Red Rowans Part 24

Mrs. Vane stopped in an att.i.tude of tragic despair. "There! I have gone and forgotten it after all, and that was my excuse for going so soon. You see, your sister said it had better be taken back at once, as none of the girls in the house played, and so it wouldn't be wanted."

Paul bit his lip at the double thrust. "Perhaps it is as well you _have_ forgotten it," he said angrily; "Miss Carmichael will, no doubt, be able to use it herself some day soon."

"That will be delightful," replied Mrs. Vane, with a sudden cessation of attack.

Five minutes after, rather to his own surprise, Paul Macleod found himself talking to Marjory as he might have talked to any other girl of his acquaintance, and wondering how he could have been such a fool as to imagine himself to be in love with her. After all, he told himself, his first theory had been right, and the ridiculously unconventional familiarity of the past idyll was mainly responsible for the mawkish sentimentality which had attacked him of late, but which, thank heaven! was now over. How could it be otherwise with a girl like Marjory--a perfect iceberg of primness and propriety?

His sense of security, joined to a certain unconfessed resentment at her apparent indifference as to whether he came or not, drove him into more effusive apologies on his sister's behalf than he would otherwise have made, and brought down on him a remark from Mrs. Cameron that "Indeed and in truth Marjory would no be going to make strangers of the laird and his sister, and he so kind, in and out o' the house for weeks, just like a bairn of her own." Whereat Mrs. Vane, stifling a desire to laugh at Paul's evident confusion, came to the rescue with a well-timed diversion about some of the household troubles which had been occupying Lady George.

'"Deed!" said Mrs. Cameron, after listening sympathetically, "I can well believe it! But the warld will come to an end soon, that's one comfort. You see, it'll just no be possible' for Providence to put up wi' it much longer, for it's a' I can do to have patience wi' my small corner of the vineyard, an' that, praise be, is no sae bad as it might be, seeing that I can hand my ain wi' most folk."

"But Providence can do that also, surely, Mrs. Cameron?" laughed Paul.

"Maybe, an' maybe not. I grant ye it comes quits at the hinder end, what wi' worms that die not, an' fires that be not quenched. But it's a weary long time to blow at the flames o' wrath, and wadna suit me that's aye for havin' it out and done wi'. Lord sakes! life wad no be worth havin' if I had to write down a' the servant la.s.sies cantrip's in a big bookie against term day, an' keep my tongue on them meanwhiles. And it is little the hussies would care if I did, for they wad ken find I'd just forgive them when the day of reckoning came, an'

forgiveness just beats all for spoiling folk."

"It's lucky for some of us," put in Mrs. Vane, with a laugh, "that Providence isn't of your way of thinking."

"'Deed, I am not as sure of that neither. Folk would think twice o'

breaking the law if it waant for the grips they have on mercy. It is just, you see, in the nature o' man to stand by his luck if the odds are even; but if he knows he'll get paicks he will just keep the body in subjection. It is the same in all things. Just look at the difference in the manners o' folks nowadays! Not half so good as in the old times when they had to stand sponsor for each word with a pistol shot. Why, I mind, Gleneira, your grandfather calling out Glenrannooh for pa.s.sing him on the kirk steps without a reverence!"

"I didn't know you were so bloodthirsty," remarked Paul; "and though I quite agree with you, theoretically, I must be careful, since you evidently don't believe in apologies."

"Apologies," echoed Mrs. Cameron, scornfully. "No! no! Gleneira.

They're fine healin' balm to the sinner, but I'll have none coming between me and my rights. There was James Gillespie telling little Sandy McColl to go an' apologise to wee Peter Rankin for pulling his hair, instead o' just giving the laddie a good skelping, and daring him to do it again. So the bairns just bided their time and had it out in a natural way, and you never saw such sichts they were. I'm no saying folk should not be repentant o' their sins, but they should just take the consequences along wi' the forgiveness."

"Or follow my example and take neither," suggested the laird.

Mrs. Cameron looked at him sharply, then shook her head. "Havers! that is what no mortal man can do, least of all, you, Gleneira, with your soft heart."

"Soft heart!" echoed Paul, derisively. "It is only that towards you, Mrs. Cameron; to the world in general it is hard as adamant. Don't you agree with me, Miss Carmichael?"

"Hard enough to ensure your peace of mind, I hope," she replied quietly.

Violet Vane's bright eyes were on them both, and she gave an odd little laugh. "I wonder if it is! I should like to vivisect you and find out, Captain Macleod; only the process of seeing the 'wheels go wound,' as Toddie says in 'Helen's Babies,' might end in stopping them altogether. Perhaps it would be as well--for other people's hearts."

