Mr. Wedderburn went into Edinburgh by the early train, the train which
conveyed all the gentlemen who were business men. But Mr. Dalyell, who
was not exactly a man in business, went in later. He had a great deal to
do with that busy world, but he was not actually in harness with an
office which claimed his daily attention. He was a director of a railway
company, and he had something to do with a great insurance office, and
there were other more speculative concerns in which he was believed to
have an interest: and there were few days in the week in which he did
not go “in,” as everybody said, to Edinburgh; but still it was not a
matter of necessity. He was up earlier than his wont that morning--for
Yalton was not an early house in general--and “pottered about,” as his
wife said fretfully, from his dressing-room to the library and from the
library back to his dressing-room, disturbing her morning’s rest. He
seemed to have a quantity of little things to do. Even after the
breakfast bell had rung he ran twice into the library for something
which he said he had forgotten. “You seem to have as many things to
remember as if you were the Prime Minister,” said Mrs. Dalyell, who had
already poured out his coffee, and who was more annoyed when he left his
breakfast to get cold than by any other of his peccadilloes. “_Robert!_”
she cried from the door in a tone of exasperation, “there will be
nothing fit to eat!” “I am coming, I am coming!” he cried. The curious
thing was that he did not mind if his bacon was cold: but his wife
minded for him and fumed and fretted. “What is the use of trying to get
anything comfortable for your father?” she would say complainingly,
“Well, mother, I like my kidneys hot,” said Fred; “so they’re not thrown
away at least.” Mrs. Dalyell looked at her son as if his tastes were a
matter of much indifference, but softened when she met the lad’s
good-humoured blue eyes. He was not remarkable in appearance, but like
dozens of other Scotch lads all about--light-brown hair, curling so
strongly that it was difficult sometimes to comb it out; nice eyes, with
a smile in them; tolerable features, the nose turned up a little; not a
giant by any means, but well developed, well set up--a natural,
pleasant boy of twenty, not without his failings, and perhaps a little
careless, a little superficial, having had no occasion as yet to fathom
any of the depths of life. He nodded at her over the dish of kidneys
with a smile which was contagious. Mrs. Dalyell was by no means a
light-hearted person. She was easily put out. She did not like anybody
to have a different way of thinking from her own on the points that
interested her. To let your tea stand till it was cold was an offence to
Mrs. Dalyell. As for more serious matters she did not much interfere
with them. That was the gentlemen’s part of the business. To have
breakfast in good condition and attend to the comfort of the house was
hers, which perhaps is a view of the question which will commend itself
to many. In return for this she expected to have a great deal of the
trouble of life taken off her shoulders. She declared constantly that
she knew nothing of business. She preferred to get her money just when
she wanted it, instead of having a banking account of her own, as most
ladies like to have nowadays, or a settled allowance. In short, Mrs.
Dalyell was a woman whose very existence necessitated a husband behind
her to do the rough work and see to the supplies. Within these limits
there could not be a better mistress of a household. And she was
exceedingly annoyed when her husband allowed his breakfast to get cold.
It was a trick of his, of which it was her constant effort to mend him;
but he was seldom so bad as this day.
“Go and tell your father,” she said at last, “that it is almost time for
the train. And to let him go without his breakfast is what I will not
do. So just tell him, once for all, if he does not come at once he must
just give up all thoughts of going in to Edinburgh to-day.”
“Here I am--here I am, Amelia,” said Mr. Dalyell, running in and taking
his seat at table. “What have you got there, Fred? Kidneys!--and this is
bacon.”
“All just as cold as chucky-stones,” said the lady of the house
solemnly.
“You know I don’t mind, my dear. I’ll have a little of that kidney--and
a cup of coffee with plenty of milk. How often am I to tell you you
should never mind me?”
“Just as often as I tell you I will mind you, Robert. Who should be
minded if it’s not the master of the house?”
