MR STUART'S TROUBLES.
Very slowly the days and weeks went by, but at last the end of
November drew near. The coast was bleak and cold now, and it was
only on exceptionally fine days that Mona could spend a quiet hour at
Castle Maclean. When she escaped from the shop she went for a
scramble along the coast; and when physical exercise was insufficient
to drive away the cobwebs, she walked out to the Colonel's wood to
see old Jenny, or, farther still, beyond Kilwinnie to have a chat
with Auntie Bell.
With the latter she struck up quite a cordial friendship, and she had
the doubtful satisfaction of hearing the Colonel's yarn corroborated
in Auntie Bell's quaint language.
"Rachel's queer, ye ken," said Auntie Bell, as Mona took her farewell
in the exquisitely kept, old-fashioned garden. "She's a' for the
kirk and the prayer-meetin'; an' yet she's aye that keen tae
forgather wi' her betters."
"She wants to make the best of both worlds, I suppose," said Mona.
"Poor soul! I am afraid she has not succeeded very well as regards
this one."
"Na," said Auntie Bell tersely. "An' between wersels, I hae ma doots
o' the ither."
Mona laughed. It was curious how she and Auntie Bell touched hands
across all the oceans that lay between them.
"Are ye muckle ta'en up wi' this 'gran' bazaar,' as they ca' it!"
"Not a bit," said Mona; "I hate bazaars."
"Eh, but we're o' ae mind there!" and Auntie Bell clapped her hands
with sufficient emphasis to start an upward rush of crows from the
field beyond the hedge.
Nearly half the county at this time was talking of one thing and of
only one--the approaching bazaar at Kirkstoun. It was almost
incredible to Mona that so trifling an event should cause so much
excitement; but bazaars, like earthquakes, vary in importance
according to the part of the world in which they occur.
And this was no sale for church or chapel, at which the men could
pretend to sneer, and which a good burgher might consistently refuse
to attend; it was essentially the bazaar of the stronger sex--except
in so far as the weaker sex did all the work in connection with; it
was for no less an object than the new town hall.
For many years the inhabitants of Kirkstoun had felt that their town
hall was a petty, insignificant building, out of all proportion to
the size and importance of the burgh; and after much deliberation
they had decided on the bold step of erecting a new building, and of
looking mainly to Providence--spelt with a capital, of course--for
the funds.
All this, however, was now rapidly becoming a matter of ancient
history; the edifice had been complete for some time; about one-third
of the expense had been defrayed; and, in order that the debt might
be cleared off with a clean sweep, the ladies of the town had "kindly
consented" to hold a bazaar.
"Man's extremity is woman's opportunity" had been the graceful, if
not original, remark of one of the local bailies; but men are
proverbially ungrateful, and this view of the matter had not been the
only one mooted.
"Kindly consented, indeed!" one carping spirit had growled. "Pretty
consent any of you would have given if it had not been an opportunity
for dressing yourselves up and having a ploy. Whose pockets is all
the money to come out of first or last? That's what I would like to
know!"
It is quite needless to remark that the first of these speeches had
been made on the platform, the second in domestic privacy.
Like wildfire the enthusiasm had spread. All through the summer,
needles had flown in and out; paint-brushes had been flourished
somewhat wildly; cupboards had been ransacked; begging-letters had
been written to friends all over the country, and to every man who,
in the memory of the inhabitants, had left Kirkstoun to make his
fortune "abroad."
It was very characteristic of "Kirkstoun folk" that not many of these
letters had been written in vain. Kirkstoun men are clannish.
Scatter as they may over the whole known world, they stand together
shoulder to shoulder like a well-trained regiment.
The bazaar was to be held for three days before Christmas, and was to
be followed by a grand ball. Was not this excitement enough to fill
the imagination of every girl for many miles around? The matrons had
a harder time of it, as they usually have, poor souls! With them lay
the solid responsibility of getting together a sufficiency of
work--and alas for all the jealousies and heart-burnings this
involved!--with them lay the planning of ball-dresses that were to
cost less, and look better, than any one else's; with them lay the
necessity of coaxing and conciliating "your papa."
Rachel Simpson was not a person of sufficient social importance to be
a stall-holder, or a receiver of goods; and she certainly was not one
of those women who are content to work that others may shine, so Mona
had taken little or no interest in the projected bazaar.
One morning, however, she received a letter from Doris which roused
her not a little.
"Kirkstoun is somewhere near Borrowness, is it not?" wrote her
friend. "If so, I shall see you before Christmas. Those friends of
mine at St Rules, to whom you declined an introduction, have a stall
at the Town Hall bazaar, and I am going over to assist them. It is a
kind of debt, for they helped me with my last enterprise of the kind,
but I should contrive to get out of it except for the prospect of
seeing you.
"You will come to the bazaar, of course: I should think you would be
ready for a little dissipation by that time; and I will promise to be
merciful if you will visit my stall."
"How delightful!" was Mona's first thought; "how disgusting!" was her
second; "how utterly out of keeping Doris will be with me and my
surroundings!" was her conclusion. "Ponies and pepper-pots do not
harmonise very well with shops and poor relations. But, fortunately,
the situation is not of my making."
She was still meditating over the letter when Rachel came in looking
flushed and excited.
