more, but _I_ was mature in mind. I'd seen the world. Barrie MacDonald
will make you happy. You'll play together all your lives, and she can
take my place, helping you to write stories. It will be quite a romance
for the newspapers. And when she's out of sight, out of mind with Ian
Somerled, he'll realize that she wasn't the right one. He'll come back
to me, and see that I was always meant for him."
"A woman's instinct is often right. Also many a heart is caught in the
rebound," said I, falling back on proverbs. And in this way, with the
talc that entered Aline's eyes, malice entered our hearts. Thus we took
up our parts of (alleged) villain and villainess.
* * * * *
Next morning, as early as I dared, I sent to ask if I might give Mrs.
Ballantree MacDonald a message from my sister. Word came back that she
would see me at once. Five minutes later I was knocking at the door of
her sitting-room, and, obeying her "Come in," found myself in the
presence of a Vision. She was in one of those tea-gown arrangements like
Aline's, only more so. She had a cap which, I fear, would have made
Aline's look, as they expressively say on the other side, "like thirty
cents." And if Morgan P. Bennett had seen the beautiful Barbara then, he
would have proposed without hesitating another second. That is, he would
have done so if Barrie hadn't come in before he began. She did come
while I was giving Aline's message to Mrs. Bal, and though she looked as
if she hadn't slept, to me she was more lovable than ever. I tried to
convince myself that Aline was right; that this girl and I were made for
each other; that, if I could take her away from Somerled, she and I were
bound to be happy together forever after.
Mrs. Bal explained that she was later than usual because she had not had
a good night, and her chief maid, in reality a trained nurse, had been
giving her electric massage.
"Now I feel equal," she added, "to tackling the world, the flesh, _et le
diable_. Mrs. West is the world. Morgan Bennett's the _flesh_(he weighs
two hundred pounds!) and--I shall be the devil. I always am at a
rehearsal. But the mood shan't come on while I'm with your sister. Now I
must go and get dressed. I'll not be fifteen minutes. Really! You don't
know what I can do in the flying line, when I choose. You may stay and
amuse--my little sister."
I knew better than to ask questions. If the girl wanted sympathy she
could find it in my eyes, but she would resent pity. I praised Mrs. Bal,
and found that I'd struck the right note.
"Yes!" Barrie exclaimed. "Isn't mother--I mean Barbara--gloriously
beautiful? She wants me to call her Barbara, and I shall love it. I
shall love to do whatever she wants me to do, I'm sure, because she's
such a darling. Everybody must want to do what she wants them to do,
whether it's right or wrong--though she wouldn't want anything she
_thought_ wrong, of course. Just fancy, she's given me heaps of pretty
things. I begged her not, but she would make me take them--a string of
pearls, and this ring--my very first!" (How I wish that I had put her
"very first" ring--or kiss--on the finger she displayed!) "And two
bangles--and she's going to pay back Sir S.--I mean Mr. Somerled" (so
she has her own name for him!)--"the money he lent me for my father's
brooch. Barbara doesn't want the brooch. I'm to keep it. And she says
she'll give me an allowance--but she expects Grandma to leave me
everything in her will. _I_ don't--and I'd rather not, though
moth----Barbara thinks I shall some day be quite well off. I fancied we
were very poor, but Barbara says Grandma must have got back nearly all
that was lost, by saving."
I guess that the girl was making talk to show me how well satisfied she
was with everything; but whenever she met my eyes she looked away, to
interest herself in some photograph or ornament.
In less than the promised fifteen minutes Mrs. Bal appeared again, very
lovely and ridiculously young in a short blue serge dress, with a turned
down collar that showed her firm white throat. I was allowed to remain
with Barrie while "Barbara" went up to see my sister; and the ice being
broken between us, we chatted comfortably of everyday things, I
unreasonably happy because I had got in ahead of Somerled for once. It
began to seem like a game of chess between us; I--directed by
Aline--playing against Somerled. If Aline upstairs were at this minute
making the move she planned, it would be check to his queen, Barrie of
course being queen.
The only questions I ventured to ask the girl, and those in a casual
way, were, "Had she heard from or seen Somerled since yesterday
afternoon? And what was the programme for her, during this week of the
new play in Edinburgh?"
Her answers were that she had neither seen nor heard from Somerled, and
that she didn't know what she was to do during the week. She hoped to
see something of Edinburgh. She supposed we--and Mr. Somerled--would
soon be leaving for the west or north. But she had written Mr. Douglas,
by Barbara's request, and he was very nice. He might be counted on to
show her things. He was invited to call this afternoon with his cousin.
Jack Morrison had written asking to come too, and Barbara said that he
might do so--bringing his three friends. She--Barrie--must be very, very
careful always to say "Barbara" and never--the _other_. She could
_quite_ understand now how the darling felt, though it had seemed queer
at first.
By and by Mrs. Bal returned, and I saw by the light in her eyes and the
colour on her cheeks that the conversation with Aline had been
interesting. Hardly had she arrived and begun demanding from her various
maids various things wanted at the theatre, when Somerled sent up to beg
a moment's talk with her.
"Tell the gentleman I shall be delighted," she said to the hotel
servant: and I saw that she was smiling the impish smile which Barrie
has inherited.
"So glad you came before I got away!" she exclaimed, shaking hands with
Somerled. "Five minutes more and I should have missed you. I'm due at
the theatre now. The poor wretches are rehearsing without me, but I must
turn up for a scene, at eleven!"
"I won't keep you five minutes," said Somerled, quietly. "I only want to
ask if you'll let Barrie--provided she'd like it--" he glanced at the
girl, whose eyes brightened--"take a few excursions with her friend Mrs.
James and me, in my car this week. You'll be busy and----"
"I should have been delighted, and I'm sure Barrie would," broke in Mrs.
Bal, "but you're just too late. A new thing for you, isn't it? I've been
having the most charming visit with Mrs. West, who is better, but must
keep to her rooms for two or three days. Her car will be eating its head
off unless it's used, and I've promised that her friends the
Vannecks--such _nice_ people! I met them in Mrs. West's
sitting-room--and Mr. Norman shall have Barrie for--probably--the very
excursions you have in mind. Too bad! But first come, first served!
You've all been so good to this girl, one hardly knows how to choose
between you. But I thought Mrs. James was going home at once? I
understood from Barrie that she said so last night?"
"She has decided to stay until the little surprise I'm trying to arrange
for her, comes off--or on. She doesn't know what it is, but she pays me
the compliment of taking it on trust. She'll be disappointed at having
to give up the motor runs she was looking forward to with Barrie."
"You've plenty of old friends in Edinburgh, I'm sure," suggested Mrs.
Bal, "and you can make up a party to console dear Mrs. James for the
loss of Barrie."
"I don't believe Mrs. James can be induced to take any excursions
without Barrie," said Somerled: which meant that he didn't intend to
leave Edinburgh while the girl was in it and at the mercy of her erratic
parent. I thought he was anxious Barrie should understand that he was
not going to desert her. Perhaps she did understand, for she is quick in
penetration; but her own pride, and loyalty to Mrs. Bal, kept her from
showing that she felt need of protection, or even that she supposed
Somerled to be offering it. She did show, however, that it grieved her
to refuse his invitation. She took the "tip" he gave and put it all upon
Mrs. James: how sorry she was not to do any more sight-seeing with dear
Mrs. James. But I knew that the name in her heart was not the name on
her tongue.
Aline had scored. I wanted to know just how, and how far, but I
determined not to leave Barrie with Somerled. I needn't have worried,
however, for Mrs. Bal and I had the same thought. She asked if Barrie
would like to go to the theatre with her and watch a rehearsal.
Naturally, Barrie said yes, and Somerled and I saw them off in the
smaller of the two motor-cars which Morgan Bennett had placed at Mrs.
Bal's service for the Edinburgh week. As for Bennett himself, he was
apparently "lying low," by her wish or his own; but I expected to see
him at the theatre that night. Of course, we were all going to turn out
in full force for "The Nelly Affair." Somerled had taken a box, he told
me, and proceeded to invite the whole party; but there also Aline had
got in ahead. During Mrs. Bal's call upon her, they had arranged that
the Vannecks and I should sit with Barrie in stalls offered by the Star.
Mrs. Bal had (she assured us fluently, before starting off in her car)
intended asking Somerled and Mrs. James too, and stalls were provided
for them. But as he had already engaged a box, she would give the seats
to the two Douglases. Perhaps he--Somerled--would have room in his box
for those nice American boys, of whom Barrie seemed so fond?
