BASIL'S PLOT AND "MRS. BAL"
I
Will the time come, I wonder, when I can calmly "work up" these things
into a plot? If so, I foresee that I shall have to toss a coin to decide
on the casting of my own part in the story. Heads, I am hero; tails, I
am villain. But it has always been a theory of mine that ninety-nine out
of a hundred novels are unjust toward some of their principal
characters. Each (alleged) villain ought to have his motives and actions
explained from his own point of view, not according to that of the (also
alleged) hero and heroine whom he possibly tries (with success or
failure) to separate. If this were done in books, villains _qua_
villains would practically cease to exist; for it seems to me, in my
experience of life as a man and a writer, that no normal, healthy
villain is a villain in his own eyes. To understand all is to pardon
all; and in analyzing his motives in order to justify himself to
himself, he sees from every point of vantage, he knows how necessary
certain actions are which appear evil to the limited view of the hero
and heroine. They see him always obliquely, in profile; therefore they
are prejudiced. And what is doubly unfair to the poor villain, the
author of the book sympathizes with the others from first to last;
whereas, if the villain were allowed to explain himself in his own way,
not the author's, he would stand in the centre of the picture. Not being
prejudiced against himself, he would have a chance of appealing to the
readers' sense of justice.
Unfortunately for me, I have a way of seeing two sides of a question at
once, even when my own interests and those of another are violently
opposed. This is a kind of moral colour-blindness; for to be
colour-blind means merely that your eyes give you an impression of red
and green at the same tune, so that you can with difficulty tell which
is which. Both kinds of colour-blindness, moral and physical, handicap
you for success in life. On the whole, I think the moral sort is the
more inconvenient of the two. If you saw nobody's motives but your own,
you would be able honestly to detest your enemy and work against him.
You would then be happy and successful, because of your complete
self-confidence. It is seeing the enemy's point of view, and
sympathizing in spite of yourself with him, which upsets you.
That has been my state of mind ever since I was a small and
over-sensitive kid who wouldn't watch a terrier worry a rat because
something made me put myself at once in the rat's place. Wiser boys
called me a milksop and various other names, which I furiously resented
yet inwardly recognized as just. Also they kicked me at times, and
bashed me on the nose. I did my best in wild tempests of rage to kick
and bash them in return, and now and then I gave them back as good or
better than I had from them. But if I saw their blood flow, that same
ridiculous Something which went out to the rat sickened within me, and
was sorry.
I understand myself rather well, when I'm not in the grip of emotion;
but at present my eyes are blinded. I feel so intensely for myself and
for my sister that I'm not sure whether I act as I do more for her sake
or my own. Probably, however, it is for my own. And, curiously enough, I
dimly see past this brain-storm and heart-storm to some day of calmer
weather when it may still be possible to make use of myself and her,
and--the others, as "material." I don't know if I shall do this, yet it
may happen; and sometimes, even now, these disturbing incidents take
form in my mind as scenes for a future book. I suppose this shows that
the writer in me stands in front of the man. Some day I shall see myself
clearly again one way or the other.
It was going to be a pleasant little story, this Scotch romance Aline
and I had planned. I knew all the people in it intimately, and was in a
hurry to pick the lock of their prison with my pen, for they were
impatient to get out and begin to live and move. I thought Aline was
almost as much interested, though she never gets into such wild
enthusiasm over a new book that she can hardly wait to write it. She's
too well-balanced, and has too many outside interests, as a very pretty
and popular young woman should have; whereas, since the joy of writing
saved my life, it has always been first with me--until the other day.
With Aline, the mischief began on shipboard--or perhaps a little before,
though I realized then for the first time what was happening.
I have great faith in Aline's charm. I've seen several clever and
important men go down before it; but somehow I felt doubtful about
Somerled. If Aline has a lack--I may admit it here--it is temperament.
Possibly I have a touch of what she misses. And until I began to write,
I often wished to be without it. Anyhow, I can see that, sweet and
delightful as she is, a man of temperament might in exalted moments find
a note flat in the music of companionship.
Somerled has, I should think, spent at least ten years in trying to bury
his temperament under layers of hard common sense. But all the time it
was there, like boiling hot lava under a cold crust; and when Aline told
me how he valued their friendship, I wondered whether she were right,
and just how deeply his admiration of her was rooted in his heart. I
wondered if she were the type of woman he would want, not only for a
friend, but by and by for his wife; and caring for Aline as I do, I
worried about her affairs a good deal, apart from the influence they
were likely to have on the book. Still, I confess I thought as much
about the people in the story I had in mind as I did of my sister--if
not more, at that time.
Then, the night Aline and I had our big talk about Somerled, the Girl
came. And that was the end of the book for me too.
If some time I grow callous enough to write her into a romance (she'd
fit into nothing else), I doubt if I could make clear the extraordinary
and instantaneous effect of her on all those she approaches.
It isn't only her looks, though she's beautiful, as some blithe sprite
met by chance in a forest. It isn't only her youth, for she is too
absurdly young. A girl, to be taken seriously by a grown man, should be
at least one-and-twenty. She is, I believe, on the lilied edge of
eighteen. Ridiculous! Yet where she is, other women, also beautiful and
also young, are dimmed like candles that have burned all night when a
window is flung open in the face of sunrise. Something in her eyes, her
smile, the turn of her head, the light on her lashes and the shadow
under them, the way she catches in her breath when she laughs and looks
at you, the curl of her hair and the colour and fragrance of it, call to
the deeps in a man. I defy any man to resist her completely. I have
watched men in the street as I walked with her, or in hotel dining-rooms
as she came in. Be they old or young, weak or strong, grave or gay,
intelligent or dull, at sight of her the same pagan light of romance
springs into their eyes. Mysterious and irresistible as the lure of the
Pied Piper is the lure of this child who knows nothing of her own power.
She is a true daughter of Nature, but--she is also the daughter of Mrs.
Bal.
Can Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald have been such a one when she was
eighteen? No, in spite of the haunting, almost impish likeness, I'm sure
she cannot. But I think Somerled wonders, and that now and then the
relationship and the resemblance creep between him and his instinctive
perception of truth in the girl.
She came to us with Somerled on the night of our first sight of her,
leading him as Una might have led her lion.
It was a blow to Aline, a blow over the heart, and I felt it for her on
mine. She managed her affairs badly next day, but I didn't blame her. I
couldn't. Somerled and I had already lost our heads.
I scarcely believe Somerled was in love with the girl then; perhaps he
isn't even now. He merely felt the call of youth, and a strange beauty
and a stranger vitality. His life needed this call. It waked up the
sleeping youth in his own heart. It set his old enthusiasms singing like
birds uncaged. It made him want to be again all the things he had
decided not to be. It brought back beliefs in realities that he had
feared were illusions. In other words, it freed the temperamental artist
and dreamer from the spoilt and successful millionaire. But he could
have let the bright vision go, perhaps, and have been pleasantly
contented later to remember it, if--it hadn't been for Aline. Because
she wanted to part them and make him forget the girl's existence, she
took the very way to throw them together. Then, when she had done her
worst, she turned to _me_ for help.
I was horribly sorry for her, and the keen hurt of my sympathy made me
fear for myself. The girl had got hold of me too, of course. When I
found that she was going away from us with Somerled, I felt physically
sick with the sense of loss. It was as if, with Barrie gone, everything
was gone. I knew that poor Aline must be suffering exactly the same dumb
tortures in regard to Somerled, whom she had thought so nearly hers. And
that is why, when she begged me to help--somehow, anyhow--I wasn't sure
whether I promised to please her or myself.
I was able to do very little toward keeping the promise, either way,
until Edinburgh. It was there, really, that Aline and I first seriously
took up the rôle of villains--if we are villains. But two persons less
well cut out by Nature for such parts can hardly exist. We want to be
good and happy, and we want each other to be happy, and all those whom
we love to be happy; but we want them to be happy with us and through
us. This is where Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald comes into the plot. Without
her, nothing could have happened as it is happening.
