'THE DAYS THAT ARE NOT.'
The last days of April came, the family in Bellairs Crescent were making
preparations for an immediate departure to the Ayrshire coast, and as
yet Gladys had not seen or heard anything of Walter. She had a longing
to revisit the old home, and yet a curious reluctance held her back. She
felt hurt, and even a trifle irritated against Walter; and though she
understood, and in a measure sympathised with his feelings, she thought
him needlessly morbid and sensitive regarding their new relation towards
each other.
'Gladys,' said Clara one day, when she had watched in silence the girl's
sweet face, and noticed its half-sad, half-wistful expression, 'what is
the matter with you? You are fretting about something. Tell me what it
is. Do you not wish to go to Troon with us, or would you rather go to
Bourhill? Do tell us what you would like best to do?'
They were quite alone in the little morning-room, which had been given
up to the girls of the house to adorn as they liked. It was a pretty
corner, dainty, home-like, cosy, with a long window opening out to the
garden, which was as beautiful as it is possible for a city garden to
be.
Gladys gave a little start, and coloured slightly under Clara's earnest
gaze.
'I am quite happy at the idea of going to Troon; remember I have never
seen the sea,' she answered quickly. 'What makes you think I am
unhappy?'
'My dear, you look it. You can't hide it from me, and you are going to
tell me this very moment what is vexing you.'
Clara knelt down on the rug, and, with her hands folded, looked up in
her friend's face. Gladys passed her hand lightly over the smooth braids
of Clara's beautiful hair, and did not for a moment speak.
'Did you ever have a great faith in any one who after a time
disappointed you?' she asked suddenly.
'No, I don't think so. I am not naturally trusting, Gladys. I have to be
very sure before I put absolute faith in any one.'
'I cannot believe that of you, Clara. How kind you have been to me, an
utter stranger! You have treated me like a sister since the first happy
day I entered the house.'
'Oh, that is different. You know very well, you little fraud, that your
very eyes disarm suspicion, as somebody says. You are making conquests
everywhere. But now we are away from the point. _What_ is vexing you?
Shall I make a guess?'
'Oh, if you like,' answered Gladys, with interest.
'Well, you are thinking of past days. You have not forgotten the
companions of the old life, and it is grieving you, because it would
appear that they have forgotten you.'
'He might have come, only once,' cried Gladys rebelliously, not for a
moment seeking to deny or admit in words the truth of Clara's words. 'We
were a great deal to each other. It is hard to be forgotten so soon.'
'Gladys dear, listen to me.'
Clara's voice became quite grave, and she folded her hands impressively
above her companion's.
'You must not be angry at what I am going to say, because it is true.
Has it not occurred to you that this young man, in thus keeping a
distance from you, shows himself wiser than you?'
'How?' asked Gladys coldly. 'It can never be wise to wound the feelings
of another.'
'My dear, though your simplicity is the loveliest thing about you, it is
awfully difficult to deal with,' said Clara perplexedly. 'You must know,
must admit, Gladys, that everything is changed, and that while you might
be quite courteous, and even friendly after a fashion, with this Mr.
Hepburn, anything more is quite out of the question. He must move in his
own sphere, you in yours. People are happier in their own sphere. To try
and lift them out of it is always a mistake, and ends in disaster and
defeat. Would you have liked mamma to invite him here?'
'He would not come,' said Gladys proudly. 'He would never come. He said
so again and again.'
'Then it seems to me that it is you who are lacking in proper pride,'
said Clara calmly.
'What is proper pride?'
Gladys smiled with the faintest touch of scorn as she asked the
question.
'You know what it is just as well as I can tell you, only it pleases you
to be perverse this morning,' said Clara good-humouredly, 'and I am not
going to say any more.'
'Yes you are. I want to understand this thing. Is it imperative that the
mere fact that my uncle has left me money and a house should make me a
different person altogether?'
'It affects your position, not necessarily you. Don't be silly and
aggravating, Gladys, or I must shake you,' said Clara, with the frank
candour of a privileged friend. 'And really I cannot understand why you
should be anxious to keep in touch with that old life, which was so
awfully mean and miserable.'
'It had compensations,' said Gladys quickly. 'And I do think, that if it
is all as you say, there is more sincerity among poor people than among
rich. There is no court paid, anyhow, to money and position.'
'My dear, you are not at all complimentary to us,' laughed Clara. 'Your
ingenuousness is truly refreshing.'
'I am not speaking about you, and you know it quite well,' answered
Gladys. 'But if the world is as fond of outward things as you say, I do
not wish to know anything of it. I could not feel at home in it, I am
sure.'
'My dear little girl, wait till your place is put in order, and you take
up your abode in it, Miss Graham of Bourhill, the envied and the admired
of a whole county, and you will change your mind about the world. Just
wait till the next Hunt Ball at Ayr, and we'll see what changes it will
bring.'
There was no refuting Clara's good-natured worldly wisdom, and Gladys
had to be silent. But she pondered many things in her heart.
'When do we go to Troon? Isn't it next week?'
'Yes, on Tuesday.'
'Do you think,' she asked then, with a slight hesitation, 'that Mrs.
Fordyce would allow me to pay a little visit to my old home before I go,
for the last time?'
There was all the simplicity and wistfulness of a child in her manner,
and it touched Clara to the quick.
'Gladys, are you a prisoner here, dear? Don't vex me by saying things
like that. Do you not know that you can go out and in just as you like?
Of course you shall go. I will take you myself, if mamma cannot, and
wait for you outside.'
