Relationships were somewhat strained in the Vane household during the next few weeks, the two elder members being banded together in an unusual partnership to bring about the confusion of the younger.
“I can’t understand what you are making such a fuss about. You’ll have to give in, in the end. You a poet, indeed! What next? If you would come down to breakfast in time, and give over burning the gas till one o’clock in the morning, it would be more to the point than writing silly verses. I’d be ashamed to waste my time scribbling nonsense all day long!” So cried Agnes, in Martha-like irritation, and Ronald turned his eyes upon her with that deep, dreamy gaze which only added fuel to the flame.
He was not angry with Agnes, who, as she herself truly said, “did not understand.” Out of the storm of her anger an inspiration had fluttered towards him, like a crystal out of the surf. “The Worker and the Dreamer”—he would make a poem out of that idea! Already the wonderful inner vision pictured the scene—the poet sitting idle on the hillside, the man of toil labouring in the heat and glare of the fields, casting glances of scorn and impatience at the inert form. The lines began to take shape in his brain.
”...And the worker worked from the misty dawn,
Till the east was golden and red;
But the dreamer’s dream which he thought to scorn,
Lived on when they both were dead...”
“I asked him three times over if he would have another cup of coffee, and he stared at me as if he were daft! I believe he is half daft at times, and he will grow worse and worse, if Margot encourages him like this!” Agnes announced to her father, on his weary return from City.
It was one of Agnes’s exemplary habits to refuse all invitations which could prevent her being at home to welcome her father every afternoon, and assist him to tea and scones, accompanied by a minute résumé of the bad news of the day. What the housemaid had broken; what the cat had spilt; the parlourmaid’s impertinences; the dressmaker’s delinquencies; Ronald’s vapourings; the new and unabashed transgressions of Margot—each in its turn was dropped into the tired man’s cup with the lumps of sugar, and stirred round with the cream. There was no escaping the ordeal. On the hottest day of summer there was the boiling tea, with the hot muffins, and the rich, indigestible cake, exactly as they had appeared amidst the ice and snows of January; and the accompanied recital hardly varied more. It was a positive relief to hear that the chimney had smoked, or the parrot had had a fit.
Once a year Agnes departed on a holiday, handing over the keys to Margot, who meekly promised to follow in her footsteps; and then, heigho! for a fortnight of Bohemia, with every arrangement upside down, and appearing vastly improved by the change of position. Instead of tea in the drawing-room, two easy-chairs on the balcony overlooking the Park; cool iced drinks sipped through straws, and luscious dishes of fruit. Instead of Agnes, stiff and starched and tailor-made, a radiant vision in muslin and laces, with a ruffled golden head, and distracting little feet peeping out from beneath the frills.
“Isn’t this fun?” cried the vision. “Don’t you feel quite frivolous and Continental? Let’s pretend we are a newly-married couple, and you adore me, and can’t deny a thing I ask! There was a blouse in Bond Street this morning... Sweetest darling, wouldn’t you like me to buy it to-morrow, and show me off in it to your friends? I told them to send it home on approval. I knew you couldn’t bear to see your little girl unhappy for the sake of four miserable guineas!”
This sort of treatment was very agreeable to a worn-out City man, and as a pure matter of bargaining, the blouse was a cheap price to pay for the refreshment of that cool, restful hour, and the pretty chatter which smoothed the tired lines out of his face, and made him laugh and feel young again.
Another night Mr Vane would be decoyed to a rendezvous at Earl’s Court, when Margot would wear the blouse, and insist upon turning round the pearl band on her third finger, so as to imitate a wedding-ring, looking at him in languishing fashion across the table the while, to the delight of fellow-diners and his own mingled horror and amusement. Then they would wander about beneath the glimmer of the fairy-lights, listening to the band, as veritable a pair of lovers as any among the throng.
As summer approached, Mr Vane’s thoughts turned to these happy occasions, and it strengthened his indignation against his son to realise that this year a cloud had arisen between himself and his dearest daughter. Margot had openly ranked herself against him, which was a bitter pill to swallow, and, so far from showing an inclination to repent as the prescribed time drew to a close, the conspirators appeared only to be the more determined. Long envelopes were continually being dispatched to the post, to appear with astonishing dispatch on the family breakfast-table. The pale, wrought look on Ronald’s face as he caught sight of them against the white cloth! No parent’s heart could fail to be wrung for the lad’s misery; but the futility of it added to the inward exasperation. Thousands of men walking the streets of London vainly seeking for work, while this misguided youth scorned a safe and secure position!
The pent-up irritation exploded one Sunday evening, when the presence of Edith and her husband recalled the consciousness of yet another disappointment. Mr Vane had made his own way, and, after the manner of successful men, had little sympathy with failure. The presence of the two pale, dejected-looking young men filled him with impatient wrath. At the supper-table he was morose and irritable, until a chance remark set the fuse ablaze.
“Yes, yes! You all imagine yourselves so clever nowadays that you can afford to despise the experience of men who knew the world before you were born! I can see you look at each other as I speak! I’m not blind! I’m an out-of-date old fogey who doesn’t know what he is talking about, and hasn’t even the culture to appreciate his own children. Because one has composed a bundle of rhymes that no one will publish, he must needs assume an attitude of forbearance with the man who supplies the bread and butter! I’ve never been accustomed to regard failure as an instance of superiority, but no doubt I am wrong—no doubt I am behind the times—no doubt you are all condemning me in your minds as a blundering old ignoramus! A father is nothing but a nuisance who must be tolerated for the sake of what can be got out of him.”
He looked round the table with his tired, angry eyes. Jack Martin sat with bent head and lips pressed tightly together, repressing himself for his wife’s sake. Edith struggled against tears. Agnes served the salad dressing and grunted approval. Margot, usually so pert and ready of retort, stared at the cloth with a frown of strained distress. Only Ronald faced him with steady eyes.
“That is not true, father, and you know it yourself!”
“I know nothing, it appears! That’s just what I say. Why don’t you undertake my education? You never show me your work; you take the advice of a child like Margot, and leave me out in the cold, and then expect me to have faith enough to believe you a genius without a word of proof. You want to become known to the public? Very well, bring down some of that precious poetry and read it aloud to us now! You can’t say then that I haven’t given you a chance!”
It was a frightful prospect! The criticism of the family is always an ordeal to the budding author, and the moment was painfully unpropitious. It would have been as easy for a bird to sing in the presence of the fowler. Ronald turned white to the lips, but his reply came as unwavering as the last.
“Do you think you would care to hear even the finest poetry in the world read aloud to-night? Mine is very far from the best. I will read it to you if you wish, but you must give me a happier opportunity.”
Agnes laughed shortly.
“Shilly-shally! I can’t understand what opportunity you want. If it’s good, it can’t be spoilt by being read one day instead of another; if it’s bad, it won’t be improved by waiting. This is cherry-pie, and there is some tipsy cake. Edith, which will you have?”