I shall never forget that first scene between the girl and her mother. I
knew it would not be recorded in that poor little "book" of Barrie's,
which every day she was writing and hiding. I thought that the book,
which had no doubt been leading up to this scene, would probably stop
short at the last sentence breathing hope of it.
Not that I have seen what she wrote. It was I who put the idea of
writing into her head; but, though she didn't guess it, that was only
done to give myself the right of Mentor when I still supposed we should
all start gayly off together for Edinburgh from Carlisle. I suggested
that she and I should "collaborate." Ha, ha! I believe "ha, _ha_," by
the way, is an ejaculation confined entirely to thwarted villains in
stageland; but if I am a villain, I'm not thwarted yet.
Aline's attack of temper, which upset everything, upset that scheme
among the rest; but it seems the impulse I gave, pushed Barrie on to
achieve something literary. Only, she steadily refused to let me see a
line she wrote. The sole pleasure I got out of her taking my advice was
in Somerled's face when I teased the girl about her "work." If he had
been teaching her to sketch and paint I should have felt the same.
He is afraid of himself, because she has captured his thoughts; and
afraid of her, because she's Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald's daughter. When
he sees her followed by a trail of young men, like a bright comet with a
tail it's been busily collecting in a journey through space, he asks
himself whether this is going to be Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald over
again? He wonders if he dare believe in the kindness of Barrie's smiles
for him, or whether his portion is no better than those she deals out
gayly to the rest of us. At least, this is as I judge him, though from
the first we've exchanged no confidences on the subject of "Mrs. Bal" or
Barrie her daughter.
Somerled knew Mrs. Bal in America. I never made her acquaintance, but I
saw her act in Montreal every night of her engagement there. I couldn't
keep away--yet I didn't want to meet her. I thought perhaps if I did I
should be ass enough to fall in love. That is the truth. A good many
fellows of my acquaintance, and others I'd heard of, had fallen in love,
and had been flirted with till the lady was sick and tired of them.
After that they were very sorry for themselves. I never heard anything
else against Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald, and I don't believe there's
anything worse to hear, than that she's a spoiled, flattered, selfish,
and self-centred beauty, who expects every man to fall down before her,
and generally gets what she expects.
None of us talked much to Barrie about her mother, though at first she
was continually bringing up the subject. We knew she thought of it
constantly: that beneath all her joy in escape from bondage, in
motoring, and in her adventures in beautiful, historic scenes, there was
always that undertone--"When I meet my mother." And we too felt the
strain of suspense, though in a different way--at least, Somerled and I
felt it. I could see it often in the peculiar darkening of his face when
anything happened to suggest the idea of the mother in the background.
As for Aline, I suppose it was but natural her only interest in Mrs. Bal
should be, "How will her reception of the girl affect me, if at all?"
Aline's arranging to pick up the Vannecks at Dumfries gave her the
excuse she's been longing for ever since the quarrel, to get me into
Somerled's car, though she didn't wish to seem as if she were forcing
herself upon him. Perhaps he might have found some way of shuffling out
of it, but in St. Michael's churchyard at Dumfries she asked if he
didn't think the "little romance a very pretty one?" He inquired what
she meant. She appeared amused at his denseness--"so like a man!"--and
said, "Why, what could I mean except dear Basil and little Barrie? I
didn't know _any one_ could help seeing! But don't say anything, please.
It might nip the orange-blossoms in the bud."
She told me this afterward, because I had to know if I were to "live up
to it." And I'm afraid by that time I was ready to live up to it,
whatever the consequences might be. That is enough to explain why
Somerled without hesitation invited me to migrate into his car when
Aline had filled up Blunderbore with a party of three guests. He might
even then have kept Barrie in her place beside him, or have appointed me
to it; but that wouldn't have been Somerled as I see him, saying to
himself, "Let them have each other's society, since that's what they
want. I don't know what _I_ want, or whether it's best for her or me
that I should want anything."
Right or wrong about his state of mind as I may be whatever it was, he
surrendered to me with an air of grave kindness which put on again the
several years he had thrown off in the last week. (Yes, it was only a
week that had made these changes for all of us!) Sitting with Barrie and
her good friend Mrs. James (great character, that little woman: must use
her in a book sooner or later), I knew just how passionately the girl
was looking forward to the "surprise" meeting with her mother. My nerves
were as tense as hers--even more tense, it may be, for I was like one
behind the scenes, knowing what she did not know. I felt so sure the
"surprise" was going to turn out differently from what she pictured that
I had a sense of guilt whenever I saw her smiling dreamily. I was
continually wondering what would happen, and what she would do when it
did happen. And I had the impression that Somerled constantly brooded
over the same subject, asking himself the same questions. The happier
the girl was, the sorrier we both were for her, silently, without
telling each other, and the more we wished to save her from any
suffering to come. I knew that I could read so far into Somerled's
thoughts, where they kept to the same road as mine; but I doubt if he
were conscious of any fellow-feeling with me. I was to him only the most
deeply infatuated and the most seriously in earnest of Barrie
MacDonald's rapidly accumulating string of ridiculous young men.
Sympathy and curiosity, tossed together in an indistinguishable mass,
made a confused omelette of my emotions as we spun along that lovely
wooded road past Galashiels and into Edinburgh. I wanted to witness the
first meeting of mother and daughter, yet I dreaded it. I didn't see how
I could decently contrive to be "on" in that scene, yet I felt it would
be too bad to be true that it should be enacted in my absence--almost as
monstrous as that the world should be able to get on with me out of it.
It was Somerled, of course, who settled that his Gray Dragon (Barrie's
name for the car) should arrive at Edinburgh on Sunday morning instead
of Monday. He didn't trouble himself with intricate explanations, merely
remarking that a Scotch Sunday was a bad day for travellers, apart from
their religious conventions. If they hadn't any, others had; and those
others were the very ones with power to make backsliders uncomfortable.
They could close abbeys and museums, and they could shut the doors of
inns in hungry faces at meal-times. "Besides," he finished, without a
smile, "I took over the job of guardian _pro tem_ from Barrie's
grandmother, and I'm sure Mrs. MacDonald would wish her granddaughter to
go to church on Sunday."
Barrie opened her eyes at this speech. Probably she'd never heard any
talk of theology from Somerled, and was puzzled by his sudden interest
in her spiritual decorum. I guessed that he wanted to give her the
brilliant spectacle at St. Giles as a surprise on his last day of
guardianship, but it occurred to me also that there might be other
reasons in his mind for cutting short the tour. He might be tired of me
as a guest thrust upon him. He might be sick of the American boys, and
the soldier, Barrie's latest collected specimen (the Douglas youth also
is travelling _en automobile_), or he might have reflected that it would
be well to find out in advance where Mrs. Bal meant to pass her
Edinburgh week. He must have realized that such a spoiled pet of society
was as likely to visit admiring friends as to put up at a hotel.
We left Melrose a little before eight o'clock, promising Aline and the
Vannecks (who hate getting up early) to engage rooms for them at the
Caledonian Hotel. We had forty-six miles before us, but the Gray Dragon
bolts a mile as a dog bolts an oyster, and as it was too early for many
other dragons of his kind to be on the march, Somerled did a little
discreet scorching through the lovely green and gold and purple
landscape, past Galashiels, Stow, and Heriot. This haste--which didn't
mean less speed--gave us time for a detour of a few miles to Rosslyn
Chapel, which it would have been a shame to miss.
I wish I knew more about architecture! I thought Rosslyn a gem, and
should have described it as a thing of unique perfection; but Somerled,
who knows all about such things, said no, it was far from right
artistically, though beautiful in spite of faults. My description would
briefly be: whole chapel like great carved jewel-casket for a queen;
ornamentation simply dazzling in intricacy and delicate detail;
extraordinary pale rose-flush in shadow on stone pillars, which have the
rich cream tints of carved ivory. No two alike: Spanish spirit visible
here. Reminded me of detail in Burgos Cathedral. Nice story about the
Prentice's Pillar. I looked it up when I found we were going to Rosslyn,
and told it to Barrie before Somerled had a chance to open his mouth.
