A NEOPHYTE.
Once more Mona arrived at Borrowness, and once more Rachel was
awaiting her at the station.
There was no illusion now about the life before her, no uncertainty,
no vague visions of self-renunciation and of a vocation. All was
flat, plain, shadowless prose.
"I must e'en dree my weird," she said to herself as the train drew
into the station; but a bright face smiled at Rachel from the
carriage-window, a light step sprang on to the platform, and a
cheerful voice said--
"Well, you see I am all but true to my word; and you have no idea
what a lot of pretty things I have brought with me."
"Mona," said Rachel mysteriously, as they walked down the road to the
house, "I have a piece of news for you. Who do you think called?"
"I am afraid I can't guess."
"Mr Brown!"
"Did he?" said Mona rather absently.
"Yes. At first I was that put out at you being away, and I had the
awfullest hurry getting on my best dress; but just as I was showing
him out, who should pass but Mrs Robertson. My word, didn't she
stare! The Browns would never think of calling on her. I told him
you were away visiting friends. I didn't say in London, for fear he
might find out about your meaning to be a doctor."
"That would be dreadful, would not it?"
"Yes, but you needn't be afraid. He said something about its being a
nice change for you to come here after teaching, and I never let on
you weren't a teacher, though it was on the tip of my tongue to tell
him what a nice bit of a tocher you had of your own."
"Pray don't say that to any one," said Mona rather sharply. "I have
no wish to be buzzed round by a lot of raw Lubins in search of
Phyllis with a tocher."
"Well, my dear, you know you're getting on. It's best to make hay
while the sun shines."
"True," said Mona cynically; "but when a woman has even four hundred
a year of her own, she has a good long day before her."
Early in the evening Bill arrived with Mona's boxes, and the two
cousins entered with equal zest upon the work of unpacking them. "My
word!" and "Well, I never!" fell alternately from Rachel's lips as
treasure after treasure came to view. Ten pounds was a great sum of
money, to be sure; but who would have thought that even ten pounds
could buy all this? "You _are_ a born shopkeeper, Mona!" she said,
with genuine admiration.
Mona laughed. "Shall we advertise in the _Gazette_ that 'Our Miss
Maclean has just returned from a visit to London, and has brought
with her a choice selection of all the novelties of the season'?" she
said; but she withdrew the suggestion hastily, when she saw that
Rachel was disposed to take it seriously.
"And now," she went on, "there is one thing more, not for the shop
but for you;" and from shrouding sheets of tissue-paper, she unfolded
a quiet, handsome fur-lined cloak.
"Oh, my goodness!" Rachel had never seen anything so magnificent in
her life, and the tears stood in her eyes as she tried it on.
"It's your kindness I'm thinking of, my dear, not of the cloak," she
said; "but there isn't the like of it between this and St Rules.
It'll last me all my life."
Mona kissed her on the forehead, well pleased.
"And I brought a plain muff and tippet for Sally. She says she
always has a cold in the winter. This is a reward to her for
spending some of her wages on winter flannels, sorely against her
will."
"Dear me! She will be set up. There will be no keeping her away
from Bible Class and Prayer Meeting now! It is nice having you back,
Mona. I can't tell you how many folk have been asking for you in the
shop; there's twice as much custom since you came. Miss Moir
wouldn't buy a hat till you came back to help her to choose it; and
Polly Baines from the Towers brought in some patterns of cloth to ask
your advice about a dress."
"Did she? How sweet of her! I hope you told her to call again. Has
the Colonel's Jenny been in?"
"Oh no, it's very seldom she gets this length. Kirkstoun's nearer,
and there's better shops."
"She told me there's no one to write her letters for her, since
Maggie went away, and I promised to go out there before long and act
the part of scribe. It was quite a weight on my mind while I was in
London, but I will go as soon as I get these things arranged in the
shop. Has the Colonel gone yet?"
"No; I understand he goes to his sister's to-morrow."
Most of Jenny's acquaintances gladly seized the opportunity to call
on her when her master was away from home. The Colonel had the
reputation of being the most outrageously eccentric man in the whole
country-side, and it required courage of no common order to risk an
accidental encounter with him. He might chance, of course, to be in
an extremely affable humour, but it was impossible to make sure of
this beforehand; and one thing was quite certain, that the natural
frankness of his intercourse with his fellow-men was not likely to be
modified by any sense of tact, or even of common decency. What he
thought he said, and he often delighted in saying something worse
than his deliberate thought. Not many years before, his family had
owned the whole of the estate on which he was now content to rent a
pretty cottage, standing some miles from the sea, in a few acres of
pine-wood. Here he lived for a great part of the year, alone with
his quaint old housekeeper Jenny, taking no part in the social life
of the neighbourhood, but calling on whom he chose, when he chose,
regardless of all etiquette in the matter. Strange tales were told
of him--tales to which Jenny listened in sphinx-like silence, never
giving wing to a bit of gossip by so much as an "Ay" or "Nay." She
had grown thoroughly accustomed to the old man's ways, and it seemed
to be nothing to her if his language was as strong as his potions.