Aline was eagerly waiting for me to come back and congratulate her upon
her great success. She wanted to tell me everything; but her desire to
talk was nothing compared with my yearning to hear.
"It's all right," she began. "I've made a bargain with Mrs. Bal. I told
her you were in love with Barrie. That's the way I broke the ice, after
I'd paid her compliments and she'd sympathized about my eyes. I said I'd
keep her secret, and answer for the Vannecks, if she'd give you a chance
with Barrie."
"By Jove!" I grumbled. "You didn't mince matters between you! Anything
said about Somerled?"
"Why, I told her that the child was fancying herself in love with Ian,
and behaving rather foolishly. And I said that Ian was naturally
flattered, but that he was the last man to marry a baby like Barrie; and
if we didn't act quickly, the poor little girl might suffer. You must
have noticed, Basil, that Mrs. Bal doesn't like Ian Somerled."
"I've noticed that she takes an impish delight in thwarting him."
"That's because he once thwarted her. She admitted as much. Or, at least
she said she asked him to paint her portrait, and he did paint it. When
the picture was finished, he gave it to her, and didn't even make
himself a copy."
"Well," I replied, puzzled, "I don't see anything in that to upset her.
Even for a beauty like Mrs. Bal it's a compliment to be painted by
Somerled. And surely it was a mark of regard to make her a present of
the picture, when he can get from a thousand to five thousand pounds for
anything he chooses to do."
"Oh, you _man_," exclaimed Aline. "And you pretend to be a student of
women's characters! Of course Mrs. Bal was furious because he didn't beg
to do her portrait and then make two, one for her, and one for himself.
Fancy my having to explain! And besides, there must have been more than
that in the affair. She wouldn't have asked him to paint the picture if
she hadn't wanted to see him often alone, and make him fall in love with
her. His giving her the portrait was a kind of defiance, to show her
that he didn't care _that_ for the original."
"Oh, well, if you think so!" said I.
"Mrs. Bal thinks so. And she's enchanted to get her revenge. Not that
she'd have chosen this way, because, of course, it's a sickening thing
to have Ian and all these men know that she's old enough to be the
mother of a grown-up daughter--and to be obliged to throw herself on
their mercy to help her out of the scrape. She laughs and pretends it's
a joke, but she simply _hates_ it. I hinted to her that if you married
the girl there'd be no talk ever about Barrie being Mrs. Ballantree
MacDonald's daughter. That should be _forgotten_, I said, though they
could correspond with each other and be good friends. Barrie would live
in Canada with you, and be out of Mrs. Bal's life altogether. And I
impressed it upon her that your ideal existence was a quiet country
place. It was the same as telling her that she'd be _rid_ of Barrie by
giving her to you. Whereas, if the girl should marry Ian, Somerled's
wife would always be before the public eye, and everybody would be sure
to find out all about her. Mrs. Bal caught my meaning, you may be sure;
and she promised me that Barrie should go everywhere with us, or rather,
with you and the Vannecks, till I can get about. Anyhow, _nowhere_ with
Ian. Now, you see, I've done all I can for you."
"And for yourself," I was mean enough to add, for the thought of what we
were doing together was not a good thought, and it brought out the worst
of me.
"I haven't any one to work for my interests. _You_ have," she retorted;
and as I'd no mind for further recrimination I begged her pardon,
thanked her gratefully, and proceeded to tell all that had happened in
Mrs. Bal's room. It was not pleasant for Aline to hear how prompt
Somerled had been in trying to relieve Mrs. Bal of her burden; but there
was consolation in his disappointment.
"Do I look very horrid?" she questioned anxiously, "or do you think I
might ask him to take pity on me for a little while this afternoon, and
sit here when you're all out sight-seeing?"
I reassured her, saying that her eyes looked no worse than if she'd been
indulging in a "good cry." She decided, however, that if Somerled came
she would bandage them again and continue to resemble Justice. I didn't
ruffle her feelings by remarking that morally the resemblance would be a
parody.
When Maud Vanneck and I went, soon after luncheon, to ask if Barrie
would walk in Princes Street, with perhaps a stroll along the High
Street, and on to Holyrood or the Castle, I found Mrs. James in Mrs.
Bal's sitting-room with the two Douglases and the four Americans. The
mother and daughter had returned late from rehearsal, and had just
finished luncheon. Mrs. Bal had a letter in her hand, which had
evidently arrived with a box of orchids, probably a tribute from
Bennett; and the lady's desire to get us out of the way suggested the
imminent arrival of a caller worth keeping to herself.
Finally, it was arranged that we should all go out together, the
Douglases assuring the rest of us that they could open doors which would
be shut to strangers.
"Where's Somerled?" I asked Mrs. James, in case he were condescending to
lie in wait somewhere.
"When I saw him last," she replied, "he'd got an immense pile of foreign
letters, and several cablegrams. It looked as if he'd enough to occupy
him the whole afternoon. Important business I suppose; yet in spite of
all, I believe he's been concerning himself with some surprise for me.
He may perhaps have news I shall like to hear when I get back. I expect
he's been telling some friend about those Stuart chairs I want to sell,
and thinks he's got me a buyer."
The Douglases took us to see the _Scotsman_ building, and the secret,
inner workings of a great newspaper. We descended from marble halls to
vast underground regions, the lair of a monster immeasurably more
powerful than the Minotaur who ramped and raved under the Palace of
Crete. The roar of this modern Minotaur was as the noise of Niagara
broken by stormy bursts of thunder. It stunned the intelligence; it
shrivelled the organs of speech like a dried kernel rattling impotently
in an old nutshell. It filled the world and made human happenings, such
as individual lives and deaths, seem of no more importance than the
snapping of thumb and finger in front of a cataract. I couldn't have
lived in the tumult long and kept my wits; but we heard of an employé
who, when some tooth or nail in the enormous monster smote him, could
not bear to stop away long enough to complete his cure, because he was
unable to bear the "awful stillness" of the hospital. Persons of
impregnable nerve-power let us deeper and deeper into the bowels of the
earth, showing us the dragon's brood, and his terrible wife whose
business it is not only to print the newspaper, but to cut its sheets,
and eventually to lay them like eggs, at the rate of thousands a minute:
a most appalling creature she, who so battered my brain with her
accomplishments and the wild cackle she made over them, that weakly I
let Barrie be snatched from me by Donald Douglas.
In the roar and rush and riot I was incapable of caring, though vaguely
I recalled the fact that I had come out with the sole object of annexing
the girl's society. Vaguely too, though only vaguely, I resented the
Douglas method; but I had my revenge almost before I recovered sense
enough to want it. There came, I know not why or how (perhaps one of the
masters decreed it, to strike our ears with the contrast), a sudden
unexpected lull. It was only a comparative lull, and it lasted no more
than a few seconds; but there was time enough to hear Douglas yell into
Barrie's ear, "I must have you for my own."
