For the next few days after the visit to old Peggy, which convinced
her that some secret lay in the old woman's keeping, Mrs. Vane
refrained from any attempt to interfere with Providence. To begin
with, she felt vaguely that the Scotch marriage laws were dangerous,
and the very fact that she knew enough of Paul to be sure that this
was not likely to be a mere vulgar entanglement, made her hesitate
before her own suspicions. On the other hand, this possibility of a
new string to her bow inclined her to slack off the other; the more so
because here again she was beginning to be afraid of her own weapon.
She had always recognised that, but for her interference, Paul would
have held to that discretion which is the better part of valour, have
seen no more of Marjory, and forgotten her; also, that the girl
herself had been quite as ready to dismiss this strange, if alluring,
figure from her thoughts, as belonging to a society--nay! to a
world--in which she had no part. But now? Mrs. Vane, as she watched
the easy familiarity which had of necessity recommenced between them,
as she noted the girl's quick, healthy response to the thousand and
one new thoughts and ways of this new life, could not help wondering
if the awakening to new pleasures might not rouse into action a new
set of emotions and instincts. For Marjory, as for Paul, there was
also danger; to her from the unfamiliarity, to him from the very
familiarity of the environment, which threw him back on past
experience, and rendered it well-nigh impossible for him to forget his
own nature, and dream himself in Arcadia. And then Dr. Kennedy's
appearance had complicated matters for Mrs. Vane, who, kindly to all,
had a weak spot in her heart for the friend of her earliest youth. It
did not take long for her sharp eyes to pierce through his pretence of
mere guardianship, and it gave her quite a pang to think of giving him
one. Yet here she comforted herself by the palpable jealousy which
Marjory showed towards those youthful days; a jealousy she did not
scruple to stimulate, for Mrs. Vane, with all her _finesse_,
occasionally made a mistake, and in the present instance did not
realise that in thus, as it were, emphasising a hitherto unknown side
of Dr. Kennedy's life she was adding to the strangeness of the
environment in which Marjory found herself; and at the same time
suggesting that it was no new thing to the one person to whose opinion
she was inclined to defer. So that, instead of helping her old friend
by the time-honoured device of exciting jealousy as a prelude to love,
Mrs. Vane, in reality, made it easier for the girl to drift from her
moorings.
"You are very kind to your ward," said the little lady one day,
feeling impelled to give comfort as she noticed Dr. Kennedy's eyes
following Marjory rather wistfully. "But virtue has its own reward. Do
not pretend you don't understand, _Monsieur le Docteur!_ for you do.
And I will give you my opinion--when she has seen a little more of the
world she will see what _it_ has seen already--that there are not many
men in it like Dr. Tom Kennedy."
"She will see exactly what she chooses to see, _Madame!_" he replied,
with one of his little foreign bows, which, to Marjory, seemed to
reveal him in a new and worldly light.
"Exactly," retorted the little lady; "and being of the Truth will
choose the Truth." And then suddenly her mood changed, and she laid
her hand close to his on the table as if to attract his attention to
her quick emotion. "Ah, _mon ami_, I envy you! you can afford to wait
for Paradise, and I have had mine. At least, I feel as if I had eaten
my apple and been turned out into the cold, for there hasn't been much
happiness in my life."
He looked at her with 'grave pity, noting with the eye of one
accustomed to the work the thousand and one little signs of wear and
tear in the clever, mobile face.
"You have put plenty into other people's lives, anyhow," he said, in
kindly, if cold, comfort; and his words were true. With all her faults
Mrs. Vane had given more to the world than she had ever taken from it.
Marjory, watching the little scene from afar, felt something of this,
as she told herself it was quite natural that Tom should enjoy the
companionship of his old friend. Who, in fact, would not enjoy talking
to so brilliant and charming a woman? at least, in this new world,
which could not somehow be cleft in two by a straight line dividing
right from wrong, darkness from light.
Yet, though she acknowledged this, she was as far as ever from
understanding it, and as ready as ever to disdain anything which
bordered on sentiment; on that unknown ground of Love or Passion.
Dr. Kennedy, repeating to her his part of _jeune premier_ in the
little play which was to precede some tableaux, realised her lack of
change in this respect with mingled gratification and regret.
