I made a hasty tour of the second-hand shops in Aberdeen, being wise
enough to know that if she were to find the cottage too spick and
span, Mrs. Ellmer would in a moment discover my pious fraud. Having
got together in this way a very odd assortment of furniture, I was
rather at a loss about kitchen utensils, when I was seized with the
happy inspiration of buying a new set of them for my own service, and
handing over those at present in use in my kitchen to Mrs. Ellmer. Not
knowing much about these things, I had to buy in a wholesale fashion,
more, I fancy, to the advantage of the seller than to my own.
However, the business was got through somehow, the things were to be
sent on the following day, and I sneaked back to Ballater by the 4.35
train, wondering how I should break the news to Ferguson, and wishing
that by some impossible good luck the immaculate one might have
committed in my absence some slight breach of discipline which would
give me for once the superior position. If I could only find him
drunk! But though second to none in his fondness for whiskey, nobody
but himself could tell when he had had more than enough; so that hope
was vain.
It was not that I was afraid of Ferguson; far from it. But his
punctuality, his unflagging mechanical industry, his many
uncompromising virtues made him a person to be reckoned with; and it
would have been easier to own to a caprice inconsistent with one's
principles to a more intellectual person than to him.
It was getting dark before the train stopped at Ballater, a few
minutes before six. I had to go through the village, over the rickety
wooden bridge--for the new one of stone was not built then--and along
the road which lies on the south side of the Dee. The hills were on my
left, their bases covered with slim birch-trees, whose bare branches
swayed and hissed like whips in the winter wind; on the right, below
the road, ran the crooked turbulent little stream of Dee, now swollen
with late autumn rains, swirling round its many curves, and rushing
between the piles of the bridge till the wooden structure rocked
again. Would those two delicate women be frightened away by the cold
and the loneliness from the nest I was building for them, I wondered,
as I turned to the right to cross the little stone bridge that arches
over the Muick just before that stream runs into the Dee. I stopped
and looked around me. There was a faint white light over the western
hills which enabled me to see dim outlines of the objects I knew. Just
beyond the bridge was the forsaken little churchyard of Glenmuick,
which not even a ghost would care to haunt, where now a cluster of
gaunt bare ash-trees thrust up spectral arms from the ground among the
mildewed grave-stones. The lonely manse, a plain stone house shadowed
by dark evergreens, stood back a little from the road on the opposite
side. A mile away, with the rushing Dee between, the spire of Ballater
church stood up among the roofs of the village, flanked by fir-crowned
Craigendarroch on the north, and the Pannanich Hills on the south.
Straight on my road lay between flat Lowland fields to a ragged fringe
of tall firs behind which, on a rising ground, the shell of an old
deserted dwelling, known as Knock Castle, served in summer as a meagre
shelter for the Highland sheep in sudden storms. At this point the
road turned sharply to the left, the fringe of fir-trees growing
thicker upon the skirts of the forest; a few paces farther this road
divided into two branches which struck off from each other in the form
of a V, the southernmost one leading to Larkhall through a mile of
fir-forest. Would the very approach to their new abode through this
dark and winding road depress the poor little women into looking upon
the cottage as a prison, after the life and movement they were used
to?
The private road which led through my own plantation to the house was
divided from the public thoroughfare by no lodge, no gate, but ran
modestly down between borders of grass, which grew long and rank in
the summer time, for about half a mile, until, the larches and Scotch
firs growing more sparsely to the south, one caught wider and wider
glimpses of broad green meadows where two or three horses were turned
out to find a meagre pasture. Here the drive was carried over a little
iron ornamental bridge, which crossed a stream that was but a thread
in the warm weather; and leaving the grass and the trees behind, one
came upon a broad lawn which ran right up to the walls of the house,
flanked to the north by more grass and more trees, which shut out the
view of the stables and of the unused cottage. To the south the land
made a sudden dip, and the hollow thus formed was laid out as a
garden, while the great bank that sheltered it formed a succession of
terraces from which one caught glimpses of the rushing Muick between
the birches that lined the banks of the impetuous little stream.
