence and the chatter of speech. He
believed that Eddy’s troubles about money and the relief he was himself
about to bring to them were the cause. He himself thought that a hundred
and fifty pounds was an immense sum, and that there was scarcely any
embarrassment possible to a youth of his own age which could not be
amply covered by that. Archie had known “fellows in debt” often enough,
but a ten-pound note, or twenty at the outside, would have made their
hearts dance. And he thought with a sense that he himself was acting the
part of providence, that a complete and perfect deliverance must result
in this case. He said to himself, that when Eddy had actually the money
in his hands--which he intended to draw out himself and hand over in
notes to his companion--his mind would be more calm.

The transaction at the bank was managed quite satisfactorily. Archie
would not even permit Eddy to accompany him inside, but left him gazing
vacantly into the shop-windows while he accomplished his business. Very
little passed between them when it was completed. Archie thrust the
little packet of notes into Eddy’s hand. “They’re small one’s,” he said,
“I thought that was best.” And Eddy grasped Archie’s hand and gave him a
look in which gratitude was blended with what Archie imagined to be
joy--in his salvation so to speak: but which was in reality a delightful
consciousness of the possession of money, and of the great joke involved
in his benefactor’s conviction that he was doing a great thing. Eddy did
not think so much of the hundred and fifty pounds. He concluded that it
was the merest trifle to the millionaire’s son, who, of course, had only
got to ask his father for more if he wanted it. Eddy put it into his
pocket carelessly, though with much pleasure. It did not mean the
payment of debt, which to him was but a mediocre satisfaction; it meant
various things much more agreeable--the spending of money, which is an
inexhaustible pleasure so long as the wherewithal lasts.

After this they went to see various of the sights of Glasgow, in which
Eddy, it must be allowed, was not very much interested--the Cathedral,
for one, which Archie looked upon as the most glorious building in the
world, but which young Saumarez cared about as little for as he would
have cared for any other cathedral under the sun. Eddy yawned as he
walked about the aisles and investigated the crypt. He cared neither for
the architecture nor the antiquity, nor for the painted glass, nor even
for Rob Roy, which latter interest poor Archie considered infallible.
Nor were the other sights more exciting to him. He suggested luncheon as
far more interesting either than the Necropolis, the College, or the
Broomielaw: and after the luncheon, which he did not consider highly
satisfactory, asked with much languor and fatigue of expression, whether
Rowland had not some one he wanted to call on instead of bothering about
any more Glasgow sights?

Archie coloured high at this question, not on Eddy’s account, but with a
curious feeling of shame, which was also a feeling of guilt. To be in
Glasgow without going to see his aunt would be, he was aware, an
unpardonable and heartless thing. It would wound her deeply if she knew,
and even if she never knew, it would be no less a mean and abominable
thing to do. Nevertheless the presence of Eddy had been enough to make
him put this from his mind as an impossibility. “I was not thinking of
calling anywhere,” he said.

“But you must have people that you want to see. Let’s go and see
somebody,” Eddy said. “I like people. I’m not a fellow for seeing
sights.”

“I might take you to see the football at the Westpark--if you are fond
of football.”

“Oh I don’t mind it,” said Eddy; “let’s go and see the football. It is
better than staring at things neither you nor I care about.”

“Oh, I care about that,” said Archie: and as he thought of the old field
in which his old companions used to meet, a certain warmth from the old
times came over his heart. He had been rather a fine performer at
football in his day, and the Westpark men had meant to play the College
that very season, he recollected. He had not appeared at the field since
the season began. His place there knew him no more. Nevertheless, to see
them at their practice would be something, and he might meet some of the
fellows between whom and himself there was now such a gulf fixed.
Saumarez would be startled no doubt by their noisy ways, and their broad
Scotch: but what did it matter after all what Saumarez thought? They
went accordingly to the Westpark where, with pleasure but alarm, he had
conducted his father four months ago, when cricket was going on. Happy
lads! they had but changed from cricket into football, while
Archie--What changes, what changes his life had undergone!

They got to the field before the play had begun, and Archie was loudly
welcomed by several of his old friends. “What’s come of ye, man, all
this time!” “Eh, Archie! you’re a sight for sair een.” “Are ye back in
Glaskie, or are ye just on a visit?” Archie shook hands with a whole
band, and replied that he was only up for the day, but that he felt he
must come and see them, and hear what was going on; and he had a friend
with him--a friend from England. The young athletes clustered round,
delighted to see any friend of Archie’s. They asked Eddy questions about
the game “in the South.” “But I don’t know much about the South,” he
said. “Harrow’s the farthest South I know.” Archie’s friends, though
they were but Glasgow lads, knew enough to know that Harrow merited
respectful treatment, and they led the stranger to the best place to see
the game which was just beginning. The two young men stood and watched
with great interest for some time, and then in this new springing of
kindly associations, Archie felt it was impossible to go back without
seeing his aunt. To come here and not to go to Aunt Jane, to run the
risk of wounding her to the heart: for some one would be sure to tell
her he had been seen at Westpark--he felt that it was impossible he
should do this thing. He touched Eddy on the shoulder at the very crisis
of the interest and whispered, “I’m going to run away for ten minutes to
see an old friend. I’ll come back for you here.”

“Not a bit,” said Eddy, promptly. “I’ll go with you. My interest is not
overwhelming in the match. I’d much rather go----”

“Oh, it is not a place you will care for,” said Archie, much
embarrassed.

“Never mind: I’ll come with you,” said his companion, and what could
Archie say? He made a hurried explanation to one of the performers that
he was compelled to go, and the two left the field. Even then Archie
made another attempt to throw off this too close companion.

“It’s a pity,” he said, “to take you away. I’m not going to see anybody
that’s interesting. It is an old body, an old--relation; nothing that
will please you.”

“You don’t do me justice,” said Eddy. “I tell you people are what I care
for; and you know my taste for ladies. Old ladies are my favourite
study--when there are no young ones in the way.”

“There are no young ones,” said Archie, in despair; “and I don’t want to
take you away.”

“Oh, I like it,” said Eddy, and thrust his hand through the other’s arm.

There was, therefore, nothing to be done but to accept the leading of
fate. How strange and wonderful now were all these familiar ways that
led to the Sauchiehall Road! Already the work of time and change had
operated upon them. They were narrow, and mean, and grey, not
comfortable and friendly as they had once looked. The houses small and
poor, the streets confined and filthy, the whole complexion of the place
altered. He had not known what a homely, poor part of the town it was:
he saw it now as if it were a new place with which he was making
acquaintance for the first time.

And when he came in sight of the house in Sauchiehall Road, the familiar
house with its front door, so dignified a feature, and the big
elderberry tree filling up the little space before the door! The blinds
were drawn carefully half over the window, except in the little parlour
downstairs, where everything was open, the little muslin curtain over
the lower part of the window tucked up that Mrs. Brown might see--who
was sitting there at her knitting, carefully looking out upon the
street, for something new. What a changed life it was for Mrs. Brown; no
young people running out and in, no merry companions, no little vanities
to minister to, no little quarrels and frettings, but a dead load of
solitary comfort, good things which she ate alone, and new dresses which
nobody saw. She gave “a skreigh,” as she herself would have said, as she
saw Archie coming up the path, and flew herself to open the door for
him. “Eh, my bonnie man!” cried Mrs. Brown. She did not fling herself on
his neck and kiss him, for that was not according to her reserved Scotch
ways, but she held both his hands, and swayed him slightly by them,
gazing into his face with eyes full of ecstacy and tears. “Eh, Archie,
but it’s a pleasure to see ye. Eh, my bonnie man!”

“I am glad to see you again, Aunty Jane,” said Archie. “I was in Glasgow
for the day, and I’ve come to see you; and I’ve got a friend with me--a
friend from England.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Brown, perceiving Eddy’s not very distinguished figure
behind. She made him something between a curtesy and a bow. “I am sure,”
she said, “any friend of Archie’s is welcome to me, sir. Come in and
take a seat. I’m glad to see ye--But oh, Archie, my man! the sight of my
own laddie is just light to my een. And how is a’ wi’ you, my bonnie
boy?--and Mey? And are ye getting on well at Rosmore? And is your
father well? and the leddy? I have so many questions to ask I dinna know
when to stop. Eh, Archie, how I have missed you--life itself is not the
same--and Mey! I just sit dowie all the day, and care for nothing,
looking out at my window as if I might see ye pass, and sitting by the
fireside and listening as if I might hear ye coming down the stair. Eh,
but life’s a different thing when there’s naething but an old wife
sitting her lane by her fire side----”

And here Mrs. Brown broke down and cried; but looking up smiling, in the
midst of her tears, bade them to tell her if they had got their dinner,
or what she could give them. “I will have mince-collops ready in a
moment,” she said.

“I told Rowland so,” said Eddy, “that he should have come and asked you
for some dinner instead of going to that queer place in--what do you
call the street? but he thought it would be giving you too much trouble.
That’s the worst of that modest sort of dreadfully proud fellow. He
can’t be got to see that you would like to take the trouble--for him.”

“Eh, laddie,” cried Mrs. Brown, her face lighting up through the
half-dried tears; “are ye a warlock, or how do ye ken? That’s just
heaven’s truth; and though he’s blate, he’s awfu’ proud: and ye must be
a lad of uncommon sense to ken.”

“Yes,” said Eddy, modestly, “I’ve always been noted for my sense; but I
am not at all proud, and I think if you were to make some of your nice
tea for us--I am quite sure that you make delightful tea.”

“Hear to him!” said Mrs. Brown, delighted. “Ye shall have your tea, my
young gentleman, and a pleasure it will be to serve ye. I will just ask
Bell if the kettle is boiling; and Archie, ye can show your friend the
pictures of Mey and you when you were bairns, and the views your father
sent home from India, and anything you can find to amuse him. I’ll no be
a minute.” She left the two young men alone together while she hurried
to the kitchen to see after the tea.

“Let me see the picture of your sister and you, not the views from
India, Rowland,” said Eddy.

“Saumarez,” cried Archie, clearing his throat; “I told you this was
a--relation. She brought us up, and she was very kind to us. I can’t
have her laughed at, you know.”

“Laughed at?” cried Eddy; “how you misunderstand! I found out all that
in the twinkling of an eye. And as for being disrespectful to your aunt,
it is not I that will ever be disrespectful; besides which, I delight in
an old lady like that--was the kettle boiling, Mrs. Brown?”

“‘Deed it was,” said Mrs. Brown, “and Bell will bring the tea ben in a
minute or two, as soon as it has had time to mask. I never let it stand
long after I have maskit the tea. And how are ye getting on Archie, my
bonnie lad, at Rosmore? Are ye getting more familiar! are ye liking it
better? And Mey? Ye are such poor letter writers, I must take my chance
of hearing all I can when you’re at hand. Four months, Archie, and
neither the one nor the ither of you has been near. That’s no what you
ought to have done. You that were just like bairns of my ain.”

“It is not my fault, aunty. We have not been in Glasgow since we left.
There has been always something to do. Either my father has wanted me,
or May has been busy, or something has been in the way. We have had
people visiting in the house.” Archie looked instinctively at Eddy to
help him out.

“We have been there for a long time,” said Eddy. “People very hard to
keep amused, always making claims upon them. Of course we had not the
pleasure of knowing you, dear Mrs. Brown; and we have been the greatest
bother----”

“Oh, dinna say so,” cried Aunt Jane; “sure am I they were very glad of
the bother, and real pleased to have ye there. And so am I delighted
that Archie should have such a friend as you. No, I’m not so
unreasonable. I was giving a bit jeer at them to see what they would say
for themselves, and what excuse they would give. But I was wanting no
excuse. I’m just overjoyed that they have such friends. And if they
werena coming about me every day, well I kent the reason. I would rather
see them doing their duty in their father’s house, and taking their
proper place, than fiddling and fyking about me.”

“We’ve been neglectful, Aunt Jane,” said Archie, “but we’ll do better
after this.” The sense that he had been good to one, in one direction,
made his heart all the softer in every way. “It’s all been so new, and
there is so much to learn; but it will never happen again.”

“Na, na, ye must not take me in earnest like that,” said Jane. “I gie a
girn, but--I’ve no evil meaning. And here’s the tea. Just draw in your
chair and come near the table, Mr. ----, but I didn’t rightly catch your
name.”

“Most people call me Eddy,” said the young man with a laugh.

“And a very good name too. You’ll be from the south? though I have kent
many Adies in our ain country. But ye have a grand way of speaking, and
I hope Archie ye’ll take an example. I’m no fond of knapping English,
but it’s a’ the fashion, and mair does it than has ony right.”

“I will just speak as I was born to speak,” said Archie, with a taste of
his native obstinacy.

“Weel, weel, it’s no for me to interfere. But ye havena said a word
aboot Mey? She might have come with ye, to look in upon her auld aunt.
But it was aye oot of sight oot of mind with Mey. Ye are mair faithful,
Archie. Have you heard of the great changes in the Road? (Mrs. Brown
said Rod). Lizzie White, that was once out and in of the house every
day, she is married upon Mr. Wright, a watchmaker in Buchanan
Street--just a very excellent match. Oh yes, ye must mind very well, for
I used to think that if ye wasna both so young--. And then the
Cowcaddens, that made just a great show, with cabs at their door every
day, and pairties and dancing and I dinna ken all what--has failed, poor
man, and the house roupit, and them living in some poor close somewhere,
just as miserable as they can be, which shows what prideful wasting and
high living must come to. And oh, Archie, there is another thing I just
want to speak to you about. You mind Colin Jamieson that was at the
College, and meaning to be a minister--poor lad! he’s fallen into a
dwining and an ill way, and they say he maun go to Egypt or some of thae
places. And his folk are poor folk, and he just smiles and says ‘they
might as well tell me to gang to the moon.’ Archie, I had the pen in my
hand yesterday to write you a letter. Eh, laddie, ye aye had an open
hand. If ye would maybe spare out of your abundance a little siller to
help this poor lad! He would never ask it, but from an auld comrade that
was so well off, there could be nae reason for refusing. Archie, if your
heart were to speak.”

There was a dead pause, and it seemed to poor Archie that heaven was
against him. He who would have been so ready, so anxious to offer
anything he had--and he had nothing! He could not speak; and that this
demand should have been made before Eddy made it more dreadful still.
But Eddy did not take it in that point of view. He was not called upon
to say anything. He sat calmly eating the cake with which Mrs. Brown had
supplied him. Eddy was not embarrassed at all; he was much interested in
a half-comic way to know how Rowland would get out of it. To a fellow
like that it would be hard to refuse, and Eddy felt that it was a very
good thing he had got all the money, or else to a certainty the fool
would have given it to this other man, who probably would do much better
to stay at home. He ate his cake, therefore, and drank his tea with an
amused and interested mind, looking on with a perfectly tranquil
perception of all that was involved.

“Aunt Jane,” said Archie, stammering and blushing, “I am more sorry than
words can say--but I have not got the money. I would give it--or my
heart’s blood if I could--to an old friend like Colin. But I haven’t it.
I haven’t it! If it would do at the New Year--”

“He will likely be in his grave by the New Year,” said Mrs. Brown, “if
he canna get away.” Jane had drawn herself within herself, so to speak.
She rose a head taller as she sat, over her tea-tray, her portly person
seemed to draw in, the beaming expression departed from her face. To be
refused! and by her own boy! and before a stranger! and with a lee! for
how could he be without money. He that had got a twenty pound note as
she herself knew, only four months before, just a fortune for a callant
like Archie? besides more no doubt where that came from, Jims Rowland
being just too liberal. It was to Mrs. Brown as if all the waves of the
Clyde had dashed into her face. For a moment she could make no reply.

“Archie,” she said at last solemnly, “I’m no fond of much troke about
money between friends. It’s very likely to lead to ill-blood. But I
thought for Colin, that ye once were so fond of, if I might speak--you
have maybe,” she said with keen irony, “forgotten who he was. I’ve often
seen that folk have but short memories that rise in the world. He’s the
lad who got you into your grand club. Ye may not think much of it now,
but ‘twas a grand thing for ye then. It was him ye used to consult about
your debating and all that, and that was sae good at the footba’, and
that learnt ye--”

“Do you think I have forgotten, auntie? I have forgotten nothing,” cried
Archie, starting up from the table. “It’s just despair,” he said, under
his breath. “I havena got it. I havena got it!” He began to pace about
the room as his father did with his hands thrust into the depths of his
empty pockets, and his shoulders up to his ears. As for Eddy, he turned
aside a little and took up the paper Mrs. Brown had been reading, by way
of relieving them of the embarrassment of his presence as much as
possible during this family dispute.

“Well!” said Mrs. Brown, “it is the first time I have askit anything of
ye, and it will be the last time, Archie Rowland. Let’s say no more
about it. I thought it was just a thing ye would have made no hesitation
about, but been mair ready to give than me to ask.”

“And so I would,” he cried, “and so I would!” with a sort of groan out
of his very heart.

“We will just say no more about it,” said Mrs. Brown, with dignity. “Sit
down and take your tea.”

“I am wanting no tea,” said Archie.

“Ye will sit down and bide quiet at any rate, and not disturb other
folk. Mr. Adie, I am very glad that ye like your tea; it’s aye a good
sign in a young man if he likes his tea. It shows he’s no thinking of
ither beverages that are mair to the taste of so many unfortunate lads
in this world. Ye’ll maybe be from London, which is a muckle place, I
have always heard, and full o’ temptation. Eh, laddies, but ye should be
awfu’ careful not to put yourselves in temptation. A very little thing
will do it. Ye will maybe think,” said Mrs. Brown, making a desperate
attempt to fathom the cause of Archie’s behaviour, and explain its
enormity, “that to take an interest in racing horses or even in playin’
cards or dice or the like of that, is no just a cardinal crime. But oh,
it leads to a’ the rest! Ye will maybe think nothing of losing a
shilling or twa, or even a pound or twa upon a game. That’s bad enough,
oh it’s bad enough! It may keep ye from doing a good turn to a neighbour
in time of need, it may make ye powerless for good, just as it makes ye
an instrument for evil; but that’s not all. It leads from bad to worse.
It’s like the daughter o’ the horse-leech, it’s aye crying ‘Give, give.’
It’s like a whummel down a hill, the longer ye go the faster ye go. Oh,
laddies! when I think how young ye are, and a’ the dangers in your way,
and what soft hearts some of ye had, and how soon they harden when ye
think of nothing but yoursel--”

“Aunty,” said Archie, “we have got the train to catch, and the boat to
catch, and we will have to go.”

“I will not detain ye, Archie,” said Mrs. Brown, with the air of a
duchess, “so long as ye give Mr. Adie the time to finish his tea. Good
morning to you, sir, and I am very glad to have seen ye in my poor bit
place. Ye will maybe give my love to my niece, Mey. And good-bye to ye,
Archie. I hope that everything good will be aye in your path, and that
ye may never want a kind friend nor one to succour ye in time of need.”

To tell the feelings with which Archie heard the door of his childhood
shut upon him with a decisive clash as if for ever, is more than I have
words or power to do. He was shamed, abandoned, given up--and without
any fault of his. Eddy was extremely entertaining all the way home. He
had of course too much good taste and good breeding to refer in any way
to the family quarrel of which he had been so unlucky as to be the
witness. To ignore it altogether and do his best to divert his
companion’s mind, and make him forget, was of course the thing which in
the circumstances a man of good feeling would do.




CHAPTER XXXI.


There was great curiosity at Rosmore to hear what the young men had done
and what they had seen in Glasgow: in the chief place, no doubt on
account of the decorations for the ball, which were of so much
importance, and in which Eddy’s taste was expected to accomplish such
great things. Eddy had so much to say on this point, that the brief
interval in the drawing-room before dinner was wholly taken up with his
account of his arrangements and purchases.

“If it all succeeds as I expect,” said Eddy, “I know what I shall do,
Mrs. Rowland. It will make a revolution in my life. I will follow the
example of other _fils de famille_ and set myself up as a decorator.
Don’t you know? Algy Fergusson makes heaps of money by it. When you are
going to give a ball, he takes everything in hand, charges you a certain
sum, and supplies whatever you want, from the flowers on the stairs to
a few dancing men in the best society, if that is wanted. I shall follow
him in humble imitation. No, I’m not going to tell you too much. Mrs.
Rowland has given me _carte blanche_. Wait till you see.”

“It’s a queer trade,” said Rowland; “but something might be made of it.
I would advise you, however, Eddy, to look out for something more like a
man.”

“Oh, it is very like my kind of man,” said Eddy; “not yours, sir: but
there’s not very much of me.”

Rowland, like everybody else, had learned to call young Saumarez,
according to the fashion of the day, by his _petit nom_. And he laughed
with great good humour at this self-description. The young man was the
most entertaining study of what he considered the manners of the best
society to the master of Rosmore. Eddy’s lightness and ease and
imperturbability amused him more than he could say, and at the same time
filled him with respect. It was all the more evident in comparison with
Archie’s easily roused temper and irritable self-consciousness, which
saw in everything a shadow of blame, and never was at ease, or able to
take anything lightly. Rowland watched the effect upon his son of
intercourse with the other light-hearted lad with the greatest secret
anxiety. He thought with pleasure that Eddy had “taken to” his
uncultured uneasy boy, and that Archie would “learn manners” from
contact with the other youth, who, though so little to look at, not such
a nice-looking fellow as Archie, was yet so much more a man of the
world. Eddy’s cheerful admission of his own defects, and that there was
not very much of him, delighted Rowland. How it disarmed criticism!
Would Archie, he wondered, ever attain to that easy mind, and
unembarrassed faculty of taking the sting out of any jibe by tranquil
pre-assertion of his own deficiencies? It was not a thing which Mr.
Rowland could himself have attained, but he saw its advantages. It did
not seem, however, in the meantime that Archie had made much progress in
acquiring this gift. He took little part in the conversation which young
Saumarez kept up so lightly. It was Eddy who told the story of their day
in Glasgow, and owned to having yawned in the Cathedral. Archie was
silent, as was his wont. He kept a little apart, and said nothing.
Sometimes he cast a glance of strange meaning at the lively
conversationalist, who made their expedition sound so amusing. What was
it that look meant? It was Archie’s usual way--his inability to
understand the happier natures. They all noted that occasional glance,
and all gave the same interpretation to it: for what, indeed, could it
mean else? There was nothing else to arouse his surprise, the wondering,
half-question in his eyes.

Archie’s wonder, indeed, was beyond words. To think that, with such a
light heart, the transaction which had already cost himself so much
should be taken by the other, without a thought of the penalty involved,
or the shame it had already brought. Perhaps Eddy did not realise that
shame, or what it was to the young man to be suspected of unkindness, of
selfishness, of wasting upon miserable pursuits of his own the money
that might have saved the life of another. A year ago nothing could have
made Archie himself realise such a position, for he had never possessed
money, and could not in the nature of things have been asked for it, and
this probably was why Saumarez was so obtuse. There was another thing,
however, which Archie could not understand, but which he was deeply
grateful for: and that was that Eddy made not the slightest reference in
his lively narrative of the day’s proceedings, to the visit to Mrs.
Brown. Why? But Archie could not tell--it only vaguely increased the
trouble in his mind, while more or less soothing it externally: and he
did not know whether it was not his duty to mention it himself. They
might think him ashamed of Aunt Jane if he said nothing, and yet the
recollection of that visit was so painful that he preferred not to speak
of it, and was grateful to his companion for leaving it out of his easy
and amusing tale. After dinner Eddy was as much the hero of the moment
as he had been before. He had various experiments to make as to the
lights, as to the flowers, and all the details of the ball-room, for the
due regulation of which the group of admiring spectators followed him up
and down, hanging upon his words. Archie followed at the end of the
train, still wondering, saying to himself, that no doubt the money,
which apparently was to cost himself so dear, had so relieved Eddy’s
mind that he could not restrain himself, that he felt a new man: that
was no doubt the cause of his vivacity, the lightness of his heart.
Archie remembered how he had himself felt when relieved of the burden of
the debt to Rankin for the little dogs, and other small matters which
had been on his mind before he had received his father’s first gift of
twenty pounds. That gift had come to him amid painful circumstances,
but when the first effect produced by them had died away, how glad he
had been to have it, to clear himself from the small burdens which were
as lead upon his soul! Eddy was much more a man of the world than he,
and his liabilities were far greater, but he thought he could understand
how he must feel from those sensations of his own. He could not but
think, however, that in Eddy’s place he would have said something--he
would have given a look or a grasp of the hand to his benefactor to show
him that he appreciated and felt what he had done, especially if that
benefactor had been likely to get into trouble for it. Then Archie,
pondering behind backs, while all that lively chatter was going on,
remembered himself that he had not said a word of gratitude to his
father for the twenty pounds, had neither felt nor spoken any gratitude.
Ah, but I am not his father, Archie said to himself. With this thought,
however, came another reflection, that up to this moment he had never
shown any thankfulness to his father, who had bestowed so many gifts
upon him. He had been embarrassed and awkward, and had taken everything
for granted. Who was he to blame another for the same sentiment which
was so strong in himself? Only just I am not his father, Archie said.

It was when the party was breaking up for the night that Marion seized
upon her brother, drawing him into a corner of the hall where the lights
were extinguished, and where in the recess of a window there was a
sheltered place beyond the reach of observation. She caught him by the
arm and drew him aside there, until the others had dispersed, and then a
piece of inquiry which he had not anticipated burst upon Archie. “Were
you at Aunty Jane’s? Did you take him to Aunty Jane’s?” Marion exclaimed
breathlessly, holding his arm with her hands as if in a vice.

“You heard him,” said Archie, avoiding the question, “telling all where
we had been.”

“Were you not there? Did you not go there? He never said a word, but he
could not speak if you didn’t. Archie, tell me on your word--were you
not there?”

Archie saw that her eyes were gleaming, and her face pale. He did not
know what to make of this sudden assault, nor what it could matter to
Marion whether he had or had not gone to see Aunty Jane. He answered at
last, however, with reluctance.

“Yes, we were there.”

“You were there! you took him there!” cried the girl, her eyes in the
dark shooting out sparks of fire. She seized him again by the arm and
shook him violently. “Oh, I knew you would do it! What do you care for
keeping up our name? If it had been anybody else you might have done
what you pleased--but him!”

“Why him?” said Archie; “what is he? Do you think I could neglect an old
friend, not to speak of my nearest kin, and her that brought us up--”

“Oh, what’s in that?--brought us up! She was well paid for it,” cried
Marion, “and now established for her life, and everything provided,
because papa thinks she was kind to us.”

“She was very kind.”

“She was not unkind,” said Marion. “She just made us serve her purpose
and keep her in an easy life. If she had been unkind it would have been
the same as killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. And now you’ve
exposed us, and showed just what we were, and where we came from, to
Eddy Saumarez! Oh, Archie, man! could you not have said she was an old
nurse, or something like that, and then there could have been no
objection? I would have had my wits about me if I had been in such an
emergency. You might so easy have said she was our old nurse; but that’s
what you could never do, to take thought for our credit and not to
expose us.”

“I don’t know what you mean by exposing us,” said Archie indignantly,
“and as for disowning our Aunt Jane----”

“Oh, disowning is just a grand word! I mean nothing of the kind. I could
just be as fond of aunty in private as you. And what could she expect
more? It would show she was self-seeking and full of her own pride if
she wanted us to expose ourselves for her. What does that mean? It just
means that we have our position to keep up. We belong to the upper
classes and not to Sauchiehall Road. I would not have let the like of
Eddy Saumarez know that we had any connection with Sauchiehall Road,
except with an old nurse or the like of that. An old nurse explains
everything,” said Marion. “I will just let him understand that’s how it
is, and that we call her aunty because we are fond of her. You may do
that and no harm--just for kindness. And what is she more than an old
nurse? You know yourself she would not come to Rosmore for that--not to
expose us. Her and me we both understand. I will just explain it all.”

“One would think,” said Archie, “that Saumarez was of great importance,
and what he thought. And most likely he thinks nothing about it. His
mind is full of his own affairs.”

“And what are his own affairs?” said Marion scornfully. “Maybe that is
one of his own affairs,” she added with a faint blush, as Archie turned
upon her in surprise. “You never can tell what may turn out to be
important and what not. Eddy is just nothing in himself. But though he
will have no money, he will have a good property and a fine house, and a
position and all that. And we have plenty of money and nothing more. It
might be a thing to be taken into consideration on both sides. But you
will never understand that, nor perhaps papa either, and I will just
have all the responsibility thrown upon myself.”

“What responsibility?” said Archie, more and more astonished.

“Oh!” she cried, with a little stamp of her foot, “as if the like of you
would ever understand!” She gave him a little indignant push from her in
the impatience of her soul; but turned to him again after a moment’s
interval. “I am not saying, mind,” said Marion, “that there is anything
in it. There may be nothing in it. It may just pass over, and be of no
consequence. I will maybe be in a much better position when I have gone
to court, and have been seen in society and all that. But you should
remember, Archie, that we’re just very new people. Papa is a new man.
His name is known, but except for our money we are just nobody. Now
mamma is different. I was angry at the time to think that papa had
married again and brought in a grand lady that would look down upon you
and me; but I’ve come to a different way of thinking now. I just study
her and take a lesson by her, and I can see if we are to get on in the
world that she is the one to help us most.”

“I don’t want her help,” cried Archie, “and if that’s what you call
getting on in the world----”

“Oh,” cried Marion, with a sigh of impatience, “you are just like a
bairn. To think that you cannot see for yourself, you that are a man!
What are we to do if we don’t get into society? You would rather be back
in the Sauchiehall Road, with your football and your friends, than in a
grand house like this, with nobody that cares for you, and nothing that
you can do.”

“May,” said the young man, sadly, “many a time I have thought that
myself,--far rather! It was a kind of living, and this is none--to be
waited on hand and foot when you’re not used to it, and feel like a
fool, and have nothing to do. But that’s not all the harm it’s done.
When I went back to the Sauchiehall Road, I was just as much out of
place there! That’s ended: and the other is begun, and there’s no
satisfaction anywhere. I will be faithful to Aunty Jane, poor body, that
was so kind to us, while I have a breath to draw,” he exclaimed with
energy. Then sinking into despondency, “But I cannot go back there, and
I am out of place here; and there is no good that I can see in a world
that’s all a vain show, both for the rich and the poor.”

“Well,” said Marion, with a certain satisfaction, “you see then, just as
I do. We must get ourselves well into what we have, for we never can go
back to what we were. And the only way that we can do it is by----” She
broke off with a little laugh. “You can find it out for yourself, but
you need not put a spoke into another person’s wheel. I am not saying
that Eddy Saumarez will be of any consequence in the end. Maybe I will
not care to know them after I have been to court. I will not commit
myself, you may be sure. I will aye have a way of escape, if I should
change my mind. But it was just silly beyond measure to give him a story
about Aunty Jane. He will take her off, and make everybody laugh. You
can see yourself how he makes fun, and takes everybody off. That is what
amuses people, and makes them ask him. He could make it very funny about
Aunty Jane. Oh, I know all they say, and I’m getting to understand. If
you can tell them stories, and keep them laughing, it’s all they think
of. And you to give him the occasion with poor Aunty Jane!”

“He had better not let me hear him say a word about Aunty Jane,” said
Archie, between his closed teeth.

“Oh, he’ll not let you hear him,” said Marion. She was altogether
unconscious of the fact that Eddy took herself off with perfect effect,
so that even Mrs. Rowland had difficulty in looking severe enough.

Archie went to join the party in the smoking-room after this
conversation, with more uneasiness than ever. He was not quite clear
about his sister’s meaning. Marion was too far-seeing, too full of
calculations for her brother. He had himself his own thoughts: but they
were of a very different turn from hers. Rosamond Saumarez was to Archie
a being of a different species from himself or any one belonging to him.
It had not occurred to him that he could appropriate this beautiful
lady, and make life more possible by her means. She was still upon her
pedestal, a thing apart, a being to be remotely admired, scarcely even
as yet worshipped: for in worship itself there is a certain
appropriation, and his imagination had not gone so far as that, had not
ventured to use any pronoun of possession, even with goddess attached to
it. In no way had he imagined that she could ever be his, but always
something beyond reach, as superior to him as heaven is to earth. The
impression she produced upon him was subduing, rather than exciting. To
think that there could be such a distance between him and any other
human creature, as there was between him and Rosamond, doubled the
mystery and awe of the world on the threshold of which he was standing,
to the disturbed and unsatisfied mind of the boy-man, so rudely shaken
out of all his old habitudes, so little at home in his new. At no time
could Marion’s frank calculations of how she could help herself up the
ascent she meant to climb, by grasping a chance hand, this man’s or
another’s, as happened to suit her best, have been possible to her
brother. He faintly apprehended what she meant, but found it so
uncongenial that his mind declined to look into it. There are some who
feel themselves forced, in the course of nature, to investigate, and
come to the bottom of such questions; and there are some who shake
themselves uneasily free of an examination which could end in nothing
but pain.

Archie had no wish to think badly of Marion, to bring down the ideal of
his sister: so he shook off the question of her meaning, and left it
alone. There was not much pleasure to him in the sitting in the
smoking-room, where he found his father and Eddy in full discussion, the
latter bearing all the _frais_ of the conversation, and making his host
laugh with his lively descriptions and sketches. Archie was conscious
that he presented a complete foil and contrast to Eddy, as he went in
and seated himself a little in the background, notwithstanding the
invitations of both the gentlemen to draw his chair nearer to the fire.
He liked to skulk behind, Rowland thought angrily, with vexation, to
himself--never could take his place simply, always kept behind backs.
Perhaps young Saumarez was not any more than Archie the son he would
have chosen. But yet what a difference there was!

The day of the ball was approaching apace, and everything in the house
began to feel the excitement of the coming event. There was less than a
week to go, when Eddy broached the subject of Johnson--of Chads--and the
possibility of procuring him an invitation.

“Oh,” he said, “there is that--friend of mine up at the head of the
loch.” (Naturally, Eddy, however much he might endeavour to conceal the
fact, said “lock,” but I need not spoil my orthography by repeating his
error.) “I wonder if you would be inclined to let me bring him, Mrs.
Rowland. I scarcely like to ask; but he’s all alone, you know, and knows
nobody, and looks wistful when one sees him.”

“You should bring him in to dinner, Eddy,” said the ever-hospitable
Rowland.

“No, sir, I don’t think I should like to do that. He has not paid the
extra twopence for manners. In a crowd he might pass muster, but at your
table----”

There was the faintest emphasis on the words, which inferred a delicate
compliment. And Rowland was pleased.

“Mr. Johnson?” said Evelyn, doubtfully. “I did not feel quite sure about
him. He was a little--odd.”

“College dons are generally odd,” said the unblushing Eddy.

“Are you quite certain, my dear boy, that he is a college don?”

“For my own part,” said Eddy presently, “I should probably like him much
better if he were not. But I suppose there can’t be two Johnsons--of
Chads.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Evelyn, still doubtfully. “At the same time,”
she added, “one would have thought if there was one thing you could be
sure of in a college don it would be grammar--and his----and that they
should talk like gentlemen.”

“I don’t know,” said Eddy, reflectively, “that one can be so very sure
of that; now that everything goes by competition, you can’t tell by his
profession that any man is a gentleman. Besides, they speak Latin
between themselves,” said the young man, with an unmoved countenance.

“Eddy!” cried Rosamond.

“Well, they do. I allow it’s queer, but I have heard them _avec mes
propres oreilles, va!_ and Latin grammar is quite different from
English--far more elaborate, and that sort of thing. English translated
out of Latin would naturally sound a little strange.”

Even Evelyn looked at him with a little surprise, uncertain whether to
laugh or not. She was but little interested in the ways of college dons.
She had a kind of belief that there was something in what he said about
competition. The gardener’s son was at college, and if he came to be a
don he would no doubt remain a little inelegant in point of grammar.

While she was thus pondering, her husband took the matter in hand.

“Send him an invitation as Eddy’s friend,” he said, in his large and
liberal way; “if he were a coal-heaver what does it matter, so long as
he is Eddy’s friend? And I don’t suppose the young ladies will think of
his conversation; they will be more interested in his dancing. It’s a
question of heel and toe, and not of hs.”

“I don’t know that he dances much,” said Eddy; “but he could always prop
up a doorway, and it would please him awfully to come and look on.”

“You’ll ask him, of course, Evelyn,” Mr. Rowland said.

And he was asked, of course; and the invitation was handed to him next
day on the hillside, where he met Archie and Eddy and the gamekeeper,
and was supplied with a gun, to the great disdain of the latter
functionary.

“That man has never had a gun in his hands till this day,” said
Roderick, aside; “keep out of his road, for any sake, Mr. Airchie: he
will never hit a grouse, but he might put a wheen shots into you or me.”

“I was not very much better myself,” said Archie. “I can feel for him,
Roderick.”

“Oh you,” said the gamekeeper. It was his young master he was speaking
to, and that has a wonderfully mollifying influence. “You were maybe no
to call experienced, but you were neither frightened for your gun nor
sweerd to use her. Keep you to that side, Mr. Airchie, and if the other
gentleman gets it, it’s just his ain friend, and he maun bear the
brunt.”

“I thought you liked Mr. Saumarez, Roderick.”

“So I do like him, though he has an awfu’ funny name. He has a good eye
for a bird, and will make a fine shot when he’s come to his prime, and
just makes you lose your manners with his fun and nonsense. But if he
brings out a stick like this upon the moor, he must just rin the risk of
him. Come you, Mr. Airchie, to this side.”

Eddy, on his hand, had something to say to his guest. “Have you got me
that thing?” he said.

“They won’t give it up till they see the money, Master Eddy. I’ve told
you so before.”

“Very well, Johnson. I have an invitation for you, in my pocket, to the
ball--and I have a cheque in my pocket, which is better than money. You
shall neither have the one nor the other till I have that paper in my
own hands.”

“Give and take then, Master Eddy,” said the other.

“You ass, keep down the muzzle of your gun! No. I must have it in my
hands to see it’s all right before I let you touch the other. Oh, just
as you please! but that’s my last word.”

“You don’t suppose I carry it about in my pocket,” said Johnson.

“I suppose nothing. I only tell you what I’ll do. Give it me that I may
see its right and the genuine thing, and you shall have the cheque,
which is as good a cheque as any in the world, whatever the other may
be.”

“You might play me some tricks, or stop it at the bank,” said Johnson.

“By Jove, that’s an idea. I’ll do so, if you don’t look sharp with that
other thing.”

“Well,” said Johnson, “if that’s how it is to be, I’ll bring it up to
you to-morrow morning to the house--and then you can introduce me to the
ladies. I ought to know them first, before I come to the dance.”

“No,” said Eddy, “you can come to the ball, where it will be fun: but if
you come near the house till the night of the ball, I’ll let off my gun
by accident, as you’ll do presently if you don’t mind, and take your
wretched life. Now, you hear. You can come to old Rankin’s cottage in
the wood to-morrow, if you like, at twelve. You can say you want a
dog--he’ll not let you have it, for he never sells them to cads; but it
will do for an excuse.”

“By Jove,” said Johnson, “if you don’t mind what you say, I’ve got a
gun, and I can have an accident too.”

“Put it down, you ass!” cried Eddy, striking down the muzzle of the gun,
which, in the confusion, went off, nearly knocking down by the
concussion the unfortunate Johnson, and ploughing into the heather and
mossy soil. The neophyte thought he had killed somebody, and fell down
on his wretched knees. “I swear to God I never meant nothing. I never
meant to ‘it any man,” he cried.

“Oh, get up, you brute, and hold your tongue,” cried Eddy. He added,
shaking him by the shoulder, “if you talk when you’re at Rosmore, you’ll
be turned out of the house. I’ve told them you speak nothing but
Latin--mind you hold your tongue if you don’t want to do for both
yourself and me.”




CHAPTER XXXII.


Eddy took his morning walk to Rankin’s cottage next day; but he did not
meet any one there. He went in and endeavoured to treat with the old
gamekeeper for a dog, but found the old man quite indisposed for any
such negotiation.

“Na, na,” he said, “I have nae dogues that I can part with. They’re a’
bespoken. Lady Jean has mostly friends that want them, and I have but
few this year. I canna part with one o’ them. Mr. Archie from Rosmore
House, he came and picked up my best. I couldna well refuse the son o’
the place--but that’s thrown me far behind. Ye’ll excuse me for saying
it, but you’re a stranger, my young gentleman, and I’m my lord’s auld
servant, and Lady Jean’s. I must think o’ them first.”

“Do you think I would not be kind to it, you old sceptic,” said Eddy.

“I wasna saying ye would not be kind to it. There’s few folk wicked to
dogues. I was saying I have none to dispose of. Ye will not be staying
very lang at the Hoose? Ye’ve been here a good while, the young lady and
you. Few visitors bide as lang now-a-days. I canna tell whether its the
faut of having so many enjoyments, or if its the faut of the hosts that
dinna give a sufficient welcome; but I notice that its three days, and
that kind of a veesit that’s popular now. No time to turn yoursel’ round
in. Just the day of coming and the day of going, and one or at the most
twa days between.”

“We are not like that,” said Eddy, “we have come for a visitation, don’t
you see: but I am sorry you think that we are staying too long.”

“Oh, it is none o’ my business,” said Rankin, with a serious face. “I’m
thinking ye will be taking the road after this ball? they’re a’ talking
about it. To hear what they say you would think it was ane o’ the
Queen’s balls.”

“Well,” said Eddy, “I flatter myself it will be quite as pretty. By the
way, Rankin, have you had any more encounters with that great scholar,
don’t you know--the college man from Oxford--that I saw here.”

“I’m glad,” said Rankin, “that you’ve given me an occasion of speaking.
Sir, ye’re young, and your experience is no great, though you have a
real good opinion of yourself. Yon’s nae college man--or, if maybe in
these times he may have gotten himself to be a college man--at least I
can say this of him that he’s nae gentleman. Just you be awfu’ careful
what you’re about wi’ yon man. I would not trust him a foot’s length out
of my sight. He has nae root o’ the matter in him: neither ceevility,
which is little thought upon, I allow, in the training of a college--nor
learning. He is awfu’ cautious no to open his mouth on sich subjects;
but my impression is that he has naething to say, and he’s nae mair a
gentleman than yon doug. Mair! I’m meaning far less. Rover’s a real
gentleman. He’ll make place for ye by the fire, and he’ll give you his
best attention when you speak, and thank ye when ye do him a pleasure. A
good doug of a good breed might learn manners to a prince; but as for
yon friend of yours--”

“I never said he was a friend of mine,” said Eddy, “but you are too
severe, Rankin. How should you be such a judge, not being a gentleman
yourself?”

The old gamekeeper’s ruddy colour deepened a little.

“Sir,” he said, “I’ve aye found the best sign of a well-bred man was
that he gave credit to other folk of being as good as himself--if no
better. Them that fail in that will never come up to my standard. Ye
think nae doubt that ye ken better than me--but just you take warning
from an auld man. I’ve seen a’ kinds. Maybe you are no aware that I was
much about the world in my younger years with my lord--and my lord wasna
very particular in these days, though he’s a douce man now. I’ve seen a’
kinds; but a worse kind than yon Johnson man--”

“Johnson of St. Chad’s, Rankin--mind what you’re saying.”

“He’s nae mair of St. Chad’s than I am! There’s both a note and a query
in my paper from the real man--on a subject, it is true that he doesna
understand--he goes clean against my reasoning, which to any
unprejudiced mind would be mair than conclusive; but it’s dated from a
place away in Wales, or somewhere far to the south of this. Na, na, yon
man is nae scholar, and if ye’ll take my word for it, nae gentleman
either. His name may be Johnson, but he’s just masqueradin’ in another’s
local designation, and I wouldna trust him, no a fit beyond what I could
see him. Ye are a very clever lad, but ye canna have the experience of
the like o’ me.”

“Here he is, Rankin; you may be right, but you must be civil,” Eddy
said.

“Ceevil! in my ain house. He kens John Rankin little that thinks it
needful to tell me that. Good-morning to ye, sir,” said the gamekeeper
raising his voice. “Come ben without hesitation, there’s naebody but
freends here.”

“Oh, friends! I don’t seek my friends in a hole like this,” said
Johnson, evidently bent on showing his quality. “I’ve nearly been blown
away coming along your infernal lock, and I’ve been in the mud up to my
ankles on what you call the paths in the wood.”

“It’s a pity,” said Rankin grimly, “that the maker of them was not mair
careful to suit baith land and water to your needs.”

“The maker of them,” said Johnson, “could have understood nothing about
making roads--some of your country fellows that are behind in
everything. Oh, you are here, Master Eddy. I’ve come to see after one of
these little dogs you talk so much about.”

“And what may you be wanting with a little dogue?” said Rankin, with
scrupulous politeness.

“I?--just what other people want I suppose. Let’s see, old gentleman,
what sort you have got.”

“I have no little dogues,” said the gamekeeper, folding his hands on his
chest. The impulse was so strong upon him to dip into the nest, where
their small conversation as they tumbled over each other was quite
audible, that he had to grasp his coat with his hands, in order to
refrain.

“I can hear them squeaking,” said Johnson.

Rankin turned a serene glance upon Eddy. “Ye see,” he said, “what I
tellt ye. What kind of a person would use a word like that? My dogues,
sir,” he added, “are all bespoke. I have certain ladies and gentlemen,
great friends of mine, that get a’ I can spare. Ye hear naething
squeaking here, but just a few remarks made atween themselves by a sma’
family, that are of as good blood and race as any here.”

“Oh, come my man,” said Johnson, “I’m not a softy to be cheated out of
my money like that. I’ll give a fair price, but you needn’t think to
take me in, with your ladies and gentlemen. I know what a dog is worth.”

“Hold hard, Johnson,” said Eddy. “It’s a monopoly, don’t you know, and
Rankin can do what he likes. He knows a lot, I can tell you. He knows
you’re in South Wales or somewhere and not here--”

“I?” cried Johnson again. “I never was in Wales in my life.”

“I tellt ye sae, sir,” said Rankin significantly; “and that being
proved, I hope you will mind the rest of my advice.”

“What is he saying, Master Eddy? What has he been advising you?
Something about me? I’ll trouble you, my man, to keep your advice where
you keep your dogs, and not to interfere with me.”

“I am no man o’ yours,” said Rankin, “any more than you are a man o’
mine. I advise my friends for their good just when I please. Ye are in
my poor bit dwelling, and that gives ye a privilege: but I must do my
duty by a young gentleman that is a veesitor at the Hoose, and therefore
more or less under what I may call my protection when he comes to see
me.”

“You are no match for him, Johnson,” said Eddy laughing. “You needn’t
try. Come along, old fellow. I’ll show you that business I told you of.
Don’t be afraid, Rankin. Whatever I do that’s wrong it will be my own
fault and not his. I’m young, but I know a thing or two for all that.”

“Mair than you should--mair than you should!” cried the gamekeeper; “but
come soon again and see me, sir; there’s a hantle mair advice I would
like to give ye. Janet,” said Rankin solemnly to his wife as the door
was closed, “if there’s any devilry comes to your ears, mind you it’s
that man.”