"I must keep my own counsel," he recited, in the even yet jerky tone
sacred to the learning of parts, "em--and not let her suspect the deep
attachment she has inspired--inspired--inspired. Now, don't tell me,
please; I know what comes next. Yes! I do, Mademoiselle! In nine cases
out of ten a proposal! So there! Well, where were we? Ah! 'But, soft'
(depends greatly on the stage floor, my dear sir). 'But, soft! she
comes!' Go on, Marjory. 'Enter Blanche--she comes,' is your cue."
"'Tis he! Henri!' Oh! Tom, do let us skip all that bosh!"
Dr. Kennedy put down the hazel root he was whittling into a shepherd's
crook and looked at her in feigned surprise. "Bosh! Why, I intend to
work this up until I draw tears from every eye."
"Not from mine, Tom," smiled Marjory; "that sort of thing always makes
me laugh."
They were lounging under the beech tree which grew close to the burn
at the bottom of the garden, and the dappled sunshine and shade from
the green canopy overhead made the green draperies outlining the fine
curves of Marjory's slender figure seem like a dress of leaves.
Leaning forward on the grass, her chin resting on her hands, her curly
head thrown back half-defiantly to look him in the face, she reminded
Dr. Kennedy of Rosalind; yet it was of another heroine that he spoke.
"Poor Juliet! I suppose she ought not to have survived to the
nineteenth century!"
Marjory's eyebrows puckered themselves in doubt. "I don't mean that;
perhaps I don't know what I mean; but Juliet loved Romeo, and
these"--she nodded at the little book between her elbows in careless
contempt--"they--they--Tom! you must allow there is too much of--of
that sort of thing."
He went on whittling for a moment; it was the first time he had ever
touched on the subject with Marjory, and he felt at once curious and
constrained.
"I am afraid that sort of thing--as you call it--will not reduce
itself to please you; it is part, and perhaps a necessary part, of
life," he said shortly.
"A part!" returned the girl, eagerly. "Not all? Now, in the novels and
these plays one hears of little else. It is all hero and heroine;
work, ambition, failure, success, are nowhere. It is very
uninteresting--don't you think so?"
Dr. Kennedy's face was a study in humour and gravity.
"Upon my word, I don't know, my child! But most people think otherwise
at some time of life. And you are a little hard, surely; you should
remember that after all the love-season is generally the crisis of
life's fever. Put it another way; the touchstone by which we can test
the lovers' ideal;" he paused till his innate doubt made him add: "At
least it should be so, though I'm afraid it isn't--not always."
She looked at him, and a troubled expression came to her eyes. "I
suppose not," she said absently; "that has always been a puzzle to me.
To love, and yet not to approve, seems to me a contradiction in
terms." The chips flew faster from the knot Dr. Kennedy was smoothing.
"You talk as if love were reducible to logic, but it isn't." Then
the impossibility of a mutual understanding made him add more gently:
"It isn't a thing you can reason about. It comes and goes as it
chooses--not as you choose. That is the difficulty."
"Difficulty," echoed Marjory, raising herself with a belligerent
air to clasp her hands about her knees and subside again into a
half-dreamy defiance as she sate looking out over the burn to the
sunlit point stretching into the blue loch. "It is manifestly unfair
if it is so; only I don't think it is. Else how is it possible to hold
love sacred? How is it possible to believe in it?"
"I am afraid it will be believed in to the end of the chapter all the
same," replied her hearer, with a smile. "And it isn't so unfair when
all is said and done, since 'a love that is tender and true and strong
crowneth the life of the giver.'"
She turned on him sharply. "Where does that come from? Some extremely
sentimental---- Why, Tom! I believe you wrote that--now did you? Come!
own up!"
"I might have guessed it wouldn't pass muster with a young person who
has taken honours in English literature and knows the Elizabethan
poets by heart," he replied gravely. "Yes! Marjory, I am responsible
for that particular version of a time-honoured, crusted old sentiment.
I wrote it in delirium, or something like it--if that is any excuse."
She edged closer to him in girlish eagerness. "This is quite
delightful. I never knew you wrote rhymes. I do, and burn them; but
_you!_ Come, tell me the rest at once."
"Perhaps I burn them, too."
"Oh! but that is only pretence, you know, just to keep oneself in
subjection. One remembers them all the same. I do. So now, once,
twice, thrice!"
