The Heather-Moon Part 17

"I wasn't thinking of them. I was thinking of Miss MacDonald."

"I'm thinking of her too," answered Mrs. James, as seriously as if she were deciding something important. "If you don't mind on your _own_ account, why----"

He laughed. "Oh, as to _that_!----Well, come along, Miss MacDonald----"

"Barrie," I reminded him.

"Barrie! On with our wedding toggery, and let's be quick, if we don't want an audience."

He called the photographer rather sharply, and put him out of his suspense. "You must thank the ladies' kind hearts," he said. "They can't bear to have your scheme end in smoke. Tell us what you want us to do, and we'll do it--anything in reason. But you mustn't expect the bride to show her face. She must keep it turned aside."

"That'll be all right," said the man, "though, of course, we should have preferred----But after your great kindness we mustn't ask too much----"

"Certainly you must not," Sir S. caught him up. And then the other photographer, who had darted across the road to the chaise on hearing the good news, opened a bundle that lay on the seat, and hauled out the contents.

Mrs. James began to be interested in the game, and the people who lived in the houses were delighted that they were not to lose their hoped-for excitement. Luckily, as it was lunching-time for most travellers, the road was empty, and it seemed likely that we might finish our play without spectators. The only moving things in sight at the moment, except our own group, were one cat, two dogs, and a vehicle even more quaint than the chaise in front of the Blacksmith's Shop. It was a coach like Cinderella's, though not so pumpkiny. It was drawn by two nice brown horses who might have begun life as rats. On one rode a postilion, and out of a window leaned an old man in a tall hat and a brown coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and a high velvet collar and ruffles at the wrist.

His hair was powdered, and he wore a white stock wound round his throat.

If we had met him on the road, without an explanation, we should have thought that we had gone mad, or had seen a ghost; but now we knew him for the bride's angry parent pursuing her relentlessly with a coach and pair. It did sound odd to hear this fine old English aristocrat bawl out in a common voice, "Ain't ye ready yet--what?"

One of the photographers ran along the road and explained and gesticulated. The coach stopped at a distance. I flew into the Blacksmith's Shop to put on my wedding things, and Sir S. disappeared next door with clothes under one arm and a hat under the other. I should think no bride and bridegroom ever dressed in such a scramble.

Mrs. James, dimpling and fussing, hustled me into a green brocade gown which smelt of moth powder, and was so big that it went on easily over my frock. Then came a purple silk cloak with wide flowing sleeves and a romantic hood. One of the photograph men stood by to direct us; and when Mrs. James was putting the hood over my head, he stopped her. "Madam, if I might ask the young lady to take the pins out of her hair," he begged, quite red with eagerness, "we shall get a great dramatic effect if it tumbles down with the pulling back of the hood, just as her lover helps her out of the chaise."

Her lover indeed! Sir S. would have glowered; but I laughed, and out came the hairpins, for the good of the game. I have always had to "make believe" all alone, so it was extra fun having such a grand playfellow as Sir Somerled--whether he liked it or not. And I determined that I would _make_ him like it! I wanted him to play properly, and not be stiff and disagreeable and grown up. He was ready before I was, and waiting; for it took a little while stuffing all my hair safely into the hood, and practising how to let it fall at the right moment. I hadn't quite realized that my playmate was really handsome, in his dark, proud way, till I saw him in a wavy brown wig with a ribbon-tied queue, a broad-brimmed hat that sat dashingly on one side, shadowing his face; a blue overcoat with a cape, and high boots drawn up to his knees. He looked so splendid, and so young that suddenly my heart beat as if I were really and truly in love.

"If you should look at yourself in the gla.s.s," I said, feeling shy, yet, wishing him to know that he was nice, "you'd never say again that you've outgrown romance. No one would suspect you of being anything so dull as a millionaire. You ought to paint your own portrait in that costume."

"Thanks," said he, "I'd rather do you in yours." But I think he was pleased.

The photographer and the postilion both came forward to help, but Sir Somerled wouldn't let his bride be touched by them. He handed me into the chaise himself, and sat down by my side. Off trotted our horses to a little distance, and turned round again. The show was ready to begin.

Meanwhile, the others had been busy. They'd placed an anvil, real or imitation, on the green in front of the house, for the pictures were all to be taken out of doors. The blacksmith had begun to hammer away at a horse-shoe, and that was our signal to dash up to the door. He stopped hammering, pushed back his hat, and greeted us in pantomime. Sir Somerled, playing his part well since it must be played, swung me out of the chaise with an arm round my waist. Down fell my hood and my hair, blowing round his face and hiding mine. He kissed my hand as the blacksmith ran off into the house to get his book; and by this time I was almost as wildly excited as if we had eloped. The camera was grinding out photographs of everything that happened, no doubt, but just then I forgot all about it, or that any one was looking at us. We clasped hands over the anvil, Sir Somerled and I. As the blacksmith made the motions of marrying us in haste, I looked across at my playfellow, and at the same instant my playfellow looked across at me. I wanted him to smile, and he would not! "Please _pretend_ you're delighted to marry me," I mumbled. "Can't you see by my face how glad I am to get _you_?"