Showed her the sculptured head of presumptuous man who dared finish the
column according to design of his own, while this master was
unsuspectingly studying up ideas for it in Rome. She thought the pillar
more beautiful than the "horrid master's" work, and almost cried to hear
that the prentice had died from the mallet-stroke of the jealous
avenger. Barrie with tears in her eyes is a danger to beholders. She was
particularly adorable just then, as her hair was wet with rain (our
first rain) and curled on her forehead in little tendrils. This rain, by
the way, came on worse later, and was perhaps the original, if indirect,
cause of what might be called our villainhood--Aline's and mine.
We were pretty well drenched getting from Dragon to Chapel and from
Chapel to Dragon, though the distance was nothing, but the downpour
severe. Then, we three passengers were safely housed in the closed car
while Somerled and Vedder the chauffeur had the full benefit of the
storm. They were protected by a glass screen, but the waterspouts seemed
to find them out, and Mrs. James and Barrie were so sorry for the two
men that I felt a "luxurious slave" to cringe in shelter while others
soaked.
Vedder, by the way, interests me as a type. I thought Aline and I had
used up nearly all possible types of chauffeurs, but he's a new one, and
may prove valuable in case of future need. I understand that he was
distinguished in his remote past as a prize-fighter, then as a Cockney
coachman in London. Somerled rescued him from something or
other--prison, probably, judging by the shape of his nose (think it must
have been broken and mended in absent-minded moment by amateur) and the
look he gives me occasionally from corner of eye--like vicious horse
cowed by owner and dangerous to strangers. Barrie and Mrs. James think
him such a "quiet, nice man." It is not their business to judge
character, luckily for their illusions. My opinion of Vedder--who looks
exactly like the frog footman in Tenniel's illustrations of "Alice in
Wonderland"--is that he's a smouldering volcano. He never speaks unless
absolutely necessary, then uses as few words as possible, but his
thoughts seethe in language unfit for publication except where his
worshipped master is concerned. He also, in his way, is a victim of
Barrie MacDonald. He has mentally apportioned her to Somerled, as spoil
of battle. His vicious wall-eyes regard with distrust and hatred other
male creatures who dare to contend for the prize. If he could arrange an
accident to the Dragon without injuring it (an idol only second in his
heart to Somerled) or any one under its wing, except me and himself, I
feel sure he would risk his own bones for the sake of cracking mine. As
for my sister, he does not approve of her. In looking Aline-ward, his
face seems to become perfectly flat, like a slab of stone, features
almost disappearing, except his slit of a mouth. "Nice, quiet man! So
contented with his uncomfortable perch at his master's feet!" But--when
the slightest mishap befalls the Dragon, and his services are needed as
doctor or surgeon, he lets bottled-up steam escape. Without a word, he
sets to work like a demon, accomplishing what he has to do in about half
the time our best chauffeurs have taken. I should not be surprised at
any moment to see ears, eyes, and nose emit lambent flames. Chauffeurs
are a strange race, and Vedder is the strangest of the lot.
Drawing near Edinburgh, and encountering the first tram lines, it was
pretty to watch Barrie's excitement. To understand, one had to remember
that this was by far the biggest town the child had ever seen, so that
even the outskirts impressed her as something stupendous.
As if for her pleasure, the rain stopped. "The nice, quiet man"
uncovered us pampered passengers, and as we went on again, Edinburgh the
beautiful, lying before us like a shadowy blue and purple map, began to
take shape as a city of spires and monuments and gardens, and reveal its
unique marvels. At this moment, I had my uses. Though it was my first
sight of the Athens of Great Britain, I've fagged it all up so
faithfully for the book that I know what everything is and what most
things mean. I ventured to point out the Salisbury Crags, and Arthur's
Seat watching over the town and Castle like a guardian lion. It was all
very well for Barrie to come to Edinburgh to find her mother, but I
didn't want her to miss realizing that she was entering perhaps the most
beautiful city in the world, and one of the most historic, after Rome. I
knew if I didn't give her this impression Somerled would, and wickedly I
wished her to be primed by me before he got his chance. The only trouble
was that I hadn't enough time to make her see fully all the glorious
contrasts which ought to strike the mind at first sight of Edinburgh,
where Yesterday and To-day gaze at and criticise each other across a
gulf material and imaginary. Even though Somerled brought the Dragon
down to snail's pace, I couldn't do the subject justice, with my best
eloquence snatched at random from notebooks. Mrs. James would keep
interrupting with quotations from "the doctor's" famous unfinished MSS.
I would almost have preferred the silent Vedder as a chaperon. But there
was some comfort in the certainty that Somerled was envying me the place
to which I'd been appointed by himself. As he was driving through
traffic, and couldn't glance round, he was unable to see how Barrie's
eyes wandered from the points I indicated to others which she selected
for herself.
My dramatic announcement, that where now rises the solid gray mass of
old Edinburgh once crouched the wattled houses of the first inhabitants,
scarcely caught her attention. She would gaze dreamily at Arthur's Seat,
because Mrs. James had just unfolded a meretricious legend to the effect
that King Arthur used to sit there and watch his troops. And the dark
crag of the Castle, with its thousand years of history, its crowning
walls and towers, its chasms of purple shadow, riveted her fancy when I
would have discoursed on the modern charm of Princes Street--that "half
a street" so much more splendid than any whole street ever planned.
"The doctor told me, I remember," said Mrs. James, "that at the end of
the eighteenth century, when they wanted to build the new Edinburgh,
they had to bribe people by giving them large tracts of land in order to
make them move out of the old town, or they wouldn't budge. Sometimes a
quarter of what they presented to one man in those days is worth a
hundred thousand pounds now."
In spite of the girl's excited admiration of the goddess-town, her first
question on getting out of the car was to Somerled about her mother. "I
think, if she stops at a hotel, she's likely to choose this one," he
said. "That's why I've brought you here."
"Thank you," she answered. "Thank you for everything." Then it was my
turn to envy him.
She was pale, her face drained of colour, and extraordinarily spiritual
as she stood in the big hall, waiting to hear what Somerled would be
told at the desk. He came back soon, and announced that Mrs. Ballantree
MacDonald had engaged a suite at this hotel, but it was not known
whether she would arrive that night or on Monday morning.
"Meanwhile, I've taken a room for you adjoining Mrs. James, as usual,"
Somerled said. "When your mother arrives and you have met, she can make
any new arrangement for you she chooses."
"And you--will go on--with the others?" asked Barrie, catching her
breath in that engaging way she has when she is excited and trying to
control emotion.
"I shall go on--sooner or later," replied Somerled. "But--I shall have a
look round Edinburgh first, and see what has happened to my old haunts."
I thought her face brightened.
"Aline and I must 'do' Edinburgh too, of course," said I.
She smiled, but as if she were thinking of something else. And it was
then that suddenly, for the first time, I felt capable of developing
into an able-bodied villain--in fact, committing any crime which could
transfer from him to me the kind of look she had given Somerled.
"I must of course go back to Carlisle and my work, as soon as I have
paid my respects to Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald," remarked Mrs. James.
"We'll talk of all that to-morrow," said Somerled, who, I suppose,
engaged her at so much a thousand words--I mean, so much a day--as
chaperon for his "ward." "Whatever happens, you must see Edinburgh while
you're here. And besides, it's on the cards that I may be able to give
you a pleasant little surprise before you leave Scotland. I rather hoped
for details of it to-day; but there's nothing interesting in the mail
they handed me at the desk" (he said this like a native-born American),
"so we must have patience till to-morrow."
"A surprise!" echoed Mrs. James, looking quite pretty and young, as she
surprisingly does sometimes. "Does Barrie know?"
"No," said Somerled. "Barrie doesn't know."
There was just time to go to our new rooms and make ourselves
respectable for church, no light thing in Scotland. Aline and the
Vannecks hadn't turned up yet, but, knowing them and knowing
Blunderbore, I thought nothing strange of the delay. Aline's game was,
of course, to make Somerled jealous of George Vanneck, her old and
well-worn chattel, whom she at heart despises, and to seem not too eager
for his (Somerled's) society, while I, attached to his party by special
arrangement, could protect her interests--and my own.