Edith would have neither. She was still trembling with wounded indignation against her father for that cruel hit at her husband. She sat pale and silent, vowing never to enter the house again until Jack’s fortunes were restored; never to accept another penny from her father’s hands. She was comparatively little interested in the discussion about poetry. Ron was a dear boy; she would be sorry if he were disappointed, but Jack was her life, and Jack was working for bread!
If she had followed the moment’s impulse, she would have risen and left the room, and though better counsel prevailed, she could not control the spice of temper which made the cherry-pie abhorrent.
Jack, as a man, saw no reason why he should deny himself the mitigations of the situation; he helped himself to cream and sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on the table, he and his father-in-law were discussing the mysteries of the last Education Bill with the satisfaction of men who hold similar views on the inanities of the opposite party. Later on they bade each other a friendly good-night; but Edith went straight from the bedroom to the street, and clung tightly to her husband’s arm as they walked along the pavement opposite the Park, enjoying the quiet before entering the busy streets.
“We’ll never come again!” she cried tremulously. “We’ll stay at home, and have a supper of bread and cheese and love with it! You shan’t be taunted and sneered at by any man on earth, if he were twenty times my father! What an angel you were, Jack, to keep quiet, and then talk as if nothing had happened! I was choking with rage!”
“Poor darling!” said Jack Martin tenderly. “You take things too much to heart. It’s rough on you, but you must remember that it’s rough on the old man too. You are his eldest child, and the beauty of the family. He hoped great things for you, and it is wormwood and gall to his proud spirit to see you struggling along in cheap lodgings. We can’t wonder if he explodes occasionally. It’s wonderful that he is as civil to me as he is; he has put me down as a hopeless blunderer!”
There was a touch of bitterness in the speaker’s voice, for all his brave assumption of composure, and his wife winced at the sound. She clung more tightly to his arm, and raised her face to his with eager comfort.
“Don’t mind what he says! Don’t mind what any one says. I believe in you. I trust you! The good times will come back again, dear, and we will be happier than ever, because we shall know how to appreciate them. Even if we were always poor, I’d rather have you for my husband than the greatest millionaire in the world!”
“Thank God for my wife!” said Jack Martin solemnly.
Meanwhile Ronald and Margot were holding a conclave on the third floor. “I must get away from home at once!” cried the lad feverishly. “I can’t write in this atmosphere of antagonism. I breathe it in the air. It poisons everything I do. If I am to have only three more months of liberty, I must spend them in my own way, in the country with you, Margot, away from all this fret and turmoil. It’s my last chance. I might as well throw up the sponge at once, if we are to stay here.”
“Yes, we must go away; for father’s sake as well as our own,” replied Margot slowly. She leant her head against the back of her chair, and pushed the hair from her brow. Without the smile and the sparkle she was astonishingly like her brother,—both had oval faces, well-marked eyebrows, flexible scarlet lips, and hazel eyes, but the girl’s chin was made in a firmer mould, and the expression of dreamy abstraction which characterised the boy’s face was on hers replaced by animation and alertness.
“Father will be miserable to-night because he flared out at supper; but he’ll flare again unless we put him out of temptation. He likes his own way as much as we like ours, and it’s so difficult for parents to realise that their children are grown-up. We seem silly babies in his eyes, and he longs to be able to shut us up in the nursery until we are sorry, as he used to do in the old days. As for our own plans, Ron, they are all settled. I was just waiting for a quiet opportunity to tell you. I have been busy planning and scheming for some time back, but it was only to-night that my clue arrived. Jack, my emissary, slipped it into my hand after supper. Read that!”
She held out a half sheet of paper with an air of triumph, on which were scribbled the following lines:—
“Name, Elgood. Great walker, climber, etcetera. Goes every June with brother to small lonely inn (Nag’s Head)—Glenaire—six miles’ drive from S—, Perthshire. Scenery fine, but wild; accommodation limited; landlady refuses lady visitors, which fact is supposed to be one of the chief attractions; Elgood reported to be tough nut to crack; chief object of holiday, quiet and seclusion; probably dates two or three weeks from June 15.”
Ronald read, and lifted a bewildered face.
“What does it all mean? How do this man’s plans affect ours? I don’t understand what you are driving at, Margot, but I should love to go to Scotland! The mountains in the dawning, and the shadows at night, and the dark green of the firs against the blue of the heather—oh, wouldn’t it be life to see it all again, after this terrible brick city! How clever of you to think of Scotland!”
“My dear boy, if it had been Southend it would have been all the same. We are going where Mr Elgood goes, for Mr Elgood, you must know, is the editor of The Loadstar—the man of all others who could give you a helping hand. Now, Ron, I am quite prepared for you to be shocked, but I know that you will agree in the end, so please give in as quickly as possible, and don’t make a fuss. You have been sending unknown poems to unknown editors for the last two years, with practically no result. It’s not the fault of your poems—of that I am convinced. In ten years’ time every one will rave about them, but you can’t afford to wait ten years, or even ten months. Our only hope is to interest some big literary light, whose verdict can’t be ignored, and persuade him to plead your cause, or at least to give you such encouragement as will satisfy father that you are not deluded by your own conceit. I’ve thought and thought, and lain awake thinking, till I feel quite tired out, and then at last I hit on this plan,—to find out where Mr Elgood is going for his holidays, and go to the same place, so that he can’t help getting to know us, whatever he may wish. Ordinary methods are useless at this stage of affairs. We must try a desperate remedy for a desperate situation!”
“I’m sure I am willing. I would try any crazy plan that had a possibility of success for the next three months. But yours isn’t possible. The landlady won’t take ladies. That’s an unsurmountable objection at the start.”
But Margot only preened her head with a smile of undaunted self-confidence.
“She’ll take me!” she declared complacently. “She can’t refuse me shelter for a night at least, after such a long, tiring journey, and I’ll be such a perfect dear, that after twenty-four hours she wouldn’t be bribed to do without me! You can leave Mrs McNab to me, Ron. I’ll manage her. Very well then, there we shall be, away from the madding crowd, shut up in that lonely Highland glen, in the quaint little inn; two nice, amiable, attractive young people with nothing to do but make ourselves amiable and useful to our companions. Mr Elgood can’t be young; he is certainly middle-aged, perhaps quite old; he will be very tired after his year’s work, and perhaps even ill. Very well then, we will wait upon him and save him trouble! You shall bicycle to the village for his tobacco and papers, and I’ll read aloud and bring him cups of tea. We won’t worry him, but we’ll be there all the time, waiting and watching for an opportunity. One never knows what may happen in the country. He might slip into the river some day, and you could drag him out. Ronald, wouldn’t it be perfectly lovely if you could save his life!”
The two youthful faces confronted each other breathlessly for a moment, and then simultaneously boy and girl burst into a peal of laughter. They laughed and laughed again, till the tear-drops shone on Margot’s lashes, and Ronald’s pale face was flushed with colour.
