THE WHAUP BECOMES ANXIOUS.
Coquette's stay in Glasgow did not promise well for the Whaup's
studies. On the very morning after she had given him a rose to cheer
him on his homeward walk, he was again up at Lady Drum's house. He
looked very blank, however, on being shown into a room, to find that
venerable lady the sole occupant; and he saw by the shrewd and
good-natured smile on her face that she perceived his disappointment.
"Yes, she is out," said Lady Drum. "Is that the question ye would
ask?"
"Well, it is, to tell you the truth," said the Whaup.
"Could ye expect her to bide in the house on a morning like this? If
there is a glint o' sunshine to be seen anywhere she is off and out
like a butterfly before we have breakfast over."
"Young ladies ought not to go out alone like that," said the Whaup,
who had suddenly acquired serious and even gloomy notions of
propriety.
His elderly friend took him to the window. Before them lay the long
terraces of the Park, the deep valley, the trees, the river, and the
opposite heights, all dully radiant in a pallid and smoky sunshine.
And on the terrace underneath the window there was a bench; and on
the bench sat, all by herself, a young person, whose downcast face,
bent over a book, was hidden underneath a white sunshade; and there
was nothing at all by which to distinguish the stranger but her
faintly yellow morning dress, that shone palely in the sun. Yet you
should have seen how swiftly the Whaup's face cleared. In about
thirty seconds he had taken an unceremonious farewell of Lady Drum,
and hastened down into the Park.
"You must not come to see me every day," said Coquette; "you do give
up all your work."
"But look here, Coquette," he remarked, gravely, "isn't it the proper
thing to pay a visit of ceremony after a dinner-party?"
"At ten o'clock in the morning?" she said, with a smile; "four
o'clock is the time for such calls, and it is not to me you pay them."
He made no reply; but he drew away the book from her lap, and quietly
shut it and put it in his pocket. Then he said--
"We are going to have a stroll through the Botanic Gardens."
So she surrendered herself--her only protest being a well-simulated
sigh, at which he laughed--and away they went. Glasgow College, and
all its class rooms, might have been in the Philippine Islands for
anything that the Whaup remembered of them.
Many and many a time during this long and devious saunter, which took
them a good deal farther than the Botanic Gardens, the
Whaup--yielding to that strange dissatisfaction with their present
happiness which distinguishes lovers and fills the most beatific
period of human life with trouble--would drag back their rambling
talk to the reasons Coquette had for being apprehensive of the
future. Why was she disinclined to speak of a possible limit to the
number of years he had yet to wait? why did she almost pathetically
counsel him to fix his affections on some one else?
Coquette replied gravely, and sometimes a little sadly, to these
questions; but she had not the courage to reveal to him the whole
truth. There was something so touching in the very trust that he
reposed in her--in the frank and generous way that he appealed to
her, and took it for granted that she would become his wife--that, in
the meantime, she dared not tell him that her heart still wandered
away to another man. He did not know that his protestations of love
sounded coldly in her ears; and only suggested what they would have
been had they been uttered by another. He thought it strange that
she was glad to avoid those little confessions and wondering hopes
which are the common talk of lovers; and would far rather have him
speak to her about his professional future, or even the details of
his college life.
For herself, she seemed to think it enough if her cousin were pleased
to walk with her; and some day, she doubted not, she would yield to
his urgent wishes and become his wife. By that time, was it not
likely that the strange unrest in her heart, that vague longing for
the presence of one whose name she scarcely ever mentioned, would
have died utterly away? And in the remote possibility of her giving
herself to her cousin, was it not her duty now to try to eradicate
that hapless love which had far more of pain than of pleasure in it?
While the Whaup was eagerly sketching out the life which he and she
should live together, Coquette was trying to make up her mind never
again to see Lord Earlshope.
But it was a hard trial. A woman may marry this man or that man--her
affections may shift and alter--but she never forgets the man she
loved with all the wonder, and idealism, and devotion of a girl's
early love. Coquette asked herself whether she could ever forget
Airlie, and the stolen interviews of those spring mornings, and the
pathetic farewells that the sea, and the sky, and the shining
landscape alone knew.
"Dreaming again," said the Whaup, gently. "I suppose you don't know
that that is a river you are looking at?"
They were standing on the small wooden bridge that crosses the
Kelvin; and she was gazing into the water as if it were a mirror on
which all the future years were reflected.
"Does this river go to the sea?" she asked.
"Most rivers do," replied the Whaup--proud, like a man, of his
superior scientific knowledge.
"And perhaps in a day or two it will see Arran."
"Why, you speak as if you were already anxious to leave Glasgow and
go back," said the Whaup. "What amusement can there be for you
there? My father is buried in that Concordance. Lady Drum is here.
