Next morning James Rowland woke with the churning of the waves under the
little Clyde steamboat in his ears, as if he were again on the deck
waiting for the opening in the trees, and the sight of the white
colonnade on the summit of its knoll, which brought with it the dazzle
of the sunshine, the purity of the sweet fresh air, the twitter of the
birds. How pleasant to have such a vision at waking, to realise with
delight that all those pleasant things were henceforth to be the
everyday circumstances of his life! But the next moment a cloud came
over his face, for he recollected what it was that must be his
occupation to-day. No shirking it any longer--no possibility of
persuading himself that something else ought to be done first. That had
been possible the first day: to see that their future home was
comfortable--to make sure that it would be ready for them, surely that
was a duty? But now he had accomplished it, and knew all about the
house, there was nothing further to keep him back. I hope the reader
will not think this perplexed father unnatural or unkind. As a matter of
fact, he would have been, and probably would be, after this first
obstacle was got over the kindest, the most fond of fathers. It was the
consciousness of the great gulf between what, when he last saw his
children, would have been right and natural for them, and what would be
suitable and indeed necessary now--between what he himself was then,
and what he was now, that overwhelmed him. They might be, in their
hearts, everything the prudent father could desire, and yet be quite out
of place at Rosmore, where he himself, if a little unpolished, would
nevertheless be quite in his proper place. If they had been but the
little children he remembered, who could have been trained into
anything! Alas, these possibilities were all over. He dressed himself
slowly, sighing from time to time, with an oppression on his heart that
he could not account for, wishing now, after all, that Evelyn had been
with him, who perhaps would have known better how to deal with the
emergency. And he breakfasted very slowly, reading the _Herald_ in
detail, and brooding over the paragraphs of local news which he did not
understand after so many years of separation from Glasgow and its
interests. At last the moment came when he could delay no longer. He had
read the papers; he had finished his breakfast: he rose with a sigh and
took his hat.
There is a street in Glasgow which I remember long ago, and which was
then called the Sauchiehall Road. Something picturesque in the name has
kept a place in the recollection of a child, over--let us not imagine
how many years; but it may be that a recollection so far off has
confused the outlines of the street, or that in this age of change it
may be completely altered, perhaps overrun with tall tenements, perhaps
fallen into irremediable decay. In like manner I am not sure that it was
the Sauchiehall Road in which the young Rowlands lived with their aunt,
though I think it was; and the reader may here excuse the possibility
of topographical error. It was a street in which there were many,
according to a description exclusively and characteristically Scotch,
“self-contained” houses of a small description, such as are not very
usual in Scotland. So far as I remember, they were of a generally grimy
kind, built in that dark complexioned stone which adds so much gloom to
the often cloudy skies and damp atmosphere of the western city. These
houses presented an aspect of faded gentility, and of having seen better
days. But they were at the same time very attractive to people without
any pretence at gentility, to whom the dignity of a front door and a
house self-contained, in distinction to the more usual circumstances of
a flat, was very tempting.
It was in one of these houses that Mrs. Brown, who was Rowland’s
sister-in-law, had established herself with her charges. It was one that
was supposed to be among the best of the long row. It had a yard or two
of what was called garden in front, almost filled with an elderberry
tree, on which there were some dusty indications of coming blossom; and
as the house had been recently painted, and had a bank of flowers in the
parlour window, it was easily distinguishable from its neighbours, which
were generally faded and dingy in appearance. To describe the beating of
the heart with which Mr. Rowland knocked at that freshly painted green
door would be almost more than words are equal to: a lover at the crisis
of hope and fear, not knowing what was to be the answer to his suit,
could not have been more agitated than this sober-minded, middle-aged
man. It occurred to him at the last moment not to give his name, but to
trust to his sister-in-law’s recognition of him, and thus have his first
view of his children entirely without any warning. He had scarcely done
this, however, before he began to think that to have given them the
fullest warning would have been better, so that his first impressions
should have been of their very best aspect prepared to please him. But
this was only after it was too late to change.
“Wha’ll I say?” said the servant girl, so decidedly bearing that aspect
that she could not have been called the maid, or the servant, or
anything but the girl. She was wiping her hands with her apron to be
ready to take a card, and a cap had been stuck on rather at random upon
a mass of curly and not very well-tended hair.
“You can say it’s a gentleman to speak to Mrs. Brown,” said Rowland,
stepping into the parlour, which was rather dark with its flowers banked
up against the window, though the flowers themselves seemed to flourish
luxuriantly. There was something horribly familiar to him in the aspect
of the room. He had seen nothing like it for many years, and yet he
recognised it in a moment. It was the best room of the respectable
mechanic--the parlour in which his wife put all her pride. There was a
round stand, covered with a glass shade, of wax flowers in the centre of
the table, and it stood upon a still larger mat surrounded with raised
flowers worked in crochet in coloured wools standing primly up around.