“You silly girl! What nonsense you talk! I’m afraid Mr Elgood won’t give me a chance of rescuing him. He won’t want to be bothered with literary aspirants on his summer holiday, and he will guess that I want his help—”
“He mustn’t guess anything of the kind until the end of the time. You must even never mention the word poetry. It would neither be fair to him, nor wise for ourselves. What we have to do is to make ourselves so charming and interesting that at the end of the three weeks he will want to help us as much as we want to be helped. I understand how to manage old gentlemen I’ve had experience, you see, in rather a difficult school. Poor father! I must run down to comfort him before I go to bed. I feel sure he is sitting in the library, puffing away at his pipe, and feeling absolutely retched. He always does after he has been cross.”
Ronald’s face hardened with youthful disapproval. “Why should you pity him? It’s his own fault.”
“That makes it all the harder, for he has remorse to trouble him, as well as disappointment. You must not be hard on the pater, Ron. Remember he has looked forward to having you with him in business ever since you were born, and it is awfully hard on him to be disappointed just when he is beginning to feel old and tired, and would be glad of a son’s help. It is not easy to give up the dream of twenty years!”
Ronald felt conscience-stricken. He knew in his own heart that he would find it next to impossible to relinquish his own dawning ambitions, and the thought silenced his complaints. He looked at his sister and smiled his peculiarly sweet smile.
“You have a wide heart, Margot. It can sympathise with both plaintiff and defendant at the same time.”
“Why, of course!” asserted Margot easily. “I love them both, you see, and that makes things easy. Go to bed, dear boy, and dream of Glenaire! Your chance is coming at the eleventh hour.”
The light flashed in the lad’s eyes as he bent his head for the good-night kiss—a light of hope and expectation, which was his sister’s best reward.
Ron had worked, fretted, and worried of late, and his health itself might break down under the strain, for his constitution was not strong. During one long, anxious year there had been fear of lung trouble, and mental agitation of any kind told quickly upon him. Margot’s thoughts flew longingly to the northern glen where the wind blew fresh and cool over the heather, with never a taint of smoke and grime to mar its God-given purity. All that would be medicine indeed, after the year’s confinement in the murky city! Ron would lift up his head again, like a plant refreshed with dew; body and mind alike would then expand in jubilant freedom.
Margot crept down the darkened staircase, treading with precaution as she passed her sister’s room. The hall beneath was in utter darkness, for it was against Agnes’s economical instincts to leave a light burning after eleven o’clock, even for the convenience of the master of the house. When Mr Vane demurred, she pointed out that it was the easiest thing in the world for him to put a match to the candle which was left waiting for his use, and that each electric light cost—she had worked it all out, and mentioned a definite and substantial sum which would be wasted by the end of the year if the light were allowed to burn in hall or staircase while he enjoyed his nightly read and smoke.
“Would you wish this money to be wasted?” she asked calmly; and thus questioned, there was no alternative but to reply in the negative. It would never do for the head of the house to pose as an advocate of extravagance; but all the same he was irritated by the necessity, and with Agnes for enforcing it.
Margot turned the handle of the door and stood upon the threshold looking across the room.
It was as she had imagined. On the big leather chair beside the tireless grate sat Mr Vane, one hand supporting the pipe at which he was drearily puffing from time to time, the other hanging limp and idle by his side. Close at hand stood his writing-table, the nearer corner piled high with books, papers, and reviews, but to-night they had remained undisturbed. The inner tragedy of the man’s own life had precluded interest in outside happenings. He wanted his wife! That was the incessant cry of his heart, which, diminished somewhat by the passage of the years, awoke to fresh intensity at each new crisis of life! The one love of his youth and his manhood; the dearest, wisest, truest friend that was ever sent by God to be the helpmeet of man—why had she been taken from him just when he needed her most, when the children were growing up, and her son, the longed-for Benjamin, was at his most susceptible age? It was a mystery which could never be solved this side of the grave. As a Christian Mr Vane hung fast to the belief that love and wisdom were behind the cloud; but, though his friends commented on his bravery and composure, no one but himself knew at what a cost his courage was sustained. Every now and then, when the longing was like an ache in his soul, and when he felt weary and dispirited, and irritated by the self-will of the children who were children no longer, then, alas! he was apt to forget himself, and to utter bitter, hasty words which would have grieved her ears, if she had been near to listen. After each of these outbreaks he suffered tortures of remorse and loneliness, realising that by his own deed he had alienated his children; grieving because they did not, could not understand!
Except, perhaps, Margot! Margot, the third little daughter, whose coming in the place of the much-desired boy had been a keen disappointment to both parents. The mother had been doubly tender to the child, as if to compensate for that passing pang; but Mr Vane recalled with contrition that he himself had remained indifferent and neglectful until two or three years later, when at last Ronald had made his tardy appearance. Then ensued constant visits to the nursery, to examine the progress of the son and heir; and after the daily questioning and inspection it was impossible to resist bestowing some little attention on the bewitching curly-headed, chubby-cheeked little damsel who clung to his trouser leg, and raised entreating eyes from the altitude of his knee. Mr Vane felt guiltily conscious of having neglected this child, and now in the content of gratified ambition he proceeded to make good that neglect by petting her to her heart’s desire, until as time went on it became an open question whether his daily visits were not paid even more to the girl than to the boy. Ronald remained his father’s pride, but Margot was his joy, his pet,—in years to come his comfort and companion.
There was more of the dead mother in this last daughter than in either of the elder sisters; she had her mother’s gift of insight and understanding.
This was not the first time of many that she had crept downstairs after the household was in bed, to play David to his Saul, and to-night, as he turned his eyes to the doorway and recognised her slight figure, it was not surprise which he felt, but rather a shamed and uneasy embarrassment. “Margot! It’s very late! Why are you not in bed?”
She shut the door and crossed the room to his side.
“I wanted to talk to you!”
“To remonstrate, I suppose, for what I said at supper! You and Ron are angry, no doubt, and feel yourselves badly used. You have come to fight his battles, as usual.”
“No. I don’t want to fight at all. Just to talk to you a little while, and say I’m sorry.”
She seated herself on the arm of his chair as she spoke, and leant her shoulder carelessly against his; but he edged away, still sore and suspicious.
“Sorry for what?”
“For you! Because you’re sorry. Because I knew you’d be sitting alone, doing nothing else but being sorry. So I came down to put my arms round your dear old neck, and kiss your dear old head, and tell you that I love you. Badly!”
Yes! Margot understood. In just such pretty simple words would his own Margaret have chased away the black spirit years ago. Mr Vane puffed at his pipe, staring fixedly across the room, to conceal the sudden moistening of his eyes, but his figure sank back into its old place, no longer repulsing the caress.
“It’s a hard task for a lonely man to manage a family of children. He gets all the kicks, and none of the thanks!”
“That’s exaggeration, dear—which you are always protesting against in others. We are tiresome and self-willed, but we know very well how much we owe to you, and your care for us. It hurts us as much as it hurts you when we disagree; but we’ve got to live our own lives, father!”
