Life flowed on very quietly and uneventfully at the Nag’s Head during the next few days. The clergyman and his son were determined walkers, who set out each morning on a new expedition over the countryside, and at the evening dinner boasted of the number of miles they had traversed. What they had seen appeared to be of secondary importance, and they were correspondingly depressed or elated according as they had fallen short of, or surpassed previous records of distance.
Mr Macalister sat in the garden, reading day-old editions of the “Glasga He–rald” from the front page to the last, while his wife made pilgrimages to the village shop to buy infinitesimal articles of drapery, and exchange details of domestic history with the good lady in charge of the emporium.
Mr George Elgood went out fishing in a river two or three miles distant, accompanied sometimes by his brother, but for the most part by himself. He also sat at his bedroom window, writing by the hour together, and always and at all times he avoided his fellow-guests with a quiet persistence which could not be gainsaid. By the time that Margot had been in the inn for four days, he had advanced to the point of bidding her good-night and good morning, staring steadily at a point about a yard above her head, while on one historic occasion he even brought himself to remark that it was a fine day. Once also, looking up suddenly at dinner, she met his eyes fixed upon her with an expression of intent scrutiny; but he turned aside in evident perturbation at being discovered, and though the little puss thereafter wore her prettiest dresses, and took special pains with the arrangement of her hair, the incident was never repeated.
Goaded thereto by his sister’s entreaties, Ronald had proposed himself as the companion of a morning’s fishing expedition, but he returned home bored and irritated, and could not be persuaded to repeat the experiment. As Mr Elgood had left him at one point in the stream, and himself repaired to another some two hundred yards distant, the opportunities for conversation had been limited, while not even a twitch of the line had rewarded his amateur efforts.
Margot coaxed, reasoned, and finally stormed, but to no avail. In a quiet, amiable fashion, Ronald could be as obstinate as a mule, and he was plainly determined to go his own way. The sun shone; the surroundings were magnificent; he was free from the jarring dissensions of home; in easy, light-hearted manner he was content to live for the moment, and shut his eyes to troubles ahead.
“Remember what the Chieftain said to as the first day we were here!” he protested vigorously. “We ought to cultivate the spirit of children; to rejoice in the present, and trust for the future; whereas you want me to begin worrying the very first thing. I do call it stupid of you, Margot!”
“But, my dear boy—remember September! September is coming, and if you don’t bestir yourself to take advantage of this last chance, you will be bemoaning your hard fate, and calling out that your life is ruined! Do, for goodness’ sake, descend from the clouds and be practical for once! I’d help you if I could, but how can I, when the man refuses even to look at me?”
Margot’s voice took a plaintive tone as she uttered those last words. She was so unaccustomed to be ignored, that the editor’s avoidance rankled in her mind. She found her thoughts persistently returning to him in every period of leisure; when he was near, she was acutely conscious of his presence; when he was absent, her mind followed after him, wondering where he was, what he was doing, and of what he was thinking. Having once seen a glimpse of the real man when, in the character of Elspeth, she had looked into his face, sparkling with youth, kindliness, and humour, she understood that the abstracted figure which sat at the table at meal-times was but the shell of the real George Elgood, and that, if the barriers of shyness and reserve could once be overcome, he would prove an even more fascinating companion than his brother. The desire to know him grew daily in intensity, while, unconsciously to herself, the personal element slowly predominated the thought of Ron and Ron’s future.
Now, as the brother and sister argued together, they were hurrying along by the edge of the tarn on their way to service at the kirk, for this was Sunday morning, the fifth day after their arrival at the Glen.
Ron, as usual, had been late in starting, and before the village was reached his watch showed that it was already five minutes past the time when service began. They had been sternly directed by Mrs McNab to go to the kirk at the far end of the village, and inquire for the inn pew, but as it would take several minutes longer to traverse the length of the straggling street, Margot suggested that it would be wise to attend the nearer of the two churches.
“There can be no difference. They are both Presbyterian,” quoth she, in her ignorance; so in they went, to be met in the doorway by an elder in his Sabbath “blacks,” his solemn face surrounded by a fringe of sandy whisker. The pews were very narrow and very high, shut in a box-like seclusion by wooden doors; the minister, in his pulpit, was just giving out the number of the psalm, and the precentor, after tapping his tuning-fork and holding it to his ear, burst forth into wailing notes of surprising strength and volume. Margot rose automatically to her feet, to subside in confusion, as the seated congregation gazed at her in stolid rebuke. In this kirk it was the custom to sit while singing, and stand during prayers—a seemly and decorous habit which benighted Southerners had difficulty in understanding.
The singing of the metrical psalm sounded strangely in unaccustomed ears. Of melody there seemed little or none. The notes ascended and fell, and quavered into odd, unexpected trills and shakes, but it was sung with an earnestness and an intensity which could not fail to be impressive. The women, clean and tidy in their Sabbath bravery, sat with eyes fixed unwaveringly on their books; the children piped lustily by their sides; at the door of the pews the heads of the different families peered over their spectacles at the printed words, their solemn, whiskered faces drawn out to abnormal length.
