Rain! Rain! Rain! One drop chasing the other down the window-pane like
boys upon a slide. Beyond them a swaying network of branches rising
out of the grey mist-curtain veiling the landscape, and every now and
again a wild whirl of wind from the southwest, bringing with it a
fiercer patter on the pane. Those who know the West coast of Scotland
in the mood with which in nine cases out of ten it welcomes the
Sassenach, will need no further description of the general depression
and discomfort in Gleneira House a week after Paul had said good-bye
to Marjory at the short cut. For he had been right, the deluge had
come; and even Mrs. Cameron, going her rounds through byre and barn in
pattens, with petticoats high kilted to her knees, shook her head,
declaring that if it were not for the promise she would misdoubt that
the long-prophesied judgment had overtaken this evil generation. And
she had lived in the Glen for fifty years.
Poor Lady George, who had arrived at Gleneira wet, chilled,
uncomfortable, yet still prepared to play her rôle of hostess to
perfection, fell a victim to a cold, which, as she complained, put it
out of her power to give a good rendering to the part. Since it was
manifestly impossible to receive her visitors, arriving in their
turn wet, chilled, uncomfortable, with anything like the optimism
required, for protestations that Highland rain did no harm, and hot
whiskey-and-water did good, were valueless, when you sneezed three
times during your remark. If she could only have gone to bed for one
day, there would have been some chance for her; but that was
impossible, since nowadays one couldn't have a good old-fashioned cold
in one's head without the risk of breaking up one's party from fear of
influenza! So she went about in a very smart, short, tweed costume,
with gaiters, and affected a sort of forced indifference even when the
cook, imported at fabulous wages, gave up her place on the third day,
saying she could not live in a shower bath, and was not accustomed to
a Zoölogical Gardens in the larder; when the upper housemaid gave
warning because hot water was not laid on to the top of the house, and
the kitchenmaid refused to make the porridge for the half-dozen
Highland lassies, who did all the work, on the ground that no
self-respecting girl would encourage others in such barbarous habits.
But all this, thank heaven! was on the other side of the swing door;
still, though the guests could scarcely give warning, matters were not
much brighter in, what servants call, collectively, the dining-room.
Breakfast was a godsend, for a judicious admixture of scones and jams,
and a little dexterous manipulation of the time at which people were
expected to come down, made it last till eleven at the earliest. And
then the hall was a providence. Large, and low, and comfortable, with
a blazing fire, and two doors, where the ladies could linger and talk
bravely of going out. Looking like it, also, in tweeds even shorter
and nattier than Lady George's, yet for all that succumbing after a
time to the impossibility of holding up an umbrella in such a gale of
wind, joined to gentle doubts as to whether a waterproof was
waterproof. Then there was lunch. But it was after lunch, when people
had manifestly over-eaten themselves, that the real strain of the day
began. So that the Reverend James Gillespie, coming to call, despite
the pouring rain, as in duty bound, was delighted with the warmth of
his reception, and Lady George, making the most of the pleasing
novelty, reverted unconsciously to a part suitable to the occasion.
"Dear me!" she said plaintively; "this is very distressing! Imagine,
my dear Mrs. Woodward! Mr. Gillespie assures me that there is no
church in the Glen, only a schoolhouse. Paul, dear, how came you never
to mention this, you bad boy?"
Paul, who, after sending the most enthusiastic men forth on what he
knew must be a fruitless quest after grouse, was devoting himself to
the ladies, and in consequence felt unutterably bored, as he always
did when on duty, turned on his sister captiously:
"I thought you would have remembered the fact. I did, and you are
older than I am. Why, you used always to cry--just like Blazes
does--if my mother wouldn't let you open the picture papers during
service."
Lady George bridled up. It was so thoughtless of Paul, bringing all
the disagreeables in life into one sentence; and reminiscences of that
sort were so unnecessary, for everyone knew that even the best
childhood could not stand the light of adult memory.
"But surely there was a talk, even then, of a more suitable building.
I suppose it fell through. High time, is it not, dear Mrs. Woodward,
for our absentee landlord to repair his neglect?"
"The farm-steadings have first claim to repair, I'm afraid, Blanche,"
returned Paul, refusing his part. "The church will have to stand over
as a luxury."