"The heart is no easily damaged, anyway," put in Mrs. Cameron, with the air of one who knows. "Folks like to think it is, but it is maistly the stomach that goes wrang. I've seen a heap o' broken hearts in my time cured wi' camomile tea; it's just grand for the digestion."

"I shall order Peter Macpherson to lay down a large bed at once,"

began Paul, gravely.

"For the sake of your victims, I suppose," interrupted Mrs. Vane.

"Commend me to Captain Macleod, Mrs. Cameron, for shameless conceit."

"Pardon me," put in Paul, "for my own." He gave a glance at Marjory, who was standing apart with a little fine smile of contempt on her face, but she took no notice of him. To tell truth she scarcely knew why she felt scornful, and, when they had gone, she sate down in defiance of her promise to her books again, telling herself that Paul by himself, willing to fall in with her life, was quite a different being from Paul expecting her to be friends with his friends--people whose dresses fitted them like a glove, and who looked charming. Yes, that was the right word!--charming from the sole of their feet to the crown of their heads. As if she had anything in common with such people!--or, for the matter of that, with Paul, himself--she, whose fate it was to work, and who liked that fate? Yet almost before Captain Macleod and his companion had reached home after the _detour_ he begged for round the garden, Marjory had thrown down her book in a temper at her own stupidity, run upstairs for her hat, and was off for a wild, solitary scramble over the hills.

Paul and his companion, meanwhile, strolling idly through the vineries and hothouses, she with dainty dress, draped gingerly from fear of stain, and vivid, whimsical face, diving like a honey-sucker at the perfumed flowers, were enjoying themselves thoroughly in their own way; so that the former, coming out at last from an atmosphere of stephanotis and tropical heat to face the bright, sharp air of a Highland glen, gave a little shiver, and told himself inconsequently that Violet was the most charming companion in the world. And so she was, being blessed with the infallible range-finder called tact; for half the misunderstandings of life come from people either blazing away at a bird that is out of shot, or blowing one to pieces,--that is to say, from a failure to appreciate distance and the fact that, though our best friend may be, so to speak, well within range over night, that is no reason why we should reach him with the same sight the next morning. In most of us feeling, tastes, dislikes, fluctuate with every hour; nay, more, the individual, as a whole, hovers like the needle of a barometer on either side of change, so that the more sensitive of us are conscious of the difference in ourselves at different times in the day, and it becomes possible for us to be certain that we might do that at ten o'clock at night which we could not do at ten o'clock in the day. Yet, despite this undoubted fact, most of us resent the change of position in regard to our outlook in life which it entails, the change of key which strict harmony requires. Mrs. Vane, however, was not one of the many, and, as a rule, when she played a dissonant note she did it out of malice aforethought; as she did now when, looking back at the garden with its low espaliers and broad walks bordered by old-fashioned flowers, she paused to say sweetly, "It is a charming place, Paul; you ought to be very happy here with her."

He frowned as he held the door open for his companion to pa.s.s through; but he was beginning to remember that she used the bayonet deftly, and came to close quarters at once.

"The personal p.r.o.noun, third person singular, feminine gender, accusative case, is rather too vague to interest me, I'm afraid. Can't you suggest something more concrete?"

She laughed as she pointed gaily to an upper path which, after a time, would merge into theirs. "See! yonder are the young ladies, going home, as we should be also, since you will be wanted. Don't let me keep you, please. They will walk faster than I do, and I am used to being left behind to fend for myself."

"Not by me," he replied, with a certain self-complacency, "and you never will be, I trust. I should be a brute indeed were I to forget all your kindness."

"_Dieu mercie_," she flashed out, in sudden, uncontrollable resentment, "how I hate grat.i.tude! It takes half the flavour out of life. I often think I should have been happier if I had not been so kind to people."

"I have no doubt you made _them_ much happier, if that is any consolation to you."

"Not in the slightest." Then as suddenly her irritation pa.s.sed, and she looked up at him with a whimsical smile. "Paul," she said, "I believe Miss Carmichael used to set you copies--or is it Miss Woodward? anyhow, you are detestably didactic to-day; so it is just as well the others are joining us, or you would be telling me that 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'"

"The process is pleasant, anyhow," he replied, in one of those moments of recognition which come to us, even with familiar friends, as some quality or charm strikes us afresh; "and you couldn't corrupt my good temper, for you always put me into one, somehow. I believe you use arts and spells."

She shrugged her shoulders gaily. "Burn me as a witch, by all means!