“Hoots, John,” said Mrs. Rankin, who had come “ben” with her glistening
arms wrapped in her apron, from the midst of her washing, at the sound
of the opening door: it was almost all that good woman ever said.

In about half an hour from this time Eddy Saumarez reached Rosmore, and
made his way to his room in much haste. He was drenched with the rain
which for some time had been coming down small and soft, but persistent,
after the fashion of the west country, and only waved his hand to the
party collected over the great fire in the hall, where the decorations
were already being put up. “I am so wet, I must change before I can be
of any use,” he said, as he passed: but before he succeeded in gaining
the shelter of his room, his sister came out upon him from hers, where
she seemed to have been keeping watch. She put her hand upon his wet
sleeve and detained him.

“Eddy,” she said, “what have you been doing? You have got into some
scrape? For goodness sake remember where you are, and all that depends
upon it.” Rosamond was very serious, she had even a pucker of anxiety on
her usually smooth brow.

“I have got very wet,” said Eddy, “if that’s what you mean: and probably
a bad cold depends on it, which would be pleasant on the eve of a ball.
If you’ve got a sermon to preach you can do it after. I must change my
clothes now.”

“Oh, what does getting wet matter,” said Rosamond, “or catching cold
either? Who is this man you have made them ask? If it’s any one that
ought not to come, and father hears of it----”

“It’s Johnson--of St. Chad’s,” said Eddy, pausing to laugh at his joke,
which had already prospered so much beyond his hopes.

“What do you know of St. Chad’s? And father, who set me to keep you
straight? Eddy, I didn’t mind any humbugging with grandmamma, she
deserves it, and you had a great deal of provocation: but they’re good
people here----”

“Who are good people? my little girl, or your fellow that you can turn
round your finger? I’ll answer for them, my child. And the father, with
his money----”

“He has been very kind to us,” said Rosamond. “I will not have him
mystified. Tell me who this man is, or I will go straight to Mrs.
Rowland and tell her not to let him come.”

“Oh, he’ll come fast enough,” said Eddy, “he’s got his invitation; all
the country couldn’t keep him from coming. But if you have any bravos at
your disposition, and can have him waylaid and thrown into the loch, do
it, my dear, with my blessing; I shan’t mind.”

“Then why, why did you make them ask him,” cried Rosamond.

Eddy laughed; there was excitement in his laugh, but there was also
amusement. “Why?” he said, “for fun! isn’t that reason enough. To watch
him will be the best joke that ever was. I’m to introduce him to all the
bigwigs, and shan’t I do it, too! Find me a title for Miss Eliza, Rose.
How he’ll listen to her!--and lend the nephews money----”

“Eddy, it’s some wretched money-lender----”

“Well,” said Eddy, with a laugh, “there are many worse trades; they must
have it, or they couldn’t lend it. Go away and let me change my wet
clothes.”

Rosamond went away as she was bidden, partially satisfied. She was a
girl of great experience in many ways. She knew the shifts of living
when there is very little money to live on, and yet all the luxuries of
existence have to be secured. She was not acquainted with the expedient
of doing without what you cannot afford to buy, but all the other
manners of doing it were tolerably familiar to her. She had none of that
shrinking from a money-lender which people, who know nothing about them,
are apt to suffer from. She even appreciated the advantage of keeping on
good terms with members of that fraternity. It was one of their
weaknesses to be eager about getting into society, putting on a
semblance of gentility. Rosamond went back to her room, with that air of
a princess which was natural to her, shaking her head a little over
Eddy’s joke, but not so disturbed by it as she had been. Her only hope
was that Johnson would not come to the ball covered with jewellery, that
he would understand the wisdom of holding his tongue and refraining
from the dance. She herself knew very well how to defend herself from
the penalty of dancing with him. Rosamond was not out, but yet she was
aware of those guiles by which girls, obliged to accept any partner that
offers, defend themselves from carrying out their engagements when that
is necessary. She was in no uneasiness on her own account, and a faint
sense that it would be fun to see the money-lender floundering among
people who after all, whatever airs they might give themselves, were
not, Rosamond reflected, in society, stole through her mind. It does not
matter so much when people are not in society who they associate with.
Who thinks of their lesser distinctions? You are in society or you are
not; and if the latter is the case what does it matter? This was the
thought in her mind. She hoped that Johnson was not too Hebraic, that
his nose was less pronounced than usual, and his eyes less shining.
Indeed, as she endeavoured to recall his appearance, he had no
speciality in the way of nose, so that on the whole there would be
little harm done. If any society man happened to be there who recognised
the money-lender, he could either divine the real state of the case or
suppose that the Rowlands were not so well off as they looked. And in
neither case, would that do any harm.

Eddy, for his part, locked his door behind him when he got inside his
own room: and he risked the cold which would be so awkward on the eve of
the ball, by remaining still for some time in his wet clothes. What he
did was to take a paper from his pocket, which he carried to the light
of the window, examining it closely, holding it up to the daylight
which was subdued by the overhanging shadow of the trees, and the clouds
of rain sweeping up from the sea. Then after reading it over line by
line, he took it, holding it very closely in both hands as if he had
been afraid that it might take wings to itself and flee away, to the
smouldering fire--for it was nearly the end of October and fires were
very necessary to combat the damp of the place. Then Eddy put the paper
carefully into the centre of the fire, where it curled up and blackened
and began to smoke, but did not burst into flame until he had seized the
box of matches on the mantelpiece and had strewed a handful upon it.
Then there was a series of small distinct reports like minute guns, and
the whole flamed up. His clothes steamed as he stood before the fire,
but he was not aware of it, nor that the damp was meantime penetrating
into every muscle and limb.

After this Eddy dressed himself cheerfully in dry clothes and went
downstairs. He had never been more lively or entertaining. He went down
to find the whole party occupied with their letters, which came in
before lunch, making that meal either a joyful feast or a meal of
anxiety. Rowland it was who knitted his brows most keenly after he had
received his letters. Over one of them he lingered long, casting glances
occasionally at Archie, who had no letters, and who was amusing himself
furtively with the two dogs, Roy and Dhu, which he had abandoned on
discovering that they took to his stepmother more than to himself. Such
a preference is always irritating to the legitimate owner of dog or
man. He could not forgive them for their bad taste: nevertheless, when
Mrs. Rowland was out of the way, the infantile graces of the two puppies
were more than flesh and blood could stand out against. He had withdrawn
into a deep recess of the hall in which there was a window, and where he
considered himself free from inspection, and there was rolling over the
two little balls, with their waving limbs and the gleams of fun that
were visible under the tufts of hair that fell over their eyes. Though
they were rolling over and over each other in the height of play,
attacking and retreating before Archie’s hands, with which he pulled
their ears and tails, now lifting one, now another, by some illegitimate
portion of hair, each little dog kept an eye upon where the Mistress
sat, retired in a large chair, reading her letters, waiting till she
moved or looked, and ready at a moment to pick themselves up, get upon
their respective legs, and run out of the recess, one after the other,
as if they had been anxiously awaiting the moment when her attention
might relax and she would have leisure to bestow upon her faithful
retainers. It was not, however, Mrs. Rowland, but her husband, who
disturbed the pastime. He looked up from his letter and called “Archie!”
in a voice which meant mischief. Archie looked up startled.

“Yes,” he said, “I am here.”

“How was it you never mentioned that you had gone to see Mrs. Brown the
other day when you were in Glasgow?”

Archie raised himself up, pushing the puppies away from him.
“I--scarcely could have been in Glasgow,” he said, though with a slight
faltering in his voice, it was so little true; “without going to see
Aunt Jane.”

“That is true enough,” said his father, in a slightly softened tone. “It
was of course your first duty: but--is this story she tells me true?”

“She is very little likely,” said Archie, “to tell anything that is not
true; but I don’t know what she has told you.”

“She says--that she asked you to help a poor comrade of yours who is
ill, and must go away to save his life, and that you refused--is that
true?”

Archie stood in the vacant space formed by the recess, turning his face
towards his father--pale, miserable, half-defiant, without a word to
say.

“Is that true?” said Rowland, his voice pealing through the hall. It
disturbed the whole party, drawing their attention from their letters.
Mrs. Rowland looked up with an air half of terror, half of compassion.
“James, James!” she said in a low voice.

“Let alone, Evelyn! you don’t understand. Do you hear me, sir? come
forward; don’t skulk, as you are always doing. Is it true?”

Archie made a step forward, his brows bent over his eyes, his head sunk
between his shoulders. He saw them all turning to him--his stepmother,
with a compassionate look, which he could tolerate less than if it had
been the triumph and satisfaction which he believed she felt; Rosamond
raising her head from the letter she was reading with a
half-contemptuous surprise; and Eddy! Eddy in the background, unseen by
any, sending over their heads a look of half-amused, half-sympathetic
comment, opening his eyes wide and raising his eyebrows. Eddy
looked--not as if he had anything to do with it, but as if partly
indignant, partly astonished, yet as good as saying--that is just as
they all do.

“Yes,” said Archie, at last; “it is true.”

His father began, with an exclamation, to speak, but recalled to himself
by another low but emphatic call from his wife, “James, James!”
restrained himself. He gave Archie, however, a look, under which the
unfortunate young man fell back, feeling as if something had struck him
to his heart. Oh, the contempt in it, the indignation, as of something
unworthy a word! and to know that he did not deserve it, and yet have
his lips sealed and nothing to say for himself. It was almost harder to
bear than any fury of reproach. Archie felt himself shamed in the way in
which shame was most bitter, and in the presence of those who made his
disgrace most terrible to bear--the girl whom he admired with a kind of
adoration, and the woman whom he hated without knowing why. As he stood
there, drawn back a step, lowering, gloomy, his eyes sunk in their
sockets, he looked the picture of conscious meanness, and almost guilt.
And such he appeared to his father, whose passion of disappointment and
rage of offended affection was scarcely to be restrained. Rowland got up
from his seat abruptly and went into the library, which was the room he
used. He came back in a minute or two, holding a cheque in his hand,
which he tossed at his son, as he had once tossed the twenty-pound note.
“Send that,” he said, “to your aunt for your friend.” He walked back
towards his place, then turned again, and adding, “By to-day’s post,”
sat down with his face towards the fire.

Archie stood for a moment with the cheque lying at his feet. All the old
rebellion rose within his heart. It was more bitter this time than the
last. Should he leave it there lying, the wretched money, and turn his
back upon his father, who even when he was kind was so in scorn, and
flung the help for the friend, whom he believed Archie had refused to
help, as he would have flung a bone to a dog. Should he go and leave it,
and turn his back upon this house for ever? There was a moment’s
struggle, very bitter and sore, in Archie’s breast: and then he
remembered Colin, the pale-faced lad, whose illness, it had been no
great surprise, but so overwhelming a blow to hear of, just at the
moment when he had made himself incapable of helping him. Then he
stooped down, and picking up the paper went to the writing-table and
wrote a hasty letter, stooping over the blotting-book as he stood. “Aunt
Jane,” he wrote, “you have done me a very ill turn, but I do not blame
you: and my father will perhaps end by driving me desperate; and most
likely you will none of you ever know the reason. But here’s the money
for Colin Lamont, though it’s been flung at my head, like the time
before, and though I have not even you to take my part now. Anyhow it
will be good for him. His is a better case, however ill he is, than
mine.--A. ROWLAND.”

Archie put this letter and the cheque into an envelope, which he placed
conspicuously on the table that his father might see it, and then he
left the house, with a soul more heavy and a heart more sore than words
could say.

“Your brother is always getting to loggerheads with your father,” said
Eddy to Marion, who was helping him with a design for the wall. “You
should give him good advice, and get him to take a jaw pleasantly. They
all do it, don’t you know.”

“Who all do it?--but I’m astonished at papa,” said Marion; “for why
should Archie give all his money to a lad that was not at all of his
kind, but just a companion for a while, when we were--not as we are now.
Archie has not so much money that he could give it away to--a friend.”

“Why should he indeed?” said Eddy. “Friends that want money are always
to be had in plenty; but money is best in one’s pocket, which is the
right place for it, as you say.”

“I am just surprised at papa,” said Marion; “for it should be a father’s
part to keep us from foolishness, and not to put it into our heads.
Archie is silly enough without giving him any encouragement. He was
always for giving things away; and this Colin--for I am sure it must be
Colin--is just one that will never be better whatever is done for him.
It is just throwing away money.--Shall I cut out all these leaves the
same, or would it be better if they were a little different, like leaves
upon a tree?”

“Oh, make them like the drawing, please,” said Eddy.--“Archie is a very
good fellow, but he takes things too seriously. What is the use of
looking so tragical? The best of fathers loves a chance for a sermon.
You must speak to him like a mother, Miss May.”

“I have always been the most sensible,” said May; “but I am the
youngest, and I don’t see how I could speak to him like a mother. I
will, perhaps, speak to papa, and tell him how wrong it is, when a boy
is disposed to be saving and takes care of his money, to put such things
in his head. For what could Colin Lamont matter to him in comparison
with himself? And where would we have been now, if papa had thrown away
his money and made that kind of use of it? It is not for Archie’s sake,
for Archie is just very silly; but I think I will perhaps speak to
papa.”

And then they returned with enthusiasm to the decorations for the hall.

Poor Archie, for his part, wandered out disconsolate upon the hills:
everything was turning out badly for him. There had been a moment when
things were better, when he had overcome various troubles--his
unaccustomed gun, and Roderick and the groom, and the sudden valse into
which he had been driven, with still less chance of escape. For a week
or two things had gone so well, that he had began to trust a little in
his fate; but now again the balance had turned, and everything was going
badly. Small comfort was there in prospect for him. He had denuded
himself altogether of all his revenues, and now there came upon him the
consciousness of many things that would be required of him, many claims
which he would be unable to respond to. He would not have a sixpence to
give to a boy, or a penny to a beggar. He would have to guard against
every little expense as if he were a beggar himself. He could not go to
Glasgow again, however much he might wish to do so, scarcely even to go
across the ferry. He had nothing, and would have nothing till Christmas,
these long and weary months. And Eddy did nothing but lift his eyebrows,
half-amused at the misery of which he was the cause. And never could
Archie explain, neither to his father, nor to Aunt Jane, the reason why
he had refused her prayer for Colin Lamont. When he thought of that,
Archie gnashed his teeth, and in the silence of the hillside, dashed his
clenched hands into the air. He must bear it all and never say a
word--and all the time see before him the other, smiling, who could make
it all plain. But Archie did not know how much greater and more awful
trouble was yet in store.




CHAPTER XXXIII.


The night of the ball arrived at last. The stables in Rosmore, and all
the accommodation to be had in the neighbourhood, were filled with
horses and carriages of every description. Everybody had come. The great
element of success, which predetermines the question, the arrival of all
expected, made the hearts of the hosts glad. Rowland had forgotten that
little episode which still hung heavy on Archie’s soul, and stood
beaming, the proudest man in the county, to receive his guests. The
sound of the arrivals was music to his ears. That he, so simple as he
stood there, the foundry lad, the railway man, the creator of his own
fortune, should be receiving the best people in the countryside, opening
large and liberal doors of hospitality, entertaining in the superior
position of a host people whose names he had heard afar off in those
early days, was a sort of happiness which he could scarcely believe, and
which filled his heart with a glow of elation and proud delight. Perhaps
it was not a very elevated or elevating sentiment. To shake hands with
the Earl of Clydesdale, and welcome him to one’s house, might not fill
one’s own bosom with any sense of bliss. But Lord Clydesdale was to
James Rowland the king of his native district, high above all cavil or
partnership, and there could be no such evident sign to him of the
glorious position to which he had himself attained. This sense of
triumph beamed all over him, and made his accent more and more cordial,
his anxiety about the pleasure of his guests more and more warm. There
was nothing he would not have done to add to the brightness of the
joyous assembly. The least little momentary shade of dullness in any
corner went to his heart. When he saw either girl or boy who was not
dancing, he would come down upon them like a rescue party, providing
partner, or supper, or refreshment, or repose, whatsoever they wanted.
It could not be said that his success and glory made him selfish. He
wanted everybody to enjoy as he was himself enjoying. Impossible to
imagine a more beneficent form of success.

He had quite forgotten his censure of Archie. He clapped him on the
shoulder when he appeared, with an exhortation--“Now Archie, man! shake
yourself together--put your best foot foremost--make it go off! Mind we
are all upon our promotion. If it is not the finest ball that has been
given on Clydeside, I will never hold up my head more.” This address a
little lightened Archie’s heart, still sore and heavy from the blame to
which he had been subject--so undeservedly as he knew, but as nobody
else was aware. And he was young, and though alarmed by the part he had
himself to play, it was not in human nature not to feel some stir of
exhilaration in the arrival of all that fine company, the music striking
up, the crowd of other young people streaming in. What he would have
thought of admission to such a scene a year ago! To be sure, this was
chastened by the thought of the important part he had to play, as son of
the house. He found Rosamond at his elbow, after his father had given
him that exhortation.

“You should ask Lady Jean first,” said the young lady, holding, as
usual, her head high and not looking at him while she spoke.

“Me--ask Lady Jean! to what?” he asked, with an uneasy laugh.

“To dance, of course--unless the Duchess comes: is the Duchess coming?
Without her you have nothing better than a baronet and his wife.
Therefore, unless your father dances, you must take out Lady Jean.”

“My father--dances?” cried Archie, with an uncontrollable laugh. It
seemed to him the most ridiculous idea in the world.

“Most gentlemen do in their own houses,” said Rosamond, “but if he does
not, then you. Lady Jean first. Then Lady Marchbanks: and not for some
time that little pretty woman, whose husband was knighted the other day.
She is my lady too, and perhaps you would never know the difference. But
please to mind what I say.”

“Lady this, and Lady that--and when am I to come to you?” said Archie,
taking a little courage.

“Oh, I will keep one for you--not till you have got through all your
duty dances. That is the disadvantage many people say of a ball in one’s
own house. But I like responsibility,” said Rosamond. “It is better than
thinking merely what will be most fun.”

By the inspiration of this double charge, Archie became a new man. He
led Lady Jean very tremulously, it must be allowed, through a
quadrille--or she led him, it would perhaps be better to say; but he was
very docile and very humble, and her ladyship did not dislike the modest
young man, who, for the first time for some days, opened full his
mother’s eyes, innocent and honest, upon those to whom he spoke. She
said, “He’s not an ill lad, that young Rowland,” to the ladies about
her. And Miss Eliza repeated it up and down the room. “We all know what
dear Lady Jean means,” cried that lady. “She is maybe sparing of her
praises, but when she does say a good word, it comes from the heart. He
has many things to contend against, but he’s not an ill lad. I have
always said it myself. Few women have greater opportunities of studying
young folk than I have, though I’m only, as you may say, an old maid
myself. And so is Lady Jean for that matter. We are just a real
respectable fraternity--or would it be better to say sisterhood?--but
that’s a word with other meanings. No, he’s not an ill lad. He has
always been very civil to me, and the boys all like him. They say
there’s no humbug in him. But Lady Jean is the one to give a thing it’s
right name.”

Whether any echo of this comforting report reached Archie’s ken it would
be hard to tell, but it somehow blew across his father’s ears, and made
him laugh till the tears came to his eyes. He sought out Evelyn in the
midst of her guests to report it to her. “It’s Scotch praise,” he said,
“but it means more than you would suppose.”

“I think it is very poor praise, and Archie deserves a great deal
better,” said his wife, which pleased him too.

“But that from Lady Jean is more than raptures from another,” he
replied.

As for Eddy Saumarez, though he was not much to look at, he was always a
popular man, as he himself said, in a ball-room. He did not dance very
gracefully, nor indeed, though his confidence in himself carried him
through all kinds of performances creditably, was he a graceful person
in anyway: but he was adroit, and despite his somewhat insignificant
person, strong, and carried his partner skilfully through the most
complicated crowd. His enjoyment of the evening was interrupted or
increased (it would be difficult to say which) by the appearance of a
man whom nobody knew, and most people took for one of the servants (a
supposition very injurious to Mr. Rowland’s servants, who were
well-made, well-set-up individuals, excellent specimens of humanity).
Johnson wore an evening coat with long tails, too long for him, and a
white tie with long ends too big for him, and gloves with half-an-inch
of vacant finger, which made his hands look like a bundle of loose
skeins of white yarn. His face wore an anxious look as he came in
unnoticed, eagerly looking for the only face he knew. Even the genial
Rowland, who was ready to welcome everybody, passed over this personage
with vague surprise, supposing that he must belong to some reserve force
of the pantry, or had been brought in in attendance on some guest. He
knew nobody but Eddy, and Eddy, who was dancing without intermission,
contrived never to catch his _protégé’s_ eyes. It was not that he was
unconscious of the presence of this visitor, whom nobody took any notice
of. On the contrary, Eddy kept a careful watch upon him in his corner.

“Look yonder,” he said to his partner; “but don’t look as if you were
looking. Do you see that queer little being in the corner? Oh, yes, I
know him; but I don’t mean to see him. He has got an invitation here by
mistake, and he depends on me to introduce him right and left.--Who is
he? ah, that’s what I can’t tell. He is not a man I shall introduce to
you. Did you ever see such a droll little beggar? I knew he would be
fun. There he goes prowling into the other corner, where he thinks he
will catch my eye. But I don’t mean him to catch my eye. Oh, you know
well enough, don’t you, how to avoid seeing any one you don’t want to
see? Cruel? no: he has no business to be here. The little brute must
pay for his impudence. Reverse, shall we? Ah, he thought he had me
then!” Eddy said with a laugh. “We were running right into him. But
you’ll see I shall get clear away.”

Perhaps Rosamond heard some part of this talk as her brother darted
past. For it was she in all her pride who sailed up to poor Johnson in
his corner, who was diving under the dancers’ arms and stretching over
their shoulders, in a vain attempt to attract the attention of his false
friend.

“You are looking for my brother,” she said, “and he is paying no
attention. He seldom does when it is not for his own advantage. But
perhaps I may do as well.”

Johnson murmured something about surprise and honour. “You will do just
as well, Miss Saumarez, if you will introduce me to some nice girls,” he
said eagerly. “Master Eddy promised me: but I know his promises is like
pie crust. May I have the pleasure of the next dance?”

Rosamond almost looked at him in her scorn--the next dance! as though
every place on her card had not been filled in the first five minutes.

“I will dance a quadrille with you,” she said, “if you will remain here
quietly till I am ready, and not ask any one else.”

“Oh, miss!” cried Johnson, in delight; “fancy my conducting myself like
a gay Lothario, and asking any one else, when I have an offer from you!”

Rosamond was not used to blushing, but she coloured high at this. She
did not see the fun of it as Eddy would have done. She had no sense of
humour.

“If you will wait here till I am ready, I will dance with you,” she
said.

Johnson had been very indignant and deeply disappointed, not to be
introduced to “the big-wigs,” as Eddy had promised. But when Eddy’s
beautiful sister proposed to him to dance with her, not even waiting to
be asked, his feelings sustained a wonderful change. He relaxed his
watch upon Eddy, and waited with wonderful patience for the blissful
moment when he should take his place among that dazzling throng. With
this before him, he could enjoy the sight and the ecstatic sensation of
forming part of the assembly, even though he knew no big-wigs. When they
saw him dancing with Miss Saumarez, who was one of the beauties, if not,
Johnson thought, flattered and flattering, _the_ beauty of the evening,
they would change their minds about him. And indeed, the shabby little
man made an extraordinary sensation when he joined, by the side of Miss
Saumarez, the next quadrille. Who was he? where did he come from?
everybody asked. And whispers ran among the throng, that a person so
shabby, dancing with Miss Saumarez, one of the house party, must to the
blood of the millionaires belong, and was probably the scion of a
secondary Rothschild. Much curiosity was roused concerning him, and
shabby as he looked, there is little doubt that after Rosamond he might
have danced with almost any one he pleased. As a matter of fact, Archie,
always good-natured, and unsuspicious of anything remarkable about
Johnson, introduced him to several ladies, who did not object to allow
him to inscribe his name upon their programmes. And Marion did more than
this. She was just standing up with him for a waltz, and with her hand
on his arm was about to enter the field, when another change occurred
which made Johnson’s appearance and behaviour more extraordinary than
ever. He suddenly stopped in the midst, just at the moment when he ought
to have put his limp hand upon her waist, a contact which Rosamond had
been unable to submit to, but which Marion, with her much less
cultivated sense, found quite unobjectionable.

“Excuse me, miss, for a moment,” Johnson said, dropping her arm, and
leaving her alone in the midst of the dancers.

He had seen something in the distance which made him turn pale. And it
happened that at that moment, after so long and so ineffectually
attempting to catch Eddy’s eye, he at last succeeded in doing so without
the slightest difficulty. Eddy had been startled beyond expression by
the sight of Johnson’s shabby figure by his sister’s side, and
distracted by this sight from all idea of fun; and restraining with
difficulty the impulse he had to seize the fellow by the shoulders and
turn him out--which evidently he had no right to do--had followed him,
no longer now with laughing eyes that saw every movement while appearing
to see nothing, but with the furious gaze of the plotter upon whom the
tables are turned. When Johnson started, shrank, and dropped Marion’s
arm, Eddy, watching, saw the whole pantomime, and saw also the fellow’s
almost imperceptible signal towards the window, which stood open behind
its drawn curtains for the ventilation of the great warm, heated hall.
Eddy turned his own sharp, suspicious eyes toward the spot at which
Johnson had looked, and there he saw a somewhat startling sight--a man
in morning dress, buttoned up in a warm overcoat, like a visitor newly
arrived, standing at the hall door, and gazing with astonishment as at a
totally unexpected scene. The sight startled him, though he did not know
why. It could be nothing to him, so far as he knew. He did not know what
it could be to Johnson. But he was startled. The man looked like some
commercial functionary, business-like, and serious, surprised beyond
measure to find himself suddenly introduced from the open air and quiet,
frosty, chilly night, to the crowded ball-room with all its decorations.

Eddy made a dive through the throng towards the window, with an
explanation to those around him that the draught was too much for Lady
Jean.

“I must try and draw the curtains down,” he said, with a shrug of his
shoulders at the unreasonableness of women. And in another moment was
outside, standing under the brilliant cold stars, which looked down
coldly upon this curious little unexpected effect.

“What’s the matter?” he said breathlessly to the other dark figure,
conspicuous only by the whiteness of his large shirt, among the bushes.

“I don’t know,” said Johnson, “unless you’ve been at it again, Master
Eddy. Did you see that man? that’s the clerk at the bank that cashed
your cheque. I don’t know what brings him here, if you don’t. Anyhow, I
thought it the best policy to slip away.”

Eddy’s teeth began to chatter--perhaps with the cold.

“You confounded fool,” he said, “did you give them the chance of
identifying you? I didn’t think you would have been such an ass.”

“As for that,” cried Johnson, “I’m square. I’ve only got to say it was
given me by you, my fine young fellow. By George, I never had no
suspicion. And p’raps it aint that--p’raps it’s something else; but it
looks fishy seeing that fellow in the middle of all the folks dancing.
It has given me a turn! I hope, Master Eddy, for your own sake, as you
have not been at it again.”

“Oh, what’s that to you?” cried Eddy impatiently. He was biting his
lower lip till it bled, unconsciously to himself.

“It might be a great deal to me,” said Johnson, “if it is not on the
square. They’ve a set of queer laws of their own in Scotland: you never
know where you are with them; and you didn’t trouble yourself very much
to get me partners, Mr. Eddy. Oh, ah, didn’t see me; tell that to them
as will believe it.”

“If you think you are in danger, Johnson, from the arrival of that
fellow,” said Eddy, “you’d better scuttle. They don’t understand a joke
these bank men.”

“A joke,” cried Johnson. “Me that am on the square if ever a man was!
and you that--”

“Have nothing at all to do with it,” said Eddy with cool superiority.
“If you think that you’re likely to get into trouble, take my advice
and walk home. I’ll pitch you out a coat, and it’s a fine night. You
should start to-morrow, as soon as it’s day; and I advise you to get
over the hills to Kilrossie, and take the boat there. Good-night--it’s
cold standing out here jabbering about nothing. You should never have
come; and how dared you touch a lady, you little snob!” Eddy cried.

“By George,” cried the other; and then he added with complacency in his
tone: “If it’s Miss Saumarez, she is a stunner, Master Eddy. It was
she--that offered to me.”

“You confounded, miserable little cad,” said Eddy, furiously driving him
back among the bushes with a sudden blow. But he stole back to the house
on the outskirts of the crowd, and seizing the first coat he could find,
pitched it out of a window above, on Johnson’s head. He had humanity
enough, though he was not unwilling to sacrifice the scapegoat, to give
him something warm to wrap himself in. After this he returned to the
ball-room, with a thousand apologies to his partner, and eloquent
description of the difficulty he had found in so arranging the curtains
as to keep the draught from Lady Jean. “The shortest way would have been
to shut the window, I know,” said Eddy, “but we can’t have the ball-room
made into a black hole of Calcutta, can we? So I compromised matters, as
I always do.”

“Do you, Mr. Saumarez?” said the young lady with a look of faith, such
as young ladies often wear--ready to receive what he said as truth, or
to laugh at it as transparent humbug, it did not matter which. And Eddy
danced all night undisturbed and imperturbable. The bank clerk was
nothing to him. He sat out two square dances with Miss Monteith, the
heiress. But every other on the programme Eddy danced, even the Scotch
reel, of which he said, “I shall only make you all laugh, of course, but
never mind.” Everybody did laugh, no doubt, at his performance, but they
liked him all the better for trying it. It was a part of the programme
into which Archie entered with spirit, for once sure of his ground. This
was at a tolerably advanced period, when the guests who lived at the
greatest distance were already ordering their carriages, and Archie, in
the absence of his father, after the reel was over, had to preside over
all the arrangements for the conclusion of the most successful
entertainment that had ever been known in Rosmore, and to give Lady Jean
his arm to the door. “It has been a pleasant party,” said Lady Jean.
“And you must come over and see us, and have a day or two with my
brother on the moors. Clydesdale, I am telling young Mr. Rowland he must
come over and see what he can do among the grouse, some fine day very
soon.”

“You must do that,” said the Earl himself. “You must do that. I will
write and fix a day.”

What greater honour could have been done to the son of the railway man?
He felt the glory of it, though the thought of such a visit was enough
to take all the courage out of Archie. He stood a little dazed by the
honour that had been done him, watching the carriage as it drove away,
and pleased to feel the cold fresh air upon his forehead, when the
butler came up to him with a serious face. “Mr. Archibald,” he said,
“the Master would like to see you in the library as soon as the
principal people are gone.”

“Very well,” said Archie, a little surprised; but he made no haste to
obey his father’s call. There were a few more dances after the great
people were gone, and Miss Eliza had made three or four ineffectual
starts before she could collect her party together, who were the last to
go. “Indeed, Mr. Archie,” she said, “you will just be worn off your feet
hunting up these wild lassies for me. For the moment you’ve found one,
there’s a new waltz started, and the other three are on the floor. And
when they’ve done, Helen’s off again just to have a last turn, and
there’s nothing left for it that I can see but for you and me to perform
a _pas seul_ to frighten them all away--Here they are at last, the whole
four, which is all that can be squeezed into Alick Chalmers’s coach,
whatever we do. And the lads must just walk, it will do them good after
the three or four suppers they’ve had. And it has been a beautiful ball.
I see your mammaw and papaw have stolen away, which I’m not surprised
at, considering how late it is. You will say good-night to them for me,
and many thanks for a delightful evening. And ye must all come up to
your tea to-morrow and talk it over. Good-night--and good-night.”

Eddy was at the carriage door also, superintending with much laughter
the packing in of the five ladies in their ball-dresses into Alick’s
fly. All the dignified and ceremonious leave-takings were over--this was
pure light-hearted fun and frolic. While Miss Eliza’s four young ladies
were still waving their handkerchiefs from the windows of the coach as
it disappeared into the darkness, and “the boys,” an equal number of
them, four young men, were buttoning their coats and lighting their
cigars, the butler appeared again. Once more he touched Archie on the
shoulder, this time with more solemnity than ever. “Mr. Archibald,” he
said, “the Master is waiting for you in the library. You’re to go to him
without another moment’s delay.”

“What have you been doing, Rowland--are you going to get a wigging?”
said Eddy. “Thank heaven,” he added with a yawn, “my governor’s several
hundred miles away.”

Archie did not make any reply: but he was not at that moment in any fear
of a wigging. Lady Jean’s gracious words, and the fun of Miss Eliza’s
good-humoured party, had brought warmth and confidence to his heart.
There could be nothing to be laid to his charge to-night. He knew that
he had done his duties well, better than ever before. He had been
careful of everybody’s comfort, emancipating himself by that thought
from his native shyness and fear of putting himself forward. Perhaps his
father meant to say something kind to him, to express some satisfaction.
It was with this feeling of confidence and ease, a feeling so unusual to
him, and even with a little pleasureable sense of expectation, that
Archie turned the handle of the library door.




CHAPTER XXXIV.


Archie had not remarked at all the incident which had startled Johnson,
and which Eddy Saumarez, alone at present among the relics of the
supper, and making a final meal with considerable appetite, was going
over and over in his eager and fertile mind, trying to make out its
meaning, and in what way it could affect himself, and on the course he
ought to pursue. The man in the overcoat, closely buttoned up, coming
suddenly out of the cold outside to the lighted and dazzling ball-room,
with his pale face and startled air, was as a picture to the mind of
Eddy, full of innumerable suggestions and possible fate: but it would
have conveyed no idea at all to the intelligence of Archie even had he
perceived it. Somebody about business; if not, as was most likely, some
invited guest who had not caught the boat, or had been otherwise
detained on the way, was all the son of the house would have thought of.
Somebody about business did not mean much to Archie. It could have, he
would have been quite sure, nothing whatever to do with him.

The hall in which the dancing took place was separated from the great
door by a vestibule and inner door, chiefly made of glass, and
half-covered by heavy curtains. The stranger, when he jumped from the
dog-cart which had brought him round the loch, a long detour, had pushed
into the vestibule, finding it open and no servants visible. There had
been a general withdrawal both of the servants of the house and the
many strange footmen, who had attended the guests, to the servants’
hall, where a supper was going on, quite as merry, and not much less
luxurious, than the other supper in the dining-room: and at this moment
there was nobody about to direct the visitor. He had accordingly, his
business being urgent, opened the glass door, to find himself in the
ball-room, as has been already described. He stood there much surprised,
looking round him for some one who could direct him to the master of the
house. And, as luck would have it, the master of the house himself was
the first to perceive this curious apparition in the midst of his
guests. At that end of the hall none of the usual loiterers were
standing about. They were all at the other end and along the upper sides
of the ball-room, which were free from those draughts which, as the
elder people confided to each other, can never be quite shut out from a
room so close to the open air. Mr. Rowland made his way through the
dancers, dodging here and there a quickly gyrating pair, with a smile
upon his face, towards the man in the greatcoat, who stood helplessly at
the door not knowing what to do. He held out his cordial hand to him as
if he had been the most welcome of visitors. “I don’t remember your
face,” he said, “excuse me; and you’re very late: but the fun, as you
see, is still going on.”

The newcomer stared at him, with his lips apart.

“You are Mr. Rowland,” he said.

“Well, yes, naturally,” said the good-humoured host, with a laugh; “it
appears you don’t know me any more than I know you.”

“I’m from the Bank of Scotland--the Glasgow branch,” said the stranger.
“I have come, if you please, with a private communication from the
manager, very important. If I could speak a word to you by yourself----”

“The Bank of Scotland! Then you have not come to the ball?” said
Rowland.

The newcomer looked round with a glance of admiration and awe. He was a
young man, and he thought it a scene of enchantment, though his Scotch
pride was too great to permit any desire to intrude himself into that
dazzling assembly. He drew himself up a little and replied, “I have
nothing to do with the ball. I knew nothing about it. I have driven
round the head of the loch, a very long road; and I’ve no prospect but
to spend the whole night that way, getting back. Ten minutes, sir, if
you can give it me, will be enough for what I have to say.”

“Come this way,” said Rowland, drawing back the curtain that covered the
library door. He had preferred to keep his sanctuary uninvaded by the
visitors, to whom the rest of the house had been thrown open. He stirred
the fire in the grate, which was burning low, and turned up higher the
subdued light of the lamp.

“Sit down there,” he said, “and get warm; and tell me what this business
is that has brought you so far on a cold night. I suppose you missed the
boat?”

“I just missed it by two minutes, so there was nothing to do but to
drive; if I had known that there was a ball, I think I should have
stayed on the other side till the morning, whatever the manager said.”

“Oh, never mind that,” said Rowland, with a genial laugh. “Dancing’s not
much in my line--a little business will be a diversion. What is it? The
Bank of Scotland has not broke, I hope, nor the Bank of England either.
Banks have no great reputation, I’m afraid, in these parts.”

“The Bank of Scotland, sir, is not like your Glasgow Banks,” said the
visitor, with some severity, for he was an east country man. He paused a
little, and then he took from the breast pocket of his overcoat a case,
and from that a piece of paper. “Will you tell me if this is your
signature?” he said.

It was a cheque for a thousand pounds--a cheque crumpled and refolded in
diverse ways, as if it had already passed through several hands. Rowland
took it with great surprise, and held it to the light.

“My signature?” he said.

It was mere bewilderment, not intuition, which kept him silent as he
examined the writing; and then there sprang a sudden flutter and dart of
anguish through his heart, which he neither understood nor could account
for.

“It looks like my signature--why do you ask such a question?”

He said this, scarcely knowing why, to gain time: though he could not
have told why he wanted to gain time.

“God be thanked!” said the stranger. “You lift a load from my mind. It
was paid yesterday by one of our young clerks; but our attention was
not called to it till to-day. On comparing it with your usual signature,
we felt a doubt; and the cheque itself was unlike you. It was not
crossed--it was drawn to nobody’s order; and it’s a considerable sum,
Mr. Rowland--nothing to you--but to most people a considerable sum. If
you say it’s all right, you will lift a load from my mind. It was young
Farquhar that paid it--a fine young fellow. And his career would be
spoiled----”

These words came in a sort of strange mist to Rowland’s mind. He was
standing all the time with the cheque in his hands, holding it to the
light. Everything external was in a mist to him, both what he saw and
what he heard. The very cheque, with that signature “James Rowland”
sprawling on it as his own signature sprawled, seemed to float in the
air. But within his mind, everything was acute and clear--a great
anguish rending him as with a serpent’s fangs--a dart through all his
veins, dull in his heart like a stone, violent in his head, as if all
the blood had gone there to throb and knell in his ears, and beat like a
hammer in his temples. All the time he was standing with his back to the
ill-omened messenger, holding the cheque as if he were examining it, in
his hands.

His voice, when he spoke, had a dull and thick sound, and he did not
turn round, but remained as if fixed in that position, with the cheque
stretched out in both his hands, and his head bent to get the light upon
it.

“I needn’t trouble you any more,” he said; “the cheque’s--all right. It
was drawn for a special purpose; it is nothing to me, as you say.”

Here he broke into a hoarse laugh. “Nothing to me! What’s a thousand
pounds in comparison with----. You can relieve your friend, young
Farquhar’s mind. Young Farquhar, is that his name? But he ought to be
more careful. That’s a large sum to pay to bearer over the counter
without any guarantee. But he did quite right--quite right--my name’s
enough for many a thousand pounds.” He moved from where he was standing
to ring the bell, but did not turn round. Then he went back to the lamp
and pushed the shade lower down.

“I’ll keep the cheque,” he said, “to remind me not to do such a thing
again. Saunders, will you take this gentleman into the dining-room, and
see that he has some supper before he goes. I don’t know your name,” he
added, turning upon the stranger and putting out his hand, “but I highly
approve your energy in coming, and I’ll take care to say so to the
directors.”

“My name is Fergusson--and I’m very glad of your approval, Mr. Rowland:
and the night journey will be nothing, for I am going back with a light
heart.”

“Yes, yes,” said Rowland, “on account of young Farquhar: but you should
tell him to be careful. Take a good supper, and then you’re less likely
to catch cold. You’ll excuse me entrusting you to my butler, for you see
for yourself that to-night----”

“I am only grieved I troubled you,” said the bank clerk.

“No, no, nothing of the sort--and mind, Saunders, that Mr. Fergusson has
a good glass of wine.”

He waited until they were gone, and then he dropped heavily into a
chair. He had no doubt, none whatever--not for a moment. Who could have
done it but one? He took out that fatal scrap of paper again, and laid
it out before him on the table in the intense light. It was very like
his signature. He would have himself been taken in, had that been
possible. Some of the lines were laboured, while his were merely a dash;
but it was very like--so like, he thought, that no new hand could have
done it, no one uninstructed. He might himself have been taken in, had
he not known, as the bank people did, that he never drew a cheque like
that--a cheque with no protection--drawn to bearer, not crossed, nothing
to ensure its safety. He smiled a little at the ridiculous thought that
he could have been capable of doing that--then suddenly flung himself
down upon the table, covering his face with his hands.

Oh, pain intolerable! oh anguish not to be shaken off! His boy--Mary’s
son, who had her eyes--his heir, his successor, the only one to continue
his name. Oh burning, gnawing, living pang, that went through and
through him like a spear made not of steel, but of fire! He writhed upon
it, as we all do in our time, feeling each sharp edge, as well as the
fiery point that pins us helpless to the earth. What was Prometheus upon
his rock, of whom the ancients raved--a trifler, a nothing, in
comparison with the father, who had just been persuaded of the guilt of
his only son.

And all the time the music was sounding outside the door, the sound of
the light feet going and coming in rhythmic waves, the confused hum of
voices and laughter. The boy who had put this spear into his father’s
heart was there, enjoying it all. Rowland had been pleased to see that
Archie was enjoying it. He had said to himself that the boy was no such
cub after all; that perhaps that failure of his about his comrade might
be explained; that he might have been dazzled by the possession of
money, and too completely unused to it to understand the spending of it.
He might have been afraid to give what was wanted, fearing that he would
be blamed. There must be some reason. He had persuaded himself that this
must be the case in the sensation of a certain pride in his children,
which the sight of them among the others had produced.

And now, and now!--James Rowland had gone through the usual experiences
of man--he had known sorrow, and he had known the pangs of repentance.
He had not always been satisfied with himself, and he had been
disappointed in others from time to time. But what were all these
miseries to this?

As he lay there with his face hidden, a hand was suddenly laid upon his
shoulder. “James--what is the matter, what is the matter?” his wife
said.

He turned at first from her, with a thought that she was the last person
who should hear--she who was not the mother, who had nothing to do with
the boy; and then he turned towards her: for was not she bound to be his
own comforter, to help him in everything? He raised himself up slowly,
and lifted his face from his hands, which had left the mark of their
pressure upon his ashy cheeks.

“The matter!” he said; “the worst is the matter!--the worst that can
happen. I am afraid of nothing more in this world!”

“James!” she cried,--then with an attempt to smile--“You are trying to
frighten me. What is it? A man has been here.--Dear James, it is not the
loss of--your money?--for what is that! We will bear it together, and be
just as happy.”

Evelyn’s mind, in spite of herself, was moved by accounts in story-books
of catastrophes which were announced in this way. I am not sure that he
even heard her suggestion, much less was capable of comprehending the
devotion to himself that was in it. He moved his hand to the pink paper
which lay stretched upon the table in the full light of the lamp. “Look
at that,” he said.

She took it up perplexed. A cheque for a thousand pounds, which to
Evelyn, unaccustomed to the possession of money, looked, as the bank
clerk had said, like a large sum. She looked at it again, turning it
over, as if any enlightenment was to be had in that way. Then it
occurred to her in the midst of her alarm, that after all her husband’s
great fortune could not be represented by a cheque for a thousand
pounds. “What does it mean?” she said, still holding it vaguely in her
hands.

“Can’t you see?” He was almost harsh in his impatience, snatching it out
of her hand and holding it up to the light “They were fools to pay it
at the bank; and, as for that young Farquhar, I’ll---- Can’t you see?
Look there, and there----”

“I don’t know what you mean me to see, James. It is a little laboured,
not quite like your hand. You must have been tired when you---- Ah!”
said Evelyn breaking suddenly off, and beginning to examine, fascinated,
the terrible document that looked so simple. She looked up in his face,
quite pale, her lips dropping apart. “You don’t mean me to think----”

“Think? See! look at it; it is forged--that is what it is.”

She looked at him, every tint of colour gone from her face, her eyes
wide open, her lips trembling. It might have been supposed that she had
done it. “Oh James, James!” she cried in a low voice of terror and
dismay. Then there flashed before her eyes a whole panorama of moving
scenes: the pale and lowering face of Archie; the lively one of Eddy
Saumarez; the disreputable Johnson--all came and went like distracting
shadows. In a second she went over a whole picture-gallery of visionary
portraits. Her husband looked at her intently, as if to read the name of
the culprit in her eyes; but she only repeated, “Oh James, James!” as if
this appeal was all that she could say.

“You see it,” he said with a sort of exasperated calm. “Though that
young Farquhar--confound him, oh, confound him!----” Here he stopped
again, as if the thought were too much. “He’s got a father and mother
now, no doubt, who can trust him with everything they’ve got; who look
forward to his becoming a director of the bank; whom he goes home to
every night self-conceited--Oh, confound them every one!”

“James,” she said, laying her hand doubtfully again upon his shoulder,
“is it Mr. Farquhar who has got your money? Is it--? Whom do
you--suspect?”

He broke out into a loud, harsh laugh. “I haven’t much choice, have I?”
he said, “there are not many that could have done it. There is only one,
so far as I can judge. He’s been set on horseback and he’s ridden to the
devil; and to make it up--though God knows how it’s gone, for he has
nothing to show for it--he puts his father under a forced
contribution--that’s about what it is.”

“You mean Archie!--no, no, no,” cried Evelyn; “it is not Archie--it is
not Archie! James, you are angry; you are letting prejudice lead you
astray.”

“Prejudice--against my only son! If it had been prejudice in his favour,
prejudice to look over his faults, to think him better than he is----”

“No, no, no,” said Evelyn, “that is not your way. You want perfection,
and you can’t bear not to have it, James. There is nothing--nothing
vicious about Archie. He must have been vicious to want that money? No,
no, no. I am as sure that you are mistaken as that I’m alive.”

He shook his head, but he was a little comforted for the moment. “You
can send for him if you are so confident,” he said; and then there came
to them in a sudden gust the sound of the music, the movement of the
dancers, which made the floor thrill even where they were apart in that
room full of trouble: and the horror of the combination brought from
Evelyn a cry of pain, as she put up her hands to her face.

“Oh, don’t send for him now! in the middle of all that, where he is
doing his best, poor boy--where he has forgotten everything that’s been
troubling him;--don’t, James, don’t, for your wife’s sake send for the
poor boy now----”

“For my wife’s sake!--It is you who are my wife, Evelyn.”