Lady George, even in her indignation, hastened to cover the
imprudence, for the Woodwards were distinctly high.
"Not a bit of it, Paul! We will all set to work at once, Mr.
Gillespie, and see what can be done--won't we, dear Mrs. Woodward?"
"I would suggest writing to the Bishop as the first step," said the
Reverend James, modestly.
"And then a fancy fair," continued Lady George.
"Delightful! a fancy fair, by all means," echoed an elderly
schoolfellow of Blanche's, who had been invited on the express
understanding that she was to do the flowers and second all
suggestions.
"I trust you will have nothing of the kind, Blanche," put in Paul,
with unusual irritation. "I hate charitable pocket-picking. I beg your
pardon for the crude expression, Miss Woodward, but I have some
excuse. On one occasion in India I was set on by every lady in the
station, with the result that I found twenty-five penwipers of sorts
in my pocket when I got home."
"Twenty-five, that was a large number," said Alice, stifling a yawn.
"What did you do with them?"
"Put them away in lavender as keepsakes, of course."
"My dear Paul," put in his sister, hurriedly, recognising his unsafe
mood. "We do things differently in England. We do not set on young
men; we do not have----"
"A superfluity of penwipers," interrupted her brother, becoming
utterly exasperated; but as he looked out of the window he saw
something which made him sit down again beside Alice Woodward, and
devote himself to her amusement. Yet it was a sight which with most
men would have had exactly the opposite effect, for it was a glimpse
of a well-known figure battling with the wind and the rain along the
ferry road. But Paul Macleod had made up his mind; besides, rather to
his own surprise, the past few days had brought him very little of the
restless desire to be with Marjory, which he had expected from his
previous experiences in love. It was evidently a sentimental attack,
unreal, fanciful, Arcadian, like the episode in which it had arisen.
And yet a remark of his sister's at afternoon tea set him suddenly in
arms.
"Mr. Gillespie told me there was a girl staying at the Camerons',
Paul, who was a sort of governess, or going to be one. And I
thought--if she hadn't a dreadful accent, or anything of that sort,
you know, of having her in the mornings for the children."
"Miss Carmichael, Blanche," he broke in, at a white heat, "is a very
charming girl, and I was going to ask you to call upon her, as soon as
the weather allowed of it. I have seen a good deal of her during the
last few weeks, and should like you to know her."
Really, in his present mood, Paul was almost as bad as a dynamite
bomb, or a high-pressure boiler in the back kitchen! Still, mindful of
her sisterly devotion, Lady George covered his indiscretion
gracefully.
"Oh, she is that sort of person, is she? I must have misunderstood Mr.
Gillespie, and I will call at once, for it is so pleasant, isn't it,
Alice dear, for girls to have companions."
And yet, as she spoke, she told herself that this was an explanation
of her brother's patience in solitude, and that it would be far safer,
considering what Paul was, to keep an eye on this possible flirtation.
Meanwhile, the offender felt a kind of shock at the possibilities her
easy acquiescence opened up. He had been telling himself, with a
certain satisfaction, that the idyll was over, leaving both him and
her little the worse for it; and now, apparently, he was to have an
opportunity of comparing the girl he fancied, and the girl he meant to
marry, side by side. It was scarcely a pleasing prospect, and the
knowledge of this made him once more return to his set purpose of
fostering some kind of sentiment towards Alice Woodward. But the fates
were against him. Lord George, coming in wet, but lively, from a
constitutional, began enthusiastically, between his drainings of the
teapot, in search of something to drink, on the charms of a girl he
had met on the road. "A real Highland girl," continued the amiable
idiot, regardless of his wife's storm signals, "with a lot of jolly
curly hair: not exactly pretty, you know, but fresh as a daisy, bright
as a bee. I couldn't help thinking, you know, how much better you
would all feel, Blanche, if you went out for a blow instead of
sticking at home."
"We should not come into the drawing-room with dirty boots if we did,
should we, Alice dear? Just look at him, Mrs. Woodward! He isn't fit
for ladies' society, is he?"