In a corner by himself sat a weather-beaten old shepherd, singing with closed eyes, his shaggy head waving to and fro in time with the strain. Up in this lonesome glen those words had been his stay and comfort during a life of hardship. Like David of old, he had sung them on the mountainside, and they had been as a guide unto his feet, a lamp unto his eyes. He needed no book and no spectacles to enable him to join his note to the strain. Margot looked at him with a thrill of understanding and reverence. A saint of God, a lowly dweller on earth, for whom was waiting one of the “higher” places in the kingdom of heaven.
The sermon was long and rambling, and somewhat difficult for Southern ears to follow; there was a solemn collection taken in small boxes secured to long wooden handles, thrust in turns down the various pews with somewhat comical effect; then the service was over, and Margot and Ron came out into the village street, to find themselves face to face with a stream of worshippers who were returning from the farther kirk. Foremost among the number was Mrs McNab, large and imposing to behold in her Sabbath best, with her small husband ambling meekly by her side. Margot smiled at her in friendly fashion, and was dismayed to receive in return a glare of incredulous anger. What had she done to offend? She could not imagine what was wrong, and continued to stare blankly after the unbending figure, until presently her eye encountered another well-known face bent upon her with a smile. The Chieftain and his brother were close behind; so close that even the Editor’s shyness could not attempt an escape. In another moment they were walking together, Margot between the two men, Ron on the outside, a few paces apart from the rest.
Margot glanced from one to the other with puzzled eyes. The Chieftain beamed upon her frankly. The Editor looked, and looked away, knitting his brows in embarrassment.
“What have I done?” she cried eagerly. “Why is Mrs McNab so cross? All was peace and joy when we left the inn. I had done my very best to help her, and now—you saw how she scowled! How can I possibly have offended her in this short time?”
The Chieftain chuckled softly.
“A good deal, I’m afraid! I’m sorry for you, after all your efforts at conciliation. It’s bad luck that you should have stumbled upon an unforgivable offence. I’m afraid that there is no doubt that you will be turned out of the inn, neck and crop. Not to-day, perhaps, as she won’t send out the trap, but certainly to-morrow morning.”
“I shan’t go!” protested Margot defiantly. If eviction had been probable, she did not believe that the Chieftain would have taken it in so unperturbed a fashion; but it was evident that she had committed some offence, and that he was aware of its nature. “But what have I done?” she continued urgently. “That’s what I want to discover. There can’t be any harm in going to church!”
“Oh, can’t there, just? That’s the whole crux of the matter. You went to the wrong church!”
There was a pause of stunned surprise while Margot gasped, and Ron’s sleepy eyes brightened with curiosity.
“The wrong church! How can that be? They are both Scotch Presbyterians? There is no difference between them?”
“Only this difference, that the members of one kirk are hardly on speaking terms with the members of the other! That their leaders are at law together in the Courts, and that feeling runs so high, even in this sleepy hollow, that Mrs McNab, being a Free, refuses to sell milk to the ‘Wees,’ and is shamed to the heart to think that a guest living under her house-roof should have condescended to attend their service. It will be all over the Glen this afternoon that the bonny lady fra the inn chose to give her offering of siller to the ‘Wees,’ and they will bear themselves haughtily in consequence. Mrs McNab feels that she has been humiliated the day in the eyes of the neighbourhood. No wonder she looks coldly upon you!”
Margot flushed with resentment and indignation, but before she could speak Ron burst into impetuous speech.
“They quarrel? Up here? A handful of men and women among the great mountains? How can they do it? How can they harbour ill-feeling?
“And what can they quarrel about? There must be such tiny, trivial differences. I am thankful I am not a Dissenter!” cried Margot proudly. “There are so many sects that one gets muddled among them all, and even in the same one it appears that there are differences! I am thankful that I belong to the Church.”
The Chieftain looked at her quietly.
“To which Church?”
“The Church of England, of course.”
“Oh!” He elevated his light eyebrows expressively. “Because its members have no quarrels with one another?”
Margot frowned uneasily.
“Oh, well—I suppose they have. But at the worst there are two parties, as compared to a dozen. You cannot deny that we are more united?”
“I should not boast too much about the unity of a Church in which civil war is permanently in progress; and what about charity and humility of mind? Suppose now, suppose for a moment that a family of strangers come to live in the house next your own in town, and you discover among other things that they are Dissenters. How does it influence your attitude towards them?” He thrust his ruddy face nearer, staring fixedly into hers. “Answer me that! Feel just the same? Exactly the same? No cooling off in the intention to call? Quite sure you never used the expression, ‘only Dissenters!’ and passed by on the other side?”
Margot’s cheeks blazed. Her lids dropped, and the corners of her mouth drooped in self-conscious shame. There was a moment’s silence, then a low murmur sounded on her ear, and, looking up quickly, she saw the Editor’s dark face turned upon his brother, with reproach written large in frowning brow and flashing eye. He was taking up the cudgels in her defence; reproaching his own brother for forcing her into an awkward position.
Margot’s heart gave a leap of joy at the discovery; in the flash of an eye her mood, her outlook on life, the very scene itself, seemed transfused with new radiance and joy. The sun seemed to peep out through the grey clouds, the underlying anxiety and worry of the past days took to itself wings, and disappeared. Her brown eyes thanked him with a glance more eloquent than she was aware; she laughed softly, and her laugh was sweet as a chime of bells.
“Yes, I have! I confess it. I’ve been narrow-minded and uncharitable, and a snob into the bargain. I’ve no right to throw stones... What Church do you belong to, Mr Elgood?”
