THE ALGÆ AND FUNGI.
The bazaar as an institution is played out. There can certainly be
no two opinions about that. It has lived through a youth of humble
usefulness, a middle life of gorgeous magnificence, and it is now far
gone in an old age of decrepitude and shams. It has attained the
elaboration and complexity which are incompatible with farther
existence, and it must die. The cup of its abuses and iniquities is
full. It has had its day; let it follow many things better than
itself--great kingdoms, mighty systems--into the region of the things
that have been and are not.
Yet even where the bazaar is already dead, we all seem to combine,
sorely against our will, to keep the old mummy on its feet. Nor is
the reason for our inconsistency far to seek. The bazaar _knows its
world_; there is scarcely a human weakness--a weakness either for
good or for evil--to which it does not appeal; so it dies hard, and,
in spite of ourselves, we cherish it to the last.
How we hate it! How the very appearance of its name in print fills
our minds with reminiscences of nerve-strain, and boredom, and
shameless persecution!
This being so, it is a matter of profound regret to me that a bazaar
should appear at all in the pages of my story; but it is bound up
inextricably with the course of events, so I must beg my readers to
bear up as best they may.
"My dear," said Rachel, coming into the shop one day, eager and
breathless, "I have got a piece of news for you to-day. The Miss
Bonthrons want you to help them with their stall at the bazaar! It
seems they have been quite taken with your manner in the shop, and
they think you'll be far more use than one of those dressed-up
fusionless things that only want to amuse themselves, and don't know
what's left if you take three-and-sixpence from the pound. Of course
they are very glad, too, that you should have the ploy. I told them
I was sure you would be only too delighted. They were asking if
there was no word of your being baptised and joining the church yet."
Mona bent low over her account-book, and it was a full minute before
she replied. Her first impulse was to refuse the engagement
altogether; her second was to accept with an indignant protest; her
third and last was to accept without a word. If she had been doomed
to spend a lifetime with Rachel, things would have been different; as
it was, there were not three more months of the appointed time to
run. For those months she must do her very utmost to avoid all cause
of offence.
"I think a bazaar is the very last thing I am fitted for," she said
quietly; "but, if you have settled it with the Bonthrons, I suppose
there is nothing more to be said."
"Oh, you'll manage fine, I'm sure. There's no doubt you've a gift
for that kind of thing. I can tell you there's many a one would be
glad to stand in your shoes. You'll see you'll get all your meals in
the refreshment-room for nothing, and a ticket for the ball as well."
"I don't mean to go to the ball."
"Hoots, lassie, you'll never stay away when the ticket costs you
nothing! I am thinking I might go myself, perhaps, to take care of
you, like. It'll be a grand sight, they say, and it's not often I
get the chance of wearing my green silk."
Again the infinite pathos of this woman, with all her vulgar,
disappointed little ambitions, took Mona's heart by storm, as it had
done on the night of her arrival at Borrowness; and a gentle answer
came unbidden to her lips.
That afternoon, however, she considered herself fully entitled to set
off and drink tea with Auntie Bell, and Rachel raised no objection
when she suggested the idea.
"I would be glad if you would do a little business for me, as you
pass through Kilwinnie," she said.
"I will, with pleasure."
"Just go into Mr Brown's," she said, "and ask him if he still has
green ribbon like what he sold me for my bonnet last year. The
strings are quite worn out. I think a yard and a half should do.
I'll give you a pattern."
Mona fervently wished that the bit of business could have been
transacted in any other shop, but it would not do to draw back from
her promise now.
As she passed along the high street of Kilwinnie, she saw Miss
Brown's face at the window above the shop, and she bowed as she
crossed the street. Mr Brown was engaged with another customer, so
Mona went up to the young man at the opposite counter, thankful to
escape so easily. But it was no use. In the most barefaced way Mr
Brown effected an exchange of customers, and came up to her, his
solemn face all radiant with sudden pleasure. His eyes, like those
of a faithful dog, more than atoned at times for his inability to
speak.
"How is Miss Simpson?" he asked. This was his one idea of making a
beginning.