Lord George gave a hasty glance at his boots, swallowed his tepid
washings of the teapot with a muttered apology, and retired, leaving
his wife to breathe freely.
"That must be Miss Carmichael, I suppose," she remarked easily. "I am
beginning to be quite anxious to see this paragon, Paul."
"Nothing easier," replied her brother, shortly; "if you will be ready
at three to-morrow afternoon, I'll take you over and introduce you."
Positively she felt relieved when, with some excuse about seeing
whether the sportsmen had returned, he left the drawing-room. It was
like being on the brink of a volcano when he was there, and yet, poor,
dear old fellow, he behaved very sweetly.
She said as much to him, being clever enough to take his real
affection for her into consideration, during a brief quarter of an
hour's respite from duty which she managed in his business-room before
dinner.
"I wish _I_ had a snuggery like this, Paul," she said, plaintively
shaking her head over his long length spread out on one side of the
fire, and Lord George's on the other, "but women always bear the brunt
of everything. If the barometer would go up I could manage; but it
_will_ go down, and though I've taken away the one from the hall,
Major Tombs has an aneroid in his room, and _will_ speak about it. And
Ricketts--I have had her for five years, George, you remember--gave me
warning to-day. It seems Jessie took advantage of the fire in
Ricketts's room to dry one of Paul's wet suits, and Ricketts thought
it was a burglar. She went into hysterics first, and now says she
never was so insulted in her life."
Paul laughed. "Would it do any good if I apologised?"
"Wish it had been mine," grumbled Lord George. "This is my last coat
but one, and the sleeves of it are damp. I can't think why the dickens
the women can't turn 'em inside out."
"Oh! of course, it's the women again, George, but the footman wants to
know if he is expected to grease boots, and I don't know what to say.
Someone used to grease them, I remember----"
"Oh! if it comes to that," said Paul, hotly, "I'll grease 'em myself.
Why should you bother, Blanche?"
"Now that is _so_ like a man! Someone must bother; and really servants
are so troublesome about boots, though I must own one would think you
men were centipedes; there are fifty pairs in the laundry at present.
And Mrs. Woodward says her husband has smoked too many cigars and
drunk too much whiskey and soda. As if it were my fault." Poor Lady
George spoke quite tearfully.
"Well, I offered to take him out, but he said his waterproof wasn't
waterproof. What the dickens does a man mean by coming to the West
Highlands without a waterproof? One doesn't expect anything else in a
woman, of course, but a man!"
Lady George dried her eyes disconsolately. "Oh! it is no use, George,
importing the antagonism of sex into the matter. It is bad enough
without that. If we only had a billiard-room I could manage. Do you
know I think it quite criminal to build a house in the country without
one."
"There are the Kindergarten toys, my dear," suggested her husband;
"the children seem to have tired of them."
"Oh, don't try to be funny, please!" retorted his wife; "that would be
the last straw. And nurse says it is because they cannot get out that
they are so cross. Just when I was counting on them, too, as a
distraction."
"Well, Blazes was that effectually this morning," replied her husband,
with an air of conviction; "he howled straight on end for two hours,
and when I went into the nursery to see what was up, I found the poor
little beggar sobbing over some grievance or another."
Lady George flushed up. "It was only because he couldn't come down
with the others--I really can't have him; he is so unreasonable, and
Mrs. Woodward doesn't believe in my system."
"Never mind, my dear Blanche," said her brother, consolingly. "It
seems to answer nicely with good children, and children ought to be
good, you know. And the barometer is going up, it really is."
"For wind, I suppose," replied his sister, tragically. Apparently it
was for wind; at any rate, Will Cameron coming up to see the laird on
business next day observed casually that this must be about the end of
it; an optimistic remark which has a certain definite significance in
a land of gales. Even the sportsmen were driven to the cold comfort of
examining the action of each other's weapons with veiled contempt,
discussing the respective merits of each other's accoutrements, from
cartridge cases to leggings, and trying to forget that the wild
weather was making the birds still wilder than they had been already.