“If I am, it is not to sweep her influence away, but to help it. Have
mercy on her boy! Oh, James, you have been hard upon him: you are a good
man, but you have been hard upon him. Why did you expose him the other
day about that money? There might be a hundred reasons that you never
stopped to hear. James, I am in Mary’s place; and what she would have
done I am doubly bound to do. Don’t ruin her boy. Don’t, for God’s sake,
James, even if your anger is just, destroy her boy!”

He rose up and walked about the room in his way, laughing at intervals
that hard, dry, little laugh, which was his signal of distress.

“It shows what you think of me,” he said, “that you bid me not to ruin
him. What’s the meaning of that accursed bit of paper lying there? It
means that I have adopted the lie and the guilt to save him. I have said
it was all right--not for his sake--but to save an open shame.”

“Ah, James! for his sake too.”

He put his arm round her, and bent his head down upon her shoulder for a
moment. She felt his heart beating like a loud, hard piece of
machinery, thumping and labouring in his breast; and she thought she
divined the pain that was in him, forcing all his organs into such
fierce movement. And so she did, in fact; but who can altogether
understand the bitterness in another’s heart?

He sat down again after a while, and said--

“Send for him--he must answer for himself.”

“I will have to go and see to the people who are leaving, James; you
ought to come too.”

“I can’t, it is impossible.”

“Then Archie must stay to take your place. He has done very well, as
well as any boy could have done. He must back me up, and help me to see
all the people away.”

Rowland made a gesture of disgust at the people, the music, the gaiety,
the whole brilliant, delightful entertainment which he had devised so
splendidly, and only an hour or two ago enjoyed so intensely. He could
not bear the thought, much less the sight of it now. He remained alone
while Evelyn went back to go through the final proceedings--to shake
hands with the guests, and receive their acknowledgments. He sat and
listened to the music and the sound of the feet keeping time, and the
driving up of the carriages outside, and the commotions of the
departure. Twice in his impatience, as the reader has seen, he rang for
the butler, who was dispensing hospitality on a scale little inferior to
that of his master, and who was much annoyed to be disturbed. Saunders
took one message after another to Archie, as has been seen, without
very much effect. The butler’s feelings were all with the young man. He
too was of opinion, from his master’s aspect and a something in the air
which the inferior members of a household are quick to perceive, that
there was “a wigging” in store for Archie; and everybody in the
servants’ hall instinctively took Archie’s side, and agreed with
Saunders that to keep out of the governor’s way as long as he could, was
very natural on the part of the young man. Several of them wondered
whether the man in the topcoat, who had supper punctually served to him
in the dining-room, was the man who had made the row, an opinion to
which Mr. Saunders himself privately inclined. But the opinion of these
functionaries did not reach to Mr. Rowland in his library. He sat and
listened to all the voices and counted the carriages as they rolled
away. There could be but few remaining when he sent the last message to
Archie. But when Saunders went out of the library with his errand, he
met Mrs. Rowland coming in. She had stolen away from Miss Eliza and her
vigorous group of dancers. Evelyn’s heart was sick too, in dismal
expectation of the interview to come. She knew beforehand how it would
be. Rowland would dash the accusation in his son’s face, taking
everything for granted, while Archie would either retire in sullen
offence, or deny violently with as little reason or moderation as his
father. They would meet like the clash of angry waves, neither making
the smallest impression on the other; and then they would drift afloat
with what she felt to be an irremediable wrong between them, something
far more grave than had ever appeared on the stormy horizon before. And
what could Evelyn do, she who would so fain have taken all the trouble
upon her shoulders, and saved them both? Oh no, there was no such luck
in store for her! She could not save her husband from committing himself
to a great accusation, or Archie from violent rebellion and denial. If
he took it too calmly, Evelyn felt that even her own faith in him would
fail, and if he were violent, it would make the breach with his father
all the greater. She went and stood by her husband’s side, putting her
hand upon his arm as he sat at the table with the shade of the lamp
raised, and the light full upon his angry face, waiting till his son
should come.

And Archie came in so unconscious, almost self-satisfied, expecting a
little approbation, and to find that his exertions had been appreciated!
There was a half smile on his mouth which changed the expression of a
face so often lowering and heavy with anticipation of evil. He feared no
evil this night. His eyes were limpid and blue, without a cloud, though
with a faint mist of boyish drowsiness in them just coming over the
brightness of excitement. He was excited still, but a little sleepy, the
call upon him being almost over: and it was nearly four o’clock in the
morning, a sufficient reason for fatigue. “Did you want me, father?” he
said, in his fresh, boyish voice. Evelyn stood by her husband’s side,
holding his arm with a firm significant pressure. She gave one look at
the lad who stood there, with his half smile, fearing no one, and then,
with a sick heart, turned her face away.

“Yes, sir, I wanted you. I have been waiting for you here for hours,”
Rowland said.

Archie was startled by this unexpected tone. The smile went away from
his mouth. His eyes woke up from that mist of coming slumber and looked
a little anxious, a little wondering, ready to be defiant, in his
father’s face.

Rowland took up the piece of paper that lay on the table in the fierce
white light of the lamp. Archie had clearly perceived it was a cheque,
but what it could be for he did not imagine. His father took it up, and
once more flung it at him as he had done so often. “Look at that,” in a
voice of thunder, “and tell me what it means!” he cried.




CHAPTER XXXV.


“What is the meaning of it?” said Archie. He was so tired and pleased
and sleepy, that he did not even now feel sure that anything was wrong.
A faint idea struck his mind that his father, though he did not look
amiable, might yet be making him another present, as he had done before.
He caught it this time as it whirled towards him, and looked at it
puzzled, but without any alarm. “It is a cheque,” he said, looking up
from it, with again that vague, slumbrous smile creeping about the
corners of his mouth.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“What should I say?” asked the young man. “Is it--another present you
are making me?--but it’s a great sum,” he added, waking up more and
more; “it can’t be that.”

He was so simple as he stood, almost so childish, taking the awful
missive, of the nature of which he had no understanding, which meant
ruin, shame, everything that was dreadful, into his hand so innocently,
that there came from the breast of the spectator standing by--the only
being whom the boy feared--a suppressed but irrestrainable groan of
emotion. Yet Evelyn felt that to her husband his son’s ignorance meant
nothing but acting, a consummate deceit, got up beforehand, the result
of guilty expectation, not of innocent ignorance.

“Mind, how you drive me wild!” Rowland said hoarsely. “I give you yet a
place of repentance. For your mother’s sake, and for my wife’s sake, who
is not your mother--own to it like a man even now--and I’ll forgive you
yet.”

Archie’s unconsciousness was almost foolish, as he stood there with the
thing in his hand. Evelyn, trembling from head to foot in her own
impatience and anxiety, could scarcely bear it. “Oh speak, speak!” she
cried under her breath.

“Own to what?” the boy said. “A place of repentance--for what?” His
consternation and amazement were clear enough; only to his father they
seemed the deepest deceit.

“Down upon your knees!” he cried, springing to his feet. “Do you know
what that means?--not mere cheating of your father, which perhaps was
all you thought of; it means the ruin of your whole life; it means
penal servitude--a little while ago it meant death. Go down on your
knees and ask my pardon. I will never trust you again, nor will I ever
have a happy moment, knowing what you are; but I will forgive you, as
far as the world is concerned, and hide your shame.”

Evelyn, whom her husband had thrown off in his hurried movement, stood
wringing her hands, her tears dropping upon them, her countenance
convulsed with terror and pity. “Oh speak to him, Archie, tell him, tell
him!” she said.

Then the poor young fellow came fully to life, though even now he did
not quite understand what it was he was accused of. “I don’t know what
you mean,” he said; “for there is nothing in the world that can mean
penal servitude to me. You are mad, I think, father. I have done nothing
to ruin my life--Me! what could I have done--what has been in my power?
If I were as bad in nature as you think me--what, what has been in my
power?”

“Archie,” said Rowland, recovering his composure by a great effort; “I
want no useless talk. Let’s understand all that as said. Self-defence is
out of the question. If you will tell me as humbly as you can what led
you to such a crime as forgery, perhaps--God forgive you, I’ll try to
think the best--thinking less of it because it was your father----”

“Forgery!” cried Archie with a great shout, as if to earth and heaven.

“You need not proclaim your shame and mine--Forgery. What is the money
to me? I would rather than ten thousand pounds, than all I have in the
world, that you had come to me and told me--oh, any story you
pleased--if it were gambling, if it were some wretched woman--whatever
it was. Man,” cried the father in his anguish, “you are my only son. It
was my fault, perhaps, that I was disappointed in you. But if you had
come to me and said, ‘I have been a fool, I have need of a thousand
pounds to clear me of my folly,’--do you think I would have refused? I
might have been angry then--not knowing what was in store--but if I know
myself, I would not have been hard upon you. I would have thought you
were but young--I would have felt you were like your mother. God forgive
you, boy, you’re like your mother there where you stand, a felon, a
criminal, subject to the law. And my only son, my only son!”

He turned away with a loud sob, that came from his heart like the report
of a pistol, and throwing himself in his chair, covered his face with
his hands.

“A felon and a criminal,” said Archie, in his turn half mad with
passion, and having made a dozen efforts to break in. “Oh, I knew you
hated me; but I never thought it would go so far.---- Me a felon--me
subject to the law! It’s just a damned cursed lie!” cried the boy, tears
of rage in his eyes. “Ay! I never swore in my life, but I’ll swear now.
It’s a damned lie! It’s a cursed lie! Oh, publish it to the whole world,
if you like; what do I care? it’s all over between you and me. You may
call me your son if you like, but no more will I call you father. Oh,
get a trumpet and tell it all over the world, and see if one will
believe you that ever knew Archie Rowland. Shame!” cried the lad;
“father! do you not think shame to say it? do you not think shame?”

The innocent face was gone--the look, that almost seemed like imbecility
in its unawakened ignorance. His features were distorted and quivering
with fury, his eyes full of great hot tears of pain, which splashed upon
that paper in his hand in round circles, making the boy’s passion wilder
still with the shame that he had been made to cry like a girl! But these
fierce drops were not the easy tears of a child. He flung the cheque
upon the table with a laugh that was more painful still.

“Put it up in a frame,” he said, “in your hall, or in the bank, or where
folk can see it best; and write on it, ‘Forged by Archie Rowland.’ And
send your policeman out to take me, and bring me to trial, and get me
condemned. You’re a rich, rich man, and maybe you will be able to do it:
for there’s nobody will believe that you invented all that to ruin your
son, your only son. Oh, what grand words to say! Or maybe it was _her_
invention!” cried Archie, as a movement caught his ear, which drew his
wild eyes to Evelyn. He stood staring at her for a moment in silence.
“It would not be so unnatural if it were her invention,” he said.

There was a moment of awful silence--for great though the passion was in
Rowland’s accusation, the fury of the unjustly accused was greater. It
was a storm against which no lesser sentiment could stand. The slight
untrained figure of the lad rose to strange might and force, no
softness in it or pliancy. He stood fiercely at bay, like a wild animal,
panting for breath. And the father made no reply. He sat staring,
silenced by the response, which was a kind of fiercer echo of his own
passion.

“You have nothing to say, it appears,” said Archie, with quick
breathing, “and I will say nothing. I will go to the place I was brought
up in. I will not run away. And then ye can send your warrant, or
whatever you call it, to arrest me. I will bide the worst you can do.
Not a step will I move till you send to take me. You will find me there
night or day. Good-bye to ye,” he said abruptly. A momentary wavering,
so slight that it was scarcely perceptible, moved him, one of those
instantaneous impulses which sometimes change the whole character of
life--a temptation he thought it--to cry “father! father,” to appeal
against this unimaginable wrong. But he crushed it on the threshold of
his mind, and turned to the door.

“Archie!” cried Evelyn in despair, rushing after him. “Archie! I believe
every word you say.”

He took no notice of her, nor of the hand with which she grasped his
sleeve, but pausing, looked round for a moment at his father, then he
flung open the door: disdaining even to close it after him, and walked
quickly away.

“James!--for God’s sake go after him, stop him. James! James! for the
love of God----”

“Ye mean the devil!” said Rowland, quickly, “that put all that into his
head.”

He rose up and took the cheque from the table, but, perceiving the
stain of the tear, threw it down again, as if it had stung him. There
are some things that flesh and blood cannot bear, and the great blot of
moisture upon that guilty paper was one of them. It all but unmanned
this angry father. “Put that thing away, lock it up, put it out of my
sight,” he said, with a quivering in his throat.

He had no doubt of his son’s guilt. He had known other cases in which a
fury of injured innocence had been the best way of meeting an
accusation. And yet there was something in Archie’s passion which, while
it roused his own, penetrated him with another strange contradictory
feeling--was it almost approval, of the bearing of the boy? But not on
so slight an argument as that was he shaken in his foregone conclusion.
He walked up and down the room, curiously made into a sort of public,
comfortless, unprotected place by the flinging open of the door, and
presently began to speak, flinging broken sentences from him. The hall,
with its decorations, the waxed and shining floor, with a broken flower,
a fallen card, a scrap of ribbon, dropped upon it here and there, that
air of the banquet hall deserted which is always so suggestive, formed
the background to his moving figure. And even Evelyn, in her absorption
in the wild tragic excitement of this domestic drama, did not think of
the stealthy servants moving about, and the eager ears so intent upon
picking up some indication of what the trouble might be.

“He knows very well,” said Rowland. “Oh, he knows very well that I will
never have him arrested or do anything to disgrace my own name. It’s
cheap, cheap all that bravado about waiting till I send to take him; he
might wait till doomsday, as he well knows. Hold your tongue, Evelyn.
It’s well your part to defend him, when he had the grace to say it was
your invention.”

“Poor boy, poor boy! he did not know what he was saying.”

“Are you so sure of that? He knew what he was saying, every word. He’s a
bold hand--it’s a superior way when the artist can do it--I’ve seen the
thing before. Injured pride, and virtue--oh, virtue rampant! That never
had a thought, nor could understand what wickedness meant. I have seen
it before. And cheap, cheap all yon about waiting till I sent the
policeman, when he knows I would not expose my name, not for more than
he’s worth a thousand times over. Worth! he’s worth nothing; and my
name, my name that is known over two continents--and more! That’s what
you would call irony, isn’t it?” said Rowland, with his harsh laugh.
“Irony! I’m not a man of much reading, but I’ve seen it in books.
Irony!--a name known over half the world; though, perhaps, I shouldn’t
be the man to say it. And forged! forged by the man’s own son that made
it.”

“James, for God’s sake! It was not Archie. I believe every word he
said.”

“That the whole thing was your invention?” said Rowland. “That’s what he
said; the rest was rubbish, I remember that. And you believe every word?
You are a fool, like most women--and many men too. That old sage, as ye
call him, was right, though people cry out. Mostly fools! It was said
before him though. Men walk in a vain show, and disquiet themselves in
vain. They lay up riches, and know not who is to gather them. Was there
ever such a fool as me to keep thinking of my boy, my little callant, as
I thought, and never once to remember that he was growing up into a
low-lived lout all the time.”

“Archie is not so,” said Evelyn. “He is not so; his faults are on the
outside. He did not do this. I never believed he did it. James, you will
never have been a fool till now if you let the boy go.”

“Bah! he has no intention of going. You take the like of that in
earnest. He will go to his bed and sleep it off, and then--to-morrow’s a
new day. I am dead-tired myself,” said Rowland, stretching his arms; “as
tired as a dog. I’ll sleep till one, though I’ve had enough to murder
sleep. No, no, he’ll not go; yon’s all cheap, cheap, because he knows I
will do nothing against him. You are a fine creature, Evelyn, but you
are no wiser than the rest. Good-night, my dear, I am going to bed.”

“Without a word of comfort to him, James?”

“Comfort! he wants no comfort. And if he did,” said Rowland, with a
smile of misery, “it would be hard to come to me for it, who have none
to give. If you know anybody that has that commodity to part with, send
them to that boy’s father,--send them to the man that has had the heart
taken out of him. I am going to my bed.”

He went slowly upstairs, and then, for the first time, Evelyn saw the
butler, Saunders, within hearing, though busily employed, with one or
two subordinates, in putting out the lights and closing the shutters.
She watched her husband, with his slow, unelastic step, going one by one
up the long flight of steps. He had never learned to subdue his
energetic step, and take them less than two together before. She was
almost glad to see those signs of exhaustion. The fervour of his passion
had dropped. He would, perhaps, turn aside, she thought, to Archie’s
room, and would understand his son, and the two might meet heart to
heart at last.

Evelyn waited a long time, shivering and chill in those dismal hours of
the morning. She saw the servants conclude their work and go away
unwillingly to their rest. She sat down in the library, with the room
open to the dark, desolated hall, in which only a faint light was left
burning, and listened to all the creakings and rustlings that seemed to
run through the still and sleeping house. No one came. Had his father,
after all, gone to his door and made peace? Had the tired boy fallen
asleep in spite of himself? Had it all been vapouring, as James said?
She waited in her ball dress, with a rough woollen shawl, the first she
could find, wrapped about her; and the lamp, burning with a steady,
monotonous light, throwing a lengthened gleam upon the dark curtains of
the glass door.

It had all been almost as she thought. Rowland had paused, his feet had
almost carried him, his heart, yearning, had almost forced him to
Archie’s room to make a last appeal, perhaps to listen, perhaps to
understand. But he would not allow himself to be moved by impulse, and
turned heavily in the other direction to his own room, where he fell, as
he had prophesied, heavily asleep. And Archie, tired beyond description,
his very passion unable to resist the creeping languor in his brain, had
almost gone to sleep too, leaning his head against the bed, in the
attitude in which he had thrown himself down in order that he might try
to understand this new mystery. But in this he was not successful, for
after a minute or two, the sound of the heavy step, which was his
father’s, startled him, and he became more wide awake than ever,
listening with a beating heart, wondering would he come. He heard the
pause, and wondered more and more. When Rowland took the other
direction, Archie sprang to his feet and began hurriedly to change his
dress. It took him a considerable time to do this for his fingers were
trembling, and his whole being shaken. He had to pull everything out of
his drawers to find the old shabby coat which he had worn when he first
came to Rosmore. The room looked as if it had been scattered in scorn or
frenzy with everything he possessed. But that was not Archie’s meaning.
He got his old suit at last, and put it on, tossing his evening clothes
into a corner. He took off the watch his father had given him, and
denuded himself of everything that had come to him since Rowland
returned home. Poor Archie, his humiliation was complete. The old
clothes seemed to bring back the old mien, and it was the lad of the
Sauchiehall road, and not the young gentleman of Rosmore, who, seeing
that the lights were out and all the house silent, stepped out of the
chaos of his desolated bedchamber and took his way downstairs.

There was a jar upon the great staircase, the sound thrilling through
the silence, of a slip upon some hardened plank, and Evelyn awoke with a
start from a troubled doze. She drew her shawl close round her, for it
was very cold, the coldest moment of the night just before dawn. She had
drawn the curtain half over the library door, that the light might not
betray her, and it was only by the dim rays of the night lamp in the
hall that she could distinguish the dark figure going softly towards the
door. He had his hand upon it when she stole out quietly and caught his
arm in her hands.

“Archie! where are you going? You are not going out at this hour of the
night?”

“Is it you, Mrs. Rowland?” he said with a start. “If I had known that
anybody was up, I should not have come this way.”

“Thank God you did not know. Archie, where are you going out of your
father’s house?”

“My father’s house!” he said with a faint laugh. “But why go over it
again? you were there and you heard the whole.”

“And you heard me?”

“You! I was not thinking of you,” he said with a contempt which was
purely matter of fact and natural, meaning no offence.

“Nevertheless you heard what I said.”

He paused a little and then said, “Yes, I suppose I did. I remember
something, but what does all that matter now?”

“It matters having a friend always at hand, to note everything. Oh my
boy, don’t go. Stay and work it out--stay and prove who has done it.
Archie, take my advice.”

“Why should I, Mrs. Rowland? I have always thought you were my enemy.”

“Very falsely, very falsely!” she cried. “Archie, I promised to your
mother I would do all to you that a woman who was not your mother could
do.”

“You promised to my mother! What do you know about my mother? It is
getting late and I should be on the road: let me go.”

She was holding his arm with both her hands. And she was not his enemy.
His heart was charged with wrath, and grievious against her, but he
would not think she was his enemy any more--and his mother--the name
startled him, and there was something in the close contact with this
beautiful lady and the pressure of her hands, that gave Archie a
bewildered new sensation in the midst of his rage and misery. The very
sense of her superiority--that superiority that had been so humiliating,
so sore a subject, and her beauty which he had never appreciated, but
which somehow came in to amaze yet touch him, as with the deep curves
round her anxious eyes, pale with watching and trouble, she held him and
kept him back on the threshold of the friendless world, all evident in
the surprise which penetrated through Archie’s wretchedness. Was it a
promise of something better at the bottom of the deepest wrong of them
all?

“I don’t know what you mean--about my mother--” he said.

“I promised her,” said Evelyn, the tears dropping from her eyes, “when I
first caught sight of this house, which should have been hers,--I
promised her, that you should be cared for, as if she were here.”

“What was that?” he said, “something touched me--what was that? Who is
it? Is there some one playing tricks here?”

He worked himself out of her grasp, turning to the other side, where
there was no one nor anything to be seen. It was the darkest hour of the
night, and the coldest and most dreary, though indeed, it was already
morning, and in many a humble house about the inhabitants were already
awake and stirring. But there was a stillness in the deserted hall, as
if some one had died there, and all the revellers had fled from the
deserted place. He searched about the side of the hall, peering and
groping in the feeble miserable light, but came back to where Evelyn
stood, coming close to her, shivering, with a scared and blanched face.

“Somebody touched me, on my shoulder,” he said in a very low voice.

“You have had no sleep. Your nerves are excited. Go back, go back, my
poor boy, to your bed and sleep.”

“No, never when that has been said against me--never--if there was not
another house in the world.”

“Archie, my dear, we must keep our sense and our heads clear. Whoever
has done it, must know and be on the watch to escape, and you must see
that you must be cleared: it must be made quite plain as the light of
day.”

“I will never be cleared,” he said shaking his head. “My father will
never say that he was wrong, and how should I find out? I am not clever
to be a detective. There are things that are never found out. No,
there’s no light of day for me. Aunt Jane will take me in, and I will go
to the foundry and work, as he did. But I will never be the man he was,”
the boy said with a sort of forlorn pride in the father who had thrown
him off. “Mark you, I think maybe you are good as well as bonnie, and
far better than the like of us. If I had known sooner, it might have
been different. Let me go.”

“Oh boy, boy! you must be cleared, and you won’t stay and do it,” she
cried, grasping his arm again.

He unloosed her hands with a certain roughness yet tenderness. “Let me
go,” he said. “I will go, there is nobody on earth that can stop me.” He
undid the iron bar that held the door with fierce haste, paying no
attention to her pleadings, and flung the big door open, letting in the
chill morning air, which sped like a messenger unseen swiftly through
the hall and up the stairs, and driving Mrs. Rowland back with a chill
that went to her heart.

Archie stepped out into the dark world. Over the mouth of the loch where
the current of the great river swept its waters in, there was a faint
trembling of whiteness, which meant a new day. He did not feel the cold
or any shock from it, but instead of hurrying forth as might have been
looked for, lingered, standing outside a moment, with his face turned
towards that lightness in the east. Evelyn wrapped her shawl more
closely round her and followed him, standing upon the step of the door
to make a last effort. But he paid no attention to what she said. He
stood lingering on the gravel absorbed in his own thoughts. Then he came
up to her again close, as if he had for the first time remarked her
presence. “Do you think,” he said, “it could be _her_, to give me
heart?” and then without waiting for a reply, he turned away.

Cold and startled and shivering, Evelyn watched his retiring figure till
it was lost in the darkness, and then closed the door, with a heart that
was fluttering and sick in her breast. He had said many strange
things--things which almost made it possible that he was not so innocent
as she thought, and yet he was innocent, he must be innocent! She
crossed the dark hall with a tremor in her weariness and exhaustion. It
needed not the darkness to veil an ethereal spirit. Had Mary been there?




CHAPTER XXXVI.


Not a word was said of Archie in the house of Rosmore until the tired
and still sleepy party assembled to breakfast. Evelyn, who had not
closed her eyes till daylight, had slept late, and had not been
disturbed; and her husband had no opportunity of questioning her, had
he been disposed, until they met at the breakfast-table. The rest of the
party were all assembled when she came in--Rowland himself invisible
behind his newspaper, and taking no notice, while the others were
talking as gaily as usual, without any sign of being moved by any
knowledge of a catastrophe. Eddy Saumarez indeed had dark lines under
his eyes, but his talk was endless as ever. He gave Mrs. Rowland a quick
and keen look of investigation as she came in, but Eddy was the last
person in her thoughts, and she did not even observe the glance. The
conversation, in due course of the table, ran on without much
interruption from the strangers, who dropped in one by one, and to whom
the mistress of the house gave all her care.

“Archie was magnificent with Lady Jean,” said Eddy. “I never saw
anything so good as his bow. He put his feet together like a French
dandy of the last century. We’ve lost the art in our degenerate days.”

“Oh,” said Marion, “that was nothing wonderful, for it was a Frenchman
that we got our dancing from, Archie and me. He used to play a little
fiddle and caper about. Some people thought he was old-fashioned--the
MacColls--but they were just as ignorant! He taught me that way of doing
my steps, you know”--And Marion sprang up, lifting a fold of her dress
to exhibit a neat foot pointed in a manner which presumably her former
partner had admired.

“Oh yes, I know--you danced young Cameron’s heart away. As for mine, it
is well known I have got none. But did you see him in the reel? By
Jove, he sprang a foot from the floor.”

“Who is him?” said Rosamond--“Mr. Rowland or Mr. Cameron--you might make
your descriptions more clear.”

“Oh Archie! No. He wanted lightness perhaps a little in the waltzes, but
the reels he performed like one to the manner born.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Marion, “that he was more born to one than to
the other. We’ve danced very few reels, if that is what you mean.
Waltzes and polkas, and so forth, is what we were learned to dance--just
like other people. But it is true that Archie was never so good at it
as--”

Marion paused with a feeling of her stepmother’s eyes upon her, though
indeed Mrs. Rowland was far too much occupied by the other guests, even
had her mind been less troubled, to have any perception of the chatter
going on at her side.

“It is savage,” said Rosamond, “but it has a kind of sense in it;
whereas going round and round is delirious, but it has none. One enjoys
dancing very much, but one is rather ashamed of it after it is over. Why
should one spend hours doing nothing but go round and round? When you
look on and don’t dance, it is silly beyond anything in the world.”

“I dare say the wall flowers think so,” said Eddy. “But they would not
if they could get partners.”

“That is the worst of it,” said Rosamond reflectively. “Probably they
are far the nicest people in the room. I thought last night we were all
like the little figures on the barrel-organ that used to play under our
nursery windows, going round and round till it made one giddy to see
them. And to think that people with other things in their minds should
go like that a whole evening; and all the trouble that was taken to
prepare for them, and all the trouble to make things rational again, and
only know perhaps in the midst of all the nonsense--”

“What--in the midst of all the nonsense, Miss Saumarez?” said Mr.
Rowland, suddenly laying down his paper, which had much the effect of a
gun suddenly fired into the midst of them, for it was very rarely that
he interfered in the conversation of the young members of the party. His
face, which always had a weatherbeaten tone, was flushed and redder than
usual, which is the unattractive way in which some middle-aged people
show their trouble, instead of the more interesting method of young
folk.

“Oh nothing,” said Rosamond a little startled, and answering like any
shy girl suddenly finding herself called to book. She recovered her
courage, however, and continued: “I mean it looks silly to see everybody
twirling and twirling as if they had nothing to do or think of, when
they must have things to think of, even in the midst of a ball.”

Rowland threw down his paper and rose from his seat. “You are about
right, however you came about your knowledge,” he said, and walking to
the window stood with his large back turned towards them, staring out
and seeing nothing; indeed, as the windows of the dining-room looked
only into the shrubberies, there was nothing but trees and bushes to
see.

“It is not the fashion,” said Eddy, “to wear your heart on your sleeve,
thank heaven. And society’s the best of discipline in that way. When a
man’s hit, he must blubber out loud before the crowd like a child; I am
always at my funniest when I’m hardest hit--and as for the Governor,
Rose, you know when he’s bad by the way he laughs at everything. By the
way,” cried Eddy, “what’s become of Rowland, the lazy beggar? doesn’t he
mean to come downstairs to-day?”

“Archie was always lazy in the morning,” said Marion, “we never could
get him up.”

“Young Mr. Rowland should have a long allowance,” said a lady who had
been absorbed in her letters, “for he had double work last night. He was
ubiquitous, finding partners, finding places, doing everything. You
should have heard Lady Jean. He fairly won her heart.”

“And mine too,” cried Lady Marchbanks from the other end of the table,
who was known to copy Lady Jean faithfully in all her strongly expressed
opinions.

“That would show, according to Saumarez,” said a young man laughing,
“that to show himself so lively, he must have had something on his
mind.”

Rowland turned round from the window at which he stood, and gave a keen
look at the careless young speaker who had just appeared, then returned
to his contemplation of the somewhat gloomy landscape without.

“Are you studying the weather, James?” said Evelyn from her place at the
head of the table.

“That’s not a subject that repays contemplation in this country, Mrs.
Rowland,” said Sir John Marchbanks with his mouth full.

“It wants variety, it’s always raining: the glass may say what it likes,
but you’re sure of that.”

“The glass,” said another gentleman, strolling towards the window to
join the laird, “has little effect in this district. But just for the
fun of the thing, Rowland, what does it say?”

James Rowland was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, but
neither had he that super-admirable discipline of society which rouses
the spirits to special force in order to conceal a calamity. He turned
round upon the inquirer somewhat sharply: “The fun of the thing? I see
no fun in the thing. Corn still out on those high-lying fields, and
frost in the air, and the glass falling: it’s not funny to me.”

Nothing was funny to him at that moment, to look at his flushed and
clouded face. He had held himself in for some time, but the tension was
unbearable. Was Archie coming, and all as usual? was he sulking in his
room? was he--terrible question--gone; gone for ever out of his father’s
house? His trouble took, as in so many middle-aged minds, the form of
acute irritation. And yet he did his best to restrain himself.

“Oh, that’s true,” said the other, somewhat disconcerted. “Perhaps we
don’t think enough of the poor bodies’ bit fields. But they should learn
better than to put corn there. You will find no decent farmer doing
that.”

“Corn’s but a delusion at the best, in these days,” said a country
gentleman with a sigh.

“But if we are going out to take you your luncheons to the hill,” cried
the pretty Miss Marchbanks, “we must be sure of the weather. Oh, I am
not going out upon the hill if it rains, to go over my ankles in every
bog.”

Rowland had turned from the window and was looking round the table with
a faint hope of finding his son there. He had tried to smooth out his
troubled countenance, and at this speech he contrived to smile. “I will
go and consult the big glass in the hall for your satisfaction, Miss
Marchbanks,” he said.

“Oh, do, do! how kind you are! and we’ll all come too,” cried the girl.
But he did not wait for this undesirable result. What a relief it was to
escape, to get beyond reach of all those inquisitive looks, to reach the
shelter of the room which no one invaded. He hid himself behind the
heavy curtains and the closed door, only in time to escape the invasion
of the light-hearted company, whose voices and footsteps he could hear
coming after him. He had purposely refrained from asking any questions
about Archie, not willing to betray his uneasiness to the servants. His
wife had remained long downstairs after him, but even with her, who knew
everything, he was reluctant to ask any questions; and she had been
asleep when he was roused by the movement in the house to the shining of
a new day. He knew nothing--nothing from the time when, with angry
despair, he had gone upstairs and wavered for a moment at Archie’s door.
All he had wanted then was to pour out upon the boy the bitterness of
his heart. But now the snatches of broken sleep which had come to him
refreshing him against his will, and the enforced quiet of the night,
and the new beginning of the day, had worked their natural effect. A
longing came into his mind to dream it all over again, to see if perhaps
there might be any fact to support the boy’s vehement and impassioned
denial. No, no, he said to himself, there could be no proof--none! Some
disgraceful secret must lie beneath. It was not in Archie’s nature
(which was kind enough--the fool had a good heart and faithful enough to
his friends) to have refused to help his old comrade without some
reason. Perhaps, Rowland thought, this was to do that--the fool! he had
no sense about money. It might have been for this purpose--a good
purpose; a thing he had himself taunted him for not doing. The
perspiration came out in great beads on his brow--a cold dew of pain.
Could it be for this that he had made himself a criminal? or had he not
done it at all? But that was impossible. Who else could have done it? It
would be easy for him whose own handwriting resembled his father’s,
whose appearance with so large a cheque would have occasioned no
suspicion. It had been a little pleasure to Rowland, and warmed his
heart with a sensation of the mysterious bond of nature, to find that,
though he had nothing to do with his son’s education, Archie’s
handwriting had resembled his. And now the recollection struck him like
a sharp blow. And then the son--who could wonder that he came with so
large a cheque? But no, it was not he that had cashed the cheque, for it
had been wondered over, and young Farquhar--confound young Farquhar!--no
doubt some shady puppy doing well, good as they always are these
fellows to contrast with---- He had thrown himself into his chair, but
now he got up again and walked about the room. That the bank people
should be so anxious to cover young Farquhar at the cost of Archie--It
was not that; he knew there was something wanted to complete the logic
of that, but it came to the same thing. To transfix his own heart with
ten thousand wounds, to ruin the boy--for what was it but ruin to the
boy, whatever came of it, not a trick and frolic as the young fool
pretended to think, but ruin, ruin, all the same--for the sake of young
Farquhar, to save a little delay in his advancement! Good Lord! how
disproportioned things were in this life!

He was standing by the fire, idly looking at the calendar on his
mantelpiece, which marked the date 25th of October, a date he never
forgot, when the door was cautiously opened and Saunders, the butler,
came in, closing it again carefully after him. There was something in
the man’s eyes which already told half his tale.

    “Lo, this man’s face, like to a title leaf,
     Foretells the nature of the tragic volume.”

Rowland did not probably know these lines or anything like them, but he
watched Saunders’ approach with the same feeling. The butler came quite
up to him and spoke in a low voice, as if he were afraid of being heard.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said; “I thought I had better let you know;
Mr. Archibald, sir,--I’m thinking he has been called away suddenly.”

“What?” cried Rowland, holding by the marble of the chimney piece, and
feeling as if a touch would bring him down.

“Mr. Archibald, sir--I’m thinking he must have had some sudden call. His
room is lying in great disorder, and his bed has not been slept in this
night.”

He held by the marble of the chimney-piece for a full minute before he
came to himself; and then his lips hanging a little loose, his voice a
little thick--“Do you mean that my son--is not in the house?”

“He’s had some sudden call,” said the man, with instinctive endeavours
to lessen the shock. “He’s left no message. And there’s the gentlemen
all intent upon the shooting, and the ladies to go with their
luncheon----”

Rowland paused for another minute before he spoke. Then he said, “Mr.
Archie had to start very early for Glasgow on business. It was only
settled last night--something about that messenger, you remember,
Saunders, that came into the middle of the ball and looked so
frightened.” His voice became easier as it went on, and he laughed at
this recollection. “As I could not go myself, I sent my son. He may be
detained a day or two. Just go to Mr. Saumarez and ask him, with my
compliments, if he would take Mr. Archie’s place. Is Roderick ready?”

“Oh, yes, sir; quite ready and waiting. It’s a thought late: all the
gentlemen have been a little late this morning.”

“What can you expect, Saunders, after a ball? You can tell Mrs. Rowland
I would like to see her as soon as she has a moment to spare.”

It was so then; without remedy. Archie had gone--gone--not fled; that
could never be said of him; gone to wait for the police coming to arrest
him for forgery, as if that would ever be. God! his boy--Mary’s boy--the
only son; whom the ladies had been praising so for his conduct last
night; whom Lady Jean, they said--Lady Jean who was so ill to please,
who was not an easy person--and he was gone. Rowland felt his heart in
his breast as heavy as a stone. It had been beating very irregularly,
sometimes loudly, sometimes quieted down for a moment, now it seemed to
stop and lie heavy, like a stone. He waited till he heard the ladies’
voices die away, the men come out to the door where Roderick was
awaiting them, and saw the start from his window, himself unseen,
feeling a kind of contempt in his misery for the men who are so easily
amused. Old men, too: Sir John, as old as himself, so easily amused! but
then, perhaps, there was no son in this case to make his father’s life a
burden to him. “Has he daughters?” old Lear said, as if a man had no
right to be mad who had not. As for Sir John, tramping along in his
knickerbockers, an older man than Rowland, he had no son; and yet the
father, unhappy, felt a sort of contempt for him so easily amused, while
others were too sick at heart to bear the light. He went out of his room
when the coast was clear, and went to Archie’s room, which lay in the
disorder it had been found in by the servant who went to call him in the
morning: the drawers all open, the things thrown about. Nothing could
be more dismal than the aspect of the room in this abandonment. It is
terrible at all times to enter the empty room of any one whom we love,
especially when its owner is sick or in trouble. The unused bed cold, as
if it were never to be employed more; the air of vacancy; the emptiness
and silence, have an effect of suggestion more overwhelming than any
simple fact. And Archie’s room was not only empty, it was abandoned. His
father turned over the things upon the table in the miserable
preoccupation of his mind, not knowing what he did, and then lifted a
handful of papers, including Archie’s cheque-book, which was lying
there. How careless of Archie, he said, mechanically, as he carried them
away. There was no real intention of carrying them away. He had not,
indeed, thought on the subject at all, but took them up almost unawares.

Evelyn put her hand within his arm as he crossed the hall to his room,
and accompanied him there. She told him that Archie had gone, but in
what temper and disposition, softened, as she thought and hoped, and he
listened with his head bent down, saying nothing. He was angry, yet he
was soothed that she should be on Archie’s side. “You take his part
against your husband,” he said roughly, but he loved her better for it
than if she had taken his part against his son. There are artifices of
the heart which it is well to know. And he sat heavily thinking for some
time after she had ended her tale. Then he said abruptly, “I gave you
yon cheque to keep. Give it me back, please.”

Evelyn opened the drawer of a little ornamental escritoire, in which she
had locked that fatal paper, and gave it to her husband. Rowland was a
strong man, and he was not emotional, but the sight of the two round
marks which were on the paper with broken edges, when the tears had
pleaded unawares with their weight of saltness and bitterness the rage
and horror of the boy accused, was more than he could bear. He put it
down hastily on the table, and for a moment covered his face with his
hands. Those tears which anguish and shame had forced from his boy’s
eyes--who could have seen them unmoved? There was a relenting, a
melting, a thawing of horrible ice about his heart. “If he was guilty,”
he said, in a faltering voice. “Evelyn, if he was guilty, do you
think----”

She went and stood behind him, drawing his head against her breast. “You
could but forgive him,” she said, very low; “at the worst--at the
worst.”

“Come,” he said, after that moment of emotion; “it is just a question of
business after all. _This_ was never taken from any book of mine. You
see the difference--.” He opened a drawer and drew out his cheque-book,
pointing to her the numbers. The cheque was numbered in much more
advanced numerals than Mr. Rowland’s book. “That’s nothing in itself,”
he added, “for I might have borrowed a cheque from some one, or got it
at the bank, if I had been wanting for money then. I might have got it
from--anybody that banks there. Archie--I might have got it from
Archie.” As he spoke his eye fell suddenly upon his son’s cheque-book
which he had brought from the empty room. He took it up and opened it
almost with a smile. But the first glance struck him with a strange
alarm. He gave a frightened look up at her, throwing back his head for a
moment, then began slowly to turn over the pages. What an office that
was! Evelyn stood behind, looking over his shoulder, feeling that the
moment of intolerable crisis had come.

The smile was fixed upon his face; it changed its character, and got to
be the cynical smile of a demon upon that honest face. Over and over
went the quivering long leaves of the pink cheques in his trembling
fingers, and then----

“James, James!”

He put it in the place from which it had been torn, a scrap of the
perforated line had been left on the side of the foil, and fitted with
the horrible precision of such things. He laid it there exact, rag to
rag, then gave her a triumphant glance, and broke into a fit of dry and
awful laughter, such as the trembling woman, whom he pushed away from
him, had never heard before.

“There!” he said, “there! and what do you think of that, and your brave
young hero now?”

It seemed to Evelyn as if her spirit and courage were entirely gone from
her, and she could never hold up her head again. She had recoiled when
he pushed her away, but now came tremblingly back, and looked at it as
at a death warrant. Ah! no delusion--no fancy--it was as clear as the
cold dreary daylight that poured in upon them through the great
window--as clear as that Mary’s boy, who had looked so honest, who had
faced his accuser with such rage of upright indignation, who had
approached with such an unsuspecting look of innocence, as clear as that
the boy----

“No, no, no!” she cried out. “I will not believe my senses, James! There
is something in it more than we know.”

“Ay!” he said, “Ay, I well believe that--something more than you and me
know, or perhaps could understand--though he’s but twenty. Do you hear,
Evelyn--only twenty, with plenty of time----”

“Yes,” she cried, clasping her husband’s hand, upon which her tears fell
heavily, “plenty, plenty of time, thank God, to repent.”

“To do more, and to do worse,” he said, “repent! I believe in that when
I see it--but never before. Plenty of time to drag down my honour to the
dust--to make my name a byeword--to lay my pride low. Oh, plenty of time
for that, and a good beginning.”

He took a large envelope out of one of the drawers of the table at which
he was sitting, and methodically arranging the cheque in the place from
which it had been torn, at the end of the book, placed the cheque-book
in the envelope, and fastening it up, locked it into a private drawer.

“There!” he said, “that is done with, Evelyn. We’ll say no more about
it. We’ll just disperse, my dear, you to your farm and me to my
merchandize. The incident is over. It’s ended and done with. If we can
forget it, so much the better. It’s not very long to have had the
delusion of a--a--son in the house. It’s well it has been so short a
time. Now that chapter’s closed, and there’s no more to be said.”

“James! you will not abandon the boy for the first error--the first
slip?”

“Error--slip! I would like to know what kind of a moral code you have,”
he said with a smirk. “An error would be--perhaps staying out too late
at night--perhaps forgetting himself after dinner. I would not cast him
off for a slip like that. And if he asks me for money, he shall have it,
enough to keep him. But as for the slip of a lad of twenty who signs
another man’s name to a cheque for a thousand pounds----”

“Oh, what does the sum matter?” she cried.

“The sum matters--nothing. I would have made a coat of thousand pounds,
like old Jacob in the Bible. Ay, that and more. But never mind, it’s all
passed and over, Evelyn. My dear, you have behaved through it all like
an angel. God bless you for it. Now go away and leave me to my business,
and we will never mention it again.”

“I do not consent to that, James. I will mention him many times again.”

“Then you will force me to keep out of your reach, my dear,” her husband
cried. And yet he was thankful to her for what she said, thankful to the
bottom of his heart.

Thus Archie disappeared, and the waters closed over his head--but not
silently or without commotion. The men went out to the hill and made
tolerable but not very good bags; the ladies took them their luncheon,
and there was a very merry party among the heather, but when two came
together they asked each other, “What has become of the son?” or “What
have they done with Archie?” and the incident was as far from being
ended as human incident ever was.




CHAPTER XXXVII.


If any one thinks that such events can come to pass in a house, and the
servants remain unaware of the movement and commotion, I can only say
that these persons are little acquainted either with human nature, or
the peculiar emotions and interests called forth by domestic service. As
certain members are kept in exercise by certain kinds of action, so
there are certain sets of mental and moral fibres that are moved by the
differing conditions of existence, and no one is more completely and
continuously in operation than those of interest, curiosity, and that
mixture of liking and opposition which naturally actuate one set of
human creatures towards the other set of human creatures who are
immediately over them, and control and occupy all their movements. It
gives something of the interest of a continual drama to life, to watch
the complicated play of human fate going on so near, in circumstances so
intimate that it is scarcely possible not to enter into a certain
partizanship, and take sides. Thus there were some of the servants who
were all for Mr. Archie, and had an instinctive certainty that he was
being unjustly treated and ill-used, and some who held for the master,
with a conviction that a young son was never to be trusted, and was apt
to go astray, as the sparks fly upward, by force of nature. Singularly
enough, though Mrs. Rowland was a considerate and kind mistress, good to
everybody, and taking a much greater interest in the members of her
household than either father or son, nobody took her side: partly
because she was, more or less, like themselves, a sort of spectator, not
one of the first actors in the drama; and still more because she was the
stepmother, and naturally, according to all traditions, a malignant
element doing harm to both. The items of fresh information which were
brought to the upper servants by Saunders, and which percolated through
the house by means of an observant footman, were eagerly seized by the
attendant crowd, and rapidly classified under fact or guess, according
to its kind, until the superstructure was very remarkable. Naturally,
the servants’ hall knew far better what Mr. Rowland was going to do than
he himself did, and had settled the career of Archie in every particular
before he had more than the most rudimentary idea of it himself.

It is a very poor and shabby thing to gossip with servants as to the
habits and peculiarities of their masters: nothing can be more true than
this. But it is very difficult for a lady not to hear, as she can
scarcely help hearing, the word dropt by her maid--or for a man to
arrest in time the revelation that falls from his attendant in respect
to the disturbed condition of a house. “How could there be much comfort
in the house, my lady, when there was a terrible scene in the middle of
the night, and poor Mr. Archie never in his bed at all, but gone out of
the house by break of day.” You have to be quick indeed, and very much
on your guard, to prevent the woman, as she stands behind you, from
letting loose such an expression as this before you can stop her. And
still less is a man able to check the valet who thinks it so very queer
that a gentleman should have arrived late on business, and come
scared-like into the ball-room all in his travelling things. “And they
do say, sir, that that’s why young Mr. Rowland has disappeared this
morning, though the house is full of company.” How can you restrain or
ignore these communications from the back-stairs? Consequent upon a
number of such communications was the resolution taken by everybody at
Rosmore to arrange their departure as early as possible on the second
day. All felt confused and troubled in the dreary rooms in the evening,
where there was nobody to lead the revels, and where the master of the
house scarcely took any pains to conceal the preoccupation of his mind.
Nobody could have known, except by the anxious glance she threw now and
then at her husband, by Mrs. Rowland’s bearing that anything was wrong,
and Marion was in her usual spirits, ready to do a little solid
flirtation (for the young men complained of Marion that she was far from
being light in hand) with any candidate: but Rowland gave so broken an
attention to what was going on, mingled in the conversation so abruptly,
and fell into such silences between, that it was easy to see how little
accomplished he was in the art of living, according to its highest
social sense. Whether it was that, or the hints from below stairs, which
had reached more or less every member of the party, it was certain that
it was a party very little at its ease. One or two of the bolder guests
asked directly for Archie, if he was expected home that evening, if he
was likely to be long detained by his business, etc.; the more timid did
not mention his name. “What is the best thing to do,” they asked each
other privately, “when there is trouble of that kind in a house?” Lady
Marchbanks, who was not generally supposed to be a very wise woman, here
spoke with authority out of the depths of a great experience, being a
woman with many brothers, sons, and nephews, and full of knowledge on
such points. “I always ask,” she said, “just as if I were sensible of
nothing--just as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a
young man to be suddenly called away on business, when it is well known
he has no business, and his father’s house full of guests. It’s the
kindest way,” Lady Marchbanks said, and she had occasion to know. But
they were all unanimous in finding reasons why they must depart next
morning after their delightful visit. Interesting as human complications
are to all spectators, there are few people who think it right to stay
on in manifest presence of trouble in the house.

