Will Cameron the grieve, or, in plain English, the land steward of the
Gleneira property, was leaning lazily over the shrubbery gate,
watching two men mowing a narrow strip of grass on either side of the
grand approach leading up to the Big House; a proceeding which gave
the whole place a most ridiculous half-shaven air. It had its merits,
however, in Mr. Cameron's eyes, seeing that it was supposed to make
the roadway look kempt while it preserved the rest of the lawn for
hay; an economy sorely needed at the Big House, after the late laird's
riotous living. Even now, when matters had mended somewhat, honest
Will did not care to think of those times when all he saw of the laird
of Gleneira was a signature on I O U's; for, when all was said and
done, his own honesty seemed bound up in that of the old place. A
gardener was nailing up the creepers covering the porch; the windows
of the house were set wide open, and through them a noise of hammering
and brushing floated out into the crisp morning air as Marjory came
up the road from the lodge; her footsteps crunching in the loose
sea-gravel, which not even the coming and going of years had worn into
compactness, and leant over the gate likewise. Will shifted a little,
almost unconsciously, to make room for her, with loose-limbed easy
good-nature, and in so doing revealed the whole attitude of his
individuality towards Marjory Carmichael. Briefly she was the dearest
girl in the world, but rather apt to make a fellow move on, when he
would much rather have stopped where he was. Yet they were the best of
friends, almost playmates, although he was double her age and
distinctly bald. For the rest a very straightforward simple person,
with nothing complex about him. One of those men whom Nature has made
firstly a sportsman, secondly a farmer; in other words, a descendant
of both Cain and Abel. Marjory herself was very fond of him, and no
wonder, since during the years she had spent with his mother he had
set himself to make things pleasant for her as a man about a house can
do when he has absolutely no ulterior object in view. The mere
suggestion of such an object would have filled him with terror, for
Marjory's energy was appalling.
"What a pretty place it is after all," she said suddenly, and in so
saying spoke the truth. Framed in by an amphitheatre of purple
heather-clad hills and dark green fir-clad spurs, Gleneira House with
its swelling lawns stretching away to the rocky beach of the loch, its
tall silver pines and clumps of rhododendrons looked bright and
cheerful despite the nameless want which hangs always round an empty
house; the dead look, as if, the soul having passed from it, naught
remained save for it to hasten back to the dust whence it came. There
was something, however, which struck one as homelike in its low
irregular outline, its bow windows set in rose, jasmine, and magnolia;
above all in its clustered stacks of chimneys rising without respect
to symmetry and suggesting comfortable firesides within. Cosy
firesides in corners, not set back to back in pairs after the modern
fashion. A conglomerate building altogether, not unlike a two-storied
summer-house full of French windows. An airy feminine sort of house,
unlike the usual aggressively stony Scotch mansions, yet fitting in
strangely with its fairylike background of hills, and woods, and
lochs.
"Very pretty, but awfully out of repair," replied Will,
disconsolately. "The roof won't last much longer."
"Why doesn't he--Captain Macleod I mean--put on a new one?"
"My dear Marjory! He can't afford it. A man has to spend a lot in an
expensive regiment like his, and----"
"Nine years since he was in the Glen," interrupted the girl, bent on
her own thoughts. "I don't remember him a bit. What is he like, Will?"
"Awfully handsome; about the handsomest boy I ever saw, and I don't
suppose he has changed much."
"I know that--anything more?"
"Spends a heap of money."
"I know--anything more?"
"Yes; you will like him."
"Why?"
"Women always do."
Marjory turned down the corners of her mouth; a trick which with her
meant disapproval, disgust, dislike, disappointment,--such a variety
of small d's that Will was wont to say it was quite as reprehensible
as the collective big one of his sex.
"He really is an awfully nice fellow," continued Will; "but the place
is going to rack and ruin. The farm houses are so poor that the south
country men won't take them, and a slack style of tenant only means
going from bad to worse. He ought to marry money. It is the only way
out of the difficulty, since he won't skin the woods or let the
place."