He gave an odd little grimace. "It was last year when I had fever," he
began apologetically.
"In Paris?"
"No! They had sent me to the country, and there was a stream and some
reeds. I could see them as I lay in bed, and so---- Now, mind, if once
I begin to swear I won't leave off under half-a-crown!"
"I wouldn't mind giving three shillings if it were worth it; so go on,
Tom, why should you be bashful?"
"Because I was delirious when I wrote it, of course," he replied; yet
there was a real tremor in his voice, as he began:--
"Where the river's golden sheen floats by
The plumes of the tall reeds touch the sky,
Like arrows from out a quiver.
But one bends over to reach the stream,
Dreaming of naught but the golden gleam,
Weary for love of the river.
"'Oh, river! river! thou flowest fast;
Yet leave me one kiss as thou goest past--
One kiss, to be mine for ever!'
She bent her head to the shining flood;
On swept the river in careless mood,
Mocking her poor endeavour.
"'Oh, river! river! give back to me
Some token of all I have given to thee,
To show thou art my lover!'
But the only answer to her prayer
Was the shade of her own love mirrored there,
With the reeds that grew above her.
"The proud reeds chid her, yet still she sighed,
Wondering such love could be so denied;
While ever towards the ocean,
Dreaming deep dreams of that future free,
The river swept on to the unknown sea,
Careless of her devotion.
"A bird flew down when the sun set red,
To sing his hymn from the reed's bowed head
To God, the All-good Giver.
Bowed by the weight of the singing bird,
At long, long last the waters stirred,
As the reed's plume touched the river.
"'Oh! glad and sweet,' sang the bird, 'is Life,
And Death is sweet, bringing Peace to Strife,
But Love is God's best treasure.
It cometh best when it comes unsought,
It giveth all, and it asketh naught,
For true love hath no measure,'
"The bird flew home when its song had ceased.
The reed, from its one dear kiss released,
Shall give another never;
But a silver crown of dewdrops shone,
Telling of true love given, not won,
In the reed's bright plume for ever.
"Go forth, my song! so that all may learn
Love, like the reed's, needeth no return,
Save the baptism of the river.
Though the heart be sad, and the way be long,
A love that is tender, and true, and strong,
Crowneth the life of the giver."
Dr. Kennedy recited well; the tremor of his voice had soon passed, and
with it, apparently, all sense of the personal application of the
verses; for as he sate, still whittling away at the hazel root, his
keen brown face wore a half-humorous and half-puzzled look, and after
a decent pause he gave an odd sort of laugh.
"It sounds pretty," he said; "but upon my word I don't know quite what
I meant, and I am almost certain it was not love, not what is
generally understood by love."
Marjory looked at him judgmatically. "Nonsense! Of course it was love,
and what is more, Tom, I think you must have been in love when you
wrote it. Now confess, were you not?"
Once again the temptation to say "Yes! with you," rose uppermost; only
to meet with the old revulsion of feeling, born of the knowledge of
things hidden from her, and please God! always to be so hidden. In
love! Great heavens, no! if that were love. And yet, how could he
answer for her nature as well as his own? For a nature which his
practised eye told him was full of vitality, full of possibilities;
and young, ah! so young as yet in its knowledge of itself. If he told
her that he loved her and asked her to marry him, the chances were ten
to one that she would say "Yes." And yet the conviction that it was so
brought him no content, but only something of tender reluctance for
her, of vague contempt for himself.
"In love!" he echoed. "I was in a delirium if you meant that, or near
it. Temperature a hundred and five point two, and Abbeville--he was
nursing me--good luck to him!--had just confessed there was not much
chance; as if I hadn't known that for days!"
"And you never told me," she said, after a pause.
"No; I didn't want to bother you, and----" He looked up to see her
face white, and his manner changed. "Don't, child! it's past and
over--besides I have a knack of pulling through--I am sorry I
mentioned it, now."
"What is it?" she asked, in a constrained voice. "I should like to
know, if I may?"
"My dear! of course you may. Pyæmia; the knife slipped, that was all.
The veriest scratch. What a fool I was to mention it!"
"Don't say that," she flashed out suddenly. "Don't you know that I
like to hear everything--everything----" She paused, and her quick
resentment seemed to die down before a keener thought, and she sate
silent for a while. "I can scarcely think what it would have meant to
me," she went on, half to herself, before she turned her face to him
again. "I should have been quite alone in the world then, you know,
Tom."