It appeared to have the same effect upon humanity. Sam Woodward, who
had been a thorn in poor Lady George's side from the beginning, fell
out with the only man who could tolerate him, and thereafter told his
sister it was a beastly hole, and that he meant to make the _mater_
give him some oof, when he would cut and run to some place where
they weren't so beastly stuck up. Mr. Woodward, senior, after
roaming about disconsolately waiting for the post, was only
appeased by Lady George's suggestion that he would be doing yeoman's
service to the cause of civilisation if he composed a letter to the
Postmaster-General, calling attention to the disgraceful irregularity
in her Majesty's mails to Gleneira; whereupon he retired into the
library and wasted several sheets of foolscap.
It was on the children, however, that the weather had the most
disastrous effect; so much so that Lord George, returning in the
afternoon from a blow with Paul--whose patience had given way over a
point-blank refusal on the under footman's part to stop another hour
if he was not allowed a fire in his room before dinner--found his wife
in the nursery standing helplessly before Blazes, who, in his flannel
nightgown, was seated stolidly on the floor. Adam and Eve, meanwhile,
were eyeing the scene from their beds, where, however, they had a
liberal supply of toys.
"Oh, George!" she cried appealingly, "he has such a hard, hard heart;
and I am sure he must get it from your side of the family, so _do_ you
think you could do anything with him?"
"Put him to bed like the others," suggested his father, weakly,
showing signs, at the same time, of beating a retreat, but pausing at
the sight of his wife's face, which, to tell the truth, was not far
from tears.
"So I have, but he gets out again, and nurse can't hold him in all the
time. Besides, it was Mrs. Woodward's fault for being so disagreeable
about my system; but the children were naughty, poor dears; only, of
course, Adam and Eve went to bed when they were told--you see, they
are _reasonable_, and knew that if they _did_ they would be allowed to
come down again to dessert--and then they didn't really mind going to
bed to please me, the little dears. But Blasius actually slapped Mrs.
Woodward's face, and then she said he ought to be whipped. So we had
quite a discussion about it, and, in the heat of the moment, I told
Blasius he must stop in bed till he said he was sorry. And now I can't
make him stop in bed or say a word. He just sits and smiles."
Here their mother's tone became so unlike smiles that Adam and Eve,
from their little beds, begged their ducksom mummie not to cry, even
though Blazes was the baddest little boy _they_ had ever seen.
"If he won't say it, you can't make him," remarked Lord George aside,
with conviction. "If I were you I'd chance it."
"But I can't. You see, I told Mrs. Woodward I could manage my own
children, and so I've made quite a point of it with Blasius. I can't
give in."
Lord George, who was in the Foreign Office, and great on diplomatic
relations, whistled softly. "Always a mistake to claim when you can't
coerce--or retaliate." Then he added, as if a thought had struck him,
"Look here! has he had his tea? No! then hand him over to me; I'll put
him in the little room by the business room. Nobody will hear him
there even if he does howl, and as he gets hungry he will cave in, I
expect. At any rate, he can't get out of bed there, and I don't think
he can like it."
But for some unexplained reason, possibly original sin, Blasius
elected to be quite cheerful over the transfer. He informed the nurse,
as she put on his dressing-gown, that he was going to "'moke with
daddy," and when he reached the little bare room, which was almost a
closet, he tucked the same dressing-gown round his little legs very
carefully as he plumped down on the floor.
"Blazeth's goin' to stay here a long, long time," he said,
confidently. "Dood-night, daddy dear."
In fact, he was so quiet that more than once his father, smoking in
the next room, got up to open the door softly and peer in to see if by
chance any evil could have befallen the small rebel; only to retire
finally, quite discomforted by the superior remark that "when
Blazeth's horry Blazeth's 'll let daddy know." To retire and meditate
upon the mysterious problem of fatherhood, and that duty to the soul
which, somehow or another, you have beckoned out of the unknown. In
nine times out of ten, thoughtlessly, to suit your own pleasure; in
ninety-nine times out of a hundred to bring it up to suit your own
convenience, to minister to your amusement, to justify your theories.
Lady George, coming in with the falling twilight, when the duties of
afternoon tea were over in the drawing-room, found her husband, minus
a cigar, brooding over the fire.
"I've done it, Blanche," he said defiantly.
"Done what?"
"Beaten him. I knew I should some day."