"Why doesn't he come and live here as his fathers did," put in the
girl, quickly; "why shouldn't he be satisfied to do his duty to the
people as his fathers did?"
"Because his income isn't what theirs was to begin with. The place is
heavily mortgaged; everyone knows it, so there is no reason why I
shouldn't say so. Then Alick Macleod ran through a heap of money
somehow, and left a lot of debts which had to be paid off. I don't say
that the Captain mightn't have been more economical, but it isn't all
his fault. And then he won't touch the estate. That is right enough in
a way, and yet Smith, the hook-and-eye man, offered twice its value
for that bit of moor that marches with his forest."
"And Captain Macleod refused?"
"Declined with thanks; and wrote me privately not to bother him again
with any proposals of that sort from a bloated mechanic."
Marjory's mouth turned down again. "Indeed! that was very noble of
him."
"So it was in a way," replied her companion, sticking to his own
ill-concealed satisfaction, "for the man is offensive to the last
degree. He has invented a tartan, and has a piper to play him to bed."
"If he likes it, why not? Every man must have invented his own tartan,
once upon a time, you know; the Macleods into the bargain."
Will Cameron smiled languidly. "You are a beggar to argue, Marjory.
But as I said before, the laird must marry money."
"Sell himself instead of his property?"
"Why not? he is worth buying, and she needn't be ugly."
"Ugly! as if that were the only question! I believe it is all you men
think of. Why, Will, you haven't told me anything about Captain
Macleod except that he is good-looking; and I knew that before. I
wanted to hear what he was like--he himself, I mean."
He looked at her with comical amusement. "You have come to the wrong
man, my dear. I never could tell my own character, much less anybody
else's. But here is old John, beaming with satisfaction at the thought
of coming slaughter among the birds. Ask him!"
"Is it what the laird is like?" echoed the bent but active old man,
pausing with a troop of wiry-haired terriers at his heels. "Then he is
real bonnie, Miss Marjory; that's what he is."
"So I told her; but she wants to know more." John Macpherson scratched
his ear dubiously, then brightened up. "Then it's a terrible good shot
he will be. Aye! ever since he was a laddie no higher than my heart.
Just a terrible good shot, that's what he is."
"After all," remarked Will, as the old man passed on, "that gives you
as good a clue to the laird as anything else would do. Old John meant
that as the highest praise. The coachman in all probability would say
he was a first-rate rider. I have heard mother call him a good young
man, but that was when _I_ had lost five pounds at the Skye gathering,
and he had won. The fact being that he had a knack of warping people's
judgment; it was he, by the way, who advised me to bet on a man who
couldn't putt a bit. He used always to twist me round his little
finger when we were boys together--and by Jove! he had a temper.
Sulky, too, and obstinate as a mule."
"Thank you," interrupted Marjory, drily; "that's quite enough. Well, I
hope nobody nice will buy him."
Will Cameron flushed up quite hotly. "Now, I call that really nasty,
Marjory, when it can't matter to you. And you know as well as I do
that we want money awfully; you, who are always railing at the black
huts, and the lack of chimneys, and----"
But Marjory, after a habit of hers when she was not quite sure of her
ground, had shifted it, and passed on to the house, whence the sounds
of sweeping and hammering continued. Will shook his head at her
retreating figure, smiled, and called out cheerfully:--
"Tell mother not to hurry, he can't come till the evening boat."
Vain message, since you might just as well have made such an appeal to
old Time himself as to Mrs. Cameron, who, despite her seventy years
and portly figure, was bustling about, the very personification of
order, even in her haste. You felt instinctively that every symptom of
hurry was the result of a conscientious conception of the importance
of her part in the day's proceedings, and that to be calm would have
been considered culpable. Yet, as she trotted about, her voluminous
black skirts tucked through their placket-hole, not a hair of her flat
iron-grey curls was astray, not a fold of her white muslin kerchief,
or frill of her starched lace cap was awry, though her aides-de-camp,
a couple of sonsy Highland maids, were generally dishevelled, cross,
and hot.
