Three days later I introduced Robert Chalmers Fordyce into the bosom of
my family. I had declined to give them any previous information about
him, beyond a brief warning that they would find him "rather Scotch."
I have always found it utterly impossible to foretell from a man's
behaviour towards his own sex how he will comport himself in the
presence of females. I have known a raw youth, hitherto regarded as the
hobbledehoy of the shooting-party and the pariah of the smoking-room,
lord it among the ladies like a very lion; and I have seen the hero of a
hundred fights, the master of men, the essence of intrepid resolution,
stand quaking outside a drawing-room door. The _début_ of Robin, then, I
awaited with considerable interest. I expected on the whole to see him
tongue-tied, especially before Dolly and Dilly. On the other hand he
might be aggressively assertive.
He was neither. He proved to be that rarest of types--the man who has no
fear of his fellow-creatures, male or female, singly or in battalions.
Our sex is so accustomed to squaring its shoulders, pulling down its
waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary to an
encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a
strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round,
without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling
entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of
envy and respect.
We found Kitty and the Twins picturesquely grouped upon the drawing-room
hearth-rug, waiting for the luncheon gong.
I introduced Robin to my wife, in the indistinct and throaty tones which
always obtrude themselves into an Englishman's utterance when he is
called upon to say something formal but graceful. Kitty greeted the
guest with a smile with which I am well acquainted (and which I can
guarantee from personal experience to be absolutely irresistible on
one's first experience of it), and welcomed him to the house very
prettily.
"You are very kind, Mrs Inglethwaite," said Robin, shaking hands. "But I
am not quite a stranger to you. Do you mind my face?"
Kitty turned scarlet.
"Mind your----? Not in the--I mean--I am sure we are de----" She
floundered hopelessly.
Robin laughed pleasantly.
"There is my Scots tongue running away with me already," he said. "I
should have asked rather if you _remembered_ my face."
This time Kitty ceased to look confused, but still retained a puzzled
frown.
"No," she said slowly; "I don't _think_----"
"No wonder!" said Robin. "We met once, in a railway carriage, six years
ago. Between Edinburgh and Perth--on a Saturday afternoon," he added
expressively.
Light broke in upon Kitty. "Of course!" she said. "Now I remember. That
dreadful journey! You were the gentleman who was so kind and helpful.
How nice and romantic meeting again! Adrian, you silly old creature, why
didn't you tell me? Now, Mr Fordyce, let me introduce you to my
sisters."
She wheeled him round and presented him to the Twins.
That pair of beauties, I saw at a glance, were out after scalps. They
stood up side by side on the hearth-rug, absolutely and weirdly alike,
and arrayed on this occasion in garments of identical hue and cut. This
was a favourite device of theirs when about to meet a new young man; it
usually startled him considerably. If he was not a person of sound nerve
and abstemious habits, it not infrequently evoked from him some
enjoyably regrettable expression of surprise and alarm. I knew all the
tricks in their _répertoire_, and waited interestedly to see the effect
of this series.
On being presented, both smiled shyly and modestly, and each
simultaneously proffered a timid hand. The average young man, already a
little rattled by the duplicate vision of loveliness before him, could
never make up his mind which hand to shake first; and by the time he had
collected his faculties sufficiently to make an uncertain grab at one,
both would be swiftly and simultaneously withdrawn.
Robin, however, immediately shook hands with Dilly, who stood nearest to
Kitty, and then with Dolly. After that he stepped back a pace and
surveyed the pair with unconcealed interest.
Then he turned to my wife.
"A truly remarkable resemblance!" he observed benignantly. ("Just as if
we had been two babies in a bassinette!" as Dolly afterwards remarked.)
Then he resumed his inspection. The Twins, who were entirely unused to
this sort of thing, were too taken aback to proceed to their second
move--the utterance of some trivial and artless remark, delivered by
both simultaneously, and thereby calculated to throw the victim into a
state of uncertainty as to which he should answer first. Instead, they
stood wide-eyed and tongue-tied before him.
"I must certainly discover some point of difference between these
ladies," continued Robin with an air of determination, "or I shall
always be in difficulties. Do not tell me the secret, Mrs Inglethwaite.
Perhaps I can find out for myself."
He concluded a minute inspection of the indignant Dilly, and turned his
unruffled gaze on Dolly.