The house was a most unpretentious building, in the plainest style of
Scotch country-house architecture, with rough cream-coloured walls, a
tiled roof, small irregular windows, and a mean little porch. It was
only saved from ugliness by a growth of ivy over the lower portion and
by a freak of the designer, whereby one end was raised a story above
the rest, and the roof of this portion made to slope north and south,
instead of east and west, like that of the rest of the building. At
the back the firs and larches rose to a great height, the house
seeming to nestle under their protection whenever the winter storms
burst over the bleak hills around.
Ferguson was glad to see me, and welcomed me back with a cordiality
which made my mind easier on the subject of the announcement I had to
make to him. I went up to my room and, finding everything prepared for
me, told him I was ready for dinner. Instead of going downstairs, he
only said, 'Yes, sir; it is coming up,' and knelt down to pull off my
boots.
'All right,' said I; 'I can do that. I'm very hungry.'
'No doubt of it, sir,' he answered, but did not stir. 'The fact is,
sir, that knowing you would come home hungry, and maybe very much
fatigued, and that to be in the kitchen serving dinner and up here
attending upon you at the same time is a moral impossibility, I made
bold to ask an old and very respectable female that was staying in the
village to give me a little help--just for this evening, sir. She is
very clean in her ways, sir, and a most respectable and God-fearing
body.'
I jumped at the news, and congratulated him upon his forethought with
great heartiness.
'I have no more objection to seeing a woman's face about the place
than you have yourself, Ferguson,' I said cordially; 'in fact I have
just given permission to two poor ladies to pass the winter in the
cottage at the back, and I want you to help me to put the place
straight a bit for them. They come in on Friday. I don't want the
place to fall to pieces with dry rot for want of some one to live in
it.'
'Ladies won't keep the dry rot out of a place, sir,' answered
Ferguson, with dry contempt. 'However, you know best, sir, what kind
of cattle you like to harbour in your own barns, and I daresay they'll
be snug enough till the snow comes.'
This dark suggestion was but the echo to my own fears. I was so
anxious to secure a co-operation in my plan, not merely perfunctory,
but zealous, knowing well, as I did, the highly-sensitive mood in
which the elder at least of my new tenants would arrive, that even
after this scantily-gracious speech I humbled myself more than was
meet.
'By the bye, Ferguson,' I began again after a short pause, during
which he helped me on with my coat, 'I'm thinking of having the little
north room upstairs fitted up for you, as a sort of--sort of
housekeeper's room, butler's room, you know.' Mine was such a
nondescript household that it was not easy to find a designation for
any of the apartments, but I wished thus neatly to intimate that if my
mayor of the palace had matrimonial intentions, his do-nothing king
would not stand in his way. 'Now that my household is becoming larger,
I daresay you would like to have some place where you and Tim and
Mrs.--Miss--what did you say her name was? could sit in the evenings.'
'Neither Mrs. nor Miss anything did I say was her name,' answered
Ferguson, with grave deliberation. 'Plain Janet, sir; she leaves
titles to her betters. And the kitchen does very well for me, sir, and
for Janet too if you care to engage her as housekeeper, after due
trial of her capabilities.'
'Oh, if she satisfies you she will satisfy me.'
'None the less I should wish you to see her, that you may understand
it was for your better service and not for my own pleasure that I
introduced her here. I have no opinion of women, sir, until they are
past the age for frivolity, and I'm not handsome enough to go courting
myself.'
Whether this was a warning to me not to be beguiled into a fatal trust
in the power of my own beauty, and an obscure hint that in his opinion
I was in danger of making a fool of myself, Ferguson's face was too
wooden to betray; but the manner in which he gave his services towards
putting the cottage in order was unsatisfactory, not to say venomous.
He veiled his displeasure with my new freak under an officious zeal
for the comfort of the coming tenants, which was much harder to deal
with than stubborn unwillingness to work for them would have been. My
assurances that one was an invalid and the other a child only supplied
him with fresh forms of indirect attack. He was surprised that I did
not have one of the two rooms on the ground-floor fitted up as a
bedroom, as invalids cannot walk up and down stairs; he was kind
enough to place in one of the upper rooms, which he persisted in
calling 'the nursery,' a small wooden horse of the primitive
straight-legged kind, a penny rattle, and a soft fluffy parrot; and
when I impatiently pitched the things out at the door he seemed
dismayed, and said 'he had thought they would please the wee bairn.'
