The Dew of Their Youth Part 24

SATAN FINDS

Of course Christmas time soon came, when we collegers had our first vacation, and Fred and I footed it down to Eden Valley. They had been preparing for us, and the puddings, white and black, hung in rows along the high cross-bars in the kitchen.

Everybody was glad to see us, except, as it appeared at first, Miss Irma. I called her Irma when I thought of the round locket with the hair and her mother's picture in it, also the letters she had sent me--though these were but few, and, for all that was in them, might have been written to the Doctor. But when I returned and met her full in the doorway of my grandmother's house, she gave me her hand as calmly as if she had clean forgotten all that had ever been between us.

For me, I was all shaken and blushing--a sight to be seen. So much so that Aunt Jen, coming in with the milk for the evening's porridge, c.o.c.ked an eye at me curiously. But if Irma felt anything, I am very sure that it did not show on her face. And that is one of the greatest advantages girls have--care or not care, they can always hide it.

My mother shed tears over me. My father took stock of my progress, and asked me for new light on certain pa.s.sages we had been reading, but soon deserted me with the familiar contemptuous toss of the head, which meant that he must wait for Fred Esquillant. He might have learned by this time. At anything practical I was miles ahead of Freddie, who had no world outside of his cla.s.sical books. But then my father was of the same type, with, in addition, the power of imparting and enthusing strong in him--_his_ practical side, which Freddie did not possess--indeed, never felt the lack of, much less the ambition to possess. He was content to know. He had no desire to impart his knowledge.

I spent six mornings and five evenings out of my scanty twenty days at the little thicket by the well. But the lilac was leafless now, and the path which led back to the house of Heathknowes empty and deserted.

Once while I was in hiding my Uncle Rob came and stood so long by his water-pails, looking across the hills in the direction of the Craig Farm, that I made sure he had found me out, or was trying for a talk with Miss Irma on his own account.

But Rob, as I might have known, was far too inconstant. As the saying went, "He had a la.s.s for ilka day in the week and twa for the Sabbath."

It is more than likely that his long rumination at the well was the result of uncertainty as to whether it was the turn of Jeannie at the Craig or Bell down by at Parkhill.

At any rate, it had no connection with me, for he went off home with his burden, where presently I could hear him arranging with Eben as to the foddering of the "beasts" and the "bedding" of the horses. For my three uncles kept accounts as to exchanges of work, and were very careful as to balancing them, too--though Rob occasionally "took the loan" of good-tempered Eben without repayment of any sort.

After my fifth solitary vigil among the rustling of the frozen stems and the dank desolation of the icebound copse on the edge of the marsh, I began to go about with a huge affectation of gloom on my face. It was clear that I was being played with. For this I had scorned the red-cheeked dairy-la.s.s at Echobank, and the waved kerchiefs of the baker's daughter opposite. And the more unhappy and miserable I looked, the closer I drew my inky cloak about me, the gayer, the more light-hearted became Miss Irma.

I plotted deep, dark, terrible deeds. She urged me to yet another help of dumpling. She had made the jam herself, she said. Or the shortbread--now there _was_ something like shortbread, made after a recipe learned in Brabant! (I wondered the word did not choke her, thinking of Lalor--but, perhaps, who knew? she would not after all be so unwilling!) I had shed my blood for naught--not that I had really shed any, but it felt like that. I had gone forth to conquer the world for the sake of a faithless girl--though, again, I had not even done quite that, seeing that Freddy Esquillant bade fair to beat me in all the cla.s.ses--except, perhaps, in the Mathematic, for which he had no taste.

But the principle was the same. I was deserted, and my whole aspect became so dejected that my mother spoke to my father about my killing myself in Edinburgh with study, which caused that good (and instructed) man to exclaim, "Fiddlesticks!" Then she went to my grandmother, who prescribed senna tea, which she brewed and stood by till I had drunk. I resolved to wear my heart a little less on my sleeve, and always after that a.s.sured my grandmother that I was feeling very well indeed. Also I made shift to eat a little, even in public, contriving it so, however, that the effort to appear brave and gay ought to have been evident even to Miss Irma.

Every day Louis and she went to the Academy, and I went with them, one of the uncles--generally Eben, the universally disposable--following to the village with a loaded pistol in his tail-coat pocket.

For though there had been, as yet, no more than the ordinary winter traffic by the well-recognized Free Traders of the Solway board, no man could tell when the lugger from the Texel, or even the _Golden Hind_ herself might try again the fortune of our coasts. The latter vessel had been growing famous, multiplying her captures and cruelties; indeed, behaving little otherwise than if she carried the black flag with the skull and cross-bones. And though a large part of his Majesty's navy had been trying to catch her, hardly a monthly number of the _Scots Magazine_ came to my father without some new exploit being deplored in the monthly chronicle over near the end.