Earlshope is deserted--by the way, I wonder what has become of Lord
Earlshope."
"Let us go," said Coquette, hastily; and she took her arm off the
wooden parapet of the bridge, and went on. The Whaup did not
perceive that his mention of Lord Earlshope's name had struck a
jarring note.
So they walked leisurely in to Glasgow again; and all the way
Coquette skilfully avoided conversation about the matters which were
naturally uppermost in her companion's mind. Indeed, a discovery
which she made greatly helped her out of the dilemma, and enlivened
the remainder of their ramble. She inadvertently slipped into French
in making some remark; and the Whaup quickly replied to her in the
same tongue. She was surprised and delighted beyond measure. She
had no idea of his having studied hard since he left Airlie to extend
the small acquaintance with the language which he had picked up as a
boy. She saw well what had urged him to do so; and she was pleased
by this occult compliment. She insisted on their talking nothing but
French all the way home; and the Whaup--with occasional stammering,
laughing, and blushing--managed to sustain the conversation with
tolerable ease and fluency. She corrected his idioms--very gently,
it is true; and also hinted that he might, if he liked, adopt the
familiar _tutoiement_ which ought to exist between cousins.
"But I can't," said the Whaup. "My conversation books have taught me
to say _vous_; and so, until I learn, you must call me _tu_, and I
will call you anything that comes uppermost."
This, and all that followed, was spoken in rough-and-ready French,
the grammar of which was a good deal better than its pronunciation;
and the care which the Whaup had to bestow on his language lent an
unromantic and matter-of-fact character to the subjects of their
talk, to Coquette's great relief.
When they had reached the house she said--
"You must come in and make an apology to Lady Drum for your
inattention. Then you will have a little lunch. Then you will go
home and attend to your studies until the evening. Then you will
come here and go with us to the theatre; and you may bring a bouquet
for Lady Drum, if you choose."
"Any more commands, Coquette?" he said. "What, nothing more? How
many lines of Greek must I do if I am disobedient?"
"You must not be rude to me," she remarked, "because that is a trace
of your bringing-up at Airlie, which you have nearly forgotten. It
is a relic of your savage nature. You are much improved; you are
almost civilised."
"Yes," said the Whaup, "I saw a cart of turnips go by yesterday quite
unprotected from behind, and I did not steal one..... Hillo! who is
that sitting with Lady Drum at the window?"
Coquette looked up, and did not betray the least emotion, although a
sharp spasm shot across her heart.
"It is Lord Earlshope, is it not?" she said, in a low voice.
"Yes," said the Whaup, with a sudden coldness in his tone, and
returning at once to his English; "it is rather singular he should
come here just now, but that is his own affair. No one ever could
tell what he would do next. Coquette, I don't think I shall go into
the house just now--you make my excuses to Lady Drum."
"Very well," said Coquette, calmly.
She held out her hand to bid him good-bye. He was surprised. He
expected she would have insisted on his going into the house; and, on
the contrary, she seemed rather relieved that he was going away.
"What is the matter, Coquette?" he asked. "Are you vexed because I
am going away? Very well--I will go in--come along."
And with that, he went up the steps; but he could not tell by her
face whether or not she had been annoyed by his wishing to go. They
entered the house together. Lord Earlshope rose as they went into
the room, and stepped forward to meet Coquette; and the Whaup watched
the manner in which she advanced to shake hands with him. Why were
her eyes cast down, and her face a trifle pale? She answered in
almost an inaudible way the kindly inquiries which Lord
Earlshope--whose demeanour was quite unconstrained, frank, and
courteous--made as to her having enjoyed her visit to Glasgow. The
Whaup himself, in shaking hands with his rival, was constrained to
admit that there was something pleasant and friendly in Earlshope's
manner, and in the look of his clear light-blue eye, which rather
disarmed suspicion. In a very few minutes the Whaup had completely
thawed, and was laughing heartily at a letter sent by Mr. Gillespie,
the schoolmaster, which Lord Earlshope read aloud to Lady Drum.
Nevertheless, as he went to his lodgings he was considerably
disquieted. He did not like leaving Lord Earlshope in the company of
Coquette. It seemed to him an infringement of that right of property
which he had acquired by her promise. In the old days he was vaguely
jealous, and was inclined to be rudely suspicious of Coquette's small
prevarications; but his jealousy and his rudeness were readily
dissipated whenever he came under the influence of Earlshope's good
nature, or of Coquette's gentle solicitude. Now he had a still
better claim to look after her. Had he not sworn in the olden time
to take care of her, and be her champion? Alas! the Whaup had yet to
learn that a woman is best left to take care of herself in such
delicate matters; and that no guard can be placed on the capricious
wanderings of her affection.