The little man stood still in the middle of the road, throwing out his arms on either side, with a gesture wonderfully eloquent. His round, chubby face shone with earnestness and exaltation.
“To the Church of Christ! The Church of loyalty, and obedience, and love towards the brethren! To the Church of Christ, wherever I find it! When will Christians learn to remember the points on which they agree, rather than those on which they differ? The questions of form and ceremony; of Church government and ritual; how small they are, how unutterably trivial, compared to the great facts of the Fatherhood of God, and the sacrifice of Christ! Did the Power who made every one of us with different faces and different forms, expect us all to think mathematically alike? I cannot believe it! It is our duty to trust in God and love our brethren; to live together in peace, seeing the best in each other, acknowledging the best, thinking no evil! To see men who make a profession of religion quarrelling and persecuting each other for trivial differences, is a ghastly spectacle—a ghastly spectacle!” He walked on, swinging his short arms to and fro, then suddenly looked up with a keen glance into Ron’s eager face.
There were no traces of dreaminess in the brown eyes at this moment; the dilated pupil gave to them an appearance of extraordinary depth and intensity; it was easy to see that the lad had been swept off his feet by the rugged force of the speaker’s words, and was kindled into a like enthusiasm.
Lads of nineteen and twenty make it so much a matter of principle to suppress all exhibition of feeling, that it is almost startling to come across one who is not ashamed to betray a little human emotion. Mr Elgood evidently found it so, for he continued to cast those quick peering glances until the inn was reached, and the little party separated, to prepare for the midday dinner.
Margot walked slowly up the steep staircase leading to her room, and sat herself down on the bed to think out the problem. More and more did she long to pierce through the armour by which the strange, silent man was enveloped; but how was it to be done? Opportunities were few and far between, and now, for the first time in her life, confidence in her own powers deserted her, and she was overcome by a strange new feeling of humility and doubt. Who and what was she, that such a man should stoop to accept her friendship; poor, unlettered girl that she was, while he was acknowledged as one of the leading intellects of the day? Yet deep in her heart the thought lingered that between this man and herself existed a certain affinity, which, given an opportunity, might bridge over greater gaps than that of intellect and learning. How was that opportunity to be gained? She might be willing to sacrifice much to attain it, but there was one thing that could never be thrown on one side—her natural maidenly pride and dignity! Not even for Ron’s sake could she bring herself to make advances to a man who, so far from exhibiting any desire for her company, had gone markedly out of his way to avoid it.
Ron himself was useless in such circumstances, a creature of moods, living for the moment only, content to forget the future in the enjoyment of present good. To drive him into the Editor’s company against his will could do no good, since he would certainly reveal himself in his worst light, and in aggravating, topsy-turvy fashion he had taken a violent fancy for the wrong brother.
The Chieftain’s geniality and candour, his boy-like lightness of heart on the one hand, his passion for right on the other, were fast developing a species of hero-worship in the lad’s mind. Margot foresaw that, as time passed by, the two would grow closer together, and that any chance of intimacy with the other brother would retreat helplessly into the background. Unless—! Her face flamed as a possible solution of the difficulty darted suddenly into her mind. Could she? Dared she risk it? Yes, she could. It would be difficult, but she could bring herself to face it, if after a few days’ consideration it still seemed the only way out of the difficulty.
Margot rose from the bed, and began quietly to prepare for dinner. Her face looked grave and anxious, but it had lost its troubled, fretted expression. She had made up her mind what to do, and with the decision came rest and ease of mind.
For the next two days it rained incessantly, and Margot sat in the little parlour of the inn talking to Mrs Macalister, or rather listening while Mrs Macalister talked, and playing draughts with Mr Macalister, who had relapsed into hopeless gloom of mind, and was with difficulty prevented from rushing home by the first train.
“The doctor said we were to keep him from the office for a good month at least, and there’s not three weeks of the time gone by. If he goes back now, what will be the use of spending all this money on travelling and keep, and what not? It will be all clean waste,” sighed the poor dame sadly. “He’s a bit fratchety and irritable, I’m free to admit, but you should not judge a man when his nerves are upset. There’s not a better man on earth than Mr Macalister when he has his health. It’s dull for a man-body to be shut up in an inn, without the comforts of home, and feeling all the time that there’s money going out. It is different when he can be out and about with his fishing and what not.—If you could just manage to amuse him a bit, like a good lassie!...”
The good lassie nodded reassuringly into the troubled, kindly face.
“I’ll do my best. I have an old father of my own, who has nerves too, and I am used to amusing him. I’ll take Mr Macalister in hand till the weather clears.”
It was not a congenial task, for, truth to tell, Mr Macalister was not a beguiling object, with his lugubrious face, lack-lustre eyes, and sandy, outstanding whiskers; nor did he in the first instance betray any gratitude for the attention bestowed upon him. A stolid glance over his spectacles was his first response to Margot’s overtures; his next, a series of grunts and sniffs, and when at last he condescended to words it was invariably to deride or throw doubt on her statements.
“Tut, nonsense! Who told you that? I would think so, indeed!” followed by another and more determined retreat behind the Glasgow Herald.
