It is very pleasant here, in the shady drawing-room of Heathbank. Out of
doors, these grassy slopes, which Menie Laurie cannot believe to be the
heath, are all glowing with sunshine; but within here, the light falls
cool and green, the breeze plays through the open window, and golden
streaks of sunbeams come in faintly at one end, through the bars of the
Venetian blind, upon the pleasant shade, touching it into character and
consciousness. It is a long room with a window at either end, a round
table in the middle, an open piano in a recess, and pretty bits of
feminine-looking furniture straying about in confusion not too studied.
The walls are full of gilt frames too, and look bright, though one need
not be unnecessarily critical about the scraps of canvass and
broad-margined water-colour drawings, which repose quietly within these
gilded squares. They are Miss Annie Laurie’s pictures, and Miss Annie
Laurie feels herself a connoisseur, and is something proud of them,
while it cannot be denied that the frames do excellent service upon the
shady drawing-room wall.
Mrs Laurie has found refuge in the corner of a sofa, and, with a very
fine picture-book in her hand, escapes from the conversation of Miss
Annie, which has been so very much in the style of the picture-book,
that Menie’s mother still keeps her flush of abashed annoyance upon her
cheek, and Menie herself lingers shyly at the door, half afraid to
enter. There is something very formidable to Menie in the enthusiasm and
sympathy of her aunt.
“My pretty darling!” said Miss Annie--and Miss Annie lifted her dainty
perfumed fingers to tap Menie’s cheeks with playful grace. Menie shrunk
back into a corner, blushing and disconcerted, and drooped her head
after a shy girlish fashion, quite unable to make any response. “Don’t
be afraid, my love,” said the mistress of the house, with a little
laugh. “Don’t fear any jesting from me--no, no--I hope I understand
better these sensitive youthful feelings--and we shall say nothing on
the subject, my dear Menie--not a word--only you must trust me as a
friend, you know, and we must wait tea till he comes--ah, till _he_
comes, Menie.”
Poor Menie for the moment could have wished _him_ a thousand miles
away; but she only sat down, very suddenly and quietly, on a low seat by
the wall, while Miss Annie tripped away to arrange some ornamental
matters on the tea-table, where her little china cups already sparkled,
and her silver tea-pot shone. Menie took courage to look at her
kinswoman’s face as this duty was being performed. Withered and
fantastic in its decayed graces, there was yet a something of kindness
in the smile. The face had been pretty once in its youthful days--a sad
misfortune to it now, for if it were not for this long-departed, dearly
remembered beauty, there might have been a natural sunshine in Miss
Annie Laurie’s face.
As it was, the wintry light in it played about gaily, and Miss Annie
made very undeniable exertions to please her visitors. She told Menie of
her own pursuits, as a girl might have done in expectation of a sharer
in them; and to Mrs Laurie she gave a sketch of her “society,” the few
friends who, Menie thought, made up a very respectable list in point of
numbers. Mrs Laurie from her sofa, and Menie on her seat by the wall,
looking slightly prim and very quiet in her shy confusion, made brief
answers as they could. Their entertainer did not much want their
assistance; and by-and-by Menie woke with a great flush to hear the
little gate swing open, to discern a lofty figure passing the window,
and the sound of a quick step on the gravel path. Randall was at the
door.
And Randall, looking very stately, very gracious and deferential, came
through the shower of “delighteds” and “most happys” with which Miss
Annie saluted him, with a bow of proud grace and much dignity of manner,
to Mrs Laurie’s extreme surprise, and Menie’s shy exultation. Another
hour passed over very well. The strangers grew familiar with Miss Annie;
then by-and-by they strayed out, all of them, into the sweet evening
air, so full of charmed distant voices, the hum and breath of far-off
life; and Menie found herself, before she was aware, alone, under a sky
slowly softening into twilight, in a pretty stretch of sloping turf,
where some young birch-trees stood about gracefully, like so many
children resting in a game, with Randall Home by her side.
And they had found time for various pieces of talk, quite individual and
peculiar to themselves, before Menie lifted her face, with its flush of
full unshadowed pleasure, and, glancing up to the other countenance
above her, asked, “When is the next book coming, Randall?”
“What next book, May Marion?”
This was his caressing name for her, as May alone was his father’s.
“_The_ next book--our next book,” said Menie. “I do not know much, nor
maybe care much, about anybody else’s. Randall--our own--when is it
coming?”
“What if it should never come at all?”
Randall drew her fingers through his hand with playful tenderness, half
as he might have done with a child.
“Yes--but I know it is to come at all, so that is not my question,” said
Menie. “I want to know _when_--not if. Tell me--for you need not be coy,
or think of keeping such a secret from me.”
“Did you never hear that it is dangerous to hurry one work upon
another?” was the answer somewhat evasively given. “I am to be prudent
this time--there is peril in it.”
“Peril to what?” Menie Laurie looked up with simple eyes into a face
where there began to rise some faint mists. Looking into them, she did
not comprehend at all these floating vapours, nor the curve of
fastidious discontent which they brought to Randall’s lip and brow.
