"THEN, HEIGH-HO, THE MOLLY!"
"Charlotte!" said I, taking in a sudden pity a step nearer and holding
out my hand; but she only snatched her arm away fretfully and cried the
more bitterly.
"Has your father been speaking unkindly to you?" I asked her, being much
surprised.
She shook her head, and a wet handkerchief plashed on my hand like a sob
as she shook it out.
"What is it, then?" I asked, more and more amazed at the turn things
were taking. Never had I thought for a moment that Charlotte would not
be as pleased and happy to have me as I was the reverse.
"Oh," she burst out at last, sobbing between each hurried phrase, "I
don't blame you, Duncan. It's all that horrid old cat, Miss
Seraphina--Diabolina, the girls call her--she writes everything we do to
our people at home. She's always writing, and she spies on us, too, and
listens--opens our letters! She has brought all this on me----"
"Brought what on you?" I inquired blankly.
"Having to marry you and all!" she said, and had recourse to her wet
handkerchief again. But that being altogether too sodden to afford her
any relief, she signalled to me, as if I had been Agnes Anne or another
girl, to pass her mine. Fortunately for once I could do so without
shame. For Miss Irma had been teaching me things--or at least the desire
to appear well in her eyes.
Charlotte Anderson did not appear to notice, but went on crying.
"And don't you want to marry me, Lottie?" I said softly, taking her
hand. She let me now, perhaps considered as the proprietor of the
handkerchief.
"Of course I don't," said she. "Oh, how could I?"
Now this, considered apart, was certainly hurtful to my pride. For,
having frequently considered my person, as revealed in my mother's big
Sunday mirror, I thought that she could very well. On my side there was
certainly nothing to render the matter impossible. Moreover, how about
our walks and talks! She had, then, merely been playing with me. Oh,
Perfidy, thy name is Woman!
I was silent and paused for an explanation. I soon got it, considered as
before, as the sympathetic owner of the handkerchief.
"It's Tam Galaberry," she said, "my cousin, you know, Duncan. He used to
come to see me ... before ... before you! But his sister went to
Dumfries to learn the high-class millinery, and since then Miss
Seraphina cannot thole him. As if he had anything to do with that. And
she wrote home, and my father threatened Tam to shoot him with the gun
if he came after me--all because we were cousins--and only seconds at
any rate. Oh-h-h-h! What _shall_ I do?"
I had to support Charlotte here--though merely as handkerchief-holder
and in the purest interests of the absent Mr. Thomas Gallaberry.
But the relief to my own mind, in spite of the hurt to my pride, was
immediate and enormous. But a thought leaped up in my heart which cooled
me considerably.
"Oh, Lottie," I said, as sadly as I could, "you have been false and
deceitful. You have come near to breaking my heart----"
"I ken I have--I ken I have!" she cried. "Oh, can you ever forgive me?"
"Only, Charlotte," I answered nobly, "because I care for your happiness
more than for my own!"
"Oh, Duncan, but you are good!" She threw herself into my arms. I really
think she mistook me for Agnes Anne for the moment. But any consolations
I applied were, as before, in the interests of Tam Gallaberry.
"I knew I was wicked and wrong all the time," she said, "but when we
walked out, you remember the dyke we used to lean against" (she glanced
up at me with simple child-like eyes, tear-stained), "you must remember?
Well, one of the stones was loose. And Tam used to put one letter there,
and I took it out and slid it in my pocket, and put mine back the same!
Agnes Anne was looking the other way, of course, and you--you----"
"Was otherwise employed than thinking of such deceit!" I said grandly.
"You were kissing me! And I let you--for Tam's sake," Charlotte
murmured, smiling. "Otherwise the poor fellow would have had five miles
to come that next day, and I could not bear that he should not find his
letter!"
"No!" I answered dryly, "it would certainly have been a pity."
She looked at me curiously.
"Do you know," she said, "I always thought that _you_ were playing,
too!"
"Playing!" I exclaimed tragically. "Is it possible? Oh, Lottie!"
"Oh, I just thought it," she said remorsefully. "I am sorry if it was
true--if you do really care about me so much--as all that!"
I was still thinking of Tam Gallaberry. So apparently was she.
Virtue is its own reward, and so is mutual consolation. It is very
consoling. Half the happy love stories in the world begin that way--just
with telling about the unhappy ones that went before. You take my word
for it--I, Duncan MacAlpine, know what I am talking about. Charlotte
Anderson too.
