A Witch of the Hills Volume I Part 8

'Then, I should think, she was not his mother at all.'

'Perhaps not. But all mothers are not like yours.'

'I _know_ that,' cooed the girl, tucking her hand lovingly under the maternal arm. Then, after a pause, she said, 'What a lot of nice places and people you must have seen in all the years you have travelled about, Mr. Maude.'

'How old do you think I am, then?' I asked, struck by something in her tone.

She hesitated, looking shyly from me to her mother.

'No, no,' said I. 'Tell me what you think yourself.'

She glanced at me again, then suggested in a small voice, 'sixty?'

Both Mrs. Ellmer and I began to laugh; and the child, blushing, rubbed her cheek against her mother's sleeve.

'How much would you take off from that, Mrs. Ellmer?'

'Why, I'm sure you can't be a day more than forty-five.'

She evidently thought I should be pleased by this, the good lady flattering herself that she had taken off at least five years. My first impulse was to set them right rather indignantly, but the next moment I remembered that I should gain nothing but a character for mendacity by telling them that I should not be thirty till next year.

So I only laughed again, and then Babiole's voice broke in apologetically.

'I only guessed what I did, Mr. Maude, because you are so very kind; you seem always trying to do good to some one.'

'Here's a subtle and cynical little observer for you,' said I, glancing over the child's head at the mother. 'She knows, you see, that benevolence is the last of the emotions, and is only tried as a last resource when we have used up all the others.'

Babiole looked much astonished at this interpretation, which she understood very imperfectly, and Mrs. Ellmer shook her head in arch rebuke as she rose to go. They went upstairs together to put on their cloaks, but Babiole came flying down before her mother to have a last peep at the portraits which had fascinated her. I followed her into the drawing-room, where lamp and fire were still burning, and she started and turned as she saw my reflection in the long gla.s.s which hung between the pictures.

'Well, are you as happy at the cottage as you thought you would be?' I asked.

'Oh, happier, a thousand times. It is too good to last,' with a frightened sigh.

'Don't you miss the constant change of your travelling life, and the excitement of acting?'

She seemed scarcely to understand me at first, as she repeated, in a bewildered manner, 'excitement!' Then she said simply, 'It's very exciting when you miss the train and the company go on without you; but it's dreadful, too, because the manager might telegraph to say you needn't come on at all'.

'But the acting; isn't that exciting?'

'It's nice, sometimes, when one has a part one likes; but, of course, I only got small parts, and it's dreadful to have to go on with nothing to say, or for an executioner, or an old woman, with just a line.'

'And don't you like travelling?'

'I like it sometimes in the summer; but in the winter it's so cold, and the places all seem alike; and then the pantomime season comes, and you have nothing to do.'

'What do you do then? What did you do last winter, for instance?'

'We went back to London.'

'Well?'

But Babiole had grown suddenly shy.

'Won't you tell me? Would you rather not?'

'I would rather not.'

At that moment Mrs. Ellmer's voice was heard calling, in sharp tones, for 'Babiole!'

'Here we are, Mrs. Ellmer, taking a last look at the pictures,' I called back, and I led the child out into the hall, where her mother gave a sharp glance from her to me, and wished me good-night rather curtly. I stood at the door to watch them on their way to the cottage, as they would not accept my escort; and through the keen air I distinctly heard this question and answer--

'You want to get us turned out, to spend another winter like the last, I suppose. What did you tell him about your father?'

'Nothing, mother, nothing, indeed!----'

The rest of the child's pa.s.sionate answer I could not catch, as they went farther away. But I wondered what the secret was that I had been so near learning.

CHAPTER VIII

I enjoyed that evening so much that I was quite ready to go through another preparatory penance of smoking chimneys and general topsyturveydom to have another like it. But Fate and Ferguson ruled otherwise. I mentioned to him one day that I proposed inviting the ladies again for the following evening, and he said nothing; but when I made a state call on Mrs. Ellmer that afternoon, she brought forward all sorts of unexpected excuses to avoid the visit. Circ.u.mstances had made me too diffident to press the point, and I had to conclude, with much mortification, that the sight of my ugly face for a whole evening had been too distressing to their artistic eyes for them to undergo such a trial again. They, however, invited me to dine with them on Christmas Day, but I was too much hurt to accept the invitation. It was not until long afterwards I found out that, on learning my intention of giving another 'party,' my faithful Ferguson had posted off to the cottage and informed Mrs. Ellmer that his poor mother was so ill she could scarcely keep on her legs, and now master had ordered another 'turn out,' and he expected it would 'do for her'

altogether. I only knew, then, that when I told him there was to be no 'party,' his wooden face relaxed into a faint but happy smile, and that my feet ached to kick him.

That winter was what we called mild up there, and it pa.s.sed most uneventfully for my tenants and for me. We saw very little of each other since that chill to our friendship; but I soon began to find that the little pale woman, who was too acid to excite as much liking as she did pity and respect, had no idea of allowing the obligations between us to lie all on one side. Under the masculine _regime_ which had flourished in my household before the irruption of Mrs. Ellmer, her daughter and Janet, the art of mending had been unknown and ignored, and the science of cleaning my study had been neglected. With regard to my own raiment, the Bra.s.s Age, or age of pins, succeeded the Bone Age, or age of b.u.t.tons, with unfailing regularity; and when, with Janet, the Steel Age, or age of needles came in, I sometimes thought I should prefer to go back to primitive barbarism and holes in my stockings rather than hobble about with large lumps of worsted thread at the corners of my toes,--which was the best result of a process which the old lady called 'darning.'