Somerled had ordered Vedder to wait with the Dragon when the luggage
had been taken down, and thus we saved ourselves some minutes
which we should have lost in walking. We left the car as soon as
possible, however, and plunged into the beauty and squalor of the High
Street on foot. I annexed Barrie as a companion, and Somerled did not
fight for her. Quietly he contented, or seemed to content, himself
with Mrs. James, and my impression was confirmed that, whether he
wanted Barrie or not, he was deliberately standing aside in my favour,
giving me my "chance"--perhaps to test Barrie or me--or both. Who could
tell? Not I. Somerled is hard to read, even for a professional
character-vivisectionist.
"Are you too much excited, and taken up with thoughts of your mother, to
care about all this?" I asked the girl.
She admitted that she was excited, and perhaps a little absent-minded;
but "all this," as I called it, was too wonderful not to capture her
interest in spite of everything.
"Think of Queen Mary and her four Maries, and Darnley, and Rizzio, and
Bothwell, and John Knox passing along as we pass now, on their way up to
Holyrood?" said I.
"Yes. Oh, yes! I _do_ think of them," she answered obediently, her eyes
straying into the shadows of wynd or close, or tracing out the detail of
some carved gargoyle on an old façade.
"Only you think of yourself more----"
"Not myself exactly. But----"
"What then?"
"Well--one thinks of queer things in a place like this, full of romances
and--and love stories. I was wondering----"
"Yes. Don't be afraid to tell me. We're fellow-authors, you
know--brother and sister of the pen."
"That's it! Brother and sister, aren't we? How nice!"
"Of the pen," I amended hastily.
"Story writers must know all about love," she hesitated.
"We do," I encouraged her to go on.
"Then how, if you were writing a story (I'm thinking I may want to do
one), would you make a girl sure whether she'd fallen in love with
somebody?"
"I should make her," I answered cautiously, with an earthquake in my
heart, "I should make her feel--er--a sort of electric thrill when he
touched her, or looked into her eyes. I should make her feel that
nothing was worth doing unless the man was with her."
"I know!" the girl murmured. "She would feel, wouldn't she, as if he
_must_ be there--as if she just couldn't go on living if he weren't."
"That's it," I said. "You've described it graphically."
She regarded me with sudden suspicion. "Thank you very much," she
replied primly. "I'll take your advice and have it like that in my
story, if I ever write it. What a _wonderful_ old street this is! It's
full of ghosts of kings and queens, and noblemen and great ladies, and
soldiers and robbers, every one of them more important than the people
we see."
I couldn't tempt her back to the dangerous subject and soon I prudently
ceased to try. But she had given me what I've heard described as a
"nasty jar." Barrie MacDonald wouldn't have appealed to Basil Norman for
a definition of love if she'd thought of him as a man and not a brother!
The side of me nearest my heart hated Somerled, marching on ahead,
looking singularly attractive and gallant, much too interesting for a
mere millionaire. And the side of me which has telephonic communication
with my brain liked and approved of him, understanding how and why his
personality made a strong appeal to most women. "You've had pretty well
everything you've asked life to give you so far," I said to his back,
"but this girl isn't your kind of girl. It's my sister you ought to
want."
Suddenly, as we drew near to the crowned church of St. Giles--the old
High Kirk--there came to our ears the skirling of pipes. Barrie started
and stopped. Somerled glanced round quickly, his eyes keen. Would she
prove her Highland blood? Would her heart beat for the pipes? That was
the question in his look.
The girl was taken by surprise. We others knew what we had come for, and
what to expect. She had no idea, except that she was being conducted
decently to church.
At the first wail of the pipes the blood of her ancestors sprang to her
face. She clasped her hands together, listening in silence to the
barbaric music, her lips apart, her eyes aglow. And all this for the
call of the pipes! Not yet had she caught her first glimpse of the
pipers; but an instant later the tall figures came swinging proudly into
sight, plaids swaying like tartan tassels, kilts moving with that
wave-about-to-break rhythm given to their garments only by inspired
pipers.
Even I felt a thrill as if each nerve in my body were a string drawn
suddenly taut, but I was gloomily conscious that the Celtic souls of
Somerled and Barrie felt more than I was capable of feeling, a
mysterious something which drew the two together at this instant.
Physically, I stood between them, but I knew that my body was no
obstacle to the lightning flash between their spirits.
Not a word said one of us as the goodly company of soldiers swept by in
a rich-coloured cloud of their own music. But when all had disappeared
into the church, Somerled and Barrie looked at each other. His eyes
praised her for a braw and bonnie lassie who had responded in fine style
to her first-heard pipes, her first-seen kilt; yet his lips had nothing
to say but, "Well, what do you think of them?"
"Think?" echoed Barrie. "I think it's perfectly unbelievable how any
girl can ever marry a man who isn't a Highlander and has no right to the
kilt!"
There was one for Somerled and one against me; but it only got my blood
up. Many a girl says a certain thing, and does another when her time
comes.
"If I were rich," she went on, "I'd live in a castle in the Highlands,
and I'd have it _full_, simply _swarming_, with pipers, playing me awake
in the morning and to sleep at night."
"I should like you to see your own castle of Dunelin at Dhrum. There are
plenty of pipers there. I've kept them all on, meaning them to play for
me some day," said Somerled, who had just then forgotten, I think, the
existence of myself and Mrs. James, and failed to observe that in the
distance all Miss Barribel MacDonald's missing young men were
assembling, as if to the call of the blood--the soldier from Carlisle,
who had collected a friend, and the American contingent of four.
"My own castle?" Barrie repeated.
"You know what I mean. It would be yours if you'd been a boy. As you
aren't----"
"It's yours!" laughed she.
"Not by right of blood. Only by right of money."
"Well, that's the sovereign right," she insisted, pleased with her own
pun.
Then the victims of our miniature Circe arrived in the foreground, shook
hands, bandied jokes, and became the most prominent figures in the
picture. For the first time I was glad to see them, nor did I bear the
youths ill-will for separating me from our beneficent enchantress in the
stately church with historic banners. They had separated her from
Somerled as well.
After service was over, we stopped only for a look at the stones which
mark in the pavement the old Heart of Midlothian, and then hurried back
to the hotel, escaping the Americans, but clung to by Douglas and his
cousin, another Douglas, who hospitably bade us all to visit him at all
his houses. He mentioned several, dotted about in various parts of the
country; but when he heard that Miss MacDonald was retiring from the
party in a day or two, he ceased to press the general invitation.
There was news of Mrs. Bal at the Caledonian. A maid had arrived who
thought that her mistress would not follow until the evening: Somerled
asked Barrie, therefore--rather wistfully, I thought--if she would care
to go out again in the afternoon. "It will make the time pass for you,"
he added. I sympathized with him against my will. It was to be his last
day of "guardianship," yet he was generous enough to invite me; and not
only that, but to let me sit in the car with Barrie and Mrs. James, on
the way to Arthur's Seat. After this effort, however, human nature had
its way, and he kept her to himself for the rest of the afternoon. It
was the first time he had done this since I fastened myself upon the
party. To-day, it was evidently by deliberate intention, not accident.
It was as if he said to himself, "These last hours shall be mine." And I
wondered if indeed he actually meant them to be last hours. For my part,
I certainly meant nothing of the sort. Mrs. Bal, or no Mrs. Bal, Aline
or no Aline, Book or no Book, I didn't intend to walk out of Barrie's
life without trying to win a foothold in it for the future.
If I had an opinion on such matters, I should have said, up to a week
ago, that I didn't approve of marriage for a girl under twenty, as she
couldn't possibly know her own mind; but Barrie is the kind of exception
to prove any rule. She ought to have a man to take care of her.
Before five we started back, for Mrs. James thought Barrie needed a nap.
It appeared that she hadn't slept the night before, owing to the
excitement of suspense; and now "her eyes must be bright for their first
look at her mother."