“My simple Menie, you do not know how everything gets shaped into a
trade,” said Randall, with a certain condescension. “Peril to
reputation, risk of losing what one has gained--that is what we all
tremble for in London.”
“Randall!” Menie looked up again with a flush of innocent scorn. He
might speak it, indeed, but she knew he could mean nothing like this.
There was a slight pause--it might be of embarrassment--on Randall’s
part; certainly he made no effort to break the silence.
“But a great gift was not given for that,” said Menie rapidly, in her
unwitting enthusiasm. “People do not have unusual endowments given them
to be curbed by such things as that; and you never meant it, Randall; it
could not move _you_.”
But Randall only drew his hand fondly over the fingers he held, and
smiled--smiled with pleasure and pride, natural and becoming. He had not
been sophisticated out of regard for the warm appreciation and praise of
those most dear to him. He might distrust it--might think the colder
world a better judge, and the verdict of strangers a safer rule, but in
his heart he loved the other still.
But Menie’s thoughts were disturbed, and moved into a sudden ferment.
Her hand trembled a little on Randall’s arm; her eyes forsook his face,
and cast long glances instead over the bright air before them; and when
she spoke her voice was as low as her words were quick and hurried.
“It does not become me to teach you, but, Randall, Randall, you used to
think otherwise. Do you mind what you used to say about throwing away
the scabbard, putting on the harness--Randall, do you mind?”
“I mind many a delightful hour up on the hillside yonder,” said Randall
affectionately, “when my May Marion began to enter into all my dreams
and hopes; and I mind about the scabbard and the harness no less,” he
continued, laughing, “and how I meditated flashing my sword in the eyes
of all the world, like a schoolboy with his first endowment of
gunpowder. But one learns to know that the world cares so wonderfully
little about one’s sword, Menie; and moreover--you must find out for me
the reason why--this same world seems to creep round one’s-self
strangely, and by-and-by one begins to feel it more decorous to hide the
glitter of the trenchant steel. What a coxcomb you make me,” said
Randall, abruptly breaking off with a short laugh; “one would fancy this
same weapon of mine was the sword of Wallace wight.”
Menie made no answer, and the discontent on Randall’s face wavered into
various shades of scorn,--a strange scorn, such as Menie Laurie had
never seen before on any face--scorn half of himself, wholly of the
world.
“When I knew I had succeeded,” said Randall at length, with still a tone
of condescension in his confidence, “I was a little elated, I confess,
Menie, foolish as it seems, and thought of nothing but setting to work
again, and producing something worthy to live. Well, that is just the
first impulse; by-and-by I came to see what a poor affair this applause
was after all, and to think I had better keep what I had, without
running the risk of losing my advantage by a less successful stroke.
After all, this tide of popularity depends on nothing less than real
‘merit,’ as the critics call it; so I apprehend we will have no new
book, Menie; we will be content with what we have gained.”
“If applause is such a poor affair, why be afraid of the chance of
losing it?” said Menie; but she added hastily, “I want to know about
Johnnie Lithgow, Randall; is it possible that he has come to be a great
writer too?”
“If I only knew what you meant by a great writer _too_,” said Randall,
with a smile. “Johnnie Lithgow is quite a popular man, Menie--one of the
oracles of the press.”
“Is it a derogation, then, to be a popular man?” said the puzzled Menie;
“or is he afraid to risk his fame, like you?”
The lofty head elevated itself slightly. “No. Johnnie Lithgow is not a
man for fame,” said Randall, with some pride. “Johnnie does his
literary work like any other day’s work; and, indeed, why should he
not?”
Menie looked up with a blank look, surprised, and not comprehending.
Even the stronger emotions of life, the passions and the anguishes, had
never yet taken hold of Menie; still less had the subtle refining, the
artificial stoicism of mere mind and intellect, living and feeding on
itself; and Menie’s eye followed his slight unconscious gestures with
wistful wonderment as Randall went on.
“After all, what does it signify--what does anything of this kind
signify? One time or another appreciation comes; and if appreciation
never should come, what then? So much as is good will remain. I do not
care a straw for applause myself. I rate it at its own value; and that
is nothing.”
It began to grow somewhat dark, and Menie drew her shawl closer. “I
think it is time to go home,” she said softly; and as she spoke, a
vision of the kindly home she had left--of the brave protecting hills,
the broad fair country, the sky and atmosphere, all too humble for this
self-abstraction, which answered in clouds and tears, in glorious
laughter and sunshine, to every daily change--rose up before her; some
tears, uncalled for and against her will, stole into Menie’s eyes. With
a little awe, in her innocence, she took Randall’s arm again. He must be
right, she supposed; and something very grand and superior was in
Randall’s indifference--yet somehow the night air crept into Menie’s
heart, as she had never felt it do before. Many an hour this soft night
air had blown about her uncovered head, and tossed her hair in curls
about her cheeks--to-night she felt it cold, she knew not why--to-night
she was almost glad to hurry home.