"Have a glass of whisky and water, Colonel?" Mrs Hamilton had asked
one cold morning, when he dropped into her house soon after breakfast.
"Thank you, madam," he had replied, "I won't trouble you for the
water."
The clever old lady was a prime favourite with him, the more so as
she considered it the prescriptive right of a soldier of good family
to be as outrageous as he chose.
He was a kind-hearted man, too, and fond of children, though they
rarely lost their fear of him. He was reported to be "unco near,"
but if he met a bright-faced child whom he knew, in his favourite
resort, the post-office, he would say--
"Sixpenn'orth of sweets for this young lady, Mr Dalgleish. You may
put in as many more as you like from yourself, but sixpenn'orth will
be from me."
Mona was somewhat curious to see the old man, as she fancied that in
her childhood she had heard her father speak of him; but her time was
fully occupied in the shop for some days after her return. Rachel
had actually consented to have the old place re-papered and painted,
and when Mona put the finishing touch to her arrangements one
afternoon, no one would have recognised "Miss Simpson's shop."
Mona clapped her hands in triumph, and feasted her eyes on the work
of reformation. Then she looked at her watch, but it was already
late, and as the Colonel's wood lay three or four miles off, her
visit had to be postponed once more. She was too tired to sketch, so
she took a book and strolled down to Castle Maclean.
It was a quiet, grey afternoon. The distant hills were blotted out,
but the rocky coast was as grand as ever, and the plash of the waves,
as they broke on the beach beneath her, was sweeter in her ears than
music.
She was disturbed in her reverie by a step on the rocks, and for a
moment her heart beat quicker. Then she almost laughed at her own
stupidity. And well she might, for the step only heralded the
approach of Matilda Cookson, with her smart hat and luxuriant red
hair.
"Where ever have you been, Miss Maclean?" she began rather
breathlessly, seating herself on a ledge of rock. "I have been
looking out for a chance of speaking to you for nearly a fortnight."
Mona's face expressed the surprise she felt.
"I have been away from home," she said. "What did you want with me?"
"Away from home! Then you haven't told anybody yet?"
Mona began to think that one or other of them must be the victim of
delusional insanity.
"Told anybody--_what?_"
Matilda frowned. If Miss Maclean had really noticed nothing, it was
a pity she had gone out of her way to broach the subject, but she
could not withdraw from it now.
"I thought you saw me--that day at St Rules."
"_Oh!_" said Mona, as the recollection came slowly back to her. "So
I did,--but why do you wish me not to tell any one?"
Matilda blushed violently at the direct question, and proceeded to
draw designs on the carpet of Castle Maclean with the end of her
umbrella. She had intended to dispose of the matter in a few airy
words; and she felt convinced still that she could have done so in
her own house, or in Miss Simpson's shop, if she had chanced to see
Miss Maclean alone in either place. But Mona looked so serenely and
provokingly at home out here on the rocks, with the half-cut German
book in her delicate white hands, that the whole affair began to
assume a much more serious aspect.
Mona studied the crimson face attentively.
It had been her strong instinctive impulse to say, "My dear child, if
you had not reminded me of it I should never have thought of the
matter again," and so to dismiss the subject. But she was restrained
from doing so by a vague recollection of her conversation with Dr
Dudley about these girls. She forgot that she was supposed to be
their social inferior, and remembered only that she was a woman,
responsible in a greater or a less degree for every girl with whom
she came in contact.
She laid her hand on her visitor's shoulder.
"You may be quite sure," she said, "that I don't want to get you into
trouble, but I think you had better tell me why you wish me not to
speak of this."
Mona's touch was mesmeric,--at least Matilda Cookson found it so. In
all her vapid little life she had never experienced anything like the
thrill that passed through her now. She would have confessed
anything at that moment, and perhaps have regretted her frankness
bitterly an hour later; for, after all, confession is only
occasionally of moral value in itself, however priceless it may be in
its results.
The story was not a particularly novel one, even to Mona's
inexperienced ears. Two years before, all the girls in Miss
Barnett's private school at Kirkstoun had been "in love" with the
drawing-master, who came twice a week from St Rules. His languid
manner and large dark eyes had wrought havoc within the "narrowing
nunnery walls," and when his work at St Rules had increased so much
that he no longer required Miss Barnett's support, he had taken his
departure amid much wailing and lamentation.