He cast upon her a look--which Fred, who had nearly but not quite
forgotten the conversation of last night, caught and wondered at with a
vague sense of pain, though his mother did not remark it. There was a
great deal of affection and tenderness in the glance; but something else
that puzzled him. There was trouble in it--but what trouble could there
be in his father’s eyes looking at his mother? There was something in it
which made him say quite inconsequently, looking up from his plateful of
devilled kidney, “You’re not going away anywhere, are you, father?”
Then his father’s eyes fixed on himself with a startled glance: “Away?”
he said. “Where should I be going? and what’s put that into your head?”
Fred replied with the familiar subterfuge of youth: “Oh, nothing!” But
his mind was not satisfied; for that was no answer. And there passed
through his thoughts a vague idea that if, later in the day, there came
a telegram saying that Mr. Dalyell had been obliged to go to London on
business, he would not be surprised.
“Where indeed!” said Mrs. Dalyell. “It’s not the time for business,
which is a comfort: for you can’t be running up to London at a moment’s
notice, as you did in the spring. You would find nobody there.”
“That is just it,” said Mr. Dalyell. And after he had made this
unquestioned observation, he added, “I shall perhaps run down to
Portobello and get a swim. Nothing puts a man right like the sea. I’ll
just take a plunge and be back by the four o’clock train.”
“I hope you’ll have somebody with you; and don’t you be too venturesome
with your plunging and your swimming.”
“Too venturesome on Portobello sands! I’ll get Pat Wedderburn to come
and look after me,” said Mr. Dalyell with a laugh. He laughed with his
lips, but his eyes were quite grave--which was all the more remarkable
since he had laughing eyes, with humorous puckers all about them,
exceedingly ready to light up at such a joke as that of being taken care
of by Pat Wedderburn. He had still half-a-dozen things which kept him
running out and in before he was ready to start, which his way, but
always a source of exasperation to his orderly wife. Finally, when
there was hardly time to catch the train, he dashed upstairs three steps
at a time, explaining that he had forgotten something. Mrs. Dalyell
stood wringing her hands at the open door.
“I wish you had ordered the dog-cart, Fred. He’ll never catch the train.
You should remember your father’s ways, and that this is always what
happens: and then he’ll just fly and get out of breath and
over-heated--the very worst things for him. Dear, dear me! I might have
had more sense. I might have ordered the dog-cart myself, there’s only
ten minutes----”
“If he does lose the train I suppose it won’t matter so much,” said
easy-minded Fred.
“Not if he would think so,” replied the mother, “nothing at all--but
when he sets his mind on a thing, possible or impossible, he will carry
it out. ROBERT!” she cried, in capitals, going to the bottom of the
stairs.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouted. His voice came not from the
direction of his room but from the west passage, where he had nothing to
do, a fact which awoke a vague surprise in Mrs. Dalyell’s mind. He came
downstairs “like a tempest,” she said afterwards, making as much noise,
and caught her in his arms, to her great astonishment. “Good-bye, my
dearest, good-bye!” he cried, giving her a loving kiss (“before the
bairns, and that man Foggo looking on!”). “Keep well and don’t distress
yourself about me.” He was gone almost before she could ask him why she
should distress herself about him, flying down the road with Fred after
him, which, indeed, was his usual way of catching a train. She stood at
the door looking after him, and though he was in such a hurry and not a
moment to lose, what did Robert do but turn round and take off his hat
and wave his hand to her! Such nonsense! as if he were going away for
years. She made a sign of impatience, hurrying him on. “Do you think
they will do it this time, Foggo?” she said to the butler, who was also
looking after them. Foggo had been standing ready to help his master on
with his coat. But Mr. Dalyell had time only to snatch it and throw it
over his shoulder, partly because of that unnecessary embrace which had
so confused his wife under the servant’s eyes.