There was one, however, who excelled himself in friendly devotion to his
hosts, and that was Eddy Saumarez, who took upon himself, only with far
greater ability than Archie could have shown, the work of the son of the
house. There was every appearance that it would have been a very dull
and embarrassing evening but for Eddy, who flung himself into the middle
of affairs like a hero. He sang, he talked, he arranged a rubber in one
corner, a game in another, of that semi-intellectual kind which is such
a blessed resource in a country-house, and has the happy effect of
making dull people think themselves clever. Eddy himself was too clever
not to be infinitely bored by such contrivances, but he forgot himself
and stood up like a hero, asking the most amusing questions and giving
the wittiest answers when it was his turn to be badgered, and keeping
the company in such a state of stimulation that even the heaviest grew
venturesome, and made themselves ridiculous with delight, for the
amusement of the rest. He even drew a smile from Rowland, who was too
restless for whist, but who came more than once within Eddy’s wilder
circle of merriment, and was cheated into a momentary forgetfulness.
When the party dispersed, having passed, instead of the dull hours they
had most of them anticipated, an unusually animated evening, Rowland
came up and laid his heavy hand on Eddy’s shoulder. The young man
started like a criminal, grew red and grew pale, and for once in his
life was so disconcerted that he had not a word to say. And yet
Rowland’s address was of the most flattering kind. “I can’t tell how
much I’m obliged to you,” his host said. “You’ve been the life of the
house since ever you came, Eddy, my man. And to-night I don’t know what
we should have done without you. My wife will tell you the same thing.
You’ve been the saving of us to-night. If ever I can serve you in
anything--Lord! I would have done that for her, on account of her
interest in you. But remember now, that on your own account, if I ever
can be of any service----”

Eddy shrank back from that touch. He would not meet Rowland’s eye. He
faltered in his answer, he that was always so ready. “I don’t deserve
that you should speak to me so,” he stammered out. “I--I’ve
done nothing, sir. All that I can ask is your forgiveness
for--for--inflicting so long a visit upon you.”

“Is that all?” said Rowland, with a laugh. “Then I hope you’ll make your
offence double, and give me twice as much to forgive you. Are you bound
for the smoking-room now?”

“Perhaps I had better go,” said Eddy, carefully watching the other’s
eyes.

“Do, my good lad. I had a disturbed night, and I’m out of the habit of
keeping late hours. I will not appear myself, if you are going--though I
dare say they will all go soon to their beds to-night.”

“Good night, sir,” said Eddy, “I hope you’ll sleep well.” There was
almost a tender tone in the youth’s voice.

“Oh, I’ll sleep well enough. I always sleep. Good night--and thank you
again, Eddy, for backing me up.”

As for Evelyn, she pressed his hand with a grateful look, and said also,
“Thank you, Eddy,” in a soft tone, which, for some reason or other,
seemed more than Eddy could bear. He almost tore his hand from hers, and
turned his back upon her as though she had insulted him, which filled
Mrs. Rowland with astonishment; but when there were so many things of
importance to think of, what did Eddy’s look matter? She was glad when
the girls too said good night, and left her alone with her husband--who,
however, was in no humour for conversation.

“I’m going to bed,” he said. “I can always sleep, thank God. Evelyn, if
you ever write to that lad’s father----”

“I never do, James.”

“Well, you might, my dear. It would have been no offence to me. I’m not
one to sin against my mercies, as if I did not know when I had got a
good woman. But you might say the lad had been a real stand-by. When you
have a son, and the like of that can be said, it’s a pity that a man
should not have the satisfaction----” He broke off with a sigh, and
walked up and down the room with his hands deeply thrust into his
pockets, and then pulled the heavy curtains aside and looked out. It was
one of the windows under the colonnade just where the view was--the view
through the trees over the triumphant Clyde, with its towns and hills
beyond. There was a faint glimmer of light in sky and water, which
showed where the opening was. Ah! this, which had been the star of his
life for so many years--to what had it turned when it was granted to his
eager desire?

“James! there is nothing to prevent you from having that
satisfaction--yet.”

He looked at her and burst into a hoarse laugh--then, as she essayed to
speak again, stamped his foot on the carpet in impatience and hurried
away.

An hour later there was a knock at Rosamond’s door in the stillness of
the early withdrawal which last night’s dissipation had made general
throughout the house. Rosamond was sitting in her dressing-gown before
her fire--thinking of many things, and particularly of her father’s last
letter, which lay open upon the little table beside her.

“Stay as long as you can,” Mr. Saumarez said. “It’s the best chance you
can have at present to see a little society, and keep Eddy on the
straight.”

Rosamond was not happy, she could not have told why. It was not that
Archie was of any importance to her, but there is something in the
atmosphere of a disturbed and unhappy house, which reflects itself in
the consciousness of the most indifferent guest. She could not think
what he could have done. The offence of which his father had convicted
him the other day in the hall, of having refused money to a friend, was
of all reproaches in the world the most extraordinary to Rosamond. She
thought with a laugh that was irrestrainable, of what her own father’s
remark would have been, and the high tone of indignation he would have
assumed at the folly, nay the criminality, of throwing money away.
“Where do you expect to get more?” he would have asked with righteous
wrath, had his son been suspected of such a miserable weakness. But, to
do him justice, Eddy had no guilty inclinations that way. Curiously
enough, while Rosamond laughed with the surprised contempt, yet respect,
of the poor for Rowland’s liberality, which had, in spite of herself,
the aspect of “swagger” in the girl’s eyes--she felt, at the same time,
something of the same astonishment, mingled with disappointment, that
Archie should have laid himself open to such a reproach. “I should have
thought he would have given away--everything he had,” Rosamond said to
herself--not as praise, but as a characteristic feature of Archie’s
nature, as she conceived it--and she was disappointed that he had not
carried out her idea of him, notwithstanding that she believed such a
procedure to be folly of the deepest dye.

She was considerably startled by the knock at the door, and still more
by seeing Eddy in the silk smoking-suit, which was too thin for this
locality. It was perhaps that flimsy dress which made him look so
pinched and cold, and he came in with eager demonstration of his delight
at the sight of her fire.

“Mine’s gone out an hour ago,” he said, “let’s get a good warm before we
go to bed.”

“You have come from the smoking-room,” she said; “you will fill my room
with the smell of your cigarettes. I hate the smell of the paper worse
than the tobacco.”

“Oh, you’re always hating something,” said Eddy vaguely. And then he
added, standing with his back to the fire, looking down upon her in her
low chair--“It won’t matter how it smells, for to-morrow we ought to
go.”

“To go!” she cried in astonishment. “What new light have you got on the
subject? for I have heard nothing of this before.”

“Never mind what you’ve heard,” said Eddy. “Circumstances have
arisen--altogether beyond my control,” he added with a laugh at the
familiar words. “In short, if you must know it, Rose, I can’t stay here
any longer, and that is all there is about it,” he said.

“Do you mean now that Archie has got into disgrace? How has he got into
disgrace? I can’t think what he can have done.”

“I mean--that and other things. How should I know what he has done? Some
of his father’s fads. But in every way we’d better go: everybody is
going, and I’m dead-tired of the place. There is not a single thing to
do. We shot every bird on the hill to-day, and more--and after this
burst there won’t be a soul in the house for months. Probably they have
themselves visits to pay. I tell you we’d better go to-morrow, Rose.”

“They say nothing about visits to pay,” said Rosamond, bewildered. “Mrs.
Rowland said to-day she hoped we would stay as long as we pleased: and
father is of opinion that if we can hang on for another month--well, he
says so. It saves so much expense when the house is shut up.”

“But I tell you I am not going to do it,” said Eddy, “whatever the
governor chooses to say. You can if you please, but I shan’t. You may
stay altogether if you please. Marry Archie, it would not perhaps be
such a bad spec.; and become the daughter of the house.” He laughed, but
there was not much mirth in his laugh.

“You need not be insulting at least,” said his sister. “And as for the
daughter of the house--the less there is said on that subject the
better, if you are going away.”

“Why! do you think she would mind?” he asked. “Mind you, she is not so
simple as you think. I don’t believe she cares. If she did, that might
be a sort of a way: but mind what I say, Rose--that girl will not marry
anybody till she’s been at court and seen the world. She might like me a
little perhaps--but if she saw her way to anything better--as Heaven
knows she might do easily enough. Oh, I don’t make myself any illusions
on that subject! She would drop me like a shot.”

“As you would her,” said Rosamond, with an air of scorn.

“Precisely so; but unless I’m very far mistaken, we meet--that little
Glasgow girl and I, that am the fine flower of civilisation--on equal
ground.”

“So much the better for her if it is so,” said Rosamond.

“Am I saying anything different? only I don’t think there’s the least
occasion to be nervous about little May.”

There was a pause here, and for a moment or two nothing was said. A
little hot colour had come on Rosamond’s face. Was she perhaps asking
herself whether Archie was as easily to be let down as his sister, and
likely to emancipate himself as lightly? But on this subject, at least,
she never said a word. She broke silence at last by saying, with a
sigh--

“We have nowhere to go.”

“Nonsense: we have the house to go to. I don’t say it will be very
comfortable. Old Sarah is not a _cordon bleu_.”

“As if I cared about the cooking!”

“But I do,” said Eddy; “and the one that does will naturally have more
to suffer than the one that doesn’t; but thank heaven, there’s the
club--and I dare say we shall get on. The end of October is not so bad
in town. There’s always some theatre open--and a sort of people have
come back.”

“Nobody we know--and we have not a penny;--and father will be so angry
he will send us nothing. And they are so willing to have us here; why, I
heard Mr. Rowland say to you----”

“Never mind what you heard Rowland say,” said Eddy, almost sullenly.
“You can stay if you like. But I won’t, and I can’t stop here. Oh! it’s
been bad enough to-day! I wouldn’t go through another, not for----” Here
he stopped and broke forth into a laugh, which stopped again suddenly,
leaving him with a dark and clouded countenance--“a thousand pounds!”

“I don’t understand you, Eddy,” said Rosamond, with an anxious look.
“You have not been borrowing money? What do you mean by a thousand
pounds?”

“Do you think,” said Eddy with a short laugh, “that any one would lend
me a thousand pounds? That shows how little you girls know.”

“If I don’t know, it would be strange,” said Rosamond, with a sigh,
“seeing how dreadfully hard it has been to get money since ever I can
remember. And there is no telling with people like Mr. Rowland. Didn’t
you hear him coming down upon Archie for not giving his money to some
one who was ill? Fancy father talking like that to one of us!”

“The circumstances have no analogy,” said Eddy. “In the first place, we
have no money to give: and we want hundreds of things that money could
buy. Archie and fellows like him are quite different--they want nothing,
and they’ve got balances at their bankers; not that he has much of that,
poor beggar, after all.”

“What do you mean, Eddy?”

“Well, I mean he’s a good sort of fellow if he weren’t such a fool;--and
I could have thrown some light on his refusal, perhaps, if they had
asked me.”

“Oh, why didn’t you, Eddy!--when his father was so vexed and so severe.”

“It was none of my business,” said the young man. “And Archie is not a
fellow who likes to be interfered with. If I had suggested anything, he
would probably have turned upon me.”

“And what was it?” said Rosamond; “what was the light you could have
thrown?”

“Oh, I don’t mean to tell you,” cried Eddy; “you have nothing to do with
it that I can see. And it is of no use telling his father, for he’s in a
far deeper hole now. Poor old Archie--he is an ass, though, or he would
never have got into such a mess as he is in now. He never can strike a
blow in his own defence, and never will; but look here, Rose,” cried
Eddy, “all this jawing will make it no better; I am going to-morrow,
whatever you may choose to do. I can’t stop another night here.”

“You _must_ have something to do with it. I am sure you have something
on your conscience, Eddy. You have got a conscience somewhere, though
you pretend not. It is you that has got Archie into trouble!--you have
been tempting him and leading him away. That day in Glasgow! Ah, now I
see!”

“What do you see?” cried Eddy, contemptuously; but his sallow face
betrayed a sharp, sudden rising of colour. He did not look at her, but
kicked away a footstool with some vehemence, on which a moment before he
had rested his foot.

“Let’s hear!” he said, “what fine thing do you see?”

“You must have got--gambling, or something,” she said, feeling to her
heart the inadequacy of the words to express the great terror and
incoherent suggestion of evil that had come into her mind, she knew not
how.

“Gambling--with Archie!” her brother burst into a loud laugh. “One might
as well try to gamble with Ben Ros, or whatever that beast of a hill is
called. I broke all my toes going up him to-day. No, my dear Rose; you
will have to try again,” Eddy said.

She looked at him with eyes full of consternation and horror. It was
incredible to Rosamond that Archie should have done anything to merit
such condemnation: but it was not at all incredible to her that Eddy
should have got him into mischief. She looked at her brother as if she
could have burst through the envelope of his thoughts with her intent
and searching eyes.

“Eddy, I _know_ you have something to do with it,” she said.

“That proves nothing,” said Eddy; “you know what you think only.”

“I don’t know what I think! I think terrible things, but I can’t tell
what they are. Oh, Eddy, this was such a quiet house when we came into
it! They might not be very happy, but there was no harm. And Archie had
begun to please his father. I know he tried. And they have been very
kind to us--the ball last night was as much for us as for their own
children.”

“It was to get themselves into favour in the county--it was neither for
us nor for them.”

Rosamond was herself so much accustomed to measure everything in this
way, and to have it so measured, that she had no protest to make.

“But we had all the benefit,” she said. “We were made the chief along
with Marion and Archie. And Mr. Rowland has shown how much he thinks of
you, Eddy--he has made you his deputy.”

“Yes, to save himself trouble,” said Eddy; “to amuse his guests--is that
a great sign of kindness? It was kindness to himself. But if they had
been as kind as--whatever you please, what would that matter? I cannot
stand any more of it, and I am going away.”

“But you have no money,” she said.

“Oh yes; I have a little--enough to take us back to town, if you
please--and to get me a few chops at the club till the governor turns
up--who has a right to feed me at least until I come of age.”

“You must have got it out of Archie,” said Rosamond, her cheeks burning,
springing from her seat, and standing between him and the door, as if to
force an explanation. But Eddy only smiled.

“For a right down odious supposition--an idea that has neither sense nor
possibility in it, commend me to a girl and a sister! How could I get it
out of Archie? What had Archie to give? I think you must be taking leave
of your senses,” he said.

Was it so?--Was it merely a sympathetic sense of the trouble in the
house, and sorrow for Archie, whatever might be the cause of his
banishment? Or was it some sense of guilt, some feeling that it was he
who had led Archie away, and who ought to share in the penalty? But, to
tell the truth, Rosamond could not identify any of these fine feelings
with Eddy. He was not apt to feel compunctions: perhaps to take him at
his word was the safest way.




CHAPTER XXXVIII.


Next morning, a rattle of pebbles thrown against the window, roused
Marion, who was by nature an early riser, and who had been dressed for
some time, though she had not gone downstairs. She opened the window,
and saw Eddy below, making signs to her and pointing towards a path
which led into the woods, across a broad stripe of sunshine. Eddy stood
and basked in this light, making gestures, as if in adoration of the
sun. He did not call to her, for in the clear morning air, his voice
might have reached other ears than hers. But Marion called to him
lightly, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” with no fear of any thing that could
be said. She was not disturbed by the unceremonious character of his
appeal to her attention. Marion’s antecedents made it a very natural
thing, and no way to be reprehended, that a lad should call to his lass
in this way. She ran downstairs, delighted with the summons, and joined
him, almost hoping that Miss Marchbanks might see from her window and
feel the superiority of the daughter of the house.

“What might you be wanting, rousing people when perhaps they were in
their beds?” said Marion.

“You were not in your bed. I know you get up early. Let’s have a
ramble,” said Eddy, “before any one knows.”

“Oh, is that all? but we can ramble wherever you please; and when the
people are gone,” said Marion, with a sigh, “we’ll have it all to
ourselves.”

“Do you wish that the people were not going, May?”

“I never said, sir, that you were to call me May.”

“No, but you did not prohibit it. I cannot call you Miss Marion, like
the servants, or Miss Rowland, like young Marchbanks.”

As he assumed the tone of young Marchbanks when he said this, Marion
received it with a burst of laughter. There was nothing particularly
amusing in the tone or manners of young Marchbanks, but a mimic has
always an easy triumph.

“Alas,” said Eddy, instantly changing his tone, and taking her hand to
draw it through his arm, “though they were all going away this moment,
it would not be much advantage to us, May, for I must go too, this very
day.”

“You, going, Eddy!” this exclamation burst from her in spite of herself.
She hastened to add, “Mr. Saumarez, I did not know you were going. Do
you really--really mean--” the tears came into her eyes.

He had drawn her hand through his arm, and held it with his other hand.
“I can’t stay longer,” he said. “How can I stay longer? There is Archie
gone, who might be supposed my attraction: and I daren’t go and say to
your father what my real attraction is.”

“Oh that is nothing to me,” said Marion, with a toss of her head, “about
your real attraction. Nobody is asking you--you are just welcome to stay
or--welcome to go: it is whatever you please.”

“You know very well,” he said, resisting her attempt to snatch away her
hand, “that I would never go if I could help it, unless I could carry
you off with me; if I could do that, I should not mind.”

“And you know very well,” said Marion, “that you will never do that.”

“I suppose I ought to know; but there are some things that one never can
learn. When a man thinks of a girl night and day, he naturally feels
that the girl might give a moment now and then to thoughts of him.”

“Oh, as for that,” said Marion, tossing her head, “I’ve had people that
thought about me before now, but I never troubled my head to think of
them.”

“You are as heartless as a stone,” said Eddy. “It is of no use speaking
to you, for you are past feeling. One might as well fall in love with a
picture, or a dummy in a milliner’s shop.”

“Dummy yourself!” cried Marion, highly indignant, giving him a shake
with the hand that was on his arm.

And then they both burst out laughing together. As a matter of fact,
though they understood each other extraordinarily well, and made no
false representations of each other as lovers are in the habit of doing,
there was a little love at bottom between this curious pair.

“Do you know what has been the row about Archie?” said Eddy, after a
little pause.

“It’s something about money,” said Marion; “he has been spending his own
money that was given him to spend--and he has not sent it to a poor
student, as papa thought he would. But I would like to know why he
should? The student should have stayed at home, and then his own people
would have been obliged to help him. If Archie were to give up his money
to all the poor students, what would be the use of giving him money at
all. If I were in his place I am sure I would just give what I please,
and keep a good share to myself. It is just ridiculous to give you
money, and then say you are to give it away.”

“Is that the only reason?” said Eddy; “I thought there had been enough
of that.”

“Oh I don’t know if it’s the only reason. I will go back to the house if
it’s only Archie you want to hear about. You can ask Mrs. Rowland, she
is your great friend, or Saunders, that looks so wise and knows
everything. But for me, I am going back to the house.”

“I only ask,” said Eddy, tightening his hold on her hand, “to keep it
off a little longer; for how am I to say good-bye--not knowing how we
may meet again--for I know what’s in your thoughts, May. You think I’m
well enough to play with while there’s nobody here, but when you come up
to town and everybody is at your feet----”

“Oh such ridiculous nonsense,--everybody at my feet! who would be at my
feet? no person! You speak as if I were a Duke’s daughter.”

“You are better than most Duke’s daughters. You will marry a Duke if you
please, with that little saucy face of yours, and mints of money.”

“I hope I will not be married for my money,” said Marion: “though of
course there’s something in that,” she added seriously. “I’ll not deny
that it has to be reckoned with. Papa would not be pleased if all his
work came to nothing, and I got just a nobody.”

“Like me,” said Eddy.

“I never said like you. There might be other things--Papa likes you, you
see.”

“And you, May? Oh May, you little witch! I wish--I wish I only wanted to
marry you for your money--then I should not feel it as I do now.”

“You wouldn’t like to marry me without my money,” Marion said.

“Wouldn’t I,--try me! though all the same I don’t know very well how we
should live,” Eddy said.

“And I never said I would marry you at all--or any person,” said Marion.
“Maybe I will never marry at all.”

“Oh that’s so likely!”

“Well it is not likely,” Marion admitted candidly, “but you never know
what may happen. And,” she added, “if Archie is to be put out of his
share, and everything come to me, then whether I liked it or not, I
would have to think first what was doing most justice to papa.”

Eddy, in spite of his self-control, turned pale. “Archie,” he said, in a
tone of horror, “put out of his share!”

Marion gave him a keen, investigating look. “When a man has two
children,” she said, “and one of them flies in his face every time he
can, and the other is very careful always to do her duty, whether it is
pleasing herself or not, I would not wonder at anything, for my part. He
might like the son best for the name and all that, but if the lassie
would do him most justice? I am not saying if it would be a good thing
or not. But the man might see that in the one there would be no credit,
but plenty in the other. I am thinking of it just in a general way,”
Marion said.

“Then good-bye to me,” said Eddy, “if you were to be a great
heiress--and Archie! Good life!” he let her hand go, and, cold though
the morning air was, wiped the moisture from his forehead. “I’d better
take a header into the loch and be done with it,” he said.

“You will not do that, Mr. Eddy, for you like yourself best: though
perhaps you may like Archie a little--or, perhaps, me.”

“Perhaps even you!” cried Eddy. “Perhaps I do, or I shouldn’t have
stayed down here in the north for a month with nothing to do. You are a
dreadful little thing to talk quietly of tossing me over after all that
has passed, like an old glove. And to take Archie’s place, as if it were
nothing, as if it were the most natural thing in the world!”

“And is it not?” said Marion. “I never would have done a thing to harm
Archie. It is none of my doing; but if it opens papa’s eyes, and makes
him ask who will do him the most credit--him, that would never be
anything but a common lad at the best, or me, that might be at the
Queen’s court, and do him great justice.”

Eddy clapped his hands together, with a quick laugh. “Marry the Duke,”
he said.

“Well,” said Marion, with dignity, “and if I did that? What more would
it be than I would deserve, and doing great justice to papa!”

Eddy stood for a moment looking at her, with a curious mixture of pain
which was quite new to him, in being thus left out of Marion’s
cold-blooded philosophy, and of cynical amusement, tempered by wonder at
the progress this very young and apparently simple person had made in
the mystery of worldliness. He had the sensation, too, of having done it
all, of having wrought that ruin to Archie which might place Archie’s
sister in a position to balk his own plans and humiliate himself. He had
meant to have the upper hand himself in all the arrangements between
them. He had meant, indeed, this very morning to bind her by a quasi
engagement, while leaving himself free for whatever eventualities might
come. But Marion, with these cool, matter-of-fact dispositions, had
turned the tables upon Eddy. And he was discomposed besides to find that
it actually hurt him. He, the accomplished man of the world that he was,
so infinitely above Marion in experience and knowledge! it gave him a
confused pang which he could not understand, to find that he was no more
to her than half-an-hour before he had believed her to be to him. He was
more or less stunned by that sensation, which was unexpected, and stood
vaguely gazing at her, coming to himself before he could reply. “I don’t
find much place for me in all this,” he said, ruefully. He could have
laughed at his own discomfiture if he had not been so ridiculously
wounded and sore.

It was perhaps a sign that she was not very sure of herself, but she did
not look at him, which also took away one of Eddy’s weapons. She walked
on quite calmly by his side, looking straight before her, neither to the
right hand nor the left.

“What was your place in it, Mr. Eddy?” she said, “except just as a
friend: and there is no difference in that. You’re still a
friend--unless you have changed your mind.”

“May! you are a little witch! you’re a--Come, you know this is all
nonsense,” said Eddy; “I never pretended to be a friend.”

“Well, perhaps you never were--to Archie, at least,” said Marion.

“What do you know about Archie? What have I done to Archie? I never
intended--I never thought of harming him: I could swear it,” cried
Eddy, in great excitement; “never! never! I’ve done a heap of wrong
things,” he put up his hand to his throat with a gasp as for breath,
“I’ve done enough to--sink me for ever. I know I have: you needn’t say
anything with your little set face that I was silly enough to care for.
But I never meant to ruin Archie, nor harm him, never! I’ll go to your
father, and tell him----”

“What will you tell him?” cried Marion, to whom nothing but her own
share in Eddy’s expressions seemed of any importance. “That we’ve
perhaps been very silly, you and me?--but you the most, for I was never
meaning what you thought. I am not a person to let myself go,” said the
girl, folding her hands. “I was just willing to be very friendly--but no
more. All the rest was just--your fun. I thought you cared for nothing
but fun. And I’m not averse to that myself,” she said, turning her face
to his with the provoking and saucy smile which Eddy had so completely
understood, yet which--was it possible--he had fallen a victim to all
the same. It was Marion who had the upper hand. She was not averse to
the fun, but she did not mean to compromise her future for Eddy, any
more than Eddy up to this moment had intended to do for her. But Marion
thought it best now to conciliate him, that he might not rush off and
compromise matters by making proposals to her father, which was all she
thought of. As for those wild words about Archie, Marion did not even
pretend to inquire what they meant.

He went to Mrs. Rowland as soon as he could get a chance after the
leave-taking of so many of her guests. “You will have to shake hands
with me, too, presently,” he said. “I am going off to-night.”

“You, Eddy?” Evelyn’s face grew longer and graver with a certain dismay.
“I was calculating upon you to keep us cheerful,” she said. “Why must
you go?”

“I have so many reasons I couldn’t tell you all. In the first place I
must, which perhaps will do: like the fool that had a hundred reasons
for not saluting--but first of all because he had neither powder nor
shot.”

“What is the _must_?” said Evelyn, “your father perhaps coming back----”

“Oh, I know,” said Eddy, “that the governor would refuse you nothing,
Mrs. Rowland--though I am next to nothing in his estimation, to be sure.
No, there’s other reasons, pecuniary and otherwise.”

“I am afraid, Eddy, you are a very reckless boy.”

“Rather,” he said, with an uneasy and embarrassed laugh; “but I am going
to turn over a new leaf, and not be so any more.”

A tender impulse moved the woman, who had a faint underlying
recollection which she could not quite quench, though she was ashamed of
it, that she might have been Eddy’s mother. “I am not very rich in my
own person,” she said, “though my husband is: but if there is anything,
Eddy, that I could do, or James either, I am sure----”

“Oh, good heavens!” cried Eddy, under his breath. “Don’t, for pity’s
sake, say such a thing to me,” he cried. “You don’t know how it
hurts--what an unutterable cad it makes me feel.”

“Why?” she asked, with a smile; but she did not pursue the subject. “I
wish you could stay a little longer. If Archie does not come home in a
day or two, my husband will sadly want some one to cheer him. I wish you
could stay.”

“Is Archie coming home in a day or two?”

“I don’t know,” she said, faltering. “I can’t tell--I hope so with all
my heart. I need not try to hide from you, Eddy, that his father and
he--have had a disagreement.”

“Mrs. Rowland, don’t think me impertinent: can you tell me what it was
about?”

“It is their secret, not mine,” she said; then with a troubled smile,
“You know what fathers and sons most generally disagree about?”

“Money,” he said, with so disturbed a look, that Mrs. Rowland felt in
her heart she had been unjust in thinking Eddy callous to anything that
did not concern himself.

“My husband--is too suspicious. I believe in him, poor boy. I hope
time,” she said, with a sigh, “will clear it up and bring everything
right.”

It gave her pleasure to think better of Eddy after that interview. The
boy, after all, she thought, must have a heart.

But he was not like himself: his face, which was usually so full of fun
and mischief, was clouded and unhappy. When it was understood, though
not without a struggle, that he must go that evening--and even Mr.
Rowland resisted it with a certain terror (though he was very glad at
the same time to get all the strangers out of the way) of being left
alone with his trouble and his wife and daughter, who could so ill
soothe it--Eddy’s aspect startled everybody. He seemed, he who was so
easy-minded, to be troubled by some doubt, and unable to make up his
mind what he ought to do. A dozen times during the afternoon he was seen
to cross the hall towards the library, where Rowland had shut himself
up. But his courage failed him by the time he reached the door. Marion,
who kept her eyes upon his movements, knew, she flattered herself,
perfectly what Eddy meant. He wanted to lay his hopes before her father,
to find out whether his consent was possible, to lay a sort of embargo
upon herself before she was even seen in society, or had her chance.
Marion had quite made up her mind what to say in case she should be
called in to the library and questioned on the subject. She would say
that she was not a person averse to a little fun when it presented
itself. But that as for serious meaning, she never had thought there was
anything in it. Marion did not at all dislike the idea of being called
in, and having to say this; and she was not angry with Eddy for the
supposed appeal against her cruelty, which she believed him about to
make. She did not want him to be permanently dismissed, either, nor was
she unwilling that her father should be warned as to future
contingencies, for, after all, there was no telling how things might
turn out.

The question was solved so far as Eddy was concerned by the sudden exit
of Rowland from his room, just as the young man was summing up all his
courage to enter it.

“Are you ready, my boy?” Rowland said; “your things packed--since you
will go? for the steamboat, you know, will wait for no man. Come out,
and take a turn with me.”

They walked together across the lawn to the spot where the trees opened
and the Clyde below the bank weltered, gray in the afternoon light--a
composition of neutral tones. Rowland said nothing for a minute. He
stood looking at his favourite view, and then he gave vent to a long and
deep sigh.

“Here’s a lesson for you, Eddy, my man,” he said. “For as many years as
you’ve been in being I’ve coveted this bonnie house, and that view among
the trees. And a proud man I was when I got them--proud; and everybody
ready to take up my parable and say, ‘See what a man’s exertions, when
he has set his heart upon a thing, will do.’ Oh, laddie, the vanity of
riches! I have not had them half a year nor near it. And now I would
give the half of my substance I had never come nigh the place or heard
its name.”

“I am very sorry,” said Eddy; “but had the place anything to do with it?
Would things have gone better if you had not been here?”

Rowland gave him a quick look, and stopped in what he seemed about to
say. Then he resumed after a moment.

“That’s true too; you are right in what you say. It has nothing to do
with the place, or any place. It was fixed, I suppose, before the
beginning of the earth, that so it was to be.”

“Mr. Rowland,” said Eddy, “I’ve been wanting to say something, and I
have never had the chance--that is, I am frightened to say it in case
you should think it impudent or--presuming. When Archie refused the
money to that poor beggar, I ought to have spoken: I was a wretched
coward; it was because he had given all his money--to me.”

“Ah!” cried the father, with a slight start; “he had given his money--to
you?” He had almost forgot, in the strain and stress of the other
question, which was so much more important, what this meant about the
poor beggar whom Archie had refused.

“Every penny,” said Eddy, with considerable emotion. If that avowal
would only do, if it would be enough without any other! “He found me
down on my luck about some bets and things, and he immediately offered
to help me. I had not the courage to tell you when you spoke to
him--that night; and he, like the fine fellow he is----”

“Ah!” said Rowland again; and then he gripped Eddy’s slight hand, and
wrung it till the lad thought the blood must come. “And you’re a fine
fellow,” he said, “to stand up for him you think your friend.”

A cold dew came out on Eddy’s brow: oh how miserable, what a caitiff he
felt--a fine fellow--he! If the man only knew!

“But,” said Rowland, “if that had been all! I had forgotten that
offence. Thank you, though, for speaking. If I can find any ground for
a more favourable judgment, I’ll remember what you have said. Let’s
think of your own affairs: if you will allow me to speak--so recent a
friend; but my wife knew you before you were born.” He stopped to laugh
at this jest, but in reality to recover a little from his embarrassment
“My lad, you spoke of bets. You shouldn’t bet, a young fellow of your
age.”

A gleam of mischievous light shot from Eddy’s eyes.

“I am aware of that, sir,” he said, with much humility; “and if you knew
all the good resolutions I have made----”

“Never mind making them: you can’t keep them. Just do it, and don’t
amuse yourself with saying you will do it. From all I can learn, your
family is not rich, and you will have a place to keep up. Mind, that’s a
great responsibility. You must eschew betting as you would eschew the
devil.”

“I’ll try, sir, to get the better of them both,” said Eddy, much
relieved by this change of subject.

“I hope you’ll continue in that mind; and recollect this: you have been
very friendly and pleasant in this house at a time when I was scarcely
my own man, and took the entertainment on your shoulders, and were just
the life and soul---- If I can give you a day in harvest, as the country
folks say, another time--” He smote Eddy on the shoulders a genial blow,
but it made his slight figure quiver. “You may not understand that
homely form of speech; but if I can serve you, my boy, at a pinch---- I
never grudge anything I can do for a man that’s served me in time of
need. What’s the matter with you, boy? are you ill?”

“No,” said Eddy, after a pause. “No--I’m not ill; it was only something
in my throat. You’re too good, sir. I can’t look you in the face when I
think----”

“Well, well,” said Rowland. It pleases a man to make an impression--to
bring repentance to a careless soul. “You must just never do it again,
as the children say. It’s a bad thing from beginning to end: even
gambling in business I never could agree with. Honest work, that’s the
only salvation--in this world. Don’t forget what I’ve said. And now
we’ll go in to the ladies, who are waiting to give you your tea, and
purr over you. For the steamboat will wait for no man, and you should
leave here when we see her starting from the head of the loch.”

They went in together with a wonderful look of friendship, and there
were curious signs of emotion in Eddy’s face. Had he spoken to papa?
Marion asked herself. If he had done so, it was clear that the answer
had not been unfavourable; but in that case, why was Eddy in so dreadful
a hurry to get away?




CHAPTER XXXIX.


Eddy had gone, and a silence, that seemed to radiate round the house
like a special atmosphere, fell upon Rosmore. Winter, which had been
only threatening, dropped all at once in torrents of sweeping rain and
wild winds that shook the house. It requires a lively spirit at any time
to stand up against the pale downpour which falls in sheets from the
colourless sky between the large dull windows and the cowering trees,
and shuts out every other prospect: but when there is misery within, the
climax afforded by that dismal monotony without is appalling. The two
girls scarcely knew what it was; it was the re-action after the ball,
which had been such a great thing to look forward to, and now was over,
and everything connected with it: no more preparations or
consultations--everything swept away and ended. It was the departure of
everybody, even “the boys,” as Marion called them, Archie and Eddy, who
had been the constant companions of “the girls” in all their walks and
talks: quite enough to account for the dismal dullness which fell over
these two unfortunate young women like a pall. Rosamond had not gone
with her brother, partly because she was under her father’s orders to
remain, and partly because a great fear of some discovery, she did not
know what, which might be made after Eddy was gone, and for which he
would need an advocate and champion on the spot, was in her mind. Eddy
had so often wanted a defender; there had been so often discoveries made
after he had got himself out of reach of censure; and it was so much
more likely in this particular matter, which was disturbing the house,
whatever it might be, that it was Eddy and not Archie who was to blame.
Rosamond thought, with a little contempt of Archie, that it was so
little likely he would be to blame. He had not spirit enough to go
wrong. He was so tame, so unaccustomed to do anything--and to do
something, even if it were wrong, seemed so much better than the nullity
of such a limited life. It seemed to Rosamond that Eddy, who was always
in scrapes, always doing something, and mostly wrong things, was twenty
times more interesting than the other, but far more likely to be the
author of this trouble which hung so heavy on the house than Archie was.
It seemed to the experienced sister that something was sure to happen in
a day or two to prove this; to bring back Archie and place her in her
accustomed position as her brother’s defender. That anticipation, and a
deep knowledge of the dreariness of the London house, all shut up and
dusty, with the dreadful ministrations of the charwoman, and the gloom
of the closed rooms from which she could not escape to any cheerfulness
of a club, kept her in Rosmore, though she was exceedingly tired of it
and of the society of Marion, now her chief companion. They were as
unlike each other as girls could be. Rosamond’s aspirations were not
perhaps very lofty, but that hope of departing from all the
conventionality (as she thought) of life, and setting up with Mabel
Leighton in lodgings like two young men, to work together at whatever
fantasy might be uppermost, was an opening at least to the imagination
which Marion’s limited commonplace had no conception of. Marion thought
of the glories of the coming spring, of going to Court and the dress she
should wear, and the suitors who would come to her feet. That duke!--she
had not made acquaintance with any dukes, and wondered whether there was
one young enough and free, so as to realize Eddy’s prophecy. She did
not even know that all that information could be acquired from
_Debrett_, nor was there a _Debrett_ in the house, had she been aware of
its qualities. The duke was a sort of Prince Charming,--always possible.
If it could only come about by any combination of fortune that Eddy
should turn out to be one! but that was a contingency which Marion knew
to be impossible, and upon which she did not suffer herself to dwell.

It was in reality a sign of her simplicity and unsophisticated mind that
she gave herself up so unhesitatingly to this dream. Rosamond knew a
great deal better: she knew for one thing that there was no duke in the
market--a fact hidden from poor Marion--and that suitors do not
precipitate themselves at the feet even of a rich young woman in
society, unless she is a fabulously rich young woman. Rosamond was also
much too experienced to imagine for a moment, as the simple Marion did,
that whatever Archie had done he would be summarily disinherited and all
his advantages handed over to his sister. There had been a row, Rosamond
was aware, but it would pass over as rows did in families, and the son
would have his natural place, and May would but be a prettyish underbred
girl the more, with a good deal of money, but not that fabulous fortune
which alone works miracles. Rosamond did not think very highly of
Marion’s chances; and all that she thought about Archie was a hope that
her father might not see him and build any plans upon him in respect to
herself.

While, however, the girls, in waterproofs, took occasional walks
together, not knowing how to make conversation, two creatures speaking
different languages, and found time hang very heavy on their
hands--indoors the elder pair also passed the days heavily, with an
absence of all meaning and motive in their life, such as aggravates
every trouble. It is always a difficult matter for a man who has led a
busy life, full of work and its excitements, to settle down in the
country, especially if he has no estate to manage,--nothing to do, as
people say, but enjoy himself. And no doubt this first setting in of
winter and the virtual separation from the world caused by the
persistent bad weather, would have been, under any circumstances, a
trial of James Rowland’s cheerfulness and patience. But enhanced as this
was by the horror and shame of such a discovery--one that turned the
wavering balance of disappointment and hope, sometimes swaying to one
side and sometimes to the other, into an immovable bar of sharp despair
and bitter rage against his only son, the unworthy and shameless boy who
had left him so little in doubt as to his character and qualities--the
effect was terrible. Sometimes Evelyn persuaded him to go out with her
down the glistening gravel paths towards the woods, or even to the Manse
and the village: for he now loathed “the view” which he had loved, and
avoided that favourite peep of Clyde, as if it had a voice to taunt him
with the disappointment of his hopes. The minister and his wife received
them indeed with open arms, with the cordial “Come away in” of Scotch
hospitality, and brewed, or rather “masked” (or perhaps Mrs. Dean, an
advanced person, “infused”) the genial tea, and spread the steaming
scones, which are a simple (and inexpensive) substitute for the fatted
calf, gone out of fashion, for those rare guests. “Indeed, I thought we
were never to see you again,” said the minister’s wife, not without a
touch of offence. And when Evelyn put forward a hesitating excuse as to
the bad weather, the west-country lady took her up a little sharply.
“Lady Jean used never to mind. We are well used to the rain here, and it
does no harm. You just put on a waterproof and you are quite safe.
Indeed, I have heard people from the South say that though we have a
great deal of rain, it’s very rare to find a day that you can’t go out
sooner or later.”

“Mrs. Rowland will think, my dear,” said the minister, “that you are
less glad to see her now than to upbraid her with not coming before.”

“That means that I am interfering with his department,” said Mrs. Dean.
“I will not do that; and indeed, I have not seen you since the ball.
Such a success as it was! I have seen very grand doings in the old
times, when Lord Clydesdale had more heart to make a stir.”

“What was it that took away his heart?” said Rowland; “the old
reason--want of money, I suppose?” It revived a little spirit in him,
and the impulse of wealth to plume itself on its own advantages when he
heard of this. It pleased him to think that he could do so easily
without feeling it at all, what had cost Lord Clydesdale an effort which
he no longer cared to take.

The Deans, husband and wife, regarded the other pair before them with
that mild disdain which people in society feel for those who do not know
everything that everybody knows about the families and persons who form
the “world.” They were not perhaps exactly in society themselves, but
they did know at least about the Clydesdale family and all that had
happened to them. “It was not precisely want of money,” Mr. Dean said
cautiously, “though we all know, more’s the pity, that they are not
rich.”

“Oh! nonsense, Alexander,” said his wife, “as if everybody didn’t know
the whole story! It might be a struggle, but they always held up their
heads, and never made a poor mouth. What it was that took the heart out
of the Earl was a great disappointment in his family. Young Lord Gourock
was a very fine boy: you would never have thought it of him, but he just
fell into the hands of some woman. That’s the great danger with young
lads of family. You must surely have heard of it?”

“You forget that we have been in India, both of us, for years,” Evelyn
said quickly.

“Ah! that would account for it: but even in India these things are
known, among----” Mrs. Dean was about to say the right kind of
people--but she remembered to have heard that Mrs. Rowland _was_ a
lady--one of the Somethings of Northamptonshire--and forbore. “At all
events,” she said, “it was well known here. I wonder you have not heard
the whole story from Miss Eliza. She is a very clever person at finding
out, and she always knows every detail, but all in the kindest spirit. I
have always had a warm heart for poor young Gourock myself. He was such
a nice boy! I believe his father and Lady Jean don’t even know where he
is,” she added in a lower voice.

“Oh,” said the minister, “they will easily find out where he is when he
is wanted. You can always trace a man with a handle to his name.”

“When he has to come to take up the succession--which will be great
comfort to his poor father!” said Mrs. Dean scornfully. “But this,” she
added, “is but a melancholy kind of conversation; and your ball was just
beyond everything--such luxury--and the decorations--and the
band--and----”

Even Evelyn could scarcely bear any more, and Rowland did not even
pretend to pay any attention; he put away the scones (though they were
excellent) with a gesture that looked like disgust, and listened most
impatiently to something the minister had to say about the Teinds, and
the earnest need of an augmentation, and the objections of the heritors
to do anything. He had a vague sense that money was wanted, and that he
himself might get free if he made a large offer. “If there is anything I
can do, command me,” he said. “I may not be of much use in other ways,
but so far as money goes--Evelyn, don’t you think we should go before
the rain comes on?”

“But you have had no tea!” said the minister’s wife, “and the sky is
clearing beautifully over the hills, which is just the quarter the rain
comes from. Let Mrs. Rowland finish her tea.”

“We must be going,” said Rowland, and he went out first, leaving his
wife to follow. He said nothing till they had walked far along the edge
of the bay, and were once more in Rosmore woods, in a path overhung with
low trees, from which occasionally came a big cold drop on their faces
or on their shoulders. He had put his arm within his wife’s according to
his usual fashion, and half-pushed her before him in the preoccupation
of his thoughts. At last he spoke. He had made little or no reply to her
remarks, scarcely wishing, it seemed, to hear them as they came along.

“It will just be some vile woman that has got possession of him,” he
said abruptly, “like yon young lord.”

“Oh, James, we know nothing. I don’t believe that he is guilty at all.”

“Some vile woman,” he repeated, “just like yon young lord.” It seemed to
give him a sort of comfort that it was like the young lord. Is it not
indeed a kind of terrible comfort always to hear of other cases worse
than our own?

“I won’t repeat what I said,” said Evelyn, “but you know what I think.”

“Think!--think!” he said impatiently, “of what use is thinking? The
thing’s done: it was not done without hands. It will perhaps be
something in the house.”

“Something in the house!”

“Well!” he said querulously, “you need not repeat what I say. I have
heard of a curse upon a house, and that nothing throve that ever was in
it.” He paused with an effort, and then said with his hard laugh, “I am
speaking like a fool, but people used to believe in that in the old
times. What’s that fellow wanting?” he added angrily, “a man from the
stables! What right has he to speak to you?”

It was Sandy the groom, who touched his cap, and stood on the edge of
the path, desiring an audience. Sandy had no fear of being supposed
impertinent. He had spoken to Lady Jean, wherever he had met her, with
the familiarity of a respect which required no proof, and he regarded
Mrs. Rowland, who had shown claims to a similar treatment, with much of
the same confident and friendly feeling. Accordingly, he paid no
attention to his master’s threatening looks (“The auld man was in a very
ill key: he was giving it to her, het and strong, puir leddy,” was his
after-comment). “It’s just auld Rankin, mem,” said Sandy, who spoke a
little thick, turning over his words like a sweet morsel under his
tongue, as the minister said in his prayer, “he’s awfu’ anxious just to
have a word wi’ your leddyship.”

“Old Rankin!” said Evelyn surprised, “a word with me?”

“What do you want with Mrs. Rowland,” cried Rowland angrily, “do you
think she has time to go after every fool in the place? You can tell
your wants to me.”

“Oh, ay, sir, I could do that,” said Sandy, “but it’s no you he’s
wanting, it’s the leddy,--he’s terrible keen to see the leddy. We wad be
nae satisfaction to him, neither you nor me.”

“Tell him I’ll come and see him,” said Evelyn hurriedly. “You know he is
a very uncommon person, James. I will just walk with you as far as the
house, and then I will come back.”

“You had better go now,” he said loosing his arm. “You are getting like
all the other Rosmore people, taking every crow for a dove. I can go
home very well by myself.”

“But James!--”

He waved his hand to her, walking quickly away. Her company was a
consolation; and then to be without her company was a relief. He had got
to that restless stage.

“It’s just the gospel truth,” said Sandy, “the maister would have been
nae comfort to the auld man. It’s just the leddy, the leddy, he’s been
deaving us a’ with the haill day.”

“Is he ill, Sandy?”

“Na, nae waur than usual. He’s very frail, but nae waur nor usual. Hey,
Janet, here’s the leddy. She’s just coming, and I had nae trouble with
her ava.”

The cold drops on the trees came in a little deluge over Evelyn as she
crossed the little glen under the ash tree: she was half amused in the
midst of her trouble by the summons, thinking it might be a demand for
some comfort, or a complaint of some inconvenience which was about to be
made to her, things to which she had been accustomed in the country life
of old. Rankin lay as usual with his picturesque head and beard rising
from the mass of covering. He held out the large hand with which he
fished in the nest beside him for puppies, and gave it to Evelyn to
shake.

“I am sorry to hear you are not well,” she said.

“Oh, I’m just in my ordinary’,” said Rankin, “naething to brag of, but
naething to find fault with either--just warstling on as pleases the
Lord, and I dinna complain. Give the leddy a chair, Janet woman, and
just go ben the house yoursel, and bring me particular word what the
thermometer was last night. You can take a pencil and a bit of paper and
write it down, for I’m very particular to have the figures exact.”