Drawn up at the pavement in front of the hotel as we slowed down was a
big blue car, and another smaller one close behind, both of the same
make, and evidently belonging to the same people. We had to choose
between waiting for them to disgorge passengers and unload luggage, or
get out at a distance from the entrance. We took the latter course, but
at the hotel door Barrie stopped us. She wore no veil; and though it was
to Somerled, not me, she spoke, I could see that her face was pale, her
eyes dilated.
"Do you think that can be my mother arriving?" she asked in a low voice.
He looked back at the lady who, at this instant, was springing from the
blue car to the pavement, her hand in that of a man who offered
unnecessary help. It was a tall figure in a long cloak the colour of a
duck's egg, and it gave the effect of willowy slimness despite the
disguising mantle. A close-fitting toque of greenish grayish blue
covered the small head, and the face was practically invisible behind a
thick veil of the same mystic colour; but as the lady turned her long
throat for a look at the other car, there was a glimpse of banded red
hair under the toque, and a curl or two at the nape of the neck.
The two women in the smaller car also had red hair. They were not
veiled, and their neat black hats and jackets somehow advertised them
unmistakably as ladies' maids. Neither was pretty, in spite of her
flaming crown of glory; and neither was young.
The remembrance of an "interview" with Mrs. Bal which I had read in some
paper flashed back to my mind. She had told the reporter that "only
red-haired servants could understand the moods of a red-haired
mistress," and that, after disastrous experiences with "dull creatures
who had no temperament themselves, and couldn't live with any one who
had," she decided to engage only red-haired maids.
Perhaps Somerled knew of this idiosyncrasy, or else he recognized the
tall form in spite of its wrappings, for he said, "Yes, I think very
likely it is your mother, Barrie. But we can't be sure; and in any case
I strongly advise you not to try and speak to her here in the street."
"Oh, I won't till she gets her veil off," said Barrie breathlessly, "but
I must wait and see her come into the hall. I----"
Somerled gently but firmly drew the girl into the hotel. Mrs. James and
I followed. Evidently Somerled wanted to persuade Barrie that it would
be better to keep out of the lady's way as she entered, and meet later,
if indeed this were Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald; but the girl seemed
hardly to hear his murmured arguments. She did yield far enough to let
him lead her a little aside, but she took up her stand again where she
could see the blue figure enter. She did not speak, or insist upon her
own way, yet I think it would have been impossible to move her without
using brute force. Somerled realized that nothing was to be done with
the child for the moment, and accordingly did nothing, except to stand
beside her. Mrs. James and I took our places mechanically on the girl's
other side, though no word passed between us.
Never had I seen Barrie so beautiful. Though a brilliant colour burned
on her cheeks, she looked curiously spiritual. Her lovely body seemed a
crystal lamp through which shone the light of an eager soul.
A minute of this silent suspense, and the lady in the blue-gray cloak
came in, followed by the two red-haired maids carrying such valued
possessions as no hotel porter must be allowed to touch: little
handbags, gold monogrammed; a long coat of blue Russian fox;
silk-covered air cushions, and delicately bound books. Behind came
employes of the hotel, bearing rugs and other luggage; but the big man
who had helped the lady from the car did not appear. We had seen his
back only, yet the impression lingered in my mind that he was no
servant, but a gentleman, a personage of worldly as well as physical
magnitude.
The lady went toward the desk, then paused, and with an imperious and
impatient little gesture directed one of her maids to untie her thick
blue veil. The knot was loosened with a skilful touch, and the face of
Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald was revealed. For a moment or two we saw it
only in profile, as she talked with the people at the desk, and bade the
elder of her two women write in the visitors' book. Then, as she turned
away to go to the lift, we were favoured with the full blaze of her
celebrated beauty.
It is three years since I saw her last, in America, but she has not
changed, unless to look younger. She might not be a day over
twenty-five, and her figure is as slender, as spirited, and as graceful
as a girl's. She advanced more or less in our direction, though without
seeing us, and her walk was peculiarly attractive--slightly
self-conscious and suggestive of the actress, perhaps, but light as a
smoke wreath. If she makes up off the stage, she is so skilful that she
beats Nature at Nature's own game. Her complexion, with the gray-blue
veil flowing in folds on either side her face, looked pearly, and the
rippling lines of her red hair glittered like new copper. It was
impossible she should not know that every one in the big hall was gazing
at her; but such was her self-control, gained in long experience as a
beauty and popular favourite, that she seemed not to see any one. Hers
was not a morose remoteness, however. That might have offended admirers
and kept money out of the theatre. It was the radiant unawareness of a
passing sunbeam.
A few more seconds and this charming figure, framed in floating clouds
of chiffon, would have reached the door of the lift, to be wafted out of
sight like a pantomime fairy. But Barrie could no longer be held within
bounds, for the great moment of her life had come. She darted away from
us, her figure as tall, more youthful, more willowy, and more charming
than the other, though singularly like in movement and in outline. The
resemblance between the beautiful woman and the beautiful girl produced
the effect of contrast, and ruthlessly dug a chasm of years between
them. Suddenly, as they stood face to face, Mrs. Bal--who had been young
as morning--reached the rich maturity of summer noon.
The thing Somerled would have prevented had happened; but the reins were
out of his hands, and it would do more harm than good to snatch at them.
None of us moved, but we were nearer than any one else to the mother and
daughter, near enough to hear every word they said to each other.
"Oh, mother, it's I--your daughter Barrie, come to find you," the girl
faltered. "You know--Barribel. You named me. I've run away from
Grandma----"
"My goodness--_gracious_!" gasped Mrs. Bal, her brown eyes immense. In
her groping bewilderment, her blank amaze, she looked younger again, her
rather full face very round, almost childish, her dimples deepening in
the peachy flush of her cheeks. She stared at Barrie as if the girl were
a doll come alive--an extremely complicated, elaborate, embarrassing
doll, copied from herself and let loose upon the world. And Barrie did
not take her eyes from the beautiful, surprised face for an instant. In
her wistful suspense she scarcely breathed. "Oh, do love me--do be glad
to see me!" her soul implored through its wide-open windows.
The silence, falling after Mrs. Bal's astonished gasp, lasted but an
instant, though it seemed long to us who waited. To others at a
distance, others who knew nothing of the story, whose sight and hearing
were not morbidly sharpened, the little scene probably meant no more
than a surprise meeting between the well-known actress and a very pretty
girl enough like her to be a sister. But to us who did know the
story--and something of Mrs. Bal--the pause was like the pause in court
while the jury is absent.
Mrs. Bal was thinking, observing, making up her mind. Suddenly she broke
out laughing--a nervous, yet impish laugh, and seized the girl by both
hands. At the same time she bent forward--not down, for Barrie is as
tall as she--kissed the girl on both cheeks, and whispered something.
It was a brief whisper. She could have said no more than half a dozen
words, but they stupefied Barrie. She threw back her head, almost as if
to avoid a blow. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she pressed her lips
together in a spasmodic effort at self-control. The bright rose-red of
excitement was drained from her face; but she did not draw away from her
mother, who still held the girl's hands. All she did was to turn her
head with a bird-like quickness and fling one glance at Somerled.
I don't know whether or not she meant it as a call. Probably she didn't
herself know what she meant. Only, she was in need of help, of comfort,
and involuntarily turned to the strongest, most dependable personality
in her small world. I would have given all my faculty as a writer--my
dearest possession--to have been in Somerled's place--to have had her
appealing to me while her air-castle crumbled.
He went to her at once, and spoke to Mrs. Bal, who had not seen him till
that instant. She blushed slightly at sight of him, I noticed; and I
wondered whether she had flirted, or tried to flirt, in the past with
the artist-millionaire. It was impossible to guess whether she were
pleased or displeased, but evidently his appearance on the scene was
ruffling in one way or another to the lady's emotions. "This is a
surprise!" I heard her say, in a softer, fuller tone than she had had
time to put into her first sharp exclamation at sight of Barrie.