"Until you made a home of your own, perhaps," he replied quietly,
being, like most men of his temperament, somewhat given to
self-torture.
"Perhaps; but it would never be the same," she said, as quietly. "It
would never seem to be the haven of rest that the thought of your
goodness is to me now. Do you know, Tom, that I always hearten myself
up by saying that if I am tired I can always ask you to let me rest,
and you would, wouldn't you?" As she spoke she stretched out her hand
towards him in her favourite gesture of appeal, and both of his,
leaving their work, had reached to it eagerly and clasped it close.
"Marjory!" he said, a surge of sheer happiness flooding heart and
brain with unalloyed content. "Promise me that always--and--and I am
satisfied."
"Promise what?" she asked, smiling through the sudden tears which
brightened her eyes. "That I will come home to rest if I am tired? Of
course I shall. What is the use of having you, Tom, the best, the
kindest, if I don't make use of you? And I will. I'll come home fast
enough, you'll see, if----" She paused to give a wise shake of her
head, and then, clasping the hand he had released over the other which
lay upon her knee, she looked out absently over the running water at
her feet.
"I wonder how I shall like it?" she continued. "I wonder if it will be
what I have fancied it?"
"Probably not," replied her companion, with a quick dread at his
heart. For how could it be so? What could this girl's imagining have
to do with that world which he knew so well: so well that the finer
tissue in him rebelled against the teaching which his very profession
forced him to accept as true, at any rate for the majority of men and
women. "Probably not," he repeated more quietly, "though that is just
the sort of thing it is impossible to predict of a girl who has been
brought up as you have. So it must be settled by experience."
Half an hour afterwards Paul Macleod, coming over to the Lodge on the
pretence of giving notice of an afternoon rehearsal, found them still
busy over the loves and woes of Henri and Blanche. In fact, Dr.
Kennedy was on his knees disclaiming his part passionately; whereat
the newcomer frowned. First at the sight, secondly at his own dislike
to it.
"I have been trying to teach Miss Carmichael how to refuse an aspirant
firmly, yet sympathetically," said the doctor, coolly, rising to his
feet and putting the handkerchief he had spread on the ground into his
pocket; "but she finds a difficulty, apparently, in keeping her
countenance. It is a mistake, Marjory. Half the unhappy marriages in
the world come from the difficulty which the untutored mind has in
saying 'No' with decent courtesy. It is so much easier to say 'Yes,'
since that requires no diplomacy. If I had daughters I should always
impress on them that the eleventh commandment does not consist in
'Thou shalt not refuse.'"
"I shouldn't have thought it necessary to impress that on the girls of
the present day," remarked Paul, rather hastily, and Marjory flushed
up at once.
"It is never safe to generalise from a single experience, Captain
Macleod," she retorted, "and yours may have been exceptionally
fortunate--hitherto."
"Perhaps it has--hitherto," he replied, and, after delivering his
message, went off in a huff. Yet he felt himself more on a plane with
Marjory than he had ever done before, slightly to his discomfiture;
for this atmosphere of quick give and take, this suspicion of jealous
anger, was familiar to him, and he could not mistake its
possibilities. So he devoted himself more than usual to his duty, and
though, of course, he made up his tiff a trifle sentimentally with
Marjory, he chose to be rather lordly over her relations with Dr.
Kennedy, and even went so far as to mention to his sister that he
suspected her _protégé_, Mr. Gillespie, was forestalled.
"My dear Paul!" said Lady George, distractedly, "I really don't care
at the present moment who marries who. I might be in a better world
for that matter, if I weren't in Purgatory."
"Wherefore?" asked Paul, kindly.
"Oh! the supper, and the servants, and the general civility," replied
Blanche, who was in reality enjoying the bustle, but, at the same
time, liked to pose as a victim. "Really, in these out-of-the-way
places one has to be a virtuous woman, and bring one's food from afar;
and then there is always Blasius. I suppose it is the name, as you
say, George, but, really, I don't believe that child _can_ do what is
right."
"Nonsense, my dear," retorted her spouse, who ever since he undertook
to interpret the laws of nature to his youngest born had been a trifle
jealous of his pupil's reputation. "Blasius won the Derby in '73. What
has the child been doing now?"