So finally, after a while, I became very noble and said what a fine
thing it was to give up something very precious for others. And I asked
her if she could think of anything much nobler than willingly to give up
as fine a girl as herself--Charlotte Anderson--for the sake of Tam
Gallaberry? She thought awhile and said she could not.
So I told her we must keep up appearances for a time, till we had made
our arrangements what to do. Charlotte said that she had no objections
as long as Tam Gallaberry did not know. So I said that she could write a
long letter that very night, and give it to Agnes Anne in the morning,
and I would go out to the stone, and put it underneath.
Then she cried, "Oh, will you?" And thanked me ever so sweetly, asking
if, when I was about it, would I bring back the one I found there and
send it to her by my sister, in another envelope--"just over the top,
you know, without breaking the seal. Because such letters were sacred."
I said she need not trouble herself. I was only doing all this for her
sake. I did not want to see what another man had to say to her!
And, if you will believe me, she was delighted, and said, "Now I know
that you were not all pretending, but do care for me a little wee bit!"
Indeed, Charlotte was so delighted that it was perhaps as well for the
smooth flowing of their love story that Tam Gallaberry was at that
moment investigating their joint post office. For Lottie was a generous
girl when her heart was moved, and though she kept the grand issues
clear, she often confused details--as, for instance, whether the
handkerchief was mine or my sister's, and whether I was myself or Tam
Gallaberry.
But I considered such slips as these pardonable at twenty. At that age
forgetfulness is easy. Afterwards the prison doors close, and now I am
not mistaken for Tam Gallaberry any more--and what is more, I don't want
to be. However, after a while I brought Charlotte to earth again, out of
the exaltation of our mutual self-sacrifice, by the reminder that at
that moment our fathers would be arranging as to our joint future--and
that without the least regard for our present noble sentiments, or those
of the happily absent Mr. Thomas Gallaberry.
She got down and looked at me, affrighted, her lips apart, and all
panting like a bird newly ta'en in the hand.
"Oh, Duncan," she cried, "you will help me, won't you? You see how fond
I am of you!"
I saw, exactly, but refrained from telling her that she had a strange
way of showing it.
"I would do anything in the world for you," she added,--"only I want to
marry Tom. Ye see? I have always meant to marry Tom! So I can't help it,
can I?"
Her logic had holes in it, but her meaning was starry clear. I thanked
her, and said that the best thing we could do was to take counsel
together. Which we did there under the shelter of the great holly-bush.
So much so that any one passing that way might have taken us for foolish
lovers, instead of two people plotting how to get rid the one of the
other.
What helped the illusion greatly was that it was a cold day, with every
now and then a few driving flecks of snow. I had on a great rough
Inverness cloak of my father's, far too large for me. I asked Charlotte
if she were warm. She said she was, but did not persist too much in the
statement. So we left Tom Gallaberry out of the question, and set
ourselves to arrange what we were to say to our two fathers.
"It will be terrible hard to pretend!" I said, shaking my head.
"It will be a sin--at least, for long!" she answered.
I exposed the situation. There was to be no immediate talk of marriage.
Even her father had allowed that I must get through college first. He
was to pay my fees as a doctor. I did not want to be a doctor. Besides,
I could not take her father's money----
Here Charlotte turned with so quick a flounce that she nearly landed
herself in the little gutter which I had made with my stick to carry off
the drainage of the slope behind.
"Not take the money? Nonsense!" she cried. "Father has more than he
knows what to do with!"
She paused a while, finger on lip, meditating, the double ply of
calculation, stamped on her father's brow, very strongly marked on hers.
"Look here, Duncan," she said caressingly, like a grown woman wooing to
get her own way, so deep her voice was, "daddy is giving you that money
because you are going to marry me, isn't he?"
I signed, as well as I could, that Mr. Robert Anderson of Birkenbog
considered himself as so doing.
She clapped her hands and cried out, as if she had stumbled on the
solution of some exceedingly difficult problem, "Why, then, take the
money and give it to Tom! He needs it for his farm--oh, just dreadful.
He says the hill is not half stocked, and that a hundred or two more
ewes would just be the saving of him!"
"But," said I, "I shall be entering into an agreement with your father,
and shall have to give him receipts!"