“Oh, ay, ma’am,” said Foggo, “they’ll do it; the maister’s aye just on
the edge--but he’s never missed her yet----”
Mr. Dalyell, when he rushed upstairs, had not gone to his dressing-room
as he proposed to do. He had darted down the west passage, a long vacant
corridor with a few doors of unused bedrooms on one side. He went down
to the end room of all, and opened the door. An old woman in a
tremendous mutch and tartan shawl came forward to meet him. “I have come
to say good-bye, Janet, my woman,” he said, grasping her hand. “And
you’ll remember what you’ve promised.”
“That I will, my bonnie man: if you’re sure you must do it. As long as I
live--but then I, may be, have not very long to live.”
“We’ll have to trust for that,” he said, holding both her hands.
“Could you no trust for other things? I’ve preachit to ye till I’m
weariet, maister Robert! Nobody trusted yet and was disappointed.”
“We’ve gone over all that,” he said. “No, no, there’s no other way. We
can’t ask the Lord for money, Janet.”
“What for no? And now I can scarce say God’s blessing on ye--for how
can I ask His blessing when it’s for a----?”
“No more, Janet, no more. Good-bye!”
“Oh, maister Robert, bide a moment. Do you mind the Psalm:
‘If in your heart ye sin regard
The Lord you will not hear?’
Think of that! How can I bid Him bless ye, when----?”
“Good-bye, my dear old woman, good-bye!”
And it was at this moment that Mrs. Dalyell’s voice calling “Robert!”
came small in the distance up the echoing passage. And in another moment
he was gone.
Mrs. Dalyell went to her kitchen to give her orders to the cook as soon
as her husband was out of sight. She was an excellent housekeeper, and
enjoyed this part of her duties far too much to depute them to any
other, although indeed in the tide of prosperity which Mr. Dalyell’s
business had brought to Yalton she might have had a housekeeper had she
pleased, and a much larger establishment. But she had thrifty instincts
and that distrust of business which old-fashioned ladies used to have,
with an inward conviction that it always collapsed at one time or
another, and that the estate was the sheet-anchor: which had prevented
her ever from launching out into expense. She dismissed the thoughts of
Robert’s unusual embrace--for domestic endearments are sedulously kept
in the background in Scotch houses of the old-fashioned type--and of any
little peculiarity there might have been about him this morning more
than other mornings--from her mind: which it required no effort to do,
for she was not given to investigations below the surface, or reading
between the lines, and a parting kiss (though absurd) was a parting kiss
to Mrs. Dalyell, and it was nothing more. She took pains to order her
husband a very good dinner, with due consideration of his special
likings, which perhaps was as good a thing as she could have done. Then
after luncheon there was Fred to send off in good time, so that he might
not put out any of the Scrymgeours’ arrangements by arriving too late.
He had a seven-miles drive, and never would have recollected to order
the dog-cart in time if his mother had not taken that duty upon herself;
and she likewise cast a glance at his other arrangements to make sure
that his white ties were in good condition and his pumps as they ought
to be--precautions quite unnecessary and rather distasteful to the young
man in his new conviction, acquired at Oxford, that he knew better than
any one what was essential to a perfect turn-out, either for horse or
man. Susie, who was liberated from lessons after luncheon, spent her
time in preparing messages for Lucy Scrymgeour which were intended to
disturb and plant thorns in that young person’s mind. “You can tell her
I never was so surprised in my life as when it came for you and not for
me: for you never were such friends with them as me. But you’re only
asked as a man. They must be badly off for men; though when one thinks
of all the officers in the garrison--and Davie such friends with all of
them! I don’t think you have got any amatory instincts, Fred--for you’ve
no friends but Oxford men; and what good would they be to us if we had a
ball? But you can tell Davie _from me_----”
“Has Davie amatory instincts?” cried Fred. “The little beast--I’ll take
him no messages from you.”
“What on earth is the child talking of?” said Mrs. Dalyell. “Where did
she hear such a word? Amatory!”
