They sat talking on the verandah in the close of the May evening, Mr and
Mrs Murchison. The Plummer Place was the Murchison Place in the town’s
mouth now, and that was only fair; the Murchisons had overstamped the
Plummers. It lay about them like a map of their lives: the big horse
chestnut stood again in flower to lighten the spring dusk for them,
as it had done faithfully for thirty years. John was no longer in his
shirt-sleeves; the growing authority of his family had long prescribed
a black alpaca coat. He smoked his meerschaum with the same old
deliberation, however, holding it by the bowl as considerately as he
held its original, which lasted him fifteen years. A great deal of
John Murchison’s character was there, in the way he held his pipe, his
gentleness and patience, even the justice and repose and quiet strength
of his nature. He smoked and read the paper the unfailing double solace
of his evenings. I should have said that it was Mrs Murchison who
talked. She had the advantage of a free mind, only subconsciously
occupied with her white wool and agile needles; and John had frequently
to choose between her observations and the politics of the day.
“You saw Lorne’s letter this morning, Father?”
John took his pipe out of his mouth. “Yes,” he said.
“He seems tremendously taken up with Wallingham. It was all Wallingham,
from one end to the other.”
“It’s not remarkable,” said John Murchison, patiently.
“You’d think he had nothing else to write about. There was that
reception at Lord What-you-may-call-him’s, the Canadian Commissioner’s,
when the Prince and Princess of Wales came, and brought their family.
I’d like to have heard something more about that than just that he was
there. He might have noticed what the children had on. Now that Abby’s
family is coming about her I seem to have my hands as full of children’s
clothes as ever I had. Abby seems to think there’s nothing like my old
patterns; I’m sure I’m sick of the sight of them!”
Mr Murchison refolded his newspaper, took his pipe once more from his
mouth, and said nothing.
“John, put down that paper! I declare it’s enough to drive anybody
crazy! Now look at that boy walking across the lawn. He does it every
night, delivering the Express, and you take no more notice! He’s wearing
a regular path!”
“Sonny,” said Mr Murchison, as the urchin approached, “you mustn’t walk
across the grass.”
“Much good that will do!” remarked Mrs Murchison. “I’d teach him to
walk across the grass, if--if it were my business. Boy--isn’t your name
Willie Parker? Then it was your mother I promised the coat and the other
things to, and you’ll find them ready there, just inside the hall door.
They’ll make down very well for you, but you can tell her from me that
she’d better double-seam them, for the stuff’s apt to ravel. And attend
to what Mr Murchison says; go out by the gravel--what do you suppose
it’s there for?”
Mrs Murchison readjusted her glasses, and turned another row of the tiny
sock. “I must say it’s a pleasure to have the lawn neat and green,”
she said, with a sigh. “Never did I expect to see the day it would be
anything but chickweed and dandelions. We’ve a great deal to be thankful
for, and all our children spared to us, too. John,” she continued,
casting a shrewd glance over her needles at nothing in particular; “do
you suppose anything was settled between Lorne and Dora Milburn before
he Started?”
“He said nothing to me about it.”
“Oh, well, very likely he wouldn’t. Young people keep such a tremendous
lot to themselves nowadays. But it’s my belief they’ve come to an
understanding.”
“Lily might do worse,” said John Murchison, judicially.
“I should think Dora might do worse! I don’t know where she’s going to
do better! The most promising young man in Elgin, well brought up, well
educated, well started in a profession! There’s not a young fellow in
this town to compare with Lorne, and perfectly well you know it, John.
Might do worse! But that’s you all over. Belittle your own belongings!”
Mr Murchison smiled in amused tolerance. “They’ve always got you to blow
their trumpet, Mother,” he replied.
“And more than me. You ought to hear Dr Drummond about Lorne! He says
that if the English Government starts that line of boats to Halifax the
country will owe it to him, much more than to Cruickshank, or anybody
else.”
“Dr Drummond likes to talk,” said John Murchison.
“Lorne’s keeping his end up all right,” remarked Stella, jumping off
her bicycle in time to hear what her mother said. “It’s great, that old
Wallingham asking him to dinner. And haven’t I just been spreading it!”
“Where have you been, Stella?” asked Mrs Murchison.
“Oh, only over to the Milburns’. Dora asked me to come and show her
the new flower-stitch for table centres. Dora’s suddenly taken to fancy
work. She’s started a lot--a lot too much!” Stella added gloomily.
“If Dora likes to do fancy work I don’t see why anybody should want to
stop her,” remarked Mrs Murchison, with a meaning glance at her husband.
“I suppose she thinks she’s going to get Lorne,” said Stella. Her
resentment was only half-serious, but the note was there.
“What put that into your head?” asked her mother.