In the corner of the room Mrs Macalister sat meekly knitting, never venturing a look upwards so long as her spouse was in view, but urging Margot onward by nods and winks and noiseless mouthings, the moment that she was safe from observation.
It had its comic side, but it was also somewhat pathetic. These two good commonplace souls had travelled through life together side by side for over thirty years, and, despite age, infirmity, and “nearves”, were still lovers at heart. Before the wife’s eyes the figure of “Mr Macalister” loomed so large that it blocked out the entire world; to him, even in this hour of depression, “the wife” was the one supreme authority.
Fortunately for herself and her friends, Margot was gifted with sufficient insight to grasp the poetry behind the prose, and it gave her patience to persevere. Solution came at last, in the shape of the wheezy old piano in the corner, opened in a moment of aimless wandering to and fro. Margot was no great performer, but what she could play she played by heart, and Nature had provided her with a sweet, thrush-like voice, with that true musical thrill which no teaching can impart. At the first few bars of a Chopin nocturne Mr Macalister’s newspaper wavered, and fell to his knee. Margot heard the rustle of it, slid gradually into a simpler melody, and was conscious of a heavy hand waving steadily to and fro.
“Ha-ha!” murmured Mr Macalister, at the end of the strain. “Hum-hum! The piano wants tuning, I’m thinking!” It was foreign to his nature to express any gratification, but that he had deigned to speak at all was a distinct advance, and equal to a whole volume of compliments from another man.
“Maybe,” he added, after a pause, “if ye were to sing us a ballad it would be less obsearved!”
So Margot sang, and, finding a book of Scotch selections, could gratify the old man by selecting his favourite airs, and providing him with an excuse to hum a gentle accompaniment. Music, it appeared, was Mr Macalister’s passion in life. As a young man he had been quite a celebrated performer at Penny Readings and Church Soirées, and had been told by a lady who had heard Sims Reeves that she preferred his rendering of “Tom Bowling” to that of the famous tenor. This anecdote was proudly related by his wife, and though Mr Macalister cried, “Hoots!” and rustled his paper in protest, it was easy to see that he was gratified by the remembrance.
Margot essayed one Scotch air after another, and was instructed in the proper pronunciation of the words; feigning, it is to be feared, an extra amount of incapacity to pronounce the soft “ch,” for the sake of giving her patient a better opportunity of displaying his superior adroitness.
Comparatively speaking, Mr Macalister became quite genial and agreeable in the course of that musical hour, and when Margot finished her performance by singing “The Oak and the Ash,” he waxed, for him, positively enthusiastic.
“It’s a small organ,” he pronounced judicially, “a ve–ry small organ. Ye would make a poor show on a concert platform, but for all that, I’m not saying that it might not have been worse. Ye can keep in tune, and that’s a mearcy!”
“Indeed, Alexander, I call it a bonnie voice! There’s no call for squallings and squakings in a bit of a room like this. I love to hear a lassie’s voice sound sweet and clear, and happy like herself, and that’s just the truth about Miss Vane’s singing. Thank ye, my dear. It’s been a treat to hear you.”
The broad, beaming smile, the sly little nod behind Mr Macalister’s back, proclaiming triumph and delighted gratitude—these sent Margot up to her room heartened and revived in spirits, for there is nothing on earth so invigorating as to feel that we have helped a fellow-creature. The sunshine came back to her own heart, even as it was slowly breaking its way through the clouds overhead. She thrust her head out of the window, and opening her mouth, drank in great gulps of the fresh damp air, so sweet and reviving after the mouldy atmosphere of “the parlour.” Over the mountain tops in the direction from which the wind was blowing the clouds were slowly drifting aside, leaving broader and broader patches of blue. Blue! After the long grey hours of rain and mist. The rapture of it was almost beyond belief! A few minutes more, and the glen would be alight with sunshine. She would put on boots, cap, and cape, and hurry out to enjoy every moment that remained.
The strong-soled little boots were lifted from their corner behind the door, and down sat Margot on the floor, school-girl fashion, and began to thread the laces in and out, and tie them securely into place. Then the deerstalker cap was pinned on top of the chestnut locks, and the straps of the grey cape crossed over the white flannel blouse. Now she was ready, and the sunshine was already calling to her from without, dancing across the floor, and bringing a delicious warmth into the atmosphere.
Margot threw open the door and was about to descend the narrow staircase, when she stopped short, arrested by an unexpected sound. Some one was singing softly in a room near at hand, repeating the refrain of the ballad which she had taken last on her list. The deep bass tones lingered softly on the words—
“And the lad who marries me,
Must carry me hame to my North Coun–tree!”
George Elgood was echoing her song in the seclusion of his own room! He had been indoors all the time, then, listening to her while she sang! Margot’s cheeks grew hot with embarrassment, yet in the repeated strain there was a suggestion of appreciation, of lingering enjoyment which did away with the idea of adverse criticism.
“Oh, the Oak and the Ash,”—the strain seemed to swell in volume, growing ever nearer and nearer. “And the lad who marries me—”
The door flew open, and they stood facing one another, each framed as in a picture in the lintel of the doorways, divided only by a few yards of boarded passage. The strain came to an abrupt conclusion, frozen upon his lips by the shock of surprise and embarrassment. For the third time in their short acquaintance Margot looked straight into his eyes; for the third time recognised in their depths something that in mysterious fashion seemed to respond to a want in her own nature; for the third time saw the lids drop, heard an unintelligible murmur of apology, and watched a hasty retreat.
