HER GUEST.
"It will be all different now," said Kaethchen, one evening, when they
were come to within a week of the arrival of Mary's brother and his
friend Frank Meredyth. "And you deserve some little rest, Mamie, and
some little amusement, after all your hard work. And I want you to be
considerate--towards Mr. Meredyth, I mean. It isn't merely grouse and
grilse that are bringing him here. You know what your brother
says--that there is no one in such request for shooting parties; he
could just have his pick of invitations, all over Scotland, every
autumn; so you may be sure it isn't merely for the grouse and the
salmon-fishing he is coming to a little place like Lochgarra. Oh, you
need not pretend to deny it, Mamie! And all I want is that you should
be a little considerate. He may be very anxious to have you, and yet not
quite so anxious to take over your hobby as well. He may not even be
interested in the price of home-knitted stockings."
Mary Stanley did not answer just at once. The two girls were slowly
walking up and down the stone terrace outside the house. It was ten
o'clock at night; but it was not yet dark, nor anything approaching to
dark. All the world was of a pale, clear, wan lilac colour: and in this
coldly luminous twilight any white object--the front of a cottage, for
example, or the little Free Church building across the bay--appeared
startlingly distinct. There was an absolute silence; the sea was still;
two hours ago the sun had gone down behind what seemed a vast and
motionless lake of molten copper; and now there was a far-reaching
expanse of pearly grey, with the long headlands and Eilean Heimra
gathering shadows around them. The heavens were cloudless and serene;
over the sombre hills in the east a star throbbed here and there, but it
had to be sought for. There appeared to be neither lamp nor candle down
in the village--there was no need of them on these magical summer
nights.
"I do not see that it will be so different," said Mary, presently.
"Fred will have to look after Mr. Meredyth. No doubt there will be
something of a commotion in so quiet a place--the dogs, and keepers, and
ponies; by the way, there will be gillies wanted for the fishing as well
as for the shooting later on----"
Kaethchen began to snigger a little.
"I do believe, Mamie," she said, "that that is all the interest you have
in the shooting--it will provide so much more employment for your
beloved crofters."
"Oh, yes, I suppose the place will be a little more brisk and lively,"
Mary continued, "though that won't improve it much in my estimation. I
wonder what made Fred hire that wretched little steam-launch." She
looked towards the tiny vessel that was lying close to the quay: the
small white funnel and the decks forward were visible in the mystic
twilight; the hull was less clearly defined. "Fancy that thing coming
sputtering and crackling into the bay on a beautiful night like this!"
"It would be very handy to take a message out to Heimra Island," said
Kaethchen, demurely.
Mary glanced at her, and laughed.
"My dear Kaethchen, curiosity is a humiliating weakness; but I will tell
you what is in the letter that is lying on the hall table--and that is
likely to lie there, unless a wind springs up from some quarter
to-morrow. It is an invitation to Mr. Ross to come and dine with us on
Monday next."
"Monday?" said Kate Glendinning, looking surprised. "The very day your
brother and Mr. Meredyth come here?"
"For that very reason," said Mary. "I wish Mr. Ross to understand why
we have never asked him to dine with us--well, of course he would
understand for himself--two girls, living by themselves--and--and
knowing him only for so short a time. But now, you see, I ask him for
the very first evening that my brother is in the house--and that's all
right and correct--if there's any Mrs. Grundy in Lochgarra."
"The Free Church Minister!" said Kaethchen, spitefully--for she had
never forgiven the good man for his having kept aloof from the fray at
Ru-Minard.
"Mr. Ross has been very kind to me--in his reserved and distant way,"
Mary said, "and I should not like him to think me ungrateful----"
"He cannot do that," said Kaethchen, "if he hasn't been blind to what
your eyes have said to him again and again."
"What do you mean, Kaethchen?" Mary demanded--at once alarmed and
resentful.
Kaethchen retreated quickly: it had been a careless remark.