“Oh, well, anybody can see that he’s devoted to her, and has been
for ages, and it isn’t as if Lorne was one to HAVE girlfriends; she’s
absolutely the only thing he’s ever looked at twice. She hasn’t got a
ring, that’s true, but it would be just like her to want him to get it
in England. And I know they correspond. She doesn’t make any secret of
it.”
“Oh, I dare say! Other people have eyes in their head as well as you,
Stella,” said Mrs Murchison, stooping for her ball. “But there’s no need
to take things for granted at such a rate. And, above all, you’re not to
go TALKING, remember!”
“Well, if you think Dora Milburn’s good enough,” returned Lorne’s
youngest sister in threatening accents, “it’s more than I do, that’s
all. Hello, Miss Murchison!” she continued, as Advena appeared. “You’re
looking ‘xtremely dinky-dink. Expecting his reverence?”
Advena made no further reply than a look of scornful amusement, which
Stella, bicycling forth again, received in the back of her head.
“Father,” said Mrs Murchison, “if you had taken any share in the
bringing up of this family, Stella ought to have her ears boxed this
minute!”
“We’ll have to box them,” said Mr Murchison, “when she comes back.”
Advena had retreated into the house. “IS she expecting his reverence?”
asked her father with a twinkle.
“Don’t ask me! I’m sure it’s more than I can tell you. It’s a mystery
to me, that matter, altogether. I’ve known him come three evenings in a
week and not again for a month of Sundays. And when he does come there
they sit, talking about their books and their authors; you’d think the
world had nothing else in it! I know, for I’ve heard them, hard at it,
there in the library. Books and authors won’t keep their house or look
after their family for them; I can tell them that, if it does come to
anything, which I hope it won’t.”
“Finlay’s fine in the pulpit,” said John Murchison cautiously.
“Oh, the man’s well enough; it’s him I’m sorry for. I don’t call Advena
fitted to be a wife, and last of all a minister’s. Abby was a treasure
for any man to get, and Stella won’t turn out at all badly; she’s taking
hold very well for her age. But Advena simply hasn’t got it in her, and
that’s all there is to say about it.” Mrs Murchison pulled her needles
out right side out with finality. “I don’t deny the girl’s talented in
her own way, but it’s no way to marry on. She’d much better make up her
mind just to be a happy independent old maid; any woman might do worse.
And take no responsibilities.”
“There would always be you, Mother, for them to fall back on.” It was as
near as John Murchison ever got to flattery.
“No thank you, then! I’ve brought up six of my own, as well as I was
able, which isn’t saying much, and a hard life I’ve had of it. Now I’m
done with it; they’ll have to find somebody else to fall back on. If
they get themselves into such a mess”--Mrs Murchison stopped to laugh
with sincere enjoyment--“they needn’t look to me to get them out.”
“I guess you’d have a hand, Mother.”
“Not I. But the man isn’t thinking of any such folly. What do you
suppose his salary is?”
“Eight hundred and fifty dollars a year. They raised it last month.”
“And how far would Advena be able to make that go, with servants getting
the money they do and expecting the washing put out as a matter of
course? Do you remember Eliza, John, that we had when we were first
married? Seven dollars a month she got; she would split wood at a pinch,
and I’ve never had one since that could do up shirts like her. Three
years and a half she was with me, and did everything, everything I
didn’t do. But that was management, and Advena’s no manager. It would
be me that would tell him, if I had the chance. Then he couldn’t say he
hadn’t been warned. But I don’t think he has any such idea.”
“Advena,” pronounced Mr Murchison, “might do worse.”
“Well, I don’t know whether she might. The creature is well enough to
preach before a congregation. But what she can see in him out of the
pulpit is more than I know. A great gawk of a fellow, with eyes that
always look as if he were in the middle of next week! He may be able
to talk to Advena, but he’s no hand at general conversation; I know
he finds precious little to say to me. But he’s got no such notion. He
comes here because, being human, he’s got to open his mouth some time or
other, I suppose; but it’s my opinion he has neither Advena nor anybody
else in his mind’s eye at present. He doesn’t go the right way about
it.”
“H’m!” said John Murchison.
“He brought her a book the last time he came--what do you think the name
of it was? The something or other of Plato! Do you call that a natural
gift from a young man who is thinking seriously of a girl? Besides, if
I know anything about Plato he was a Greek heathen, and no writer for
a Presbyterian minister to go lending around. I’d Plato him to the
rightabout if it was me!”
“She might read worse than Plato,” remarked John.
“Oh, well, she read it fast enough. She’s your own daughter for
outlandish books. Mercy on us, here comes the man! We’ll just say ‘How
d’ye do?’ to him, and then start for Abby’s, John. I’m not easy in my
mind about the baby, and I haven’t been over since the morning. Harry
says it’s nothing but stomach, but I think I know whooping-cough when I
hear it. And if it is whooping-cough the boy will have to come here
and rampage, I suppose, till they’re clear of it. There’s some use in
grandmothers, if I do say it myself!”