True to her promise, Clara ordered the brougham on Monday afternoon, and
carried Gladys off to Colquhoun Street. Clara was, like most quiet
people, singularly observant, and she noted with interest, not unmixed
with pity, how nervous Gladys became as they neared their destination.
Mingling with her pity was a great curiosity to see the young man whose
image seemed to dwell in the constant heart of Gladys. It was a romance,
redeemed from vulgarity by the beauty and the sweet individuality of the
chief actor in it.
'I shall not knock. Don't let James get down,' cried Gladys, when the
carriage stopped at the familiar door. 'I shall just run in. I have a
fancy to enter unannounced.'
Clara nodded, and Gladys, springing out, opened and closed the familiar
door. Her very limbs shook as she went lightly along the dark passage
and pushed open the kitchen door. It was unchanged, yet somehow sadly
changed. A desolateness chilled her to the soul as she looked round the
wide, gaunt place, saw the feeble fire choking in the grate, and the
remains of a poor meal on the uncovered table. The light struggling
through the barred windows had never looked upon a more cheerless
picture. All things, they say, are judged by contrast. Perhaps it was
the contrast to what she had just left which made Gladys think she had
never seen her old home look more wretched and forlorn.
So lightly had she entered, and so lightly did she steal up the
warehouse stair, that the solitary being making out accounts at the desk
was not aware of her presence until she spoke. And then, oh how timid
her look and tone, just as if she feared greatly her reception.
'Excuse me coming in, Walter. I wanted so much to see you, I could not
help coming. I will not hinder you long.'
He leaped up in the greatness of his surprise, in his agitation knocking
over the stool on which he had been sitting. His face was dusky red, his
firm mouth trembling, as he touched for a moment the outstretched,
daintily-gloved hand.
'Oh, it is you? Won't you sit down? It is a battered old chair, but if
you wait a moment I'll bring you another,' he said awkwardly.
'No, don't. I have often sat on this box. I can sit on it again,' she
said unsteadily. 'I won't sit on ten chairs, Walter, though you should
bring them to me this moment.'
She sat down, and her movement sent a faint whiff of perfume about her,
dainty as herself. And then there was just a moment's painful silence.
The awkwardness of the moment dwelt with them both; it would be hard to
say which felt it more.
'I suppose,' said Walter stiffly, 'you are getting on all right?'
'Yes. I thought you would have come to see me before this, Walter,' said
Gladys quietly.
'You need not have thought so. I said I wouldn't come, that nothing
would induce me to come,' he answered shortly.
'We are going away into Ayrshire, so I thought I must come to say
good-bye,' Gladys said then.
'To your estate?'
'No; to Troon, where the sea is.'
'Oh, and will you stay long?'
'Perhaps all the summer. How are you getting on here all alone, Walter?
You must tell me that.'
'Oh, well enough.'
'Does Mrs. Macintyre come to work for you?'
'Yes, morning and night she looks in. I'm going to make this thing pay.'
He looked as if he meant it. His square jaw was firmly set, his whole
look that of a man determined to succeed.
'I hope you will, Walter. I feel sure of it,' she said brightly.
'It'll be awful drudgery for a while,' he continued, almost in the
confidential tones of yore. 'To have so much money, your uncle had the
poorest way of doing business. He had the customers all under his thumb,
and made them fetch and carry what they wanted themselves; in that way
he saved a man's wages. I'm not giving anything on credit, and after
they've once freed themselves, and can pay cash for what they get,
they'll want it delivered to them, and quite right. Then I'll get a man
and a horse and cart, and when I once get that, the thing will grow like
a mushroom.'
'How clever you are to think of all that!' said Gladys admiringly. 'I am
quite sure you will succeed.'
'I mean to,' he said soberly, but with a quiet determination which
convinced Gladys how much in earnest he was.
'But don't let success make you hard, Walter,' she said gently.
'Remember how we used to plan what we should do for the poor if we were
rich.'
'Your opportunity is here, then,' he said sharply; 'mine is only to
come.'
The tone, more than the words, wounded her afresh. Oh, this was not the
Walter of old! She rose from the old box a trifle wearily, and looked
round her with slightly saddened air.
'Have you heard anything of your sister?' she asked him.
'No, nothing.'
'She has never written to any one?'
'No. I think she has gone to London to join a theatre. The girl who was
her chum thinks so too.'
'Are your father and mother well?'
'As well as they deserve to be. They wanted to come here and live. Had
they been decent and respectable, it wouldn't have been a bad
arrangement. As they are, I simply wouldn't have it; I'd _never_ get on.
Of course they cast my pride in my teeth, but God knows I have little
enough to be proud of.'
His mood cast its dark spell over the girl's sensitive heart, and she
turned to go.
'It is all so different,' she said in a low voice, 'but the difference
is not in me. Shall we never meet now, Walter?'
'It will be better not. If I ever succeed, and I have sworn to do it, we
may then meet on more equal ground,' he said steadily, and not a sign of
the unutterable longing in his heart betrayed itself in his set face.
His pride was as cruel as the grave.
'Till then it is good-bye, then, I suppose?' she said quietly.
'Yes, till then; the day will come, or I shall know the reason why.'
'But it may be too late then, Walter, for us both.'
With these words, destined to ring their warning changes in his ears for
many days, she left him, without touch of the hand or other farewell.
'Well, dear,' said Clara, with a slightly quizzical smile, 'has it made
you happier to revive the ghosts of the past?'
'No; you were right, and I wrong,' said Gladys, as she sank into the
cushioned seat. 'It was a great mistake.'
But even Clara did not know how dark was the shadow which had settled
down on the girl's gentle soul.
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