“And you imagine that you know better how to set about it than a man who has lived more than twice as long, and has had ten times the experience?”
Margot hesitated.
“In a way—no; in a way—yes! We know ourselves, daddy, as even you cannot do, and it is impossible for one person, however kind and wise he may be, to lay down the law as to what is to be the object of other lives. We all have our own ambitions; what could satisfy one, would leave another empty and aching. Agnes, for instance, and me! How different we are! Her idea of happiness would be a house worked by machinery, where every hour the same things happened at precisely the same moment, and there were never any cataracts and breaks, and nobody ever came down late to breakfast. I should like to have breakfast in bed, and a new excitement every single day! We are not all cut out of one pattern, and we are not children any longer, dear. Sometimes you forget that. When you were twenty-three, you were married, and had a home of your own.”
“Ron is not twenty-one.”
“When you were twenty-one, did you want your own way, or were you willing for other people to decide for you?”
Mr Vane sighed, and moved his head impatiently.
“Here we are back again at the same old argument! It’s waste of time, Margot. I can’t alter my ideas, but I’ll try to keep a tighter rein over myself for the next few months. We mustn’t have any more scenes like to-night.”
“No.” Margot spoke as gravely as himself. “We mustn’t, daddy, for your sake as well as ours, and therefore I think it wise to remove the cause of your irritation. You said we might go away to the country together, Ron and I, and we have decided on Scotland—on a glen in Perthshire, six miles from the nearest station, where the landlady of a quaint little inn takes in a few boarders. It will be very primitive, I expect, and we shall live on cream and porridge and mountain air, and grow brown and bonnie, and study Nature as we have never had a chance of doing before. Six miles from a station, daddy! There’s seclusion, if you like!”
Mr Vane knitted his brow, uncertain whether to approve or object.
“How did you come to hear of this place, if it is so out of the world?”
“Jack heard of some people who like it so much that they have gone back again and again.” Margot paused for a moment, and then added resolutely, “They go to fish. Probably they will be there again this summer. They are two brothers—one of them is quite old. I don’t know anything about the other. Of course, wherever we stay we shall meet other people—but you don’t mind that, do you, dear? You can trust us not to associate with any one who is not what you would approve?”
“Oh yes. I am not afraid of you in that way, and Ron is sensible enough where you are concerned. He’ll take care of you. I wouldn’t allow you to stay at a big hotel without Agnes or some older woman, but you are welcome to your little inn, if it takes your fancy. If it rains all day, in Highland fashion, Ronald may discover that there are compensations even in Regent’s Park. How soon are you off?”
“The middle of June, if all’s well, and we’ll stay on as long as we are happy and enjoying ourselves. Then there will be your holiday to consider, dear. I thought it would be such a good idea if you took Jack with you, while I went to the seaside with Edith and the boys. Jack and you agree so well, and have so many tastes in common. You would make splendid compagnons de voyage!”
Mr Vane drew back in his chair to stare at her beneath frowning brows.
“If there is one thing in this world more objectionable than another, it’s a managing woman!” he cried emphatically. “Don’t you develop into one, Margot, if you wish to keep any influence over me. I’ve seen danger signals once or twice lately, and I tell you plainly—I won’t stand it! Be satisfied with what you have gained, and carry Ron away to your Highland glen, but leave my holiday alone, if you please. I’m quite capable of choosing a companion for myself if I need one.”
“Yes, dear,” said Margot meekly; but her smile showed no sign of contrition. She had heard this terrible indictment times without number, but as yet there had come no waning of her influence. As she felt her way carefully up the dark staircase a few minutes later, she smiled to herself with complacent satisfaction; for not only had the Scotch trip received the parental sanction, but the first step was taken towards securing a holiday for poor tired Jack. Mr Vane might protest, but the idea once suggested would take root in his mind, and by the time that it developed into action he would imagine that it was entirely his own inspiration. What did it matter? For Jack’s sake even more than his own it was better that he should be so deluded; and Margot was happily above the littleness of desiring to monopolise the credit for her ideas. So long as a point was gained, she was more than content to remain inconspicuously in the background.
Every one said that it would rain. It was most depressing. You had only to mention that you intended to spend your summer holiday in a Highland glen, to set the torrent of warning in full flow. “It will rain all the time.—It always rains in Scotland... You will be soaked... You will be starved... You will feel as if you have gone back to winter. You will miss all the summer in the South... You will get rheumatism... You will be bored to death.” On and on it went, each newcomer adding volume to the chorus, until it became quite difficult to remember that one was starting on a pleasure trip, and not on a perilous Arctic exploration.
“Take plenty of wraps!” urged the wise ones. “Don’t imagine that you will be able to wear pretty white things, as you do at home. Take old things that don’t matter, for no one will see you, and you will never want to wear them again. You will shiver round the fire in the evenings. Be sure to take rugs. You won’t have half enough blankets on the bed. I was in the Highlands for a month two years ago, and we had one fine day!”
“Well!” queried Margot of this last Job’s comforter, “and what was that like? Were you glad that you were there for that one day at least?”
The speaker paused, and over her face there passed a wave of illuminating recollection. She was a prosaic, middle-aged woman, but for the moment she looked young,—young and ardent.
“Ah!” she sighed. “That day! It was wonderful; I shall never forget it. We went to bed cold and tired, looking forward to another dark, depressing morning, and woke in a dazzle of sunlight, to see the mountains outlined against a blue sky. We ran out into the road, and held out our hands to the sun, and the wind blew towards us, the soft, wet, heathery wind, and it tasted like—nectar! We could not go indoors. We walked about all day, and laughed, and sang. We walked miles. It seemed as if we could not tire. I—I think we were ‘fey.’” She paused again, and the light flickered out, leaving her cold and prosaic once more. “The rest of the time was most unfortunate. I contracted a severe chill, and my sister-in-law had rheumatism in her ankles. Now, my dear, be sure to take good strong boots—”
Margot and Ronald listened politely to all the good advice which was lavished upon them, but, after the manner of youth, felt convinced that in their case precautions were needless. It was going to be fine. If it had been wet in previous years, all the more reason why this coming summer should be warm and dry. The sun was going to shine; the clouds were going to roll away; Mr Elgood was going to fall in love with Ron at first sight, and prove himself all that was wise, and kind, and helpful. Delightful optimism of youth, which is worth more than all the wisdom of maturer years!
