REAL AND IDEAL.
The little seamstress had never been out of Glasgow in her life. Even
the Fair holidays, signal for an almost universal exodus 'doon the
water,' brought no emancipation for her. It may be imagined that such a
sudden and unexpected invitation to the country filled her with the
liveliest anticipation. By eight o'clock that night she had finished her
pile of work, and immediately made haste with it to the warehouse which
employed her. When she had received her meagre payment, and had another
bundle rather contemptuously pushed towards her by the hard-visaged
forewoman, she experienced quite a little thrill of pride in refusing
it.
'No, thank you, Mrs. Galbraith; I dinna need ony mair the day,' she
said, and her face flushed under the forewoman's strong, steady stare.
'Oh, what's up?'
'I'm gaun into the country to visit a lady,' said Teen proudly.
'Oh, all right; there's a hundred waiting on the job, but don't expect
to be taken on the moment you like to show your face. We can afford to
be as independent as you.'
'I don't expect to need it,' said Teen promptly, though in truth her
heart sank a little as she heard these words of doom.
If Gladys failed her, she knew of no other place in that great and evil
city where she could earn her bread. She even felt a trifle despondent
as she retraced her steps to her garret, but, trying to throw it off,
she set herself immediately on entering the house to inspect her
wardrobe. This was a most interesting occupation, and, after much
deliberation, she took her best black skirt to pieces, and proceeded to
hang it as nearly as possible in the latest fashion. Then she had her
hat to retrim, and a piece of clean lace to sew on her neckband. At four
o'clock her last candle expired in its socket, and she had to go to bed.
At the grey dawn she was astir again, and long before the brougham had
left Bellairs Crescent with Gladys, Teen was waiting, tin box in hand,
on the platform of St. Enoch's Station.
Mrs. Fordyce accompanied Gladys to the station, and when Teen saw them
she felt a wild desire to run away. Gladys Graham sitting on a chair in
the little attic, talking familiarly of the Hepburns, and Gladys Graham
outside, were two very different beings. Gladys glanced sharply round,
and, espying her, smiled reassuringly, and advanced with frank
outstretched hand.
'Ah, there you are! I am glad to see you. Mrs. Fordyce, this is
Teen--Christina Balfour. I must begin to call you Christina; I think it
is much prettier. Isn't this a pleasant day? The country will be looking
lovely.'
Mrs. Fordyce smiled and bowed graciously to the seamstress, but did not
offer her hand. Her manner was kind, but distant; her very smile
measured the gulf between them. Teen felt it just as plainly as if she
had spoken it in words, and felt also intuitively that her presence
there was not quite approved of by the lawyer's wife. That, indeed, was
true. There had been a long and rather warm discussion over the little
seamstress that morning in Bellairs Crescent, and Mrs. Fordyce had
discovered that, with all her gentleness and simplicity, Gladys was not
a person to abandon a project on which she had set her heart.
'My dear Gladys,' she took the opportunity of whispering when Teen was
out of hearing, 'I am more than ever perplexed. She is not even
interesting--nothing could be more hopelessly vulgar and commonplace.'
Gladys never spoke.
'Do tell me what you mean to do with her,' she pursued, with distinct
anxiety in her manner.
'Don't let us speak about it, Mrs. Fordyce,' said Gladys rather coldly.
'It is impossible you can understand. I have been like her; I know what
her life is. You must let me alone.'
'I am afraid you are going to be eccentric, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce.
'I cannot help regretting that Madame Bonnemain was prevented coming to
Bourhill. She would have set her foot down on this.'
'Then she would have been mistress of Bourhill,' answered Gladys, with a
faint smile, 'and we should certainly have disagreed.'
Mrs. Fordyce looked at her curiously.
'There is a great deal of character about you, Gladys. I am afraid you
are rather an imposition. To look at you, one would think you as gentle
as a lamb.'
'Dear Mrs. Fordyce, don't make me out such a terrible person,' said
Gladys quickly. 'Is it so odd that I should wish to brighten life a
little for those whom I know have had so very little brightness?'
'No; it is not your aim, only your method, I object to, my dear. It will
never do to fill Bourhill with such people. But I will say no more.
Experience will teach you expediency and discretion.'
'We shall see,' replied Gladys, with a laugh, and for the first time she
experienced a sense of relief at parting with her kind friend.
Mrs. Fordyce was a kind-hearted woman, and did a great many good deeds,
though on strictly conventional lines. She was the clever organiser of
Church charities, the capable head of the Ladies' Provident and Dorcas
Society, to which she grudged neither time nor money; but she did not
believe in personal contact with the very poor, nor in the power or
efficacy of individual sympathy and effort. She thought a great deal
about Gladys that day, pondering and puzzling over her action--a trifle
nettled, if it must be told, at the calm, quiet manner in which her
disapproval had been ignored. Gladys was indeed proving herself a very
capable and independent mistress of Bourhill.
Meanwhile the two girls, whom fortune had so differently favoured,
journeyed together into Ayrshire. A strange shyness seemed to have taken
possession of Teen; she sat bolt upright in the corner of the carriage,
clutching her tin box, and looking half-scared, half-defiant; even the
red feather in her hat seemed to wear an aggressive air. In her soul she
fervently rued the step she had taken, and thought with longing of her
own little room, and with affectionate regret of the bundle she had so
proudly returned to Mrs. Galbraith.
'What are you thinking of, Teen? You don't look at all happy,' said
Gladys, growing a trifle embarrassed by the continued silence.
'I'm no'; I wish I hadna come,' was the flat reply, which made the
sensitive colour rise in the fair cheek of Gladys.
