upon this. By some strange law of contrary, the undisputed possession
of James Annan's affections damped Sal's ardour. She became flighty
and difficult in her moods. Cleaver's boy could not take her to
enough places of resort, or at least, not to the right ones. So long
as he slighted her and rubbed her face with snow as a regular method
of courtship, she could not love him enough. But now, when she was
formally engaged to him and the alliance had been acknowledged by
Providence and Miss Cecilia Tennant, Sal suddenly found that she did
not care so much about Cleaver's boy after all. This happened in the
second week of the new situation in the department of Cleaning and
Lighting.
Sal came home from the mill at six. James went on duty at eight.
Consequently it was now usually about seven when James called. It
was an unhappy and ill-chosen time, as anybody but a man would have
known. For Sal appeared to be in some undress, and was indeed engaged
in frizzling her front hair with a pair of hot knitting needles,
occasionally burning her fingers and her forehead in the process.
"Hoo are ye the nicht, Sal?" said James, standing at the cheek of the
door and crossing his legs comfortably. Someone (he forgot who) had
told him he looked well that way.
"Naething the better for seein' you!" retorted Sal over her shoulder.
She never took her eyes off the fragment of mirror which was secured
to the wall by two long nails and the broken end of another knitting
needle.
"Wy Sal, what's wrang wi' ye?" began Cleaver's boy, anxiously. For
though in the affairs of men, as between boy and boy, his voice was
most for open war, yet in the things of love he liked peace and
sacrificed much to secure it.
Sal humped up the shoulder next him and turned sharply away from him
with a gesture indicative of the greatest disdain—without, however,
taking her eyes from the faint blue smoke which went up from the left
side of her fringe, to which she had at that moment applied a fresh
pair of red-hot knitting needles.
"Tell me what's the maitter wi' ye, Sal," said James humbly. For the
spirit seemed to have departed out of him.
Sal tossed her head and made a sound which, though inarticulate,
indicated that much might be said upon that subject. She could and she
would.
Slowly Cleaver's boy extracted from his pocket a neat parcel done up in
paper.
"Hae, Sal!" he said, going forward to her elbow and offering them to
her; "hae, here are some sweeties I fetched ye."
They were her favourite brandy-balls, and on a suitable day, with a
light wind and strong sun, their perfume carried a quarter of a mile.
James had never known them fail of their effect before. But now,
with a swift half-turn, Sal snatched them out of his hand and flung
them behind the fire. Cleaver's boy stood aghast. They had cost him
fourpence-halfpenny at Tam Luke's shop, and would have cost twice as
much but for Tam's good offices in the weighing department.
"What's wrang wi' the brandy-balls, Sal?" he cried in despair. The like
of this had never happened before in his experience. Thus Time works
out its revenges.
"Did ye get them oot o' an ash-backet?"[4] at last cried Sal, breaking
her indignant silence.
"No," said innocent James, "I got them at Tam Luke's for
fourpence-halfpenny."
"So ye say!" returned Sal, who was determined not to be appeased.
The brandy-balls were now flaming up the chimney, and fast dissolving
into their elements with a sickly smell and a fizzling noise.
"Tell us what ye hae against us, Sal; oot wi' it!" said Cleaver's boy,
who recognised the great truth that with a woman it is always better to
be at the bottom of what she knows, and that at once.
"I'm no gaun to keep company wi' ony man that gangs on the nicht
shift!" cried Sal, turning with the needles in her hand and stamping
her foot. "I'll let ye ken that Sal Mackay thinks mair o' hersel' than
that. I hae some pride!"
The murder was out. But poor James, who thought that he had done a
fine thing in attaining promotion, knew not what to reply.
"And what differ does that make, Sal?" asked Cleaver's boy in
astonishment.
"What differ does it make? Hear to the cuddy! Differ—juist this differ,
that ye'll walk oot wi' some dafter lass than Sal Mackay. I hae mair
respect for mysel' than to bemean mysel' to gang wi' a nicht-shift man!"
"But," said James, "I get far better pay. Think o' that, Sal!"
"I'm no carin' for that, when I canna be there when ye spend it," said
the mercenary Sal, with, however, commendable straightforwardness.
"But I fetched ye the brandy-balls, Sal," persisted the once proud boy
of Cleaver's.
"Brandy-balls! _That_ for your brandy-balls!" cried Sal, pointing to
the fireplace, in which a little blue flame was still burning, at the
spot where the Tam Luke's sweetmeats had been so irregularly consumed.