"Oh, I don't mean anything. I mean your eyes have said 'Thank you,'
again and again; and it is but right they should. He has indeed been
very thoughtful and kind--and always so respectful--keeping himself in
the background. Oh, you need not be afraid, Mamie: you won't find me
suggesting that you shouldn't have the most frank and friendly relations
with Mr. Ross. At the same time----"
"Yes, at the same time?"
"I was wondering," said Kaethchen, with a little hesitation, "how he
might get on with your brother and Mr. Meredyth--or, rather, how they
might get on with him----"
"My brother and Mr. Meredyth," said Mary, a little proudly, "will
remember that Mr. Ross is my guest: that will be enough."
But Kate Glendinning's uneasy forecast was not without some
justification--as Mary was soon to discover. The two visitors from the
South arrived on the Monday afternoon, and there were many curious eyes
covertly following the waggonette as it drove through the village. Of
the two strangers, the taller, who was Mary Stanley's brother, was a
young fellow of about four or five-and-twenty, good looking rather, of
the fair English type, with an aquiline nose, a pretty little
yellow-white moustache, and calm grey eyes. His companion, some eight
or ten years older, was of middle height, or perhaps a trifle under,
active and wiry-looking, with a sun-tanned face, a firm mouth, and
shrewd eyes, that on the whole were also good-natured. Both of the
travellers were in high spirits--and no wonder: they had heard good
accounts of the grouse; they had just caught a glimpse of the Garra,
which had plenty of water after the recent rains; over there was the
little steam launch that could amuse them now and again for an idle
hour; and beyond the bay the big, odd-looking house, against its
background of fir and larch, seemed to offer them a hospitable welcome.
Mary was at the top of the semicircular flight of stairs to greet them;
but even as she accompanied them into the great oak hall she
instinctively felt that there was something unusual in her brother's
manner towards her. And when, presently, Mr. Meredyth had been taken
away to be shown his own room, Fred Stanley remained behind: Kaethchen
had not yet put in an appearance, for some reason or another.
"Well, what's the matter, Fred?" Mary said at once.
He had been kicking about the drawing-room in a discontented fashion,
staring out of the windows or glancing at the engravings while his
friend was there; but now these two were alone.
"The matter?" said he. "Plenty the matter! I don't like to find that
you have been making a fool of yourself, and that you are still bent on
making a fool of yourself."
"But we can't help it if we are born that way," she said, sweetly.
"Oh, you know quite well what I mean," said this tall young gentleman
with the boyish moustache. "I had heard something of it before; but I
thought we might as well stop the night at Inverness on the way north;
and I saw Mr. Purdie. Now, mind you, Mamie, don't you take it into your
head that Purdie said anything against you--he did not. He's a
shrewd-headed fellow, and knows which side his bread is buttered. But
he answered my questions. And I find you have just been ruining this
place--turning the whole neighbourhood into a pauper asylum--and--and
flinging the thing away, as you might call it."
"But it wasn't left to you, Fred," she reminded him, gently. "And I
have been doing my best--after inquiry."
"Oh, I know," he said impatiently; "you've been got at by a lot of
sentimentalists in London--faddists--slummers--popularity-hunters; and
now, here in the Highlands, you have been working into the hands of
those agitator fellows who are trying to stir up anarchy and rebellion
everywhere; and you let yourself be imposed upon by a parcel of scheming
and cunning crofters, who don't thank you, to begin with, and who would
pull down this house to the ground and burn it the moment your back was
turned if they dared."
"You haven't been very long in Lochgarra," said she, with much good
humour, "but you seem to have used your time industriously. You know all
about it----"
"Oh, it isn't only this place!" he said. "Everyone who reads the
papers--who knows anything of the Highlands--is aware of what is going
on. And you have allowed yourself to be taken in! For the credit of
the family--for the sake of your own common sense--you might have waited
a little. Here was Mr. Purdie, who knew the place, who knew the people;
but you must needs take the whole matter in your own hands, and begin to
throw away your money right and left, as if you had come into a dukedom!