There were a few books laid round like the rays of a star: the _Course
of Time_ and other grimly orthodox productions of that character. The
chairs and sofa were covered with long “antimacassars,” also worked in
wool in stripes of different colours; the mantelpiece was loaded with
small pieces of china--girls with lambs, jugs with little pictures upon
them, and other such impressive articles, and photographs. Hung over it
in the place of honour, Mr. Rowland shivered to see his own portrait,
flanked on one side by the picture of a bungalow in which he had once
lived, and on the other by a group of football players, with names
written underneath, one of them being conspicuously marked as “Archie.”
Rowland, however, was breathing too quickly to allow him to go up to it,
and prepare himself for the appearance of his son. He felt more like
running away, and keeping up a fiction of being in India still.
While he was looking round him in consternation and alarm, he was
suddenly aware that the door had opened, and a little bright figure in
coloured muslin and many floating ribbons had come in. She twisted
herself as she walked, with a swaying and movement of all the
bright-coloured ribbons, and came forward with an apparent intention of
shaking hands with the stranger. But stopping at the distance of a step
or two, said with another twist, “Oh, I thought I knew you! Was there
anything you might be wanting that I could do?”
“I am waiting to see Mrs. Brown,” he said.
“Oh! that’s aunty,” said the girl. She looked at the elderly visitor
with a slight air of contempt, as if a man who could prefer to see aunty
instead of herself was a most curious specimen of humanity. And then
she laid down upon the table a parasol she had been carrying, and her
gloves, and a small basket of flowers. “I’ve just been out to the
nursery garden to get a flower,” she said, “I’m awfully fond of flowers.
D’ye like them?--Will I give you one for your buttonhole--if you’re one
of aunty’s friends?”
“You are very kind,” said the tremulous father, “but had you not better
wait till you see if aunty recognises me for one of her friends?”
“Oh, it’s no matter,” said the girl, “a flower is neither here nor
there--and she’ll not be fit to see a gentleman for a good while. She
likes to put on her best gown, and her cap with the red ribbons, like
the lady in the ‘Laird of Cockpen’--D’ye know the song?”
“I used to know it long ago--before I went to India----”
“Oh, you’ve come from Ingia? Papa’s out there--I wonder if you’ve come
from papa. Archie and me, we are always wishing he would send for us. It
would be awful fun. But he says he’s coming home. I hope he’ll not come
home. I hope he’ll send for us out there. Isn’t it far better fun out in
Ingia than it is here?”
“I don’t know about the fun here. Do you remember your father?” he
asked.
“No,” said the young lady indifferently, “I was a little baby when he
went away; and he must think I’m a little baby still, for he never sends
me things that you might think he would. I’ve seen girls that had grand
necklaces and things, and bangles. Bangles are very much worn here now.
But papa never sent me any. I had to buy what I wear.”
She held out a wrist to him laden with these ornaments of the flimsiest
description, wires of silver manufactured to suit a sudden demand.
“I am sure that he would have sent you things like these had he thought
you cared.”
“What for would I not care?” said the unconscious girl with great
reasonableness. She turned the bangles round and round upon her
outstretched arm, holding it up to see how they looked, and not
unwilling, perhaps, that the visitor should see how slim and white it
was. The girl was pretty in her way. She had a wonderful amount of
ribbons, a necklace with several lockets suspended round her neck, and
about a dozen bangles on each arm. What with looking at these, letting
them drop upon her arm to judge the effect, glancing at her figure
reflected in the little flat glass on the mantelpiece, and casting
stealthy looks aside at the stranger to see how all these pretty ways
moved him, she had the air of being so fully occupied that there was no
wonder it did not occur to her to compare his elderly brown face with
the portrait of her father hanging over the mirror on the wall.
“Is your brother at home?” Mr. Rowland said.
“Archie! oh no, he’s never at home. It’s past the season for football,
perhaps you know, but he’s taken to cricket to fill up his time. He’s
not a dab at cricket,” the girl said with a laugh. “It’s more an English
game than a Scotch game, and Archie is awfully Scotch. He goes on about
the flag and that nonsense. Now, I never mind. I like people just to be
pleasant, whether they are English or Scotch.”
“That is the most sensible way,” said the father.
“Do you hear Aunty,” said the girl, “rummaging about to get herself
dressed, as if you would ever notice what kind of a gown she had on! I
always put on a nice frock in the morning, and then I am fit to be seen
all the rest of the day.”