"D'ye think that Sal Mackay is to be dependent every nicht on a chap
that has to gang on duty at half-past seven?——"
"Eight o'clock!" said Cleaver's boy, eagerly.
"At half-past seven," said Sal, jerking her head pugnaciously at each
syllable, "he pits on claes that are a disgrace to be seen forbye
smelled. And what's to come o' the lemonades noo, I wad like to ken—or
o' the gallery at the theaytre?"
"There's Saturday afternoon, Sal," said James placably, with a sudden
access of cheerfulness. He had scored a point.
"Aye, there's Saturday afternune," replied Sal, with chilling cynicism,
"and what will ye do with your Saturday afternoon? Ye'll maybe tak' me
ower to Aberdour again in the boat, and be sae dazed and sleepy-like
that ye'll faa asleep on the road, as ye did the last time. And hae
everybody sayin', 'My word, Sal, but ye hae a blythe young chap there.
Ye maun hae been fine heartsome company to him?' D'ye think ony lass
that thinks onything o' hersel' wad stand the like o' that?"
Sal stamped her foot and paused for a reply. It was certainly an
awkward question. Sal, like most women (thought James) was a demon at
"casting-up" when she began.
Cleaver's boy scratched his curly head and advanced towards Sal. He
felt that in the war of words he was going to have very distinctly the
worst of it. But he thought that he might fare better nearer at hand.
It was one of his favourite axioms that "it is aye best to argue wi'
the weemen at close grips." Which, whether it be true or not, at least
shows that Cleaver's boy was a youth of some experience—but Sal Mackay
chose to misinterpret his action.
She turned instantly, and, snatching up an iron goblet of hot water
which stood on the hearth, she advanced to meet him, crying, "I'll gie
ye your fill o' throwin' water on decent folk. An' this water will keep
ye fine and warm on the nicht shift, my lad!"
At this Cleaver's boy turned and fled. But as he scudded down the
stairs, bent nearly double, the boiling water from Sal Mackay's pan
fell in stinging drops upon the back of his neck, and, what was worse,
upon his suit of new clothes, bought with his week's wages and donned
for the first time.
When Cleaver's boy reached the pavement, he dusted the water splashes
off as well as he could, and walked thoughtfully and determinedly
across Nicholson Street.
"It'll be an awesome savin' in lemonade," he said, "an' that dreadfu'
expensive bottle lemonade too!"
A tramcar was passing. A wild thought ran through his brain.
"Dod," he said, "I declare I'll save that muckle by giein' up Sal—I'll
risk it."
And he hailed the car and walked very slowly towards it when it
stopped. The conductor waved to him to come on.
"Could ye no hae run, man, an' no wasted a' this time?" he said, when
Cleaver's boy had at last got himself upon the platform.
"I was gettin' my twopence-worth," said James Annan, with dignity; "I
am an inside passenger!" And he went through the glass door and sat
beside Bailie Holden, who was going home to dinner and was already
thinking of Bogie roll.
The Bailie and Cleaver's boy got out at the same place. They made their
way to the same house. The Bailie let himself in by the front door.
Cleaver's boy went equally unannounced to the back. But Cleaver's boy
knew that he had pretty Janet of Inverness waiting for him, whereas the
Bailie only had his wife. And in these circumstances most people would
have preferred to enter by the back door with James Annan.
Janet of Inverness was standing by the kitchen-window polishing a brass
preserving pan in which she could admire her dimpled chin, and the hair
which, curling naturally, did not need the intervention of red-hot
knitting needles to be beautiful.
Janet ran hastily to the door.
"Do you want to see the maister?"
"No," said James Annan; "wull ye hae me, Janet?"
Janet of Inverness looked him a moment in the eyes. What she read
there, Janet only knows. At any rate it seemed to be satisfactory
enough, for, with all the ardour of love's young dream, she fell on
his neck, and murmured, "Aye, Jamie, when—" (here Janet of Inverness
sobbed)—"when ye get a rise!"
ADVENTURE XXIV.
THE CROOK IN THE LOT OF CLEAVER'S BOY.
I should have mentioned before that Inverness Janet's other name was
Urquhart, but for the fact that second names do not seem to matter
anywhere, except in those grades of society where persons require
calling cards to remind them of each others' names.
It was only a natural precisian like Mr. Cleg Kelly who always insisted
on the second name. But Cleg had a reason for that. He was himself in
the curious position of having no ascertained first name. There was
a tradition in the family that he had been baptized Bryan, but his
mother had never used the name. And since his father and everyone else
had always called him Cleg, Cleg Kelly he remained all his life—or at
least, as they say commercially, "to date."