"Eh! Marjory, my dear," she cried, catching sight of the latter, as
she entered the large low hall, set round with antlers; "ye're just in
the nick to help count the napery while I see to the laird's chamber.
He will be for having his old wee roomie, I misdoubt me; he was always
for having his own way, too. But he will just no have it, that's all.
Folks must accept their position, aye! and maintain their privileges
in these days, when every bit servant lassie claims a looking-glass to
prink at." The last words were delivered full in the face of a pert
South country maid, who, with an armful of towels, passed by in rather
an elaborate pink dress. It was merely a snap shot, however, for the
old lady hurried on her appointed way, leaving Marjory and the
offender, who was quite accustomed to being a target, in charge of the
dark lavender-scented linen closet. Pleasant work at all times this,
of handling the cool, smooth piles; the only household possessions
which never seem to suffer from being laid away, which come out of
their scented tomb with their smoothness emphasised by long pressure,
their folds sharply accurate, their very gloss seeming to have grown
in the dark. No fear of moth here; no hint of decay. Marjory, singling
out a fine tablecloth and napkins for the laird's first meal at home,
and choosing the whitest of sheets and pillow-cases for his bed, found
herself unable to believe that long years had passed since some
woman's hand had carefully put them away. It seemed impossible that it
should be so, and that they should be ready to begin their work as if
not a day had passed. Unchanged in a world of change! But the guest
himself would be more changed than his surroundings; for he could only
have been a boy--not much older than she herself--when he was last at
Gleneira. The thought lingered, and after her task was over she
wandered from room to room trying to put herself in his place, and
guess how it would strike him. For it was pleasant sometimes, when one
had an hour to spare, to spend it in that fanciful world of feeling,
with which her practical life had so little to do.
His mother's sitting-room! That could not fail to be sad, even though
the fair-haired original of the faded portrait in pastels over the
mantelpiece had passed from life when he was still a child. Yet, if
_she_ by any chance could see even the smallest thing that had once
belonged to that mother whose memory was a mere abstraction, who had
never really existed for her at all, she would feel sad, and so he
must also who had known his. Well, Captain Macleod's mother must have
been dreadfully fond of fancy work, to judge by the room! And yet, not
so long ago, she herself had been full of childish admiration for that
terrible screen in the corner, which now only excited a wild wonder
how any responsible human being could have wasted hours--nay! days,
months--in producing such a fearful result. It represented a
Highlander in full national costume, done in cross-stitch; the flesh
was worked in small pink beads, giving a horrible pimply appearance to
the face and a stony glare to the eyes; in the distance rose purple
silk hills, and the foreground consisted of an over-grown velvet pile
mongrel with a tail in feather stitch. In those childish days of
admiration, however, it had had a fearful charm of its own, born of
its inaccessibility. For, once within a certain radius, the whole
picture disappeared into a senseless medley of silk, worsted, and
beads. Only distance lent design, making four white beads and a black
one a recognisable equivalent for the human eye. As she stood looking
at it now, an amused smile curved her lips, with the remembrance that
in still more childish days she had mixed up this magnificent
Highlander with her conceptions of the absent laird. Probably it was
quite as like him now as the crayon drawing, labelled "Paul," of a
pallid boy holding a toy ship, which hung on the wall beside the
pastel. On the other side was another pallid boy holding another ship,
and labelled "Alick." As far as she could judge Alick might have grown
up to be Paul, and Paul to be Alick. Only Paul held his ship in his
right hand, and Alick in his left; but that was, of course, only
because their portraits had to look at each other across the picture
of their mother; because, as it were, of the exigencies of Art. She
smiled to herself as she drifted on lazily to what Mrs. Cameron had
considered the keystone of the laird's position. It was a dim,
dignified room, with a dreadful bed. So large, so square, so evenly
surrounded with Macleod tartan hangings that a sleeper immured therein
might well on waking lose his airs, and which way he was lying. A bed
which might have a dozen ghostly occupants, and the flesh and blood
one be none the wiser of those dead and gone lairds of Gleneira.