“It means friendship,” cried Susie, with a burning blush. “I know--I
know it does! I mean Davie has such lots of friends--and Fred has none;
or at least none that would be of any use if we were to have a ball.”
“But we are not going to have a ball,” said the mother; “it is a great
deal too much trouble. Ask the Scrymgeours what they think a week hence.
The whole house will be turned upside down, and the servants put out of
the way, and everybody made wretched. No, Susie, there will be no ball.”
“Then am I never to come out at all?” said Susie in a voice from which
consternation had driven all the lighter tones. This was too solemn a
thought to be expressed except with the gravity of fate.
“You should present her, mother,” said Fred; “that’s the right thing for
a girl.”
“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “that’s a great trouble too! The gowns
alone would cost about a hundred pounds; and your father, you know,
never stays a day longer in London than he can help--and what would
Susie and me do, two women by ourselves in that great big place?
Besides, to make it worth the while we would need to know a number of
people and get invitations. I’ve often heard of country people, very
well thought of in their own place, that have just been humiliated to
the very dust in London, with nobody to ask them out, or to call on them
or anything. She’ll have to be content with something nearer home.”
“That is all because things are so conventionary and nothing natural,”
said Susie; “that is what they say in all the books. But if papa would
go up with us in his Deputy Lieutenant’s uniform, and knowing such
quantities and quantities of people--and perhaps if you were to tell
Mrs. Wauchope she might speak to the Duchess, and the Duchess would say
just a little word to one of the Princesses--and then perhaps the
Queen----”
“Are you out of your senses, Susie? What do you expect that the Queen
would do?”
“Well! they might say we belonged to D’yell of Yalton that saved the
life of James the Fourth, who is the Queen’s great, great, great (I
don’t know how many greats) grandfather. And if she was passing this
way, you know, mamma, my father would have to come out and offer her a
drink of milk upon his knees. And it is a real old rule for thousands of
years, a feudacious tenor, or something of that kind----”
“Where did you find all that, Susie? Is it true, mother? Do we hold
Yalton like that?” cried Fred in great delight. “I never knew we were
such distinguished people before.”
“I don’t see any distinction about it,” said Mrs. Dalyell: “I never paid
much attention to such old stories. Oh, if you believe all the Dalyell
stories---- By the way, Susie, I wish you to pronounce the name as I
do--as everybody is doing now. ’D’yell’ is so common--it is what the
ploughmen say.”
“It is the right old antiquous way,” said Susie with energy, “and I like
it far the best. I heard about the horseman too--what it means,” she
added in a low tone. “Papa will never let me speak, but I could tell you
such things, Fred, if----” And here the little girl made various
telegraphic signs, meaning that enlightenment might be afforded if they
were alone together, with the mother well out of the way. These designs,
however, were frustrated unconsciously by Mrs. Dalyell, who gave her
daughter something to do in the way of replying to notes, which kept
Susie busy until it was time for Fred to depart.
But yet there was a little time for talk when the girls went with him
round to the stables to remind the groom that he must not be late.
“Where did you hear about that feudal business, Susie?” said Fred. “Did
you get it out of a book?”
“I got it out of something much funnier. I got it out of old Janet. You
should just hear her; she knows more about us--oh! so much more--than we
know about ourselves. She told me about----”
“Old Janet!” said Fred. He had forgotten his father’s grave talk and all
that had passed on the terrace, and it was not till he had thought it
over for a minute or two that it slowly came back to him what
association that was which was linked with the name of old Janet. Not
that he had not perfect acquaintance with her, as a matter of fact. She
had been Mr. Dalyell’s nurse, and had always possessed a room of
her own at Yalton, where she lived in a curious isolation and
independence--respected, and, perhaps, a little feared by the household
in general. Fred endeavoured to remember what it was as Susie’s voice
ran on, and then it suddenly burst upon him. It was to her his father
had advised him to go if he wanted help, in the supposed contingency of
his own removal--old Janet, of all people in the world! The recollection
made Fred indignant, yet gave him a sort of shiver of alarmed
presentiment as well. Could his father have meant anything more than a
mere passing fancy? Yet surely he must have meant something. And under
what possible circumstances could he, Fred, a University-man, and
acquainted with the world, require to take counsel with old Janet? It
gave him the strangest thrill to his very finger-points. It must mean
something different from what it seemed to mean. His father would never
have given him such a recommendation without a reason. Fred thought with
a sensation of horror of the family secrets which such an old woman
might possess. She might know something that would ruin them all--there
might be something hanging over them, something which she had to break
to him. Fred flung this fancy out of his mind as if it had been a stone
that some one had thrown into it, and came back to what Susie was
saying. Indifferent to the fact that he was not listening, Susie was
recounting the story of the family warning.