The next instant he was purple through his soldier-tan. He knew the
dragon and the dragon's wicked wife had betrayed him, as he took
advantage of their domestic clamour to speak in a crowd as though he
were alone with his love in the desert. What Barrie answered, or if she
had breath to answer, none of us could guess, though all, especially the
four Americans, were bursting with anxiety to know. Later, however, when
we went up to the Castle (anything but the Castle, with its thousand
years of history, would have been an anticlimax after that wonderful
dragon cave), Donald Douglas walked meekly with his cousin, leaving
Barrie to Jack Morrison. As for me, I had temporarily lost my
individuality, and with that roar still echoing through my brain,
vibrating through my nerves, I was glad to crawl along, talking to
nobody, and picking up dropped or untied bits of myself as I went. For
the moment, frankly I didn't care how many men proposed to Barrie, or
whether she accepted them all. But afterward, it was different. It
occurred to me that Jack Morrison was not only a handsome and gallant
fellow, but said to be very rich, at least as rich as Somerled, and ten
years younger. Aline and I might be mistaken about the girl's feelings
for Ian. Very likely it was no more than a romantic sort of gratitude;
and though I absolved the child from the smallest taint of mercenary
motive, it was almost impossible that a sleepless night had not given
her some wise counsel. She was too sensitive and quick-witted a girl, I
reflected, not to have seen that she could not go on living with her
mother, and that it was a necessity to find a niche somewhere. All these
young men saw this also, though they knew no more than the fact that
they were prayed to consider Mrs. Bal an elder sister of "Miss
Ballantree," therefore they were hastening to offer her sheltering
niches, more or less desirable. In other circumstances, they would have
waited a few days, long enough at least for Barrie to know which was
which, and get their features and some of their characteristics ticketed
with the right labels; but as it was, each saw he had no time to waste
if he didn't want his friend or foe to get in ahead of him. While we
were at the Castle, looking at Mons Meg (which recalled Thrieve) and the
banqueting-hall of armour with its faded banners and fadeless memories;
gaping at the mysterious place over the entrance door where, in a
bricked-up alcove, a baby skeleton was found wrapped in cloth of gold
embroidered with a royal monogram; walking through the wainscoted room
where Mary of Guise died; gazing at the long mislaid crown of Bruce
("the Honours of Scotland"); seeing sweet Queen Margaret's Chapel where
the Black Rood lay till it went in state down the hill to make Holyrood
holy; peering at the wall-stairway down which the Douglas boys were
dragged after the "black dinner"; admiring the kilted soldiers; and
drinking in the view over hill and valley and mountains, towns and
nestling villages, the vast, colourful checkerboard of beautiful Mary
Stuart's journeys, flights and fightings: while beholding treasures and
splendours which are as the red drops of Scotland's heart's blood, man
after man took his place at Barrie's side and became her cicerone. Each
talked with her awhile, and after a few brief minutes allowed a change
of partners, the discarded one humbly retiring to Mrs. James's side. It
was really funny; or at least so it seemed until enough self-assertion
came back to admit of my entering the lists. Then I promptly lost my
sense of humour, and had no wish to look for it. I wanted only to look
at Barrie, who was unusually flushed and bright of eye.
By this time there wasn't much left to tell her about the Castle or the
Castle Rock. When I began to work off my erudition by mentioning the
name of Edwin, for whom Edinburgh was named, and who made it a royal
borough in the eleventh century, she said:
"Oh, Mr. Douglas's cousin, the other Douglas, told me that!"
When I related the tale of that gallant Francis who was able to lead Sir
Thomas Randolph and thirty soldiers up the perilous rocks to surprise
the Castle at night, having learned the way when sweethearting down in
the Grass-market, Barrie confessed that she had heard the story already.
Jack Morrison had found it in some old book he had bought at the shop
under John Knox's house, in the High Street. There was no use trying to
work up or classify historic thrills for her in this vast heart of
Scotland; she had been given them all, with generous additional thrills
from private hearts, Scottish and American.
"Has every single one of those chaps proposed to you?" I flung the
question in her face. "You might tell your Mentor."
"Oh, not Donald Douglas's cousin!" she answered hastily. "He's engaged
to some one in the Highlands."
"Good heavens, then all the rest _have_ done it, in a bunch!"
"I think you're _horrid_!" she said indignantly. "I've always heard that
girls don't tell such things to any one."
"They do to their brothers--of the pen, if they have any such. Besides,
you don't need to tell. I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes where people
I--like, are concerned, and I know what's been happening to you this
afternoon. A manna-rain of proposals, in the wilderness of Edinburgh
Castle. Many girls would have accepted them all, and then sorted them
out to see which they liked best; but I have a shrewd idea from the look
of the gentlemen's backs that they are now one and all your adopted
brethren."
"It's almost wicked to joke on such a subject," Barrie reproached me,
trying not to laugh, "and it's not nice of you to make fun of them, just
because you consider yourself superior, as an author who is always
analyzing people's minds and motives. It's not as if they were so much
in love with me that they had to propose in a hurry for their own sakes.
It's not that _at all_; but only because they thought it wouldn't be
very convenient for--Barbara to have me live with her, travelling about
so much, or if she should marry. So they felt as if something ought to
be _done_ for me, you know, as soon as possible."
"Sainted, unselfish young men!" I murmured. "But I don't consider myself
superior, as it happens. I'd do the same thing in a minute if I thought
there were the faintest chance of your giving me an answer different
from theirs. Is there?"
"Don't talk nonsense!" she exclaimed. "But of course, I'm happy to say,
I know you don't mean it."
"Well, if you're happy to say that, I'll leave you your fond illusions
for the present," I returned. "But, as girl to man, tell me; don't you
rather like being proposed to?"
"It's very exciting," she admitted. "I never expected, somehow, that
such a thing could happen to me."
"Oh, didn't you? Why not?"
"Well, there's my red hair, which I always thought was _fatal_, until I
saw my mother's portrait--and heard Mr. Somerled say he liked painting
red-haired women."
"Red hair _can_ be fatal, though not in the way you appear to mean,"
said I. "Which thrilled you more, the Castle or the proposals?"
"Oh, the Castle, of course!" she answered scornfully. "After the first
one or two, they seemed like interruptions."
All five of my rivals (there might have been six, had it not been for
the girl in the Highlands) having had their medicine, I was allowed
almost as much as I wanted of Barrie's society during the walk down from
the Castle Rock, and to Holyrood. Together she and I walked through that
most romantic royal house of all the world; and long as I may live,
never shall I forget those hours. Chestnut-tressed Mary herself could
not have been lovelier than the red-haired girl who walked beside me,
and when the royal beauty came on a day of chill, northern haar, to her
Scottish realm, she was only a year older than this child we all love
but think too young for love. Yet already, at nineteen, Mary was a
King's widow, and had been Queen of France.
It was of Barrie's romance, Barrie's future, I thought most, as we
wandered side by side through the haunted rooms where Mary danced and
loved and suffered, where her grandson Charles I of England came, and
left his ruby Coronation ring for remembrance, and where Prince Charlie,
her far-off descendant, made hearts flutter at the great ball given in
his honour. But it was the past which had all Barrie's thoughts, unless
she sent a few to the man who had stayed at home reading his letters,
instead of following in her train.
We looked at Queen Mary's bed with its tattered splendour of brocade:
the box filled with relics of her short reign in Holyrood: her neat
embroideries, her tear bottle, and Darnley's glove, which Barrie thought
Mary would not like to have kept with the other things: and then, having
saved the best for the last, I took the girl up to the little
supper-room where Rizzio was murdered. Barrie gazed at everything in
silence: and now we could both be silent when we liked, for the
chastened ones had meekly trooped off to show Mrs. James the Abbey, or
Royal Chapel, where Mary and Darnley were married, and where a hundred
things had happened, things connected with others whose romances were as
poignant if less well remembered here, than hers.
We had come up the secret stairway in the wall, because I wanted Barrie
to miss no thrill this place could give; but it was not the thought of
the murder-scene which most caught her imagination. She listened to my
dramatic version of the tragedy of the room, and of the dark closet
where Rizzio tried to hide, and shuddered a little; but soon she was
drawn, as if beckoned by an unseen hand, to the bevelled mirror with
scalloped edge, which Mary brought with her to Scotland from France, a
dim oval full of memories, may be, of dear, dead days at Amboise and
Chenonceaux.
"What does that poor piece of blurred glass make you think of so
intently?" I asked, when Barrie had stood silently staring down the
veiled vista of mystery for many minutes. "You look like a young modern
Cassandra, crystal gazing."
"So I am!" the girl almost whispered. "I'm trying to see something in
the mirror--the things _she_ saw in it--or to see her eyes looking into
mine. If anything can be haunted, it is this mirror. Think of what has
passed before it. But do you know, I don't believe it has ever really
intelligently seen anything since the day Queen Mary went away from
Holyrood. I feel she ran here, to take one last look into her mirror,
and to bid it farewell as she bade farewell to France, gazing and gazing
as the land faded from her sight forever. Then, when she'd gone, the
glass she loved grew dim as it is now, and _blind_ because it could no
longer give back the brightness of her eyes. There's nothing left in it
now but sad dreams and memories of the past."
"Did you ever," I asked, "go down into the cellar at midnight on All
Hallow E'en with a candle and a mirror and wish to see the face of your
future husband?"
"No, indeed," Barrie answered emphatically; "we had no such tricks at
Hillard House."
"Now, in this mirror, if any in the world, you might be able to see such
a vision, not only at midnight, but on an ordinary afternoon, like this
for instance," said I. "Suppose you stop thinking of Queen Mary for a
minute and concentrate on yourself. Wish with all your heart for the
face of the man you'll love, the man you'll marry, to appear under this
clouded surface of glass."
