Macleod of Dare Part 11

She certainly seemed very clear on that point.

"I don't see that men are so ready to give up their professions, when they marry, in order to devote themselves to domestic life, even when they have plenty of money. Why should all the sacrifice be on the side of the woman? But I know if I have to choose between my art and a husband, I shall continue to do without a husband."

Miss Carry had risen, and put one arm round her sister's neck, while with the other she stroked the soft brown hair over the smooth forehead.

"And it shall not be taken away from its pretty theatre, it sha'n't!"

said she, pettingly; "and it shall not be asked to go away with any great ugly Bluebeard, and be shut up in a lonely house--"

"Go away, Carry," said she, releasing herself. "I wonder why you began talking such nonsense. What do you know about all those things?"

"Oh! very well," said the child, turning away with a pout; and she pulled a rose and began to take its petals off, one by one, with her lips. "Perhaps I don't know. Perhaps I haven't studied your manoeuvres on the stage, Miss Gertrude White. Perhaps I never saw the newspapers declaring that it was all so very natural and life-like." She flung two or three rose petals at her sister. "I believe you're the biggest flirt that ever lived, Gerty. You could make any man you liked marry you in ten minutes."

"I wish I could manage to have certain schoolgirls whipped and sent to bed."

At this moment there appeared at the open French window an elderly woman of Flemish features and extraordinary breadth of bust.

"Shall I put dressing in the salad, miss?" she said, with scarcely any trace of foreign accent.

"Not yet, Marie," said Miss White. "I will make the dressing first.

Bring me a large plate, and the cruet-stand, and a spoon and fork, and some salt."

Now when these things had been brought, and when Miss White had sat about preparing this salad dressing in a highly scientific manner, a strange thing occurred. Her sister seemed to have been attacked by a sudden fit of madness. She had caught up a light shawl, which she extended from hand to hand, as if she were dancing with some one, and then she proceeded to execute a slow waltz in this circ.u.mscribed s.p.a.ce, humming the improvised music in a mystical and rhythmical manner. And what were these dark utterances that the inspired one gave forth, as she glanced from time to time at her sister and the plate?

"_Oh, a Highland lad my love was born--and the Lowland laws he held in scorn--_"

"Carry, don't make a fool of yourself!" said the other flushing angrily.

Carry flung her imaginary partner aside.

"There is no use making any pretence," said she, sharply. "You know quite well why you are making that salad dressing."

"Did you never see me make salad dressing before?" said the other, quite as sharply.

"You know it is simply because Sir Keith Macleod is coming to lunch. I forgot all about it. Oh, and that's why you had the clean curtains put up yesterday?"

What else had this precocious brain ferreted out?

"Yes, and that's why you bought papa a new necktie," continued the tormenter; and then she added, triumphantly, "_But he hasn't put it on this morning, ha--Gerty?_"

A calm and dignified silence is the best answer to the fiendishness of thirteen. Miss White went on with the making of the salad-dressing. She was considered very clever at it. Her father had taught her: but he never had the patience to carry out his own precepts. Besides, brute force is not wanted for the work: what you want is the self-denying a.s.siduity and the dexterous light-handedness of a woman.

A smart young maid-servant, very trimly dressed, made her appearance.

"Sir Keith Macleod, miss," said she.

"Oh, Gerty, you're caught!" muttered the fiend.

But Miss White was equal to the occasion. The small white fingers plied the fork without a tremor.

"Ask him to step this way, please," she said.

And then the subtle imagination of this demon of thirteen jumped to another conclusion.

"Oh, Gerty, you want to show him that you are a good housekeeper--that you can make salad--"

But the imp was silenced by the appearance of Macleod himself. He looked tall as he came through the small drawing-room. When he came out onto the balcony the languid air of the place seemed to acquire a fresh and brisk vitality: he had a bright smile and a resonant voice.

"I have taken the liberty of bringing you a little present, Miss White--no, it is a large present--that reached me this morning," said he. "I want you to see one of our Highland salmon. He is a splendid fellow--twenty-six pounds four ounces, my landlady says. My cousin Janet sent him to me."

"Oh, but, Sir Keith, we cannot rob you," Miss White said, as she still demurely plied her fork. "If there is any special virtue in a Highland salmon, it will be best appreciated by yourself, rather than by those who don't know."

"The fact is," said he, "people are so kind to me that I scarcely ever am allowed to dine at my lodgings; and you know the salmon should be cooked at once."

Miss Carry had been making a face behind his back to annoy her sister.

She now came forward and said, with a charming innocence in her eyes:--

"I don't think you can have it cooked for luncheon, Gerty, for that would look too much like bringing your tea in your pocket, and getting hot water for twopence. Wouldn't it?"

Macleod turned and regarded this new-comer with an unmistakable "Who is this?"--"_Co an so?_"--in his air.

"Oh, that is my sister Carry, Sir Keith," said Miss White. "I forgot you had not seen her."

"How do you do?" said he, in a kindly way; and for a second he put his hand on the light curls as her father might have done. "I suppose you like having holidays?"

From that moment she became his deadly enemy. To be patted on the head, as if she were a child, an infant--and that in the presence of the sister whom she had just been lecturing.

"Yes, thank you," said she, with a splendid dignity, as she proudly walked off. She went into the small lobby leading to the door. She called to the little maid-servant. She looked at a certain long bag made of matting which lay there, some bits of gra.s.s sticking out of one end.

"Jane, take this thing down to the cellar at once! The whole house smells of it."

Meanwhile Miss White had carried her salad dressing in to Marie, and had gone out again to the veranda where Macleod was seated. He was charmed with the dreamy stillness and silence of the place, with the hanging foliage all around, and the colors in the steep gardens, and the still waters below.

"I don't see how it is," said he, "but you seem to have much more open houses here than we have. Our houses in the North look cold, and hard, and bare. We should laugh if we saw a place like this up with us; it seems to me a sort of a toy place out of a picture--from Switzerland or some such country. Here you are in the open air, with your own little world around you, and n.o.body to see you; you might live all your life here, and know nothing about the storm crossing the Atlantic, and the wars in Europe, if only you gave up the newspapers."

"Yes, it is very pretty and quiet," said she, and the small fingers pulled to pieces one of the rose leaves that Carry had thrown at her.

"But you know one is never satisfied anywhere. If I were to tell you the longing I have to see the very places you describe as being so desolate--But perhaps papa will take me there some day."

"I hope so," said he; "but I would not call them desolate. They are terrible at times, and they are lonely, and they make you think. But they are beautiful too, with a sort of splendid beauty and grandeur that goes very near making you miserable.... I cannot describe it. You will see for yourself."

Here a bell rang, and at the same moment Mr. White made his appearance.

"How do you do, Sir Keith? Luncheon is ready, my dear--luncheon is ready--luncheon is ready."

He kept muttering to himself as he led the way. They entered a small dining-room, and here, if Macleod had ever heard of actresses having little time to give to domestic affairs, he must have been struck by the exceeding neatness and brightness of everything on the table and around it. The snow-white cover; the brilliant gla.s.s and spoons; the carefully arranged, if tiny, bouquets; and the precision with which the smart little maiden-servant, the only attendant, waited--all these things showed a household well managed. Nay, this iced claret-cup--was it not of her own composition?--and a pleasanter beverage he had never drank.

But she seemed to pay little attention to these matters, for she kept glancing at her father, who, as he addressed Macleod from time to time, was obviously nervous and hara.s.sed about something. At last she said,--

"Papa, what is the matter with you? Has anything gone wrong this morning?"