The road to Ballater was for weeks impa.s.sable with snowdrifts; no possibility of replenishing one's wardrobe even from the village's meagre resources. At last, being by this time lamer than any pilgrim, I boldly cut out the lumps in my stockings, and thereby enlarged the holes. This flying in the face of Providence must have been an awful shock to Janet, for she related it to Mrs. Ellmer with some acrimony; the result of this was that the active little woman overhauled my wardrobe, and everything else in my house that was in need of repair by the needle; she tried her hand successfully at some amateur tailoring; she hunted out some old curtains, and by a series of wonderful processes, which she a.s.sured me were very simple, transformed them from crumpled rags into very handsome tapestry hangings for a draughty corner of my study; she carried off my old silver, piece by piece, and polished it up until, instead of wearing the mouldy rusty hue of long neglect, it brightened the whole room with its glistening whiteness. I believe this last work was a sacred pleasure to her; Babiole said her mother cooed over the tankards and embraced the punch-bowl. The way that woman made old things look like new savoured of sorcery to the obtuse male mind. Ferguson would take each transfigured article, neatly patched tablecloth, worn skin rug, combed and cleaned to look like new, or whatever it might be, and hold it at arm's length, squinting horribly the while, and then, with a sigh of dismay at the disappearance of the old familiar rents, cast it from him in disgust. The climax of his rage was reached when, one evening at dinner, surprised by an unusually savoury dish, I sent a message of congratulation to Janet. Like a Northern Mephistopheles, his eyes flashed fire.

'I didna know, sir, ye were so partial to kickshaws,' he said haughtily, with the strong Scotch accent into which, on his return to his native hills, he had allowed himself to relapse.

I saw that I had made some fearful blunder, and said no more; but I afterwards learned from Babiole, as a great secret, that her mother had prevailed upon Janet to yield up her daily duties as cook as far as my dinner was concerned; and my heart began to melt and soften as the winter wore on, towards the strictly anonymous little chef who had delivered me from the binding tyranny of haggis and c.o.c.k-a-leekie.

When the snow melted away from all but the tops of the hills, and there came fresh little sprouts of pale green among the dark feather foliage of the larches, a change came over the tiny household of my tenants. From early morning until the sun began to sink low behind the hills Babiole was never to be found at the cottage. Sometimes, indeed, she would dash in at midday to dinner, as fresh and sweet as an opening rose; but more often she would stay away until evening began to creep on, taking with her a most frugal meal of a couple of sandwiches and a piece of shortbread. Even that was shared with Ta-ta, whom I encouraged to attend the venturesome little maiden on her long rambles; the dog would follow her now as willingly as she did me, and could be fierce enough upon occasion to prove a far from despicable bodyguard; while I generally contrived to be about the grounds somewhere when she started, and, having noted the direction she took, I went that way for my morning ride. Often I pa.s.sed them on the road, the girl walking at a sort of dance, the dog leaping and springing about her. At sight of me, Ta-ta would rush to her master, barking with joy; then, seeing that I would not take the only sensible course of allowing her to follow both her favourites together, she would run from the one to the other, in delirious perplexed excitement, until by a few words and gestures I let her know that her duty was with the beauty and not the beast.

Sometimes I would see the two climbing up a hill together, the collie not more sure-footed than the child. Sometimes as I pa.s.sed there would be a great waving of handkerchief and wagging of tail from some high cairn, to show me triumphantly how much more they dared than I, trotting on composedly some hundreds of feet below. I was always rather uneasy for the child, wandering to these lonely heights and along such unfrequented roads without any companion but the dog; but her mother, with the odd inconsistency which breaks out in the best of us, could fear no danger to the girl from coa.r.s.e peasant or steep cliff, while against the wiles of the well-dressed she put her strictly on her guard. As for the child herself, I could only tell her to be careful of her footing on rugged Craigendarroch, the nearest, the prettiest, the most dangerous of our higher hills: to tell her not to wander whithersoever her fancy led her would have been like warning a star not to mount so high in the sky.

Then as evening fell and I began, like any old woman, to grow anxious, I would hear Ta-ta's tired step in the hall outside my study, and a scratching at my door which gave place to a piteous sniffing and whining if I did not immediately rise to let her in. Then with a gentle wag of the tail she would trot up to the hearthrug and lie down, giving a sideways glance at To-to, who would hop down from his perch and make a grab at her tail to punish her for gadding about, and, finding that appendage out of reach, would sneak quietly back again and resume his hunt for the flea who would never be caught, to try to persuade us that his fruitless attempt had been a mere inadvertency. How hard Ta-ta would try, when a nice plate of gristle and potato at dinner time had revived her flagging energies, to describe to me the events of the morning's walk! And how the sound of a bright childish laugh from the kitchen would stimulate her remembrance of that jolly run up-hill! I knew, though I said nothing, that Babiole used to come across to find her mother, busy with my dinner; and I could guess, from the altercations I often heard, that the hungry girl stole her share, and laughed at any one who said her nay. The dining-room always grew too hot when that bright laughter penetrated to my ears, and I would say carelessly to Ferguson--

'You can leave the door open.'

_He_ knew, you may be sure, why I liked to sit in a draught while March winds were about; but the stern Scot, however much he might still cherish enmity against the diabolical cleverness of the mother, had had a corner of his flinty heart pulverised by the blooming child.

And so the cold spring pa.s.sed into cool summer, and I began to notice, little as I saw of her, a change in the pretty maiden. As the season advanced, her vivacity seemed to subside a little, her dancing walk to give place to a more sedate step, while her rambles were often now limited to a climb up Craigendarroch, which formerly would have been a mere incident in the day's proceedings. I remarked upon this to Mrs.

Ellmer; for she and I had now, in our loneliness, become great chums.

'Oh, don't you know?' said she, with her grating little laugh, 'Babiole's in love!'

'In love!' said I slowly. 'A child like that!'