For a moment Margot stood motionless, an expression of wounded pride clouding the young rounded face, then very slowly descended the staircase, traversed the length of the “lobby,” and stood outside the door, looking anxiously to right and left.
There he was, a strong, well-built figure in knickerbockers and Norfolk coat striding rapidly up the hill path to the right,—trying, no doubt, to put as much distance as possible between himself and the objectionable girl who seemed ever to be appearing when she was not wanted. For a long minute Margot stood gazing miserably ahead, then turning resolutely to the left, came face to face with the Chieftain returning from the village with his pockets bulging with papers.
His sudden appearance at this moment of depression had a peculiar significance to the girl’s mind. Doubt crystallised into resolution; with a rapid beating of the heart she determined to grasp her courage in both hands, and boldly make the plunge which she had been meditating for some days past.
At sight of Margot the Chieftain first beamed delight, and then screwed his chubby face into an expression of concern.
“Halloa! What’s up? You look pretty middling doleful!” cried he, casting an eloquent glance towards the inn windows, then lowering his voice to a stage whisper, “Macalisteritis, eh? Too much stuffy parlour and domestic reminiscences? Never mind! Pack clouds away, and welcome day! The sun is shining, and I have a packet of bull’s eyes for you in one pocket and a budget of letters in another. No, you don’t! Not one single one of them to read in the house—come and sit on a stone by the tarn, and we’ll suck peppermints and read ’em together. Wonderful how much better you’ll feel when you’ve had a good blow of fresh air. I was prancing mad when I went out this afternoon, but now—a child might play with me!”
He threw out his short arms with his favourite sweeping gesture, his coat flapped to and fro in the breeze, he stepped out with such a jaunty tread on his short broad feet, that at sight of him Margot’s depression vanished like smoke, and she trotted along by his side with willing footsteps.
“That’s better! That’s better! Never saw you look melancholy before, and never want to again... ‘Shocking disappearance of dimples! A young lady robbed of her treasures! Thief still at large! Consternation in the neighbourhood!’ Eh! How’s that? Young women who have been endowed with dimples should never indulge in low spirits. It’s a criminal offence against their neighbours. Where’s your brother?”
Margot laughed at the suddenness of the question. It was one of the Chieftain’s peculiarities to leap upon one like this, taking one unawares, and surprising thereby involuntary revelations.
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “Over the hills and far away, I suppose—studying them in a new aspect. He loved them yesterday in the rain; to-day he felt sure that it would clear, and he wanted to see the mists rise. He does so intensely love studying Nature.”
“Humph?”
Margot looked at him sharply, her head involuntarily assuming a defensive tilt.
“What does ‘Humph’ mean, pray?”
“Just exactly and precisely what it says!”
“It doesn’t sound at all flattering or nice.”
“Probably not. It wasn’t intended to be.”
“Mr Elgood, how can you! What can you have to say about Ron that isn’t to his credit? I thought you liked him! I thought you admired him! You must see—you must—that he is different from other boys of his age. So much more clever, and thoughtful, and appreciative!”
“That’s where the pity comes in! It’s pitiful to see a lad like that mooning away his time, when he ought to be busy at football or cricket, or playing tricks on his betters. What business has he to appreciate Nature? Tell me that! At twenty—is it, or only nineteen?—he ought to be too much engrossed in exercising his muscles, and letting off steam generally, to bother his head about effects of sun and mist. Sun and mist, indeed! A good wholesome ordinary English lad doesn’t care a toss about sun or mist, except as they help or hinder his enjoyment of sport!”
“Ronald is not an ‘ordinary English boy’!”
“Hoity-toity! Now she’s offended!” The Chieftain looked at his companion’s flushed cheeks with twinkling eyes, not one whit daunted by her airs of dignified displeasure. “Don’t want me to say what isn’t true, do you? He’s a nice lad—a very nice lad, and a clever one into the bargain, though by no means the paragon you think him. That’s why I’m sorry to see him frittering away his youth, instead of making hay while the sun shines. He’ll be old soon enough. Wake up some fine morning to find himself with a bald head and stiff joints. Then he’ll be sorry! Wouldn’t bother my head about him if I didn’t like the lad. Have a peppermint? It will soothe your feelings.”
The parcel of round black bull’s eyes was held towards Margot in ingratiating fashion. It was impossible to refuse, impossible to cherish angry feelings, impossible to do anything but laugh and be happy in the presence of this kindest and most cheery of men. Margot took the peppermint, and sucked it with frank enjoyment the while she sat by the tarn reading her letters. Having received nothing from home for several days, the same post had now brought letters from her father, Edith, and Agnes, to say nothing of illustrated missives from the two small nephews. Mr Vane’s note was short, and more an echo of her own last letter than a record of his own doings.
“Glad to know that you like your surroundings—pleased to hear that the weather keeps fine—hope you will enjoy your excursion,” etcetera, etcetera.
Just at the end came a few sentences which to the reader’s quick wits were full of hidden meaning.
“Agnes is taking the opportunity of your absence to organise a second spring cleaning. It seems only the other day since we were upset before. I dined at the club last night. It is difficult to know what to do with oneself on these long light evenings.—I would run away over Sunday, if I could think of any place I cared to go to... Town seems very empty.”