But it is with Inverness Janet and the faithless and easily consoled
James Annan, late assistant to Mr. Cleaver, butcher, that we have
presently to do. Janet's conditional acceptance of his devotion seemed
in a fair way to being made absolute. For Cleaver's boy proved a
success at the night work. But in spite of this, and of his apparently
assured success, both in the fields of practical sanitation and in
those of love, James Annan was clearly not happy.
Judging by some past experience of his own, Cleg thought he must be
pining for his old freedom.
"What for do ye no rin away, if ye want to be rid o' Janet?" was Cleg's
contribution to the problem.
"Haud your tongue! I dinna want to get rid o' Janet!" said Cleaver's
boy, loyally, but without indignation. Such things had been, and might
be again.
"It's aboot Janet onyway," said wise Cleg, shaking his head; "hae Sal
or Susy been botherin' her?"
"Na," said Janet's lover, "they ken better. My certes, Janet wad gie
them the door in their faces and then send for a polissman."
"Ye had better tell me, at ony rate," said Cleg.
And with a little pressing, James Annan did unburden his sore heart.
"Ye see," he said, "Janet's bonny—or I think sae——"
"It is the same thing exactly!" interjected Cleg.
"She's bonny, an' easy to be doin' wi'. She's no sair ava' in the way
o' expense. She is a natural saver hersel', an' she's aye at me to be
puttin' by the siller. O, in some ways it is juist like heeven—nae
leemonades, nae swing rides, nae merry-go-rounds, nae shows! I declare
she cares no a buckie for Pepper's Ghost. In that respect there's no a
mair agreeabler lass in the toon. Janet is aye pleased to tak' a walk
on the Calton, or maybe in the Gardens, or to the Museum, or doon the
shore to Leith to see the ships, or, what pleases her best, juist doon
to the Waverley Station to see the Heelant train come in. O, Cleg, she
is sic a weel-dooin', couthy, kindly lass, that ony man micht hae been
prood o' her."
"What is't, then," said Cleg, "since she's sae perfect? Is't the
poetry?" To Cleg "the poetry" was a trouble which might seize a victim
at any moment, like the toothache. "And then where are ye?" he would
add, cogently.
But it was not the poetry. It was a deeper grief. It appeared from the
tale which Cleg laboriously extracted from the reluctant and deeply
wounded suitor, that Janet, though a well-doing lass in every respect,
had one grave fault.
All day she was at work quietly and willingly. It was the nature of
James's occupation that he should be in the neighbourhood in the
early morning. At that hour Janet, in her working gown, was all that
heart could desire. But when Cleaver's boy chanced to go round in
the afternoon, or met Janet by appointment, some malicious pixie had
wrought a sea-change in the lass of Inverness.
She would then tell, with the greatest candour and engaging innocence,
tales which even a faithful lover could not otherwise characterise than
as "whoppers." This mania appeared to come upon her whenever she had
taken off her morning wrapper and put on her company dress. She was
going (so she declared) to "the mistress" to ask for a few evenings
off in order to fulfil her innumerable social engagements. Every house
where at any time she had been engaged (as kitchen-maid) opened wide
its doors to her as a welcome guest. She told the cook, who listened
with unconcealed scorn, how she had been at balls and suppers galore
in "the best houses" in Melville Street and Princes Street. She must
really, she said, begin to remodel and refashion some of her many silks
and satins for the approaching season.
Only the evening before, she had entertained the servants' hall at
Bailie Holden's with an account of a dinner she had been at the night
before in the Grange. She had even got off early in order to have her
hair done by the hairdresser.
"The hairdresser, as a great favour, is going to arrange it in the
latest style for five shillings, instead of ten-and-six, his usual
charge," said Janet of Inverness, with a glance like an angel's for
innocence. Then she described her drive to the house in a four-wheeler.
"My hair would have got so blown about, or I should have gone in a
hansom, which is much more distinguished." Her former master had, it
appeared, come into the hall to receive her. Two gentlemen had almost
quarrelled as to who should see her home. A handsome and distinguished
gentleman and a member of Parliament for the city, celebrated for his
gallantry to the ladies, had, however, forestalled them both, arranged
the shawl deliciously about her shoulders with well-accustomed fingers,
and had thereafter driven home with her in a hansom.
"It did not matter about the hair then, you know," said gay Janet of
Inverness, looking daringly at Cleaver's boy.
At this the cook had laughed out loud. She then said that it was all
lies, and that she had seen Janet walking along the Bridges with
another girl at the supposed hour of the dinner. Thus was shame brought
upon Cleaver's boy and upon the pride and good name of his sweetheart.