"She is very well, thank you," and Mona proceeded at once with the
business in hand.
They had just settled the question, when, to Mona's infinite relief,
Miss Brown tripped down the stair leading into the shop.
"Won't you come up-stairs and rest for ten minutes, Miss Maclean?"
she said. "We are having an early cup of tea. No, no, Philip, we
don't want you. Gentlemen have no business with afternoon tea."
Mona could not have told what induced her to accept the invitation.
She certainly did not wish to do it. Perhaps she was glad to escape
on any terms from those pathetic brown eyes.
Mr Brown's face fell, then brightened again.
"Perhaps while you are talking, you will arrange for another walk,"
he said.
Mona followed Miss Brown up the dark little stair into the house, and
they entered the pleasant sitting-room. The ladies of the house
received their visitor cordially, and proceeded to entertain her with
conversation, which seemed to be friendly, if it was neither
_spirituel_ nor very profound. Presently it turned on the subject of
husband-hunting.
"Now, Miss Maclean," said one, "would you call my brother an
attractive man?"
Mona was somewhat taken aback by the directness of the question.
"I never thought of him in that connection," she answered honestly.
"Well, you know, he is not a marrying man at all. Anybody can see
that; and yet you would not believe me if I were to tell you the
number of women who have set their caps at him. Any other man would
have his head turned completely; but he never seems to see it. We
get the laugh all to ourselves."
"Clever as he is," put in another sister, "he is a regular simpleton
where women are concerned. He treats them just as if they were men,
and of course they take advantage of it, and get him talked about and
laughed at."
"We tell him it really is too silly," said the third, "that, after
all his experience, he should not know how to take care of himself."
Mona turned very pale, but she answered thoughtfully.
"When you asked me whether I considered if Mr Brown an attractive
man, I was inclined at first to say no; but what you say of him
crystallises my ideas somewhat. I think his great attraction lies in
the fact that he can meet women on common ground, without regard to
sex. He realises, perhaps, that a woman may care for knowledge, and
even for friendship, as well as for a husband. I should not try to
change him, if I were you. His views may be peculiar here, but they
are not altogether uncommon among cultured people."
She said the last words gently, with a pleasant smile, and then
proceeded to put on her furs with an air of quiet dignity that would
not have discredited Lady Munro herself, and that seemed to throw the
Browns to an infinite distance.
It was some moments before any of them found voice.
"Must you go?" said the eldest at last, somewhat feebly. "Won't you
take another cup of tea?"
"Thank you very much, but I am on my way to drink tea with Mrs
Easson."
"Queer homely body, isn't she?" said the second sister, recovering
herself. "She is your cousin, is she not?"
"I am proud to say she is."
"Oh, we've never arranged about the walk," said the youngest. "Any
day next week that will suit you, will suit me."
"Oh, thank you; I am afraid this wonderful bazaar is going to absorb
all our energies for some time to come. I fear the walk will have to
be postponed indefinitely."
She shook hands graciously with her hostesses, and went slowly down
by the stair that opened on the street.
"If I were five years younger," she said to her herself, "I should be
tempted to encourage Mr Brown, just the least little bit in the
world, and then----"
But not even when Mona was a girl could she have been tempted, for
more than a moment, to avenge a petty wrong at the expense of those
great, sad eyes.
Mr Brown had been looking out, and he came forward to meet her,
nervous, eager.
"Have you arranged a day?" he asked.
"No; I fear I am going to be very busy for the next few weeks. It is
very kind of you to suggest another walk. Good-bye."
She was unconscious that her whole manner and bearing had changed in
the last quarter of an hour, but he felt it keenly, and guessed
something of what had happened.
"Miss Maclean," he said hoarsely, grasping the hand she tried to
withdraw, "what do we want with one of them in our walks? Come with
me. Come up-stairs with me now, and we'll tell them----"
"I have stayed too long already," said Mona hastily; "good-bye." And
without trusting herself to look at him again, she hurried away.
Her cheeks were very bright, and her eyes suffused with tears, as she
continued her walk.