That old beast took all the pleasure out of the little excitement of
furnishing. On the morning after my return, he took care to present to
me the respectable Janet; he had, indeed, not overrated her
magnificent lack of meretricious charms; for in the wooden face and
hard blue eyes I recognised at once the features of my faithful
attendant, additional wrinkles taking the place of the sabre-cut. She
was his mother. As, however, neither made any reference to this fact,
I treated it as a family secret and made no indiscreet inquiries.
The eventful Friday came. I was in the cottage as soon as it was
light, making for the last time the tour of the two bedrooms, kitchen,
and sitting-room, trying all the windows to see that they were
draught-tight, passing my hands along the walls in a futile attempt to
find out if they were damp. In the sitting-room I stayed a long time,
moving about the furniture, a second-hand suite, covered with dark red
reps; I was disgusted with the mournful bareness of the apartment, and
wondered how I could have been so stupid as to forget that women
liked ornaments. I went back to my house and ransacked it furtively
for nicknacks, without much success. First, I reviewed the pictures: a
regular bachelor's collection they were, not objectionable from a
man's point of view, but for ladies----. No, the pictures were
hopeless, with the exception of huge engravings, 'The Relief of
Lucknow,' and 'Queen Philippa Begging the Lives of the Burgesses,'
which, though perfectly innocuous to a young girl's mind, were not
exhilarating to anybody's. Besides, fancy being caught by Ferguson
staggering under the burden of those ponderous works of art! I had not
known before how meagre were the appointments of my home; my five
years of wandering had given me a traveller's indifference to all but
necessaries, so that, as I looked round the study, where I spent
nearly all the time that I passed indoors, I saw little that could be
spared. It was a comfortable-looking room enough, with its three big
windows, two looking south over the terraced garden and the wooded
valley of the Muick, the remaining one east over the lawn and the
drive, and more trees. The west wall of the room was filled from floor
to ceiling by book-shelves of the plainest kind; these were filled,
not with the student's methodically-arranged collection of sombre and
well-worn volumes, not with the 'gentleman's' suspiciously neat and
bright 'complete sets' in morocco and half-calf, which to remove seems
as improper as to scrape off the wall-paper would be; but with the
oddest of odd lots of literary ware, in a dozen languages, in all
sizes and all varieties of binding and lack of binding, no two volumes
of anything together, and not a book that I didn't love among them,
from Montaigne, in dear dirty paper covers, hanging by a thread, to
Thackeray in a beastly _edition de luxe_.
On the north wall was the fireplace--wide, high, old-fashioned and
warm--with a discoloured white marble mantelpiece, decorated with fat
bewigged Georgian cupids. Above it hung an old cavalry sword with
which my father had cut his way through the Russians at Inkermann.
Close to the fireplace, and with its back to the book-shelves, stood
my own especial chair--big, roomy, well worn--covered with dark red
morocco, like the rest of the furniture. A reading-table stood in the
corner beside it, and on the right hand was a bigger table, piled high
with books and papers, cigars, bills and rubbish. There was a
writing-table in one corner, at which I never wrote; a sofa covered
with more literary lumber; two cabinets crammed with curiosities
collected on my travels, tossed in with little attempt at arrangement;
a card-table on which stood a quantity of old-fashioned silver, such
as tall candlesticks, goblets, a punch-bowl and a massive last-century
urn. A stuffed duck, a Dutch tankard, a pair of elk's horns, and a
bust of Dante surmounted by a fox's brush, occupied the top of the
book-shelves. A high plain fourfold screen, as dark as the rest of the
time-worn furniture, hid the door; and close to the screen a
dog-kennel, with the front taken out and replaced by a strong iron
grating, formed the winter home of a large brown monkey, which I had
bought at a sale with the fascinating reputation of being dangerous,
but which had belied its character by allowing me to bring it home on
my shoulders. To-to, so called for no better reason than that my
collie, whose favourite resting-place was now well defined on the
goatskin hearthrug, was named Ta-ta, had from our first introduction
treated me with such marked tolerance that I, in my loneliness, had
begun to feel a sort of superstitious fondness for the brute, and
fancied I saw more reason and affection in his blinking brown eyes