“But perhaps,” said Mr. Rowland, “you have had more advantages than your
aunt has had. You have been at school, and learnt a number of things.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve been at school,” said the girl. “I was at Miss Gibb’s in
St. Vincent Square. It’s rather a grand place; but I have my doubts
about what we learnt there. Aunty sent me because it was so grand--the
parents coming in their carriages--Mr. MacColl’s daughters, that has the
splendid shop in Buchanan Street, and people like that. Miss Gibbs only
took me because she was told about papa being so rich. The MacColls have
a pony trap of their own, and a boy in livery to drive about with them,”
said Marion, with a discontented face. “If my papa is really so rich, I
don’t see why I shouldn’t have a pony trap too.”
“When he comes home----” Rowland began.
“Oh, when he comes home! I once thought I would like that, though both
Archie and me would have liked it better if he had sent for us out to
Ingia. But maybe you don’t know what has happened? Papa has married
again! He’s married a governess, or something of that kind, that has
just caught him for his money. Aunty says there are no fools like old
fools. And what will we be now? We might just as well be anybody’s
children as belong to a man that has got a new wife. She is just sure to
put him against us, to get all the money for herself----”
It was all Rowland could do not to spring up and silence with an angry
hand this little pert voice, with its ignoble complaint. He was very
angry, but he subdued himself. “I should like to see your brother,” he
said curtly, for just then the door had been heard to open by a
latch-key, and some one had come in.
“Archie,” said Miss Marion, elevating her voice, but without any other
movement. “Come in here. Here’s a gentleman that knows papa.”
The door of the room was ajar. It was pushed open, more gently than
might have been expected, by a tall lad, his face highly coloured by the
still unsubdued flush of violent exercise. His countenance was of a
milder, perhaps feebler, type than that of his sister, and his dress and
manner were something between those of an assistant gentleman in a shop
and a young clerk. His clothes were good enough, but not very well made
or carefully kept. Rowland’s heart gave a leap, however, when this head
looked in, for the boy had his mother’s eyes--kind, honest, well-meaning
eyes, devoid of guile. They looked in with an inquiry in them, and then
brightened up. The door opened wide, and the young man came in and went
up to Rowland, holding out his hand: “If he’s from papa,” he said, a
little broadly--(papaw would be nearer the sound, yet not so much as
that), “he’s very welcome.” In the delightful revulsion the father felt
unspeakably grateful, though there was little to call forth that
sentiment.
“I’ve been telling him,” said Marion, holding up her arm again in order
that her bangles might drop back with a tinkle, which evidently was
agreeable to her, “that we’re very disappointed that papa didn’t send
for us to Ingia, and then we would have taken care of him and stopped
this awful marriage, which will just be our destruction. And it would
have been awful fun out there.”
“You will think we’ve no business to speak of his marriage in that way.
And neither we have,” said the youth. “He’s old enough to judge for
himself.”
“Old enough!” said Marion; “just so old that the parliament should stop
people from making such fools of themselves. But there’s no fools like
auld fools, as aunty says.”
“I don’t go so far as that,” said Archie, with an air of impartiality,
“but of course it was a great disappointment. We’ve been brought up to
think everything would be ours; and then, as my aunt says, there will
perhaps be a large young family, and everything spoiled for May and me.”
A flush such as would not have misbecome a young lover--a glow of warmth
and pleasure--came over Rowland. He scarcely noticed the boy’s
reflection, for the curious shade of gratification which the last part
of his speech gave him. A large young family;--not that perhaps: but the
suggestion seemed to fill his veins with new life.
It was at this moment that a sound was heard upon the stairs, announcing
Mrs. Brown’s speedy appearance; a rustling of silk, and tinkle of
ornaments, and some half-whispered remarks to the servant girl--“Ye
tawpy! why did ye no show the gentleman into the drawing-room? He’s just
in the parlour, and that’s not the place for visitors. When I give a
ring to the bell, mind that ye’re ready wi’ the cake and wine.”
“Dear me,” said Mrs. Brown, appearing in the room, and using her full
and sonorous voice, “May, what tempted ye to bring a gentleman into this
small bit of a room--just a family parlour, no fit for visitors, and the
drawing-room standing useless up the stair? I havena heard your name,
sir, but I’m sure I’m glad to see ye. I was in the middle of some femily
business, and I could not get away before.”
Her appearance, however, contradicted this excuse. Mrs. Brown had put on
a silk dress of a brilliant colour, which she called ruby, and which
glistened and rustled exceedingly. She wore a big locket on her ample
bosom; her watch, a large one, was twisted into her belt, depending from
a long and heavy gold chain, which was round her neck. She had a number
of rings upon her fingers. Her cap was an elaborate construction trimmed
with ribbons of the same colour as her dress. Her appearance, indeed,
as, large and ruddy and full of colour, she came in through the narrow
doorway, turned the very atmosphere in the room to a rosy hue.