Then both voices dropped. The two talked together while the girl stood
by in silence, pale and expectant, depending on Somerled. Mrs. Bal said
something which made Somerled laugh--one of his cynical laughs, such as
I hadn't heard from him lately. Not once had he looked at Barrie. All
his attention was for the mother. She asked a question. Answering it, he
indicated Mrs. James and me.
"Oh, please introduce them!" Mrs. Bal commanded pleasantly.
This was a signal for us to approach.
"Mr. Basil Norman," she said. "You are the author, of course. How nice
to meet you! Of course I read your books. And your sister who
collaborates--where is she?"
"I don't know yet whether she's arrived or not," I explained. "I meant
to ask at the desk----"
"I want to know her. Please tell her so. And this is Mrs. James. Why,
yes, of course! I remember you--in the days of my captivity." She
laughed a childlike, impish laugh. (Barrie has one rather like it, but
more spontaneous, less effective.) "You haven't changed."
"Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. MacDonald," exclaimed the little woman,
radiant with pleasure--for I've found out that her two great desires are
to keep her youthful looks, and to be intellectually worthy of the
vanished doctor. "I'm sure _you_ are not in the _least_ altered, though
it must be seventeen years----"
"Oh, my dear Mrs. James, don't--_please_ don't!" cried Mrs. Bal,
laughing and dimpling, and holding up both gloved hands in mock prayer.
"Don't mention the number of years. This is getting to be simply awful.
Shock after shock!" She laughed again, glancing roguishly at Barrie. "I
want you all to come to my sitting-room--this very minute--to hold a
council of war. It's most necessary. You dear, pretty child"--this
adorably to her daughter--"how much more mischief have you done already?
How many people have you let into the ghastly secret?"
Barrie hung her head, and looked down. She must have known that
sympathetic eyes were on her, and have wished to avoid them. "There's
only Mrs. West and--and--I suppose her friends the Vannecks--and Mr.
Douglas--a Lieutenant Douglas----"
"Horror! Their name is legion. What a scrape. Well, I must appeal to
their mercy. Please come up with me, everybody, and we'll talk it over
and see what's to be done. There isn't a moment to lose."
By this time I began to guess what she was driving at, though the dazed
expression of Mrs. James told me that she was still in the dark.
We got into the lift and were shot up to the next floor, nothing being
said on the way except a conventional word or two about the motoring
weather. "I came in a friend's car--I'll tell you all about it," Mrs.
Bal added as she led the way to her rooms.
The two maids had arrived on the scene already. Doors were open; luggage
was being taken in under the direction of the red-haired ones; but in
the large sitting-room there was no sign of confusion. Quantities of
flowers adorned it, in tall glass vases and gilded baskets tied with
ribbons. Signed photographs of royalties and generals and judges, the
latest aviators and successful explorers, all in monogrammed silver
frames, were scattered on mantel and tables and piano-top. There were
plump cushions of old brocade on the several sofas and lounges. The
largest table had a strip of rare Persian embroidery laid across it, and
was graced rather than laden with novels, boxes of sweets, and silver
bonbonnières. Evidently the maid who had come in advance had had her
hands full!
"I must have pretty things to give me a home feeling. Touring would be
too horrid without that," she laughed. (Mrs. Bal laughs often in private
life; what clever woman with dimples does not?) "Now, sit down, and let
us discuss this desperate situation. But first--come here, Barribel. I
want to look at you."
Barrie came. Mrs. Bal caught the girl's hands, and held her out at arm's
length.
"You pretty creature!" she exclaimed. "Oh!" and she threw an appeal to
us. "To think I should be the mother of THAT! Isn't it simply appalling?
But I can't be, you know. I can't be her _mother_. Now _can_ I? I've
told her already--I had to decide in a flash. I admire her immensely,
and we're going to be fond of each other and the greatest chums. But we
must be _sisters_."
Then I knew what she had whispered to make Barrie start and blanch. She
had said, "I won't be your mother." And Barrie had turned involuntarily
to Somerled because she had felt herself unwanted and her heart was
breaking.
All this was preparing me for a career of villainy, though I must say in
self-defence that it was Aline who lit the match. "The woman tempted me,
and I did eat!"
"Come and sit by me, lovely doll," said Mrs. Bal, pulling the girl down
beside her on the most cushiony and comfortable sofa. "So you are the
baby! I haven't forgotten you. I've thought of you a _lot_--really a
lot. But you never seemed _mine_, you know. _They_ wouldn't let me feel
you belonged to me. They were so good! Of course I had to leave you
for--for them to take care of. They thought they knew everything about
babies. I dare say they were right. I _had_ to escape. I couldn't have
lived with them another day, in that awful house. But I've been oh, _so_
proper, and good, really. Even they could have hardly been shocked. And
I've hired three red-haired watch-dogs. But it isn't only myself I want
to talk about--it's you. I do think you're the prettiest thing I ever
saw--though I oughtn't to say so, perhaps, because I believe we're
alike. Aren't we, Somerled?"
"In some ways, not in others," dryly returned the gentleman addressed.
"Oh, I know the differences are in her favour--Diogenes! All the more
reason why I can't possibly own her for a daughter. My yearly profits
would go down a hundred per cent. And although she's perfectly
_darling_, and I'm going to love her--as a sister--she couldn't have
come to me at a worse moment."
"Oh--why?" pleaded Barrie, speaking for the first time.
"Because--you may as well hear this, all of you, since I've called you
to a council of war. I want you to realize"--and she gave each of us a
look in turn: a lovely, characteristic "Mrs. Bal" look--"that I'm on my
knees to you. I've thrown myself on your mercy. You've got to help me
out. The truth is"--she began taking off her gloves and looking down at
her own hands, her rings sparkling as the pink and white fingers were
bared--"the truth is, I'm a little--a tiny little bit--tired of acting.
I'd like to leave the stage in a blaze of glory while everybody wants me
and there's no one to take my place. There's only one trouble--I'm so
horribly extravagant. I always have been. I'm afraid I always shall be.
I make heaps of money, but I can't save. If I say good-bye to the
theatre, I shall want millions. I don't feel I can rub along on less. So
that means--I shall have to marry somebody else's millions, for I
haven't got the ghost of one of my own."
As she explained her position she looked deliberately past Somerled and
out at the window. This made me sure that a vague suspicion of mine was
founded on fact. Mrs. Bal had angled for Somerled, and he had been one
of her few failures. She couldn't be pleased at encountering him again
as her daughter's self-appointed guardian and champion. It seemed to me
that the situation complicated itself, to Somerled's disadvantage;
therefore--it might be--to the advantage of the next nearest man,
myself.
"There is some one," Mrs. Bal went on, with a slight but lessening
constraint, "who--rather likes me, and I rather like him--better than I
can remember liking anybody. He's got lots of money. His name is Morgan
Bennett. Somerled--you know him."
"Yes," said Somerled. "I thought his back looked familiar."
So the big fellow who helped Mrs. Bal out of the blue car (also big, in
proportion to the size of the owner and his fortune) was Morgan P.
Bennett of New York, the Tin Trust millionaire. Somerled's puny horde of
millions dwindle into humble insignificance beside Morgan Bennett's
pile. If Somerled has made two millions out of his mines and successful
speculations, and a few extra thousands out of his pictures, M. P.
Bennett has made twenty millions out of tin--and unlimited cheek. He is
so big that his pet name in Wall Street used to be "The Little Tin
Soldier."
"He has been--dangling lately," Mrs. Bal went on. "Oh, nothing settled!