"So should I be to get you, if I were the fairy prince," said he, in so kind a voice it was a pity the biograph couldn't snap it. I squeezed his hand to thank him for playing up to me, and he squeezed mine to show that he understood. I felt suddenly that we were the best and truest of friends. Even meeting my mother can't make up for losing him out of my life, though he has been in it such a short time, and strayed in only by accident.

Whole we stood hand in hand, along came the red coach. Out leaped the father, as the postilion drew his horses up, and the bride sought refuge in the bridegroom's arms. It did seem real, and exciting!

"Too late! We're married," said I. But even that was not the end of the play. The father had to threaten the bridegroom with his pistol, and the bride had to throw herself between the two men. I can see now what fun actresses have. I was quite sorry when it was all over and the biograph men were packing up to go.

"We don't know how to thank you enough, miss," said the one who appeared to be the leader, "for persuading the gentleman. If you'll give us your address we'll send you reduced copies of the series of pictures."

An address! I didn't know what to answer, for at present I possess no such thing, though I thought it would sound queer to say so. I looked for Sir Somerled, but he had walked away down the road to our motor, which was hiding from the camera. His back was turned to me, but I could see that his suit-case had been taken down from its place, and he was putting something in it.

"I don't know whether I ought to mention this, miss," said the biograph man, "but you might be interested to know that the gentleman has bought the costume you wore in the wedding-scene, and paid a good price for it.

That's what he's packing away now, I presume."

"Oh! And did he buy his own costume, too?" I asked.

"No, miss, only yours. I thought you might like to know."

I did like to know. And I supposed that Sir S. would tell me all about it when he came back, explaining that he'd got the things for a model to wear in some picture; but not a word did he say--which puzzled me so much that all the sight-seeing inside the Blacksmith's Shop could not take my mind off the mystery.

I sat in one of the marriage chairs, and looked at the pictures of the old priests, and read about the many famous runaway couples since 1754, beginning with Penelope Smith, the prettiest girl of Exeter, who married Prince Charles of Bourbon, brother to the King of Naples. But all the time I was thinking hard about myself and Mr. Somerled, and wondering why he had secretly bought the wedding-dress.

The guardian of the house made us write our names in the visitors' book, which Mrs. James thought exactly like signing the register at a proper marrying. And I said, "If n.o.body ever asks me to be his real wife, I shan't be as badly off as other old maids, because, whatever happens, I have had my wedding--a wedding at Gretna Green!"

V

We had a bridal sort of luncheon in the car, which was shunted off the highway into a green shadowed road abandoned to summer dreams. Mrs.

James and I were like the flowers of the field, and had given no thought to food, or where or how we were to get it. We supposed vaguely that when we grew hungry we should stop at some inn and eat; but Sir Somerled had a surprise in the shape of an American invention called a refrigerator basket, nickel-lined, with an ice compartment walled in with asbestos or something scientific. He said that it had been a present, and he'd promised to bring it with him on this Scottish trip, which it appears he was ordered to take as a rest cure. On the lid of the basket, in a conspicuous place, is a silver plate, saying, in beautiful old English letters, "To Ian Somerled, from his grateful model," and underneath a monogram "M. M." in the raised heart of an elaborate marguerite. As we ate ice-cold chicken, salad, and chilled wild strawberries of the north, Mrs. James began with a gay perkiness to tease Sir S. about the "grateful model," whose name must surely be Marguerite; but I put a stop to that. The hour after a wedding at Gretna Green is no tune for talk of any woman-thing except the bride; and as I may perhaps never be anybody's real bride, I insisted on my rights. This carrying on of the Gretna Green game rather scandalized good Mrs. James, but when she scolded me gently for my "childishness," Sir S. said, "Do let her be a child as long as she can. It would be well for every one of us if we kept something of our childhood all our lives. Just now I'm finding childhood gloriously contagious. I don't know how many years I've thrown off in two days' time, since this child princess commanded me to play with her."

This nipped the scolding in its bud (not that I minded it), but I'm sure dear Mrs. James still thought my bride-game had been played too long, and she switched the conversation to the real romances of Gretna Green--so breathlessly thrilling, some of them, that I was ashamed to hark back to the subject of ourselves. Not that Sir S. wouldn't make a hero for my romance. I feel that under his quiet, sometimes tired manner, there's a hidden fire, and I want to find out what he is really like, if I can. The study of such a man will be more interesting and even more mysterious than peeping through the keyhole of the garret door, into what I used to call "fairyland." Already that seems long ago.