“Poor dear darling!” murmured Margot sympathetically, at which the Chieftain lifted his eyes to flash upon her a glance of twinkling amusement. He made no spoken comment, however, but returned to the perusal of his own correspondence, while Margot broke open the envelope of Agnes’s letter.
Two sheets of handwriting, with immense spaces between both words and lines—“My dear Margot,” as a beginning—“Your affectionate sister, Agnes Mary Vane,” as a conclusion. Thrilling information to the effect that the charwoman was coming on Friday. Complaints of the late arrival of the sweep. Information requested concerning a missing mat which was required to complete a set. Mild disapproval of the Nag’s Head Inn. “I cannot understand what you find to rave about in such quarters.” A sigh of impatience and resignation was the tribute paid to this letter, and then Margot settled herself more comfortably on the stone, and prepared to enjoy a treat—a real heart-to-heart talk with her beloved eldest sister.
Edith had the gift of sympathy. Just as Agnes never understood, Edith always seemed able to put herself in another’s place, and enter into that person’s joys and griefs. She herself might be sad and downcast, but in her darkest hour she could always rejoice in another’s good fortune, and forget her own woes in eager interest and sympathy. Now, sitting alone in the dreary lodging-house sitting-room in Oxford Terrace, she was able mentally to project herself into the far-off Highland glen, and to feel an ungrudging joy in the pleasure of others. Never a hint of “How I envy you! How I wish I were there!” Not a mention of “I” in obtruding, shadow-like fashion from first to last, but instead, tender little anecdotes about the boys; motherly solicitude for their benefit, and humble asking of advice from one younger and less experienced than herself; an outpouring of tenderness for her husband, and of a beautiful and unbroken trust and belief, which failure was powerless to shake.
“Jack is working like a slave trying to build up the ruins of the old business. It is difficult, discouraging work, and so far the results are practically nil, but they will come. Something will come! More and more I feel the conviction in my heart that all this trouble and upheaval have been because God has some better thing in store for us both. We have only to wait and be patient, and the way will open.—I don’t want to be rich, only just to have enough money to live simply and quietly. We are so rich in each other’s companionship that we can afford to do without luxuries. Last night we had a dinner of herbs—literally herbs—a vegetarian feast costing about sixpence halfpenny, but with such lots of love to sweeten it, and afterwards we went out for a stroll into the Park, and I wore the hat you trimmed, and Jack made love to me. We were happy! I saw people looking at us with envious eyes. They thought we were a pair of lovers building castles in the air, instead of an old married couple with two bouncing boys, having the workhouse in much nearer proximity than any castle—but they were right to envy us all the same. We have the best thing!”
The letter dropped on to Margot’s knee, and she sat silent, gazing before her with shining eyes, her face softened into a beautiful tenderness of expression. For some time she was unconscious that her companion had returned his own letters to his coat pocket, and was lying along the ground, his head resting upon his hand, watching her with a very intent scrutiny; but when at last her eyes were unconsciously drawn towards him, she spoke at once, as if answering an unspoken question.
“What a wonderful thing love is!”
The Chieftain’s light eyebrows were elevated in interrogation.
“In connection with the ‘dear darling’ previously mentioned, if one may ask?”
“That was my father. I love him dearly, but just now I was thinking of the other sort of love. This letter is from my eldest sister. She was a beautiful girl, and could have married half a dozen rich men if she had wished, but she chose the poorest of them all, a dear, good, splendid man, who has been persistently unsuccessful all the way through. Everything—financially speaking, I mean,—has been against him. They have had continual anxiety and curtailment, until at last they have had to let their pretty house and go into dingy lodgings. My father is very down on Jack. He is a successful man himself, and don’t you think it needs a very fine nature to keep up faith in a person who seems persistently to fail? But my sister never doubts. She loves her husband more, and idealises him more, than on the day they were married.”
“And you call that man unsuccessful?”
Margot hardly recognised the low, earnest tones: her quick glance downward surprised a spasm of pain on the chubby face, which she had always associated with unruffled complacency. It appeared that here also lay a hidden trouble, a secret grief carefully concealed from the world.
“Isn’t that rather a misuse of the word? A man who has gained and kept such a love can never be called a failure by any one who understands the true proportions of life. With all his monetary losses he is rich... And she is rich also... Richer than she knows.”
Margot’s hand closed impulsively on Edith’s letter and held it towards him.
“Yes, you are right. Read that, and you will see how right you are. There are no secrets in it—its just a word-photograph of Edith herself, and I’d like you to see her, as you understand so well. She’s my dearest sister, whom I admire more than anybody in the world.”
Mr Elgood took the letter without a word, and read over its contents slowly once, and then, even more slowly, a second time. When at last he had finished he still held the sheet in his hands, smoothing it out with gentle, reverent fingers.
“Yes!” he said slowly. “I can see her. She is a beautiful creature. I should like to know her in the flesh. You must introduce us to one another some day. I haven’t come across too many women like that in my life. It would be an honour to know her, to help her, if that were possible.” He sighed, and stretching out his hand laid the letter on Margot’s knee. “You are right, Miss Bright Eyes, love is a wonderful thing!”
Margot glanced at him with involuntary, girlish curiosity, the inevitable question springing to her lips before Prudence had time to order silence.