than in any of the Scotch pebbles which served as organs of vision to
my Gaelic neighbours. When I first bought him it was mild enough for
him to live in the yard; but when the weather grew cold, and he was
brought into the kitchen, he got on so ill with the powers there that
I had to take compassion upon him and them, and remove To-to to the
study, where he justified his promotion by the reserve and gravity of
his manners, his only marked foible being a furious jealousy of Ta-ta,
whose resting-place was just beyond the utmost tether of the monkey's
chain. Rarely did an evening pass without some skirmish between the
two. Perhaps Ta-ta, seeing me smile over the book I was reading, and
anxious to share my enjoyment, even if she could not understand the
joke, would incautiously get up and wag her tail. Whereupon To-to
would dash across the hearthrug and assist her, and much
unpleasantness would follow, the dog barking, the monkey chattering,
the master swearing--all three members of the menagerie trying to come
off conqueror in the _melee_. Or else To-to would fall from the top of
his kennel to the floor, with a loud noise, and would lie stiff and
still on the rug, as if in a fit; and then the simple Ta-ta would walk
over to investigate the case, and the monkey would seize her ears and
twist them round with jabbering triumph. I kept a small whip to
separate the combatants on these occasions, but I only dared use it
very sparingly; as, though its effect upon To-to's coarser nature was
salutary in the extreme in reducing him to instant love and obedience,
as the boot of the costermonger does his wife, the gentler Ta-ta would
look up at me with such piteous protest in her dark eyes that I felt
a brute for the next half hour.
From this room, the scene of most of my domestic life, I took a pair
of silver candlesticks and a Dresden cup and saucer. Into the unused
drawing-room, which I had had fitted up years ago in the Louis Quinze
style, I just peeped; but there was nothing very tempting in white and
gold curly-legged furniture tied up in brown holland on a cold
polished floor, so I locked the door again, and carried away my prizes
to the cottage, where they certainly improved the look of the
sitting-room mantelpiece.
I had no sort of carriage more convenient than a Norfolk-cart, so on
my way to Aberdeen I ordered a fly to be at Ballater Station on my
return with my new tenants. Both the ladies were already dressed for
their journey, and we started at once, Mrs. Ellmer hastening to inform
me that she had sent most of her luggage to some friends in London,
to account, I fancy, poor lady, for having only one shabby trunk and
two stage baskets. Babiole sat very quietly during the railway
journey, looking out of window at the now dreary and bleak landscape;
and I spoke so little that any one might have thought I would rather
have been alone. But, indeed, I was only afraid, from the happy
excitement which glowed in the faces of both talkative mother and
silent daughter, lest their bright expectations should be disappointed
by the simplicity and desolation of the place they persisted in
regarding as a palace of delights.
'It's a very homely place, you know,' I said solemnly, after being
bantered in a sprightly manner by Mrs. Ellmer upon my artfulness in
building myself a fortress up in the hills where, like the knights of
old, I could indulge in what lawless pranks I pleased. 'And I assure
you that nothing could possibly be more simple than my mode of life
there. Whatever of the bold bad bandit there may have been in my
composition ten years back has been melted down into mere harmless
eccentricity long ago.'
'Ah! you are not going to make me believe that,' said Mrs. Ellmer,
with a giddy shake of the head. 'Why, the very name Larkhall betrays
you.'
I believe the dear lady really did think the name had been given in
commemoration of 'high jinks' I had held there; but I hastened to
assure her that 'lark' was simply the Highland pronunciation of
'larch,' a tree which grew abundantly in the neighbourhood. However,
she only smiled archly, and seeing that the imaginary iniquities she
seemed bent on imputing to me in no way lessened her exuberant
happiness in my society, I left my character in her hands, with only a
glance at Babiole, who seemed, with her eyes fixed on the moving
landscape, to be deaf to what went on inside the carriage. I was rather
glad of it.
When we got to Ballater the little shed of a station was crowded by
rough villagers, all eagerly enjoying the splendid excitement of the
arrival of the train. A dense, wet Scotch mist enveloped us as we
stepped on to the platform, chilled by our cold journey; still, they
both smiled with persistent happiness, which grew rapturous when we
all got into a roomy fly which Mrs. Ellmer called 'your carriage.'