“Oh, you needna make any of your fuil’s errands for me,” said Janet. “I
ken what you mean weel enough,” and the brisk little wife went away,
carefully shutting the door behind her. What did he mean? Evelyn grew a
little alarmed in spite of herself.

“I hear, mem,” said Rankin, confidentially leaning towards her out of
his bed, “that you’re in some trouble at the Hoose?”

“You hear--that we’re in trouble!” cried Evelyn in the last
astonishment. “If we are,” she said, “which I don’t allow, you would not
expect me to come and speak of it to you.”

“Wherefore no?” said Rankin. “Do you think, madam, that because I’m held
fast here, I’m no a man with sympathies, and a heart to feel for my
neebours? You’ll maybe think I’m taking too much upon me, calling the
like of you my neebours. But it was One greater than any of us that did
that. We’re a’ neebours in the sight of God.”

“That is quite true, no doubt,” said Evelyn, with a gleam of faint
amusement in the midst of her trouble, “but I don’t know--”

“Madam,” said Rankin, “I would take it very ill if ye kent something to
my advantage or that would maybe save a heart-break, and keepit it to
yoursel’.”

“I hope I would not do so in any circumstance,” said Evelyn.

“I think you wad not, and therefore I’m fain to speak. I’m a real
observant person, and given to muckle study of my fellow-creatures. I’ve
taken a great notion of you, Mistress Rowland. My opinion is that you’re
no the stepmother familiar to us in fiction, but a person with a real
good meaning towards your good gentleman and all belonging to him.”

“I hope so,” said Evelyn, half-amused, half-disturbed, by this strange
address.

“And we’ve heard you’re in trouble up bye, and Mr. Archie, a fine quiet
lad, sent out o’ the house in disgrace.”

“Mr. Rankin,” said Evelyn, “you really must excuse me for saying that
any gossip about my house----”

He held up his hand, bidding her to silence, and made a gesture as of
putting her back in her chair. “Whisht,” he said, “never mind that;”
then bending forward, in a tone so low as to be almost a whisper: “It’s
a’ lees,” he said, “it’s not true; it’s just a’ a parcel of lees.”

“What do you know about it?” cried Evelyn, greatly excited. “For God’s
sake, if you know anything, tell me,” she added, forgetting her
precautions in the shock. What use was there in pretending that his
information was not correct? He did not ask anything: he knew.

“I will do that,” said Rankin. “There is a young gentleman at the house
that is called Mr. Sawmaries, a very queer name.”

“Saumarez--yes--but he is gone.”

“Oh, he is gone? to rejoin the ither no doubt. I might have expected
that.”

“What other?” cried Evelyn, in great excitement.

“There was another,” said Rankin, “but not at the house; not a person,
maadam, to be presented to you--though I was muckle astonished to hear
of him at the ball: but nae doubt he just slippit in, favoured by yon
lad, when nobody was looking. Well, as I was saying, there was another,
a shabby creature, just a bit little disreputable Jew, or something of
that kind. What gave me a kind of insight into the Saumarez lad (that
was a clever laddie and no an ill callant, but ill guided) was his
trying to foist off this creature upon me as Maister Johnson of St.
Chad’s--a mistaken man and very confused in his philology, but still, I
have nae reason to doubt, a gentleman, and maybe a kind of a scholar
too, in his way.”

“Johnson! yes: but I have seen him; he was asked to the ball; I never
doubted--”

“Na, mem,” said Rankin, “I could swear ye doubted; but being a real
lady, and no suspicious as the like of me is always, you couldna believe
he was cheating. He might mean it only as a kind of a joke, ye never can
tell with these callants. But, madam, this is all very indifferent and
not to the purpose; what I’m wanting to tell is, that there was
something going on that was no building kirks between these young men.”

Evelyn was not acquainted with the figurative language of the humble
Scot, but she divined what he meant. She made a hurried gesture of
entreaty that he would go on: “Well! that’s just about all I know; there
was something the one wanted and the other was loathe to give. The
shabby body was just full of threats, and no blate about saying them
before me, a stranger; and young Saumarez, he was holding off, trying
his jokes, and to take his attention with the dowgs and various devices.
And syne they went out of my house in close colloquy. The wife is not a
woman of much book-learning, but she has a wonderful judgment. She said
to me, when she came in from showing them to the door. ‘Take you my
word, John Rankin,’ says she, ‘if there’s ony mischief comes to pass,
thae twa will have the wyte of it,’ which agreed entirely with my ain
precognition. I wouldna say but we thought of mair vulgar crimes, being
of the practical order ourselves. And I hear the trouble’s about a
cheque, whether stolen or what I cannot tell. But my advice to you,
maadam, as one educated person with another, is--just look for it
there.”

“Eddy!” Evelyn said below her breath, “Eddy!” Long before Rankin’s
speech had come to an end, her quick mind had realized the shock, felt
it to the bottom of her heart, staggered out of the course of her
thoughts for a moment in sheer dismay and horror; then with the sudden
spring of intellectual power quickened by pain had returned to the
simple question. Eddy! Eddy! who had been so sympathetic, so
affectionate, such true feeling in his eyes, such real zeal for the
house, so good to James, so generous about Archie. Ah! generous! then
she began to think and remember. If Rankin was right, he had introduced
that man on a false pretence to her house, and it had been difficult to
her to realize that Eddy was really so sympathetic. And surely there
were things he had said! Her head began to buzz and ache with the rapid
throng of thoughts, thoughts half understood, half seen only in the
hurry and rush of bewildering and confusing suggestion. The old
gamekeeper went on talking, but she did not hear him, and he perceived
what processes he had set in motion, and for a moment was silent too.

“There is just one thing, mem,” he said, “before you go,”--when Evelyn
rose, still bewildered, wading through the chaos of her own thoughts.
“The night o’ the ball--there’s aye een on the watch in a house like
yours--the body Johnson disappeared as soon as the gentleman arrived
that came from the bank, him that arrived in a coach all the way round
the land road. There was one that saw him leave go of the leddy that was
dancing with him--the nasty toad to daur to ask a leddy to dance!--and
jump out of the window behind the curtain, and was never seen more. And
Mr. Archie to get the wyte of it, a fine, ceevil, well-spoken young man!
Na, na, we will not bide that. Just you look in that direction, Mistress
Rowland, for there the true culprit’s to be found.”

“I will--I will think of what you say,” cried Evelyn, faltering. “It is
a dreadful light, but if it is a light--You are proud people, you
Scotch, you don’t like your own secrets to be exposed to all the world.
And you don’t know all the story, Rankin, only a bit of it. Stop these
people talking! you can surely do it, you who are so clever; think how
you would like it. And my husband, my poor husband!”

“I feel for Maister Rowland,” said Rankin, “but a house with a score of
servants a’ on the watch, how are ye to keep a thing secret? There are
nae secrets in this world. If there’s a thing ye wish to keep quiet,
that’s just the thing the haill countryside will jabber about. I’ll do
what I can. I’ll do what I can,” he added hurriedly, “but the only thing
to stop it is to bring the lad hame.”




CHAPTER XL.


When Evelyn returned to the house she found her husband engaged with a
visitor--no less a person than Sir John Marchbanks--who had some works
going on near Kilrossie, drainages and such like, on which he was very
anxious to have Mr. Rowland’s opinion. And Rowland, recalled to himself
by the touch of the practical, had recovered his spirits and energy for
the moment at least. He agreed to go and inspect the work, and to add to
that kindness, as Sir John said, with a little pompous politeness, by
staying to dinner afterwards, as country neighbours use. Evelyn had
therefore no means of confiding Rankin’s revelation to her husband, even
had she wished; and she was not sure that she wished to do so. The whole
matter wanted more thinking over than she could give it in the agitated
walk home and the hurried interval before he left with his visitor to
walk to Kilrossie and see the works. “I warn you, Mrs. Rowland, that I
will keep him as long as I can,” said Sir John. “We have great schemes
of public work before us in the peninsula, and there is nobody here
whose opinion is worth a button in comparison with his.”

“I shall make no objection; it will do him good,” said Evelyn: but she
followed her husband into the library, where he went for a moment to
fetch some papers. “James,” she said, with a little timidity, “may I
send for Archie home?”

“May you send for--the devil!” said James Rowland. “What do you mean?
What’s the boy to you?”

“He is Mary’s son----”

“You seem to think more of that,” he said with his angry laugh, “than
that he’s mine--and has brought shame on my name.”

“We don’t know that; you cannot prove that. It is being talked of among
the servants. Let me send for him. If he comes while you are away, it
will be easier. Even if it were true,” cried Evelyn, “you would have to
forgive him some time, James.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said her husband, grimly. “Anyhow, he is
gone, and there’s an end----”

“There can never be an end. Let me write; let me send----”

“And do you think, you simple woman,” said Rowland, “that a dour fellow
like that, a lad that swore at me, and flew in my very face from the
first, will come back for the holding up of your little finger?” He
took her hand in his, with admiring affection; there was something like
a gleam of moisture in his eyes. “It is a bonnie little finger,” he
said, “and a kind--and I would follow it over the world: but you must
not think to triumph over a young brute like _yon_, as you do over me.”

“Oh, James, you are mistaken; he is not, he is not----”

“What is he not? I wish he was not a son of mine,” said the father, with
darkening brow.

And he said nothing more, neither to forbid nor to permit. Perhaps there
was an undercurrent in his heart of hope that she would try what that
signal made with her little finger would do. He did not forbid it. His
heart gave a heavy thump in his bosom at the proposal. She could do for
them both what neither could do for himself--and if she might be right?
Women, they say, have intuitions; perhaps she might be right! and the
thundercloud might pass over, and he might yet live to believe, in time,
that nothing had happened. But he shook his head as he went away.
Anyhow, the little absence would be a good thing. It would break the
spell of misery; he might be better able to think, to settle something
that could be done, when he was away.

When the master of the house goes away, there is often a little sense of
relief among the women, however beloved and prized he may be. It leaves
them a great deal of freedom--freedom from the control of hours and
seasons which, it is a law of the Medes and Persians, can never be
infringed when he is at home. He may be no more punctual than the rest,
but punctuality is imposed while he is there; and he may be as irregular
as he pleases in his way, but the strictest regularity is enforced upon
everybody else, out of respect to papa. When he goes away, there is a
little slackening all round. Perhaps the mistress lingers in her room in
the morning, does not come down to breakfast--and luncheon shades off
into puddings and fruit instead of the copious meal of ordinary custom,
or else is abolished altogether, the girls staying out, without warning,
at some friendly neighbouring house. This was what happened at Rosmore
on the morning after James Rowland’s departure. His wife did not come
downstairs till it was late, feeling herself more safe to carry on her
own thoughts in the seclusion of her own room, and when she appeared at
lunch, Marion’s chair was empty, and Rosamond, alone, appeared to share
that meal. The conversation languished between the two ladies, each of
whom had questions to ask, which could not be put as long as Saunders
and his satellite were in the room.

“I hope you have heard from Eddy,” Mrs. Rowland said.

“Oh, yes, I have heard from him. He has got back all right,” said
Rosamond.

And then there was a silence, broken only by Evelyn’s recommendation of
the pudding, which was one of Mrs. Wright’s best.

“Is your brother--very lonely, with nobody at home?” at length she said
again.

“Eddy is never lonely, he has such heaps of friends; when one set is
not in town, he falls back on another. When there’s no opera, there’s a
music-hall--that sort of thing,” said Rosamond.

“I am afraid that means he is not very particular.”

“Not particular at all, so long as he is amused.”

“But that, unfortunately, my dear, is not the best rule in life.”

“Oh, I never thought it was a rule at all,” said Rosamond. “If it were,
Eddy would detest it, you may be sure. He likes to do--what no one else
does, or what he has never done before.”

“Did you know this Mr. Johnson--or some such name--Rosamond, whom he
brought here?”

“Oh, Mrs. Rowland,” cried the girl, “I hope you will forgive him! He is
such a little wretch for that. It must have been one of his silly
practical jokes to bring that man here.”

“It is not the sort of practical joke which will get him friends,” said
Evelyn seriously; the man was gone, and the embargo was removed. “He
ought not to have brought him here. And did _you_ know him, Rosamond?”

“_I_ know him! but I know this, that Eddy told me not to dance with him;
and I will say this much for Eddy,” said Rosamond, with a hot blush,
“that he warned Marion too.”

“But both of you----”

“Yes, it is true. I did--that nobody might say I left my brother in the
lurch--offered to dance when I saw him standing there, Eddy taking no
notice. Even a--beast--like that, if you get him asked, you ought to be
civil to him.” Rosamond’s cheeks were flushed, and she held her head
very high. “But Marion did it out of contradiction, because he had told
her not----”

“There is not much to commend in the whole matter,” said Evelyn, with a
sigh. “But I think, on the whole, you were the least wrong. And has he
dealings with people like these? Would that man have been likely to get
your brother--under his power?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Rowland,” said Rosamond, with a glow
on her cheeks.

“And yet it is plain enough, my dear. Is it possible that--about money
or betting or anything of the kind, Eddy might have got under that man’s
influence--in his power?”

Rosamond held her head higher than words could describe. “If you mean
that he took money to introduce him into society----”

“I did not mean that,” said Evelyn in a parenthesis, but Rosamond did
not pause to hear.

“---- as some people do,” the girl went on. “Oh the men one knows! There
was Algy Holt, went about with an American, getting him asked out to
places. Everybody knew it, and no one was so very severe! But if you
think Eddy would do that, Mrs. Rowland! he may be silly--oh, I know he
is! and spends money when he has not got it, and has to do all kinds of
dreadful things to pay up;--but if you think he would do that----”

“My dear Rosamond, if you prefer to think it was a practical joke--but I
don’t wish to be severe--I should like to know, if you know, what
dreadful things he has to do to pay up, as you say?”

“Oh! he has to buy carriage wheels, and cigar-holders, and pictures, and
one time he had a lot of paving-stones----”

Evelyn, who was very much wound up by this time, expecting terrible
revelations without thinking how very unlikely it was that Rosamond
would be the confidant of any guilty practices--here burst into a fit of
unsteady laughter.

“There is nothing very dreadful in all that: though it is very
ridiculous, and, I dare say, a horrid imposition,” she said.

“It is enough to break one’s heart!” cried Rosamond striking her hands
together: “he borrows a certain sum and he gets the half of it or less,
and that--and then he has to pay back the whole---- Oh how awful it is
to be poor! for there is no end to it--it is going on for ever. And when
he gets Gilston, he will have to sell it, and where will he be then? He
sees it as well as I, but what can he do? Of course,” added Rosamond,
drying her eyes, which were shining with fierce tears, “if he could
marry somebody with a great deal of money, it might all come right.”

This was all that she got from Rosamond, with much sense of guilt in
thus endeavouring to persuade the sister into betrayal of the brother’s
secrets. And presently Marion returned, who had been amusing herself at
Miss Eliza’s house with the young people there, and came back escorted
by a large party, for whom it was necessary to provide tea and amusement
till the early darkness had fallen. Evelyn, who could not rest, and who
felt that the two or three days of her husband’s absence was all the
time she had at her disposal to solve this problem in, threw a shawl
over her head and followed the merry party down the avenue, when Marion
re-escorted them to the first gate. She could not have told what help
she expected to get from Marion, and yet it was possible that some spark
might fall from the girl’s careless discourse. She met her coming
quickly back, her white and pink cheeks glowing with the cold and the
fun, echoes of which had scarcely yet died on the frosty air. It was
almost dark, though a gray light still lingered in the sky, and the
lamps were shining on the other side of the water in the villages and
scattered houses along the opposite shore.

“Mamma!” cried Marion,--a flush of anxiety came upon her face though it
was scarcely visible--“did you hear how they were going on? But you must
not think it was my fault.”

“I heard nothing,” said Evelyn, to Marion’s evident relief; “but I came
out--to speak to you.--Have you heard anything of--your brother?”

“Archie?--oh, no,” said the girl. “He would not write to me, for he
would know I could not approve of him, when he has gone like that and
affronted papa.”

“Like what?” said Mrs. Rowland anxiously.

“Oh!” said Marion, with a pause for reflection,--“well, just like that!
The servants have got a story that it’s about money, but Archie is not a
spender, and I don’t know how it could be about money. But if papa has
turned him out of the house, it could not be without reason, and that is
enough for me.”

This was true enough and yet was not true, for Marion secretly had made
a great many more investigations about Archie than anybody knew; and was
quite aware where he was, and that Aunt Jane was profoundly indignant,
and considered, as was not unnatural, that the whole matter was the
stepmother’s doing from beginning to end.

“I have written to him,” said Evelyn, “but he has not replied. My dear,
you are his only sister; you ought to help to make it up. Will you write
to him and beg him to come home?”

“But I would maybe be flying in his papa’s face if I did that.”

“Your father would not blame you. Don’t you see he is very unhappy?--his
only son! May, you are prejudiced against me, both of you. It is perhaps
not unnatural; never mind that; but try and help me with Archie, to
bring him back--to bring him home.”

“And how am I to know,” said Marion, “that it is not just to ruin me too
with papa, and get me sent away as well, that you are giving me that
advice?”

Evelyn had derived much temporal advantage from her union with James
Rowland. She had been made the mistress of a great house, with much
authority and surrounded with honour, instead of a poor dependent woman;
but she paid for it dearly in this moment, while the girl stood with her
little impertinent head lifted, discharging this little poisoned arrow
straight into Mrs. Rowland’s heart.

There was a moment of intense silence, to which all the dulling
influences of nature,--the night, the frost, the darkness--gave
additional effect. The panting of Evelyn’s breath, which she could not
conceal, was the only sound. Marion was cool as the air and entirely
self-possessed, waiting to see how her missile told, and noting with
triumph that quickened breath.

“Of course after these words I can ask nothing more of you,” said Mrs.
Rowland when she had attained the command of her own voice.

“Oh I was not meaning to be disagreeable,” said Marion lightly; “but as
I have nobody to take care of me, I am just obliged to take care of
myself. In an ordinary way I will just do whatever you bid me, mamma:
but when it’s to commit myself with papa, that is different. He might
get the idea that both his children were turning upon him. And I will
not do that, not for Archie or any person. Every herring,” said Marion
sententiously, with a recollection of her Aunt Jane’s wise sentiments,
“must just hang by its own head.”

“It is time to go in, I think,” said Mrs. Rowland shivering; her cold,
however, was moral rather than physical. This cautious, much regarding
young person of nineteen bewildered all her elder ideas. Was it pure
selfishness, or was it some recondite covering of affection to scare the
unfamiliar gazer? Evelyn made a movement aside to let the uncomprehended
being pass before her into the house.

And it may be supposed that the evening circle formed by these three was
not very sympathetic. Mrs. Rowland was full of the most painful
uncertainty as to what she should do: or rather what could she do, she
asked herself? Nothing but proof would content or in any way move her
husband: and how was proof to be had, and what would move Archie, who
would probably resent the very evidence which exculpated him, feeling it
almost an additional grievance? What was she to do among all these
conflicting objects? The natural thing, as it would have appeared to
most women in her circumstances, would have been to sit still and wait,
and do nothing. No one desired her interposition, not even her husband,
who had laughed over the impotence of that little finger which she
thought Archie would have obeyed. A reasonable woman does not like to be
told, however tenderly, that she thinks she can move the world by the
signal of her little finger. Would it not, she asked herself, be more
dignified, more seemly to keep silence, and be patient and wait? But
then, on the other hand, there was the possibility that the crime would
sink into the pit of the undiscovered and never be found out. It had not
even that chance of being found out which thorough examination and
search after the criminal would give. Rowland had adopted it,
homologated it, as the Scotch lawyers say, accepted the false cheque as
his own to save his son: so that no questions could be asked at the bank
to throw light upon the manner in which it was drawn, or the person from
whom it came. If she only dared to go there herself to find out! if she
only might venture to make certain inquiries!--but it was impossible.
Archie was not to be appealed to, for he would not stir a step to clear
himself. What then could she do? she who alone possessed a clue. And
then what a clue was that, the suppositions of a servant, the inferences
of a half-instructed person, half-acquainted with the story! She sat
through the long evening, pretending to read, in the great drawing-room,
which was full of ruddy fire-light and lamplight, the most sheltered and
warm and cheerful place, while the wind blew fierce outside. In the
inner room, Rosamond was playing chords upon the piano in a kind of
grand but simple symphony, while Marion, by the table, in the light of
the lamp, in a white dress, with a face not unlike a flower,
insignificant but pretty, a little thing, innocent and simple, to all
external appearances, the ideal of guileless youth--sat working at a
piece of bright coloured “fancy work,” as she called it. Who could have
dreamt that so dark a problem lay between them, and that the question,
what to do in so complex a matter, involving so much, should be rending
in sunder the heart of the dignified and graceful mistress of the house?

“Mamma!” said Marion softly. It may be supposed that Mrs. Rowland was
not particularly disposed at this moment to hear any such appeal, and
silence fell again on the party, broken only by the low but splendid
rumble of the long-drawn notes.

“Mamma!” said Marion again. She edged her chair a little closer, and
gave a look over her shoulder towards the piano, where Rosamond sat
unseen. “Did you ever think of asking Mr.----, her brother, about that
cheque?”

“What cheque?” said Mrs. Rowland coldly.

“Oh,” said Marion, “it is all over the parish that it was a cheque, and
the servants all know. If I were you, as you take so great an interest,
I would just ask Eddy. He knows a lot of things.”

“I do not see how he could know what is your father’s business.”

“Hush, you needn’t speak so loud! he knows a lot of things,” said
Marion, with a little sigh. “He is far far cleverer than Archie. He
might find out. If it were me, I would ask him,” the girl said.

“Your brother’s interests,” said Evelyn quietly, “are surely your
business as much as mine.”

“I am not saying,” said Marion, “one way or another: but just it is him
that I would ask if it were me.”

“About what--about what?” cried Evelyn, pressing her hands together. “If
you know anything, tell me at least, what he has to do with it? What can
I find out from him? what----”

“She has stopped playing,” said Marion and she added with a little
severity, “You will see, if you think, that whether or no---- it’s best
she should not hear.”

They said good-night to her shortly after, kissing her both of them,
according to the formula which girls are trained to go through: and went
upstairs, one after the other, slim girlish creatures, innocent
neophytes in life, as one would have thought, devoid of its saddening
knowledge, its disenchanting experiences--leaving behind them a woman
who had seen much sorrow and trouble, yet who was less acquainted than
either of them, it seemed, with certain mysteries and problems.

May left her in a state of agitation and excitement, such as Evelyn had
not yet known in the trials of her own life. She felt that Archie’s
future was in her hands, though he rejected her interposition so
bitterly; and what was more, her husband’s future, the happiness of the
good man who had so much trust in her. If she could restore his son to
him and did not, because of any reluctance of hers, any shrinking from
exertion, and mean or secondary feeling, as for instance, that no one
would be grateful to her for what she did, how unworthy would that be.
Gratitude! what is gratitude but a repayment, the return for which no
generous spirit looks. It is as mercenary to insist upon gratitude as
upon money or any other recompense. What would it matter if no one ever
knew, if no one ever said, “thank you?” What was that when Archie’s
young life, and still closer and dearer, her good husband’s happiness,
were at stake.

Evelyn walked about the drawing-room for a long time with her hands
clasped, and her head bent, and thoughts pursuing thoughts, a host of
quickly succeeding and often conflicting resolutions and questionings,
hurrying through her mind. The butler, weary of waiting, peeped in by a
half-open door, and retreated again, overawed by her absorption, which
neither saw nor heard. Her maid upstairs yawned and waited, astonished
and indignant. She was not in the habit of keeping the household out of
bed by any caprice of hers, and all the less could they excuse her for
her forgetfulness now. It was almost midnight before she was roused with
a start by the chiming of the clock, and hurrying out, found Saunders
respectful, but displeased outside, to whom she proffered a hasty
apology, which had to be repeated when her maid confronted her half
asleep yet wholly indignant. For a ball, which the servants enjoy as
much as their master, allowance may be made; but on a night when nothing
was happening, when the master was away, and the ladies expected to be
more easy to serve, less exacting, keeping earlier hours than usual! And
next day consternation still more deep struck the house: for Mrs.
Rowland went away, taking only a bag with her, and explaining briefly
that she had business in London, but would be back on the third day.
Rosamond proposed to go with her, and so did Marion. She only smiled at
them both, and declared that she would be back again before they had
packed their things. She did not even take her maid! which was a sort of
insult to the house. A mistress who can “do” for herself, who can travel
unattached, and dress her own hair, etc., is a disappointment in a house
like Rosmore.

She went away on Tuesday, and late on Wednesday night James Rowland came
home, a day or two earlier than he had been expected. To describe his
astonishment and disappointment when he arrived, and found her gone, is
more than words are capable of. He had almost turned back from his own
door and disappeared again into the darkness, from which he had looked
out with such a rising of comfort and happiness in his home-coming, and
of hope for what might have happened while he was away. “Mrs. Rowland
not at home!” he said, stumbling across his own threshold as though the
place was strange to him: “why, you must be dreaming,” but Saunders
would not be driven from his explanation. The mistress had received news
that she had to act upon at once, and the master being away, she had
gone up to London instead of him, Saunders supposed. She expected to be
home on Friday at the latest, which was the day on which he too was
expected home. Rowland appeared at the dinner-table, to the great
astonishment of the girls, and with a countenance of disgust and
impatience difficult to describe. “So she has left you planted,” he said
with a sharp laugh. It was impossible, indeed, that a man could return
home much wanting his wife, calculating upon her, and find her gone,
without feeling himself an injured man. He called Marion into the
library after and questioned her. “Where has she gone? What has come
over her? There is not a line, not a word to explain.”

“She was going to London on business--whatever that may mean,” said
Marion. “She did not open her lips to me.”

“But at least you know where she is gone?”

“Papa,” said Marion, “you can have observed very little if you have not
observed that mamma does not give her confidence to me.”

“Oh, confound your confidence. Where is my wife?” Rowland cried.

“I do not know,” said Marion primly. She added after a moment,
_staccato_--“But I might give a guess: she was awfully taken up--- about
Archie, papa.”

He uttered a sort of groan, looking fiercely at her, not missing a shade
of meaning in Marion’s face.

“And she wanted me to interfere: but I just said that what papa decided
must be right, and I would have nothing to do with it--against you. And
then she was in great thought.--Did you ever hear, papa, that before she
was married, mamma and Mr. Saumarez, _their_ father, were great
friends?”

“What has that to do with it?” he cried angrily.

“Well--there was some story Eddy always said, and he used to laugh; but
he never would tell me right out: and he said he could make her do
whatever he liked on that account. And last night she asked Rosamond a
great many questions about when he was coming home and so forth, and I
heard her say something about ‘your father’s advice.’”

James Rowland sprang to his feet with the suppressed roar of feeling,
which in men of this kind does duty for the sigh or outcry of milder
natures. There was something of the wild beast in it,--an impulse of
rage, almost frenzy. Advice with that man on _his_ affairs! take that
vile cynic, that false traitor, that diseased atomy into her confidence
on her husband’s decent concerns! His looks terrified his daughter; and
as he paced about the room up and down, Marion took advantage of the
first occasion on which he turned his back to her to escape. But Rowland
did not even remark that she was gone. Oh, Evelyn! Evelyn! whom he
trusted to the bottom of his heart, had she gone to expose the secrets
of his house, his shame, and the breaking of his heart to _that_ man!
This shaft went to his very soul.




CHAPTER XLI.


Evelyn arrived in London on a dark morning of early November, having
travelled all night; but she scarcely so much as thought of her fatigue,
and still less of the heavy yellow atmosphere, as she drove to the hotel
where she had lived with her husband on their first arrival in England,
when she knew nothing of the difficulties that were to rise like lions
in her way. It had been June then, and everything was fresh and fair.
And though even then she had thought with apprehension of the children,
wondering whether they would receive her with prejudice, or what she
could do to disarm opposition, no thought of anything more serious than
the little contrarieties of household intercourse had ever come into her
mind. What floods of experience, unthought of, unexpected, had come upon
her since that time. Now she had learned to know herself and others, to
realize a hundred dangers and difficulties which never had appeared upon
her horizon before. Nothing that had happened in her previous life could
have made it seem possible to her that she should come back again alone
to London, on a sort of detective enterprise in the interests of her
husband’s son--who did not love, but distrusted and feared her, though
she had thus dared the very real dangers of her husband’s displeasure
and her own uneasy sense of unfitness and incapacity, on his behalf. She
had thought and thought during the long sleepless night, turning the
matter over in every possible view; sometimes appalled at her own
hardihood in making such a venture; sometimes feeling that it was the
only course she could have pursued; sometimes with a cold shade of
self-distrust, asking herself how she could have undertaken it at all,
how she could hope to carry it out. And, unfortunately, the more Evelyn
thought, the stronger became this latter sentiment: how she was to find
Eddy; how she was to begin such an inquiry; how she could put it to him
in so many words that it was he who was guilty and not Archie. She had
not entered with herself into these details until she had committed
herself to this attempt. The question before had been, should she do it?
should she take this chance of enlightenment? should she try at least
what seemed the only way of attaining any certainty? It had seemed to
her before she started, that she had but to be brought face to face with
Eddy, to appeal to him and his better impulses in order to know. “If you
can throw any light upon it,” she had meant to say; “if you know
anything!” And it did not occur to her that he would hesitate to reply.
He was lazy, light, unsettled, uncertain--badly trained, poor boy,
without much moral sense, not careful to discriminate between right and
wrong; but yet at the bottom of all a gentleman, with an instinctive
sense of loyalty and truth. The difficulty at first was merely that of
going, finding him, venturing upon the solitary journey, acting in her
husband’s absence, without his knowledge: all of them very appalling
things--for she had never been accustomed to act for herself in any
practical emergency, although well enough accustomed to passive
endurance of things she could not mend. The sudden sense that here was a
thing which perhaps she could mend by sudden action had at first taken
away her breath. It had seemed to her inexperience a mighty thing to do,
to start off to London all by herself in James’s absence, as if she were
running away. It looked like waiting till he was gone, and then taking
advantage! She laughed at the suggestion, yet held her breath at the
strange risk. He might think--and yet more, the servants might think,
who were so apt to find out everything, and a great deal more than there
was to find out. These conflicting thoughts had kept her mind in a
ferment of anxiety, until she had actually taken that great step and
started. And then they had dropped suddenly and given place to a new
kind of trouble.

How was she to bring Eddy Saumarez to the bar, to put him to the
question, to ask him to incriminate himself or his friends, to
demand--What do you know? This new side of the matter rose up as soon as
she had fairly begun her journey and caught her by the throat. The face
of Eddy rose before her in the partial darkness behind the veiled lamp
of the compartment in which she travelled alone. Oh not an easy face to
confront, to over-awe, to reach the meaning of! A face that could pucker
into humorous lines, that could put on veils of assumed incomprehension,
that could look satirically amused, or innocently unconscious, or
wildly merry, as it pleased! “What could make you think, dear Mrs.
Rowland, that I knew anything?” he would say; or, “It is too delightful
that you should have such an opinion of my insight;” or, perhaps, “You
know I never learned the very alphabet of Archie, and how can I tell
what he would do.” Such expressions she had heard from him often on
other subjects, upon which he could baffle her smilingly, looking in her
face all the time. And how could she hope to keep him to the point now,
to bring him to a serious answer, to convince him of the importance of
the position and the need there was that he should speak? In the middle
of the journey her courage had so evaporated that she had almost
determined to return again without making this unhopeful attempt. But
there are always as many, or perhaps more, difficulties in the way of
going back than there are in going forward, and Evelyn felt that she had
committed herself too much to make it possible that she should go back.
She drove to the hotel, and had her bath and changed her dress, and
swallowed hurriedly that cup of tea which is the only sustenance
possible in a moment of anxiety to so many women. And then she walked
from the hotel to the insignificant fashionable street in which the
house of Mr. Saumarez was. It was a small house, though the locality was
irreproachable, and the blinds of the first floor were all carefully
drawn down, though there were indications of life in the other parts.
Evelyn’s knock was answered after a considerable interval by the old
woman, caretaker or charwoman, who was left in charge when “the family”
were absent. “Mr. Edward?” she said; “Mr. Eddy?--yes’m, he’s at ‘ome;
but he’s not up yet, and won’t be this three or four hours.”

“Oh!” Evelyn was so startled in her breathless expectancy that she could
scarcely answer this, which was half a disappointment and more than half
a relief. There are moments when a brief postponement, even of the thing
we most desire, is a certain ease to the strained faculties. She asked
at what time Eddy would be visible and went away, turning towards
Kensington Gardens, where she thought she might be able to spend the
time until she must return. The park, of course, was empty, and though
Kensington Gardens had still that cheerful number of comers and goers,
which marks the vicinity of a district in which people live the whole
year round, it was not otherwise than a place of “retired leisure” as it
generally is. She walked up and down under the tall, bare trees, which
stood about like ghosts in the yellow atmosphere, and sat down here and
there and waited, looking at her watch from time to time, looking at the
groups of children, and the old people and young girls who were taking
their morning walk, and who looked at her with not much less curiosity
than a stranger unknown calls forth in a village. She was not one of the
_habitués_, and perhaps, she thought, some sense of the tumult in her
soul might have stolen into the calm foggy air around her, and startled
the quiet promenaders with a consciousness of an uneasy spirit in their
midst. She would not have been remarked in the adjoining park, where
uneasy spirits abound, and all kinds of strange meetings, interviews,
and revolutions take place. When she had waited as she thought long
enough, she went back again to Blank Street. “Oh, it’s you again, Miss,”
said the old woman. “Master Edward’s gone--I forgot to tell him as some
one had been here; and he went out in a hurry, for he was going out to
‘is breakfast. I’m sure, Miss, I’m very sorry I forgot; but he wouldn’t
have paid no attention, he was in such a hurry to get away.”

Evelyn pressed her hands tightly together, as if she had been pressing
her heart between them. She ceased to feel the relief: the sickening
suspense and delay made the light for a moment swim in her eyes.

“I am very anxious to see him,” she said. “At what time will he return?”

“Oh, Miss, I can’t tell,” said the old woman. “Sometimes he’ll come in
to dress for dinner, sometimes not. I does for them in other ways, but
not cooking, except just a cup of tea.”

“At what time,” said Evelyn; “six or seven? tell me! I am very anxious
to see him.”

“Well, Miss, it’s just a chance,” the caretaker said.

And with this she was dismissed to wait the live-long day, with nothing
to do, in that forced inaction which is the most miserable of all
things. I do not know a more dreadful ordeal to go through than to go to
a strange place upon one special mission, which is your only errand
there, and not to be able to accomplish it, and to have a whole dreary
day to get over in forced patience, until you can try again. Mrs.
Rowland went back to the hotel, and spent the greater part of the day
staring through the window, with some sort of hope that she might see
Eddy’s face, and be able to rush after him, and stop him in the midst of
the crowd. At six o’clock she went back, and at seven, and at eight,
walking about and about in the intervals, so as to keep the door in
sight: but nobody came. It was not any attempt on Eddy’s part to elude
her, for he did not know anything about her. He did not come home on
that evening to dine, that was all. The next day she waited until a
later hour before she went. Alas! he had gone out earlier on that
particular morning! The old woman had said that a lady from Scotland had
been inquiring for him; but he had flung away with a contemptuous outcry
“Confound all ladies from Scotland!” which Mrs. Jones was too polite to
repeat. In the evening Evelyn had no better luck; but she left her card
with an entreaty pencilled upon it that he would come to see her in her
hotel, and sat through the evening watching for every step. But no one
came. The third day was the day on which she ought to have gone home;
but it was impossible to go away now leaving this quest unaccomplished,
whatever might happen. She wrote a hurried letter to her husband
explaining something, though not all, and with a determined resolve that
this day should not pass in the same inactivity, went out again. The old
woman received her like an old acquaintance. “He’s in, Miss, but he’s in
bed,” she said. Evelyn stepped quickly into the house. “I must see him,”
she said. “Lawks, Miss!” said the woman, “you won’t go up to a young
gentleman in his bedroom.” Evelyn only repeated “I must must see him.”
She did not perceive an air of greater bustle and movement about the
house. What was it to her who was there, if she could but see Eddy?

“My good woman,” she said, “my business is very important. Mr. Saumarez
has just left my house in the country, and something has happened that
may hurt him--that may most seriously hurt him. Show me where his room
is: I will take the responsibility on myself.”

“Oh, Miss, it isn’t my place to show in a lady. I couldn’t do it; I
daren’t do it: and you’re too nice and too respectable for such a
thing--oh, lady!” cried the old woman, as the visitor went on passing
her. Evelyn met a man-servant on the stairs with a cup of soup in his
hand. Except that he was a servant, and in a dark livery, she made no
other note in respect to him. She said in the calm of the excitement
which had now taken hold of her like a giant, “Tell me which is Mr.
Edward’s room?”

“Mr. Edward’s room?--he is not up, madam,” said the man.

“It does not matter; I must see him--which is his room?”

She was so determined that she pushed past him, quite pale, and with a
desperation which the man, more experienced than the old charwoman,
recognised. He followed her upstairs, and opened a door. “If you will go
in there, I will send him to you.” It was a small sitting-room, Eddy’s
no doubt, from the pipes and foils and riding-whips and other mannish
boyish articles that hung on the walls. Evelyn would have turned back
when she saw that he was not there. “I am not to be foiled,” she said;
“I must see him; take me to his room, or else I will find it for
myself!”

“Ma’am,” said the man, “I know you’re a lady and a friend of the family.
I have seen you before. I give you my word I’ll bring him to you, if
you’ll wait here.”

She sat down and waited close by the open door. She was determined that
he should not escape her, whatever his desire might be. The man, after a
vain attempt to close the door upon her, opened the next door and went
in. She heard the blinds drawn up, something said softly, then an
astonished cry. At all events, whatever might come of it, she had at
least secured her opportunity at last.

It was half-an-hour, however, before, after many movements and commotion
in the next room, Eddy came forth hurried and breathless, with a face
that looked old and wan in the light of the morning, a light he was not
much accustomed to face. Poor little pale, old-young face, something
between the shrivelled countenance of an old man and that of a pinched,
unwholesome child! to think that he should not yet be of age, and yet
wear that look: but Mrs. Rowland had no time for such reflections. She
rose up quickly, just within the open door, and put out an eager hand.
He might even now have escaped her, she felt, had she not been standing
there, where he was obliged to pass; and his tremor and anxiety at the
sight of her were evident. He cried, “Mrs. Rowland!” letting fall a book
which was in his hand.

“Yes; I have come down direct from Scotland to speak to you. I have been
three days trying to see you.” She had scarcely breath enough to say so
many words.

“The old woman,” said Eddy, “told me something about a lady from
Scotland; but I thought it bosh; she is such an old fool. I did not
flatter myself there was any lady in Scotland who would take the trouble
to come after me; and you, Mrs. Rowland----”

“You did not think of seeing me? Can you imagine no reason why I should
come?” she said.

To Evelyn’s astonishment--for her enigmatical question had really been
put at pure hazard--Eddy’s sallow and careworn face flushed over with a
violent red, and then became more than sallow, cadaverous, and a cold
moisture came out upon his forehead.

“Let me shut the door,” he said, “it’s cold; and can I order you
anything: a cup of tea--breakfast? Ah!” he said with a laugh, “of course
you’ve breakfasted hours ago; but I’m sure you will not mind if I order
my tea: one wants it in a morning when one has been late overnight.”

“You look--as if you had been very late overnight, Eddy.”

“Oh, I acknowledge I was; who denies it?” said Eddy, with again an
attempt at a laugh. “It’s the nature of the beast: one minds one’s
manners, at a place like Rosmore; but in town one can’t help one’s self,
not even when town’s out of town, and it’s only the _debris_ that are
left.”

“You would have done better to stay at Rosmore,” she said gently; “you
do not look the same person.”

“I am not the same person. Who would not be better there?” he said. And
here he burst into an uneasy laugh. “You have not come at this hour in
the morning, and dragged an unlucky wretch out of bed, only that we
should exchange compliments about Rosmore?”

“No, indeed. I have a little history to give you, Eddy, and an appeal to
make. You know, or you divined, I cannot tell which, something of what
happened before you left?”

“The night of the ball?--oh I divined: that is to say, I saw. A man does
not arrive in hot haste at nearly midnight, when a ball is going on, and
demand the master of the house; and the master of the house does not
send in equal haste for his son, who is closeted with him for a long
time, then comes out looking conscious and distracted, and finally
disappears, without the instructed spectator forming an idea that
something must have happened. I am a very instructed spectator, Mrs.
Rowland. I have seen various things of the kind. The sons have
disappeared for shorter or longer times, and the fathers have remained
masters of the field. Here, Rogers, put it on this little table, and
take away those things to eat. I want nothing but some tea.”

There was a moment’s pause, during which the little table was covered
with a shining white polished cloth, which reflected the fire in a
surface made semi-transparent by starch and borax and a glittering
silver tea-pot placed upon it; which made a still warmer reflection in
the foggy yellow of the morning air. Eddy poured himself out his tea
with his usual air of easy composure, a little overdone. But this Mrs.
Rowland was not herself of a sufficiently easy mind to see.

“Eddy,” she said, “I have been told--I don’t know how to say it to you.”
It had never till this moment occurred to her how difficult it would be
to say, nor did she even know what she meant to imply, or how he could
be connected with the matter. “I have been told,” she repeated rather
breathlessly, “that you, perhaps, might know something of--that in the
dreadful position of affairs I might ask--you--”

“Ask me--what?” he said with a smile. The corners of his mouth trembled
a little. He spilt the cream which he was pouring into his tea, but she
did not observe these incidents, and indeed what could they have had to
do with the question--but it was no question--which she asked? “Of
course, if I can tell you anything, Mrs. Rowland, or throw any
light--But tell me first. Ask me--what?”

She gazed at him a moment, and then poor Evelyn acknowledged her own
impotence by a sudden burst of tears. “I have come down from Scotland,”
she said, “without my husband’s knowledge. I have wandered to and
fro--this is now the third day--trying to see you, Eddy. I am worn out,
and my nerves have gone all wrong. I can’t be sure of the step I am
taking, if I am mistaken or not. The only thing I can do is to ask you
simply--do you know anything about it? I don’t know what. I have nothing
clear in my head, only a sort of despair of making anything of it, ever.
I was told that you might know something--that you might help me. If
you can, for God’s sake do it Eddy! I will be grateful to you all my
life.”

He spilt a little of his tea as he carried it to his lips. After all,
though nothing can be so hardened as youth, nothing is at the same time
so soft. Eddy was not invulnerable as some people of his age, as Marion,
for instance, appeared to be. He had never in his life been subjected to
this sort of appeal. A young man who has a mother and other anxious
friends is, perhaps, subjected to it over much, and at last comes to
regard the appeal to his emotional nature--the argument against going
wrong, that it will break some one else’s heart--as a bore rather than a
touching plea. But Eddy, who had never had any mother, and to whom no
one had ever appealed thus, was moved--more than he could have imagined
it possible that he should be moved. He put down his tea-cup with a
trembling hand. He could not look in the face of the woman who had been
so kind to him, and who looked at him with the utmost eloquence of which
eyes were capable, eyes full of emotion and of tears, to back up her
words. He did not know what reply to make to her. He had been already
mightily shaken by the success of that great _coup_ of his. When an
error or crime is a failure, the conscience is quiet: we do not take
upon ourselves the guilt of a thing by which we have gained nothing; but
when, as in the present case, it succeeds perfectly, then the
inexperienced spirit trembles. Eddy was only at this stage. He had
received his proportion of the money, and he had still the remains of
the hundred-and-fifty pounds which Archie had given him. Never had he
known what it was to have so much in his pockets. He had been throwing
it away in handfuls, as was natural, and as the excitement lessened, the
compunction grew. It was not so much compunction, as it was a horrible
sense of the insignificant value of a thing for which he had risked so
much. He had, indeed, freed himself from the money-lender’s hands, and
was no longer in his power; yet never in his life would he be sure that
he was not in somebody’s power. And presently the money, the curse, and
the payment of his act, would be exhausted, and he no better, how much
worse than before! These thoughts had been in Eddy’s mind before this
appeal was made to him. He had banished them, but they were ever waiting
at his door, ready to catch him at an unguarded moment. And now here was
this lady, this dear woman who had been kind to him! He could not
swallow that tea, much as he wanted it or some restorative. He set it
down again with a trembling hand. That had happened to Eddy, which some
of the old Puritans meant when they described Satan as flinging so big a
stone at the head of his victim, that it recoiled upon himself.

“Mrs. Rowland,” he said, “we are speaking parables, and though we both
know something, we don’t understand what we each know. Will you tell me
simply what has happened to Archie, and why? I guessed at it. I might
not be right in my guess. Tell me as if I had never heard anything of
it, and did not know.”

Evelyn dried her eyes, and recovered her calm. She obeyed him literally
without a word of preface. “On the night of the ball a messenger
arrived from the bank, bringing with him a cheque, purporting to be my
husband’s, for a thousand pounds. It was a forged cheque.”

Eddy, in spite of himself, shivered as if with a sudden chill. He put
his hands up to his eyes. It might have been merely a gesture of wonder
and dismay.

“Mr. Rowland, I think wrongly, had been suspicious and uneasy about
Archie before. He sent for him, and he was the more angry that Archie
could not come till all the guests were gone. He held out the cheque to
his son, and accused him of having done it.”

Eddy withdrew his hands from his face and looked up. “Which he did not,
which he never did, which he was not capable of,” he cried quickly.

“Oh Eddy, God bless you! I knew you would say so. And so did I--from the
bottom of my heart.”

“He was not,” cried Eddy, with a sort of hysterical laugh, “clever
enough--not half! he had not got it in him--nor bold enough--a fellow
like that! He could not have done it if he had tried.”

“Oh Eddy! but that was not my husband’s view. Archie was so astonished
at first that he thought it something to laugh at. And then he was
angry, furious, as passionate as his father. And then--he shook the dust
from off his feet, as the Bible says, and left the house. And God knows
if he will ever come back. Never, I think, till his innocence is proved.
And his father--he is inexorable, he thinks, but he is very unhappy.
Eddy!”

The tone of appeal in that last word was indescribable. She raised her
voice a little and her eyes, and looked at him. And Eddy, unaccustomed,
could not bear the look in those eyes.

“You speak of proving his innocence,” he said; “was there any proof of
his guilt?”

“Nothing: but that his handwriting is like his father’s.”

“And do you know,” said Eddy looking away, “have you found out to whom,
for instance, it was paid?”

“My husband,” said Evelyn, “is a very proud man. His honour is his life.
He accepted the cheque, though he knew at once what it was. He would
allow no questions. Therefore, it is impossible to inquire, to get any
particulars. And the plan he devised to serve Archie will be his ruin.
Imagine such a thing! We dare not ask lest he should be suspected; and
so he must lie under suspicion all his life!”