"Mona," she said, "I have made a nice little engagement for you. You
know you say you like singing?"
"Yes," said Mona, with an awful premonition of what might be coming.
"I met Mr Stuart on the Kirkstoun road just now. He was that put
about! Two of his best speakers for the _soirée_ to-night have
fallen through, he says. Mr Roberts has got the jaundice, and Mr
Dowie has had to go to the funeral of a friend. Mr Stuart said the
whole thing would be a failure, and he was fairly at his wits' end.
You see there's no time to do anything now. He said if he could get
a song or a recitation, or anything, it would do; so of course I told
him you were a fine singer, and I was sure you would give us a song.
You should have seen how his face brightened up. 'Capital!' said he;
'I have noticed her singing in church. Perhaps she would give us "I
know that my Redeemer liveth," or something of that kind?'"
"My dear cousin," said Mona, at last finding breath to speak, "you
might just as well ask me to give a performance on the trapeze. I
have never sung since I was in Germany. It is one thing to chirp to
you in the firelight, and quite another to stand up on a public
platform and perform. The thing is utterly absurd."
"Hoots," said Rachel, "they are not so particular. Many's the time I
have seen them pleased with worse singing than yours."
Then ensued the first 'stand-up fight' between the two. As her
cousin waxed hotter Mona waxed cooler, and finally she ended the
discussion by setting out to speak to Mr Stuart herself.
She found him in his comfortable study, his slippered feet on the
fender, and a polemico-religious novel in his hand.
"I am sorry to find my cousin has made an engagement for me this
evening," she said. "It is quite impossible for me to fulfil it."
"Oh, nonsense!" he said kindly. "It is too late to withdraw now.
Your name is in the programme," and he glanced at the neatly written
paper on his writing-table, as if it had been a legal document at the
least. "My wife is making copies of that for all the speakers. You
can't draw back now."
"It might be too late to withdraw," said Mona, "if I had ever put
myself forward; but, although my cousin meant to act kindly to every
one concerned, she and I are two distinct people."
"Come, come! Of course I quite understand your feeling a little shy,
if you are not used to singing in public; but you will be all right
as soon as you begin. I remember my first sermon--what a state I was
in, to be sure! And yet they told me it was a great success."
"I am very sorry," said Mona. "It is not mere nervousness and
shyness--though there is that too, of course--it is simply that I am
not qualified to do it."
"We are not very critical. There won't be more than three persons
present who know good singing from bad."
"Unfortunately I should wish to sing for those three."
"Ah," he said, with a curl of his lip, "you must have appreciation.
The lesson some of us have got to learn in life, Miss Maclean, is to
do without appreciation." He paused, but her look of sudden interest
was inviting. "One is tempted sometimes to think that one could
speak to so much more purpose in a world where there is some
intellectual life, where people are not wholly blind to the problems
of the day; but to preach Sunday after Sunday to those who have no
eyes to see, no ears to hear, to suppress one's best thoughts----"
He stopped short.
"It is a pity surely to do that, unless one is a prophet indeed."
"Ah," he said, "you cannot understand my position. It is a singular
one, unique perhaps.--You will sing for us to-night?"
"Mr Stuart," said Mona, struggling against the temptation to speak
sharply, "I should not have left my work to come here in the busiest
time of the day, if I had been prepared to yield in the end. And
indeed why should I? There are plenty of people in the neighbourhood
who sing as well as I; and people who are well known have a right to
claim a little indulgence. I have none. It is not even as if I were
a member of the Chapel."
"I hope you will be soon."
"Well," said Mona, rising with a smile, "you have more pressing
claims on your attention at present than my conversion to Baptist
principles. Good morning."
"Yes," he said reproachfully, "I must go out in this rain, and try to
beat up a substitute for you. A country minister's life is no
sinecure, Miss Maclean; and his work is doubled when he feels the
necessity of keeping pace with the times." He glanced at the book he
had laid down.
"I suppose so," said Mona, somewhat hypocritically. She longed to
make a very different reply, but she was glad to escape on any terms.
"I wish you all success in your search. You will not go far before
you find a fitter makeshift than I."
"I doubt it," he said, going with her to the door. "Did any young
lady's education ever yet fit her to do a thing frankly and
gracefully, when she was asked to do it?"
Mona sighed. "Education is a long word, Mr Stuart," she said. "It
savours more of eternity than of time. 'So many worlds, so much to
do.' If we should meet in another life, perhaps I shall be able to
sing for you then."
He was absolutely taken aback. What did she mean? Was she really
poaching in his preserves? It was his privilege surely to give the
conversation a religious turn, and he did not see exactly how she had
contrived to do it. However, it was his duty to rise to the
occasion, even although the effort might involve a severe mental
dislocation.
"I hope we shall sing together there," he said, "with crowns on our
heads, and palms in our hands."
It was Mona's turn to be taken aback. She had not realised the
effect of her unconventional remarks, when tried by a conventional
standard.
"_Behüte Gott!_" she said as she made her way home in the driving
rain. "There are worse fates conceivable than annihilation."
Rachel was severely dignified all day, but she was anxious that Mona
should go with her to the _soirée_, so she was constrained to bury
the hatchet before evening. Mona was much relieved when things had
slipped back into their wonted course. Her life was a fiasco indeed
if she failed to please Rachel Simpson.