His wife gave quite a sharp little cry. "Oh, George! and I trusted
you. I trusted you so entirely, because you knew it was wrong. And now
it can never be undone--never! You have ruined everything--all the
confidence, and the love--Oh! George, how could you?"
The man's face was a study, but it was one which few women could
understand, for there is something in a righteous disregard of
weakness which seems brutal to most of them; for to them justice, like
everything else, is an emotion.
"The little beggar bit me," he began, rather sheepishly, and then
suddenly he laughed. "He was awfully quiet, you know, and I thought he
was really getting hungry; so I went in, and by Jove! Blanche, he had
eaten nearly a whole dog biscuit! Paul keeps them there, you know, for
the puppy. Well, I felt he had me on the hip as it were, and if it
hadn't been for your face, I'd have given in--like a fool. So I sate
down and talked to him--like--like a father. And then he suddenly
slipped off my knee like an eel, and bit me on the calf. Got tired, I
suppose, and upon my soul, I don't wonder--we had been at it for
hours, remember. And then--I don't think I lost my temper, Blanche--I
don't, indeed; but it seemed to come home to me that it was he or I--a
sort of good fight, you know. So I told him that I wasn't going to be
bothered by him any more. He had had his fun, and must pay for it, as
he would have to do till the day of his death. And then I gave him a
regular spanking--yes! I did--and he deserved it."
There was the oddest mixture of remorse, defiance, pain, and pride in
her husband's honest face, but Lady George could see nothing, think of
nothing, save the overthrow of her system, her belief.
"I wonder you aren't ashamed of yourself!" she cried, quite
passionately. "It isn't as if he could reason about it as you can--it
isn't as if he understood--it is brute force to him, nothing more----"
"That's just it, you see," protested the culprit, feebly, "if he
_could_ reason."
"And now the memory must be between you two always, and it isn't as it
used to be in the old barbarous days. Parents nowadays care for
something more than the old tyranny. We have a respect for our
children as for human beings like ourselves. And now you will never
be--or at least you _ought_ never to be able to look him in the face
again! Just think what it means, George!" Blanche, as she stood there
with disclaiming hands and eloquent voice, felt herself no mean
exponent of the new order of things, and rose to the occasion. "If he
had been a man, you dared not have beaten him, so it was mean, brutal,
unworthy. How can you expect the child to forget it? Would you, if you
were in his place? No! He will never forget it, and the memory must
come between you----"
"Blazeth's horry."
A round, full, almost manly voice, and a round, broad face, seamed
with tears, yet strangely cheerful withal, as if, the bolt having
fallen, the sky was clear once more.
Blanche dropped to her knees, and, secure in her own conscience, held
out her arms to the little advancing figure, but the child steered
past them. It was fact, and fact alone, which impressed the sturdy
brain, which day by day was gathering up its store of experience
against the hand-to-hand fight with life, which, please God, would
come by and bye--the life which was no Kindergarten game, the life of
strange, unknown dangers, against which the only weapon is the sheer
steel of self-control. And this was a little foretaste of the fight in
which daddy had won; daddy, who could do nothing but clasp the little
figure close to his heart as it climbed to his knee, and then walk
away with it to the window to hide his own tears.
His wife, standing where Blasius had passed her by, could see those
two round, red heads, so strangely like each other, though the one had
a shock of rough hair and the other was beginning to grow bald. And
she could hear that round full voice with a ring of concern in it.
"Blazeth's horry he hurt daddy such a lot. And daddy hurt Blazeths
awful; but he's a dood boy now. And oh, daddy! I don't fink them
bickeys is half as nice as daddy's--and Blazeths would like one,
becauth he's a dood boy."
The storm was over. The sky was clear, and Lord George, as he carried
his youngest born pick-a-back upstairs to the nursery, felt that there
was a stronger tie between them than there had ever been before; a
strange new tie between him and the little soul he had beckoned out of
the unknown--the little soul to whom in future "Daddy says not" would
represent that whole concentrated force of law and order from which it
was at present sheltered, but which by and bye would be its only
teacher. And yet, when brought face to face with his wife's arguments,
he, being of the dumb kind, could only say:
"You see, my dear, Blazes is _not_ a Kindergarten child, now is he?"