The Heather-Moon Part 21

The great Somerled can of course get anything he wants to ask for if he chooses to reveal himself--anyhow, in Scotland; because already I am beginning to learn that even the smallest or humblest Scottish peasant knows all that's worth knowing, not only of the past but of the present, and has heard of all the celebrities. Maybe there might be miniature places in England, America, Germany, or France where the poor and uneducated would know nothing of Somerled the painter and millionaire.

But in Scotland, apparently, though there are many poor, there are no uneducated persons. Those to whom his being a painter would mean nothing would be interested in his money. Those who didn't care for his millions of dollars would have read about his painting: and all would value him because he belongs to Scotland.

As soon as our luggage was in our rooms and dinner ordered, Sir Somerled inquired if we were ready for the Abbey; but Mrs. James mildly asked if we would mind going without her. She had begun to realize that she was tired, and would like to rest. She could go by herself to the Abbey early in the morning before starting time. I felt that I ought to mind more than I did, but I couldn't help liking to be with Sir S. alone. It seemed like the night of our first meeting; for some one had always been with us, more or less, ever since. It was only a short stroll through the village, not enough to call a walk. A dear little lady who lives in a nice cottage close to the ruin opened the iron gate, but she did not go in with us, because it was time for her supper. She had a photograph done from one of the great Somerled's most famous pictures, and if he had been a long she could not have been more polite.

At first, the inside of the sh.e.l.l-like Abbey with the beautiful name was a disappointment. The green gra.s.s was enc.u.mbered with tasteless graves and flat modern stones which looked as if they had lain down there without permission.

We wandered about rather forlornly for a while, until we found Devorgilla's thirteenth-century tomb. Sir S. told me her history, and waked the sad old place to living interest. I seemed to see the ever-loving lady, followed by her chosen maidens carrying the heart in its ebony and silver box. And together we made up a theory, that of every event _something_ reminiscent lingers on the spot where it happened. If only our eyes were different, we should be able, wherever we went, to see filmy, mysterious pictures painted on air--fadeless, moving photographs of all the people and all the deeds which have made up the world's history.

This set us talking of our own pictures, which we are leaving behind us as we go through life; and I couldn't help thinking how he and I, in accordance with this idea, will for ever and ever go on being "married"

at Gretna Green. I laughed at the thought, and he asked me why, so I told him.

"When you're marrying your real wife, years from now maybe, and have forgotten my existence, that scene will still be enacting itself," I said, "not only on the films the photograph men took, but on air films.

Doesn't it frighten you?" I asked.

"Doesn't it frighten you?" he echoed. "Because you will marry. I never shall."

"How do you know?" I catechized him.

"If I can't have the wife I want, I'll have none."

"Perhaps you can have the one you want if you ask her nicely."

"I don't intend to ask. I'm not the right one for her."

"You might let her decide that!" I n.o.bly said, for Mrs. West may be the woman. "I do hope, if men ever love me, they'll tell me so."

"No fear! They will." He laughed more loudly than I have heard him laugh.

"But the right one mayn't, if he thinks as you do."

"He won't. He'll be thinking only of himself. But look here, my girl, be sure you _do_ take the right one when you marry; for if in my opinion you're likely to make a big mistake when the time comes, I may be tempted to put a spoke in the fellow's wheel."

"Please do!" I laughed.

"You think I'm joking," he said, watching me in a way he has, between narrowed lids, his eyes almost black in the twilight. "And so I am to a certain extent. Yet I might forbid the banns, perhaps--if I chose."

"But how?"

"Haven't you any idea?"

"Not half a one."

"Then I won't tell. It would only worry you--for nothing. Marry in peace, when your Prince comes, and I'll send you my blessing--from far away."

"I don't like to think of your being far away," I said. "Let's not talk of it. For you are my only friend--except Mrs. James. And you're so different."

"I thank Heaven!" he said. "And I thank her for wanting a rest. Good as she is, three would be a crowd in Sweetheart Abbey."

Speaking of her made me think of the time. We had promised Mrs. James to go back in half an hour for dinner! Already more than half an hour had slipped away as we made our air-film photographs to haunt Sweetheart Abbey with all its other ghosts.

The twilight was changing to a light more mysterious, and as we looked at each other through the opal haze I felt strangely that we were changing too. It was as if our realities were less real than the shadow pictures which were to live on here together forever--as if our bodies, which would go away and separate, to live different lives far away from one another, would not be _us_ any more.