“Do you—have you—did you ever—”
The Chieftain laughed softly.
“Have I ever been in love, you would ask! What do you take me for, pray? Am I such a blind, cold-hearted clod that I could go through the world for forty-five years and keep my heart untouched? Of course I have loved. I do love! It was once and for ever with me—”
“But you are not—”
“Married? No! She died long ago; but even if she had lived she was not for me. She would have been the wife of another man; a good fellow; I think she would have been happy. As it is, we remember her together. She was a bright, sunshiny creature who carried happiness with her wherever she went... To have known her is the comfort of our lives—not the grief. We have lived through the deep waters, and can now rejoice in her gain... Do you know there is something about yourself which has reminded me of her several times! That is one reason why I like being with you, and am interested in your life. I should like you to think of me as a friend, and come to me for help if you were ever in need of anything that I could give.”
The colour rushed into Margot’s cheeks, and her heart beat with suffocating quickness. Here was the opportunity for which she had longed, offered to her without any preliminary effort or contriving on her own part! The place, the time, the person were all in readiness, waiting for her convenience. If through cowardice or wavering she allowed the moment to pass, she could never again hope for another such opening. Already the Chieftain was watching her with surprise and curiosity, the softness of the last few minutes giving place to the usual alert good-humour.
“Hey? Well! What is it? What’s the trouble? Out with it! Anything I can do?”
“Mr Elgood,” said Margot faintly, “you are very good, very kind; I am most grateful to you. I hope you will help me, but first there is something I must say... I—I have been deceiving you from the beginning!”
“What’s that?” The Chieftain sat up suddenly and stared at her beneath frowning brows. “Deceiving me? You? I don’t believe a word of it! What is there to deceive me about, pray? You are not masquerading under a false name, I suppose? Not married, for instance, and passing yourself off as single for some silly school-girl freak?”
“Oh no! Oh no! Everything that I have told you about myself is true, absolutely true.”
“I knew it. You are not the sort that could act a lie. What’s all the fuss about, then?”
“What I have told you is true, but—but—I have not told you all!”
“I should think not, indeed! Who expected that you should? I am not at all sure that I care to hear it.”
“Oh, but—I want to tell you!”
The Chieftain chuckled with amusement. He was evidently comfortably convinced of the non-importance of the forthcoming revelations, and Margot’s courage suffered another ebb as she returned his unsuspicious glance.
“I—we—we knew that you were staying at the Nag’s Head!”
The Chieftain cocked a surprised eyebrow, startled but unresentful.
“You knew that we were here, before you arrived, and met us in the flesh? Is that so? I wonder how you heard! I make it a rule to keep my holiday plans as secret as possible, for the very good reason that a holiday is a holiday, and one wants a change of companionship as well as scene. How in the world did you hear that we were bound for Glenaire? I’m curious!”
Margot’s eyelids fell guiltily, but Nature had generously endowed these same lids with long black lashes, the points of which curled up in a manner distractingly apparent when shown in contrast with a flushed pink cheek; so it happened that instead of being hardened by the sight, the Chieftain drew a few inches nearer, and smiled with genial approval.
“Well, out with it! How did you hear?”
“I—asked!”
“Asked?” The brow became a network of astonished wrinkling. “You asked? Whom did you ask? And why? What did you know about us, to give you interest in our comings or goings? This grows curiouser and curiouser! I imagined that we were as absolute strangers to you as you were to us.”
“It—it—there was the magazine—it was because of the magazine.”
“Oh, indeed! You knew the name through the magazine! I understand!” The Chieftain straightened himself, and the laugh died out of his eyes. For the first time in the history of their short acquaintance Margot saw his face set in firm, hard lines, the business face which had been left at home, together with the black coats and silk hats of City wear, and seeing it, trembled with fear. But it was too late to retreat; for better or worse she was bound to go forward and complete her half-finished revelations.
“I wanted to get to know your brother, because he is the editor of the Loadstar, and I had heard people say that he was the most powerful literary man in London; that if he chose to take up any one who was beginning to write he could do more to help than any one else. We know no literary people at home, and I wanted to. Badly!”
“I see! Just so. Written a novel, and want help to get it into print,” returned the Chieftain slowly. He had drawn down his lips into an expression of preternatural gravity, but the hard look had disappeared. The murder was out, and he was not angry; he might pretend to be, but Margot was too sharp-witted to be frightened by a pretence.
She drew a sigh of relief as she replied—
“No, indeed. Couldn’t to save my life. It’s—Ron! I was thinking of him, not of myself. He is a poet!”
The Chieftain groaned aloud, as if in pain.
“Oh, I know you won’t believe it, but he is! He writes wonderful poems. Not rhymes, but poems; beautiful poems that live in your mind. He will be another Tennyson or Browning when he is a little older.”
The Chieftain groaned again, a trifle more loudly than before.
“It’s true! It really is true. You must have seen yourself that he is different from other boys of his age. You heard him reeling off those impromptu lines the other day, and said how clever they were! I have seen you looking at his face when he has been thinking out some idea. I knew what he was doing, and you didn’t; but you guessed that he was different from ordinary people.”