"How disgraceful!" she kept repeating; "how disgraceful! I must have
been horribly to blame, or it never would have come to this."
But, as usual, before long her sense of the comic came to her rescue.
"Verily, my dear," she said, with a heavy sigh, "the study of the
_Algæ_ and _Fungi_ is a large one, and leads us further than we
anticipated."
Auntie Bell would not have been the shrewd woman she was, if she had
not seen at a glance that something was wrong with her darling; but
she showed her sympathy by hastily "masking the tea," and cutting
great slices from a home-made cake.
"Eh, but ye're a sicht for sair een!" she said, as she bustled in and
out of the sitting-room. "I declare ye're bonnier than iver i' that
fur thing. Weel, hoo's a' wi' ye?"
"Oh, I am blooming, as you see. Rachel is well, too."
"An' what w'y suld she no' be weel? She's no' i' the w'y o' daein'
onything that's like to mak' her ill, I fancy, eh? Hae ye been efter
the butterflies again wi' Maister Broon?"
The unexpected question brought the tell-tale colour to Mona's cheek.
"No," she said, "I am not going any more. It is not the weather for
that sort of thing."
"Na," said Auntie Bell tersely; "nor he isna the mon for that sort o'
thing. He's a guid mon, nae doot, an' a cliver, they say, for a'
he's sae quite an' sae canny, an' sae ta'en up wi's beasts and
things; but he's no' the mon for the like o' you. Ye wadna tak' him,
Mona?"
"Dear Auntie Bell," said Mona abashed, "such a thing never even
occurred to me----"
She did not add "until," but her honest face said it for her.
"He's no' been askin' ye?"
"No, no," said Mona warmly, "and he never will. Can a man and woman
not go 'after the butterflies,' as you call it, without thinking of
love and marriage?"
Auntie Bell's face was worth looking at.
"I nae ken," she said grimly; "I hae ma doots."
"Well, I assure you Mr Brown has not even mentioned such a thing to
me."
Auntie Bell eyed her keenly through the gold spectacles, but Mona did
not flinch.
"Then his sisters have," thought the old woman shrewdly. "I'll gie
them a piece o' ma mind the neist time I'm doun the toun."
Mona's visits were necessarily very short on these winter afternoons,
and as soon as tea was over she rose to go.
"Are ye aye minded tae gang hame come Mairch?" said Auntie Bell.
"Oh yes, I cannot possibly stay longer."
"What's to come o' the shop?"
"I will look out for an intelligent young person to fill my place."
"Ay, ye may luik! Weel, I'll no' lift a finger tae gar ye bide.
Yon's no' the place for ye. But I nae ken hoo I'm tae thole wi'oot
the sicht o' yer bonny bricht een."
"Dear Auntie Bell," said Mona affectionately, "you are coming to see
me, you know."
"Me! hoot awa', lassie! It's a far cry tae Lunnon, an' I'm ower auld
tae traivel ma lane."
They were standing by the open door, and the moonlight fell full on
the worn, eager face.
"Then come with me when I go. I can't tell you how pleased and proud
I should be to have you."
The old woman's face beamed. "Ay? My word! an' ye'd tak' me in a
first-cless cairriage, and treat me like a queen, I'll be boun'. Mrs
Dodds o' the neist fairm is aye speirin' at me if I'll no' gang wi'
the cheap trip tae Edinbury for the New Year. I'll tell her I could
gang a' the w'y tae Lunnon, like a leddy, an' no' be the puirer for
the ootin' by ae bawbee."
She executed a characteristic war-dance in the moonlight. "Aweel,"
she resumed, with sudden gravity, "ye'll mind me tae Rachel, and tell
her auld Auntie Bell's as daft as iver!"
"Well, you promised to dance at my wedding, you know," and, waving
her hand, Mona set off with a light, quick step.
Her thoughts were very busy as she hastened along, but her decision
was made before she reached home. "I will write a short note to Mr
Brown to-night," she said, "and tell him I find life too short for
the study of the _Algæ_ and _Fungi_."