I could not have imagined so wonderful a light as that which illuminated the great rose-window and filled the vast broken sh.e.l.l of the Abbey. It was as if the day had been poured out of a cup, and night was being slowly poured in--the dove-gray night of dreams. It was pale, yet not bright like the light of dawn. It was more like a light glimmering over a sheet of water, a light made of the water itself. Almost I expected to see the Heart rise up in the ebony and silver box, and the box opening.

"You look like a young seeress," my Knight said. "What is it that you see with your great eyes gazing through the dusk?"

"I see--a heart," I answered. "I think I see a heart."

"That is very intelligent of you," he said, in a changed tone. "Come, child, it's time I took you home."

"Is there the ghost of a heart floating here?" I asked, wishing to linger. But he took my hand and drew me toward the gate.

"To me," he said dryly, "it appears to be a real heart--almost too real for comfort."

We walked back to the inn, and he was uninterestingly commonplace all the way. He talked about dinner, and buying petrol for the car, and told me dull facts about tiresome things called carburettors. It would have been a horrid anticlimax, spoiling all the romance of Sweetheart Abbey, if he had not changed later on. But he did change. There was a little piano in the sitting-room they gave us, and Mrs. James began drumming out a few Scotch airs, warbling the words in a high, thin voice rather like that of an intelligent insect. There was one tune I knew, and I couldn't resist joining in. At the end Sir S. applauded.

"What a pity her grandmamma wouldn't let her take lessons, as I once ventured to suggest!" said Mrs. James. "She has a true ear, and a sweet voice wonderfully like her mother's, which I quite well remember. But Mrs. MacDonald had the idea that music lessons would lead to vanity.

Don't you think, sir" (she often slips in a respectful "sir"), "that her voice would repay instruction?"

"I do," p.r.o.nounced the great Somerled.

"I'm sure _you_ sing," went on Mrs. James. "I flatter myself I can always tell by people's faces."

"Like Barrie, I never had lessons," he said. "But I suppose we Highlanders are born with music in our blood."

"Then you do sing?" she persisted.

"Only to please myself. Not that it does!"

"Will you sing to please us?"

"It wouldn't please you."

"Barrie, _you_ ask."

"The Princess commands!" I said, not expecting him to humour my impudence, but he did, by going at once to the piano. It had lisped and stammered awkwardly for Mrs. James, but it obeyed him as if the keys were mesmerized. He played a prelude, and then sang "Annie Laurie," in a soft, mellow voice, so low that people outside the room could hardly have heard. It seemed as if there must really be an "Annie Laurie" in his life. Surely a man could not sing like that, and look like that in singing, unless he called up the face of some woman he loved. I wondered if he thought of Mrs. West, who is so very pretty, and rather like the description of "Annie Laurie." His eyes looked far away as he sang, through the wall--oh, yes, I'm sure they could see through the wall at that moment--perhaps as far as "Maxwellton Braes"; perhaps still farther, searching for Mrs. West wherever she might be.

I don't know how it would make one feel if such a man with such a voice looked into one's eyes and sang a song of love. I'm afraid it might make one rather foolish. But it was only at the wall that Sir S. stared until he began a very different song--the lament of a Highlander who would nevermore see his island home nor the love of his youth. It was a heart-breaking song; and though his voice was pitched so low it was almost like singing in a whisper, there was a strange, vibrating power in it, as there is in the strings of a violin touched but lightly by the bow. Sir S. transferred his attention from the wall to me as he sang this sad old ballad, and I could not look away, because there was the same compelling power in his eyes as in his voice. No doubt it was only of the song he thought, not of me at all, really; yet I could not shake off the haunting impression of the look, and it made me dream of him all night. I saw him standing beside me in the strange, pale twilight of Sweetheart Abbey. And in his hand was a box of ebony, inlaid with silver, which he held out. But when I took the box it was locked, and he had no key. "Only the key of the rainbow will open this box," he said.

And then I woke up, feeling somehow as if the dream were of importance, and I must try to find out why.

VII

Next morning when I saw Sir S. I felt confused and vaguely ashamed, as if something had happened. But, of course, nothing had happened, nothing at all. I kept on reminding myself of that until I was at ease again.

And his manner helped me to realize how silly I was, for almost he seemed to go out of his way to put on the commonplace air I had disliked. It was as if he wrapped himself up in a big, rough coat, smelling of tobacco smoke, and rather old and shabby, with the collar well turned up.