I confess I wish it were. I mean to take him if he asks me, and I think
he will. You wouldn't believe it, but he's a shy man with women. I do
believe he's frightened to propose. He's bought a house in London, in my
favourite square. And now he's taken a shooting-lodge in
Forfarshire--such an amusing place: a huge round house with as many eyes
as in a peacock's tail, all staring cheerfully, and high chimneys
grouped together like bundles of asparagus. I've just been staying there
with his sister, Mrs. Payne, whom I believe he imported from America on
purpose to play gooseberry. You know--or perhaps you don't--I tried my
new play for the first time in Dundee, just one night, and it went
gorgeously. This house of his isn't far off, and I was motored back and
forth for rehearsals and so on, while the company stayed in town. I
simply fell in love with the place; and he's trying to buy it--to please
me, I _hope_. There's a round porter's lodge and a round garage: and the
round house stands on a round lawn with a round road running round it
like a belt, so that it all seems the centre of a round world with the
sun moving round it. He brought me from there to Edinburgh to-day, and
two of my maids in another car. He won't stop here in the same hotel
with me, of course, but he'll drop in now and then--naturally--and he's
taken his box at the theatre for the whole week. We must arrange this
sister business before he calls. I've confessed to him that I'm
twenty-nine, and it's perfectly true. I've been twenty-nine for several
years. But he'd hardly believe me so old. And what _should_ I do--I ask
you all--if a grown-up--oh, but an extremely grown-up--daughter suddenly
loomed over my horizon? Even if I put back her clock to fifteen instead
of--never mind!--I couldn't manage to be less than thirty-one, and that
with the greatest difficulty. Now you see how I am placed."
"Shall I go away and--and save you all the bother?" asked Barrie, in a
very small voice.
"Oh, no, no, dear child; nothing of the sort, of course," protested Mrs.
Bal, patting the hands which Barrie held tightly clasped together in her
lap. "You mustn't be naughty and misunderstand. I don't want to lose you
like that, now you've taken all the trouble to find me--with the help of
our good Somerled. But--will you be a sister to me?--as popular men have
to say in Leap Year."
"I'll do whatever you want me to do," Barrie answered in the same little
voice, like that of a chidden child. "Am I--would you like me to stay
with you here, or----"
"Why, I suppose"--Mrs. Bal showed that she was startled--"I suppose we
must fix up a place for you--for a few days. But I don't see how you can
go with me on tour. It wouldn't be good for you at all. The best way is
for us to have a nice little visit together, and get acquainted with
each other, and then perhaps I'd better send you to--er--to my flat in
London, or--to boarding-school, or somewhere. I _quite_ understand you
wouldn't go back to your grandmother at any price, would you?"
"I'd rather do that than be a trouble to you," said Barrie. "Only, I
don't think she'd take me back. But I could try----"
"Certainly Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald won't hear of your going back to
live in Carlisle, I'm sure," said Somerled, looking somehow formidable
to reckon with as his eyes met Mrs. Bal's. Then, to the girl's mother:
"I am connected with her father's family in a way, you know, and I took
advantage of the connection to make Mrs. MacDonald's acquaintance at
Hillard House, after I'd met--her granddaughter. The arrangement between
us was that I should play guardian _pro tem_. So if you want any advice
about--Miss MacDonald's future, perhaps you'll be good enough to let me
help you."
"Thanks, oh, thanks! I accept gratefully," replied Mrs. Bal, who had no
doubt already heard downstairs some few words explaining Barrie's
presence with our party in Scotland. "And you'll tell everybody she's my
sister, won't you?"
"I'll not say anything to the contrary," he promised grimly.
"And you, Mr. Norman? You, dear Mrs. James?"
"I'll protect the secret with my life," said I, laughing. If I were a
woman, I should have been hysterical by this time.
"I'll keep my mouth shut," replied Mrs. James, with pitying eyes that
said to the girl, "If _I_ were your mother, dear child, young as I like
to look, I'd be _proud_ to own you!"
"What about your American victims?" I inquired of Barrie.
Mrs. Bal pricked up her ears. "What victims?" she asked before her
daughter had time to speak.
"Four young men who have prostrated themselves under Miss MacDonald's
chariot," I explained. "All who see her do this." In adding the little
tribute I meant well; but I saw in an instant that I'd been tactless.
Mrs. Bal regarded the girl reflectively; and that uncomfortable faculty
I have for reading people's thoughts told me she was repeating to
herself, "Ah, so all the men who see this child fall in love with her,
do they? H'm!"
"They--I never talked to them about--about having a--mother," Barrie
stammered.
"And this Mr. Douglas?" Mrs. Bal asked. "Is he too a 'victim?'"
"He appears to be something of the sort," I was obliged to answer, as
she appealed to me. "The Douglas Heart, you know! And he has a cousin
with whom he's staying----"
"Oh, do, dear Mr. Norman, like an angel of mercy 'square' them for me,
will you, and all the others who know?" Mrs. Bal implored,
ostentatiously ignoring Somerled, who had too evidently gone over to the
younger generation. "Your sister, too--and her friends? Will you go and
see if they have come, and if they have, bring them here--or plead my
cause eloquently, or something?"
"I'll go at once," I agreed, rising. On principle, I disliked and
despised the gorgeous, selfish creature; but there was that in me which
longed to please her, and delighted in being chosen as her defender,
over the head of Somerled, so to speak. I was not sorry to escape from
the scene which Barrie's pale face and o'er-bright eyes made very
trying; also I was really anxious to find out if Aline had come. If she
had not, I should begin to worry about her and the poor old car--to say
nothing of the tribe of Vanneck.
As I went out, I heard Mrs. Bal exclaim, "Oh, by the way, if she's to be
my sister, she can't be a MacDonald, She'll have to take the name of
Ballantree. It was my maiden name, you know."
A disagreeable surprise awaited me outside. I learned that, while we'd
been out after luncheon, my sister and the Vannecks had come, but that
Aline had had a mishap. She'd been wearing a motor-mask veil, according
to her custom, in order to protect her complexion. The talc front over
her face had been damaged in the morning's storm, and somehow her eyes
were injured. I should have received the news sooner had I gone to the
desk instead of following Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald upstairs.
Off I hurried to Aline's room, where I found Mrs. Vanneck with my
sister, and an oculist whom George had hurried out to fetch. The poor
girl was suffering, and a good deal frightened, though we tried to
console her. As she went to the window to be examined by the specialist,
I could see that her face and hair and lilac silk blouse were covered
with a powder of talc, which sparkled like diamond dust. Her eyes and
lids were full of the stuff, it proved, and she cried with nervousness
and pain as the oculist proceeded to get it all out.
It was impossible to speak to her of Barrie and Mrs. Ballantree
MacDonald, but I told Maud Vanneck, who, though mildly horrified,
promised for herself and her brothers that the secret should not be
revealed.
When I returned to Mrs. Bal's sitting-room, I found Somerled and Mrs.
James gone. Barrie was alone with her newly found--sister, and a more
forlorn little figure than our young goddess it would be hard to
imagine. Andromeda chained to her rock could not have looked more
dismally deserted by her friends. A room had been taken for her, and she
was now transformed into Miss Barribel Ballantree. "What a good thing I
wouldn't let her be called Barbara after me," said Mrs. Bal. "We should
have had to change her whole name, and that would have been _really_
awkward!"
I should have retired at once, when my errand was done, but Mrs. Bal
would not let me go. I think, for one thing, she wasn't at ease with
Barrie alone; and for another, she wanted to see if I too were a victim
of this young person who might perhaps turn out a formidable rival as
well as an inconvenient daughter. Barrie evidently wished me to stay;
and I made no effort to conceal my real feeling for the girl from either
of them. I thought that now was the time to let myself go. Barrie was
inwardly yearning for comfort and love, and I opened the door of my
heart for her to see that it and all within were hers. I was on the
spot, and Somerled wasn't; so I hoped that Barrie might be thankful even
for her "brother of the pen." Mrs. Bal's bright, observant eyes saw and
understood.
Presently she announced that she was rather tired, and would lie down,
as there would be rehearsing to-morrow in the theatre; and though she'd
opened in Dundee, she would be almost as nervous in Edinburgh as on a
first night. Her maid was rung for. The eldest and reddest one came.
Barrie and I went out together, I longing for a few words in the
corridor, or at least a friendly pressure of the hand. But I saw that
she was in no condition to be spoken to. The reaction was coming on, and
I let her go at once. She almost ran down the passage to a room not far
away, and slammed the door.