Margot set about her preparations unhampered by the financial troubles which befall less fortunate girls. Her father was lavishly generous to his favourite daughter, supplementing her dress allowance by constant gifts. It was one of his greatest pleasures in life to see his pretty Margot prettily attired, a pleasure in which the young lady herself fully concurred. She had too much good taste to transport all the frills and fripperies of London to a Highland glen; but, on the other hand, she set her face firmly against the mustard-coloured tweeds affected by so many women for country wear, choosing instead a soft dull blue, a hundred times more becoming. For headgear there was a little cap of the same material, with a quill feather stuck jauntily through a fold at the side, while neat, strong little boots and a pair of doeskin gloves gave a delightfully business-like air to the costume. In the rug-strap was a capacious golf cloak, displaying a bright plaid lining. This was waiting in readiness for the six-mile drive at the end of the journey, and inside the large dress-box was a selection of well-chosen garments—a white serge coat and skirt for bright weather; cottons and lawns for the warm days that must surely come; a velveteen dress for chilly evenings, blouses galore, and even a fur-lined cloak. Margot felt a thrill of wondering satisfaction in her own prudence, as she packed this latter garment, on a hot June day, with the scent of roses filling the room from the vase on the toilet table.
She packed sketching materials also, plenty of fancy-work destined to provide presents for the coming Christmas, a selection of sixpenny novels, and one or two pet classics from her own library, which travelled about with her wherever she went.
Ronald’s preparations were more easy, for surely no stock-in-trade is so simple as that of an author! His favourite stylographic pen, his favourite note-book, and that was an end of it so far as work was concerned. He took his half-plate camera with him, however; and the two handsome free-wheel bicycles were carefully swathed for the journey.
“I can’t understand why you couldn’t be content to go to some nice south-country place, instead of travelling to the other end of the country in this dusty weather,” Agnes opined, as she assiduously fixed the label to every separate piece of the luggage which was piled together in the hall. “It’s so foolish to waste time and money when there are nice places at hand. Now, there’s Cromer—”
“You don’t get heather-clad mountains at Cromer, Agnes, and we shan’t have promenades at Glenaire, nor bands, nor crowds of fashionable people quizzing each other all day long. We prefer the real, true, genuine country.”
“Oh, well, you’ll be tired of it soon enough! Margot will hate it. We shall have you hurrying back at the end of a fortnight, bored to death. I don’t think that lock of yours is quite safe, Margot. I shouldn’t wonder if you found some things missing when you arrive. The guards have a splendid chance on these all-night journeys,” prophesied Agnes cheerfully. She stared in surprise when Margot burst into a peal of laughter, and repeated, “Poor old Agnes!” as if she, secure and comfortable at home, were the one to be pitied, instead of the careless travellers into the unknown!
The sisters kissed each other in perfunctory manner, Ron shook hands, and nodded vaguely in response to half a dozen injunctions and reminders; then the travellers took their places in the cab, bending forward to wave their adieux, looking extraordinarily alike the while—young and eager and handsome, with the light of the summer sun reflected in their happy eyes.
Agnes felt a little chill as she shut the door and walked back into the quiet house. All the morning she had looked forward to the hours of peace and quietness which would follow the departure of the two children of the household; but now that the time had arrived she was conscious of an unwonted feeling of depression. The sound of that last pitying, “Poor old Agnes!” rang in her ears. Why “poor”? Why should Margot speak of her as some one to be pitied? As her father’s eldest unmarried daughter and the mistress of the house, she was surely a person to be approved and envied. And yet, recalling those two vivid, radiant faces, Agnes dimly felt that there was something in life which Margot and Ron had found, and she herself had missed.
“I don’t understand!” she repeated to herself with wrinkled brows. A vague depression hung over her spirits; she thought uneasily of her years, and wondered if she were growing old, unconscious of the fact that she had never yet succeeded in being young.
Margot and Ronald slept through their long journey with the fortitude of youth, enjoyed a delicious breakfast at Perth, took train again for a couple of hours, and finally set out on the last and most enjoyable stage of their journey—the six-mile drive to the head of Glenaire.
The first portion of the road gave little promise of beauty, but with every mile that was traversed the scenery began to assume a wilder and a sterner aspect. The mountains were high and bare, with few trees upon their banks, except here and there a patch of dark green firs. When the sun retired behind a cloud they looked somewhat grim and forbidding, but as it emerged from the shelter they became in a moment a soft, blooming purple; a wonder of beauty against the high, blue sky. In the valley were rolling plains of meadowland, of richest, most verdant green, with here and there a blaze of golden gorse or of thickly-growing rushes, to mark the presence of hidden water.
At long intervals was seen a little white cottage, set back from the road, where some lonely shepherd tended his sheep; and, at the sound of wheels, little linty-headed children would rush out to the gate, and stand gazing at the strangers with big round eyes, which looked light against the tan of their faces.
What a life for young and old to live all the year round, looking out on the grim bare hills; alone with God and Nature, and the dumb, patient animals! Day after day alone, in a little niche between grey rocks; alone in the summer-time, when the winds blew soft, and the buttercups made splashes of gold across the green; alone in the winter, when the mountains seemed to shut out the light, and the snow lay deep on the ground.
Margot looked with a shudder at the tall poles set here and there along the road. She had inquired as to their purpose, and had been informed that they were so placed to act as landmarks; for when the drifts lay deep, the ends of the poles served to point out the direction of the road, whereas without their aid the traveller would of a certainty be lost on the moors. Poor little linty-locked ones, imprisoned in the tiny cot in those bitter days!
Margot’s thoughts flew homeward, to the well-kept roads near her own home; to the grumbling and indignation of the family, if perchance a recent fall of snow had not been swept away as speedily as might be: “The road was thick with mud. Impossible to cross without splashing one’s shoes. The snow was left to melt on the pavement—disgraceful!” The Southerner railed at the discomfort of a greasy roadway; the Northerner was thankful to escape death by the aid of a warning pole!
Suddenly and unexpectedly the road took a quick swerve to the right, and lo, a narrow glen leading apparently into the very heart of the mountains.
Glenaire village at last! A little group of cottages, two whitewashed kirks, a schoolhouse, a post office, a crowded emporium where everything was to be purchased, from a bale of wincey to a red herring or a coil of rope; a baker’s shop, sending forth a warm and appetising odour; a smithy, through the open door of which came out a glare of heat, astonishingly welcome after the long, chill drive; bare-footed children playing at tares by the wayside; an old man in a plaid, smoking a pipe and turning on the new arrivals a kindly, weather-beaten face,—these were the impressions left on Margot’s mind as the horses put on an extra spurt, knowing full well that rest and food were near at hand.
After the little group of houses there came another stretch of road for perhaps three-quarters of a mile; a road which wound along between moorland on the right, and on the left a straggling tarn, thickly surrounded by rushes. The cone-shaped mountain at the head of the glen towered ever nearer and nearer, until it seemed as if it must be impossible to drive a hundred yards farther. Seen in the broad light of a summer afternoon it was wonderfully beautiful; but it was a wild and lonesome spot, and, given cloud or rain, its very grandeur and isolation would increase the sense of gloom.
Margot had time to shiver at an imaginary picture before an exclamation from Ron attracted her attention. There it stood! the little white inn, nestled beneath the shelter of a rock, so near to the head of the glen that the road came to an abrupt ending but a few yards farther on. A door in the middle; two small-paned windows on either side; a row of five windows overhead; to the right a garden stocked with vegetables and a tangle of bright-coloured flowers; to the left the stable-yard. This was the Nag’s Head, and in the doorway stood the redoubtable Mrs McNab herself, staring with steely eyes at the daring feminine intruder.