What do you suppose is the rental now--after all your abatements?"
"Well, I don't exactly know," said she. "But isn't it better to take
what the people can really give you than nothing at all? You can't live
on arrears? And, my dear Fred, what cause have you to grumble? The
amount of rent affects me only; whereas I offer you the shooting and
fishing, which has nothing to do with these matters. Why can't you
amuse yourself and let me alone? What I have done I have considered. I
have inquired into the condition of these people. To make rents
practicable is not to throw away money. Indeed--but I am not going to
discuss the question with you at all. Go away and get out your
fly-book, and take Mr. Meredyth down to the Garra, and see if you can
pick up a grilse before dinner."
But he was not to be put off by her bland amiability.
"Of course," said he, "it is very kind of you to offer me the fishing
and the shooting; but I should have been better pleased to have had them
without encumbrances."
"What do you mean?" said she.
"Why, who has the fishing and shooting here?" said he. "This poaching
scoundrel, Ross. I am told the whole place is in league with him. He
can do what he likes."
"And what further information did you gather at Inverness?" she asked,
rather contemptuously.
"Well, but look here, Mamie," he remonstrated, with a sense of his
wrongs gaining upon him. "Consider the position you have put me in. You
know how Frank is in request at this time of the year--a thundering good
shot--and used to managing things about country-houses----"
"As well as leading cotillons in London," she interposed, with smiling
eyes.
"And why not?" said he, boldly. "Oh, I suppose you consider that
effeminate: you would rather have him living among rocks and caves, like
this smuggling fellow, and shooting seagulls for his dinner? However,
look at my position. I ask him to come down with me, at your
suggestion. I tell him it isn't a grand shooting--and that he'll get
more sea-trout than salmon in the river--but he comes all the same; and
then we discover that the whole place is at the mercy of this idling
blackguard of a fellow--if we get a few birds or find a pool
undisturbed, it is with his sufferance----"
"So you have acquired all this information at Inverness?" said she.
"But I wouldn't entirely trust it if I were you. I am afraid Mr. Purdie
is rather prejudiced. He may have been exaggerating. However, if there
is any truth in what he says, I'll tell you what you ought to do: ask
Mr. Ross to join your shooting and fishing parties. You'll meet him
to-night at dinner."
"Here--in this house?" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "Mamie, are
you mad?"
"I hope not," she said quietly. "But Mr. Ross has been very kind to me
of late, in helping me in various little ways; and as I couldn't well
ask him to dinner when only Kate and I were in the house, I took the
first opportunity after your arrival----"
"And so Frank and I, after being warned that the great annoyance and
vexation we should find in the place is this fellow Ross, are coolly
informed that we are to meet him at dinner, and I suppose we are
expected to be civil to him!"
"I certainly do expect you to be civil to him," said Mary.
"Oh, but it's too bad!" he said, impatiently, and he went to the window
and turned his back on her. And then he faced round again. "I wonder
what Frank will think! I was almost ashamed to ask him to come here,
even as it was--a small shooting, not much fishing, and the stalking
merely a chance; but, all the same, he accepts; then the first thing we
hear of on reaching Inverness is all about this vexation and underhand
going on; and the next thing is that we are asked to meet at dinner the
very person who causes all the trouble! Now, Mamie, I appeal to
yourself, don't you think it is a little too hard?"
She hesitated. She began to fear she had been
thoughtless--indiscreet--too much taken up with her own plans and
projects.
"At all events, Fred," she pleaded, "your meeting Mr. Ross at dinner
can't matter one way or the other--and you will be able to judge for
yourself. To me he does not seem the kind of young man you would
suspect of spending his time in poaching; in fact, as I understand it,
he is looking forward to being called to the Bar, and I should think he
was busier with books than with cartridges or salmon flies."
"You are sure he said he would come to-night?" asked this young Fred
Stanley, looking at his sister.
"Yes."
"Definitely promised?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't think he will."