They were charmed with the village, which looked, through the veil of
fine rain, a most depressing collection of stiff stone and slate
dwellings to my _blase_ eyes. They were delighted with the cold and
dreary drive. They pronounced the dark fir-forest through which we
drove 'magnificent'; and, finally, after a hushed and reverential
silence as we went through the plantation, both were transfixed with
admiration at the sight of my modest dwelling. Mrs. Ellmer even went
so far as to admire the 'fine rugged face' of Ferguson, who was
standing at the hall door scowling his worst scowl. I did not risk an
encounter with him, but led the ladies straight into the cottage,
where a peat fire was glowing in each of the lower rooms. We went
first into the sitting-room; a lighted lamp was in the middle of the
table, the tea-things were at one end. I glanced from mother to
daughter, trying to read their first impression of their new home.
Mrs. Ellmer's eyes, sharpened by sordid experience to hungry keenness,
took in every detail at once with critical satisfaction, while her
lips poured forth commonplaces of vague delight. The climax of her
pleasure was the discovery of the cup and saucer on the mantelpiece.
By the way in which her thin face lighted up I saw she was a
connoisseur. In looking at it she forgot me and for a moment paused
in her enraptured monologue.
Babiole took it all differently. She seemed to hold her breath as she
looked slowly round, as if determined to gaze on everything long
enough to be sure that it was real; then, with a little sob, she
turned her head quickly, and her innocent eyes, soft and bright with
unspeakable gratitude, fell on me.
You must have been for years an object of horror and loathing to your
fellow-men to know what that look, going straight from soul to soul
with no thought of the defects of the bodily envelope, was to me.
Perhaps it was because my life had so long been barren of all
pleasures dependent on my fellow-creatures that I could neither then,
nor later that evening when I was alone, recall any sensation akin to
its effect in sweetness or vividness except the glow I had felt after
Babiole's girlish confidence to me at the door of the Aberdeen
lodging. I suppose I must have stood smiling at the child with
grotesque happiness, for Mrs. Ellmer, turning from contemplation of
the cup and saucer, drew her thin lips together very sourly.
'And now I will leave you to your tea,' said I hastily. 'I told Janet
to put everything ready for you.'
'Thank you, Mr. Maude, you are too good. We require no waiting on, I
assure you,' broke in Mrs. Ellmer, with rather tart civility.
'Oh no, I only told her to put the kettle on in the kitchen,' I
protested humbly. And, with ceremonious hopes that they would be
comfortable, I retreated, Babiole giving my fingers a warm-hearted
squeeze when it came to her turn to shake hands. The child was
following me to let me out when her mother interposed and came with
me to the door herself.
She took my hand and held it while she assured me that she was so much
overpowered by my distinguished kindness and courtesy that I must
excuse her if, in the effort to express her feelings adequately, she
found herself without words. I'm sure I wished she would, for she went
on in the same strain, making convulsive little clutches at my fingers
to emphasise her speech, until both she and I began to shiver. She did
not let me go until Babiole appeared behind her, flushed and smiling,
in the little passage. Then Mrs. Ellmer's fingers sprang up from mine
like an opened latch and, dismissed, I raised my hat and hurried off.
I had not gone half a dozen yards when I met Janet on her way to the
cottage; she curtseyed and told me, in answer to my question, that she
was taking some tea to the ladies. After a moment's hesitation I
turned and followed her, proposing to ask them whether they would like
some books.
Janet opened the door quietly without knocking, and went into the
kitchen on the left, while I stood on the rough fibre mat outside the
sitting-room, having grown suddenly shy about intruding again. I heard
Babiole's clear childish voice.
'Oh, mamma, if only papa doesn't find us out, how happy we shall be
here! Mr. Maude is a good man, I am sure of it!'
'As good as the rest of them, I daresay,' answered her mother in tones
of pure vinegar. 'Understand, if you ever meet him when I'm not with
you, you are not to speak to him. It makes me ill to look at his
hideous wicked face. There's someone in the kitchen, run and see who
it is.'
And the poor Beast, thinking he had heard enough, and afraid lest
Beauty should catch him eavesdropping, slunk away from the door-mat
and made his way home with his tail between his legs.