Barrie looked somewhat impressed by my mysterious tone as well as the
overwhelming romance of her surroundings. She put her face close to the
mirror, and I was about to profit by the situation I'd led up to when
some one stepped between us and looked over the girl's shoulder. It was
Somerled, who must have come in just in time to overhear my advice, and
take advantage of it for himself. But he could not wholly blot me out of
the mirror. Both our faces were there, to be seen by Barrie, "as in a
glass darkly." She gave a little cry of surprise, and wheeled round to
smile at Somerled.
"You came after all!" she exclaimed, forgetting or pretending to forget
the solemn rite which had engaged us. But I must admit I was in a mood
to be almost superstitious about it. I had prophesied to the girl that
she would see reflected the face of the man she was destined to love and
marry. An instant later she had seen two faces, Somerled's and mine.
Would she love one man, and marry the other? Or would only one of these
two men count in her life?
Perhaps Queen Mary's mirror knew. It looked capable of knowing--and
keeping--any secret of the human heart.
* * * * *
That night--oh, my prophetic soul!--Morgan Bennett saw Barrie at the
theatre, and looked at her through his opera-glasses almost as often as
he looked at Mrs. Bal in her gay, exciting comedy-drama, "The Nelly
Affair." The play had been written for the actress and suited her
exactly. In fact its whole success was made by her magnetic personality,
her beauty, and her dresses. She scarcely left the stage, and had
something to do or say every minute, yet I noticed that she found
opportunities to observe where Bennett's eyes were straying. As for
Barrie, she saw nothing, heard nothing, thought of nothing, but her
mother, glorious Barbara, who for this evening was Nelly Blake, a girl
of eighteen, seeming not a day older. Barrie, in a white dress, with her
hair in two long braids (Mrs. Bal thought she was too young to wear it
done up), sat among us in an ecstasy. Was ever any one so beautiful, so
clever, so altogether marvellous as darling Barbara? This was as it
should be; and we who knew the girl, knowing that she had never before
seen a play, nor the inside of a theatre, thought her pathetic; but
Morgan Bennett, who did not know her, merely thought her pretty and
wondered how he could get to know her. The very flash of his
opera-glasses was interested and eager; and when I proudly took the girl
behind the scenes to compliment Mrs. Bal after the first act, I was far
from surprised to see Bennett appear almost immediately in the same
mystic region. Barrie and I were with Barbara in a little room which she
intended to use as a boudoir for the week of her engagement; and when an
employé of the theatre announced Mr. Bennett, she looked annoyed. For an
instant she hesitated visibly; but as he was probably aware that she had
visitors, there was no good excuse for sending him away. Part of Mrs.
Bal's success with men consists in knowing what kind of snubs they will
meekly endure from a lovely spoiled woman, what kind they neither forget
nor forgive. She sent word to Mr. Bennett that he might come in.
He accepted the invitation promptly, and Barbara, with quick presence of
mind, introduced him to her little "sister Barribel."
"Barribel! That's a pretty name," he said, shaking hands with Barrie,
his eyes on her face. "Miss Barribel Ballantree, I suppose."
"You may suppose so!" returned Mrs. Bal, laughing.
"I saw this young lady sitting out in front," he went on, instead of
congratulating the actress at once on the success of the first act,
which had "gone" splendidly with the large audience. "I said to myself
there must be a relationship between you two: and I was wondering."
"Well, you needn't bother to wonder any more," broke in Mrs. Bal, very
gay but slightly shrill. "I must have spoken to you about Barrie?"
"'Barrie' is what you call her?" said he, smiling at the girl. "That's a
very nice pet name, and suits her, somehow. You surely never spoke of
your sister to me. I shouldn't have forgotten." He added the last words
with a look intended as a compliment for Barrie; and any woman wishing
to monopolize his attention exclusively might have been pardoned for
thinking that he had looked at her more than often enough in the
circumstances. In his big way he is attractive, to certain types of
women, very attractive indeed, and I could understand that his millions
might not be his only charm for Mrs. Bal. He has eyes which can be
fierce as an eagle's; the strong, almost cruel jaw of the predestined
millionaire who will mount to success at any cost; a pleasure-loving
mouth, and--when he is pleased--a boyish smile. When he is severely
displeased, I shouldn't care to be there to see him, especially if he
were displeased with me. But I suspect Mrs. Bal to be one of those women
who could not love a man unless she were afraid of him. In that may have
lain the secret of Somerled's former fascination for her, if it existed.
"If I've forgotten to mention Barrie, it's because I'm always talking
about _you_, when we're together," Mrs. Bal excused herself with dainty
impertinence of the sort Bennett will stand from her. "If it isn't about
you, it's about your motors--or some affair of yours."
"I thought you, and _your_ affairs were generally the subject of our
conversations," retorted the big man, still looking more at the young
girl than at the woman. "Miss Ballantree is your affair----"
"She has only just become so," Barbara hurried to explain. "Her
grandmother, who thoroughly disapproves of me and all actresses, has
kept the child shut up in a moated grange all her life. It's a wonder I
didn't forget her existence! She _had_ begun to seem like a sort of
dream-sister, until she suddenly dropped in on me yesterday, and
announced that she'd run away from home. I'm simply enchanted to have
the darling with me, for my own sake, or I should be if I hadn't such a
beautiful, unselfish nature that I find I worry myself into fits about
her when she's out of my sight. To-night I couldn't half act, because I
was thinking about her all the time, and wondering what on earth I could
do to make her happy. I foresee I shan't be able to study or rehearse or
anything, while she's getting into mischief in a big hotel. I shall send
her away though to-morrow, for a few days, with some _very_ dear friends
of hers, who will give her a good time until I settle down and feel at
home with this new play--in which, by the way, you don't seem to take
the _slightest_ interest. You haven't said a word about it, or how it
went, or how I acted."
"You know better than that----" Bennett was beginning when Barrie (to
whom, despite his size, he was a figure of no importance) broke in
without being aware that he was speaking.
"Oh, Barbara, you won't make me go _to-morrow_; You promised----"
"If she promised, we must make her stick to her promise," said Bennett,
forgiving the interruption, and perhaps willing to tease Mrs. Bal.
The beautiful Barbara, however, had gathered together her scattered
wits, and was too wise to show that she was being teased. "I know, I
meant to keep you with me this Edinburgh week anyhow," she answered the
girl. "But, sweetest, you won't want to hold me to the promise, no
matter what Mr. Bennett or any one else says, if I tell you that I'm
worrying over your being here? I don't feel it's the right thing for
you. And it's certain Grandma will change her will if she hears you're
living with me. It's a miracle I didn't dry up in my part to-night from
sheer anxiety and absent-mindedness. You'd hate me to _fail_ through
you, dear one, I know."
"Oh, yes--anything but that," Barrie exclaimed, tears in her eyes.
Alas, if only some other name than that of M. P. Bennett had added
itself to her list of admirers, all might have been well for Barrie with
sister Barbara, at least for a little while! As it was, the girl's fate
was sealed. So much the better for me: yet my fool of a heart ached for
her disappointment, instead of leaping for joy at my own good luck.
Mrs. Bal looked at the girl with an odd expression on her charming face,
painted for the stage. There was compunction, if not remorse, in the big
brown eyes, but there was no relenting. She liked Barrie and enjoyed her
childish adoration, but she loved herself, and she wanted to "land"
Morgan Bennett. The girl would have to be sacrificed; still, those
rising tears gave Barbara pain to see. She would really have been glad
to make Barrie happy, if the creature's youth and beauty had not been an
hourly peril for her.
"Don't look so disconsolate, dear," she said. "You're going to have a
glorious time. And if wet eyelashes are a compliment to me, they're just
the opposite to Mr. Norman."
"Is it Mr. Norman the novelist?" Bennett wanted to know.
"Yes. And he's going to let Barrie help him with a story--or else he's
putting her into one, I'm not quite sure which."
Barbara threw him this bit of information with a sweetly casual air, but
it was one of the cleverest things she ever did, on the stage or off.
Somehow, with a smile that flashed over us all with a special meaning
for each--affection for Barrie, a benediction for me, and a secret
understanding for Bennett--she contrived to convey to him the idea that
her little sister was already bespoken. No use his being led away by
rosebud innocence! It was engaged, and if he were wise he would be true
to his love for the full-blown rose.
"Just think, pet, what an honour to be taken about by such famous people
as Basil Norman and Aline West," she went on, "and to have them for your
best friends. You'd have had a horrid dull time with them gone, for I
should have had to leave you alone a lot. And next week, when they bring
you back to me at Glasgow, your future will be all beautifully
arranged."