"An' what do ye think I should do, Cleg?" asked James Annan.
"I wad gie her a lickin' and gar her stop," said Cleg, who had still
prehistoric notions as to the discipline of women.
"Na," said Cleaver's boy; "I hae thocht o' that. But, man, she's no
like Susy or Sal. Ye couldna lift a hand to her when she looks at ye
wi' yon e'en, an' tells ye that her faither was either a Highland Chief
or a Toon Councillor o' Inverness. I couldna do it, Cleg."
"Hoot," said Cleg, "then I wad try no to heed. She may grow oot o't.
An' thae Heelant folk are aye leein' onyway. Think on a' the lees they
tell aboot their Bonny Prince Chairlie!"
"I hae tried no to mind," answered Cleaver's boy, sadly; "but when I
see the ither yins a' laughin' at her an' her no seeing it, but gaun
straight on wi' her daft-like story, I tell ye, Cleg, it pits me fair
wild. There'll be murder dune, Cleg, gin it's no stoppit."
"Weel, Cleaver," said Cleg philosophically, "I think I see the reason
on't. She disna gang to shows an' theaytres, to save the siller; but
she says she gangs, an' that costs naething. I dinna see what ye hae to
compleen o'!"
"If that's a' ye can tell me," said Cleaver's boy indignantly, "I wadna
hae missed muckle if ye had stayed at hame."
"Hoots, butcher," said Cleg, with indulgence, "dinna gang a aff like
the fuff o' a match. There's little sense and nae siller in that. But
I'll tell ye what, butcher: I'll speak to Miss Celie. She will ken what
ye had better do."
It was thus indirectly that Providence was appealed to in the Sooth
Back.
ADVENTURE XXV.
A COMELY PROVIDENCE IN A NEW FROCK.
Cleg was as good as his word. He went that very night to call on Miss
Tennant at Aurelia Villa. He found her in a philanthropic frame of
mind. She had received from the dressmaker a dress of the latest mode,
and she was conscious that the new fashion suited her like a garment
fashioned by the fairies in a dream. Also (what was even better) that
it would make other girls whose shoulders were not so good and whose
figure was less slim and graceful, look perfectly hideous. Yet they
would have to wear it. Celie felt that evening that there was little
left to wish for in this sinful world. She looked out of the window
toward the west. There was also (it seemed on purpose) a beautiful
sunset which glorified the purple cliffs of Arthur's Seat—a quiet,
providential sunset, for it went so well with the colour of her new
dress. Besides, here was Mr. Donald Iverach walking slowly up the
Avenue. And yet some people complained that this was not a good world!
What would folk say next?
But Cleg forestalled the Junior Partner. He came by the back door, and
when in a strait betwixt two, a serving maid will always answer a knock
at the back before a ring at the front door. The back door is more
variously interesting.
So Cleg had the floor of the house, and was just finishing his tale,
when Mr. Donald Iverach was announced.
Celie held out her hand to him, with a motion which signified at once
a welcome and a desire that he should not interrupt. So the Junior
Partner, who had for some time been accustomed to devote more time to
the study of her moods than he had ever done to his Bible (and he had
not neglected that either when nobody saw him), sat down upon a sofa
and became interested in the pattern of some crochet work, which Miss
Celie had tossed on a chair with characteristic impetuosity when she
had rushed across the room to greet Cleg.
"Are ye gaun to pit on that dress on Sabbath at the Sunday school?"
asked Cleg, when he had time to think a little about his own affairs.
Celie looked at him with a small start of ingenuous wonder. It was a
good little start in its way, and expressed amazement that anyone
should notice so plain and simple a thing as her new dress. It is an
undoubted fact that she was a truthful girl, and it is also a fact that
she was quite aware how instantly the summer dress had riveted the
attention of both Cleg and the Junior Partner. Yet the little start
expressed as plainly as words her surprise, even her sorrow, that in
the midst of so serious a world the minds of men and boys should dwell
upon so vain a thing as a girl's gown. Perhaps Celie's little start was
her way of telling stories. For the sage sayeth that all women tell
stories habitually and unintentionally, whereas men tell them only
occasionally but intentionally.
At any rate, whether it was the start or whether it was merely owing
to her sympathetic nature, after a moment's consideration of the sad
failing of Janet of Inverness, Celie lifted her eyes to those of the
Junior Partner.
"Poor girl," she said, "I quite understand; don't you?"
"You see, I have not heard," said the Junior Partner, hesitating.