Marjory, oppressed by the very look of it, threw the windows, wide as
they would set, to the air and sunshine. Even so, it was a dreary,
depressing room, especially to one coming alone, unwelcomed by
kindred, to his old home. With a sudden impulse of pity she drew from
her belt a bunch of white heather and stag-horn moss which she had
gathered that morning, and arranged it neatly in a little empty vase
which stood on the wide dressing-table. A poor effort, yet it gave a
certain air of expectancy to the room; more appropriate also to the
occasion than more elaborate garden flowers would have been, since
white heather stood for luck, and the stag-horn moss was the badge of
the Macleod clan. A charming little welcome, truly, if the laird had
eyes to see! Her face, reflected in the looking-glass as she stood
smiling over her task, would, however, have been a more charming
welcome still could the laird have seen it. And then the sound of
wheels on the loose gravel outside sent her to the window in sudden
alarm; but it was only the Manse machine, drawn by the old grey horse,
with Father Macdonald on the front seat beside Mr. Wilson, who, as he
caught sight of her, stood up with profound bows, disclosing a curly
brown Brutus wig. And there was Will lounging at the horse's head, and
his mother on the steps with dignified gesticulations. Beyond towards
the Strath was the wide panorama of hill and moor and sea, flooded in
light. The sudden feeling that it is good to be here, which comes even
to untransfigured humanity at times, filled the girl's heart with
content as she nodded back to her two devoted old friends who were now
both standing up in the dogcart, waving their hats. How good everyone
was to her! How happy they all were together in the Glen! And she had
never before seemed to realise it so completely.
"Heard I ever the like?" rose in Mrs. Cameron's most imperious tones.
"To pass by the house wi' an empty stomach, and it not even a fast! A
fast, say I? A feast for Gleneira, and twa glasses o' port wine for
Father Macdonald whether he will or no. Marjory, my lass, away with
them like good boys to the parlour and cry on Kirsty for the glasses.
Will, ye gawk, are there no grooms in Gleneira House that you must be
standing there doing their wark. Now, Mr. Wilson, just come you down
to _terry-firmy_, as you would say yourself. You're no golden calf,
man, to be put up on a pedestal."
"My dear Madam!" cried he, gaily, clambering down with no small regard
to the Graces. "If it is a question of worship, 'tis I who should be
at your feet. _Facilius crescit quam_."
"_A cader va chi troppo in alto sale_," interrupted Father Macdonald,
clambering down on his side. He was a small man with round childish
face, possessed of that marvellously delicate yet healthy complexion
which one sees in Sisters of Charity; in those, briefly, who take no
care for beauty and lead a life of austerity and self-denial. A
complexion which a society woman would have given her eyes to possess.
"Hoot away wi' your gifts o' tongues," retorted the old lady, in mock
indignation at the perennial jest of strange quotations. "Marjory,
just take them ben and stop their mouths wi' cake and wine. And make
them drink luck to the auld house that is to be graced wi' its
master."
"Ah, my dear Madam," said the incorrigible offender, ambling up the
steps, and giving a sly glance at Marjory, "you agree with our friend
Cicero, '_Nec, domo dominus sed domino domus honestanda est_.'"
Mrs. Cameron treated the remark with silent contempt, and Marjory,
leading the way into the morning room where Paul Macleod's portrait
hung on the wall, looked back with a kind smile at the two old men
who, never having owned chick or child of their own, treated her as a
daughter. A sort of dream-daughter, dear yet far removed from the hard
realities of every-day familiarity.
"I'm so glad you were passing to-day, father," she said eagerly; "I
found a little Neapolitan song among some old music here, and I want
you to see if I sing it right."