The one overpowering impression made by Mrs McNab was cleanliness! She was so obtrusively, aggressively, immaculately clean, that the like of her had never before dazzled the eyes of the benighted Southern visitors. Her lilac print gown was glossy from the press of the iron; the hands folded across the snowy apron were puffed and lined from recent parboiling; her face shone like a mirror from a generous use of good yellow soap. White stockings showed above her black felt slippers; her hair—red streaked with grey—was plastered down on each side of her head, and, for greater security, tied with a broad black ribbon. A stiff white collar was fastened by a slab of pebble rimmed in silver, which proudly imagined itself to be an ornamental brooch. There was not a single feminine curve in her body; stiff and square she stood, like a sentinel on guard, her lips pressed into a thin line; in her eyes a smouldering flame.
Margot took her in, with one swift comprehensive glance, as the driver reined up his tired horses before the door. A temper; a quick temper, a temper easily provoked, but a kindly woman nevertheless. No country bumpkin, but a shrewd, capable business woman, with two light blue eyes fixed stolidly on the main chance; a woman, moreover, blessed with a sense of humour; else why those deep lines stretching from nose to chin; that radiating nest of wrinkles round the eyes?
Margot’s courage revived at the sight. She sprang down lightly from her perch and advanced towards the house, smiling in her most fascinating manner.
“How do you do, Mrs McNab? We have arrived, you see. So glad to be here at last!”
The mistress of the inn stared into her face, stolidly unmoved.
“It was two brithers I was expecting. I’m no caring for leddies!”
“You like gentlemen better? Oh, so do I—Much!” cried Margot with a gush. “But they need us to look after them, don’t they? My brother is not at all strong. The drive has been delightful, but rather cold, all the same. I am afraid he may be chilled.” She stretched out a little ungloved hand, and laid it lightly on the hard red fist. “Feel! We should love some tea!”
Mrs McNab looked down at the delicate little hand, up into the pleading eyes, and over her set square face there passed a contortion,—there is really no other word to describe it,—a contortion of unwilling amusement. The chin dropped, the lips twitched, the red lines which did duty for eyebrows wrinkled towards the nose. Similarly affected, an Irishwoman would have invoked all the saints in her calendar, and rained welcomes and blessings in a breath; an Englishwoman would have smiled a gracious welcome; but Mrs McNab drew away from the beguiling touch, turned a broad back on her guests, and with a curt “Come yer ways!” led the way into the house.
Behind her back Margot beamed and grimaced triumphantly to her confederate. Victory was in the air! Mrs McNab could not refuse to grant a night’s shelter to a tired and chilly traveller, and by to-morrow—Margot smiled to herself, recalling the contortion of the dour Scotch face,—by to-morrow she was complacently satisfied that Mrs McNab would no longer wish to be rid of her unexpected guest!
Inside the inn a mingling of odours greeted the nostrils. Furniture polish, soft soap, various whiffs from the bar, which by good fortune opened into the stable-yard, and was distinct from the house itself; a sweet, heavy odour of milk from the dairy; a smell of musk from the plants ranged along the window-sills. In the dining-room the tablecloth was laid, with a large home-cured ham in the place of honour. The floor was covered with oilcloth; the furniture was covered with horsehair. On the mantelpiece stood two large specimens of granite, and a last year’s almanac. Red rep curtains were draped across the window, so as to conceal all the view except a glimpse of the road. The walls were hung with a fearsome paper, in which bouquets of deep blue flowers were grouped on a background of lozenges of an orange hue. Over the mantelpiece hung a coloured print of Queen Victoria; over the sideboard a print entitled “Deerstalking,” representing two Highlanders in plaids and bonnets standing over the prostrate form of a “monarch of the waste.” In the corner by the window were massed together quite an imposing collection of “burial cards,” memorialising McNab connections dead and gone, all framed to match in black bands with silver beadings.
Anything less homelike and inviting can hardly be imagined to welcome tired travellers at the end of a long and chilly journey. Margot shivered as she crossed the portals, and rubbed her hands together in disconsolate fashion, even her cheery optimism failing at the sight.
“It’s so—slippery!” was the mental comment. “What an appalling room to sit in! What must it be like in bad weather! And no fire! We’d die of cold if we sat here all the evening. If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll hug my hot bottle. What a mercy I remembered to bring it!”
Mrs McNab was speaking in hard, aloof accents, after the manner of one who, having been interrupted in her work by unwelcome intruders, is still determined to perform her duty toward them, as a matter of distasteful necessity. Shades of the obsequious landladies of the South! The tired guests quailed before the severity of this Northern welcome.
“If it’s tea you’re wanting, the kettle’s on the hob. It will be waiting for you before ye’re ready for it. Ye’ll be wanting a wash, I’m thinking.”
It was a statement, not a question, and, in response to it, brother and sister meekly ascended the staircase to the rooms allotted to their use in the front of the house—two whitewashed cribs, provided with nothing which was not absolutely necessary; a small, white-covered bed; a wooden chest of drawers, made to do duty for a dressing-table also, by the presence of a small mirror set fair and square in the middle of a coarse-grained mat; a few pegs on the wall, a deal washstand, and a couple of chairs—that was all; but everything was exquisitely clean and orderly, and what did one want with luxurious upholstery when a peep through the open windows revealed a view which sent the blood racing through the veins in very ecstasy of delight? Purple mountains and a blue sky; golden yellow of gorse—a silver sheet of water, reflecting the dark fringe of the pines—it was wonderfully, incredibly beautiful in the clear afternoon light.
Margot thrust her head out of the window, forgetful of cold and fatigue. What joy to think of waking up every morning for a month to a scene like this! Thirty mornings, and on every one of them the sun would shine, and the air blow clear and sweet. She would put on her thick, nailed boots, and clamber up the glen, to see what lay at the other side of the pass; she would take her sketching materials, and sit on that sunny knoll, trying to make some sort of a picture to send home to the poor father in his smoky prison-house. On hot days she would wade in the cool grey tarn...
The little maid was knocking at the door, and announcing that tea was ready, while Margot was still weaving her rose-coloured dreams. It was a cold douche in more ways than one, to return to the depressing atmosphere of the dining-room, but the meal itself was tempting and plentiful. Scones and toast, eggs and strawberry-jam, besides the solid flank of ham, and, better than all, plenty of delicious cream and fresh butter.
Margot poured out tea for herself and Ron, and, taking the hot-water-jug on her knee, warmed her numbed hands on it as she ate. For the first five or ten minutes no time was wasted in talking; then, the first pangs of hunger being appeased, the two young people began to compare impressions.