“I saw that he was mooning about something, and wondered if he was right in the head! If he’d been my boy, I should have taken care to keep his nose so close to the grindstone that he would have no time to moon! Poet, indeed! Didn’t you tell me that your father was a successful business man? What is he about, to countenance such nonsense?”
“He doesn’t!” replied Margot sadly. “No one does but me, and that’s why I had to act. Father agrees with you. He doesn’t care for books, and looks down upon literary men as poor, effeminate sort of creatures, who know nothing of the world. He is ashamed that his only son writes verses. Ron detests the idea of business, but he has had to promise father that he would go into his office if at the end of a year he had had no encouragement to persevere in literature. But how is a young unknown poet to make himself known? The magazines announce that they can accept no unsolicited poetical contributions; the publishers laugh at the idea of bringing out a book by a man of whom no one has heard. A boy might be a second Shakespeare, but no one would believe in him until they had first broken his heart by their ridicule and unbelief. The year is out in September, so matters were getting desperate, when at last I—thought of this plan! I felt sure that if a man who was a real judge of literary power met Ron face to face, and got to know him, he would realise his gifts, and be willing to give him a chance. It was no use trying in London in the midst of the full pressure of work, but in the country everything is different. I knew a man who knew a man in the office of the Loadstar, and asked him to find out your brother’s plans—”
As she was speaking Margot was conscious of a succession of stifled chuckles which her companion vainly tried to suppress. The Chieftain’s amusement had evidently overmastered his threatened displeasure, and when at length she paused, he burst into an irresistible guffaw of laughter, rubbed his hands together, and cried gleefully—
“Stalked him! Stalked him! Poor old George! Big game, and no mistake. Ran him to earth... Eh, what? Bravo, bravo, Miss Bright Eyes! You are a first-class conspirator.”
He laughed again and again, with ever-increasing merriment, laughed till his eyes disappeared in wrinkles of fat, till the tears streamed helplessly down his cheeks. His portly form shook with the violence of his merriment; he kicked the air with his short, fat feet.
Margot stared at this strange exhibition in an amazement, which gradually changed into annoyance and outraged dignity; so that when at last the Chieftain sat up to mop his eyes with a large silk pocket-handkerchief, he beheld a very dignified young lady sitting by his side in a position of poker-like rigidity, with her head tilted to an expressive angle.
“Sorry!” he panted hastily. “Sorry I smiled. A compliment, you know, if you look at it in the right light. It’s such an uncommonly good idea, and so original. ‘The Stalking of the Editor’—eh? Well, now that you have made such a rattling good beginning, why don’t you go on and prosper? Here you are; there he is; the field is your own. Why don’t you go in and win?”
Margot’s face fell, and her haughty airs vanished, as she turned towards him a pair of widely-opened eyes, eloquent with plaintive surprise.
“But I can’t! How can I, when he runs away the moment I appear? I made Ron go fishing with him one day, but he went off and left him alone, and now it’s no use persuading any more. Ron says it is only waste of time! As for me, I have hardly spoken a word to him all this time, though I feel that if I did really know him, I—” she hesitated, knitting her brows, and pursing her soft red lips—“I could make him understand! I decided at last to confide in you, because you have been so kind and friendly to us from the first that I felt sure you would be willing to help. You will, won’t you? Even if personally you don’t approve of a literary career, will you give Ron a chance of living his life in his own way? If your brother approved of his writings, and helped him to a beginning, even the very smallest beginning, father would be satisfied that he was not wasting his time.”
The Chieftain clasped his hands around his knees, and sat staring at her with thoughtful gaze. His eyes rested upon the clear childlike eyes, the sweet lips, the broad, honest brow, as though studying them in a new light, and with regard to some problem suddenly presented to the mind. Whatever was the question waiting to be decided, the answer was self-evidently favourable, for his eyes lightened, he stretched out an impetuous hand, and laid it upon her arm.
“Right!” he cried heartily. “Right! I’ll help you! The lad’s a good lad, and a clever lad; but what I do will be for your sake, not his! You are a dear girl! The dearest girl I have ever met—save one! For the sake of the bit of her that lives again in you, I am at your service. You shall have your chance. From to-day forward I will see to it that George makes a member of our party wherever we go. He has done enough writing; it is time that he began to play. Make him play, Miss Vane! He has been old all his life; teach him to be young! He is the best fellow in the world, but he is fast asleep. Wake him up! There is just one condition, and that is, that you leave your brother and his scribblings alone for the time being! Don’t mention them, or any question of the sort, but be content just to show yourself to George, your own bright, natural girl-self, as you have shown it to me. Learn to know one another, and forget all about the boy. His turn will come later on! You promise?”
“Ye–es!” faltered Margot shyly. “Yes, I do; but you must promise too—that you will, that you won’t, won’t let your brother think—”
The Chieftain touched her arm once more, with a gesture of kindly reassurement.
“Don’t you worry, little girl! He shall have no thoughts about you that are not altogether chivalrous and true. It’s not you who are going to move in this matter, remember! You’ve given it over into my hands; it is I who am to pull the strings. No, you needn’t thank me. It strikes me that we are going to work out pretty even over this business. If you want help for your brother, I need it just as badly for mine. I have realised for a long time that he needed a medicine which no doctor could supply.” He looked into her face with a sudden radiant smile. “It strikes me I might have searched a very long time before finding any one so eminently fitted to undertake his cure!”