Matilda had gone soon after to a London boarding-school, where she
had forgotten all about him; but a chance meeting at a dance, on her
return, had renewed the old attraction. This first chance meeting
had been followed by a number of others; and when, only a short time
before, Mrs Cookson had suddenly decreed that Matilda was to go to St
Rules once a week for music lessons, the temptation to create a few
more "chance meetings" had proved irresistible.
Mona was rather at a loss to know what to do with the confession, now
that she had got it. She knew so little of this girl. What were her
gods? Had she any heroes?--any heroines?--any ideals? Was there
anything in her to which one might appeal? Mona was too young
herself to attack the situation with weapons less cumbrous than heavy
artillery.
"How old are you?" she asked suddenly.
"Eighteen."
"And don't you mean to be a fine woman--morally a fine woman, I mean?"
"Morally a fine woman"--the words, spoken half shyly, half wistfully,
were almost an unknown tongue to Matilda Cookson. Almost, but not
quite. They called up vague visions of evening services, and of
undefined longings for better things,--visions, more distinct, of a
certain "revival," when she had become "hysterical," had stayed to
the "enquiry meeting," and had professed to be "converted." She had
been very happy then for a few weeks, but the happiness had not
lasted long. Those things never did last; they were all pure
excitement, as her father had said at the time. What was the use of
raking up that old story now?
"I don't see that there was any great harm in my meeting him," she
said doggedly.
"I am quite sure you did not mean any great harm; but do you know how
men talk about girls who 'give themselves away,' as they call it?"
Matilda coloured. "I am sure he would not say anything horrid about
me. He is awfully in love."
"Is he? I don't know much about love; but if he loves you, you
surely want him to respect you. You would not like him to be a worse
man for loving you,--and he must become a worse man, if he has a low
opinion of women."
"You mean that I am not to meet him any more?"
"I mean that he cannot possibly respect you, while he knows you meet
him without your mother's knowledge."
"And suppose I won't promise not to meet him again, what will you do?"
"I don't consider that I have the smallest right to exact a promise
from you."
"Then you won't speak of this to any one, whatever happens?"
Mona smiled. "I am not quite clear that you have any right to exact
a promise from me."
Matilda could not help joining in the smile. This was good fencing.
"At any rate, you have not told any one yet?"
"I have not."
"Not Miss Simpson?"
"Not any one; and therefore not Miss Simpson."
"Well, I must say it was very kind of you."
"I am afraid I ought not to accept your praise; it never occurred to
me to speak of it."
"And yet you recognised me?"
Mona laughed outright--a very friendly laugh.
"And yet I recognised you."
Matilda drew the sole of her high-heeled shoe over the ground in
front of her, and began an entirely new design.
"What do you mean by 'respect,' Miss Maclean? It is such a chilly
word. There is no warmth or colour in it."
"There is no warmth nor colour in the air, yet air is even more
essential than sunshine."
There was silence for some minutes. Matilda obliterated the new
design with a little stamp of her foot.
"Long ago, when I was a girl, I began to believe in self-denial, and
high ideals, and all that sort of thing. But you can't work it in
with your everyday life. It is all a dream."
"A dream!" said Mona softly,--
"'No, no, by all the martyrs and the dear dead Christ!'
Everything else is a dream. That is real. That was your chance in
life. You should have clung to it with both hands. Your soul is
drowning now for want of it, in a sea of nothingness."
The revival preacher himself could scarcely have spoken more
strongly, and Matilda felt a slight pleasurable return of the old
excitement. She did not show it, however.
"It is easy to talk," she said, "but you don't know what it is to be
the richest people in a place like this. Pa and Ma won't let anybody
speak to us. I believe it will end in our never getting married at
all. We shall be out of the wood before they find their straight
stick."
"My dear child, is marriage the end of life? And even if it is,
surely the girls who make good wives are those who are content to be
the life and brightness of their home circle, and who are not
constantly straining their eyes in search of the knight-errant who is
to deliver them from Giant Irksome."
In the course of her life in London, Mona had met many girls who
chafed at home duties, and longed for a 'sphere,' but a girl who
longed for a husband, _quâ_ husband, was so surprising an instance of
atavism as to be practically a new type.
Matilda sighed. "You don't know what our home life is," she said.
"We pay calls, and people call on us; we go for proper walks along
the highroad; we play on the piano and we do crewel-work; we get
novels from the library,--and that is all. Just the same thing over
and over again."
"And don't you care enough for books and music to find scope in them?"
Matilda shook her head. "Can you read German!" she asked abruptly,
looking at Mona's book.
"Yes; do you?"
"No; and I never in my life met any one who could, unless perhaps my
German teachers. I took it for three years at school, but I should
not know one word in ten now. I wish I did! We had a nice row, I
can tell you, when I first came home from school, and Father brought
in a German letter from the office one day. He actually expected me
to be able to read it!"