"Why?"
"Because," said the young man, as he went leisurely towards the door,
"there might be a question of evening dress. You haven't a Court tailor
at Lochgarra, have you?"
Mary flushed slightly.
"I don't care whether he appears in evening dress or not," said she.
"Most likely he will come along from his yacht; and a yachting suit is
as good as any--in my eyes."
That evening, when the young hostess came downstairs, the large
drawing-room was all suffused with a soft warmth of colour, for the sun
was just sinking behind the violet-grey Atlantic, and the glory of the
western skies streamed in through the several windows. Kaethchen was
here; and Kaethchen's eyes lighted up with pleasure when she saw how
Mary was attired. And yet could any costume have been simpler than this
dress of cream-coloured China silk, its only ornamentation being a bunch
of deep crimson fuchsias at the opening of the bodice, with another
cluster of the same flowers at her belt? She wore no jewellery of any
kind whatsoever.
"That is more like you, Mamie," said Kaethchen, coming forward with a
proud and admiring scrutiny. "I want Mr. Ross to see you in something
different from your ordinary workaday things. And you look taller, too,
somehow. And fairer--or is that the light from the windows?"
At this very moment the door was opened, and Mr. Ross was announced.
Mary turned--with some little self-conscious expectation. And here was
Young Donald of Heimra, in faultless evening dress; and there was a
quiet look of friendliness in his eyes as he came forward and took the
hand that was offered him. Kaethchen said to herself: "Why is it that
the full shirt-front and white tie suit dark men so well? And why
doesn't he dress like that every evening?" For Kaethchen did not know
that that was precisely what Donald Ross had been in the habit of doing
all the years that his mother and he had lived out in that remote
island; it was a little compliment he paid her; and she liked that bit
of make-believe of ceremony in the monotony of their isolated life.
The new-comers who had arrived that afternoon were somewhat late; for
they had gone down to the river to have a cast or two--a futile
proceeding in the blazing sunlight; but presently they made their
appearance, and were in due course introduced to Donald Ross. Kaethchen,
who was as usual a keen and interested observer, and who had heard of
Fred Stanley's indignant protest, could not but admire the perfect good
breeding he displayed on being thus brought face to face with his enemy.
But indeed the ordinary every-day manner of a well-educated young
Englishman--its curious impassivity, its lack of self-assertion--is a
standing puzzle for foreigners and for Americans. What is the origin of
it? Blank stupidity? Or a serene contempt for the opinion of others?
Or a determination not to commit one's self? Or an affectation of
having already seen and done everything worth seeing and doing? Anyhow,
Fred Stanley's demeanour towards this stranger and intruder was perfect
in its negative way; and so was that of his friend, though Frank
Meredyth, by virtue of his superior years, allowed himself to be a
little more careless and off-hand. However, there was not much time for
forming surmises or jumping to conclusions; for presently dinner was
announced.
"Mr. Meredyth, will you take in Miss Glendinning?" Mary said. "Fred,
I'm sorry we've nobody for you." And therewithal she turned to Donald
Ross, and took his arm, and these two followed the first couple into the
dining-room. Young Ross sate at her right hand, of course; he was her
chief guest; the others belonged to the house.
It was rather an animated little party; for if the Twelfth was as yet
some way off, there were plenty of speculations as to what the Garra was
likely to yield in the way of grilse and sea-trout. Kaethchen noticed
that Donald Ross spoke but little, and that they seldom appealed to him;
indeed, Mr. Meredyth, professing to have met with unvarying ill-luck on
every stream he had ever fished, was devising an ideal salmon-river on
which the sportsman would not be continually exposed to the evil strokes
of fate.
"What you want first of all," said he, "is to regulate the water-supply.