* * * * *
Neither Mrs. Bal nor Barrie appeared again that evening. Presumably they
had dinner together in Mrs. Bal's quarters; and the heather moon shone
as through a glass darkly for the rest of us. Aline was ordered to keep
her room for the next few days, which settled our plans--or hers, at all
events. And we were a party of men dining that night, the two Vannecks
and Somerled and I, for Mrs. James "had a headache," and Maud kept Aline
company.
The great Somerled was reflective if not morose. I wondered what his
schemes were concerning Barrie, for I imagined uneasily that he was
working with some idea; and if I didn't mean to sit still and let him
cage the dove while it fluttered homeless and forlorn, I must come out
of my corner into the open to fight for it.
After dinner Aline sent for me, and her message included Somerled, if he
could "spare her a few minutes." He could and did with a good grace. We
went together to the small sitting-room, which looked dull compared with
Mrs. Bal's decorated background, though George Vanneck and I had done
our best, on an Edinburgh Sunday, in the way of roses. Somerled had
forgotten to incarnate his sympathy in flower form, and I read remorse
in his eyes as they fell upon Aline, piteous and prostrate.
Electric light was not permitted, and the room was lit only by a few
green-shaded candles which made the invalid ethereally pale. She
reclined on a sofa and wore her best tea-gown, or whatever women call
those loose classic-looking robes nowadays. It was white, and becoming.
She had built up a wall of cushions, against which she leaned, and her
hair was done in two long plaits under a fetching lace cap which gave
her a Marie Antoinette effect. This hair-arrangement interested me
scientifically, because when I breakfast with Aline in our private
sitting-room at a hotel, she often has her hair hanging down, and it has
never looked so long nor so thick as it did on this occasion. She must
have had some clever way of plumping it out. Her eyes being tender and
inflamed had temporarily lost their beauty, so she had tied over them a
folded lace handkerchief or small scarf.
"You look like a model for a classic figure of Justice," said
Somerled--"all but your smart Paris cap."
"Why, was Justice blind? I thought that was Love," said Maud Vanneck,
gayly airing her ignorance. I couldn't help thinking--nor could
Somerled, I'm sure--that Aline looked more like Love-in-a-mist than
stern Justice; but I feared that he had definitely ceased to regard her
from the love point of view, if ever he'd inclined to it.
Aline, who had heard nothing yet about Mrs. Bal, was anxious for the
story. I saw that Somerled desired me to speak, but I threw the
responsibility on him. I wanted to know how he would tell the story; but
I might have guessed that he would be as laconic, as non-committal as
possible, and that, much as he might yearn to do so, he would not
criticise Barrie's mother.
"I think she admired her daughter," he said quietly, "but being what she
is, and looking no more than twenty-five, what can one expect? Of course
the sister fraud will be found out sooner or later; but the important
thing in Mrs. Bal's mind seems to be that it shall be later."
"Is it right for us to help her deceive poor Mr. Bennett?" asked Maud
Vanneck, who is a person of earnest convictions.
I chuckled at hearing the big chap called "poor," perhaps for the first
time in his life; and even Somerled smiled.
"None of us are pledging ourselves to lie for the lady," said he. "We
simply hold our tongues. If Bennett asks Mrs. Bal to be his wife, he's
not the sharp man of affairs he's supposed to be if he expects to find
her a mirror of truth. When he discovers that she has a grown-up
daughter he'll shrug his shoulders, and perhaps never even let her know
she's been found out. I'm not very well acquainted with Bennett, but
I've met him a few times, and his most agreeable social quality seems to
me his strong, rather rough sense of humour. I expect he'll see the
funny side of being hoodwinked by Mrs. Bal. And a few years more or less
on her age--what do they matter to him? He's forty-five; and on the
whole he couldn't get a wife to suit him better."
"I have a sneaking sympathy with Mrs. Bal," confessed Aline, in her
gentlest voice. "She's conquered all of you men, and has no further fear
of you; but I feel that she's trembling in her shoes because of Maud and
me. I should love to reassure her and let her know that we're not cats."
"Shall I take her a message?" I suggested, trying not to seem too eager.
"I'm sure she'd like to get it."
Aline smiled indulgently. "Poor boy, doesn't he want me to say 'yes?'
It's too late this evening, I'm afraid; but call on her and Barrie early
to-morrow morning, and ask if she'd care to drop in on the poor invalid,
on her way to rehearsal. I'd better see Mrs. Bal alone. She may want to
say things she wouldn't wish Barrie to hear--don't you think so, Mr.
Somerled? And, by the way, now your little ward is--more or less--safe
in other hands, have you settled your future plans?"
"I expect to have something mapped out to-morrow," Somerled answered.
"You'll go on with your trip--your rest cure--I suppose, as you meant to
when we--that is, before you were saddled with all this responsibility?"
"I've been looking forward to Edinburgh, from the first," said he,
evasively.
Aline saw that she would get no more satisfaction, and ceased to risk
irritating him; but after her guests had bidden her good-night, she kept
me for a talk.
Of course she made me describe the scene between Barrie and her mother,
but she was more interested to know how Somerled had looked, what he had
said and done, than in my opinion of Mrs. Bal.
"What do _you_ think he means to do?" she appealed to me, desperately.
"Do you think he's so infatuated with Barrie that he'll offer to take
the girl off her mother's hands and marry her?"
"I've been studying Somerled for both our sakes," I said. "What I think
is, he's been telling himself the girl is too young and all that, and
ought to have a chance to meet a lot of other men. Yet he's seen how she
unconsciously attracts every male creature who comes along, and that
it's a danger for her if----"
"_Unconsciously_ attracts! But I forgot, you're infatuated too. And she
_doesn't_ attract everybody. George Vanneck hardly considers her pretty.
He can't bear this rising generation of long-legged young colts, he
says; and he calls her hair carrots."
"We'll cross George off the list. It's long enough without him, and
increasing with leaps and bounds. There'll probably be more names on it
by to-morrow night" (evidently I have a prophetic soul). "But to go back
to Somerled. Of course he foresaw something of what happened to-day: but
Barrie's face when Mrs. Bal suggested being a sister to her was enough
to turn a man of marble into a man of fire; and I don't think Somerled's
resolutions up to that point were as hard even as sandstone. He must see
now, as I do, that there'll be no place for the poor child with her
mother, whether Mrs. Bal marries a millionaire or goes gayly on with her
career as an actress. What is to become of a girl like Barrie, left to
her own devices, with every man--well, let's say every _second_ man--who
passes, stopping to flirt if not to propose? My fear is that Somerled's
resolutions are turning round the other way, and that he's contemplating
himself as permanent guardian--if Barrie'll take him."
"Take him! She'll snap at him. She shows her feelings in the most
disgusting way. Oh, my _dear_ boy! I apologize. But I have feelings
too--as you know only too well."
"I'm afraid she _is_ getting to like him," I said, "but I persuade
myself, anyhow, that she's more in love with love in general than with
Somerled in particular. She's under the influence of the heather moon."
"I'm not going to let her have Somerled!" Aline cried out sharply. "I
can't bear it. Can you?"
"I'm an idiot about the girl," I admitted. "I get worse every day. The
more flies that collect round the honey the more I want it myself. I
didn't know I was that sort of person, but I am. The worst of it is, she
calls me her brother, which is fatal."
"No, it isn't. It shan't be," said Aline. "I shall get her for you."
"Thank you very much," said I.
"I'm not joking. An idea is on its way to me. I've been seeing it dimly
for days, but its success depended a good deal on Mrs. Bal. Now, her
being afraid of me makes it easier. I can't lie here idle, with all this
going on--yet I can't let _him_ see me as I am. My eyes look hideous.
They're pink, like an albino's. Otherwise I wouldn't listen to the
oculist. But I must do something. I begin to see what I _can_ do, if
you'll go on helping me and yourself, and not be a fool."
"I won't be more of a fool than Nature made me," I assured her, "though
I may be a fool to love that girl."
"No, for you can make her care. Of course you can. She's hardly more
than a child."
"You were married at eighteen," I reminded my sister. "At least you
always tell people you were."