You can afford it since the next fairly good-looking woman you meet will have exactly the same consolatory power. As you said, the personal p.r.o.noun, feminine gender, third person singular, has a wide application for Paul Macleod. Ah! Miss Woodward, what lovely ferns! We have just been going round the houses, and there is a hibiscus out which you ought to see. It put me in mind of India; you sent the seed home from our garden, I think, didn't you, Captain Macleod? We might go back and look at it now, and return by the beach, mightn't we? It is no longer, and far prettier."

The result of which easy, deft manipulation of a chance meeting being that, ere the memory of his pleasant stroll with her had pa.s.sed from Paul's somewhat vagrant mind, he was performing the same pilgrimage again under different guidance. Now, Alice Woodward was always counted a most agreeable girl in her world, and Paul, as in duty bound, laid himself out to please; yet all the time they were chatting amicably about Shakespeare and the musical gla.s.ses he was conscious of an effort, and of a desire to know what the other girls who were lagging behind with Violet could be laughing at so gaily.

"That is the hibiscus," he said, stopping abruptly before the flower which, with its creamy petals and crimson heart, had ten minutes before carried him back to another hemisphere, another life--a pleasant, younger life, with more possibilities of pa.s.sion in it than the present one.

"It is very pretty," replied Alice, blandly, rather absently. "The colours are lovely. I really think colours improve every year. Do you remember at Constantinople, Captain Macleod, everyone agreed that there was a decided advance on Venice? In that ballet before the procession, you know, they really were exquisite."

Paul a.s.sented cheerfully, even though he felt such memories were as water after wine to Mrs. Vane's appeal to the past. "It used to grow by the well. Ah, Paul! how young you were on those days, and how you used to enjoy life."

That was true; and yet a well-cooked dinner and roomy stalls at a first-cla.s.s _spectacle_ brought solid comfort more suitable to the coming years; besides, Violet had always had the knack of taking the colour out of other women, and while adapting herself more readily to her surroundings than most, never lost a peculiar piquant charm of her own which did not clash with her environment. Yet, as they strolled home by the beach, it occurred to him that they were all, himself included, out of touch with the glorious world of sea and sky and mountain in which they stood. And Mrs. Vane agreed, or, at any rate, was quick enough to read his thought, for as the girls trooped up the stairs finishing a discussion on the relative merits of two b.a.l.l.s, she lingered in the hall to say quizzically:

"Is her name Virginia, Paul? and do you fancy a desert island? That comes of having so much of the natural Adam left in you."

"Oh, dear me! what has Blasius been doing now?" asked Lady George, plaintively, overhearing the last words as she came out of the morning room. At the same moment, as if in answer, the st.u.r.dy stump intermingled with b.u.mps which usually marked Blazes' rapid descent from the nursery regions, was heard as a sort of running accompaniment to a steady stream of violent objurgations delivered with immense zest, in his round, full voice: "_Haud up! Ger' out, ye brute! Stiddy, yer deevil! Stiddy yer!_"

"Nurse!" cried poor Blanche, aghast, to the stately figure, descending behind the stumbling, b.u.mping, yet swift offender, "what does this mean? Where has Master Blasius picked up----"

"Oh! if it comes to picking up, milady, that's easy sayin'. Master Blazes told me last night 'is bath was 'devilish 'ot,' and when I spoke to him serious told me it was the Capting."

"Really, Paul, I think you might be more careful," began his sister, aggrievedly, when he interrupted her.

"I'm not responsible for _that_, anyhow! What on earth is he up to now?" For Blasius, having reached the bottom of the stairs, had, so to speak, fallen tooth and nail on the sheepskin rug, which he was bestriding with vehement kicks and upbraidings, as he clutched on to the wool wildly--

"_Ger' up, ye deevil! Haud still, ye dommed brute!_"

"It is through Mary's young man as she's took up with bein' a shepherd, milady," said nurse, swooping down on the child. "An'

through her never 'aving seen sheep sh.o.r.e, that's what it is."

Paul burst into a guffaw of laughter. "Old Angus! I swear to you, Violet, it's the living image of old Angus. What a mimic the child is!"

"Do be quiet, Paul!" said his sister, hastily. "How can I---- Nurse, tell Mary that I am much displeased, and that if I hear of her watching the shepherd again----"

"I 'ave told her, milady," retorted the nurse, with as much dignity as kicks and strugglings left to her, "and there an't no fear. Master Blazes'll forget it sharp enough when he don't 'ear it. It is the things 'as he do 'ear, constant"--a backward glance at Paul from the turn of the stair emphasised the reproach.