"But Mrs. West isn't well enough to go to-morrow----" Barrie pleaded.
"No. But Mrs. Vanneck will chaperon you for a few days. You ought to be
frightfully happy, seeing Scotland with those you love while your poor
Barbara works for her daily bread. And now you must go out in front
again with Mr. Norman, if you don't want to miss the beginning of the
second act. Mr. Bennett has seen it, so he can stop with me five minutes
if he likes, till my call."
Barrie had been at rehearsal, and would no doubt have been quite willing
to miss any part of the play not graced by Mrs. Bal's presence on the
stage; but short as was the time since she made her mother's
acquaintance, she had learned to know the lady well enough to realize
when she was not wanted. She went with me like a lamb resigned to the
slaughter; and so, I was sure, would she start with us next day. But
just here, I think, is the place to write down what had meanwhile
happened to Mrs. James. If it hadn't been for that happening, perhaps we
should not, after all, have snatched the girl away so easily from
Somerled. And the funny thing was--for it had its funny side, as even he
must have seen--the funny thing was, that all was his own fault. When he
planned that wonderful surprise for Mrs. James, he little thought it
would be the means of stealing his trump card from him. Generous he may
be, and is, I must admit; but it's not likely that he would have been
unselfish enough to put himself in a hole for Mrs. James's happiness,
especially as he could have got just as much credit from Barrie by
waiting a few weeks--say, until the end of the "heather moon."
To have brought in the "surprise" in its proper order, I should have
worked it into my notes between our sight-seeing expedition in the
afternoon, and the theatre in the evening, for it was common property by
that time. We all knew (from Mrs. James, not from himself), what a noble,
magnificent, wonderful, glorious, altogether pluperfect fellow Somerled
was, to have interested himself in her behalf, and to have given her
such happiness as all her friends had thought her mad to dream of
through the dreary years.
Always, it seems, she believed that her husband, who disappeared
seventeen years ago, was alive, and only waiting for success to crown
his ambitions, before returning to her. Everybody else thought he had
drowned himself, because of some professional trouble. But Mrs. James's
faith has been the great romance of her life; and Barrie (or the little
woman herself, I don't know which) told Somerled the story the day they
left Carlisle in his car. Some details caught his attention, and made
him wonder if Mrs. James's instinct were not more right than other
people's reason.
When Somerled went to America as a boy, he travelled in the steerage. On
board the same ship was a man calling himself James Richard, a man of
something over thirty, in whom Somerled became interested. They made
friends, though they gave each other no intimate confidences; and James
Richard made one or two remarks which suggested that he had been a
doctor. Evidently he was a man of culture, interested in many things,
including chemistry and Scottish history. After landing in New York the
two met occasionally by appointment, and the older man spoke of an
invention which, if he could get the help of some millionaire to perfect
it, ought to make his fame and fortune, and revolutionize anaesthetics;
but Somerled had thought little of this at the time. So many men he met
in those days had queer fads by means of which they hoped to achieve
glory. Soon, even before he himself reached success, Somerled and James
Richard drifted apart. The rising artist forgot the ship-acquaintance
with whom, owing to the difference in their ages and interests, he had
never had more than casual acquaintance. It was not until he heard the
story of Mrs. James's husband, the clever doctor who loved Scottish
history and had invented a new anaesthetic just before disappearing
seventeen years ago, that he remembered his shipmate, James Richard.
Then he recalled his appearance; and the descriptions tallied. A scar on
the forehead was a distinguishing mark with the man supposed to have
drowned himself and the man who had travelled to America in the
steerage. Somerled cabled at once to New York, instructing a firm of
private detectives to trace James Richard, an Englishman, probably a
doctor, who had landed in New York from a certain ship on a certain
date.
The first reply was not very encouraging. The man had left New York many
years ago, and no one knew where he had gone. But the next cablegram
brought news that James Richard, or some one answering to the name and
description had been tracked to Chicago. There he had practised as a
doctor with some success, but had fallen seriously ill, had given up his
business, and had again disappeared. The detective "on the job" was
going to Colorado to look for him, as the climate of that state had been
recommended to Richard by a fellow practitioner.
On the Monday morning after our arrival in Edinburgh, a third message
had come. This announced that the doctor had left Colorado and gone to
California, where he was now living at Riverside, with a rising
practice; but that he was considered a "crank," because he constantly
besieged rich men to start a laboratory in which to work out his
theories. Two or three had half promised their help, but for some reason
or other the financial schemes had fallen through. Still the man never
appeared to lose hope. Having received this news, Somerled wired direct
to the doctor, offering him as much money as he needed, if, before
anything further was settled, he would come over to Scotland and reveal
himself to his wife.
Up to this time, Somerled had said nothing to Mrs. James, except that he
hoped to give her a pleasant surprise; and told her even this only
because she planned to go back to Carlisle, now that Barrie was with her
mother. Naturally Somerled had several important reasons for wishing the
little woman to stay; but the one, he alleged, was his desire to see
what she thought of the "surprise" when it came.
He, of course, must have had visions of keeping this useful queen of
spades up his sleeve, that he might be ready to trump one of our knavish
tricks with her, at any moment; but the gods fought against him for
once. Just before theatre-time, arrived a long cablegram from James
Richard, alias Richard James. He thanked Somerled enthusiastically (Mrs.
James showed the message to me, and to every one of us), accepted his
loan, believing that eventually it could be repaid, and was more than
happy to hear news of his wife, whom he had left only for her own good,
because at that tune he considered himself disgraced and ruined. He had
intended suicide, but the thought of his invention had changed his mind
and plans at the last moment. He had gone to the new world to find what
the old had denied him, and after a hundred disappointments he was to be
rewarded, through Somerled. He asked now for nothing better than to
return, but only for long enough to see his wife, and take her back to
California with him. To his deep regret, however, he could not start at
once, as he had broken his leg and would not be able to travel for
several weeks at least. Would she come to him as soon as she could
settle her affairs?
I imagine Somerled must have been sorely tempted not to show this
message, for it would rob him of Mrs. James and leave him where he had
been after his quarrel with Aline, minus a chaperon for Barrie, if he
could contrive to snatch the girl from Mrs. Bal. But he had said too
much about the "surprise" to suppress developments now. Besides, it
would have been almost inhuman to delay the meeting of the husband and
wife, so long parted. Neither would have forgiven him if he had coolly
kept them apart for his own convenience; but so grateful, so adoring to
her hero was Mrs. James, that if "the doctor" had not been ill and
needing her, I think of her own free will she would have offered to stop
in Edinburgh for a few days to "see what happened." As it was, there was
no question of her staying. She and Somerled arranged that she should
leave for Carlisle by the first train possible in the morning. At home
she was to settle her few affairs temporarily, and catch a quick ship
for New York, whence she would hurry on to California.
Somerled gave her advice for the journey (and perhaps something more
substantial), but he must have seen that, though virtue might be its own
reward, he was unlikely to get any other. Mrs. Bal had lent Barrie to
us, and without a woman to aid and abet him, it seemed to me that he was
powerless. Such chaperons as Mrs. James don't grow on blackberry bushes
even in Scotland, where blackberries, if not gooseberries, are the best
in the world. Somerled had done for himself.
Oh, there was no doubt of it this time! Not only had we, in the game of
chess we were quietly playing with him, got his little white queen in
check; we had swept her off the board.
* * * * *
Happenings began thick and fast the morning after.
The first thing I heard was, from Aline, that at the theatre last night
(probably just after she sent us away) Mrs. Bal had told Morgan Bennett
in so many words that Barrie was practically engaged to me. After a
week's trip in my society it was to be expected that she would arrive in
Glasgow to ask her elder sister's blessing.
This, Aline thought, necessitated our getting off at once, lest Bennett
should contrive to meet the girl alone somehow, and question her. If he
did this, the "fat would be in the fire" for Mrs. Bal, and perhaps for
me too.
"The sooner the better," said I; for I was impatient to spirit the girl
away from Somerled, and turn her thoughts from him to me. If I prayed to
the heather moon for help, I felt that I ought to succeed; for the man
who can have a girl of eighteen to himself (not counting a few chaperons
lying about loose) in a motor-car for a week, passing through the
loveliest country in the world, and can't make her forget for his sake
some other fellow she's known only a few hours longer, must be a born
duffer. This I dinned into my consciousness.