“Oh, not so bad as that--fathers are not so bad as that: he will forgive
him.”

“But he will never ask to be forgiven--nor accept forgiveness; how
should he, being innocent?” said Evelyn.

“I should not be so particular,” said Eddy, with a momentary gleam of
humour in his eyes. He could not be serious for long together without
some such relief. “And so Mr. Rowland has got the cheque,” he said;
then, after a pause, “And may I ask, dear Mrs. Rowland, who was so kind
as to suggest that you should ask me?”

“Marion for one: I can’t tell why,” Evelyn said.

(“Oh,” Eddy said within himself, with another twinkle in his eyes, “I
owe you one for that, my little May.”)

“And a very different person--a man whom perhaps you scarcely know, who
suggested that your friend Johnson----”

“Oh, my friend Johnson! the beast--to call that fellow my friend!” cried
Eddy in a more audible parenthesis.

“Eddy,” said Evelyn gravely, “in that respect you were very much to
blame.”

“Oh, in every respect I am much to blame!” cried the young man,
springing from his chair. The vehemence of his motion was such that
Evelyn had to put up her hand to save the table against which he kicked
in his rapid movement. He went across the room, and stood with his back
to her, his shoulders up to his ears, his hands in his pockets, absorbed
in his thoughts. And they were not pleasant thoughts: and they ranged
over the widest space, the whole course of the future through which that
cloud might ever be ready to fall: the horror of the consequences should
they overtake him, the ruin of name and fame, the scandal and the
catastrophe. It was not a thing which could be lived down, or which
people could forget. All those arguments which are of so little use in
the face of temptation, are of tremendous force when the deed is done,
and nothing remains but the penalty to pay. His lively, quick
intelligence, roused to rapid action, made its calculations with
lightning speed: not unmoved by the thought of Archie in the strange
jumble of selfish and unselfish motives--not untouched by the misery
which had been produced on all sides.

He turned round again at the end of a few minutes, which seemed to
Evelyn like so many years.

“Mr. Rowland has the cheque?” he said. “Would he give it to you, and
could you burn it?”

“Eddy?”

“Do you think I am going out of my senses? But I am not. If he will give
you the cheque and let you burn it, I will--clear it all up,” said Eddy
with a gasp; “and make Archie’s innocence as clear as the day.”

“Eddy! Eddy!”

“Ah, you speak to me in a different tone now: your voice sounds like a
blessing. But wait till you know, Mrs. Rowland; perhaps it will change
again. I will not take your kind hand till after. I am not going to
cheat you out of your sympathy. Look here,” he said, standing by her,
“this is what you must do. Telegraph at once, ‘If you will give me
cheque to destroy, full information will be given from quite different
quarter.’ There,” he said, “that’s as concise as it can be made. I will
come to your hotel at five, when you will have your answer, and
bring--all that you want.”

“The proof,” she said, “that it was not Archie?”

“The proof,” he replied, with a long-drawn breath, “who it was.”




CHAPTER XLII.


Evelyn left the little sitting-room and went downstairs with a quickly
beating heart. She did not quite see the meaning of what she was bidden
to do. It was like the formula of a doctor’s prescription, obscure yet
authoritative, and to be obeyed without doubt or delay. Her heart was
beating high, and her brain throbbing in sympathy. She had no thought
but to get as quickly as possible to the nearest telegraph office; the
only thing that restrained her was the thought that she was not quite
sure where her husband was. It had been settled that he should return
home that day, on which she had determined to return too so as to meet
him. That part of her intention she evidently could not carry out, but
in her absorption she did not reflect that, if he had arrived, it would
be to the disappointment and surprise of finding her gone, without any
explanation; that he would probably be annoyed and displeased, and not
in a mood to receive her laconic and unexplained question graciously.
This did not enter into Evelyn’s mind at all. She was given up to one
thought. That Rowland should be harsh to her or misunderstand her did
not occur to her as possible.

She hurried downstairs to fulfil her mission, bidding Eddy remain and
take his breakfast. “You look as if you wanted it, my poor boy,” she
said, patting him on the shoulder.

“Oh, I want it--and something stronger!” he said, with a laugh.

“No, my dear; oh, no, my dear,” she said anxiously. She even came back
from the door, hurried and eager as she was, to deliver, like a true
woman, a few very broken words on this subject. “Be content with the
tea, dear Eddy,” she said. A great tenderness for the boy had risen in
her breast. He had never known his mother; how much there was to be
excused in him! And he might have been her own son! though she thanked
God that it was not so, and reflected with horror what her life would
have been, had her youthful hopes been fulfilled, with such a man as
Edward Saumarez had turned out to be, and with such a son: yet the very
thought that she might have been the boy’s mother always softened
Evelyn. He was such a boy, too, still! though he had run the course of
so many unknown ills--young enough to be taken into his mother’s arms,
if he had one, and coaxed and persuaded back to innocence. Eddy had no
such feeling in the roused and excited state of his mind; he would not
laugh as she left him so as she could hear, but waited till, as he
thought, she had left the house before he allowed that unsteady peal to
burst forth. “Be content with the tea! Oh, the natural preacher, the
all-advising woman!” but with the sound of that “dear Eddy!” in his ears
the young man laughed till he cried--only because it was so good a joke,
he said to himself: but in this there was a certain self-deception too.

Evelyn was hurrying out, waiting for no one to open the door for her,
when she was suddenly stopped by Rogers, the servant who, she now
recollected suddenly, was the personal attendant of Saumarez himself.
She had not attempted to account for his presence, nor indeed thought of
him in the hurry of her thoughts. But it now flashed upon her, with
sudden surprise and vexation, in the enlightenment of his words--“My
master, ma’am,” he said, “would like to see you before you go.”

“Your master!” It was with a gasp of alarm that Evelyn replied. “I did
not know,” she said, “that Mr. Saumarez was here.”

“We came home--sudden,” said the man, “yesterday. My master will often
take a fancy like that. And he hopes, ma’am, that you will not go out of
the house without giving him the pleasure of seeing you.”

“I am in great haste,” Mrs. Rowland said. “I came to Mr. Edward entirely
on business. I am very sorry Mr. Saumarez was told that I was here: for
indeed I have no time----”

“Mr. Saumarez bade me say, ma’am, that as you knew he was unable to come
to you, he hoped as you would overlook the liberty and come to him.”
Rogers stood respectfully but firmly between Evelyn and the door. Not,
of course, to prevent her going, which was an impossibility, but with a
moral impulse that she felt incapable of resisting. “He has been in a
deal of suffering, and it will cheer him up, ma’am,” the man said.

With a pang of disappointment she yielded to the delay. It could only be
for a few minutes, after all. She was exceedingly unwilling not only to
be delayed, but to encounter Eddy’s father under any circumstances, and
above all in his own house. She followed the attendant with great
suppressed impatience and reluctance. The sitting-room occupied by
Saumarez was close to the door, with a window upon the street. It was
the dining-room of the little London house, the back part, which was
separated from the front by folding-doors, half-covered with curtains,
being Saumarez’s bedroom. He was seated in his invalid chair between the
fire and the window, and though the foggy morning had very little light
in it, a blind of much the same colour as the fog, yellowish and grimy,
was drawn down half over the window. Out of this obscurity, upon which
the red light of the fire shed at one side an illumination which looked
smoky in the atmosphere of the fog, the long thin countenance, peaked
beard, and gleaming eyes of the invalid were visible with the most
striking Rembrandt effect. He held out to Evelyn a very thin, very white
hand.

“Thanks, dear lady,” he said, “for this gracious visit. I scarcely hoped
for anything so good. In London, at this time of the year, a fair
visitor of any kind is a rarity; but you!--I believed you to be
dispensing hospitality in marble halls,” he added, with a little laugh
of the veiled satire which implied to Evelyn all that scorn of her late
marriage, and parvenu husband, and vulgar wealth, which he did not put
into words.

“You wonder, perhaps, what I have done with Rosamond,” she said; “but
she is perfectly well and perfectly safe. My own absence from home is
one of three days only. I return to-night.”

“Ah, Rosamond,” he said; “poor child! To tell the truth I did not think
of Rosamond. She is quite safe, I have no doubt. But you? What is my
friend Rowland about that he allows his beautiful wife to come up to
London, even in the dead season, on business, by herself?”

“The business,” she said, hurriedly, “was my own, and he could not have
done it for me. I hope you are better, and that the waters----”

“The waters,” he said, with a smile, “are good to amuse people with an
idea that something is being done for them. That is the best of medical
science now-a-days. It does amuse one somehow, however vain one knows it
to be, to think that something is being done. And so your business, my
dear lady, concerned my son? Happy Eddy to be mixed up in the affairs of
such a woman as you.”

“There was a question I had to ask him,” said Evelyn, faltering.

“Of so much importance that you have tried to find him vainly for two
days. I say again, happy Eddy! I wish these were questions which his
father could answer: but alas! all that is over with me.”

“The question did not personally concern either him or me,” said Evelyn,
“but the well-being of a third person, for whom I am very closely
concerned.”

“Happy third person!” said the invalid, with a gleam of those wolfish,
eager eyes out of the partial gloom. “I would I were one of those third
persons. And Rowland, my good friend, does he know all about it, and of
a necessity so strong that a lovely lady had almost forced her way into
Eddy’s room?”

“Mr. Saumarez,” said Evelyn, feeling her cheeks burn. “My husband knows,
or will know, exactly in every particular what I have done, and will
approve of it. You know what a boy of Eddy’s age, and lately a visitor
in my own house, the companion of my husband’s son, must be to me.”

“Age is very deceitful,” said Saumarez with a laugh, “especially in
Eddy’s case, if you will permit me to say it. He is not a boy, as you
will call him, to be judged by mere numerals. Eddy is one of the sons
occasionally to be met with in highly civilized life, who are older than
their fathers. Even a husband’s son, dear lady, has been known to be not
over-safe,” he added with again that mocking laugh.

“There is no question of safety,” said Evelyn. She felt the blaze of
shame to be so addressed, enveloping her from head to foot like a fire.
“You must pardon me if I say that this is a kind of conversation very
unpleasing to me,” she said with spirit, “and most uncalled for.” His
laugh sounded like the laugh of a devil in her ears.

“Nay,” he said, “you must not let my precious balms break your head. I
speak as a friend, and in your best interests, Evelyn.”

“My name is Mrs. Rowland, Mr. Saumarez.”

“Oh! if I could ever forget the time when you were not Mrs. Rowland, but
my Evelyn! But that, of course, is not to the purpose,” he added with a
sigh, at which he presently laughed. “We get sentimental. Dear lady, if
you will let me say it, your age is precisely the one which is most
dangerous, and in which a taste for youth has been often shown, in
various conspicuous examples.”

Evelyn rose to her feet with a start of offence and shame. She had not
known it was in her to be so wildly, almost fiercely angry. “Not another
word!” she said. “You abuse your privileges as a sick man. I will not
hear another word.”

“And what,” he said in a low voice, stretching out his hand to detain
her, “if I--or Rogers--were to let my good friend Rowland know that he
had difficulty in preventing the trusted and honoured wife from making a
forcible entrance into a young man’s room?”

If Evelyn had been a weak or unreasoning woman, had she been without
trust in her husband or herself, had she been apt to concealment, or to
believe, as so many do, that an evil motive is always the most readily
believed in--it is possible that she might at this odious moment, a
moment she could never bear to think of after--have been lost one way or
other, bound as a miserable thrall under this man’s power, whose
malignant mouth could have done her such vile and frightful injury. But
fortunately she was none of these things. It had not even once occurred
to her that her determination to see Eddy, wherever she might find him,
would have been made the subject of any remark. And if she now perceived
that it was a foolish and imprudent thing, the discovery was made in a
moment of such extreme excitement that it had no effect upon her. She
stood by him for a second, towering over him in a wrath which possessed
and inspired her. “Do so,” she said, “at once: or rather let Rogers do
so, Mr. Saumarez. It will not be so degrading to him, a man without
instruction, possibly knowing no better, as it would be to you. And
besides, he could speak from personal knowledge. His letter will find my
husband at Rosmore. Good-bye.”

“And do you think you are to silence the world in this way?” said
Saumarez. “Myself, or Rogers perhaps, and your husband if he is such a
fool--but----”

“Good-bye,” she said once more.

“Evelyn!” he cried.

“Good-bye.” Mrs. Rowland went out of the house like an arrow from a bow,
drawing the door behind her, with a sound that rang through the sleepy
street. She came so quickly that she almost discovered a watcher on the
other side, intent upon all her movements; that is, she gave him the
shock of a possible discovery: for, as for Evelyn, she saw nothing. Her
eyes were dim and misty with the heat of indignation that seemed to rise
up from her flushed cheeks and panting breath to blind her. She walked
away with the impulse of that wrath, at a pace that would have been
impossible under other circumstances, walking far and fast, incapable of
thinking even where it was that she wanted to go.

The pure air, however, and the rapid movement, soon brought Mrs. Rowland
to herself, and she turned back upon her rapid course so suddenly that
again--But she did not observe any one, or anything in the road, which,
even in this dead season, was sufficiently full to confuse an
unaccustomed visitor. She went at once to the telegraph office and sent
off the message, as a matter of precaution, sending it to Rosmore, and
in duplicate to the house of Sir John Marchbanks, where it was possible
Rowland might still be. She added a word of explanation to the message
dictated by Eddy. “Don’t be surprised to hear from me, from London,” she
wrote, without any recollection of the concise style necessary to a
telegram, “all explanations when we meet, and I know you will approve.”
When she had sent this off, Evelyn was solaced and more or less restored
to herself. She walked back more calmly to the hotel, beginning to feel
a little the effect of the morning’s exertions and excitement. But when
she reached the shelter of her room, and felt herself alone, and under
no restraint from other people’s looks, she was incapable of keeping up
any longer. A long fit of crying gave vent to the pent up trouble in her
breast. She bent down her head upon her hands and wept like a child,
helplessly. When one has been outraged, insulted, hurt in every fibre,
and with no power to vindicate or avenge, which are momentary modes of
relief--the mingled pain and shame and rage, quite justifiable, yet
making up a passion which hurts almost as much as the cause which
produced it, lay all one’s defences low. Men even are wrought to tears
by such means, how much more a woman, to whom that expression of
suffering is always so painfully and inconveniently near.

When Evelyn had overcome this weakness and recovered her confusion, I
cannot assert that her mind was easy or her thoughts comfortable. Was
she so sure that her husband would approve? Had she not been imprudent
and unguarded in what she had done? The thought had not entered her mind
before, but the light of a vile suggestion is one that makes the whitest
innocence pause and shudder. Could any one else for a moment think----.
She said to herself, No, no! with a high head and expanded nostril. But
it made her unhappy in spite of herself. It was as if something filthy
and festering had been thrown into her mind. She could not forget it,
could not throw it forth again, felt its unutterable foulness like a
burn or a wound. Rogers, perhaps the servants, might have thought--for
servants have dreadful ways of thinking, dreadful back-stair ways, the
ideas of minds which peep and watch, and hope to detect. He might have
thought--and in that mysterious way in which such whispers fly, it might
be communicated to some other privileged attendant, and so go forth upon
the air, an evil breath. Was it possible! was it possible! Evelyn seemed
to feel already the confusion, the bewilderment, the restless horror of
a whispered scandal, an accusation that never could be met, because
never openly made, one of those vile breathings which go through
society. It is so strange to think that one may one’s self be subject to
such an insinuated wrong. Herself! the last person, the most unlikely,
the most impossible! It was already a wrong to her that the vile idea
should be put within the furthest range of things thought of. And thus
Mrs. Rowland spent a very restless and miserable afternoon. She could
neither eat nor rest. She put up her “things,” the few necessaries she
had brought with her, to be ready for the night train, and tried to
still herself, to keep quiet, to read, but without effect. There is
nothing so difficult to get through as a day spent in waiting, and it
was scarcely past twelve o’clock, when, after all she had gone through,
she returned to the solitary empty hotel room, with its big stone
balustrade against the window, and the crowd sweeping along below. She
went out upon the balcony and watched for the coming of the telegraph
boy with an answer to her message. There were dozens of telegraph boys
coming and going, and at intervals she could see one below, mounting the
very steps of the hotel. But hour after hour passed, and nothing came
for her. On two or three occasions she ran to the door of her room, as
if that could quicken the steps of the tardy messenger; but among the
many people who passed up and down the stairs and looked at her
curiously, there was no one bringing the reply upon which all the
success of this painful mission hung.

And then it was five o’clock: but not soon, not till months of weary
waiting seemed to have passed; and then ensued, to Evelyn perhaps the
worst of all, a half-hour of excitement and expectation almost beyond
bearing. Would Eddy come? Would he stand by his bargain, though she was
not able to do so with hers. It was nothing that he did not appear at
the hour. He had never been punctual. He was one of those who do not
know the value of time, nor what it is to others to keep to an hour.
Nothing would ever convince Eddy that the rest of the world were not as
easy in respect to time, as little bound by occupation as himself. He
had no understanding of those who do a certain thing at a certain time
every day of their lives. The waiter appeared bringing lights, uncalled
for, for Evelyn, sitting in the partial dark, looking out upon the lamps
outside, felt her heart beating too quick and fast to give her leisure
to think of what was required or the hour demanded. He brought lights,
he brought tea; he made an attempt, which she prevented to draw the
curtains, and shut out the gleaming world outside, the lights and sounds
which still seemed to link her with the distance, and made it possible
that some intelligence might still come, some answer to her prayer. And
then suddenly, all at once, in the hush after the waiter had gone from
the room, Eddy opened the door. Mrs. Rowland sprang from her seat as if
she had not expected him at all, and his coming was the greatest
surprise in the world.

“Eddy! you!”

“Did you not expect me?” he said, astonished.

She drew a chair near her, and made him sit down. “I feel as if I had
brought you here on false pretences. I have got no answer to the
telegram.”

Eddy had taken a small pocket-book out of his breast pocket, and held it
in his hand. He stopped suddenly, and looked at it, then at Mrs.
Rowland. He was excited and pale, but yet his usual humorous look broke
over his face. “No answer?” he said.

“Did I tell you my husband was from home? he ought to have returned
to-day; but perhaps he has not done so. I ought also to have returned
to-day. It means nothing but that he has not got home.”

“There is no answer,” Eddy said, as if explaining matters to himself,
“and I will be giving myself away and no security acquired. Well, in for
a penny, in for a pound,” he said. “I have got it all here, Mrs.
Rowland; but you ought to give me your word that I shall not be the
worse for it.”

She sat gazing at him with such uncomprehension, that he laughed aloud.

“She doesn’t understand me,” he said, “not a bit: it is not in her to
understand; she has not an idea how serious it is.”

Eddy’s hands were unsteady, his little grey eyes were sparkling with a
feverish fire. From his foot, which he kept shaking in nervous
commotion, as he sat on the table with one leg suspended, to the mobile
eyebrows, which quivered and twisted over his forehead, there was
nothing still about him. He took a piece of paper on which something was
written out of his pocket-book, and looked at it, holding it in his
hand.

“Here it is,” he said, and his voice shook a little, though its tone was
light enough. “The guilty witness. When you put this into your husband’s
hands, Mrs. Rowland, he will know who forged his name. Have you a safe
place to put it in, a purse or something? For, remember, I am placing
my life in your hands.”

“Eddy, Eddy, you frighten me! I can’t imagine what you mean.”

“No, I know you can’t; perhaps not even when you see it will you know.
But give him that, Mrs. Rowland, and he will understand.”

He held the paper a moment more, and then gave it to her. There was not
a particle of colour in his sallow, small face. He sat on the corner of
the table, swinging one leg, at first not looking at her, a smile on his
face, which grew every moment more grey.

Evelyn took the paper almost with alarm. She gazed at it with a look at
first of intense surprise and disappointment. What did it mean? her
husband’s signature written two or three times on a piece of paper, as
if he had been trying a pen. James--James, twice or thrice repeated;
then “Rowland.” Then in full, “James Rowland,” with a characteristic
flourish at the end. She looked at the paper and then at Eddy, and
then----

It was his look that forced conviction on her mind, not the guilty
witness in her hand. She gave a great cry, “Eddy!” and put her hand over
her eyes, as if to shut out some unwelcome sight.

“Yes,” he said, swinging his foot, his head sunk upon his breast; “that
is just about what it is: and I am a--a--everything that is bad. But not
such a cad as to let another man be ruined instead of me,” he cried.

Evelyn got up to her feet, stumbling, not seeing where she went, her
eyes blinded with tears. “Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy!” she cried,
putting her arms round him, drawing him to her.

“Is that how you take it?” he said, with a sob. “I did not expect you to
take it like that.”

“Oh, Eddy!” she said, not able to find other words; “oh, my poor boy!”

He drew himself away from her a little, dashing off the tears that were
in his eyes. “You know what that means, Mrs. Rowland,” he said, “though
you may be sorry for me, and he may forgive me for your sake; but it is
separation for ever. I mustn’t presume to let you be kind to me.” He
took her back to her chair and placed her in it, and kissed her hand.
And then he took up his hat. “It could mean nothing else, and I should
be too thankful that he takes no step. Of course, I shall never see any
of you again.” Then he suddenly laughed out, the colour coming back to
his face. “And I was fond of that little Marion,” he said; “I was,
though you might not think it, and she did not deserve it any more than
I do. I was--but all that’s at an end now.”




CHAPTER XLIII.


These movements of Evelyn’s were watched, although she did not know it,
and in the strangest way. Rowland left home leaving no address, nor any
other indication of what he meant to do the evening after his return to
Rosmore. He came back on the Wednesday, and on Friday morning he arrived
in London, and followed his wife’s steps to the hotel, where he felt
sure she would go. When he arrived he was told that Mrs. Rowland was
indeed there, but had just gone out. “She cannot be out of sight yet,”
the porter said, pointing the direction she had taken, and Rowland,
without a word, followed his wife. He had no intention when he did so,
no plan but to overtake her, to join her, to ask for an explanation of
her conduct: but he had scarcely caught sight of the well-known figure
walking before him along the thronged pavement before another idea
struck him. He would not make himself known, he would watch what she was
doing, and leave his eventual conduct to the guidance of the moment. One
great motive which induced him to come to this resolution was that the
moment he caught sight of her, James Rowland, who had left home
breathing flame and fire, shrank into himself, and felt that he no more
dared approach his wife with an air of suspicion and demand an
explanation of her conduct, than he dared invade the retirement of the
Queen. The one thing was about as possible as the other. All his old
reverence for his lady-wife, all his conviction of her absolute
superiority to everybody he had ever known came back upon him like a
flood. Who was he to demand an explanation from her? Was it likely that
he could know better what was seemly and becoming than she did? Was it
possible that she, the crowning glory of his life, could do anything
against his honour, could commit or compromise him in any way? A hush
fell upon his troubled tempestuous mind the moment he perceived her
before him, walking along with quiet dignity, unpretending, yet not, he
said to himself in his pride, to be overlooked anywhere, moving among
the common crowd as if she were in a presence chamber. He held his
breath with a sort of horror at the thought that he might have been
capable of going up to her, in his passion, asking her what she did
there, whom she wanted, commanding her to return home at once. The sight
of the sweep of her dark skirt, the carriage of her head, arrested him,
temper and irritation and all, in a moment. He fell back a step or two,
with a vague inclination to turn tail altogether, turn back homewards
and humbly await her coming, which should be in her own time. But his
heart was so sore that he could not do that. He followed her
mechanically till she turned off the great thoroughfare to the smaller
street, where he still followed, taking some precaution to keep himself
out of her sight. He might have saved himself the trouble, for Evelyn
saw nothing save the great object she had in view--the interview which
was before her.

He watched her into Saumarez’s house, divining whose house it was, with
a pang at his heart. There was a convenient doorway opposite in which he
could stand and wait for her return; and there he placed himself, with
the most curious shame of himself and his unwonted unnatural position.
Watching his wife! which was only less intolerable than accusing her,
disclosing to her that he was capable of suspecting her spotless meaning
whatever it might be. No one who has not tried that undignified _métier_
can have any idea how the watcher can divine what is going on inside a
house from the minute signs which show outside. He saw a certain
commotion in the upper storey, a vague vision of her figure at the
window, the blinds quickly drawn up in the next room, enough to make
him, all his senses quickened with anxiety and eagerness, divine, more
or less, what was taking place. He saw a man come to the window, looking
moodily out as if in thought, turning round to speak to some one behind.
Whoever it was, it was not the crippled Saumarez, who, it had been so
intolerable to him to think, was to be consulted on his affairs. Then he
seemed to perceive by other movements below that the visitor was
received in the lower room; and then she came hurriedly out, taking him
by surprise, with no decorous attendance to the door, rushing forth
almost as if escaping. He had to hurry after to keep up with her hasty
excited steps. And then he followed her to the telegraph office, and
then back to the hotel. He had got without difficulty a room close by,
being anxious above measure not to betray to any one that he was not
with her, that there was any separation between them--only not quite so
anxious for that as that she should not see him, or divine that he had
followed her. He sat with his door ajar all the afternoon, in the
greatest excitement, watching her, making sure that she expected some
one, listening to her enquiries at the servants if no telegram had come.
She expected, then, a reply; was it from himself at home? Finally,
Rowland saw Eddy, to his infinite surprise, arrive in the evening, and
heard from where he watched the sound of a conversation, not without
audible risings and fallings of tone, which marked some gamut of
emotion in it. Eddy! what could his wife have to do with Eddy? Was it on
that boy’s business, in answer to any appeal from him, that she had
come? Was it perhaps to ask help for Eddy that she had sent that useless
telegram? James Rowland had been deeply offended by the idea that his
wife had come to consult another man upon his affairs; but it stung him
again into even hotter momentary passion now, when the conviction came
upon him that it was not his affairs, but something altogether
unconnected with him that had brought her so suddenly to London away
from her home. The first would have been an error of judgment almost
unpardonable. The second was--it was a thing that could not bear
thinking of. His wife consecrated to the sharing of all his sorrows, and
who had shown every appearance of taking them up as her own, to leave
her home and her husband in his trouble, and come here all this way in
so strange and clandestine a manner at the call of Eddy--Eddy! He had
himself been very favourable to Eddy, better than the boy deserved, who,
however, had been generous about Archie, seeking an opportunity of
making his obligations known: but that she, who had pretended to such
interest in Archie, should suddenly be found to be thinking not of him
but of another boy!

Rowland had scarcely gone through such a time of self-contention in all
his life as during the hour or two that elapsed between Eddy’s departure
and the time of the train. Eddy went away with a sort of _faux air_ of
satisfaction, which imposed upon the unaccustomed, inexperienced
detective. He at least seemed to be satisfied, whoever was distressed.
He had his hat over his brows, but he swung his stick lightly in his
hand, and began to hum an opera air as he went down the stairs. She must
have liberated him from some scrape, settled his affairs for him
somehow--the young reprobate, who was always in trouble! Rowland would
not have refused to help the boy himself: he would have treated Eddy
very gently had he appealed to him; but that his wife should put herself
so much out of the way for Eddy, was intolerable to him. He sat there
within his half-open door, angry, miserable, and heard her give her
orders about her departure. She was going by the night train, and wanted
some tea, and her bill and a cab got for her in time. “It is only six
now,” he heard her say with a sigh, as the waiter stood at the open
door. She was longing to get home, was she? glad to be done with it,
though she had come all this way to do it, whatever it was. He went
downstairs then and got some dinner for himself, and arranged his own
departure at the same hour. It was the strangest journey. She in one
carriage, altogether unconscious of his vicinity, he in another, so
deeply conscious of her’s. He sprang out of his compartment at every
station, to steal past the window of the other, to catch a passing
glimpse of her. There was another lady in the corner nearest the door,
but in the depths of the carriage he could see her profile, pale against
the dark cushions, her eyes sometimes shut, and weariness and lassitude
in every line of her figure and attitude as she lay back in her corner.
He did not think she was asleep. She would be thinking over what she
had done for Eddy; thinking not of her husband and his trouble, but of
that other--the other man’s boy. And bitter and sore were Rowland’s
thoughts. The fury with which he had started was not so heavy as this;
for then he had thought that she was fully occupied with his troubles,
though so unwise, so little judicious as to confide them to the last man
in the world whose sympathy he could have desired. But now to think that
it was not his trouble at all that had occupied his wife, nothing about
him, though, heaven knew, he had enough to bear--but the well-deserved
discomfort of another, the needs of the trifling boy, ill-behaved and
untrustworthy, for whom his own father had little to say. Less and less
did James Rowland feel himself able to make himself known to his wife,
to upbraid or reproach her. Why should he? he had no reason. She was
spotless, if ever woman was. She had not even offended against him in
the way he had feared. She had left home only to do a good action; to be
kind. He was well aware of this; and to assail her, to take her to task,
to accuse her even of carelessness towards him, was more than he could
permit himself to do: it was impossible. But still it seemed to Rowland,
as he travelled home, with unspeakable, suppressed anger and pain, that
this was the most unsupportable of all, and that Eddy’s shuffling,
inconsiderable figure would stand between them now for ever and ever.
Not that he was jealous of Eddy: it was disappointment, disenchantment,
the failure of his trust in her. To leave the boy, in whom she had
professed so much interest, and whose well-being, greatly as he had
sinned, involved his father’s, without lifting a hand to help him,
though she led her husband to believe that she would do something, work
a miracle, bring him back; and go off to the end of the earth, secretly,
without telling anybody, to the succour of Eddy! It was intolerable,
though there might not be a word to say.

Then came the arrival, jaded and chilled, at Glasgow, in the cold gray
of the morning, scarcely light. He kept about and watched what she would
do, nothing doubting that her next step would be to the other railway
which would take her to the banks of the loch, in time for the early
boat to Rosmore. But Evelyn did not carry out this part of the
programme, to his great surprise. She lingered at the station,
performing such a toilet as was possible; waiting, it appeared, until
the morning was a little more advanced. It was more and more difficult
to keep out of her sight, yet keep her in sight in this familiar place
where everybody knew him. He pulled up his greatcoat to his ears, his
travelling cap down upon his forehead. He could not even copy her and
add to his comfort by a wash, lest in that moment she should disappear.
He could not even get a cup of coffee, and his outer man stood more in
need of restoratives and support than hers, and could ill bear the want
of them. But at length the morning became sufficiently advanced, as it
seemed, for her purpose, and she got into a cab with her small bag,
which was all her baggage. He could not tell what orders she gave to the
driver, but he ordered the man, into whose cab he jumped without more
delay than he could help, to follow that in which Evelyn was. At this
moment all the excitement of those bewildering twenty-four hours
culminated. He felt as though he could scarcely breathe: he could not
bear his travelling-cap on his head, though it was light enough, or his
coat across his chest, though it was a cold morning to ordinary persons,
people who felt cold and heat, and had no fiery furnace within them. He
kept his uncovered head out of the window of his cab, watching the slow
progress of the one before him. How slow it was, creeping along the dark
streets as if she had told the man to go slowly to postpone some crisis,
some climax of excitement to which she was bound! Rowland’s heart
thumped like a steam-engine against his labouring breast. Where was she
going? Who could there be in Glasgow to whom it was of the slightest
consequence what happened to Eddy Saumarez, who would even know of his
existence? She must be deep in the boy’s secrets indeed, he said to
himself, with scornful wrath, to know in all this strange town who could
have anything to do with him. He seemed to recognise the turns she was
taking with a bewildered perception of the unsuspected, of something
that might be coming quite different to anything he had thought. Where
was she going? The dingy streets are like each other everywhere, few
features of difference to distinguish them, and yet he seemed to be
going over ground he knew. That shop at the corner he had surely seen
before--of course he must have seen it before! Where could a stranger go
in Glasgow that he had not been before, he who was to the manner born,
who had spent his childhood in Glasgow, and gone to his daily work by
these very ways? Yes, of course, he knew it all very well, every turn,
not only from the old times of his youth, but--Where was she going? His
heart beat louder than ever, the veins on his temples set up independent
pulses, something fluttered in his bosom like a bird, making him sick
with wonder and expectancy. Where was she going? What, what could she
mean? What did she want here?

The Sauchiehall Road--full of the greyness of the November morning:
children playing on the pavement, women going about with their baskets
to get their provisions, a lumbering costermonger’s cart trundling along
noisily over the stones, with a man crying “caller codfish prime; caller
haddies!” all incised into this man’s beating brain as if done with a
knife. He stopped his cab hurriedly, jumped out, dismissed it, and
walked slowly along, with his eyes upon the other lumbering vehicle in
front. The buzzing in his brain was so wild that everything was
confused, both sound and sights, and he stumbled over the children on
the pavement as he went along, not seeing where he went. At last it
stopped, and his heart stopped too with one sudden great thump like a
sledge-hammer. A flash of sudden light seemed to come from something, he
knew not what, whether in his eyes or outside of them, showing like a
gleam from a lantern the well-known house, the big elderberry bush, with
its dusty, black clusters of fruit. And she came out of her cab and went
quickly up to the door.

Rowland stood quite still in the midst of the passengers on the
pavement, the children knocking against him as they hopped about on one
foot, propelling the round piece of marble, with which they were
playing, from one chalked compartment to another. It hit him on the
shin, but did not startle him from his amazement, from his pause of
wonder, and the blank of incapacity to understand. What was she doing
here of all places in the world? What did she want there? What had that
house to do with Eddy Saumarez? Eddy Saumarez--Eddy! It got into a sort
of rhyme in his brain. What had that house to do with it? What did she
want there? What--what was the meaning of it all?




CHAPTER XLIV.


When Archie left his father’s house on the morning after the ball,
unrefreshed by sleep, half mad with excitement, bewildered by that last
interview with Mrs. Rowland, and the sensation of something supernatural
which had come over him, in the half-lighted hall, with the chill of the
desolate new day coming in, he was perhaps in as wretched plight as ever
a boy of twenty ever found himself in: and that is saying much, for, but
for the inalienable power of recovery in youth, how sharp would be the
pang of many a scene, in which the boy, guilty or not guilty, has
started up against parental wrath or reproof, and shaken the dust from
off his feet and gone forth, perhaps to dismay and ruin, perhaps to new
life and work. The sensation of turning the back upon home, in such
circumstances, is not very rare in human consciousness, and must have
left in many memories a poignant recollection, terrible, yet perhaps not
altogether painful to realise, in the long series of good or evil
fortune which has followed it. Archie, for the first hour or two, as he
sped up the side of the loch, like an arrow from a bow, walking five
miles an hour in his excitement, scarcely feeling the fatigue of his
condition, or any physical circumstances whatever, did not even know
where he was going, or what he would do. The home of his childhood, the
kind nurse and ruler of his docile youth, were not far off, it is true,
and in that he was better off than most of the young prodigals among
whom this guiltless boy found himself suddenly classed. But his aunt had
been prepossessed against him, she had all but forbidden him to return
the last time he left her door, and his heart was sore with injured
pride and innocence, misconstrued in that quarter as well as every
other. He had gone wildly out in the early grey of the morning, and
pursued the straight road before him rather because it was the straight
road than from any other circumstance, unable to form any decision, or
for a long time even to think of any conclusion to this forlorn walk out
into the world. It was, of course, hours too early for the early boat,
and had it not been so, Archie would not have exposed himself to
question or remark as to his departure, from the people who knew him.
The cottagers on the roadside who had noted with some surprise, on the
previous night, the carriage from Maryport, far on the other side of
the loch, which had driven rapidly by, coming and going, carrying the
messenger from the bank, might have found themselves--had they divined
who the pedestrian was who passed by their doors in the early morning,
treading the same long way--spectators of one of those human dramas
which take place in our midst every day, though we are seldom the wiser.
At the smithy at Lochhead, one man did indeed ask the other, “Was that
no young Rowland from Rosmore?” as Archie went by. But the powerful
reply of the other, “Man, it’s impossible!” quenched that one suspicion.
He had tied his old comforter, of Aunt Jane’s knitting, round his
throat, as much for a disguise as for the warmth. He had put on his old
clothes, with which he had first come to Rosmore, garments of which he
only now knew the unloveliness--and was as unlike in appearance as in
feeling to the millionaire’s only son, the young master of everything in
his father’s luxurious house. Archie had never indeed felt his elevation
very real: he scarcely ventured to accept and act upon it as if he were
himself a person of importance; he, to his own consciousness, always
Archie Rowland of the Westpark Football Club, and the Philosophers’
Debating Society, and of Sauchiehall Road. It was true that already
Sauchiehall Road had sustained the shock of disenchantment, and he had a
shamed and subdued feeling of having somehow gone beyond the circle to
which he had once been so pleased to belong, and being no longer at home
in it. But still less was he really at home on the moors with his
unaccustomed gun, or in the drawing-room with all its unfamiliar
necessities. He was now more a nobody than ever, belonging neither to
one life nor the other, cast out of both; and he walked along dreamily
as the morning broadened into the day, and all the world awoke, and the
family fires were lighted, and the family tables spread. He walked on,
and on getting beyond the range in which young Mr. Rowland of Rosmore
was known, faint, tired, without food or rest, an outcast who belonged
to nobody, till his progress began to be almost mechanical, his limbs
moving like those of an automaton, all volition gone, nothing possible
but to put one foot beyond the other in sheer monotony of movement, like
the wheels of a machine. He did not pause, because he felt that if the
machine were stopped, being human, it might not be able to go on again.
Wheels that are made of wood and iron have this great advantage over
flesh and blood.

At last he got to the railway, and stumbled into a carriage, and felt
the comparative well-being of rest, when he was able to begin to think a
little what he ought to do. And then it came back to Archie that he had
bound himself to a certain course of action. He had flung the intimation
at his father in the height of their passionate encounter, that there
should be no difficulty in finding him, that he would go to the old home
and wait there to be arrested, to stand his trial. It brought the most
curious quickening of feeling to remember that he had said that. To be
arrested, to be brought to trial!--he seemed to see the scene, himself
standing at the bar, his father giving evidence in the box, the forged
cheque handed round, and all the wise heads bent over it, all finding
signs to prove that he had done it--he that scorned it, that cared
nothing for money, that would have flung it all into the sea rather than
take a pin unjustly from any man. The fire blazed up in his dim eyes, so
dim with want of rest and excess of emotion. He accused of such a crime!
He laughed within himself at the futility of it, the foolishness! Had it
been anything else of which they had accused him--of murdering somebody,
for instance. Archie knew that he had a high temper (he who had always
been so docile and so gentle), and he thought it possible that, if much
irritated and provoked, he might have lifted his hand and given a sudden
blow. There would have been in that a possibility, a chance, that he
might have done it: but to forge a man’s name, for the sake of
money--money! The scorn with which he said the word over to himself in
the noise of the railway, nobody hearing, was tremendous. He laughed
aloud at the thought. But it decided him on one point, that there must
be no question as to where he went. It must be to his aunt’s house; the
policeman could come to arrest him there, and therefore there he must
go. It was true that it might be bringing shame upon her, innocent; but
at all events he must go there first, tell her the whole, and if she
desired that he should find another address, at least acquaint her with
it, that she might give it to the policemen when they came. This did him
good, as it settled the question, and brought him out of all
uncertainty. It fortified him even against Aunt Jane’s possibly grim
reception of him. He would go there, not for anything he wanted from
her, but to answer the claim of honour, which was the first necessity of
all.

Mrs. Brown saw him from her window when he came, sick and weary, up the
little path under the shadow of the elderberry tree, and ran and opened
the door to him with a cry of, “Archie! eh, my man, but you’re welcome
to me,” which thawed his heart a little. He threw himself down wearily
in the familiar parlour, on one of the chairs, where he was always
forbidden to sit lest he should discompose the antimacassar extended on
its back. He remembered this as he sat down with a dreary laugh.

“This is one of the chairs I was never to sit upon,” he said.

“Oh, my bonny man,” cried Mrs. Brown, “sit where ye please; dight your
feet upon the sofa, if you please; do anything you like! but eh,
whatever you do, dinna leave me to one side and cast me off as if I did
not belong to you: for that is what I canna bear.”

“I will not do that,” said Archie; “far from that: for I am come to ask
you to take me back, aunty, as if I had never been away.”

Mrs. Brown gave a shriek of dismay. “Oh, dinna say that, dinna say that!
for it looks as if things were going ill at the house at home.”

“Things are going as ill as they can: at their very worst,” he said.
“I’ve come home, Aunt Jane, because it’s a well-known place, where I’ve
lived all my life, so that if the policemen should be sent after
me----”

She interrupted him with another shriek. “The pollisman!” she cried.

“That is what it has come to,” he answered, “in four months’ time, no
more. I was to be a gentleman, never to want, Mr. Rowland’s son, the
great man that everybody knows: and now I’m cast out, charged with a
crime, with the thing flung in my face as if it were beyond doubt; and
I’m to be brought up before the judges, and tried--and hanged, for
anything I know. I promised,” said Archie, throwing back his tired head,
“that I would wait upon him here, that I would not stir a step but
bide--the worst that he or any man could do. But, Aunty Jane, to shame
you, an honest, upright woman, with policemen coming to your door, is
what I will not do. So, what I want is, that you should find a lodging
for me, any kind of a place, a little hole, what does it matter.”

“To hide you; oh, to hide you, Archie?” cried Mrs. Brown, wringing her
hands.

“To hide me!” he cried, with scorn; “it would be easy enough to do
that.”

“Oh, my laddie,” cried Aunty Jane, “do you think I would let anybody but
me do that? They shall never come at you, but o’er my body; they shall
never touch a hair of your head, if it was to cost me my last drop of
blood. Oh, Archie! it’s me that will hide you, my bonny man. There’s
little means in this house, but I’ll find a way. If it comes to heart’s
love and a woman’s wit against your muckle pollisman----”

“Aunty!” cried Archie, rising to his feet.

“Oh, whisht, whisht, my bairn! Come up the stair an’ we’ll settle it
a’. Ye’ll have the air of going away when the evening comes: and you’ll
just creep back, and I’ll make ye a hidin’ hole, where a’ the pollismen
in Glesgow shall not find ye. Whisht, we’ll have to take Bell into our
counsel; but she’s just an excellent lass, baith true and sure.”

“Aunty!” cried the young man; the tears bursting from his eyes, “Do you
think I’m guilty, then: you! you think I did it--you! Oh, Lord! who will
believe me, then?” he cried, stretching out despairing hands.

“Me?” cried Mrs. Brown; “me think ye did it, or any ill thing! I would
as soon, oh, far sooner, believe it of mysel!”

He burst into a low fit of hysterical laughter. “Then why should ye hide
me?” he said.

The good woman was taken aback for a moment. “What were ye meaning,
then, Archie, about the pollisman? and you to bide till he came? Ye
shall bide as lang as you please, my bonny boy; and everything we can do
to make you comfortable, Bell and me. Bless me! I’m speaking to my ain
lad as if he was a strange gentleman, and didna ken. What ails ye,
Archie? you are just as white as a sheet, and laughing and greeting like
a lassie.”

“I have had no breakfast,” he said, “and I’ve walked----”

But here he was interrupted by another shout from Mrs. Brown, who rushed
away to the kitchen, appearing again in a moment or two with a tray,
upon which was piled everything she could think of, from cold beef to
strawberry jam. He was not hungry: any such feeling had abandoned him
some time ago, but he was faint from want of food. And it was only when
he had eaten and rested, in the quiet of the afternoon, that he was able
to tell his tale coherently, and that she was sufficiently composed to
hear.

The exclamations with which that tale was accompanied and interrupted,
her dismay, her wrath--her triumph in Archie’s defiance of his father
and resolution to shake the dust of Rosmore from off his feet, were
endless; but when he came to his interview with Mrs. Rowland, Jane began
to shake her head.

“It would be her wyte all through,” she said. “Eh, I would not have you
lippen to her! It is just her that has been at the bottom of it a’
through.”

Archie’s momentary softness towards his stepmother was gone. He had
begun to remember his griefs, real or imaginary, against her, and to
persuade himself that her pity had been fictitious and theatrical. But
he made a protest against this view.

“She could not have forged the cheque, in order to get me into trouble,”
he said.

“Oh how do we ken what the like of her would do?” said Mrs. Brown; “a
woman that makes a marriage like yon, is just set upon everything she
can get out of the man. If he were to die, what would become of her? Oh,
he would aye leave her something, enough to keep her; but there would be
an awfu’ difference between that and Rosmore, and a’ her grand company
and her horses and carriages. They,” said Aunty Jane, cleverly changing
her ground, so that it was not Mrs. Rowland alone whom she could be
supposed to refer to, “will just do anything to get a little more
siller to lay up for that time. And if they can persuade the poor man
that his bairns, that are his natural kin, are no what he thinks
them--eh, Archie, the objeck’s just ower evident.”

“She was very kind to me,” he said. “She said she believed me.”

“Oh ay; it’s very easy to be kind when the harm’s done. After she had
got your father set against ye, and your life in her power, then was her
time to speak ye fair, my poor laddie, and make him think her the
kindest in the world. I’ve seen all that afore now,” said Mrs. Brown.
“It’s no half so uncommon as ye think. Just the invention of the deevil
to make their father think ill o’ them, and then a purrin’ and a
phrasin’ to pretend that she’s on their side: that’s just what I’ve seen
a score o’ times before.”

Archie was only half convinced, but he allowed himself to be silenced at
least. “Somebody must have done it,” he said. “I have thought of it a
great deal since--somebody that knew my father’s writing, and could get
a cheque, and had the opportunity of getting the money, without
suspicion.”

Mrs. Brown nodded her head at each detail, and said “Just that, just
that.”

“You are making a mistake,” he said. “She writes a little pretty hand,
like a lady. She could not do it, even if she were capable of a thing
which is a crime.”

“I tell you,” said Jane, “they are just capable of everything, to get
them that’s in their way out o’ their way. And what about the writing?
If they canna do a thing themselves, there’s aye others they can get to
do it. An ill person never missed an ill deed yet for want of a tool.”

“You speak nonsense!” he cried angrily; but he could not argue with a
woman strong in the panoply of ignorance and obstinacy. And by the oft
repetition of such arguments, Archie came, if not to believe, at least
to acquiesce, in that decision that Mrs. Rowland, somehow, was at the
bottom of it all; that it was contrary to her interests that a good
understanding should exist between Archie and his father, and that,
whoever had actually done this thing, the conception and execution of it
were in her hands. Sometimes he had a compunction, remembering her look,
her tears, her blessing. Was she such a hypocrite that she could bid God
bless him and not mean it--mean, indeed, the very reverse? And then that
thrill which he could never forget, that touch which came from no
visible hand. What was it? some witchcraft of hers, or a sign from
heaven, as he had thought it for a moment? He said nothing to Mrs. Brown
of this, and he tried himself not to think of it. The recollection
brought with it a pang of terror: he did not like to think of it at
night when he was alone. If it should come again, if he should see,
perhaps, his mother looking at him through the darkness--his mother, so
long dead, whom he did not remember! He had not courage to desire such a
visitor, and he tried to put this strange and wonderful sensation out of
his mind.