"Yes," he said, "I have it! You" (triumphantly to Dolly) "have a tiny
brown spot in the blue of your left eye, while your sister has none."
It was quite true: she had. But it was a fact which most young men only
discovered after many furtive and sidelong glances. This imperturbable
creature had taken it all in in one resolute scrutiny; and Dolly,
blushing like Aurora--an infirmity to which I may say neither she nor
her sister are particularly subject--dropped her long lashes over the
orbs in question and looked uncommonly foolish.
The tension of the situation was relieved by the announcement of
luncheon, and Robin was called upon to accompany Kitty downstairs; while
I, putting a consoling arm round the waist of each of my fermenting
sisters-in-law, marched them down to further experiences in the
dining-room.
The Twins rapidly recovered their equanimity at lunch. They sat, as they
always did, together on one side of the table, opposite to Robin. The
latter conversed easily and pleasantly, though his discourse was dotted
with homely phrases and curious little biblical turns of speech.
"Have you been in London long, Mr Fordyce?" inquired Kitty as we settled
down.
"Three years," said Robin.
"I suppose you have lots of friends by this time."
"I have a good many acquaintances, but my friends in London are just
three, all told," said Robin, in what Dilly afterwards described as "a
disgustingly pawky manner."
"You must be very exclusive, Mr Fordyce," chirrupped Dolly.
"Far from it," said Robin; "as you will admit when I say that my three
friends are a policeman, a surgeon, and a minister."
"How quaint of you!" said Dilly.
But Robin did not seem to think it quaint. He told us about the
policeman first--a Highlander. Robin had made his acquaintance in
Edinburgh, apparently about the same time that he made ours, and had
renewed it some years later outside the House of Commons, when a
rapturous mutual recognition had taken place. The policeman's name was
Hector MacPherson.
"And the surgeon?" inquired Kitty, with a certain friendly assumption of
interest which announces (to me) that she is getting a little bored.
"He is just my uncle. I go and see him, whi--now and then. He is a busy
man."
"And the--er--minister?"
"He is Dr Strang. He has the Presbyterian Church in Howard Street. I
have sat under him every Sabbath since I came to London."
"Wh--what for?" asked Kitty involuntarily, and in a rather awestruck
voice. Her acquaintance with the ritual of the Church of Scotland was
hazy, and she was evidently determined to-day to be surprised at
nothing; but evidently this mysterious reference could not be allowed to
pass without some explanation. The Twins convulsively gripped each
other's hands under the table. (They are of course perfectly bred
girls--indeed, their self-possession at trying moments has often
surprised me--but, like all the young of the human species, there are
times when their feelings become too much for them. Then, if the
occasion is too formal for unrestrained shrieks, they silently
interdigitate.)
"That is a Scottish expression," said Robin, smiling upon us. "You must
pardon me, Mrs Inglethwaite. I should perhaps have said that I was an
adherent of Dr Strang's church--or rather," he added with a curious
little touch of pride, "I am a communicant now. I was just an adherent
at first."
We assented to this, politely but dizzily.
Scratch a Scot and you will find a theologian. Robin was fairly started
now; and he proceeded to enlarge upon various points of interest in the
parallel histories (given in full) of some three or four Scottish
denominations, interwoven with extracts from his own family archives.
His grand-uncle, it appeared, had been a minister himself, and had
performed the feat--to which I have occasionally heard other perfervid
Scots refer, and never without a kindling eye--known as "coming out in
the Forty-three."
"That," added Robin in parenthesis, "is why my second name is
Chalmers--after the great Doctor. You will have heard of him?"
(Polite but insincere chorus of pleased recognition.)
We were then treated to a brief _résumé_ of the events leading up to a
religious controversy of colossal dimensions which was at that moment
threatening to engulf Scotland. Robin was deeply interested in the
matter, and gave us his reasons for being so. He passed some scathing
comments on the contumacy and narrow-mindedness of the sect who had the
misfortune to be his opponents; and after that he proceeded to say a few
words about Free Will and Predestination.
By this time lunch was over, but we sat on. I nodded gravely over my
coffee, saying "Quite so" when occasion seemed to demand it. Kitty was
completely out of her depth, but still maintained a brave appearance of
interest. It was the Twins who brought the _séance_ to a close. Placing
their hands before their mouths, they with difficulty stifled a pair of
cavernous yawns.