“WE were seeing young Mr. Dirom a little bit on his way. He is so kind walking home with Effie that it was the least we could do. I never met with a more civil young man.”
“It appears to me that young Dirom is never out of your house. You’ll have to be thinking what will come of it.”
“What should come of it,” said Mrs. Ogilvie with a laugh, and a look of too conscious innocence, “but civility, as I say? though they are new people, they have kind, neighbour-like ways.”
“I’ve no confidence,” said Miss Dempster, “in that kind of neighbours. If he were to walk home with Beenie or me, that are about the oldest friends they have in the district—Oh yes, their oldest friends: for I sent my card and a request to know if a call would be agreeable as soon as they came: it may be old-fashioned, but it’s my way; and I find it to answer. And as I’m saying, if he had made an offer to walk home with me or my sister, that would have been neighbour-like; but Effie is just quite a different question. I hope if you let it go on, that you’re facing the position, and not letting yourself be taken unawares.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “that’s a thing that seldom happens, though I say it myself. I can generally see as far as most folk. But whatever you do, say nothing of this to Effie. We must just respect her innocence. Experienced people see a great deal that should never be spoken of before the young. I will leave her in your charge and Miss Beenie’s, for I am going to Summerlaw, and she has had a long walk.”
“Your stepmother is a very grand general, Effie,” said Miss Dempster, as they watched Mrs. Ogilvie’s figure disappearing between the high laurel hedges.
It was a warm afternoon, though September had begun. Miss Beenie was seated on the garden seat in front of the drawing-room window, which afforded so commanding a prospect of the doctor’s sitting-room, with her work-basket beside her, and her spectacles upon her nose. But Miss Dempster, who thought it was never safe, except perhaps for a day or two in July, to sit out, kept walking about, now nipping off a withered leaf, now gathering a sprig of heliotrope, or the scented verbena, promenading up and down with a shawl upon her shoulders. She had taken Effie’s arm with an instant perception of the advantages of an animated walking-staff.
The little platform of fine gravel before the door was edged by the green of the sloping lawn in front, but on either side ended in deep borders filled with every kind of old-fashioned and sweet-smelling flower. The sloping drive had well-clipped hedges of shining laurel which surrounded the entrance; but nothing interrupted the view from this little height, which commanded not only the doctor’s mansion but all the village. No scene could have been more peaceful in the sunny afternoon. There were few people stirring below, there was nobody to be seen at the doctor’s windows.
The manse, which was visible at a distance, stood in the broad sunshine with all its doors and windows open, taking in the warmth to its very bosom. Mrs. Ogilvie disappeared for a short time between the hedges, and then came out again, moving along the white road till she was lost in the distance, Glen slowly following, divided in his mind between the advantages of a walk which was good for his health, and the pleasure of lying in the sun and waiting for Effie, which he preferred as a matter of taste. But the large mat at the door, which Glen was aware was the comfortable spot at Rosebank, was already occupied by the nasty little terrier to which the Miss Dempsters, much to Glen’s contempt, were devoted, and the gravel was unpleasant. So he walked, but rather by way of deference to the necessities of the situation than from any lively personal impulse, and went along meditatively with only an occasional slow switch of his tail, keeping well behind the trim and active figure of his mistress. In the absence of other incidents these two moving specks upon the road kept the attention of the small party of spectators on the soft heights of Rosebank.
“Your stepmother’s a grand general,” said Miss Dempster again; “but she must not think that she deceives everybody, Effie. It’s a very legitimate effort; but perhaps if she let things take their own course she would just do as well at the end.”
“What is she trying to do?” said Effie with indifference. “It is a pity Mrs. Ogilvie has only Rory; for she is so active and so busy, she could manage a dozen, Uncle John always says.”
“She has you, my dear—and a great deal more interesting than Rory: who is a nice enough bairn, if he were not spoilt, just beyond conception—as, poor thing, some day, she’ll find out.”
Effie did not pay any attention to the latter part of this speech. She cried “Me!” in the midst of it, with little regard to Miss Dempster, and less (had she been an English girl) to propriety in her pronouns. But she was Scotch, and above reproof.
“No,” she cried, “she has not me, Miss Dempster; you are making a mistake. She says I am old enough to guide myself.”
“A bonnie guide you would be for yourself. But, no doubt, ye think that too; there is no end to the confidence of young folk in this generation. And you are nineteen, which is a wise age.”
“No,” said Effie, “don’t think it is a wise age. And then I have Uncle John; and then, what is perhaps the best of all, I have nothing to do that calls for any guiding, so I am quite safe.”
“Oh, yes, that’s a grand thing,” said the old lady; “to be just peaceable and quiet, like Beenie and me, and no cross roads to perplex ye, nor the need of choosing one way or another. But that’s a blessing that generally comes on later in life: and we’re seldom thankful for it when it does come.”
“No,” said Effie, “I have nothing to choose. What should I have to choose? unless it was whether I would have a tweed or a velveteen for my winter frock; or, perhaps——” here she stopped, with a soft little smile dimpling about her mouth.