“Do you suppose this is the only sitting-room? Do you suppose we shall have to sit here in the evenings and when it rains? Fancy a long wet day, Ron, shining on horsehair chairs, with your feet on an oil-clothed floor, gazing at funeral cards! I should go to bed!”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea. Rest cure, you know! If we are very energetic in fine weather, we may be glad of a rest; but there is another room. I caught sight of a sanctuary filled with woollen mats and wax flowers, with a real live piano in the corner. ‘The best parlour,’ I should say, and the pride of Mrs McNab’s heart. I don’t know if she will allow you to enter.”
“She will; but she won’t have a fire. It has been spring-cleaned, and has a waterfall of green paper in the grate—I can see it all!” Margot declared, with a shudder. She hugged the hot-water-jug still closer, and shivered expressively. “I shall be obliged to raid the kitchen—there’s nothing else for it!”
“You daren’t!”
Margot laughed derisively, but her answer was checked by the sudden appearance of a man’s figure pacing slowly past the window. Brother and sister sprang from their chairs, with a simultaneous impulse, rushed across the room, and crouched behind the moreen curtains. “Is it?” they queried breathlessly of each other—“Mr Elgood? Can it be?”
If it were Mr Elgood, he was certainly not imposing, so far as looks were concerned. A dumpy little man, of forty years or more, dressed in a baggy suit of grey tweed, with carpet slippers on his dumpy little feet. He had evidently started out of the inn to enjoy a smoke in the open air, sublimely unconscious of the scrutiny that was levelled upon him the while. His uncovered head showed a large bald patch, his face was round and of a cherubic serenity.
“I could twist him round like a teetotum!” whispered Margot, holding up a pert first finger and peering complacently.
“He looks terribly commonplace!” sighed Ronald disconsolately. “Not in the least the sort of man I expected.”
Together they peered and peeped, ducking behind the curtains as the stranger approached, and gazing out again the moment his back was turned. Every now and then he halted in his promenade, stuck his hands inside his baggy pockets, and tilted slowly to and fro on the points of his carpeted toes. Anon he took his pipe from his mouth, and blew out big whiffs of smoke, glancing around the while with an expression of beatific contentment. The whole appearance of the man was an embodiment of the holiday spirit, the unrestrained enjoyment of one who has escaped from work, and sees before him a pageant of golden idle hours. Margot and Ronald smiled in sympathy even as they looked. He was a plain little man, a fat little man, a middle-aged little man, but they recognised in him the spirit of abiding youth, and recognising, felt their hearts warm towards him.
“He is nice, Ron, after all! I like him!”
“So do I. A capital chap. But he can’t possibly be Elgood of the Loadstar.”
Even as he spoke the last word the door was thrown suddenly open, and Mrs McNab entered, carrying a plate of hot scones. She stopped short to stare in surprise, while the two new arrivals hurried back to the table, obviously discomposed at being discovered playing the part of Peeping Tom.
Seated once more before the tea-tray, Margot made an effort at composure; decided that honesty was the best policy, and said in her most charming manner—
“We were looking at the gentleman who is walking up and down! Another of your guests, I suppose? It is interesting to see people who are staying in the same house.”
Mrs McNab planted the scones in the centre of the table, and gathered together the soiled plates with a wooden stolidity. To all appearances she might not have heard a word that had been said. Margot seized the hot-water-jug, and shivered ostentatiously, trusting to pity to prevail where guile had failed; and sure enough the pale blue eye turned on her like a flash of steel.
“What’s ailing ye with the water-jug?”
“I’m ailing myself!” returned Margot meekly. “So cold! I can’t get warm. Tired out after the long journey.”
She tried her best to look delicate and fragile, but the healthy bloom on her cheeks contradicted her words, and the landlady’s reply showed no softening of heart.
“Cramped, more like! Better go ye’re ways for a guid sharp trot, to bring the blood back to your veins. Ye’ll be in time for the afternoon’s post; but unless ye’re expecting news of your own, ye needna fash for the rest. Mr Elgood’s gane to fetch them.”
“Mr Elgood?” Information had come at last, and in the most unexpected fashion. “The gentleman we have been watching?”
The thin lips lifted with a suspicion of scorn.
“Oh, him! That’s just the brither. The real Mr Elgood’s away till the village. You passed it on the road.”
She disappeared into the “lobby,” and brother and sister nodded at each other solemnly, the while they munched the hot buttered scones.
“We’ll go! As soon as we have finished. I long to see what he is like. I’m glad it is not—” Margot nodded towards the window, and Ron assented with a lofty superiority—
“Yes—he is not the type! A good sort, no doubt, but hardly an intellectual leader. One could not imagine him writing those grand articles.”
“He may be useful, though, for he looks a friendly little soul, and if we get intimate with him we must know his brother, too... These scones are the most delectable things! Do you think She will be shocked if we eat them all? I feel a conviction that I shall get into the way of calling her ‘She’—with a capital S. ‘She who must be obeyed!’ I thought She would be softened by the sight of me hugging the jug, and offer to light a fire at once; but not a bit of it! Her cure was much more drastic. I’ll accept it this time, as it suits my purpose, but when to-morrow comes,—we’ll see!”
Margot nodded her head meaningly, pushed her chair back from the table, and picked up the golf cape which lay over the back of a chair. “After all, I believe ‘She’ is right! It will do us good to have a scamper, and the unpacking can wait until the light goes.” She peered discreetly through the window, and held up a detaining hand. “Wait a moment until the ‘Brither’ has turned back towards the village. Then we’ll sally out of the door and meet him face to face.”
Ron picked up his grey cap,—a coat he disdained, though he also was far from warm,—and followed his sister into the bare entrance-hall, with its pungent mingling of odours. From the back of the house could be heard the jangling of milk-pails, and a feminine voice raised in shrill invective; but no one was in sight, and the conspirators emerged unseen from the door of the inn, and turned to the left, endeavouring somewhat unsuccessfully to appear unconscious of the approaching figure.
“Good afternoon! Good afternoon!” cried the stranger, in a full genial voice.
“Good afternoon!” cried the confederates, in eager response; then they passed by, and were conscious, by the cessation of the crunching footsteps, that the “Brither” had halted to look after them as they went.
“He likes our looks! He is going to be friendly... I don’t wonder!” soliloquised Margot, looking with fond eyes at the tall figure of the youth by her side; at the clean-cut, sensitive face beneath the deerstalker cap.
“He was pleased to see us. All men admire Margot,” said Ron to himself, noting with an artist’s appreciation the picture made by the graceful figure of the girl, with her vivid, healthful colouring, the little cap set jauntily on her chestnut locks, the breeze showing glimpses of the bright tartan lining of her cloak.
Starting under such promising auspices, brother and sister merrily continued their way along the winding road which skirted the border of the tarn. Fresh from London smoke and grime, the clear mountain air tasted almost incredibly pure and fresh. One wanted to open the mouth wide and drink it in in deep gulps; to send it down to the poor clogged lungs,—most marvellous and reviving of tonics!
“It makes me feel—clean!” gasped Margot, at the end of a deep respiration, and Ron’s eyes lighted with the inward glow which showed that imagination was perfecting the idea.