"Oh! nothing much; only he wouldn't eat his dinner just now because it
was only an egg, and the others had mutton. He really is too young to
have meat every day; so, as I was busy, I told nurse to put him to
bed, and he is sitting up in it making the most unearthly noises, as
if the whole farmyard were in the top landing. Listen! you can hear
him down here."
There could be no doubt of it, and as they stood in the hall, looking
up involuntarily, a perfect babel of cluckings and cacklings, crowings
and quackings, seemed to come down the stairs with Mary, the
nursemaid, who was bearing the dirty dishes from the nursery dinner;
among them Blazes' despised egg.
"The worst of it is," went on Lady George, in her high, plaintive
voice, "you never really know what the child means. Why, for instance,
should he cackle, as if he had laid an egg himself?"
'"Um!" grumbled her husband. "More to the purpose why he refused his
dinner? Here, let me look at that tray, will you? By Jove, Blanche!"
he went on, holding out the egg-cup excitedly, "it's bad--no child
could be expected to eat that--what a fool!"
He was half-way up the stairs impetuously when his wife begged him to
be discreet, and wait for her.
"It is just what I said," she confided to Paul, who followed full of
laughter. "You never can tell what he means till afterwards; now, of
course, I can guess that--that----" She paused, feeling that words
were unnecessary before the spectacle of Blasius, standing beside the
round, white pillow of his cot, and cackling vehemently. But Lord
George was too angry for amusement, and after an elaborate apology to
Blazes for the mistake, handed him over to the nurse with a sharp
order to re-dress him and take more care in future, which enabled that
functionary to veil her real regret under a show of indignation until
Blasius, who was sitting on her knee, and could presumably see more of
the truths than others, said consolingly:
"Never mind, nursie! Cocky eat his own egg next time." Whereupon, she
burst into tears and hugged him for a darling, and a treasure, and the
one comfort of her life.
"I don't think his meaning was obscure that time, Blanche," said her
husband, as they went downstairs. "If Cocky had committed the
indiscretion of laying a bad egg, why then--God bless the boy, he is a
little trump!"
"And has a wisdom beyond his years," added Paul, rather cynically;
"for he lays the blame where it should be given--on the Creator."
"My dear Paul! what a dreadful thing to say; please remember he is
your god-son."
"Well, if he doesn't hear it from me he will from others, my dear
girl," replied her brother, with a shrug of the shoulders. "It is the
teaching of to-day. We are none of us responsible beings."
"And upon my soul," growled Lord George, "I'm inclined to agree with
it in one sense--think of that fool of a nurse!--you should dismiss
her, Blanche."
"But, my dear Paul," persisted Lady George, disregarding her husband's
suggestion, "the question of heredity does not exclude the forces of
education. We can be altered----"
"I've heard you say a dozen times, Blanche, that an altered body is
never satisfactory, even with the best of dressmakers," interrupted
Paul, as he turned off to the smoking-room. "So why should you think
it would answer with a soul?"
"There is something the matter with Paul," remarked his sister, who
disliked above all things to have the logical sequence of her own
theories flung in her face; "but that is only to be expected. When one
is busy troubles come crowding in on every side. However, I have
written to Lady Hooker, and begged her as a personal favour not to
bring the piper to-morrow night; for, though I have warned the
servants about Highland flings, you cannot expect people to overcome
their natural instincts nowadays, and of course we shall be enjoying
ourselves, in a way, upstairs."
"I hope so," assented her husband, gloomily; "and I suppose, my dear,
I shall get my towel-horse back when it is all over."
"Now, George! isn't that like a man?" cried his wife, triumphantly,
as if appealing to him for verification of a new and interesting
fact about himself. "As if you didn't know that tableaux in the
drawing-room and towel-horses in the bedrooms were quite incompatible
when scenery is required--especially rustic scenery. And Mrs. Vane
requires so many rocks! You may be thankful it wasn't _boulders_, for
then the pillows would have gone, and what would you have said to
that?"
Lord George said nothing, but as he followed his brother-in-law's
example and turned off to the smoking-room, some connection of ideas
made him hum to himself:--
"Out of my stony grief Bethels I'll raise."
"Really, George!" called his wife, indignantly; "you and Paul are
_impayable_. It is a wonder Adam and Eve are so good."