"Well," she continued boldly, "Thomas will enter into an agreement with
you, if he doesn't marry me--that is, if I am left on your hands--he
will pay you the money back--or else give you the sheep!"
It will hardly be believed the difficulty I had to make Charlotte see
the impossibility--nay, the dishonesty of an arrangement which appeared
so simple to her. She thought for a while that I was just doing it out
of jealousy, and she sulked.
I reasoned with her, but I might as well have tried logic on the
Gallaberry black-faced ewes. She continued to revolve the project in her
own mind.
"Whatever you--I mean _we_--can get out of father is to the good," she
said. "He will never miss it. If you don't, I will ask him for the money
for your fees myself and give it to Tom----"
"If you do!" I cried in horror,--"oh--you don't know what you are
talking about, girl!"
"You don't love me a bit," she said. "What would it matter to you?
Besides, if it comes to giving a receipt, I can imitate your signature
to a nicety. Agnes Anne says so."
"But, Charlotte, it would be forgery," I gasped. "They hang people for
forgery."
"No, they don't--at least, not for that sort," she argued, her eyes very
bright with the working of her inward idea. "For how can it be forgery
when it is _your_ name I write, and I've told you of it beforehand? It's
my father's money, isn't it, and he gives it to you for marrying me?
Very well, then, it's yours--no, I mean it's Tom's because he means to
marry me. At least I mean to marry him. Anyway, the money is not my
father's, because he gives it freely to you (or Tom) for a certain
purpose. Well, Tom is going to be the one who will carry out that
purpose. So the money is his. Therefore it's honest and no forgery!"
These arguments were so strong and convincing to Charlotte that I did
not attempt to discuss them further, salving my conscience by the
thought that there remained his Majesty's post, and that a letter
addressed to her father at the Farmers' Ordinary Room, in care of the
King's Arms, would clear me of all financial responsibility. But this I
took care not to mention to Lottie, because it might have savoured of
treachery and disturbed her.
On the other hand, I began urging her to find another confidant than
Agnes Anne. She would do well enough for ordinary letters which I was to
send on to Cousin Tom. But she must not know they were not for me. She
must think that all was going on well between us. This, I showed her,
was a necessity. Charlotte felt the need also, and suggested this girl
and that at Miss Seraphina Huntingdon's. But I objected to all. I had to
think quick, for some were very nice girls, and at most times would have
served their country quite well. But I stuck to it that they were too
near head-quarters. They would be sure to get found out by Miss
Huntingdon.
"It is true," she meditated, "she _is_ a prying old cat."
"I don't see anybody for it but Miss Irma, over at my grandmother's!" I
said, boldly striking the blow to which I had been so long leading up.
Charlotte gazed at me so long and so intently that I was sure she smelt
a rat. But the pure innocence of my gaze, and the frank readiness with
which I gave my reasons, disarmed her.
"You see," I said, "she is the only girl quite out of the common run to
whom you have access. You can go to Heathknowes as often as you like
with Agnes Anne. Nobody will say a word. They will think it quite
natural--to hear the latest about me, you know. Then when you are alone
with Miss Irma, you can burst into tears and tell her our secret----"
"All----?" she questioned, with strong emphasis.
"Well," I hastened to reply, "all that is strictly necessary for a
stranger to know--as, for instance, that _you_ don't want to marry me,
and that _I_ never wanted to marry you----"
"Oh," she cried, moving in a shocked, uneasy manner, "but I thought
_you_ did!"
"Well, but--," I stammered, for I was momentarily unhinged, "you see you
must put things that way to get Miss Irma to help us. She can do
anything with my father, and I believe she could with yours too if she
got a chance."
"Oh, no, she couldn't!"
"Well, anyway, she would serve us faithfully, so long as we couldn't
trust Agnes Anne. And you know we agreed upon that. If you can think of
anything better, of course I leave it to you!"
She sat a long while making up her mind, with a woman's intuition that
all the cards were not on the table. But in the long run she could make
no better of it.
"Well, I will," she said; "I always liked her face, and I don't believe
she is nearly so haughty as people make out."
"Not a bit, she isn't----" I was beginning joyously, when I caught
Lottie's eye; "I mean--" I added lamely, "a girl always understands
another girl's affairs, and will help if she can--unless she has herself
some stake in the game!"
And in saying this, I believe that for once in a way I hit upon a great
and nearly universal truth.