'Oh no, you don't; you are only shy. Wait till you have seen Bourhill;
you will think it the loveliest place in the world,' she said
cheerfully.
'Maybe,' answered Teen doubtfully. 'I feel gey queer the noo, onyhoo.'
This was not encouraging. Gladys became silent also, and both felt
relieved when the train stopped at Mauchline Station.
The girl, whose only idea of the country was her acquaintance with the
straight, conventional arrangement of city parks and gardens, looked
about her with genuine wonder.
'My,' she said, as they crossed over the little footbridge at the
station, 'sic a room folk have here! Are there nae hooses ava?'
'Oh, lots,' replied Gladys quite gaily, relieved to see even a faint
interest exhibited by her guest. 'We shall drive through Mauchline
presently; it is such a pretty, quaint little town.'
A very dainty little phaeton, in charge of an exceedingly smart young
groom, waited at the station gate for Miss Graham. Teen regarded it and
her with open-mouthed amazement. Again it seemed impossible that this
gracious, self-possessed lady, giving her orders so calmly, and
according so well in every respect with her changed fortunes, could be
the same girl who accompanied Liz and herself to the Ariel Music Hall
not much more than a year ago.
'My,' she said again, when Gladys took the reins and the pony started
off, 'it's grand, but queer.'
'It is all very nice, I think,' said Gladys whimsically. 'Did I tell you
that Mrs. Macintyre, who used to live in the Wynd, is at the lodge at
Bourhill? But perhaps you did not know Mrs. Macintyre?'
'I have heard o' her frae Liz,' Teen replied; 'but I didna ken that she
was here.'
'She only came a month ago. She is a great treasure to me. I wonder if
you have thought why I wished you to come here?'
'I've wondered. Ye can tell me, if ye like,' said Teen.
'Well, you see, I have always been sorry about you, somehow, ever since
that day I saw you in the Hepburns' house; I really never forgot your
pale face. I want you here for your own sake, first, to try and make you
look brighter and healthier, and I want your advice and help about
something I am more interested in than anything.'
'My advice an' help!' repeated Teen almost blankly, yet secretly
flattered and pleased. The idea that her advice and help should be
desired by any one was something so entirely new that she may be excused
being almost overcome by it.
'Yes,' answered Gladys, with a nod. 'It's about the girls--the girls you
and I know about in Glasgow, who have such a poor time, and are
surrounded with so much temptation. Do you remember that night long ago
when Lizzie Hepburn and you took me to the Ariel Music Hall?'
'Yes, I mind it fine. I was thinkin' o't no' a meenit syne.'
'Well, don't you think that the girls we saw there might have some
place a little pleasanter and safer for them to be in than a music
hall?'
'Yes,' answered Teen, with unwonted seriousness. 'It's no' a guid place.
I've kent twa-three that gaed to the bad, an' they met their bad company
there. But what can lassies dae? Tak' Liz, for instance, or me. Had we
onything to keep us at hame? The streets, or the music hall, or the
dancin', ony o' them was better than sittin' in the hoose.'
'Oh, I know. Have I not thought of it all?' cried Gladys, with a great
mournfulness. 'But don't you think if they had some pleasant place of
their own, where they could meet together of an evening, and read or
work or amuse themselves, they would be happier?'
'There are some places. I ken some lassies that belang to Christian
Associations. Liz an' me gaed twice or thrice wi' some o' the members,
but'--
'But what?' asked Gladys, bending forward with keen interest.
'We didna like it. There was ower muckle preachin', and some of the
ladies looked at us as if we were dirt,' responded Teen candidly. 'Ye
should hae heard Liz when we cam' oot. It was as guid as a play to hear
her imitatin' them.'
Gladys looked thoughtful, and a trifle distressed. Curiously, at the
moment she could not help thinking of the many societies and
associations with which Mrs. Fordyce was connected, and of her demeanour
that day at St. Enoch's Station--an exact exemplification of Teen's
plain-spoken objection.
'Liz said she was as guid as them, an' she wadna be patronised; an'
that's what prevents plenty mair frae gaun. A lot gang just to serve
themselves, because they get a lot frae the ladies. My, ye can get
onything oot o' them if ye ken hoo to work them.'
This was a very gross view of the case, which could not but jar upon
Gladys, though she was conscious that there was a good deal of truth in
it. Somehow, in the light of Teen Balfour's unvarnished estimate of
philanthropic endeavour, her dreams seemed to become all at once
impossible of fulfilment.
'I do not think they mean, the ladies, to patronise. Do you not think
the girls imagine, or at least exaggerate?'
'Maybe; but Susan Greenlees--a lassie I ken, that works in a
print-mill--telt me one o' them reproved her for haein' a long white
ostrich feather in her hat, and Susan, she just says, "Naebody askit you
to pay for it," an' left.'
Gladys relapsed into silence; and Teen, all unconscious of the cold
water she had thrown so copiously on a bright enthusiasm, sat back
leisurely, and looked about her interestedly.
'Here we are,' said Gladys, at length rousing herself up, though with an
evident effort; 'and there is Mrs. Macintyre at the gate. You have never
seen her, you say? Hasn't she a nice kind face?'
Gladys drew rein when they had passed through the gate, and introduced
the two. Mrs. Macintyre, who looked like a different being in her warm
grey tweed gown, neat cap, and black apron, gave the pale city girl a
hearty hand-shake, and prophesied that Bourhill air would soon bring a
rose into her cheek. Gladys nodded, and said she hoped so, then drove on
to the house. And when they went up the long flight of steps and into
the wide, warm, beautiful hall, Teen's shyness returned to her, and if
it had been possible she would have turned and fled.
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