“Jane,” said Rowland, rising from his chair.
She gave a scream, and gazed at him with wondering eyes. “Wha are
ye?--wha are ye?--for I’m sure that I’ve seen ye before. The lass has no
sense to ask a visitor his name.”
“Is it possible that ye don’t know me, Jane?”
“God bless us!” she said, “it’s just Jims Rowland himself! Eh, man, I’m
glad to see ye, Jims. Is it just you!--bairns, it’s your papaw. Lord
bless me that I should been such a time putting on my cap, and Jims
Rowland waiting for me down the stair.”
“Papa-w!” with about half of a W at the end of the last syllable, said
Archie.
“Papa!” said Marion. They were both discomfited, but the girl least. She
fell back a little upon the bodyguard as it were of her brother. “It was
_you_ that said that about the new family,” she whispered in Archie’s
ear.
“I am not denying it,” said Archie. “He had no business to come in like
this and take us unawares.”
Mrs. Brown gave Rowland a fat hand to shake and then she subsided into a
chair and began to cry: “Eh, to think it should be you! and sae mony
years come and gane since ye parted with us a’--and such things as have
happened. Ye was but young then and your heart was running on many a
thing out of common folks’ way--and to see ye back again looking little
the worse, and a’ your fancies fulfilled! It’s just the maist wonderful
thing I ever heard of. But eh! Jims Rowland, you’re an awfu’ changed man
from what ye were when ye went away.”
“I am seventeen years older,” Rowland said.
“It’s no that--but you’re far different. You were a heartbroken lad
then. ‘Twas for the loss of your wife, my bonnie sister Mary--and now
you’re back with a new lady to put out her very name from the airth.”
“I think,” said Rowland in his own defence, “that not to marry again for
more than sixteen years was surely enough to show my respect for her
memory.”
“I never thought you would have married again,” said Mrs. Brown. “Mony a
time it’s been said to me, ‘He’ll get another wife out yonder’--but I
would never believe it. I just could not think it true. Eh man, when ye
had a bonny dochter o’ your ain grown up, and just real well qualified
to be the mistress of her faither’s house----”
“Jane,” said Mr. Rowland, with seriousness, “I have a great regard for
you. You’ve been, no doubt, a careful guardian of the children--but I
cannot answer to you for what I do.”
“Na, na, I never imagined it. Ye just acted to please your ain sel’,
considering nobody. I’m no finding fault--I’m just wondering. And
there’s the bairns. What think ye of them? Are they no a credit to any
house? and a pleasure to the eyes, and a comfort to the heart?”
She drew Marion forward with a vigorous hand, and placed the two side by
side, confronting their father, who sat and gazed at them helplessly.
Two well-grown, well-looking young creatures they were indeed. But
Rowland gazed at them with a gradual dying out of all light from his
face: his lip dropped, his eyes grew blank. What could he say? Nothing:
there was little to find fault with, nothing that could be expressed in
ordinary words. A sort of dread came over him as he looked at them, the
boy and girl of whom he knew nothing; who had speculated on him, a being
of whom they knew nothing, as to what he would do for them, send for
them to India, which would be awful fun, or disappoint them of their
lawful expectation of being his heirs. He might never have known what
were their sentiments, and perhaps would have remained remorseful all
his life, thinking himself to blame in not responding to their
affection, but for this unintentional revelation. And now it astonished
him to find himself in face of the two who had formed such clear
opinions of their own as to what his duty was, and how he had deviated
from it. They thought his duty was to take care of and provide for
them--and he thought their duty was to regard their unknown father with
affection and submission. And neither one nor the other had come true.
He could not make any reply to their aunt’s appeal. He got up and went
to the window, and walked about the little room, knocking against the
furniture. “This is a pokey little place you are in,” he said, by way of
getting rid of some of the vexation in his mind. “I could have wished
that you had been in a better house.”
“It’s a very good house,” said Mrs. Brown. “This is just the femily
parlour--but if ye’ll come up to the drawing-room, ye’ll see what a nice
room it is. It’s just as pleasant a house as there is in Glasgow, if
maybe no so big as in some of those new crescents and squares out on the
Kelvin Road. But everybody knows that the Sauchiehall Road is one of
the best pairts. What ails ye at the house? it is just a very good
house, quite good enough for the bairns and me.”
Rowland could make no reply. He stood and stared blankly out of the
window into the elderberry tree, and said no more.