But Archie did not spend happy days in his old home. He found it so
changed, so unlike what it had once been: or was it only he who was
changed? He had no heart to return to the old football team, to renew
his acquaintance with the students, who were now returning daily to
resume their work at the College. He would not go to the room where the
Philosophers met. Had he become so low, so mean, he asked himself
sometimes, that for a little want of refinement, a difference of
clothes, he should shrink from his old friends? A want of refinement--as
if he had any refinement, or ever would have; he, to whom Miss Saumarez
had spoken so plainly, whom she had bidden not to be--such an ill-bred,
low-bred fellow! That was what she had meant, though the words she used
had been different. He never saw any one like Rosamond Saumarez now.
There were many nice good girls in the Sauchiehall Road, girls who
looked up to him, no one who would take him to task and show him how
inferior he was: there was none like her, none. And he never would meet
any one like her again. He never would see her as he remembered her so
well, sitting at the piano in the dim background of the great room,
scarcely visible, playing music which he did not understand, which
overawed him, and irritated and worried him, but never lost its
spell--not that it had any spell, except in the hands that called it
forth. And then suddenly the picture would change, and he would see her
walk out of the gloom in her white dress, tall and slim, coming up to
him, the fool, in his inaction, laying a hand upon his arm, like the
dropping of a rose leaf, carrying him off always in her composed, proud
way, with her head high, after Eddy and Marion. These two were full of
fun; they enjoyed it, as boys and girls enjoy dancing all the world
over. But Archie did not enjoy it. It was far more than fun to him, it
was as if some one lifted a curtain to him to reveal a new world. He
never got beyond the threshold, but hovered there, looking in. Had the
curtain fallen, and was the door closed now, for ever? Should he never
see Rosamond again? Never, never, some echo seemed to say. All that was
over. Rosmore had closed its doors, never to open them again. No, it had
not closed its doors. The door was still open when he turned his back
upon his father’s house--open, and with his father’s wife standing in
the doorway, crying, and bidding God bless him. Did she not mean that?
did she mean something quite the reverse? Was it she who had really
turned him forth, instead of doing her best to keep him there, as had
appeared? Archie never said a word of all this to his aunt. He had never
mentioned Rosamond to her. Sometimes she asked him about Mr. Adie, the
gentleman whom he had brought to see her, who seemed a fine lad, though
not much to look at, and would not he do something to set things right.
He of all people in the world! Eddy! who had accepted his money, and had
stood by and seen him suffer for that, and had not even uttered a word
of sympathy. He laughed when his aunt suggested this, and told her Mr.
Adie was not a man who would do anything. But of Rosamond he never said
a word.

And the days were more heavy than words could say. To have no companions
but Mrs. Brown after that house-full of people, all of them more or
less original and full of character--his father, who had so many
experiences which came into his daily talk; Mrs. Rowland, one of the
most wonderful of beings to an uneducated young man, with her easy
knowledge of so many things which, to him, were a study and labour to
know; and Rosamond, whose knowledge was of so different a kind, yet who,
in her self-possession and youthful, grave acquaintance with the world,
was almost the most astonishing of all; and Eddy, who was always so
bright, always full of spirits, so perfectly aware of his own
deficiencies, that they became qualities, and pleased the people about
him more than if he had been ever so clever and instructed. To leave all
these, and all the people who came and went, and talked and filled the
world with variety of life, even old Rankin in his cottage and Roderick
on the hill, and to have no companion but Aunty Jane! She was more kind
than words could say, but had so narrow a little round of being, and was
so inveterate, so determined in those certainties which he was almost
brought to believe, by dint of much talking, but which his spirit
rebelled against all the same. When he received Evelyn’s letters he
carried them off to his room to read them, and would not expose them to
her scrutiny: but he was too much influenced by her opinions and by the
tacit agreement in them, to which, in his sore and wounded condition he
had been brought, to reply. It would have been a certain disloyalty if,
in Mrs. Brown’s house, he had answered the appeal of the stepmother who,
he had agreed, or almost agreed, with his aunt, must be at the bottom
of it all. And what could he have replied? He had said that he would
abide whatever they chose to do to him--arrest, trial, whatever they
pleased. He had represented to himself and to his aunt that he expected
the policemen, and that from day to day they might come to take him. He
had, in fact, so simple was he, felt a tremor in his heart, when he saw
in the road, as happened every day, the honest sturdy form of the
policeman passing by. It was always possible that this simple
functionary might be coming, armed with all the majesty of the law, to
take him, though Archie had an internal conviction that, if it was to be
done, it would be done more quietly than this, with more precaution than
if he had been a housebreaker or stolen a watch. But such delicacies did
not enter into Mrs. Brown’s mind. She watched the policeman go past
daily with his heavy tread, with a trembling certainty that he was
coming to arrest her boy: and still more at midnight, when she heard his
heavy tread, did she hold her breath, thinking that now the dreaded
moment must have come, and on tiptoe of apprehension and anxiety waiting
for the sound of his nearer approach, ready to thrust Archie into her
bed or under, to conceal him till the danger was over. Mrs. Brown,
though she had all the horror of the police common to respectable women
of her class, was half disappointed when day after day passed, and no
attempt at an arrest was ever made.

“They will have found nae proof,” she said, “as how could they have
found any proof, there being nane. And they will just be in a puzzle
what to do--and yon leddy will either be concocting something, or else
she will be working upon your father, poor misguided man. Eh, when I
think what James Rowland might have been, with his bonnie dochter to sit
at the head of his table, and his son to stand for him before the world,
and everything just good nature and peace. But he had to have a grand
leddy to scare us a’ with her grand ways, and that was thinking of
nothing but how to get as much as she could out o’ him, and his ain that
were the right heirs, out of the way. Ye’ll see the next thing will be
trouble to Mey. She will not put up with Mey: now she’s gotten you
banished, the next thing in her head will be something against your
sister, till baith the ane and the ither o’ you is on the street. And
just let her do her worst,” said Mrs. Brown with a flush of war, “there
will be aye room here. I’m no wanting to see her fall into worse and
worse sin, but the sooner she lets out her plans the better for us. And
we’ll just have Mey back in her bonnie little room, and everything as it
was before.”

Would everything be as it was before? Alas, Archie feared not. They were
not as they had been before. For himself everything was changed. It was
vain to think of returning to his old existence as it had been, when
they were all so cheerful together in Sauchiehall Road. He thought of
the old suppers, when he would bring in with him two or three of his
Philosophers, whom Mrs. Brown would receive with a “Come away ben, come
in to the fire. I’m just very glad to see you,” and Marion would set
herself to tease and provoke: and who would be delighted to reply to
both the ladies, to meet Mrs. Brown with compliments upon her supper,
and to laugh with Marion to her heart’s content. These little parties
had been very pleasant. They had appeared to him sometimes, when
anything had gone wrong at Rosmore, as happy examples of natural ease
and enjoyment. But now he had ceased to have any taste for these
gatherings. And Marion: perhaps Marion would be more at home than he
was: for at Rosmore her social performances had been still a little in
the same kind, personal encounters of laughter and sharp speeches, what
Eddy called “chaff,” and in which style he was himself a master. Perhaps
she could still have made herself happy with the Philosophers. But
Archie’s day for that was over. The old home could never be what it had
been before. He scorned himself for seeing all its little defects, and
for feeling the disenchantment, even for the consciousness that Aunt
Jane, who was so kind, was scarcely a companion who could make life
sweet. She was as his mother. He had never known other care than her’s.
In the old days he had perhaps wished sometimes that she had not spoken
the language of Glasgow in quite so broad a tone. But this was so small
a defect; how he hated himself for perceiving much more than the broad
Glasgow speech which jarred upon him! But it is a very hard ordeal for
an old woman in any rank when she has to be the sole companion of a
young man; especially when long knowledge makes him acquainted with
every tale she has to tell, and all the experiences which might be
interesting to another, but have been familiar to him since ever he
began to listen and to understand.

The only relief which Archie had was in attempts, not carried out with
any energy, to get a situation in which he could earn his own living.
Nothing could have been more false than his present position. He had
scarcely any money left, and he had abandoned his father’s house for
ever. Yet he was supported by his aunt, who received her living from his
father, and so it was still by James Rowland’s money that his son was
nourished, though that son had totally rebelled against him. What if he
might cut short or take away altogether Jane Brown’s allowance, on
account of the rebel she was harbouring? What if he understood with
contempt that his son was thus living upon him still? Sometimes at night
these thoughts would so sting and madden Archie that he would jump out
of bed in the morning, resolved before night came again to have got
work, whatever it was, and to have made himself independent. But this
was so much easier said and thought than done. One man to whom he
applied, laughed in his face when he confessed that he was the son of
the great Rowland, the Indian Railway Man. “No, no, Mr. Rowland,” he
said, “the like of you in my office would revolutionise everything. You
have too much money to spend, you rich men’s sons. You lead away the
poor lads that cannot play fast and loose with life like you. Eh! you
have no money? Well, then, I suppose you have had a tiff with your
father and mean to be independent. That’s just as bad. You will be
diligent for a while and then you will go off like a firework. I have
known the sort of thing before. No, no, my young gentleman, the like of
you is not for an office like mine.” Then poor Archie tried the plan of
giving no account of himself at all, except that he was in want of a
situation, and could do a little bookkeeping, and was acquainted with
the axiom that two and two make four. And in this case he was asked for
his testimonials, but had no testimonials to offer, no previous
character or evidence as to what he could do. And again, but more
roughly, he was re-conducted, as the French say, to the simplest door,
and his hopes in that instance were over. He then began, as how many a
much disappointed man has done, to study the advertisements in the
newspapers, and to answer them sometimes half a dozen in the day. But
the sprawling large hand-writing which was so fatally like his father’s,
did not find favour in the eyes of men who advertised for clerks. It was
admired in Mr. Rowland, the great railway man, and said to mean
originality, daring, and a strong will, but in the young would-be clerk
it was sharply set down as a bad hand, and he was rejected on that and
other reasons again and again. This dismal play went on from day to day.
Perhaps he was not very earnest in it, perhaps he felt that in no
combination of circumstances could it be a matter of life and death. If
he was not arrested and brought to trial, he would be provided for. The
question was whether he would submit his pride to being supported by the
man who had flung that cheque in his face. When he asked himself such a
question, or rather, when it fluttered across his path, Archie would
spring to his feet again with an emphatic “No!” and redouble his
exertions.

But he was in a false position, crippled all round by disabilities. Mrs.
Brown advised that he should go to the minister, who had known him so
long, and could speak for him; but Archie knew what the minister would
say: he would remind him of his duty to his father, and that to leave
his father’s house and bury himself in a position unbecoming Mr.
Rowland’s son, was ungrateful and unkind. And if he told all his story,
and that of the forged cheque, what would the minister say? He would
shake his head, he would grow grave, a cloud would gather over his face,
he would make haste to end the interview. It would be impossible to
believe that Mr. Rowland would make such an accusation without certain
proof. Archie knew this was how it would happen, and he could not face
such a reception.

Mrs. Brown went herself privately to the foundry, where her own
connection with it as the widow of a foreman, and still more, her
connection with Rowland, who had risen from it to such unexampled
heights, made her still a person of consideration--to speak to the
manager. But the manager of the foundry was still more decided.

“If he really wants to learn the work, and his father will say a single
word, it will be easily managed.”

“But oh, Mr. Blyth, ye must not ask that; for it’s just in consequence
of two-three unlucky words with his father that he’s thinking of taking
a situation.”

“Then, Mrs. Brown, you should give the young man good advice. What does
he think he’ll gain by quarrelling with his father? He may be sure his
father is twice the man that he is, however clever he may be.”

“I was not saying he was very clever,” said Mrs. Brown; “but ye see he
has a stepmother, and that explains everything: for she just turns the
father against them, as is a common occurrence.”

“Well,” said the manager, “all the same, the best thing he can do is to
make it up with his father. Stepmothers are ill things, but they’re not
always as black as they’re painted; and those that are subject to them
must just put up with them.”

This was all the comfort that Jane got, though she kept part of the
report from her nephew.

“He says you will just have to make it up with your papaw: and then the
foundry will be open to you, and everything you please.”

“That means,” said Archie, “that when you don’t want a thing you can
always have it.”

“It’s just something like that,” Mrs. Brown said.

And thus it appeared there was nothing at all to be done. He went on
reading the advertisements, answering sometimes two or three in a day,
but never getting any further on. Now and then he would have a letter
asking for testimonials, but what testimonials could he obtain? Neither
as his father’s son, nor as nobody’s son, could he make any advance. His
father, in like circumstances, would have somehow forced the hand of
fate, and made it serve him. He would not have been kept by the want of
certificates, nothing would have stopped him in his career. But Archie
was not like his father. He was proud and timid, and sensitive, and
easily discouraged; he was even indolent, poor boy--the worst of
drawbacks--indolent in mind, though not in body, afraid of any great
resolution, hesitating, and unable to resist the course of events. Such
a spirit goes down in the struggle for life. He might have been the most
steady, careful, punctual of workmen, happy in the support of routine,
fixed hours, and a certain understood something to do: but had it been
he who had started in the foundry, instead of his father, then Archie
would have ended a good man, much respected, but with only a few more
shillings a week at the end of his life than at the beginning. And, as
was natural, his training had fostered all the weakness in him and none
of the strength.

It was strange and ludicrous, yet heart-breaking, to remember that he
had been invited by Lady Jean to the Castle, and urged by the
Marchbanks, who were ambitious people, and thought Mr. Rowland’s money
might do very well to increase their own importance in the district, to
go over to their grand new mansion, which was much more splendid than
Lord Clydesdale’s shabby old Castle. Would any of them recognize him, if
they could see the shabby young man in search of a situation, who went
up and down the Sauchiehall Road? Archie sometimes wondered what he
should do if he met Lady Jean. He was more sure that she would see him
and stop to speak to him, than he was of any of the others. And she
would, no doubt, try to interfere and reconcile him with his father. He
used to con little speeches in his mind to make to her, or any other
benevolent meddler who might attempt this. He would say “No; he has
accused me of a dreadful thing, without hearing me, without a doubt in
his mind but that I did it. I will never make a step, nor hold out a
finger to him!” Sometimes the words he put together were even stronger
than this. “My father and I are parted for ever. He never cared a
penny-piece that he had a son. He took no thought of us when we were
children, and he has always been unjust to me. It is better that I
should be no trouble to him; and I mean to be no more trouble to him,
whatever happens,” Archie would say. Sometimes, on the other hand, he
thought that it was more dignified to make no complaint, and a finer
thing altogether to say nothing that could injure Rowland in anybody’s
opinion. And then he would say, with a magnanimity which was a little
hurtful to his self-esteem, poor boy, “The life was not one that suited
me. I was brought up to think a great deal of work, and I have come back
here to do something for myself, as every man should. My father made his
own way, and so shall I.” Alas, it was very faltering, this proud
declaration of independence: he had no heart in it. He was not one of
the strenuous souls who make a gospel of work; on the contrary, Mrs.
Brown’s gospel had been all the other way, that to do nothing was far
the finer thing, and marked the gentleman all the world over. But Archie
had touched shoulders with the gentle folks long enough to be aware that
this profession of independence, though it depressed and disappointed
Mrs. Brown, was the kind of thing approved in higher circles, and it
was the only way in which he could exempt his father from blame.

He had got up very sad upon that November morning. It was not yellow as
in London, but grey with a leaden paleness, the houses and pavements and
looks of the people all grey, and to a spirit already depressed and
miserable, no spring or elasticity anywhere in the dim prospect within,
externally, or in the troubled mind. Had life come to an end altogether,
he asked himself; was there to be nothing in it more than this impatient
dullness, producing nothing? He was a little later for breakfast, as
usually happened, Mrs. Brown indulging him in every inclination or
disinclination, without the slightest sense of morality, or her old
fear, that over-indulgence was not good for him. Poor Jane had no longer
any thought of that. He was in trouble, poor fellow, and if he was more
easy in his mind in the morning before he got up, why disturb him? or if
he took a little comfort in reading a book at night, why urge him to go
to bed? If he was unpunctual for his meals, what did it matter? “There’s
naebody but me,” Mrs. Brown said, “and if I get my dinner at one o’clock
or at three, wha’s minding?” She had not shown this complacence in the
old days, when their good training and manners and desire to give little
trouble were her pride. Archie was dressing languidly, looking at the
shabby clothes about the room with a sort of disgust, the outcome of the
grey and miserable morning, and of his own heavy and troubled thoughts.
How shabby they were! and yet not so shabby as common--just fit for a
denizen of Sauchiehall Road, as he was. But he was a shabby denizen even
for Sauchiehall Road, not up early and out to his cheerful work as was
natural there, but coming down late with the habits that might not be
amiss in the faultlessly clothed Eddy, the young man of society, but
were disreputable, wretched in him, the Glasgow clerk--not even
that--the poor friendless lad, trying to be a Glasgow clerk. Poor Archie
had come to a depth in which all that was fantastic in wretchedness was
to be found. There seemed to be nothing good left in him. To be going
down to breakfast at ten o’clock was as bad, almost worse than the crime
with which he had been charged.

He did not notice the cab which had stopped at the door, though Mrs.
Brown did with an immense impulse of excitement; but Archie did hear
quite suddenly, so that he felt as if in a dream, the sound of a soft
voice--such a voice as was seldom heard in that locality--so clearly
toned, so correct in enunciation, so perfectly at the speaker’s
command--perhaps, however, not that so much as the rest, for there was a
tremor in it. He had just opened his door to go down, and his room was
exactly at the head of the staircase. He did not at first recognise this
voice in the shock of hearing, without preparation, such an organ at
all. It said all at once out of the silence, as Archie opened the
door--but not to him, to some one downstairs, “Is Mr. Archibald Rowland
here? May I come in? I think--” and here there seemed a pause, “you must
be Mrs. Brown.”

“And wha may ye be?” said Jane’s harsh, rough, uncultured voice.

Oh!--it could be as gentle as a dove, that rude voice--there were tones
in it sometimes of love and tenderness that music could not equal. Let
us do the poor woman no injustice. But when she answered Evelyn’s
question, no coal-heaver ever spoke in tones more forbidding. Mrs. Brown
divined, as she stood there with the door in her hand, who her visitor
was, and all the worst side of her nature turned to meet this
interloper, this stepmother, the woman who had secured James Rowland’s
love and his money, and was the enemy of his children. “She shall hear
the truth from me if she never heard it in her life before,” Jane said
to herself! And the torrent of her wrath rose up in a moment like the
waterspout of eastern seas.




CHAPTER XLV.


Archie made, as he thought, but one step down the stairs: he fell into
the little passage, which led to the parlour, like a thunderbolt. “Aunt
Jane, it is Mrs. Rowland,” he cried.

“And if it is Mrs. Rowland,” said Jane, “who is she to come here as if
the place belonged to her? which it dis not, nor ever will, were she the
queen o’ the whole land.”

“Archie,” said the voice of Evelyn from beyond the stout, full form that
stood like a solid barrier between him and his father’s wife; “ask your
aunt kindly to let me in. I have been travelling all night, and I bring
you good news; but I am very tired. Please to let me in.”

Mrs. Brown was rent by conflicting sentiments. To resist such an
entreaty is as hard for a Scotswoman of her class as for an Arab in the
desert. The claims of hospitality are as urgent with one as with the
other. She did not know how to refuse, to keep a tired woman, appealing
to her, at arm’s length. Further, thoughts of fresh tea to be masked,
and eggs to be boiled, flashed into her mind across the sullen
background of enmity which made her stand fast in stubborn resistance.
It was a sin against her house to close the door, to oppose the entrance
of the stranger. She had never done such a thing, scarcely even to the
gangrel body who was not to be trusted in the neighbourhood of a silver
spoon, before, and the necessity hurt her. But to let in this fine lady,
this proud woman, this stranger and alien person, who had (presumably)
hunted Archie from his father’s house---- Oh, no, no!

“There are plenty hotels in Glasgow where the leddy can go,” she said,
standing firm. “Ye can go with her, ye fool that ye are, and be beguiled
by her flattering tongue, for anything I care.”

“May not I come in?” said Evelyn, with great surprise. “I have been
hoping all night for a little rest and a welcome. You surely will not
refuse me half-an-hour’s rest, if I promise to go away in half-an-hour?”
She smiled and looked at Archie, whose anxious face appeared over Mrs.
Brown’s shoulder. “I did not know,” she said, “that your aunt had any
objection to me.”

“Ainy objection!” cried Mrs. Brown, “when you have just made his life a
burden to him, and ruined all his prospects, poor lad, and closed the
doors o’ his father’s house!”

“But I have not done that,” said Mrs. Rowland, surprised. “You are
making a great mistake, surely. His prospects are not ruined, nor are
his father’s doors closed against him, as he knows. But now,” she said,
tears of weakness coming into her eyes, “they are thrown open as if with
the sound of a trumpet. Archie, thank God that it is all cleared up and
found out. Will you not let me in to tell him how it has been discovered
and his honour cleared? Don’t you care for his honour and good name, you
who have been a mother to him--more than for anything else in the
world?”

“I never doubted either one or the other,” said Mrs. Brown; “it will be
nae discovery to me.”

“Nor to me either,” said Evelyn, “as he knows: but proofs are good
things. If you will not let me in,” she added, with a smile, which was
very near the other manifestation of feeling--tears, “I must sit down on
the steps, and he can hear my story here.”

“You can come in,” said Mrs. Brown, opening the door wide. “I will have
nae play-acting on my doorsteps. Archie, ye can take this leddy into the
parlour. It’s easy for the like of such a woman to get over a laddie
like you. Ye ken nothing of their wiles; how should ye?” She followed as
she spoke into the parlour, where she pulled forward an easy-chair
violently, talking all the time. “They just get ye back under their
thumb when it pleases them, until the time comes when your downfa’s
doomed. Here’s a footstool till ye. It’ll no doubt be a great
satisfaction to feel that Jane Brown’s house is but a poor place, no a
chair good enough for the like of you to sit down----”

“Indeed, it is very comfortable, and a great ease to sit down and be
quiet for a moment. Thank you kindly,” said Evelyn. “I have been
travelling, I may say, for four days. On Tuesday night I went up to
town--to London, I mean--and there I have been to and fro all the time,
and came up again here during the night. So I have an excuse for being
very tired.”

“Lord bless us,” said Mrs. Brown, with wide open eyes, “and what was the
need of that? I’m thinking with Jim Rowland’s money in your pouch ye
have little need to weary yourself in ainy way.”

Going down to the Kyles of Bute for a day’s holiday was the most
exhausting experience Mrs. Brown had ever had, and she had not got the
better of that fatigue for several days. She was a little overawed by
this description, as indeed Evelyn, with pardonable guile, had intended
her to be.

She darted out of the room as she spoke, perhaps that she might not
yield more to the influence of this soft-spoken woman (“but they can
speak soft enough, and sweet enough, when it’s for their ain ends,” she
said to herself) leaving Evelyn alone with Archie. She held out her hand
to him with a smile. “I am so tired,” she said, “that I am scarcely
capable of telling you my story. I feel the wheels going in my head,
and a sort of perpetual movement. Now, some people travel by night
constantly, and are never the worse.”

She spoke thus, partly because she was indeed very tired, and partly to
accustom Archie to the shock of seeing her, speaking with her, being
thus brought back to all the stormy emotions of that last eventful
night. She half understood him and the reluctance with which, now that
his aunt’s violent opposition was taken away, he touched her hand, and
accepted her confidence. Archie was not amiable though he might be weak.
At the sight of her seated there, and no longer held at bay, all the
hard things that had been said, and which he himself had united in
saying, against her and her power over his father, surged up into his
mind. For anything he knew she might be the malign influence that Jane
Brown believed her to be. She might be, for some occult reason of her
own, trying to draw him again within her power, to represent herself as
his benefactress, only that she might more fully and completely ruin him
the next time. This had been suggested to him so often that he almost
believed it: and it came back with all that force of hostility which
replaces remorse, in the reaction from a momentary softness, which is in
itself a reaction too. He had been ready to pluck his aunt away--to bid
her stand aside for shame, while she held this woman at bay: but now
that the woman was there enthroned, without opposition, holding out her
hand to him, with that grace of profoundest, unapproachable superiority,
all his rebellious feelings started forth again. He felt no curiosity to
know what she had been doing, or what was the result of which she
seemed so proud. How could it affect him? He represented to himself that
even to speak to him of being cleared was an insult, and her brag of her
fatigue and exertions revolted him. What did it matter to him if she was
tired or not? What did he care if the wheels were going in her head? He
touched her hand because it would be uncivil, and show his bad breeding,
if he refused it--and then he turned his back and stood looking out of
the window. It was the same attitude as Eddy had assumed, though for a
different reason, and Evelyn, in her exhaustion, smiled over the
resemblance. She said to herself that boys of that age were very much
alike, though so different, and that after all the most accomplished
young man of the world had only the same ways of showing emotion as were
patent to the simplest of his kind. She said after a moment: “You don’t
seem to have much curiosity as to what I have been doing, Archie?”

“No,” he said curtly; “why should I? You were so polite as to say it had
something to do with me: but I don’t see what you could have to do with
me?”

“Come,” she said, “you must not be cross, Archie. Your aunt is, but I
excuse her--for she does not know, and perhaps may even think I don’t
know--that there is no virtue in being uncivil.”

“She is not uncivil,” he said, rudely. “She is the kindest woman in the
world.”

“The one, unfortunately, does not always make the other impossible,” she
said softly, and then she sighed. “Is it necessary to begin all over
again? Archie,” she said, “I thought we had passed the preliminary
stage?”

“I don’t know what you call the preliminary stage.”

“Well, well,” she said with an impatient sigh.

And then it occurred to Archie that there was something ludicrous in the
position, in his sullen stand in front of the window, while she sat,
shut out from the light by his shadow, endeavouring to bring him to
reason, behind. He felt, too, that the reason was on her side, and the
obstinacy and folly on his, which did not make him more amiable, nor
help to free him from his angry resistance. What roused him was the jar
of a rush against the door, which presently was flung open, striking
against the wall, by the rapid entrance of a tray, borne by Mrs. Brown
herself in front of her, covered with a white cloth, and bearing all the
materials of an excellent breakfast. Jane set it down with a dash upon
the table, pushing aside the carefully arranged books, and almost
breaking, in her vehemence, the shade which covered a group of wax
water-lilies which filled the place of honour. “Lift off the flowers and
the books, Archie,” she cried; “you maunna let even your worst enemy
hunger and thirst when ye bring him in to your house.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” said Evelyn, with a faint laugh. “But why
am I to be supposed his enemy? It is a little cruel, don’t you think,
without any proof.”

“What maitters that as long as ye get what you want?” said Jane, “and
I’ll allow that you want a cup of tea after your journey, whatever is
your objeck, maudam. And ye had better go ben and get your breakfast,
Archie. I will see that the leddy gets everything she wants.”

“You treat me,” said Evelyn, put on her mettle, “a little as Jael did
her enemy. Butter in a lordly dish, but the nail and the hammer ready
for use behind.”

“There’s neither nail nor hammer in my hands,” said Mrs. Brown. “And I
never liked the woman. It’s true that she was commended by the
prophetess, but I often thought yon was a slip o’ the tongue in Deborah,
carried away by her feelin’s, as is rale common with women, and no
thinking what she was saying. Na, I am nae Jael. Besides he was weel
kent for an enemy to Israel, and that’s mair than ony individual. I hope
ye find the tea to your taste; there is no pushon in it: and the eggs
are our ain laying, for I’ve aye kept a wheen poultry. It was good for
the bairns to have them caller and good--when I had the bairns with me.”

“I have often thought of you,” said Evelyn, “and of how you must have
missed them. It was too abrupt at last. If you had but come with them to
Rosmore--”

“Na na, none o’ that. And ye may spare me your peety, Mrs. Rowland: I’m
no a woman that is fond o’ peety. It was just done, and the thing is
over, and there is no more to be said: if ye had kept them happy when ye
had them!”

“That is always the hardest thing to do.”

“Eh, woman,” said Mrs. Brown, “if ye had been a woman like the women in
the books! There’s such arises from time to time--that does her duty to
the man’s bairns and puts her feelin’s in her pocket, if she doesna
like them; though how it was possible no to like them is mair than I can
tell. She should have been up and tellt him, when there was suspicion
thrown upon that lad, that it wasna true. If they had threepit it till
they were black in the face, she would have said she didna believe a
word. She would have cried out, ‘Look at the lad,’ (a more sullen,
hangdog countenance than Archie’s at this moment could scarcely have
been conceived) ‘and hear his ain saying aboon a’ the world!’”

There was a little stir at the window, and a harsh voice broke out
suddenly where Archie stood: “That’s just what she did,” he said.

“If it had been me,” cried Jane, inspired with her theme, and noting no
interruption, “though I’m nae pattern, I would have cried out, ‘Oh, get
away from me, ye ill-thinking man! will ye daur to say there’s a lie in
that laddie’s bonny broo! I’m no his parent, like you (I would have
said), but a woman with e’en in my head, and I ken the truth when I see
it. My word for his! (I would have cried) yon’s the truth and a’ the
rest is lies!’ Woman! oh woman! I’m no a pattern; I’m no a grand and
bonny leddy like you; but that’s what I would have done--plain Jane
Brown, standing here before ye--if it had been me!”

Jane plumped down into a seat at the end of this tirade, and burst, as
was natural, into hot torrents of tears, to which she gave vent freely,
rocking herself to and fro with the primitive usage of passion. Evelyn
had not said a word. She had followed the wild eloquence of the other
with a tremulous smile and tears in her eyes. She did not even look at
Archie, to remind him. He, for his part, had not known how to contain
himself while the scene went on. He caught at his aunt’s arm, which she
used in the free gesture of her class to emphasize her words, and at her
dress: but it was not till Mrs. Brown’s sobs began to grow less that the
lad spoke.

“Aunt Jane,” he said, “it is you at the end that has put all the clouds
away. We’ve been slanderers, and evil speakers, you and me. We have just
done our utmost, and all failed. We have wanted to lay the blame of it
on her, and to think that it was her doing. But you’ve cleared up all
that Aunt Jane,” he said, with a quick touch of his hand upon her
shoulder, “everything you said you would have done, she did. Do you hear
me?--all you said, she said. She has just done that and more. My father,
if he were here, would tell you. You’ve shown me the truth anyway,
whether you will see it yourself or not. She has done all that--and
more!”

Archie turned away and made a round of the room like a blind man, and
then he went up to Evelyn on the other side. “I humbly beg your pardon
with all my heart and soul,” he said. “I’ll maybe never enter my
father’s doors. I’ll maybe never come to anything as long as I live. And
what you have come to tell me is just like Hebrew and Greek to me, and
I’m not caring what it is; but she’s cleared my eyes, and I just beg
your pardon with all my heart and soul.”

“Hush, Archie, hush,” said Mrs. Rowland, giving him her hand (which he
shook awkwardly and dropped, poor boy, having no graceful suggestions in
him, not knowing what to do with a lady’s hand in such circumstances, as
Eddy did); “there is no pardon needed: and Mrs. Brown, shake hands with
me, for we understand each other fully, and I agree in every word you
say. If James did not do so, it was perhaps because he was a man, as you
say, and wanted proof; and because, also, oh believe it, Archie! you are
dearer to your father than to any one, and to doubt you is more than he
can bear.”

“There is somebody at the door,” cried Mrs. Brown, hastily drying her
tears; “and we are all begritten, and will do nothing but expose
ourselves. I’m no quick enough to follow a’ you’ve said. And I canna
tell what I’ve said to put ye baith in such a commotion; nothing but
what was very simple, for I’m not a person of edication, like you. But
if Archie’s pleased, I’m pleased: and you’re a bonny woman, Mrs.
Rowland, and I canna resist ye. If ye’ll take it, I’ll gi’e ye my hand.
And Archie, lad, go out to the door, and see that no strange person is
let in here.”

Archie opened the door, and fell back with a cry of astonishment, and
Rowland came in, looking round him upon all the signs of emotion which
still were very apparent, with wondering eyes. He tried to veil his
surprise in the sternness of aspect which was natural to a man whom all
the persons present had bitterly offended. He was among a company,
indeed, of offenders; all of them had sinned against him; and, perhaps,
in present circumstances, his wife the most of all. He was still
utterly perplexed as to the cause of her flight to London: and what
connection there could be between that and her presence here, it was
impossible to divine. He looked round upon them sternly, trying to
suppress other sentiments. It was very strange to Evelyn to meet, for
the first time in their life together, a look of disapproval in her
husband’s eyes. After the first shock and surprise of his appearance,
she had sunk again into her chair, holding out her hand: but he made no
response, either to the smile or to the stretched-out hand.

“I saw my wife,” he said to Mrs. Brown briefly, with whom he had
exchanged a silent greeting; “I saw my wife in the street, and followed
her here. I know no business she could have here. I should apologise for
the intrusion.” He took no notice of his son, who had instinctively
drawn aside. “It surprises me very greatly, Evelyn, to see you here.”

“Oh Jims! sae did it me; but your bonny leddy has none but a good motive
for coming: I can see that noo.”

“I do not wonder,” said Evelyn calmly: she was not afraid of her
husband; “but you will soon understand. I am surprised also to see you.
Did you get my telegram, James?”

“I got no telegram,” he cried angrily, “and I thought I had forbidden
any intercourse with--with--”

“Oh, no,” she said, “you could not have done that: first because you
have too much respect for your wife to give her an order which was
unworthy: and because you could not interfere with my own judgment. On
the contrary, I came here--to bring our boy home.”

“I gave no authority for any such mission,” Rowland cried, “and I will
not have it! I will not have it!” He was trembling behind his anger,
which was like a veil thrown on to disguise the strange movements and
agitations in his mind. What did she mean? She had not disturbed
herself, except for a moment, and still lay back in the big chair pale
with weariness, yet smiling in his face the more dark he looked. What
had she in her mind to make her smile so? Why did she say she had come
to bring the boy? She said our boy. What, oh what was the meaning of it
all? Archie stood dark as a thundercloud, dumb, taking no more note of
his father than his father did of him. (They both saw every movement of
each other, every change of countenance, every turn, had it been of a
finger.) And Jane had evidently been crying, and was ready to burst out
again at any moment. It was she that interposed now.

“Jims,” she said, “your bonny leddy is just aff a journey; she’s been
travelling all night. I can’t tell where ye have been yoursel’, but you
look very wearit too. You can see her cup o’ tea standing by her that
she hasna touched. I poured it out, but I hadna the grace to hold my
tongue, and just was mad at her, and abused her sae that the darlin’
creature, as she is, never swallowed a drop, and her faintin’ for want.
But I’ve been convicted out of my ain very mouth,” cried Jane, “every
word that I spoke has come back upon me: for I threepit up against her
that I would have done this and that. Me! a bonnie person to set up for
a pattern! and it turned out that everything I said she had done, and
mair. And now you come bursting in, just as unreasonable. Say out, man,
what ye would have her to do, and you’ll find she has done it--and mair!
But for ainy sake,” cried Jane, sobbing, with her apron to her eyes,
“Let the bonny leddy get a moment’s peace, and tak’ her cup o’ tea.”

“Dear Mrs. Brown,” cried Evelyn, between laughing and crying, “you’re a
good friend! and I do want a little tea. And I am not afraid of him nor
any of you. If you have not been home, nor got my telegram, you will
want a full account of me, James, for I have been in London by myself,
ever since you went away. Yes, it is true, I took advantage of your
absence to go away. A wicked woman could not have done more. As soon as
you had gone I set out. It would not be wonderful if you suspected me.
But I do not know of what,” she added, with a low laugh. There was
something in her laugh that overcame altogether her middle-aged angry
husband. He was not angry: all that was a pretence; nor did he know what
he suspected her of. At this moment he suspected her justly of what she
had done, of having found some way, he could not tell how, of making an
end of the trouble which was growing at his heart. When he had left
Rosmore there was something in her eye that had made him believe she
would do this. He had given her no permission, yet he had a confidence
that she would act somehow--he could not tell how--and clear everything
up. It had been a horrible disappointment to him coming back with that
confidence in his mind, to find that she was absent, to be told that she
had gone to ask advice--on his affairs. And here he had been utterly
perplexed, and had not known what to think. That was the history of his
many changes. Suspect her? No, he did not know, any more than she did,
of what. He had never suspected her--unless it was of failing to fulfil
that wild hope of his suffering heart. But something told him now that
she had not failed. He stood by as grave as a whole bench of judges, and
watched with a solemn countenance while she took her tea. There had been
a little struggle with Mrs. Brown, who protested that it must be cold,
and that she must make more. But Evelyn had been triumphant in this, and
now sat eating and drinking before them all, while they looked on with
solemnity. There was something of the highest comic absurdity in the
aspect of the father and son, one more serious than the other, standing
watching her at her simple meal. Mrs. Brown hovered about her, imploring
her to take this and that--an egg, some scones, a chop that could be got
in an instant, marmalade, that was considered very good, of her own
making--and many things beside. But the two men stood in portentous
silence, never moving a muscle, as grave as if her little piece of toast
was a matter of life and death. Archie was agitated vaguely, he knew not
how: but his father’s mind was like a great flowing river, held by a
thread of ice, which the first ray of sunshine would clear away. He bore
the aspect of anger still; the cloud hung upon his brow; but all
restraint was ready to be swept away, and the full tide to flow forth.
He stood, however, black as night, and watched his wife at her
breakfast. The strangest, humorous, nay comic sight.

And Evelyn was worn out with all her exertions. She was so weak, with
her nerves all so relaxed after their long tension, that they were able
to resist no temptation. She watched her husband and his son with a
growing sense of the ludicrous. They were so solemn, watching her like
doctors over a case, as if the manner in which she set down her tea-cup,
or put her morsel of bread into her mouth, were symptoms of the gravest
kind. She watched them as long as nature would hold out. It was not
until she had finished her cup of tea, and ate her last morsel. She put
her plate away with her hand, and they both moved slightly with the
touch, as if this were the signal for some revelation. And this in her
weak condition was too much for Evelyn. She burst out with a laugh of
such hilarity that all the silent room echoed. She laughed till the
tears flowed down her cheeks.

“Oh James, forgive me,” she cried, “you are like an owl, serious as
midnight and the dark: and Archie is just like you, as like you as--what
is the word? two peas. Archie, come here and give me your hand. Do you
remember that I once told you I believed every word you said?”

A murmur came from Archie’s throat. He was half affronted, half angry,
offended by that laugh which had startled him in his unexpressed
excitement. But yet he went and stood by her as she said.

“I was wrong to laugh,” said Evelyn, “but I could not help it. If you
had seen yourselves, you would have laughed too. James, I got a clue
just before you left home, but I could not tell you of it, because of
Sir John: and then you went away with him. I don’t know that I should
have told you: and I was glad you went away. It was the opportunity I
wanted. I went up to town, and I saw the man who--James!--what is the
matter. Do you know?”

He had lifted up his hands with a great exclamation of dismay. “Him!” he
cried, and no more.

“I think,” said Evelyn with sudden gravity, “your father
knows--independent of me. Archie, go and get ready to come home. It is a
very sad story. Your father has the best heart, he is more sorry for him
that has sinned than glad for him that is saved. I repent of my silly
laugh. For though you have not done it, another poor boy has done it.
James! God bless you, you have the best heart of us all.”




CHAPTER XLVI.


It was a very curious breakfast party: for this of course was what had
to follow, neither father nor son having yet had any breakfast,
notwithstanding all the agitations of the morning. And Mr. Rowland and
his son, their minds being relieved, had a very different idea of what
was implied in the word breakfast from that entertained by Evelyn, whose
cup of tea and morsel of “bap” had satisfied all her needs. They meant
other things, and their meaning was more promptly understood by Mrs.
Brown than anything that had gone before. It had gone to her heart to
see the eggs, the marmalade, and the scones, all neglected upon the tray
which she had brought for Mrs. Rowland with the hospitality of a savage
woman to her enemy: but now the opportunity was within reach of
distinguishing herself in the most lavish way. She was continually on
the road between the kitchen and parlour, hurrying, with one dish after
another, eggs, finnan haddocks, fried ham, everything that her
substantial system of cooking understood. It was Evelyn’s turn to sit
and watch the progress of a meal which was so very different from her
own, which she did with mingled amusement and amazement, and something
of that feminine mixture of pleasure and laughing disdain for the men
whose appetites are not interfered with by emotion, which is so common.
She liked to see them eat with a certain maternal satisfaction in their
well-being, though not so marked as that of Mrs. Brown, who ran to and
fro supplying them, with tears of delight in her eyes--but with little
jibes and jests at the ease of the transition from all their excitement
to that excellent meal, which Archie, always afraid of being laughed at,
was uncertain how to accept, though satisfied by seeing that they did
not affect his father’s equanimity. Presently, however, these little
jests began to slacken, the tone of her voice changed, and when, after a
moment or two of silence, Rowland looked up to say something, he
perceived, with the most unexpected sudden rush of emotion to his own
eyes, and feeling to his heart, that his wife had fallen asleep. He had
not understood Jane’s signals, who stood by with her finger on her lip,
and who was drying her eyes with the big white apron which she had
slipped on to save her gown, as she ran to and fro with the dishes which
Bell in the kitchen was fully occupied in preparing.

“She’s just wearit to death,” Jane whispered with a small sob, “and
vexed wi’ the contradictions o’ sinners, after a’ she’s done for you.
Just hold your tongues now, and let her get a little peace, ye twa
greedy men.” The elaborate pantomime in which the rest of the meal was
carried on; the care of both to subdue the sound of their knives and
forks, and suppress the little jar of the cups and saucers; and the
super-careful clearing away, performed on tiptoe by Bell, as being less
heavy in her movements than her mistress, aided by Archie, would have
been very amusing to Evelyn could she have seen through her closed
eyelids what was going on: but her sleep was very sincere, the
involuntary and profound slumber of exhaustion, from which relief of
mind, and the delightful ease of success, took every sting. When she
came to herself it was in the quiet of a room given up to her repose,
the blind drawn down, every sound hushed, and a large shawl--Mrs.
Brown’s best, a real Indian shawl sent by Rowland in former days, of
which the good woman was more proud than of anything she
possessed--carefully arranged over her. Her husband sat near, not moving
a finger, watching over her repose. Evelyn woke with a slight start, and
it was a minute or two before she realised that she was not in the
corner of a railway carriage nor the forlorn solitude of the London
hotel, but that her mission was accomplished, and all hostilities
vanquished. It was perhaps Jane’s shawl that made this most clearly
apparent to her. It was a beautiful shawl, the colours like nothing but
those fine tints of Cashmere with which her Indian experiences had made
her fully acquainted, the texture so soft, the work so delicate. The
first intimation that Rowland had of his wife’s waking, were the words,
said to herself with a little sigh of pleasure, “He must have sent her
this.”

“What did you say, my darling?” he said, getting up quickly.

“Oh, you are there, James! I said you must have sent it to her, and I
meant she must approve of me at last, or she would not have covered me
with her beautiful shawl.”

“Do you care for her approval, Evelyn?”

“Care!” she said, “of course I care,” then added with a laugh, “A woman
can never bear to be disapproved of. I suppose I must have been asleep.”

“Like a baby,” said her husband, with his laugh of emotion, “and very
nice you looked, my dear, but utterly tired out.”

“Yes, I was very tired,” she acknowledged. “I have done nothing but run
about, and then wait, which was still worse. And then--” She sat up
suddenly throwing off her coverings. “James! you know--how did you
know?”

“Tell me first,” he said. “It is very little I know--and then I will
tell you.”

“That is a bargain,” she answered smiling, and then with many
interruptions of remark and commentary, she told him her story: Rankin’s
hint, and Marion’s first of all.

“Marion! Marion told you that?” he cried in amazement.

“She told me nothing. I do not for a moment suppose that she knew
anything,” cried Evelyn, scenting another danger, “but she is very
keen-witted, and must have felt that if there was a mystery--”

“A great deal too keen-witted, the little--” The substantive intended to
come in here was a profane one, and Rowland felt on his side a danger
too.

“And then I had all the trouble in the world to see him. I almost forced
an entrance at last, and by the threat of invading him in his own
room--indeed,” said Evelyn, “it was not a threat only, I should have
gone to his room, as I could find him no other where. But the threat
sufficed and he came. James! the boy has committed a great crime, but oh
my heart is sore for Eddy. He has no mother.”

“You think you might have been his mother, Evelyn?”

“I don’t know how you should have divined it--but I do: thank God that I
am not! but sometimes I cannot help thinking what a terrible fate I
might have had, but for the goodness of God--”

“Working through the wickedness of man.”

“Don’t raise such questions, James! Don’t make me think of it at all. I
have been spared that fate, thank God, and saved for a very different
one. It is very fantastic, but it gives me a feeling to the children--”

She had put out her hand to him, and he held it in his own. He gave it a
grip, now, more loving than tender. “It gives me,” he said, “a feeling
too.”

“Not of--dislike--not of----”

“What do you take me for, Evelyn? A man like me is often very fantastic,
I allow, though nobody would think it. I am so touched by the thought
that they might have been your children, and so glad of the escape we
have had that they aren’t; and so sorry for them, poor things, for
losing the best chance they could have had.”

At this curiously mixed statement of what was so real and true to the
speakers, Evelyn laughed, with tears in her voice, pressing her
husband’s hand. And then she said, “Now tell me, James, how you know?”

This was not so easy as her task. The middle-aged man of business
blushed as youths and maidens are alone considered capable of doing. “Is
it not enough that I might have guessed like Marion, or that Marion
might have communicated her guess to me?”

“Anything is enough that you tell me,” she said.

“That drives all fiction out of my mouth. The reason I knew, Evelyn, was
that I was there.”

“There!” she cried in amazement, raising herself upright.

“There! more or less. I thought you must have seen me when you came out
as you did, with a bounce, not like you. I was, I am ashamed to tell
you, like a wretched spy, on the other side of the road, watching where
you had gone.”

She turned her face to him with such a look of wide-eyed astonishment
that his countenance fell. “I have to beg your pardon, Evelyn. Hear my
story first, and then you can say what you please. I was just wild with
disappointment and misery when I found you gone. Then--it was on a
hint--I guessed where you were. I got up to London on Friday
morning--was it only yesterday?--and they told me at the hotel you had
just gone out, that if I followed you--. I did follow you, and came up
to you. But I couldn’t speak to you. How could I ask an account from my
wife of where she was going, or tell her I had followed her? I just
followed still, and then I saw that you went in, and guessed that you
had an interview upstairs, and then an interview downstairs. And
then--Well, when we both got back to the hotel I was more certain than
ever that I could not show that I was spying upon you, Evelyn, and was
ashamed even to say that I wondered what you were doing. I knew whose
house it was, by instinct I suppose. And then, Eddy came to you in the
afternoon. And I could think of nothing else but that--when I thought
you had been occupied about my boy, it was this other boy that was
filling your mind. And then you came back, and I with you in the next
carriage, though you never saw me. And then to my wonder and
astonishment I watched you come here. So that when you said you had seen
the man who--committed that forgery--I knew at once who it was.”