“Ay,” said the old lady; “or perhaps——? The perhaps is just what I would like to know.”
“Sarah,” said Miss Beenie from behind, “what are you doing putting things in the girlie’s head?”
“Just darn your stockings and hold your tongue,” said the elder sister. She leaned her weight more heavily on Effie’s arm by way of securing her attention.
“Now and then,” she said, “the road takes a crook before it divides. There’s that marshy bit where the Laggan burn runs before you come to Windyha’. If you are not thinking, it just depends on which side of the road you take whether you go straight on the good highway to Dumfries, or down the lane that’s always deep in dust, or else a very slough of despond. You’re there before you know.”
“But what has that to do with me?” said Effie; “and then,” she added, with a little elevation of her head, “if I’m in any difficulty, there is Uncle John.”
“Oh, ay: he’s often very fine in the pulpit. I would not ask for a better guide in the Gospel, which is his vocation. But in the ways of this world, Effie Ogilvie, your Uncle John is just an innocent like yourself.”
“That is all you know!” said Effie, indignantly. “Me an innocent!” She was accustomed to hear the word applied to the idiot of the parish, the piteous figure which scarcely any parish is without. Then she laughed, and added, with a sudden change of tone, “They think me very sensible at Allonby. They think I am the one that is always serious. They say I am fact: and they are poetry, I suppose,” she said, after a second pause, with another laugh.
“Poetry!” said Miss Dempster, “you’re meaning silly nonsense. They are just two haverels these two daft-like girls with their dark rooms, and all their affected ways; and as for the brother——”
“What about the brother?” said Effie, with an almost imperceptible change of tone.
“Aha!” said the old lady, “now we see where the interest lies.”
“It is nothing of the kind,” cried the girl, “it is just your imagination. You take a pleasure in twisting every word, and making me think shame. It is just to hear what you have got to say.”
“I have not very much to say,” said Miss Dempster; “we’re great students of human nature, both Beenie and me; but I cannot just give my opinion off-hand. There’s one thing I will tell you, and that is just that he is not our Ronald, which makes all the difference to me.”
“Ronald!” cried the girl, wondering. “Well, no! but did anybody ever say he was like Ronald?”
She paused a little, and a soft suffusion of colour once more came over her face. “What has Ronald to do with it? He is no more like Ronald than he is like—me.”
“And I don’t think him like you at all,” cried Miss Dempster quickly, “which is just the whole question. He is not of your kind, Effie. We’re all human creatures, no doubt, but there’s different species. Beenie, what do you think? Would you say that young Fred Dirom—that is the son of a merchant prince, and so grand and so rich—would you say he was of our own kind? would you say he was like Effie, or like Ronald? Ronald’s a young man about the same age; would you say he was of Ronald’s kind.”
“Bless me, what a very strange question!” Miss Beenie looked up with every evidence of alarm. Her spectacles fell from her nose; the stocking in which her hand and arm were enveloped fell limp upon her lap.
“I’ve no time to answer conundrums; they’re just things for winter evenings, not for daylight. And when you know how I’ve been against it from the very first,” she added, after a pause, with some warmth. “It might be a grand thing from a worldly point of view; but what do we know about him or his connections? And as for business, it is just a delusion; it’s up to-day and down to-morrow. I’ve lived in Glasgow, and I know what it means. Ye may be very grand, and who but you for a while; and then the next moment nothing. No; if there was not another man in the world, not the like of that man,” cried Miss Beenie, warming more and more, gesticulating unconsciously with the muffled hand which was all wrapped up in stocking; “and to compare him with our poor Ronald——” She dropped suddenly from her excitement, as if this name had brought her to herself. “You are making me say what I ought not to say—and before Effie! I will never be able to look one of them in the face again.”
Effie stood upon the gravel opposite to the speaker, notwithstanding the impulse of Miss Dempster’s arm to lead her away. “I wish you would tell me what you mean. I wish I knew what Ronald had to do with me,” she said.
“He’s just an old friend, poor laddie—just an old friend. Never you mind what Beenie says. She’s a little touched in that direction, we all know. Never you mind. It’s my own conviction that young Dirom, having no connections, would be but a very precarious—— But no doubt your parents know best. Ronald is just the contrary—plenty of connections, but no money. The one is perhaps as bad as the other. And it’s not for us to interfere. Your own people must know best.”
“What is there to interfere about? and what has Ronald to do with it? and, oh, what are you all talking about?” cried Effie, bewildered. What with the conversation which meant nothing, and that which meant too much, her little brain was all in a ferment. She withdrew herself suddenly from Miss Dempster’s arm.
“I will get you your stick out of the hall which will do just as well as me: for I’m going away.”
“Why should you go away? Your father is in Dumfries, your mother will be getting her tea at Summerlaw. There is nobody wanting you at home; and Beenie has ordered our honey scones that you are so fond of.”
“I want no honey scones!” cried Effie. “You mean something, and you will not tell me what you mean. I am going to Uncle John.”
“She is a hot-headed little thing. She must just take her own gait and guide herself. Poor innocent! as if it were not all settled and planned beforehand what she was to do.”
