"UNTO US AS A DAUGHTER"
_November 2. The same Age._
[It is really the first of the month, but I date it the second, because
the first is a Sunday, you see.]
After the fine weather of July came a horrid rainy spell. Now I don't
mind so much when the days are short, the trees bare, and the time for
winter lamps and winter fires is come. Then you can just shut yourself
up, get some books you have been promising yourself for a long time to
look at--and there you are.
But deluged park, dripping shrubbery, Esk-water growling turbidly at the
foot of the Low Park, all the noble marine architecture of the two
Torres Vedrases deep under swirling froth--that is what I hate, and
especially with light to see it by--oh, good fourteen to sixteen hours
of it. Pitter, patter on the roof, a sprinkle of broad drops on the
window-panes from the trees swishing in the wind outside. After the
first three days it grows unbearable.
It was a weary time, and a mockery for any one to call "holidays,"
especially after such a noble summer and autumn. But it cleared after
Hugh John had been a week or two at college. During the wet weather I
often went into the shop to see Elizabeth Fortinbras. I could now, you
see, because Nipper Donnan was not always there.
More than once, however, I encountered his father, Butcher Donnan, who
went about smiling and rubbing his hands--as if _he_ had stopped the
whole business. Of course I let him think so. For it is no good setting
Grown-ups right. They always know better.
Well, and do you know, every time I went Elizabeth asked all about Hugh
John, and if I had heard from him. At first I thought, as, of course,
any girl would, that Elizabeth was only foxing to take me in. But
afterwards I found out that they really did not write to one another.
She owned, though, to having kissed him good-by. But that was only on
account of his split lip and what he had done about Nipper.
Hugh John's explanation of his silence, given later, was that there
were no sorrel stalks near the college, and that if Elizabeth really
wanted anything, he knew that she would write and ask him.
Now, on the face of it, you would never believe this. It simply could
not be, you would say. Yet it was. Even Nipper, who held out longest,
ended by believing it. I, who had a sneaking liking for a love-story, of
any sort, was secretly disappointed. Mrs. Donnan could not move in her
kitchen for Nipper, who came home early now to talk to Meg Linwood.
Have you ever noticed that when any one has got a back-set in love, or
what they think is love, they are quite apt to fly off at a tangent, and
marry the least likely person in the world?
To the common eye, no one could have been less likely to engage Nipper's
attention--with his lost love still in the front shop--than Meg Linwood
in the back.
She was plump, rotund, rosy, where Elizabeth Fortinbras was slender,
willowy, like Diana in the pictures and statues of her in the old _Art
Journals_ and _Illustrated London News_ of the Exhibition year--I mean
1851. (As a child I always liked those volumes. There were such a lot of
pictures in them, and so little reading.)
But it was lost labor advising Nipper Donnan. He would show Elizabeth
Fortinbras what she had missed. He would have the finest shop, the best
meat, the most regularly paid monthly accounts, the biggest, squarest
stone house with stables for the smartest trap to drive out his wife in.
And then Elizabeth would awake to her folly. But too late! Too late!
Elizabeth's goose was cooked.
Nipper avoided the first outbreak of parental wrath by running off with
Meg Linwood, and Mrs. Donnan consoled her husband by her usual
reflection that all was for the best. There are, indeed, very few things
breakable about a butcher's shop, and if Meg had stayed at New Erin
Villa, a complete set of crockery would have been required at an early
date.
From Dumfries and Glasgow, Nipper sent very brief letters expressive of
a desire to come to terms with his father. He was married. That could
not be altered or amended. Meg came of a respectable family, and (save
the breakages) no fault could be found with her.
True, Mrs. Donnan sighed. She would rather have seen Nipper going
proudly down the aisle with another than Meg Linwood on his arm. As for
Butcher Donnan himself, as soon as he got over dwelling upon the
thrashing he meant to give Nipper when he caught him, the outlines of a
broader, farther reaching, less arbitrary settlement began to form
themselves in his mind.
He saw his lawyer, Mr. John Liddesdale, and what they said to one
another bore fruit afterwards. But it was a busy ten days for Butcher
Donnan. He had to spend the early morning of every day in the down town
shop. He had the rooms above it cleaned out, new furniture
installed--and he abused his son as he went.
"The young fool!" was the best word for Nipper, forgetting that he
himself had married at eighteen. Each afternoon he was out in the blue
and gold van with the collapsible rain-hood. In the evenings he looked
into the ashes of the kitchen fire and thought. It was then that
Elizabeth proved herself above rubies to the old folks of New Erin.