It was to be my first real chance with Barrie; and though never in my
life before have I made serious love to any flesh-and-blood girl, I've
made so much with my pen to the most difficult and diverse heroines,
that I had a certain belief in my own powers, once they had free play.
The second thing that happened this morning of happenings, however, was
a slight setback, just enough of a setback to let me see that the
heather moon is a goddess who exacts more wooing from her votaries than
I had given. Or else, that she has her favourites, and is more ready to
look with a kindly eye on a man born to the heather than one who comes
from afar to write it up.
Barrie, it appeared, had had a "scene" with Barbara. She had insisted
with tears and (according to Mrs. Bal) stampings of foot, that she
_would_ go to the Waverley station with Mrs. James and see her off for
Carlisle.
Mrs. James was to be taken to the train by Somerled, in his car; and as
no one but Barrie had been invited, this meant that the girl would
return with him alone. To be sure, it would not take five minutes for
the Gray Dragon to slip from the Waverley end of Princes Street back to
the Caledonian. On the other hand, it was evident that Mrs. James must
have a special reason for choosing the Waverley station, when she could
just as well have gone from our own; and Aline and I could see only one.
Somerled wanted to snatch five minutes alone with Barrie; and he was not
the man to waste a single one of the five. The question was, what use
did he intend to make of his time? None of us could guess, for Somerled
is a puzzle too hard to read. Not even Aline (who was so nervous that,
figuratively speaking, she started at every sound in the enemy's camp)
believed that Somerled would try to run away with the girl. I soothed
her by saying that I thought it very doubtful whether Somerled would ask
the girl to marry him, even if everything were in his favour. I still
tried to believe that in his opinion she was too young and had seen too
little of life to settle down as a married woman. He might be in love
with her--to me it was beginning to seem impossible that a man could
know her and not be in love--but with a strong, self-controlled man of
Somerled's calibre, falling in love and marrying need not be the same
thing.
Mrs. Bal, after the "scene" (in which she too, apparently, played a
stormy part) had angrily consented to give Barrie her own way, but only
on the girl's threat to decline making the trip with us, if thwarted.
Something in Barrie's eyes had warned the lady not to go too far, and on
her promise to return directly Mrs. James had gone, Mrs. Bal sulkily
waived her objections.
"Why don't you, too, see Mrs. James off?" suggested Aline. "You've been
great friends. She ought to be complimented. And you might take her some
flowers. That would please Barrie, who is now worshipping Ian as a tin
saint on wheels because he has found Mrs. James's husband and offered to
finance him to success. You ought to do _something_."
I thought this a good idea, and on the top of it had one of my own,
which I didn't mention to Aline, lest it should fail. Not only did I buy
flowers, the prettiest and most expensive I could find (worthy of Barrie
or Mrs. Bal), but a box of sweets, another of Scotch shortbread, a few
cairngorm brooches, and amethyst and silver thistles picked up at
random, and a copy of Aline's and my last book which I found (well
displayed) on the station book-stall. When Aline sees only one copy she
will not buy it, as she thinks it a pity the book should disappear from
public view; but this was an occasion of importance, and I didn't
hesitate to pluck the last fruit from the bough.
When Mrs. James, Barrie, and Somerled arrived (Vedder being left in
charge of the car) there was I waiting, laden with offerings. I stuck to
the party till the end, waving my farewell as the train slowly moved
out, and then I summoned up courage (or impudence, depending on the
point of view) to ask if Somerled would take me back. "I walked here," I
said, "so as to do my little shopping for Mrs. James, and I came so fast
I've hardly got my breath back."
I was prepared for some excuse to keep me out of the car; but I wronged
Somerled. If any one looked disappointed it was Barrie, not he. He said,
"Certainly; with pleasure," and there was nothing in his voice to
contradict the courtesy of his words.
Thus, with surprising ease, I robbed him of the five minutes alone with
Barrie which he had planned. And though she sat in front with him--as
she had come, perhaps--and I was alone in my glory behind, they could
have no private conversation.
When I went up to bid Aline good-bye (we were starting soon for
Linlithgow and Stirling), I told her of my small triumph; but it gave
her no great pleasure.
"How do we know what he said to the girl going to the train?" she asked
suspiciously. "If there's anything up, it's certain that James woman is
in it. I'm sure she's warned Ian against you and me as well as Mrs. Bal.
She's as shrewd as a gimlet in her own funny way. You've remarked that
yourself. And she worships Ian, and thinks Barrie a little angel
abandoned in a wicked world. So if Ian wanted to talk, he wouldn't mind
Mrs. James. You'd better keep your eyes open this week, and notice
whether the girl seems dreamy and absent-minded, as if she expected
something to happen--something they may have arranged between them this
morning."
I assured Aline that I needed no urging to keep my eyes on Barrie. She
then told me for the second time that she intended joining our party as
soon as Somerled left Edinburgh to follow us, as--she thought--he surely
would. "He wouldn't have gone a step while that girl was here with Mrs.
Bal," she exclaimed, almost fiercely, "but in spite of all he's said
about seeing old landmarks and looking up old friends, he'll be off
after you when you've taken Barrie away. Anyhow, I'm going to see
something of him while he's here if I can, for we are friends! He's
supposed to have forgiven me, and he can't refuse to come and cheer up
the invalid. I shall do the very best I can for myself--and when I find
he means to be off I shall mention casually, as a kind of coincidence,
that I'm going too, the same day, to join you; that you've wired or
something, and that Maud Vanneck and her husband have accepted an
invitation from Morgan Bennett to visit his sister, at that Round House
Mrs. Bal talked of. Perhaps Ian will offer to take me with him. I do
hope so. But I can't ask."
As a matter of fact, poor Aline had racked her brains how to dispose of
the married Vannecks when she should be ready to take her place in
Blunderbore. As for George, she wished to keep and play with him, of
course, partly for her own amusement, partly for the moral effect upon
Somerled; but she didn't want to offend his brother and sister-in-law.
Still, they had to be got rid of eventually, as Blunderbore, with all
the faults of Noah's ark, has not the ark's accommodation for man and
beast. It was a happy thought to angle for an invitation, through Mrs.
Bal, for a few days at the Round House, as Maud Vanneck particularly
desired to see "Scottish life in a private family"; and it didn't occur
to her that a shooting-lodge hired by an American millionaire would not
be the ideal way of accomplishing her object.
Mrs. Bal was not out of her room when we were ready to start, at eleven,
so I did not see her again; but the plainest, oldest, and carrotiest of
the three red-headed maids primly accompanied Barrie to the hotel door
with hand-luggage. By this time Blunderbore was puffing heavily in
feigned eagerness to be off, and Salomon, its owner and chauffeur,
shabby and sulky as usual, was giving the car a few last oily caresses
which should have been bestowed long ago in the privacy of the garage.
Have I forgotten to mention in these rambling notes that Somerled's
Vedder regards our Salomon with a silent yet plainly visible contempt,
akin to nausea? Whenever they happen to be thrown together for a few
minutes I see the smart-liveried Vedder criticizing with his mysterious
eyes the mean features of the weedy Salomon; his weak face with the
curious, splay mouth that falls far apart in speaking, almost as if the
jaw were broken; his old cloth cap, and his thin, short figure loosely
wrapped in a long, linen dust coat. Neither Aline nor I have had the
courage to remonstrate with Salomon on his get up, but when Vedder
regards him I burn with the desire to discharge the creature and his
car, despite our contract for a month.
Barrie and I being on the spot, we could have got off, if the
Vannecks--invariably late--had not been missing. In desperation I dashed
into the hotel to look for them, and returned to find Somerled deep in
conversation with Barrie, who was in the car. I had left her standing in
the hotel doorway, with Mrs. Bal's maid: so Somerled in some way must
have caused that maid to disappear, and had then forestalled me by
helping Barrie into my car, tucking her comfortably in with the prettier
of my two rugs.
I was just in time to hear him say "we shall meet"--but where and when
the meeting was to be, I did not know. That was the last of him for the
moment, however, as I had secured the two Vannecks, and we lumbered off
along the good, clear road to Linlithgow. Now it was "up to me" to make
my running with Barrie.
I like driving, though in traffic I am secretly nervous; but as
Blunderbore provides no convenient perch for the chauffeur, and as
Salomon trusts no man except himself, he took the wheel, and I was free
to sit behind with my three guests.