“Oh, Sarah, stop woman, for goodness’ sake! You are putting things in the girlie’s head, and that is just what we promised not to do.”
“What things are you putting in my head? You are just driving me wild!” cried Effie, stamping her foot on the gravel.
It was not the first time by a great many that she had departed from Rosebank in this way. The criticisms of old ladies are sadly apt to irritate young ones, and this pretence of knowing so much more about her than she knew about herself, has always the most exasperating effect.
She turned her back upon them, and went away between the laurel hedges with a conviction that they were saying, “What a little fury!” and “What an ill brought-up girl!”—which did not mend matters. These were the sort of things the Miss Dempsters said—not without a cackle of laughter—of the rage and impatience of the young creature they had been baiting. Her mind was in high commotion, instinctive rebellion flaming up amid the curiosity and anxiety with which she asked herself what was it that was settled and planned?
Whatever it was, Effie would not do it, that was one thing of which she felt sure. If it had been her own mother, indeed! but who was Mrs. Ogilvie, to settle for her what she ought to do? She would be her own guide, whatever any one might settle. If she took counsel with any one, it should be Uncle John, who was her nearest friend—when there was anything to take counsel about.
But at present there was nothing, not a question of any sort that she knew, except whether the new tennis court that was making at Gilston could possibly be ready for this season, which, of course, it could not;—no question whatever; and what had Ronald to do with it? Ronald had been gone for three years. There had been no news of him lately. If there were a hundred questions, what could Ronald have to do with them?
She went down very quickly between the laurel hedges and paused at the gate, where she could not be seen from the terrace, to smooth down her ruffled plumes a little and take breath. But as she turned into the road her heart began to thump again, with no more reason for it than the sudden appearance of Uncle John coming quietly along at his usual leisurely pace. She had said she was going to him; but she did not really wish to meet Uncle John, whose kind eyes had a way of seeing through and through you, at this present excited moment, for she knew that he would find her out.
Whether he did so or not, he came up in his sober way, smiling that smile which he kept for Effie. He was prone to smile at the world in general, being very friendly and kind, and generally thinking well of his neighbours. But he had a smile which was for Effie alone. He caught in a moment the gleam in her eyes, the moisture, and the blaze of angry feeling.
“What, Effie,” he said, “you have been in the wars. What have the old ladies been saying now?”
“Oh, Uncle John,” she began eagerly; but then stopped all at once: for the vague talk in which a young man’s name is involved, which does not tell for very much among women, becomes uncomfortable and suspect when a man is admitted within hearing. She changed her mind and her tone, but could not change her colour, which rose high under her troubled eyes.
“Oh, I suppose it was nothing,” she said, “it was not about me; it was about Ronald—something about Ronald and Mr. Fred Dirom: though they could not even know each other—could they know each other?”
“I can’t tell you, Effie: most likely not; they certainly have not been together here; but they may have met as young men meet—somewhere else.”
“Perhaps that was what it was. But yet I don’t see what Ronald could have to do with it.”
Here Effie stopped again, and grew redder than ever, expecting that Mr. Moubray would ask her, “To do with—what?” and bring back all the confusion again.
But the minister was more wise. He began to perceive vaguely what the character of the suggestion, which had made Effie angry, must have been. It was much clearer to him indeed than it was to her, through these two names, which as yet to Effie suggested no connection.
“Unless it is that Fred Dirom is here and Ronald away,” he said, “I know no link. And what sort of a fellow is Fred Dirom, Effie? for I scarcely know him at all.”
“What sort of a fellow?” Mr. Moubray was so easy, and banished so carefully all meaning from his looks, that Effie was relieved. She began to laugh.
“I don’t know what to say. He is like the girls, but not quite like the girls.”
“That does not give me much information, my dear.”
“Oh, Uncle John, they are all so funny! What can I say? They talk and they talk, and it is all made up. It is about nothing, about fancies they take in their heads, about what they think—but not real thinking, only fancies, thinking what to say.”
“That’s the art of conversation, Effie,” the minister said.
“Conversation? Oh no, oh, surely not!—conversation would mean something. At Allonby it is all very pretty, but it means nothing at all. They just make stories out of nothing, and talk for the sake of talking. I laugh—I cannot help it, though I could not quite tell you why.”
“And the brother, does he do the same?”
“Oh, the brother! No, he is not so funny, he does not talk so much. He says little, really, on the whole, except”—here Effie stopped and coloured and laughed softly, but in a different tone.
“Except?” repeated Uncle John.
“Well, when he is walking home with me. Then he is obliged to speak, because there is no one else to say anything. When we are all together it is they who speak. But how can he help it? He has to talk when there is only me.”
“And is his talk about fancies too? or does he say things that are more to the purpose, Effie?”
Effie paused a little before she replied, “I have to think,” she said; “I don’t remember anything he said—except—Oh yes!—but—it was not to the purpose. It was only—nothing in particular,” she continued with a little wavering colour, and a small sudden laugh in which there was some confusing recollection.
“Ah!” said Uncle John, nodding his head. “I think I see what you mean.”