Mr. Wilson, seated in the armchair, his legs disposed elegantly,
straightened his necktie, and made a remark to the effect that the
Neapolitans were the most debased Christian population in Europe. And
that despite the fact that they lived, as it were, under the very nose
of the Pope. An attack which was the result of an ever-green jealousy
in regard to the little Jesuit's superior knowledge.
"Neapolitan! Ah! my dear young lady, the patois is almost beyond me.
If it had been Roman!" The smooth childlike face grew almost wistful
thinking of the days so long ago spent in the still seclusion of the
Scotch college, or out in the noisy colour of the Roman streets; a
quaint memory for the old man who for fifty years had never seen a
town, whose very occupation was passing away from his life, as, one by
one, the old adherents to the old faith still lingering among the
mountain fastnesses, died and were buried by him.
"Ah! you will manage," said Marjory, cheerfully. "It isn't as if you
didn't know the subject, for it is sure to be all about love. Songs
always are."
So, while the cake and wine were coming in, she sate down to the piano
and sang, guided by the two old men, of love; for Mr. Wilson, great on
philology, had his views on the mutations of vowels and consonants,
and stood beside the little priest beating time to the phrases with
his gold eyeglasses.
Mrs. Cameron found them so, and rallied them on their taste when there
was good port-wine on the table.
"My dear Madam," retorted Mr. Wilson, positively shining with delight
at his own opportunity of showing that his acquaintance was not
confined to dead languages. "We have only put the 'Weib und Gesang'
before the 'Wein'; and I am sure anyone who had the privilege of
hearing Miss Marjory sing would do the same."
She made him a little mock curtsey, but Mrs. Cameron would none of it,
and cut a huge slice of cake. "No! no! minister; from the very
beginning o' things men-folks cared more for their stomachs than their
hearts. If Eve, poor body, had only given Adam a better dinner he
wouldna have been wantin' to eat apples betwixt whiles, and a deal o'
trouble might have been saved. But a woman's different. She takes it
ill if a man doesn't fall in love with her; she's aye wantin'----"
"I'm sure I don't want anything," put in Marjory, with her head in the
air.
"Don't be talkin' havers, child. I tell ye a woman's aye wantin' it.
Auld as I am----"
"My dear Madam," expostulated Mr. Wilson.
"Haud your whist, minister," interrupted Mrs. Cameron, tartly; "what
will you be knowing o' a woman's heart? I tell you she may be auld and
grey, she may hae left half the pleasures o' this world behind her,
she may hae been a wife for two score years, and spent her heart's
bluid in rearing weans, but what's left o' the heart will be turnin'
wi' regret to the time when the auld body who sits on the tither side
o' the fire--girding at his food, maybe--was courtin' her. Or, maybe,
when some ither auld body that's no at the tither side of the fire was
courtin'. There's no sayin'."
There was a silence: and then the old priest said under his breath:
"_Amor a nullo amato amor perdona_."
Mr. Wilson nodded his brown Brutus wig in assent. He did not mind that
sort of Italian. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the humanities
could understand so much. So they were merry over the cake and wine;
merry even over the parting with it in obedience to the minister's
Horatian order: "_Lusisti satis, editsi satis, alque bibisti, Tempus
abire ibe est_"--which Mrs. Cameron insisted on having explained to
her word by word. It was a complete exposition, she asserted, of the
whole duty of man as viewed by men. To eat, to drink, to amuse
themselves, and then to run away.
That same evening, in the mirk end of the gloaming, Marjory, walking
in the garden between the great borders of clove pinks which were
sending out their fragrance to meet the coming night, heard the _feu
de joie_, arranged by old John Macpherson to greet the laird's
arrival, go off like the beginning of a battle. Half an hour
afterwards Will Cameron returned, calling loudly for his supper, and
full of enthusiasm.
"Upon my word, Marjory, I think he is handsomer and more charming than
ever."
"Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain," said the young lady, taking
a leaf out of Mr. Gillespie's book.