I'd been wondering what Barrie's mood would be, for I felt in my bones
that she was coming with us much against her will. She had not wanted to
leave Edinburgh, and I was sure that she could only have resigned
herself to doing so with Somerled and his Gray Dragon. I asked myself
whether she guessed, or whether Mrs. James had put it into her head,
that Aline and I had combined against what the girl no doubt believed to
be her "interests." I thought it not improbable that she would openly
show her distaste for the trip. As we went on, however, I began to
realize that Barrie had changed subtly in the days since meeting her
mother. She seemed suddenly to have grown up, to have become a woman.
Was it the heart-breaking disappointment Mrs. Bal's reception had given
her? Or was it the five proposals of marriage flung at her head by those
mad young men who were now--thank goodness!--being left behind us, to
"dree their own wierds?" Or was it something quite different--something
which she and the heather moon alone knew?
In any case, she was quiet, even dignified in her youthful way, very
polite and agreeable to the Vannecks and to me. I might have flattered
myself that she was happy enough, and glad of my society, if I hadn't
reflected that to sulk visibly would have been to blame Mrs. Bal.
Already I knew that loyalty was one of Barrie's everyday virtues.
Barbara could do no wrong!
While the road (though good, and historic every step of the way)
remained unalluring to the eye, we chatted about Edinburgh, Barrie
rejoicing in having seen as much as she had before leaving the town. She
had browsed a little among the thrilling shops of Princes Street. With
one eye, so to speak, cocked up at the towering Castle Rock, with the
other she had scanned the gardens, Scott's monument, and everything else
worth seeing; then, with a sudden pounce, she had concentrated her gaze
on immense plate glass windows displaying Scottish jewellery, Scottish
books, Scottish cakes, and (to her) irrelevant Scottish tartans. Even
without need of them, their witching attraction had hypnotized her to
buy many of these things.
"I don't know exactly what I shall do with them," she said; "but I'm
glad I've got them all, and I wish I had more!"
It was Mrs. James who had been with her in her triumphal progress
through Princes Street; but it was I who had escorted her the whole
wonderful, sordid, glorious, pitiful length of the old High Street, the
Royal Mile of gorgeous ghosts. I had been there to see her face as she
caught glimpses of dark wynds where long ago men had fought to the death
and helped make history, where now colourful yet faded rags hang like
ancient banners, from iron frames, giving a fantastic likeness to side
streets of Naples: I had pointed out to her the stones which marked the
place where famous ones had murdered or been murdered, or had sought
sanctuary from murder. I had taken her all over the house of John Knox.
Together we had admired the oak carving in the room where he ate his
simple meals; and together we looked from the little window whence he
had poured his burning floods of eloquence upon the heads of the crowd
below. In the curiosity shop downstairs I had bought her a silver Heart
of Midlothian. She had stared into the rich dark shadows whence start
out, spirit-like, faces of old oil pictures, faces of old clocks, faces
of old marble busts; and she had been so charmed by the soft voice of
the young saleswoman, whose flute-like tones would lure gold from a
miser's pocket, that she would have collected half the things in the
shop if she had had the money. I wanted to give her bits of old
jewellery and miniatures of Queen Mary and Prince Charlie which she
fancied, but she would accept only the silver Heart of Midlothian, which
cost no more than a few shillings; and to-day, as I took her away from
Edinburgh, she was not wearing the little ornament, as I had hoped she
might.
As the road grew prettier, we tore our thoughts away from Edinburgh, and
gave them to the highway illumined by history. At least, Barrie gave
hers, while I lent as many of mine as I could spare from her. And I had
to keep my wits about me, if I were to live up to the regulation of
Know-All I'd evidently attained in her eyes.
In Linlithgow we expected to see at once the famous palace where Queen
Mary was born, but nothing was visible in what the French would call the
_place_, except the Town House, a new statue, and a graceful copy of an
old fountain. We had to turn up an unpromising side street to find at
last a beautiful little gateway between dumpy octagonal towers, such as
the old masters loved to put in the background of their pictures.
Passing through was like walking into one of those pictures, getting
round the hidden corner as one always longs to do on canvas. Before our
eyes rose majestically the colossal shell of a palace, with carved
golden walls, a vast courtyard, cyclopean round towers, and wonderful
windows full of sky and dreams. Close by was the noble church where
James IV had his vision warning him not to go to war with England.
Somerled had talked to Barrie about Linlithgow, doubtless in the hope of
making her think of him when there. He had called it the "finest
domestic architectural ruin in all Scotland," and told her of Lord
Rosebery's suggestion to restore and make of it a great national museum.
I was glad for every reason that Somerled wasn't with us, and, for one,
because he would have overshadowed me entirely with his knowledge of
architecture, which he contrives to use picturesquely, not ponderously.
All I could do was to rhapsodize in a way Barrie likes well enough when
she can get nothing better, painting for her a rough word-picture of the
palace in days when rich gilding still glittered on the quaint wall
statues, when crystal jets spouted from the lovely fountain, green with
moss now as with thick verdigris--when knights in armour rode into the
quadrangle to be welcomed by fair ladies, while varlets led tired horses
to distant stables. Those were the days when the Livingstons were
keepers of the palace for the King, long before they lost their lands
and titles for love of Prince Charlie; days when the memory of Will
Binnock was honoured still, that "stout earle" who helped wrest
Linlithgow from English Edward's men by smuggling soldiers into the
palace precincts, concealed in a load of hay.
We wandered almost sadly through the splendid rooms where Queen Mary
first saw the light, the week her father died: through "the King's
room," with its secret staircase under a trap door, and its view over a
blue lake where swans floated like winged water-lilies. Then, when we
had bought a specially bound copy of "Marmion" (which ought to be read
at Linlithgow), and post cards and souvenirs that seemed important at
the moment and useless afterward, we took the road to Stirling.
There was no time to stop in Falkirk (when is there ever time to stop in
motoring?), for the car was running unusually well for Blunderbore. So
instead of pausing to meditate over battle scenes, as Vanneck pretended
he wished to do, we sailed through the long, straight street which seems
practically to constitute the town. Here we had almost our first glimpse
of industrial Scotland as opposed to picturesque Scotland, which was in
these August days becoming the playground of Britain and America.
Falkirk is a coalfield as well as a battlefield, and the murk of
collieries and iron works darkens the sky as once did the smoke of
gunpowder: but the place holds its old interest for the mind; and not
far off we came to the Wallace Monument; then to Bannockburn. Because of
Barrie's love for the Bruce, we got out and walked to the Bore Stone
where he stood to direct the battle so fatal to the English. After this
we were close to St. Ninian's, and to Stirling, though the day was still
young; but there was lots to see, and I wanted to go on before dusk, to
spend the night in Crieff. We lunched at one of those nice old-fashioned
hotels whose heraldic names alone are worth the money; and as we started
on foot to walk through the ancient town and mount to its high crown,
the Castle, I began to appreciate Aline's arrangements for my benefit.
Maud Vanneck being a model of wifely jealousy, kept Fred to herself, and
Barrie was my companion. This was delightful. No such good thing had
come to me since making her acquaintance. On the way up the quaint,
steep street, there came a shower of rain, and I had to shelter her with
my umbrella. It was an umbrella of blessedly mean proportions, which
meant that she must keep close to my side, and I said, "Come what may I
shall have this and a few other things to remember!"
Up in the Castle, we two decided that we had after all made a mistake in
calling Edinburgh Castle Scotland's heart. Here was that organ, and we
could almost feel it throbbing under our feet. We forgot that we had
selected several other hearts for Scotland. Here was the right one at
last!
What a view to look out upon, with the One Girl by your side! Over our
heads and far away, clouds turned the rolling mountains to snowpeaks
that dazzled in the sun, and under our eyes seemed to lie all Scotland,
spread out like a vast brocaded mantle of many colours: the plain of the
Forth, the Ochil hills and the hills of Fife; the purple peaks round
Loch Lomond, and here and there a glitter of water like broken glass on
a floor of gold. Ten counties we could see, and eight great battlefields
which helped to make Scotland what it is. The horizon was carved in
shapes of azure--strange, wild, mountainous shapes; and the noble heads
of Ben Lomond, Ben Ledi, and Ben A'an were laurelled and jewelled for us
by memories of Scott.