At present when I go to a salmon-river, one of two things is certain to
happen: either it's in roaring flood, and quite unfishable, or else--and
this is the more common--it has dwindled away all to nothing, and you
might as well begin and throw a fly over a pavement in Piccadilly. Very
well; what you want is to turn the mountain-lochs into reservoirs; you
bank up the surplus water in the hills; and then, in times of drought,
when the river has got low, and would be otherwise unfishable, you send
up the keepers to the sluices, turn on a supply, and freshen the pools,
so that the fish wake up, and wonder what's going to happen. That is
one thing. Then there's another. You know that even when the water is
in capital order, you may go down day by day, and find it impossible to
get a single cast because of the blazing sunlight. That is a terrible
misfortune; for you are all the time aware, as you sit on the bank, and
hopelessly watch for clouds, that the fine weather is drying up the
hills, and that very soon the stream will have dwindled away again.
Very well; what you want for that is en enormous awning, that can be
moved from pool to pool, and high enough not to interfere with the
casting. By that means, you see, you could transfer any portion of a
Highland stream into the land where it is always afternoon; and the
fish, thinking the cool of the evening had already come, would begin to
disport themselves and play with the pretty little coloured things that
the current brought down. Look at the saving of time! Generally, in
the middle of the day, there is a horrible long interval when nothing
will move in a river. Whether it is the heat, or the sunlight, or the
general drowsiness of nature, there's hardly ever anything stirring
between twelve o'clock and four; and you lie on the bank, and consume a
frightful amount of tobacco; and you may even fall asleep, if you have
been doing a good deal of night-work in London. But if you have this
great canvas screen, that can be stretched from the trees on one side to
the poles on the other--very gradually and slowly, like the coming over
of the evening--then the little fishes will begin to say to themselves,
'Here, boys, it's time to go out and have some fun,' and you can have
fine sport, in spite of all the sunlight that ever blazed. However, I'm
afraid you'd want the revenue of some half-a-dozen dukes before you
could secure the ideal salmon-river."
"They're doing so many things with electricity now: couldn't you bring
that in?" said Kaethchen. "Couldn't you have an electric shock running
out from the butt of the rod the moment the salmon touched the fly?"
But this was sheer frivolity. Frank Meredyth suddenly turned to young
Ross and said--
"Oh, you can tell me, Mr. Ross--is the Garra a difficult river to fish?"
Now this was a perfectly innocent question--not meant as a trap at all;
but Fred Stanley, whose mind had been brooding over the fact that the
poacher was actually sitting at table with them, looked startled, and
even frightened. Young Ross, on the other hand, appeared in no wise
disconcerted.
"Really, I can hardly tell you," he said, "I am not much of a fisherman
myself--there is no fishing at all on Heimra Island. But I should say
it was not a very difficult river. Perhaps some of the pools under the
woods--just above the bridge, I mean, where the banks are steep--might
be a little awkward; but further up it is much opener; and further up
still you come to long stretches where there isn't a bush on either
side."
"Then, perhaps, you can't tell me what are the best sea-trout flies for
this water?" was the next question--with no evil intent in it.
"I'm afraid you would find me an untrustworthy guide," said Donald Ross.
"If I were you I would take Hector's advice."
So there was an end of this matter--and Fred Stanley was much relieved.
What he said to himself was this: "If that Spaniard-looking fellow is
lying, he has a splendid nerve and can do it well. A magnificent piece
of cheek--if it is so!"
On the whole, at this unpretentious little banquet, Frank Meredyth did
most of the talking; and naturally it was addressed in the first place
to Miss Stanley as being at the head of the table. He had had a
considerable experience of country houses; he was gifted with a certain
sense of humour; and he told his stories fairly well--Kaethchen
rewarding him now and again with a covert little giggle. As for Donald
Ross, he sate silent, and reserved, and attentive. He was distinctly
the stranger. Not that he betrayed any embarrassment, or was ill at
ease; but he seemed to prefer to listen, especially when Mary Stanley
happened to be speaking. For, indeed, more than once she let the others
go their own way, and turned to him, and engaged him in conversation
with herself alone. She found herself timid in doing so. If his manner
was always most respectful--and even submissive--his eyes looked
uncompromisingly straight at her, and they had a strange, subdued fire
in them. When she happened to find his gaze thus fixed on her, she
would suddenly grow nervous--stammer--perhaps even forget what she had
been saying; while the joyous chatter of the other three at table went
gaily on, fortunately for her. Sometimes she would think it was hardly
fair of those others to leave her alone in this way: then again she
would remind herself that it was she who was responsible for her guest.