"You could easily learn. It only wants a little dogged
resolution,--enough to worry steadily through one German story-book
with a dictionary. After that the neck of the difficulty is broken."
Matilda made a grimace. "I have only got _Bilderbuch_," she said,
"and I know the English of that by heart, from hearing the girls go
over and over it in class. Start me off, and I can go on; but I can
scarcely tell you which word stands for moon."
She was almost startled at her own frankness. She had never talked
like this to any one before.
"You know I am not going to take you at your own valuation. Let me
judge for myself," and Mona opened her book at the first page and
held it out.
Matilda put her hands up to her face. "_Don't!_" she said. "I
couldn't bear to let you see how little I know. But I will try to
learn. I will begin _Bilderbuch_ this very night, though I hate it
as much as I do _Lycidas_ and _Hamlet_, and everything else I read at
school."
Mona shivered involuntarily. "Don't read anything you are sick of,"
she said. "If you like, I will lend you an interesting story that
will tempt you on in spite of yourself."
"Thanks awfully. You are very kind."
"I shall be very glad to help you if you get into a real difficulty."
Mona paused. "As I said before, I have no right to exact a promise
from you--but I can't tell you how much more highly I should think of
you if you did worry on to the end."
The conclusion of this sentence took Matilda by surprise. She had
imagined that Mona was going back to the subject of the
drawing-master, but Mona seemed to have forgotten the existence of
everything but German books.
"And may I come here sometimes in the afternoon, and talk to you? I
often see you go down to the beach."
"I never know beforehand when I shall be able to come; but, if you
care to take the chance, I shall always be glad to see you."
"The new Adam will," she said to herself, with a half-amused,
half-rueful smile, when her visitor had gone, "but the old Adam will
have a tussle for his rights."
A moment later Matilda reappeared, shy and awkward.
"Would you mind telling me again that thing you said about the
martyrs?"
Mona smiled. "If you wait a moment, I will write it down for you;"
and, tearing a leaf from her note-book, she wrote out the whole
verse--
"No, no, by all the martyrs and the dear dead Christ;
By the long bright roll of those whom joy enticed
With her myriad blandishments, but could not win,
Who would fight for victory, but would not sin."
Matilda read it through, and then carefully folded the paper. In
doing so she noticed some writing on the back, and read aloud--
"Lady Munro, Poste Restante, Cannes." "Who is Lady Munro?" she
asked, with unintentional rudeness.
"She is my aunt. I did not know her address was written there."
Mona tore off the name, and handed back the slip of paper.
"Lady Munro your aunt, and you live with Miss Simpson?"
"Why not? Miss Simpson is my cousin."
"Miss Maclean, if I had a 'Lady' for my aunt, everybody should know
it. I don't believe I should even travel in a railway carriage,
without the other passengers finding it out."
Mona laughed. "I have already told you that I don't mean to take you
at your own valuation. In point of fact, I had much rather the
people here knew nothing about Lady Munro. I should not like others
to draw comparisons between her and Miss Simpson."
"I beg your pardon. I did not mean----"
"Oh, I know you did not mean any harm. It was my own stupidity; but,
as I say, I should not like others to talk of it. _Auf Wiedersehen!_"
Alone once more, Mona clasped her hands behind her head, and looked
out over the sea.
"Well, playfellow," she said, "have I done good or harm? At the
present moment, as she walks home, she does not know whether to
venerate or to detest me. It is an even chance which way the scale
will turn. And is it all an affair of infinite importance, or does
it not matter one whit?"
This estimate of Matilda's state of mind was a shrewd one, except for
one neglected item. Now that the moment of impulse was over, the
balance might have been even: but Lady Munro's name had turned the
scale, and Matilda 'venerated' her new friend. Mona's strong and
vivid personality would have made any one forget in her presence that
she was 'only a shop-girl'; but no power on earth could prevent the
recollection from returning--perhaps with renewed force--when her
immediate influence was withdrawn. If a man of culture like Dr
Dudley could not wholly ignore the fact of her social inferiority,
how much less was it possible to an empty little soul like Matilda
Cookson? for she was one of those people to whose moral and spiritual
progress an earthly crutch is absolutely essential. She never forgot
that conversation at Castle Maclean; but the two things that in after
years stood out most clearly in her memory were the quotation about
the martyrs, and Mona's relationship to Lady Munro. And surely this
is not so strange? Do not even the best of us stand with one foot on
the eternal rock, and the other on the shifting sands of time?
"How odd that she should be struck by that quotation!" mused Mona.
"I wonder what Dr Dudley would say if he knew that the notes of the
Pilgrims' Chorus, rising clear, steady, and unvarying above all the
noises of the world, appealed even to the stupid little ears of
Matilda Cookson. If the mother is no more than he says, there must
be some good stuff in the father. _Ex nihilo, nihil fit_."