Sitting where Queen Mary sat on her velvet cushions, and looking through
her peephole in the thick stone wall, I was almost irresistibly tempted
to make love to Barrie. My heart so went out to her that it seemed she
must respond: and the Vannecks had wandered to another part of the
battlements; but she kept me to my task of cicerone. I had to answer a
dozen questions. I had to tell her about Agricola forging his chain of
forts across the narrow land between the Clyde, and the Forth "that
bridles the wild Highlander." She would be satisfied with nothing less
than the unabridged stories of Edward I's siege of this "gray bulwark of
the North," the murder of the powerful Douglas by his treacherous host
King James II; the building of and the mysterious curse upon Mar's Work,
and twenty other human documents not half so moving, had she but known
it, as the story of Basil Norman's first and only love. Once or twice I
thought she guessed that I wished to speak of myself and her, and that
she deliberately held me at arm's length, like a young person of the
world dealing with an ineligible at the end of her second season. I
almost hated King Edward, and more especially Agricola!
Then, worst of all, before we had half finished our tour of the Castle
and its wonders, rain began to fall out of one cloud stationed directly
over our heads in the midst of a sun-bright sky. I could almost have
believed that Somerled in spite had sent it after us, like a wet
blood-hound to track us down. We took shelter in the room where the
Douglas was murdered; and who could make love against such a background?
Not I: though perhaps gay King James V might have been equal to it. One
does not hear that any ghost dogged his footsteps as he crept joyously
in disguise out from that dark little chamber into the subterranean
passage, which led the "Guid man of Ballangeich" to his Haroun
Al-raschid adventures in the night.
* * * * *
The next few days live in my memory as dreams live. They were beautiful.
They would have been more beautiful if I could have flattered myself
that Barrie was learning to care for me in the way she might have cared
for Somerled, if we had left them in peace. But she was always the
same--except that, as the world grew more enchanting in beauty and
poetic associations, she blossomed into a sweet expansiveness, losing
the reserve in which she had been veiled when first we started.
It ought to have been ideal, this moving from scene to scene with the
one girl I ever wanted for my own, since I was thirteen and worshipped a
tank mermaid in green spangles. That was the hard part! It ought to have
been ideal and--it wasn't. I should think a rather well meaning Saracen
chieftain who had captured a Christian maiden might have felt somewhat
as I felt from day to day. He had got her. She couldn't escape from him
and his fortress; but, even with her hand in his, she contrived to elude
him.
So it was with me. Old Blunderbore went well on the whole, not counting
a few minor ailments of second childhood which attacked him occasionally
when he saw a stiff hill ahead, or when he had heard me say I was in a
hurry. The Vannecks were perfection as chaperons, not through
supernatural tact and unselfishness, but because Maud feared the effect
upon Fred of too much Barrie. She laid herself out to charm her husband.
Never an "I told you so!" Never a nagging word or look. She chatted to
Fred in the car, and saw sights with him out of the car. This, she said,
was almost like a second honeymoon. But of the heather moon she had
never heard. It was ours--Barrie's and mine: yet I could not induce the
girl to speak of it. For all she would say, she might have forgotten its
existence. Always, especially when the heather moon tried to give us its
golden blessing, an invisible presence seemed to stand between us, as if
Somerled had sent his astral body to keep us apart.
As to Somerled in the flesh, there was a mystery at this time. To me at
Perth came a telegram from Aline saying:
"S. has left his car and chauffeur here and gone away without a
word to any one. Has he come after you? Wire immediately."
I obeyed, replying:
"Seen and heard nothing of S. Will let you have all news. Hope you
will do the same by me. Am sending you our route, but suppose you
will arrive in few days."
Her answer came to St. Andrews, at a jolly, golfing sort of hotel where
I ought to have been as happy as the day was long.
"As S. has not joined you prefer stop on here. Eyes not well yet.
Mr. Bennett's sister has influenza. She would prefer Maud and Fred
visit Round House later--say toward end of next week."
I had no faith in that attack of influenza. The microbe was probably
hatched in conversation between Aline and Mrs. Bal, who had by this time
become tremendous allies. My theory was that Aline, knowing Somerled not
to be near Barrie, had settled down to enjoy the fleeting moment. She
might not be happy, but I could understand that the society of Mrs. Bal
(who evidently wanted her) was preferable to motoring with a brother,
and a girl of whom she was jealous.
The same day came a long expensive wire to Barrie from her mother:
"So sorry darling but unfortunately must put you off. Don't come
first of Glasgow week. Wait till Saturday, arriving late afternoon
or evening. Mrs. West says her friends and brother will like
keeping you till then so you needn't worry. We can have nice visit
together later and settle everything for you in some delightful
way. Making plans now. Don't forget you for a moment. Best reasons
for delay. Will explain when we meet. Sending you letter with
little present of money. Don't stint yourself. Write often. Tell me
all that interests you. Ever your loving Barbara."
"Why do you suppose she can't have me the first of the week?" Barrie
asked piteously, when she had shown this message.
"I can't say, I'm sure," I cautiously replied. This was literally true.
I could not say: but I could guess. And a letter from Aline which came
two or three days later, confirmed my Sherlockian deductions.
"My DEAR OLD BOY" [she wrote]: "I was so glad to get your
telegram, and meant to have written at once, but waited on second
thoughts to have a little more news. It is a relief to know that
Ian hasn't followed that girl. Of course I feel it as much for your
sake as my own, for he is a dangerous rival to any man. It _is_ odd
where he can have gone; though he may turn up here again any day,
as he has left his car and chauffeur. If he had wanted to be nice,
he might have offered me the use of both while he was away; but I
suppose he blames me for lending myself to Mrs. Bal's wishes about
Barrie. Very unreasonable of him, as you have a perfect right to do
what you like with the car you've hired, and if Mrs. Bal didn't
want her daughter to see too much of _him_, what fault is it of
mine?
"I try to amuse myself as well as I can and forget my worries,
however, and Mrs. Bal and Morgan Bennett are being very nice. I
don't think he's proposed yet, or she would have told me, for we're
great friends; but she's pretty sure to land him before he leaves
for America, as he is to do the end of her Glasgow week, for a
short business trip. I expect to be asked to congratulate them the
night before he sails! What a good thing for her and _every one_
that the Vannecks can stand by you longer than we planned. I think,
unless you wire me that Ian has appeared upon the scene, I'll stay
with Mrs. Bal for her Glasgow week, as she has invited me, and
then, when the Vannecks go to the Round House, you can bring Barrie
back to her mother."
This explained Mrs. Bal's "best of reasons."
Days went on, and Somerled did not come to our part of the world, which
was by this time the heart of the Highlands; but I felt in my bones that
Barrie was hearing from him, writing to him; that she knew what I did
not know, the mystery of his absence. Of course I could have found out
if she were receiving letters from him, for Somerled's handwriting is
unmistakable; but villain or no villain, I had to draw the line
somewhere, and I drew it at spying upon her.
Aline did go to Glasgow with Mrs. Bal. She wrote to tell me how, with
Morgan Bennett in his biggest motor-car, "_much_ higher powered and
smarter than poor Ian's," she and Mrs. Bal and George Vanneck had sped
away from Edinburgh on Sunday morning early, had a look at their rooms
in Glasgow, and dashed on to Arrochar, where they all stopped till
Monday afternoon.
"Such an exquisite road!" [said Aline]. "You would have loved it.
High green bank on one side, with cataracts of bracken delicate as
maidenhair; dark rocks, wrapped in velvet moss. Trees holding up
screens of green lace between your eyes and the blue water of the
loch. Pebbles white and round as pearls, or silver coins dropped by
fairies in a big "flit." That's one of _your_ similes! Grass
running down to the edge of the water, and full of bluebells. Water
the colour of drowned wallflowers. I don't believe your Highland
lochs can be prettier or more idyllic, though this is so close to
Glasgow.
"We have had a day going through the Kyles of Bute, too--the same
party: and a marvellous run along the shores of the Clyde to
Skelmorlie. Such red rocks there, and even the sand red. There was
a pink haze over everything, like a perpetual sunset. I'm not sure
which was better, that, or a trip to Crinan. The dearest little
place at the end of the Crinan canal--just a flower-draped hotel,
and a sea-wall and a lighthouse, with a distant murmur of
'Corrievrechan's tortured roar,' mingled with the crying of gulls.
What a place for you and Barrie to spend your honeymoon! You see, I
speak as if it were certain. Anyhow, I'm sure it all depends on
yourself. _Courage, mon brave_!"
But that is exactly the quality which the villain of the piece lacks at
present.