Rowland concluded his narrative with his head bent down, the words
coming slowly from his lips. He did not meet the eyes which he felt sure
must be full of wrath, and every moment he feared that the hand which
held his (his own had become too limp with alarm to hold anything)
should drop it, or fling it away in indignation. Evelyn held it tight,
giving it a fierce little pressure from time to time. No doubt presently
she would fling it from her. And there was a silence which was awful to
the penitent.

“I never,” she said at last, “could have recognised you in the rôle of a
detective, James.”

“No,” he said, with a furtive glance at her, slightly encouraged by the
sound of her voice, though doubtful that the tightness with which she
held his hand was preliminary to the sudden tossing away from her, which
he expected and feared. “No, it is not exactly my kind of way.”

“But I recognise you,” she said, “very well, when you were not able to
say to your wife that you suspected her, when you were ashamed to let me
know that you wondered what I was doing. Of what did you suspect me,
James?”

She did not loose his hand, but he freed it unconsciously, rising to his
feet in overwhelming agitation at this question. Of what did he suspect
her? Good heavens! Rowland’s forehead grew cold and wet, his eyes rose,
troubled, to meet those with which she was regarding him--large, clear,
wide open. It was cruel of Evelyn: the man was so intimidated that he
could scarcely reply, though indeed he had been all the time _dans son
droit_.

“I--did not suspect you of anything. Tut!” he said, recovering himself,
“why shouldn’t I say the worst? I suspected you of going to consult that
man about your husband’s affairs.”

“Did you indeed, James? You supposed I was going to consult a man--of
whom I have a right to think everything that is worst in a woman’s eyes,
whom I neither trust, nor esteem, nor believe a word that he says--upon
the concerns of my honourable husband, which are my concerns, and more
than mine, just so much more than mine that I am trusted with them? You
could suppose that, James?”

“No,” said the unfortunate man, moving from one leg to the other in the
extremity of his perplexity and distress. “No, you’re right, Evelyn, I
didn’t. I suspected nothing. I was ashamed, bitterly ashamed of the
whole affair. It was nothing but the suggestion of that little--I mean
it was the madness of my disappointment at finding you not there. What I
meant to say,” he added, taking a little courage, “was that perhaps if
it had been anybody but you--”

“No,” she said. “No sophistry, James: whoever it had been, it would have
been the same thing. You would have been ashamed to ask an honest woman
any such question. You are not the kind of man to believe in any
shameful thing. Most men believe in every shameful thing--that man, for
instance, whom you thought I was going to consult.”

He hung his head a little under this taunt, but then he said in a
certain self-justificatory tone, “You saw him after all.”

“I saw him,” she said, a slight flush for the first time rising on her
face, “against my will. I was not aware he was there. I had heard from
Rosamond that he was still abroad: not that I mean you to think,” she
added at once, “that it would have made the least difference had I known
he was there. I should have gone--to throw light upon this
trouble--anywhere in the world--had the devil himself and not Edward
Saumarez been there. I don’t know which is the worst,” she said
impulsively. “I think the other one’s perhaps belied, but not he.”

Evelyn’s strong speech made her falter for a moment and be silent, which
encouraged Rowland to say, putting out his hand again, “Devil he may be,
but I’m cutting a poor enough figure. Do you think you will be able to
forgive me, Evelyn? I will never do it again.”

The rueful humility of the tone restored Mrs. Rowland to herself. She
laughed putting her hand in his. “Yes, do it again,” she said, “for
there never was anything so delightful in the world as a man who follows
his wife off to London, where she is perhaps going astray, and is
ashamed to ask her what she is doing when he finds her there. You make
me proud of my Othello: for he is quite a new one, better than
Shakespeare’s. Oh, James! what a difference, what a difference! To think
you should both be men of the same race, that hideous satyr, and you!”

To say that good James Rowland had any very clear idea what she was
raving about would be untrue. He knew no resemblance he could possibly
have to Othello, nor what Shakespeare had to do with it. Neither was he
clear who was the hideous satyr. But he knew that this trust on Evelyn’s
part was to his own credit and praise, and he was pleased, as the best
of men may be.

“Well,” he said, recovering himself entirely, “we will consider that
incident over, Evelyn, and me the most happy man in Scotland, be the
other who he may. I owe Archie some amends for suspecting him, but you
will allow--”

“I will allow nothing,” said Evelyn. “Had you treated him as you treat
me, and been ashamed to suggest such a thing to your son as you own you
were to your wife, we might all have been spared a great deal of pain.
But now it’s all over, thank God, and you will know better another
time.”

“Don’t fall upon me and slay me on another ground after you’ve forgiven
me on your own,” he said. And then he grew suddenly grave and asked,
“Did he give you any details--did he tell you why he did it, the unhappy
boy?”

“He asked me only that the cheque might be destroyed. I thought you
would think Archie’s exculpation cheaply purchased at that cost.”

“Of course, of course,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“And gave me this, which he said would to you be proof enough.”

Mr. Rowland took the scrap of paper, with his own name written upon it,
in different degrees of perfection. He looked at it intently for a
minute, then threw it into the smouldering fire, where it made a
momentary blaze and flickered away.

“If the thing could be destroyed like that!” he said. Then after a
pause, “The question is, what is to be done with that unhappy boy.”

“James! I promised him exemption, safety. He was never to hear of it
again.”

“Tut, tut!” he said. “It’s you now, Evelyn, that shows a want of
understanding. Do you think anything in the world would make me bring to
disgrace and ruin that boy! The creature’s not of age,” he cried. “What
are we to do with him, to make it still possible that he should live his
life?”

“James,” cried Evelyn, after a pause, “I must tell you. There are such
curious differences. I don’t think that Eddy is--very unhappy. He has
his moments of seriousness, but generally he takes it lightly enough.”

“I don’t see that that makes it any better. Are we to leave him among
his debts and his follies, to be tempted to do such a thing again? He
should be separated from that horrible,--what do you call it--society
life of his, and set to work.”

“I don’t think you would ever get him to work, James!”

“He should be taken, anyhow, out of that whirl of wretched life.”

“He could not live out of it, James!”

“Yet he managed to exist for a whole month at Rosmore.”

“Oh, my dear James, he was born in it, and he will die in it. He could
not manage to exist out of that atmosphere of society.”

“I have a great mind to try,” Rowland said, walking about the room.
“What is the good of saving a man from drowning with one hand, if ye
pitch him back into the water with the other? I like radical measures. I
would send him right away to some sort of work.”

She said nothing but shook her head.

“By George, I will try!” cried her husband, “if you were to shake your
head off, my dear. I won’t let the laddie perish without a try to save
him. He’s saved me, and the peace of my house. You may say he put it in
jeopardy first: but it took some pluck, Evelyn, to put that, and his
life, so to speak, in your hands. He must have good meanings in him. I
will send for the lad--I will--”

“I must tell you something first, James, and then you shall act as you
please. He said to me, ‘This means that I shall never see any of you
again. And I was fond of little Marion--though she doesn’t deserve it
any more than I do.’ It was a curious thing to say.”

Rowland gave a long whistle, and a twinkle of fun arose in his eye. “She
doesn’t deserve it any more than he does!” he said. The speech did not
make him angry, as Evelyn had feared. It made him laugh, and his laugh
was not ungenial. “By Jove!” he said to himself: but he did not explain
to Evelyn the idea which was veiled by that exclamation. There was,
indeed, no need that there should be any meaning at all.




CHAPTER XLVII.


The return of the united family to Rosmore was, it is scarcely necessary
to say, scrutinised by many keen and eager eyes, all aware that there
had been something wrong, all, or almost all, glad to see that the
something had so soon come to nothing. Except that Archie was
exceptionally shabby in his old clothes, and that he was deeply
conscious of this fact, and accordingly kept as much as possible in the
background, there was nothing to show that the party was anything more
than the most ordinary party returning from some joint expedition. The
people in the steamboat, however, allowed their knowledge to be revealed
by effusive and unnecessary expressions of satisfaction in the return of
Mr. Rowland and his wife and son, which were quite uncalled for, in view
of the fact that neither of the former had been gone for more than a few
days. “I can scarcely express to you the satisfaction I feel in seeing
you back,” the minister said, with a significant grip of his wealthy
parishioner’s hand; and Miss Eliza, who happened to be coming by the
same boat, fell upon Evelyn with a shriek of joy. “I’ve not seen so
delightful a sight for years as the sight of your bonny face, with all
your belongings round you,” Miss Eliza said, holding out her left hand
and a beaming smile to Archie. These signs of popular satisfaction were
received by Mrs. Rowland not exactly with offence, but a little coldly,
in view of the fact that nobody had any right, even by inference, to
remark upon what was so entirely a family matter. But her husband, who
was in great spirits, and inclined to make friends with all the world,
received these effusive salutations with pleasure, and without enquiring
how much they knew of the circumstances which made this home-coming
remarkable. He was perhaps more used to the warmth of Scotch neighbours,
and understood it better. At the pier the two girls were waiting, both
of them curious and a little excited. Marion’s eyes were glittering like
beads with a desire to know, and Rosamond, though she held up her head
with her accustomed calm, and repressed all consciousness of anything
unusual, betrayed in a slight dilation of her nostril, and momentary
quiver of her lip, her share of the general excitement. She slipped
aside from the carriage in order to leave the family undisturbed in
their reunion, which was indeed a thing very little desired by any of
its members: but was joined by Archie before she had gone far. He was
too glad to escape from the sensation of the prodigal’s return, although
more and more conscious of what he felt to be the chief feature about
him--his exceedingly shabby coat.

“I am glad you have come home,” said Rosamond.

“So am I, more or less,” said Archie.

“I suppose you like the freedom of being away. But the more you are free
to go, the more endurable the dullness should be. When one knows one can
get quit of it at any moment, one does not mind.”

“I was not thinking of the dullness,” said Archie; “it has been the
other way round with me. I suppose it’s contradiction. When you are shut
out from your home, you take a longing for it. It’s through your brother
somehow, I can’t tell how, that I’ve come back now.”

“Through Eddy!”

“I don’t know how; he has cleared up something. It is queer, isn’t it,”
said Archie, with a laugh, “that a little beggar like that--I beg your
pardon, Miss Saumarez, I forgot for the moment----”

“It is true enough,” said Rosamond, gravely. “He must look a little
beggar to you. I beg to remark, however, Mr. Rowland, that you are not
yourself very tall, nor perhaps of a commanding aspect, by nature.”

Archie could not accept this jibe as Eddy would have done. He grew
graver still than Rosamond and became crimson. “It’s just a silly
phrase,” he said, “that means nothing. Eddy’s far more commanding, as
you say, than I am. I know the difference well enough: but it’s a little
hard all the same to think that a man’s own father should take the word
of a stranger rather than----”

“Oh, do you think there’s anything in that?” said Rosamond. “I don’t: in
the first place, if you must speak for yourself, you’re a prejudiced
witness, that’s what they say. And again, you know a man’s father--or a
woman’s father either, for that matter--does always believe other people
sooner than you. It has something to do with the constitution of human
nature, I suppose,” she added with philosophical calm. “And then,
perhaps, if you will allow me to say it, Eddy might know more than you.”

“About myself?” said Archie.

“About other people. Eddy knows a great deal about some kinds of life. I
don’t say it is the best kinds. He knows the ways of a bad set. So that
if it was anything wrong, he might be able to throw a light--It is a
pity, but that is the turn he has taken,” said Rosamond. “He seems to
find scamps more amusing than others. Perhaps they are, for anything I
know. I have thought myself, that if you didn’t mind about being
respectable and that sort of thing, which of course a girl must mind,
that it might be perhaps more amusing. One never knows. Certainly
society men are not amusing at all.”

“I should have thought,” said Archie, “you would have liked them best.”

“No,” said Rosamond dubiously, “the worst is, people are so hideously
like each other. That’s why one longs after what’s disreputable
or--anything out of the way. One hopes to light upon a new species
somewhere. So far as I can see, however,” she added, “Eddy’s people are
just as dull as the rest.”

Archie was quite unable to keep up the ball of this conversation. It
flustered and made him uncomfortable. He was very certain that whatever
could be said for himself (and he did not think that much could be said
for him), nobody would venture to assert that he was amusing.

“I should have thought,” he said hesitating, “that a fellow you could
trust to, that was of the kind that would never fail you whatever you
wanted, and thought more of you a great deal than of himself, however
awkward he might be, or uncouth, or that--”

“Oh,” said Rosamond, “if it’s moral qualities you are thinking of, the
best thing perhaps to do would be to pick up the nearest curate and make
a model of him.” Which perplexed Archie more and more: for though he
knew little of curates, he had been brought up with a wholesome respect
for the minister, yet did not perhaps think that dignitary exactly the
person “to please a damsel’s eye.” He expressed the difficulty he had in
carrying on the conversation by a hesitating and puzzled “O-oh!” but
said little more. And those young persons walked the rest of the way to
Rosmore in partial silence, broken by an occasional monologue from
Rosamond, who did not dislike a good listener. And there is no doubt
that Archie was admirable in this way.

The rest of the party were less happy, for it must be said, that though
the conversation did not flourish, there was to Archie, and possibly
also, more or less sympathetically, to Rosamond, a sort of vague
pleasure in moving along by the side of a person so interesting, which,
though quite vague, was wonderfully seductive, and made the woodland
roads into enchanted ways, and gave every moment wings. The lad found
himself in a charmed atmosphere when he was by her side. During the
tremendous internal conflict through which he had passed, he had thought
of Rosamond, not according to her own formula, as amusing, but as the
opposite extreme to that lowest kind of existence, the highest point of
interest, variety and stimulation, which life contained. And now he had
stepped at once from the depths to the height. He did not mind what it
was she was saying, nor even that he could not reply to her. As he
walked along by her side, Archie was buoyed up as by heavenly airs. He
trod not on common earth, but on something elastic and inspiring that
made every step light. And though Rosamond would have been greatly
surprised had she been accused of any such feeling for Archie, yet
perhaps the sympathy of the exquisite elation in his being affected her
more than she knew. But, as has been said, the rest of the party were
less happy. Marion sat with her back to the horses, partly from choice,
in order to have the others more at her mercy, and partly in supposed
deference to Rowland, who liked to have his face turned in the direction
in which he was going like many other energetic persons. She surveyed
her father and his wife as from an eminence, commanding every look and
movement. There is not a better point of vantage than the front seat of
a carriage when you mean to cross-examine and reduce to helplessness the
people opposite to you, who cannot escape.

“I am very glad, papa,” said Marion, “that you have got over your little
tiff, and all come so nice and friendly home. I knew quite well that you
and mamma would very soon make it up, but I was very anxious about
Archie, who is a different question. And have you got any light about
that cheque, or is it just the father falling on his neck, and the
prodigal coming home?”

“The cheque?” said Rowland, in a low tone of astonishment, with an
anxious glance at his wife.

“Oh, yes,” said Marion, in her clear notes, “you need not speak low,
papa, as if that would do any good: for everybody knows just quite well
what it all was about.”

“You seem to know more than I do, Marion,” said Rowland; “therefore,
perhaps, you will be good enough to expound the matter to those, who
have given you the information, in your own way.”

“Yes, papa,” said Marion, with charming docility: “but I could do that
better,” she added, “if you would answer my question: for if it’s just
your kindness, like the man in the parable, that’s one thing: but if
it’s cleared up, that’s another--and I would like to know.”

“I am sure it will please Marion, James,” said Mrs. Rowland, “to be
assured that it has been cleared up, and that both her hints to me and
to you have been of use. I am not sure,” she said, with a laugh, “that
Eddy was very grateful to you for suggesting that he would know.”

“Oh, you told him it was me!” said Marion. Her eyes, which were dancing
in their sockets with curiosity and excitement, were clouded for a
moment. “Well!” she said, after a pause, “I am not minding. It was quite
true.” She put her hand on Mrs. Rowland’s knee, and leant forward
eagerly. “Was it yon man?” she asked.

“What have you to do with it,” cried her father, “you little----! You
never lifted a finger for your brother, so far as I know.”

“It would not have been becoming,” said Marion, with dignity, “if I had
put myself forward. And how did I know that you would have liked it,
papa? I just was determined that I would not commit myself: for if he
had never come back it would always have been a comfort to you that you
had one that made no fuss. But when mamma consulted me, I gave her the
best advice I could, and when you consulted me, I just told you what I
thought. And it appears,” said Marion, taking them in with an expressive
glance, “that it has all been for the best.”

“It has been entirely for the best,” said Evelyn, “and you could not
have done better for us if you had meant it.” Mrs. Rowland was but a
woman, and she did not forgive her stepdaughter for the suggestion which
had cost her husband so many troubled hours. They drew up to the door at
this moment to the general relief, but Evelyn could not refrain from a
final arrow. “You will be glad to know that nobody has come to any
harm,” she said.

But Marion was not sensitive to that amiable dart. She clutched her
stepmother’s dress to hold her back. “Was it yon man?” she said, “and
did he get clear away after all?”

Evelyn stepped quickly out of the carriage and made no reply; but, as it
happened, Marion’s unanswered question was of the greatest importance
and advantage to the anxious household and deeply interested
country-side. For, dropping into Saunders’ thirsty ears, like the
proverbial water in the desert, it was by him shaped into the most
satisfactory of conclusions to the much debated story. “It was that
fellow in the bad coat,” he said, in the housekeeper’s room, as soon as
he had superintended the taking in of tea. “I knew yon was the man.”
Saunders was a little breathless, being a portly person, and having
hurried in at the top of his speed to convey the news. “I must say Miss
Marion has a great consideration for us in the other part of the house,”
he added. “She asked the question just as I stood there, though I make
no doubt she had ‘ad it all out afore that.” Mr. Saunders was a Scotsman
by birth, but he had been in the best families, and slipped an h now and
then just to show that he knew as well as any one how fine English was
spoke.

And the news ran far and wide--to Rankin’s cottage, and to the Manse,
and up the loch to the innumerable neighbours who had taken the
profoundest interest in the story. A great many people, it turned out,
had seen “yon man.” He had been observed on the lochside walking back
with an ulster that was much too big for him, covering his badly-made
evening coat. And all the inhabitants of the little cluster of cottages
in one of which he had lived, had given Johnson up as the malefactor
long ago--for had he not come in from the ball in the middle of the
night, and thrown his things into his bag, and struggled off again in
the ulster which was not his, over the hill to Kilrossie before it was
light? At the head of the loch there was the most unfeigned satisfaction
that it had proved to be “yon man.” And Archie was the subject of one
prolonged ovation wherever he appeared. “I am as glad to see you back as
if I had gotten a legacy,” Miss Eliza said, patting him on the back.
“When I thought of the noise we were all making that night of the ball,
and you, poor lad, with such trouble hanging over you, and nobody to
know! But it’s all blown over now, and justice done, the Lord be
praised.” The reader, better informed, knows that poor Johnson had met
with anything but justice, but the opinion of the loch had happily no
effect upon his equanimity, and indeed, if it could have been supposed
to have had any effect, no doubt he deserved all the obloquy for
something else, if not for that.

And it surprised nobody when Eddy Saumarez arrived one evening to finish
his visit, as was said--that visit having been painfully cut short by
the family trouble and false accusation of Archie, which his friend had
been too sensitive to bear. Eddy had been a general favourite, and
everybody was glad to see him, even Rankin, who received him very
graciously, though with a flush upon his face, probably caused by too
hot a fire. “I could accommodate you _now_ with a puppy, if you were
still in want of one,” Rankin said, fishing up a sprawling specimen of
the Roy section from that nest in which he kept his nurslings warm; and
he added, “I’m real glad to see you without _yon_ spark. Ye’ll learn
anither time not to try to get your fun out o’ me with a ficteetious
philosopher: for I wadna be worth my salt as a philologist, not to say
an observer o’ human nature, if I didna see through an ill-spoken
ignoramus like yon.”

“Everybody is not like you, Rankin,” said Eddy; “all the rest swallowed
him like gospel.”

“It is true,” said Rankin, “that everybody is no like me. I have maybe
had advantages that are not of a common kind; but ye shouldna abuse the
confidence o’ the weaker vessels. And ye never can tell at what corner
ye may fall in with a man that is enlightened and that will see through
your devices--at least in this country. I’m tauld there’s far less
advanced intelligence in Southland pairts. Ay, that’s a fine little
beast. I havena had a better since the one that went to the Princess, ye
will maybe have heard o’ that--a real beauty, but he wasna appreciated.
I hope you have mair sense than ever to have such a thing said of you.”

Thus Eddy’s absolution was sealed by his very accuser, and his
reputation vindicated.

The scene in Rowland’s study was perhaps more difficult to get through.
It was in answer to a telegram sent from Glasgow that Eddy, with some
excitement, made up his mind to return to Rosmore. “Come and finish
visit. Have much to say to you,” was Rowland’s message, which set Eddy’s
pulses beating. For a moment a horrible thought gleamed through his mind
that his confession was to be used against him, but this he soon
dismissed as impossible. It was bad enough without that, and demanded an
amount of courage which Eddy, though full of that quality, scarcely
felt that he possessed. He was dumb when he found himself at last in the
dreaded room where Archie had suffered for his fault. Eddy was a trifler
born, and had the habit of taking everything lightly; his most tragic
moment came between two jests--he could not have been serious for five
minutes to save his life. But when he was ushered into Rowland’s room,
and found himself face to face with the man whose name he had forged,
whose money he had appropriated, whose heart, tough and middle-aged as
it was, he had nearly broken, Eddy had not a word to say. He stood dumb
before the judge who had voluntarily laid aside all power to punish him.
Something rose in his throat which took away his voice. He could not
have spoken had all the hopes of his life depended upon it. Happily this
inability to articulate had more effect upon Rowland than the most
voluble excuses could have had.

“Eddy,” he said, “I’ve sent for you, thinking I had a right. I have a
grievance against you, and then, again, I have received a favour at your
hands.”

Eddy made a gesture of deprecation, and tried to utter something, but
could not.

“Yes,” said Rowland, gravely; “I’m not a man to make little of what you
did. But when you put your life in my wife’s hands to save my son, you
did me a greater service than any other man on earth could do: and you
did in the circumstances all that a man could do.”

“It’s not capital now, sir,” said Eddy, finding his voice as his spirit
began to come back to him.

“No, it’s not hanging,” said Rowland, with a slight smile; “but it’s
ruin all the same. Now, look here.” He took the cheque from the envelope
in which he had put it away, “and here.” He took from his pocket-book
the guilty scrap of paper which Eddy had given to Evelyn. “Put these in
the fire, and destroy them, and then we can talk.”

Eddy did what he was told with what scrupulous care it is unnecessary to
describe, and poked the very films of the burned paper into the bottom
of the fire. Then he turned to Mr. Rowland, his face reddened with the
blaze, his eyes hot and scorched, his features working. He took the rich
man’s hand and held it fast between his. “Tell me to do anything in the
world,” he said, “whatever you please, and I’ll do it. I am your
bond-slave, and will not call my soul my own unless you say I may.”

“Sit down, boy, and don’t talk nonsense,” said Rowland, himself
considerably moved. “I am going to tell you to do several things, and I
hope you will obey. But first, Eddy, if you were in such a terrible
scrape, why were you such a little fool, when you had a man like me
close at hand, not to come and ask for it. Would not that have been the
wise way?”

“It would have been a very cheeky thing to do to come and ask a man,
because he’s been kind to you, to give you a th--though, of course,”
Eddy interrupted himself, in a low voice, “less might have done then.”

“A cheeky thing is better than a bad thing,” said Rowland sententiously.
“Perhaps I might have been surprised: but now, my lad, let us get to the
bottom of all this. If I take you in hand, I’ll have no half measures.
How much do you want to clear you altogether, so that you shall be your
own master when you come into your estate?”

“To clear me?” Eddy’s eyebrows went up altogether into his hair. “Well,
sir,” he said, “that is a confusing question, for, you see, unlimited
tick, that is to say, credit----”

“Don’t be a humbug, Eddy!”

“Well, I suppose you know what tick means,” the young man said, with a
laugh, “not unlimited, by any means; though, to tell the truth, except
for--I’m very nearly cleared.”

“Very nearly won’t do for me, neither will I have any exceptions; put
them all down, every one, without any exceptions, and bring them to me.
I’ll see you cleared: and now for what I want you to do.”

“Yes, sir,” said Eddy, putting his hands by his side with the air of a
docile little schoolboy eager to obey.

It was all Rowland could do not to laugh, but he was scandalised at
himself for his levity, and forbore.

“There is a choice of two or three things,” said Rowland. “You might go
out to my overseer in India, and try what you can do on the railways.
There is nothing succeeds so well there as a man who knows how to manage
men.”

Eddy produced a little sickly smile, but he did not make any response.

“Or you might try ranching out in Canada or the Wild West: or the same
kind of thing, though they only call it stock-keeping, in Australia:
or---- It really does not matter what it is, if it’s good hard work. I
make a stand upon that. Good, hard work,” said Mr. Rowland; “it’s the
way of salvation for you spendthrift young men.”

“Yes, sir,” said Eddy again, with his schoolboy air, but in rueful
tones.

“Man alive!” cried Rowland, “can’t you see what a grand thing it would
be for you? your thoughts taken off all your follies and vanities, your
hands full of something wholesome to do, yourself removed out of the way
of temptation. What could you desire more?”

“Ah!” said Eddy, “I’m afraid I’d desire a different body and a different
soul, only such trifles as these. I’m a product of corrupt civilization,
I am not the thing that lives and thrives that way. Probably out there I
should gravitate to a gambling saloon or a drinking bar.”

“You don’t drink, Eddy?” cried Rowland, with an alarmed countenance.

“No, I don’t drink--not now,” said Eddy, with sudden gravity; “but what
I might do after six months of a cowboy’s life I don’t know.”

Rowland looked at him for some time with a baffled air. Then he tried
his last _coup_. “My wife told me,” he said--“I hope she did not betray
your confidence--that there was something about Marion.”

A sudden flush of colour went over Eddy’s face, and he began to move his
foot nervously, as he did when he was excited.

“And that you had,” Rowland said, with an inflection of laughter in his
voice not to be concealed, “a very just appreciation of her. Now, my
man, without some such probation there could be no thought of my
daughter, you must know.”

Eddy sat with his head bent, swinging his foot, and for a moment made no
reply. At last he said, “How long, sir, do you mean the probation to
last?”

“Let us say at a venture three years.”

“Three years!” said Eddy, with comic despair. “Mr. Rowland, I am very
fond of Marion, though--and I shouldn’t wonder if she could fancy me.
She has a poor opinion of me, but that needn’t matter. We could always
get on together. But do you think, from what you know, that if somebody
with a handle to his name turned up after the drawing-room, that Marion
would wait for me out ranching in California for three years?”

In spite of himself, Rowland laughed. “I never could take upon myself to
say, Eddy, what love might do.”

“No?” said Eddy, with his head on one side, and a look of interrogation.
“I think I could take it upon myself,” he added. “We might be very fond
of each other: and I, of course, would be out of the way of temptation
out there; besides, I’m not the kind of man that falls much in love. But
Marion: excuse me for talking so freely, sir, but you’ve put it to me. I
should find Marion Lady Something-or-other, when I came back at the end
of my three years.”

“Then you don’t think it worth your while?” Rowland said.

“I did not say that: whatever you say is worth the while. I’ll go if you
press it; and if I don’t come back at all, it will be the less matter.
But if you ask me, sir, frankly, I don’t think it’s good enough so far
as Marion is concerned. She would never wait for a fellow out ranching.
I don’t see why she should, for my part.”

“You are a cool loon,” said Rowland, half offended. “Perhaps you do not
wish she should.”

“Well, she wouldn’t like it,” said Eddy. “I can’t help thinking of her
as well as of myself. She’d take the young Duke, if he turned up, in any
case. There isn’t an eligible young Duke, I believe, now,” he said
thoughtfully, “but the next best. And she wouldn’t wait three years for
me, oh no, though she might like me well enough. The three years system
would make an end of that. I am very much obliged to you for holding out
the chance; and I’ll take your advice for myself, Mr. Rowland, and
go--wherever you decide. But we’re bound to think what’s best for her
first, don’t you see? And I couldn’t give my consent to asking her to
wait for three years. Dear me, no! not for me, as if I were a great
catch or good for anything. It would scarcely be worth her while to
stoop and pick me up if I were lying in her road. Why should she wait
three years for me?”

“Eddy, you are a very queer fellow,” said Rowland; “I don’t know what to
make of you. Tell me, now, if you were left entirely to yourself, what
would you like to do.”

“I!” he said. Eddy swung his foot more and more, and sat reflecting for
a minute or two. Then he burst into a laugh. “I suppose she enjoys her
life as much as we do,” he said, “poor old soul! I was going to say
there’s an old aunt of the governor’s, that must die sometime. If she
would be so obliging as to do it now, and leave me her money, as she
says she means to!--Then the governor would hand me over Gilston, which
he hates, and Marion and I--But it’s all absurdity and a dream. The old
aunt won’t die, why should she? and we--why there’s no we, that’s the
best of it! and we are discussing a thing that will never be.”

Rowland walked about the room from end to end, as he sometimes did when
he was forming a resolution. “So you think there’s nothing but Gilston
for you, Eddy?” he said.

“I should be out of harm’s way,” said the lad, “and a place to fill--it
might answer, but again it might not. But why should my old aunt die to
please me? or Marion give up her Duke--or you take all this trouble--I
am not worth it,” Eddy said.




CHAPTER XLVIII.


“You put Mrs. Rowland on my traces,” said Eddy; “why did you do so, you
little witch? Wait till I find out some bad trick I can play you.”

“It has all turned out very well,” said Marion sedately. “I am not at
all sorry I did it. I knew that man was about something wrong. And you
should not know such people, Mr. Saumarez. I was bound to tell them
anything I knew.”

“Miss Rowland,” said Eddy, “your father is going to pay all my debts,
and send me out to California, or somewhere, to a ranch, to expiate all
my sins; and when I come back in three years or so, as a reward, if you
are not the Duchess of So-and-so, we may, if we please, marry.”

“Who may marry?” said Marion astonished.

“The only people whom I know who really suit each other,” said Eddy
calmly. “You and I.”

“You and--me,” cried Marion in great wrath. “You are just very impudent
to say so. Me marry you!--without ever being asked--without a word! In
three years or so! I just tell you I will do nothing of the kind.”

“That is exactly what I said. I said, if you think Marion will wait
three years for me! She will take the first Duke that offers, and she
will be one of the ornaments of Queen Victoria’s court long before I
come home.”

“I was not saying exactly that,” said Marion. “Where am I to get the
Duke? There are none but old bald-headed men.”

“An Earl then,” said Eddy. “There are always lively young Earls or
Viscounts in hand, more to be counted on than plain Eddy Saumarez, who
is nobody. That’s what I said to your father, Miss May. Why should you
wait for me? I told him I saw no reason.”

“Especially when I was never asked,” Marion said.

“Yes,” said Eddy. “You see how good I am at bottom, after all that has
happened. I said I would play you a nasty trick if I could find one, but
I haven’t. You should be grateful to me. I haven’t asked you--so far as
words go.”

“I don’t know,” said Marion with a little quiver in her lip, “how a
person can be asked except in words.”

“Don’t you?” he said, and then they gave each other a look, and burst
into mutual laughter, of the emotional kind.

They were walking down the slope of the bank towards the Clyde, under
trees now bare with the surly winds of winter. It was a dull November
afternoon, and everything was done in tints of grey; the skies in long
bands, here darker, there lighter, as the vapours were more or less
heavy, the opposite shore a tinge more solid than the long weltering
line of the water which had the ghost of a reflection in it, the points
standing out like black specks upon the grey, the wreaths of smoke
half-suspended in the still air over the town of Clydeside, putting in
an intermediate tone between the two. The edge of the great stream grew
a little lighter as it crept to their feet over the shallows, and broke
on the beach with a faint white line of foam.

“I will always maintain,” said Eddy, “that there never were two people
so fit to go together as you and I. We haven’t any wild admiration of
each other; we know each other’s deficiencies exactly; we don’t go in
for perfection, do we? But we suit, my little May, we suit down to the
ground. You would know what you had to expect in me, and I could keep
you in order.”

“You are just very impudent,” she said. “I never gave you any
encouragement, Mr. Saumarez, to think that I was willing to be--to do--I
mean anything of that kind.”

“Ah, Marion,” he said, “you may be as stern as you like, but I know I
would suit you better than that duke. You would get dreadfully tired of
being called your grace, and having him, a stupid fellow, always stuck
there opposite to you; but you would not get tired of me.”

“How do you know that? I am often just very tired of you,” said Marion.
“You think too much of yourself. We would not agree, not for two days
without a fight.”

“That is just what I say. There would be no _gêne_ between us, we know
each other so well. Don’t you think, after all, you would perhaps wait
for me, Marion, supposing the duke did not come? I never could pretend
to stand against him. Say you will, and I’ll do what your father says,
and go ranching: though most likely I shall break my neck the first
year, and then you will be free of your promise, May.”

“Why should you go ranching, as you call it, and what does it mean?”

“That’s what I don’t know. It means riding about after cows, but why I
can’t tell you. I know nothing in the world about cows. I scarcely know
one when I see it, but your father thinks it’s the right thing. I’ll go
if you’ll wait for me, May.”

“And what would you do, Eddy,” she said, stealing a little closer to
him, “if you didn’t go?”

“That’s more than I can tell you. But I’ll tell you what I’d do, May, if
old aunt Sarah would only die. I’d settle with the governor about
Gilston, and we’d furbish it up and live there. In the spring we’d have
a little turn in town, and in winter we’d hunt, and have the house full.
We should be as jolly as the day’s long, and nobody to interfere with
us. And I promise you, you’d go out of the room before Mrs. James
Rowland, though he is the great railway man. I could do that for you,
Marion, though I couldn’t make you Her Grace, you know.”

“Oh, be quiet, Eddy! and if your aunt Sarah doesn’t die?”

“Ah, there you pose me, May. I must either go back where the bad boys
go, to town, and sink or swim as I can, and farewell to my pretty
Marion; or else I must go and ranch, or whatever you call it, as your
father says.”

“It is strange,” said Marion very seriously, “that old people should
make such a point of going on living, when there are young ones that
want their money so very much--and when they know they have had their
day.”

“One may say it is inconsiderate,” said Eddy with a twinkle in his eye,
“but then the thing is, why should she take all that trouble for us? I
am sure we would take none for her: and here we are just back again,
Marion, where the four roads meet--Gilston or California, the ranch or
the--devil: that’s about what it is.”

“You had, perhaps, better go to the ranch, Eddy.”

“And you’ll wait for me, May!”

“Perhaps,” said the girl, with tears which were honest enough, in her
eyes. “If I don’t see somebody I like better,” she added with a laugh.

“Most likely,” said Eddy philosophically, “I shall break my neck the
first year--and then you need not hold to your promise. But don’t marry
any one under the rank of a marquis, for my credit, if you love me,
May.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that,” Marion said.

It was after she had come in from this conversation, and had thought it
all over in her own room, and made several calculations, that Marion
walked very sedately downstairs, and knocked at her father’s door. She
was slightly disconcerted when she saw that Mrs. Rowland was with him,
but, having quite distinctly made up her mind what she was going to do,
her confusion was slight and soon passed away. She did not sit down, but
stood by the writing table at which he was seated, leaning her hand upon
it, which was a token that she meant business, and did not intend to
waste words.

“Can I speak a word to you, papa?”

“As many as you please,” said Rowland. “Sit down, May; but if you are
coming to ask explanations----”

“Explanations?” she said with some surprise. “Oh, you will perhaps be
meaning about Archie? There is no occasion. I was always very clear
about that; and it was me that gave mamma the first hint, as she will
perhaps mind. I was coming to speak to you, papa, about what may perhaps
be my own affairs.”

“Shall I go away, Marion, and leave you alone with your father?”

“Oh, no, there is no need. You will be better here: for sometimes there
are times when a woman has more sense--I will not beat about the bush.
Why is it, papa, that Mr. Saumarez has to go away?”

“Oh, he has been telling you, has he? And do you mean to wait for him,
Marion?” said her father.

“That is a different question,” said Marion, with a toss of her head,
which was perhaps intended to toss away a little heat that had come to
her cheeks. “I would like to know, in the first place just as his
friend, papa, what end is going to be served by sending him away?”

“And what would your wisdom suggest instead?” said Mr. Rowland. “The end
to be served is to take him away from ill friends and connections, and
make him work--which is the best thing I know----”

“Work!” said Marion with a certain contempt; “and how would Eddy work
that does not know the way? Work is maybe very grand, and I am not sure
but I could do it myself if there was any need. And Archie might maybe
do it. And perhaps it would do _him_ good. But not Eddy; I’ve read in
books about that: if the half of the men out there work, the other half
just go all wrong. Boys are not all alike,” said Marion, with a little
wave of her hand, as if delivering a lecture on the subject; “the boys
at the Burn have that in them that they can just never be quiet--they’re
on the hill or out in the boat, or wrestling and throwing things at
each other, if there’s nothing else to do. But Eddy is not of that kind.
He would no more work out there than he would work here. He will go if
you make him, though I can not tell why he should do what you say. But
he will go just helpless, with no use of his hands, and he will fall
into the first net that’s spread for him. Oh, he’s clever enough!” cried
the girl, some angry moisture springing to her eyes; “he will see it is
a net: but he will go into it all the same: for what is he to do? He has
just about as much work in him as Roy and Dhu.”

“Then he’d better disappear off the face of the earth!” cried Rowland
angrily, “with other cumberers of the soil. A man like that has no right
to live.”

“His Maker would maybe know that best,” retorted Marion undismayed; “and
me, I’m willing to take him as he is. But I will not be a consenting
party,” the girl cried raising her voice, “to sending any person away to
his ruin. You think one way is just good for everybody all the same, as
if we were not made dark and fair, and big and little, to show the
difference! And I will not say I will wait for him, papa,” Marion added
more calmly, after a pause for breath. “For I might miss a very good
match in the time, and never get such a chance again; and he might never
come back, as I think most likely, and I would have nobody at all. So I
will not promise, for it would be bad for us both,--both him and me.”

“You little calculating cutty,” cried her father; “is this what you call
being in love with a man?”

“I never said a word on that subject,” said Marion. “I said I was
willing to take him as he is. And I suppose,” she said, coming down
suddenly from her oratorical platform to the calm tone of ordinary
affairs, “I suppose you will be meaning to give me some kind of a
fortune, more or less, when I’m married and go away.”

“I suppose so--to get rid of you,” said her father with a laugh.

“That was just what I meant,” said Marion seriously; “then what would
ail you, papa, to settle about Gilston, and just let him take up the way
of nature there? He could do what was wanted there.”

Rowland sprang from his seat in wrath and high indignation. “Preserve
the game and shoot it in the season, and play your idiotic games all the
summer----”

(“No, papa,” said Marion demurely, “we would be May and June in town.”)

“And hunt in the winter, and play the fool all the year round--on my
money, that I’ve worked hard for, every penny! I will see him--and
you--far enough first!”

“Papa,” said Marion, “I have been talking to Rosamond upon that subject,
and she thinks that men like you are under a great delusion. For she
says you are not an old man now, but just in your prime, and you’re
neither worn out nor a bit the worse. And she says she knows men that
have worked far far harder and actually have worn themselves out, and
never made any money at all. So that it’s not hard work, as you suppose,
but just that you’re awfully clever, and have had tremendous luck. Oh,
you can ask Rosamond what she means. It is not me; but that’s my opinion
too.”

To imagine a man more bewildered than Rowland, thus assailed in his very
stronghold by two “brats of girls,” as he himself said, who could know
nothing about the matter: yet subtly flattered all the same by the
statement that he was still in his prime and awfully clever, things
which no man, especially when he is _sur le retour_, objects to
hear--would have been impossible. He glared upon his little daughter,
standing dauntless, purling forth her iconoclastic remarks, and then he
gave a short laugh, or snort of angry contempt, and smote her lightly
(yet enough to make her shake from head to foot) on the shoulder, and
bade her stick to her own plea and her lad’s, and let other people speak
for themselves.

“Well,” said Marion, “I will just call her in, for she is in the hall,
and she will tell you herself: for I have said my say; and I hope you
will think it over, and come to a better judgment, papa.”

All this time Evelyn had been sitting silent by, supporting her head on
her hand. But, truth to tell, it was not the self-denial of a supporter
leaving her principal to fight for himself, but simple incompetence
which silenced Evelyn. With her head bent down, she had been doing her
best to master and conceal the laughter which was almost too much for
her. Mrs. Rowland was for once on Marion’s side; and the composure of
the little girl’s attack, and its radical character, startled the elder
woman. When Rowland sat down again by her side, with that snort of
dissipating and modified fury, she put her hand upon his arm, and raised
her face to him for a moment. And the good man was more bewildered than
ever to see the fun that was dancing in his wife’s eyes.

“James!” said Evelyn, her laugh bursting forth in spite of her; “she had
you there.”

“The little witch!” cried the bewildered man. He began to laugh too,
though he could scarcely have told why. And then Rowland raised his head
to find quite a different figure standing in front of him in the same
position which Marion had occupied a moment before, but half as tall
again as Marion, with head held high, and a slim, long hand leant upon
his table. She stood like Portia about to make her speech, a simile
which, it need not be said, did not occur to Rowland, but to Evelyn by
his side.

“You called me, Mr. Rowland,” Rosamond said.

“You are to tell him,” said Marion’s voice behind, “what you said about
work, Rosamond: for I’m only his own daughter, and he will not listen to
it from me.”

“You little cutty!” Rowland said again, under his breath.

“What did I say about work? it is the thing I wish for most,” said
Rosamond. “As soon as ever I am of age I am going in for it. My father
and people won’t let me now. I do not think they have any right to
interfere, but they do. Mabel Leighton, who is my dearest friend, is
going in for medicine; but I have no distinct turn, I am sorry to say.
But we think that something is certain to turn up.”

“So you are wanting to work, are you, Miss Rosamond? If it had been your
brother, it would have been more to the purpose: for women’s work is
but poorly paid. I never heard yet of one that made a fortune by her own
exertions,” Rowland said.

“A fortune?” said Rosamond. “No, we never thought of that. We thought we
could live on very little, two girls together. And Mabel has something
of her own, and we hoped that grandmamma, as she is all for work, might
make me a small allowance if she saw that I was in earnest. Lodgings are
not dear, if you don’t insist upon a fashionable quarter, and as we
shouldn’t care for meat, or anything expensive in the way of living----”

“Eh?” said Rowland surprised. “And do you think, my dear, you could make
money by saving off your meat?”

“Money! oh, we never thought of money, so long as we could get on, and
work.”

“And what would you work for, if I may inquire, if you had no thought of
money?” Rowland asked, almost dumb in face of this enigma, which was
beyond all his powers.

“I have said,” she exclaimed with a little impatience, “that
unfortunately I have no distinct vocation. Mabel is medical, luckily for
her. She has no difficulty. But there is always as much work as one can
set one’s face to in the East End.”

“But for what, for what? Give me an answer.”

“I allow,” said Rosamond, faltering slightly, “that it is a difficult
question. To be of a little use, we hope: though people say that the
results are not always so satisfactory as---- But at all events,” she
added, more cheerfully, “it is WORK. And that must always be the best
thing, whatever one may do.”

Rowland sat listening to all this, aghast. The lines of his ruddy
countenance grew limp, his lips fell a little apart. “I thought I was a
great one for work,” he said. But the words fell in a sort of apologetic
manner from his lips, and he did not add anything about a change of
opinion, which might have been supposed to be implied.

“Ah!” said Rosamond, “I know! in a different way: which chiefly means, I
believe, getting other people to work for you, and directing them, and
planning everything, and making money--like you, Mr. Rowland! who, in a
few years, without hurting yourself in the least, have got so much money
that you don’t know what to do with it. One sees that in the world. I
have heard of men--not like you, who are a great engineer and a genius,
everybody says--but mere nobodies, with shops and things, people one
would not like to touch--” Rosamond made a slight gesture of disgust, as
if she had drawn the folds of her dress away from contact with some
millionaire. “But that is not WORK,” said the girl, throwing back her
head. “I know people in society--well, perhaps not quite in society--who
have gone on working for a whole lifetime, gentlemen, yes, and women
too, working from morning to night, and even have been successful, yet
have never made money. So it is clear that work is not the thing to make
a fortune by. But I am of opinion that it is the first thing in the
world.”

Rowland once more blew forth with a snort from his nostrils the angry
breath. He felt sure there were arguments somewhere with which he could
confound this silly girl, and show her that to work was to rise in the
world, and make a fortune, and surround yourself with luxury, with the
certainty of a mathematical axiom. But he could not find them; and he
found himself instead saying in his mind, “If you have ordinary luck, if
you don’t play the fool,” and so forth, evidently adding the conditional
case from his own point of view. And the result was that he contented
himself with that snort and a strong expression of his opinion that
girls should marry, and look after their men’s houses, and not trouble
their heads about what was never intended for them.

He broke up the discussion after this, and led his wife forth by the
arm, taking her off to look at the view--Clyde coming in softly on the
beach, and all the world clad in those sober coats of grey. And standing
there an hour after, when the talk might have been supposed to have
evaporated, and the day was dying off into evening, he cried suddenly,
“Where would I have been without work? Not here with my lady-wife upon
the terrace at Rosmore!”

Evelyn did not say, what perhaps rose to her mind, “You might have been,
with a great deal harder work, a respectable foreman in the foundry, as
good a man, and as admirable an example of what labour and honest zeal
can do.” She did not say it, but her historian does for her. Mrs.
Rowland only pressed her husband’s arm, and said, “The young ones,
perhaps, are not without reason too.”

At all events, Mr. Rowland said no more of the ranch for Eddy, and in
due time, when the young pair were old enough, they married, and settled
at Gilston, which was relieved and rescued by Marion’s money, and
restored to its dignity as one of the finest places in the county,
where, if they did not perhaps live happy ever after, they were at least
a great deal better off than they deserved, and fulfilled all their own
prophecies, and suited each other--down to the ground, as Eddy said. Old
Aunt Sarah died in the course of time, and completed their prosperity.
And there was not a livelier house in England, nor a couple who enjoyed
their life more.

As for Archie, his complete development into a man, on a different level
from his father, with other aims, and an ambition which grew slowly with
his powers, cannot be here entered into. It would exceed the limits
permitted in these pages, and might touch upon graver problems than are
open to the historian of domestic life.

Rosamond has not yet married any more than he, and has had full
opportunities of testing the power of work and its results. Mabel
Leighton, of course, was soon drawn off from that eccentric career, and
is now a mother of children, much like what her own mother was before
her. But the further history of those two, if it is ever written, will
demand a new beginning and an extended page.


THE END.


PRINTED BY F. A. BROCKHAUS, LEIPZIG.





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