No one would guess, who had only seen Mrs. James with Grandma, how much the little woman knows, or how nicely she can talk, and I blurted this thought out, before I stopped to reflect that it might sound rude. An hour pa.s.sed like five minutes in listening to her story of the Lord Chancellor's wedding at Gretna, and Lord Westmorland's shooting of Banker Child's horse, to save his young bride from capture by her father; the tale of Robert Burns almost inveigled into marriage by a pretty girl he met on the road; and best of all the exciting history of the brave la.s.s of Langholm, who ran through brooks and bushes to s.n.a.t.c.h her lover at the last minute from a rival he was marrying in the Blacksmith's Shop. This last anecdote had been "the doctor's" favourite.

One chapter of his history was devoted entirely to the Old Glasgow Road.

In it he gave three whole pages to the young man's bet and the two la.s.sies who were ready to help him win it. "The doctor was romantic at heart," explained Mrs. James, sighing, and pausing with an ice-cold chocolate eclair in her hand. "All romance appealed to his imagination, and in his notes he gave much s.p.a.ce to Gretna Green, from the day of Paisley, the first priest, up to the present time, when couples marry in the Blacksmith's Shop in fun and not in fear. But," she went on, anxious to impress the great Somerled, "Doctor James gave s.p.a.ce in plenty to the serious history of the Road: the Raider episodes; the journey of Queen Mary; the march of Prince Charlie's Highlanders in charge of c.u.mberland's soldiers, on their way to prison at Carlisle; the tramping of many penniless Scottish geniuses seeking their fortune in London town; the visits of famous men like Scott and d.i.c.kens, and Edward Irving the preacher, who made his bride get down from her carriage on the bridge, and walk on foot into her adopted country, England."

Mrs. James always grows excited when she talks about the doctor and his unfinished history of Scotland; and though she'd known Sir S. only a day and a half, she was mesmerized into telling him secrets Grandma couldn't have dragged from her with wild horses. She even showed him Doctor James's photograph, which, in a shut-up velvet case, she had put into the handbag Sir S. gave her. "Do _you_, an artist, with your great knowledge of human faces and the souls behind them, believe a man with those eyes and that forehead would take his own life to escape scandal?"

she appealed to him. "Wouldn't it be more natural to disappear, trusting to his wife's faith, until he had made a new career somewhere and won back the honour of his name?"

Very gravely Sir S. examined the photograph, which she had painted in water colours, rather faded now; and I looked at it, though I've seen it before. Apparently he was sincerely interested in her story, and in the picture. But then he seems interested always, in a quiet way, in what people tell him, never interrupting or talking of himself and his affairs, as Grandma does if any one comes to see her. "You are right, Mrs. James," he said. "That man is a dreamer, but not a coward. He might do strange things, but never a contemptible one."

"Oh, what a judge of character!" she breathed ecstatically. "And how sympathetic! It's wonderful, in the busy, flattered life you must have led for many years, how you've kept your kind heart and generous thought for others. But it's your artistic temperament!"

The great Somerled laughed and looked embarra.s.sed. "My enemies say that my 'artistic temperament' has been swamped long ago by my love of money-making and getting difficult things to turn my way. I think the enemies are probably right; but you and this princess would dig up any decent qualities a man might have left, no matter how deep they were buried under rubbish."

"How do we dig them up?" I wanted to know.

"By being children--both of you--in your different ways."

Then he gave Mrs. James back the faded photograph, with a few more compliments on the doctor's eyes and the shape of his forehead. It was time to be starting on, but the grateful dear would not accept his offer of help in clearing up. She sent me away with him down the road to gather a bunch of bluebells, azure as a handful of sky, to put into our hanging vase--my first Scotch bluebells. And as soon as we were well away, he began asking questions about Doctor James, which showed that he really cared. What was his first name? How old was he when he disappeared? And how long ago was that?

"His Christian name was Richard," said I. "It was seventeen years ago that he disappeared--or died. And he must have been twenty-nine then, because Heppie says he was too young for Mrs. James--only a year older than she--which would make him forty-six now."

"You mustn't give her away like that," Sir Somerled reproached me. "I should have guessed her seven or eight years younger."

"Ah, that's the ma.s.sage and the skin food and neck exercises," said I, wisely. "She _will_ be pleased when I tell her what a success you think they are."

"She'll be much more pleased if you don't tell her you've mentioned them, and I strongly advise you not to. Do you happen to know whether Doctor James had a scar on the left temple?"

"Yes," I eagerly answered. "She's told me about it. That's why he turned the right side of his face to be photographed. But why? Did you ever come to Carlisle and see him before you sailed for America as a boy?"

"I came to Carlisle. I may have seen him," Sir S. replied. "But say nothing to Mrs. James about this conversation of ours. Some time, perhaps, I may tell you why. If not, it's not worth remembering. And now, I see she's got everything ready, and is waiting for us. So is Vedder. The car's had a good drink of petrol, and we can be off--for a sight of Carlyle's country. Will that bore you?" He looked at me almost anxiously, as if something depended on my answer.

"Bore me? Oh, no: I shall love to go there," I a.s.sured him.