Margot loved to watch the lad at moments like these, when he strode along, forgetful of her presence, oblivious of everything but his own thoughts; his face set, save for those glowing eyes, and now and then an involuntary twitch of the lips. In her own poor way she could grasp the trend of his mind, could toil after him as he flew.
That word “clean” had suggested wonderful thoughts. God’s wind, blowing fresh over the ageless hills, untainted by the soil of the city; the wind of the moorland and the heights! Must not a man’s soul perforce be clean who lived alone in the solitude with God? Dare he remain alone in that awful companionship with a taint upon his life?...
Ronald dreamt, and Margot pondered, making no excuses for the silence which is a sign of truest understanding, until the scattered village came in sight, and curiosity awakened once more.
“Why did they have two churches, I wonder? There can’t be enough people to fill even one, and every one is Presbyterian in the Highlands. Why don’t they all meet together?” cried Margot, in her ignorance.
At the door of the outlying cottages the fair-haired matrons stood to stare at the new arrivals. They all seemed fresh and rosy, and of an exquisite cleanliness; they each bore a linty-haired infant in their arms, or held by the hand a toddling mite of two or three summers; but they made no sign of welcome, and, when Margot smiled and nodded in her friendly fashion, either retreated hastily into the shadow, or responded in a manner painfully suggestive of Mrs McNab’s contortion. Then came the scattered shops; the baker’s, the draper’s, (fancy being condemned to purchase your whole wardrobe in that dreary little cell!) the grocer and general emporium in the middle of the row; last of all, the post office and stationer’s shop combined.
Brother and sister cast a swift glance down the road, but there was no male figure in sight which could by any possibility belong to a visitor from the South.
“You go in, and I’ll mount guard at the door. Buy some postcards to send home!” suggested Ron; and, nothing loath, Margot entered the little shop, glancing round with a curious air. There was no other customer but herself; but a queer little figure of a man stood behind the counter, sorting packets of stationery. He turned his head at her approach, and displayed a face thickly powdered with freckles of extraordinary size and darkness. Margot was irresistibly reminded of an advertisement of “The Spotted Man,” which she had once seen in a travelling circus, and had some ado to restrain a start of surprise. The eyes looking out between the hairless lids, looked like nothing so much as a pair of larger and more animated freckles, and the hair was of the same washed—out brown. Whether the curious-looking specimen was fourteen or forty was at first sight a problem to decide, but a closer inspection proved the latter age to be the more likely, and when Margot smiled and wished him a cheery good afternoon, he responded with unusual cordiality for an inhabitant of the glen.
“Good efternoun to ye, mem! What may ye be seeking, the day?”
Margot took refuge in the picture postcards, which afforded a good excuse for deliberation. The great object was to dally in the post office as long as possible, in the hope of meeting the real Mr Elgood; and to this end she turned over several packets of views, making the while many inquiries; and the spotted man was delighted to expatiate on the beauties of his native land, the more so, as, presumably, it was not often that so lavish a purchaser came his way.
They were in the middle of the fourth packet of views, and the selected pile of cards had reached quite a formidable height, when a familiar whistle from the doorway started Margot into vivid attention, and a minute later a tall dark man stepped hastily into the shop.
What a marvellous thing is family likeness! In height, in complexion, and feature alike this man appeared diametrically the opposite of the stout little person encountered outside the inn; yet in his thin, cadaverous face there was an intangible something which marked him out as a child of the same parents. The brother on whom Margot was now gazing was considerably the younger of the two, and might have been handsome, given a trifle more flesh and animation. As it was, he looked gaunt and livid, and his shoulders were rounded, as with much stooping over a scholar’s desk.
“A fine big bundle for ye the day, Mister Elgood! I’m thinking the whole of London is coming down upon ye,” the postmaster declared affably, as he handed over a formidable packet of letters. Envelopes white and envelopes blue, long manuscript envelopes, which Margot recognised with a reminiscent pang; rolled-up bundles of papers. The stranger took them over with a thin hand, thrust them into the pockets of his coat, with a muttered word of acknowledgment, and turned back to the door.
Now for the first time Margot stood directly in his path, and waited with a thrill of curiosity and excitement to see whether he would echo his brother’s welcome. In this Highland glen the ordinary forms and ceremonies of society were hopelessly out of place, and it seemed as if perforce there must be an atmosphere of camaraderie between the few visitors whom Fate had thrown together in the spirit of holiday-making.
Margot’s prettiest smile and bow were in waiting to greet the faintest flicker of animation on the grave, dark face, but it did not come. Mr Elgood’s deep-set eyes stared at her with an unseeing gaze—stared as it were straight through her, without being conscious of her presence. She might have been a chair, a table, a post of wood by the wayside, for all the notice bestowed upon her by the man whose favour she had travelled some hundreds of miles to obtain.
Another moment and he had left the shop, leaving Margot to draw out her purse and pay for her purchases in a tingling of pique and disappointment.
“That gentleman will be staying up at the Nag’s Head with yourself,” vouchsafed the spotted postmaster affably. “A fine gentleman—a ferry fine gentleman! They say he will be a ferry great man up in London. I suppose you will be hearing of his name?”
Margot’s response was somewhat depressed in tone.
“Yes. She had heard of Mr Elgood... She would take four, not five, postcards of the Nag’s Head. No; there was nothing else she was needing. The two penny packets of notepaper were certainly very cheap, the coloured tints and scalloped borders quite wonderful to behold; but she did not require any to-day, thank you. Perhaps another time. Good morning!”
Outside in the road Ronald was pacing up and down, twirling his stick, and looking bright and animated. He came hurrying back to meet Margot, hardly waiting to reach her side before breaking into speech.
“Well—well! You saw him? Did you notice the shape of his head? You can see it all in his face—the force and the insight, the imagination. The face of a scholar, and the body of a sportsman, A magnificent combination! Did you notice his walk?”
“Oh, I noticed him well enough. I noticed all there was to see. I have no complaints to make about his appearance.”
“What have you to complain of then? What has gone wrong?”
“He never noticed me!”
Ron laughed; a loud boyish laugh of amusement!
“Poor old Margot! That was it, was it? An unforgivable offence. He lives up in the clouds, my dear; compared with him, you and I are miserable little earth-worms crawling about the ground. It will take some time before he is even aware of our presence. We will have to make friends with the brother, and trust by degrees to make him conscious of our existence. It’s worth waiting for!”
Ronald was plainly afire with enthusiastic admiration of his hero; but for once Margot refused to be infected.
“I’m not a worm!” she murmured resentfully. “Worm, indeed! I’m every bit as good as he!”
For twenty yards she walked on in silence, tilting her chin in petulant scorn. Then—
“Do you remember the old story of Johnny-head-in-air, Ron?” she asked mischievously. “He had a fall. A fall and a dousing! If he isn’t very careful, the same sad fate may await your wonderful Mr Elgood!”