Nearer home, Messrs. Smart and Smart had offered by post to occupy themselves with the future of the young baronet Sir Louis, on condition that he should be given up to them to be sent to school, but in their communication nothing was said about Miss Irma. So my grandfather sent word that, subject to the law of the land, he would continue to protect both the children whom Providence had placed in his care. And this was doubtless what the Dumfries lawyers expected. The care and culture of the estate during a long minority was what they thought about as being most to their advantage, and it was quite evident that little Louis, for the present, could hardly be better situated than at Heathknowes.

Messrs. Smart and Smart sent a man down to spy out the land, on pretext of offering compensation, but his report must have been favourable both as to the security of the farm-town and as to my grandfather's repute for generosity and open-handedness. For he did not return, and as to payment, nothing more was ever heard at Heathknowes about the matter.

The young people were now quite fixtures there, and though they were spoken of as Miss Irma and Master Louis, Irma had carried her main point, which was that they should be treated in all respects as of the family. The sole difference made was that now the farm lads and la.s.ses, and the two men from the pirn-mill (whom my grandfather's increasing trade with the English weavers had compelled him to take on), had their meals at a second table, placed crosswise to that at which the family dined and supped. But this was chiefly to prevent little Louis from occupying himself with watching to see when they would swallow their knives, and nudging his neighbours Irma and Aunt Jen to "look out," at any particular dangerous and intricate feat of conjuring.

As for me, I could not at all understand why Irma cold-shouldered me during these first Christmas vacations, and indeed I had secretly resolved to return no more to the house of Heathknowes till I had made sure of a better reception. I began to count it a certainty that Irma, feeling that she had gone too far and too fast with me before I went off, was now getting out of the difficulty by a regime of extraordinary coldness and severity. And if that were the case, I was not the man to baulk her.

For about this time a man I began to count myself.

Worst of all, going home to the school-house there came into my head one of the most stupid ideas that had ever got lodging there--though, according to my grandmother, I am rather a don at harbouring suchlike.

It occurred to me that a plan I had read of in some book or other might suit my case. If I could only make Irma jealous, the tables might be turned, and she become as anxious and desirous of making up as I was.

It seemed to me a marvellously original idea. Irma had cared enough to give me her mother's miniature. She had cut off a lock of her hair, which she had not done for all the world of her admirers--else she would long have gone bald.

Now it happened that though there were a good many dressmakers in Eden Valley, including some that worked out for so much a day, there was only one Ladies' Milliner and Mantua-maker. This was the sister of our infant-mistress, Miss Huntingdon. Her establishment was in itself a kind of select academy. She had an irreproachable connection, and though she worked much and well with her nimble fingers, she got most of her labour free by an ingenious method.

She initiated into her mysteries none of the poorer girls of the place, who might in time be tempted to "set up for themselves," and so spoil their employer's market. She received only, as temporary boarders, daughters of good houses, generally pretty girls looking forward with some confidence to managing houses of their own. At that time every girl who set up to be anything in our part of the country aspired to make her own dresses and build the imposing fabric of her own bonnets.

So Miss Huntingdon had a full house of pretty maidens who came as "approvers"--a fanciful variation of "improvers" invented by Miss Huntingdon herself, and used whenever she spoke of "My young ladies,"

which she did all day long--or at least as often as she was called into the "down-stairs parlour," where (as in a nunnery) ordinary business was transacted.

A good many of the elder girls whom I had known at the Academy had migrated there at the close of their period of education--several who, though great maidens of seventeen or eighteen, had hardly appeared upon my father's purely cla.s.sical horizon--seen by him only at the Friday's general review of English and history, and taught for the rest of the week by little Mr. Stephen, by myself--and in sewing, fancy-work, and the despised samplers by Miss Huntingdon, the ever diligent, who, to say the truth, acted in this matter as jackal to her elder sister's lion.

In return she got a chamber, a seat at the table with the young ladies, and a home. Nor will I say that Miss Seraphina, Ladies' Milliner and Mantua-maker, was not a good and kind sister to Miss Rebecca, the little teacher at thirty pounds a year in the Infant Department at the Academy of Eden Valley.

But my mother in her time--Aunt Janet, even--had pa.s.sed that way, though Miss Huntingdon considered Jen one of her failures because she had not "married from her house." Most of the well-to-do farmers within ten miles sent their daughters to complete their education at Miss Huntingdon's academy of the needle and the heavy blocking-iron. My father, when he pa.s.sed, did not know them, so great in his eyes was their fall. Yet by quiet persistence, of which she had the secret, my mother wore him down to winking at her sending Agnes Anne there for three hours a day.

"I'm sure," she said, "I used to watch for _you_ every time you went by to school, and one day the frill of your shirt sleeve was hanging down, torn on a nail. I was sorry, and wished that I could have run out and mended it for you!"

What this reminiscence had to do with Agnes Anne's being allowed to go to Miss Huntingdon's I do not quite see. But learned men are much like others, and somehow the little speech softened my father. So Agnes Anne went, as, indeed, my mother had resolved from the beginning that she should. And it was through Agnes Anne that my temptation came.