“‘And since that time there has always been a sound in the avenue as if
some horseman was coming, heavy dunts on the road, and the tinkle of the
bridle,’ she says. Always when there is trouble coming. I am sure it
must be very fatiguing for a ghost, and monotonious--oh! just beyond
description--to ride that little bit of road and never come near the
house, and all just to frighten a person. I would dash into the hall and
shake my bridle at them if it was me.”
“If you were a ghost, Susie?” said Alice with a shiver. “Oh, how can you
think of yourself as a ghost?”
“I don’t: I’m not diaphanious,” said Susie; “but if you were to be a
ghost at all it would be better to have something more to do than just
dunting, dunting, over one bit of road.”
“Janet must have been telling you a lot of lies and nonsense,” said Fred
indignantly; “I’ll have to speak to her if she goes on like that.”
“Or tell papa,” said Alice. “He never likes to hear about the horseman.”
“Yes, or tell papa,” said Fred. He could not tell what it meant, but he
had a strange feeling as if it were he himself that must do this and
shield his sisters from things that might frighten them--as if his
father somehow had not much to do with it. But he was greatly shocked
with himself when he became conscious of this thought. He was so much
absorbed, indeed, in the uncomfortable fancies called up by Janet’s
name, that Susie’s story of the King’s hunting and danger of his life,
and how the goodwife of Yalton brought him a bowl of milk, and how the
lands, as much as they could ride round in a day, according to the most
approved romantic fashion, were bestowed upon the D’yells for that
service, had little effect upon her brother. And presently the dog-cart
came round to the door, and the sight of Fred seated in it with his
portmanteau diverted Susie’s thoughts also and brought back her
grievance. She stood watching his departure by the side of her mother,
who had come out as was her wont to see the boy off.
“There he goes!” said Susie. “Oh, what fossilized hearts boys have! He
never thinks of me that has to stay at home. Tell Lucy Scrymgeour if she
thinks I will ask her to our ball she is in the greatest mistake, and it
will be just as much splendider than theirs, as Yalton is better than
Westwood. And tell her mamma is going to take me to London to be
presented and make my three obeysances to the Queen, and when I have
done that I can go to every place, and all the other queens are obliged
to ask me. Well, if mamma doesn’t, it’s not my fault; but you can always
tell her, Fred: and just say to that ichthyosaurious Davie that I’ll
have all the grand guardsmen and equerries to talk to, and I wouldn’t
look at him.”
“But it’s not his fault, Susie,” said Alice; “and perhaps he’ll tell
Fred he is very sorry.”
“I don’t think he will, for boys have no hearts: they have vegetable
things instead, when they are not fossilized. If he says he is sorry,
Fred, you can say I don’t mind very much, only I’ll never speak to them
again.”
“I hope you’ll have a nice ball, Fred,” said Mrs. Dalyell. “Come back as
early as you can to-morrow, for there are some people coming to tea.
And you may bring over Lucy and David, and any other young ones that are
staying at Westwood. We can give them their tea on the terrace, it’s not
too cold for that; and I am sure Mrs. Scrymgeour will be thankful to any
one that will take them out of her way.”