"Faith, didn't I tell ye, from the first," cried Butcher Donnan,
slapping his thigh mightily, "that's the girl, Cynthia! Nothing she will
not turn her hand to--as smart as a jay, and all as sweet and natural
as the Queen of Sheba coming it over Solomon!"
"It strikes me, Butcher Donnan," said his wife, "that for an old man you
are getting wonderfully fond o' the lass!"
She was smiling also, a loving, caressing, motherly smile, showing
mostly about the eyes, as she spoke of Elizabeth Fortinbras, which was
very good to see.
"Fond of her, is it?" cried Donnan. "I declare, I'm as fond of her as I
wad ha' been o' my own daughter, if it had pleased Mary an' the saints
to give us one!"
"_And why not?_" said Mrs. Donnan, bending suddenly towards her husband,
and startling him with the earnestness of her regard.
"Why not--Cynthia, woman? You have been talking to Mr. Liddesdale?"
"Not I," said his wife, smiling. "_You_ should not talk in your sleep,
that's all, Butcher Donnan, if you want to keep your little secrets."
"Ah, wife, wife, it's you that are the wonderful woman," cried the
Butcher-Pastry-Cook; "but if that be so, faith, it's just as well I
don't sleep with that Thief-o'-the-Wurrld Kemp, our sugar merchant. But
what say you, wife?"
"I say what you say, Butcher Donnan!"
"Do you think she would accept? Would she come to us and be our
daughter?"
"By this and that," said his wife, "mind, I take it for granted that you
have done what is right by Nipper, and that he and Meg may come home
when they like?"
"Not before Saturday!" said the Butcher; "furniture and all won't be in.
And if I saw Nipper for the first time on any other day than the blessed
Sabbath, I might be tempted even then to break his silly head!"
This from Butcher Donnan was equal to a stage benediction from another.
But his wife looked for more light, and in answer to the question in her
eyes he told her all.
"Oh, Nipper is all right. He gets more than he deserves, the rascal. I
will let him off what he still owes me on the business. The shop and
dwelling-house shall be put in his name, and that's a deal more than
ever I dreamed of having at his age. As for the dollars--well, we will
see about those, when you and I have done with them!"
"What do you think about asking Elizabeth?" said his wife.
It was at this moment that I chanced to come in, and had the whole story
told me by Mrs. Donnan. Elizabeth had cycled down to her father's house,
and so was safely out of the way. Only our conference was interrupted by
the various calls upon Mr. Donnan to answer the sharp "_cling_" of the
bell in the outer shop.
One after the other I heard them in silence, and at last I gave my
opinion--which was that they might make their own arrangements, with the
help of Mr. John Liddesdale, but that they would do well to wait the
return of that long-legged, Minerva-eyed brother of mine, at present
engaged in colleging it as hard as need be, to obtain the means of
passing with credit through the world.
"He may very well be taken in the same way as Nipper!" said the father
of the latter grimly. "She's a mighty fine girl, this Elizabeth."
"He might, indeed, very well," I answered. "I am sure _I_ should, if I
were a man. Only, he isn't, and he won't. I can promise you that. He
will advise Elizabeth for the best, with less thought for himself than
if _I_ were concerned."
"Then he is a most unusual young man!" said Butcher Donnan.
"Hugh John _is_ somewhat unusual," I said. "He does not let many people
understand him."
"No," said Butcher Donnan; "that other young gent now--him with the
uniform! Why, he is up to more tricks than a prize monkey with an Irish
mother. As I said before, he is more in my own style about his age. Any
one can see what _he_ is driving at. If he does not break his neck off
somebody else's apple-tree, or get shot in a poaching accident, no doubt
he may live to be a great and good Admiral of the Fleet. But this here
Hugh John--he is always as quiet as pussy, and as polite as a
parliamentary candidate come last night from London. Yet he licked my
Nipper, licked him good and square--_and_ said nothing about it. Nipper
told me, though. And now he can be a real safe brother to the prettiest
girl in Edam--beggin' your pardon, young lady, but _you_ live out o' the
town!"
Mrs. Donnan reminded her husband that it was owing to Master Hugh John
that Elizabeth Fortinbras had come to them first. Also that it was
certainly the least they could do to give him the chance of putting the
matter to Elizabeth in his own way.
Thus, pending the Christmas holidays, Elizabeth Fortinbras became a
child of adoption without knowing it.
Curiously enough, no one seemed to take into consideration any rights of
pre-emption which her own father and mother might be supposed to possess
upon her.