It was not that he confused her by an awkward or obstinate silence; on
the contrary, he answered her freely enough, in a gravely courteous way;
but he seemed to attach too much importance to what she said--he seemed
to be too grateful for this special attention she was bestowing upon
him. And then again she dared hardly look up; for those black eyes
burned so--in a timid, startled way--regarding her as if they would read
something behind the mere prettiness of her face and complexion and
hair, and apparently quite unconscious of their own power.
At last the ladies rose from the table; and Mary said--
"I suppose you gentlemen will be going out on the terrace to smoke? I
wish you would let us come with you. I have not smelt a cigar for
months--and it is so delicious in the evening air."
There was not very much objection. Chairs were brought out from the
hall; Frank Meredyth perched himself on the stone parapet; the evening
air became odorous, for there was hardly a breath of wind coming up from
the bay. And as they sate and looked at the wide expanse of water--with
only a chance remark breaking the silence from time to time--it may have
occurred to one or other of them that the summer twilight that lay over
land and sea was growing somewhat warmer in tone. It was Mary who
discovered the cause: the golden moon was behind them--just over the
low, birch-crowned hill; and the pale radiance lay on the still water in
front of them, and on the long spur of land on the other side of the
bay, where there were one or two crofters' cottages and fishermen's huts
just above the shore. And while they were thus looking abroad over the
mystic and sleeping world, a still stranger thing appeared--a more
unusual thing for Loch-garra, that is to say--certain moving lights out
beyond the point of the headland.
"Look, Mary!" Kaethchen cried. "But that can't be the steamer--she is
not due till next Thursday!"
Whatever the vessel was, she was obviously making in for the harbour;
for presently they could see both port and starboard lights--a red star
and a green star, coming slowly into the still, moonlit bay.
"It is the _Consuelo_," Donald Ross said to Mary. "It is Lord
Mount-Grattan's yacht: she has come down from Loch Laxford."
They watched her slow progress--this big dark thing stealing almost
noiselessly into the spectral grey world; they saw her gradually
rounding; the green light disappeared; there was a sudden noise of the
reversal of the screw; then a space of quiet again; and at last the roar
of the anchor. The rare visitor had chosen her position for the night.
Almost directly thereafter young Ross of Heimra rose and took leave of
his hostess--saying a few words of thanks for so pleasant an evening.
The others did not go indoors, however; the still, balmy, moonlight
night was too great a temptation. They remained on the terrace, looking
at the big black steam-yacht that now lay motionless on the silver-grey
water, and listening for the occasional distant sounds that came from
it.
But presently they saw a small boat put off from the shore, rowed by two
men, with a third figure in the stern.
"That is Mr. Ross!" Kaethchen exclaimed. "I know it is--that is his
light overcoat."
"Can he be going away in the yacht?" Mary said suddenly.
"Not likely!" her brother struck in. "When you start off on a yachting
cruise you don't go on board in evening dress." And then the young man
turned to his male companion. "I say, Frank, don't you think that
fellow was lying when he pretended not to know anything about the
fishing in the Garra?"
It was an idle and careless question--perhaps not even meant to be
impertinent; but Mary Stanley flamed up instantly--into white heat.
"Mr. Ross is--is a gentleman," she said, quite breathlessly. "And--he
was my guest this evening--though you--you did not seem to treat him as
such!"
Kaethchen put her hand gently on her friend's arm.
"Mamie!" she said.
And Frank Meredyth never answered the question: this little
incident--and a swift and covert glance he had directed towards the
young lady herself--had given him something to think about.