She made a friend there. Agnes Anne always must have one bosom friend of her own s.e.x. For this Irma was too old, as well as too brilliant, too fitful, fairylike, changeful in her mood to serve long. Besides, she awed Agnes Anne too much to allow her to confide in her properly. And without hour-long confessions all about nothing, Agnes Anne had no use for any girl friend. There was an unwritten convention that one should listen sympathetically to the other's tale of secrets, no matter how long and involved, always on the supposition that the service should be mutual.

Charlotte Anderson was the name of Agnes Anne's friend. In a week's time these two were seldom separate, and wandered about our garden, and under the tall pine umbrellas with bent heads and arms lovingly interlaced.

Charlotte was a pretty girl, blooming, fresh, rosy, with a pair of bold black eyes which at once denied and defied, and then, as it were, suddenly drooped yieldingly. I was a fool. I might have known--only I did not.

Now my idea was to make just as much love to Charlotte as would warn Miss Irma that she was in danger of losing me and to a.s.sist me in this (though I did not reveal my intention of merely baiting my trap with her) who more willing than Charlotte Anderson!

But I had counted without two somewhat important factors--Miss Irma, and Miss Seraphina Huntingdon. I was utterly deceived about the character of Irma, and I had no idea of the extreme notions of rigid propriety upon which Miss Seraphina conducted her business, nor of the explanation of the large proportion of successful weddings in which the lady mantua-maker had played the part of subordinate providence.

Indeed, certain of the light-minded youth of Eden Valley called the parlour with the faded red velvet chairs by the name of "Little Heaven"--because so many marriages had been made there.

CHAPTER XXVI

PERFIDY, THY NAME IS WOMAN!

Old Robert Anderson of Birkenbog was known to me by sight--a huge, jovial, two-ply man, chin and waistcoat alike testifying to good cheer.

He wore a large horse-shoe pin in his unstiffened stock. A watch that needed an inch-thick chain to haul up its st.u.r.dy Nuremburg-egg build, strained the fob on his right side, as if he carried a mince-pie concealed there. His laugh dominated the market-place, and when he stood with his legs wide apart pouring a sample of oats slowly from one hand into the palm of the other, his red face with the cunning quirks in it had always a little gathering of admirers, eager for the next high-spiced tale. He had originally come from the English border, and in his "burr" and accent still bore token of that nationality.

Nevertheless, he had his admirers, some of them fervent as well as constant.

Cochrane of the Holm would be there, his hand on the shoulder of Blethering Johnny from the Dinnance. These two always laughed before a word was uttered. They thought Birkenbog so funny that everything he said was side-splitting even before he had said it.

I remember being a great deal impressed myself by Old Birkenbog. He was a wonderful horseman as a boy, and when he came to the market alone he rode a big black horse of which even the head ostler stood in awe in the yard of the King's Arms. Once he had thrashed a robber who had a.s.sailed him on his way to pay his rent, and had brought him into town trotting cross-handed at his horse's tail, the captive of his loaded whip and stout right arm. It is doubtful if this draggled d.i.c.k Turpin, lying in Bridewell, appreciated Birkenbog's humour quite so much as did Cochrane and Blethering Jock when he told them the story afterwards.

If I had any common-sense I might have seen that Birkenbog was not a safe man to trouble in the matter of an only daughter, without the most serious intentions in the world. But, truth to tell, I never thought of him knowing, which was in itself a thing quite superfluous and altogether out of my calculations. I had had some small experience of girls even before Miss Irma came to change everything. And the fruit of my observations had been that, though girls tell each other's secrets freely enough, they keep a middling tight grip on their own. Nay, they can even be trusted with yours, in so far as these concern themselves--until, of course, you quarrel with them--and then--well, then look out!

Certainly I found lots of chances to talk to Charlotte. In fact Agnes Anne made them for me, and coached me on what to say out of books. Also she cross-examined Charlotte afterwards upon my performances, and supplemented what I had omitted by delivering the pa.s.sage in full. My poor version, however, pleased Charlotte just as much, for merely being "walked out" gave her a standing among Miss Seraphina's young ladies, who asked her what it felt like to be engaged.

All had to be gone about in so ceremonious a manner, too, at least at first--when I made my formal call on Miss Huntingdon, who received me in her parlour with prim civility, as if I had come to order a leghorn hat of the best.

"My mother's compliments, and might Miss Charlotte Anderson be allowed to accompany Agnes Anne to tea at four hours that day? I would be responsible--yes, I knew Miss Huntingdon to be most particular upon this point--for the convoy of the young ladies to the school-house, and would see Miss Anderson safe home again."

My mother winked at these promenades, because in her heart of hearts she was more than a little jealous of Irma. Charlotte Anderson she could understand. She was of her own far-off kin, but Irma and her brother had descended upon us, as it were, from another world.