Celie instantly withdrew her eyes from his. She looked at once hurt
and disappointed. He set up for being sympathetic and kind, and he
had failed to understand a simple thing like this. He was clearly
unworthy of confidence. Celie Tennant turned to Cleg for assistance.
He was looking at her with wide eyes of boyish adoration. Cleg at any
rate understood. She turned half round in her chair and the profile
which she presented to Mr. Donald Iverach struck a chill through the
room like that part of Greenland which looks towards the Pole. Celie's
lovers did not lack varied interests in their life; and perhaps that
was why she had so many. For in the affairs of the heart most men like
good sport and a run for their money.
"Come, Cleg," she said, rising, "I want to speak to you. My father is
in the garden, Mr. Iverach!" she added, pointedly.
What Mr. Iverach said under his breath of his excellent friend Mr.
Robert Greg Tennant at that moment, it is perhaps better not to write
down. He rose and went to the window. From the wide space of its oriel,
he watched with furtive sidelong gloom the confabulation of Celie and
Cleg. Celie was explaining something with great animation to the boy,
who looked down and seemed a little doubtful. Then with inimitable
archness, which seemed thrown away upon an Arab of the city (if it were
intended for him), Celie explained the whole matter over again from the
top of the steps. She went a little way back towards the house.
"Now you quite understand?" she cried with impressive emphasis. And
lest he should not yet comprehend, she turned ere she reached the door,
ran to Cleg at the gate with still more inimitable daintiness, and,
with her hand upon his arm, she explained the whole thing all over
again. The Junior Partner felt a little string tighten somewhere about
the region in which (erroneously) he believed his heart to lie. He
clenched his fist at the sight.
"O confound it!" he remarked, for no very obvious reason, as he turned
away.
But Celie was full of the most complete unconsciousness. Yet (of course
without knowing it) she quite spoilt the game of two young men, who
were playing lawn tennis on the court of a neighbouring house. Their
returns grew wilder and their services were beneath contempt. Their
several partners (attractive young women whom the new style of dress
did not suit) met casually at the net, and one of them remarked to the
other, "Isn't she a minx? And her pretending to be good and all that!"
Which was perhaps their way of clenching fists and saying, "Confound
it!" Or worse.
Then in a little while Cleg went down the Avenue with a sense that the
heavens had fallen, and that angels were getting quite common about the
garden gates of the South Side. He carried the arm on which Celie had
laid her hand a little apart from him. It was as blissfully sensitive
as if he had been ten years older.
Celie stood a moment at the gate looking after him. She shaded her eyes
from the sunset and looked down the long street. It is a charming pose
when one is sure of one's arms and shoulders. At this moment one of
the young men in the garden sent a ball over the house, and the eyes
of his partner met those of the other girl. Peace was upon the earth
at that sweet hour of sunset, but good-will to women was not in their
two hearts. Celie felt that the light summer silk had already paid for
itself.
"I don't believe a bit in religion—so there!" said the girl next door
to her friend over the net.
At that moment Celie gave a little sigh to think that her first night
in the new garment was so nearly over. "And father wanted to give me a
black silk," said Celie Tennant to herself. Celie felt that she had not
wasted her time nor her father's money.
So to show her gratitude she went and found her father. He was slowly
walking up and down the little plot of garden, meditatively smoking his
large evening pipe. He stopped now before a favourite row of cabbages,
and now at the end of the strawberry bed. He regarded them equally with
the same philosophical and meditative attention. He was a practical man
and insisted on growing vegetables in his own private domains at the
back, leaving his daughter to cultivate roses and the graces in the
front garden.
Celie elevated her nose and sniffed as she came out. "O father, what a
horrid smell of tobacco you are making!"
"It is almost inevitable," he said, apologetically; "you see it is
tobacco I am smoking."
If it had been asafœtida, Celie could not have appeared more disgusted.
"I thought your young thieves smoked at that club of yours," said her
father.
"Oh, yes; but that is different," she answered.
"Yes, it _is_ different," chuckled her parent, thinking of what his
tobacco cost him.
Then Celie went on to explain all about Cleaver's boy and his trouble,
telling the sad tale of the "failing" of Janet of Inverness, as,
well—as I should like to have the tale of my weaknesses told, if it
were necessary that they should be told at all.
Her father smoked and listened. Sometimes he lifted a snail from the
leaf of a cabbage with care. Anon he kicked a stone sideways off the
path, and ever he smoked, listened, and nodded without comment.
"These are all your orders, ma'am?" he asked slowly, when his daughter
had finished.