MR. WEDDERBURN went into Edinburgh by the early train, the train which conveyed all the gentlemen who were business men. But Mr. Dalyell, who was not exactly a man in business, went in later. He had a great deal to do with that busy world, but he was not actually in harness with an office which claimed his daily attention. He was a director of a railway company, and he had something to do with a great insurance office, and there were other more speculative concerns in which he was believed to have an interest: and there were few days in the week in which he did not go “in,” as everybody said, to Edinburgh; but still it was not a matter of necessity. He was up earlier than his wont that morning—for Yalton was not an early house in general—and “pottered about,” as his wife said fretfully, from his dressing-room to the library and from the library back to his dressing-room, disturbing her morning’s rest. He seemed to have a quantity of little things to do. Even after the breakfast bell had rung he ran twice into the library for something which he said he had forgotten. “You seem to have as many things to remember as if you were the Prime Minister,” said Mrs. Dalyell, who had already poured out his coffee, and who was more annoyed when he left his breakfast to get cold than by any other of his peccadilloes. “Robert!” she cried from the door in a tone of exasperation, “there will be nothing fit to eat!” “I am coming, I am coming!” he cried. The curious thing was that he did not mind if his bacon was cold: but his wife minded for him and fumed and fretted. “What is the use of trying to get anything comfortable for your father?” she would say complainingly, “Well, mother, I like my kidneys hot,” said Fred; “so they’re not thrown away at least.” Mrs. Dalyell looked at her son as if his tastes were a matter of much indifference, but softened when she met the lad’s good-humoured blue eyes. He was not remarkable in appearance, but like dozens of other Scotch lads all about—light-brown hair, curling so strongly that it was difficult sometimes to comb it out; nice eyes, with a smile in them; tolerable features, the nose turned up a little; not a giant by any means, but well developed, well set up—a natural, pleasant boy of twenty, not without his failings, and perhaps a little careless, a little superficial, having had no occasion as yet to fathom any of the depths of life. He nodded at her over the dish of kidneys with a smile which was contagious. Mrs. Dalyell was by no means a light-hearted person. She was easily put out. She did not like anybody to have a different way of thinking from her own on the points that interested her. To let your tea stand till it was cold was an offence to Mrs. Dalyell. As for more serious matters she did not much interfere with them. That was the gentlemen’s part of the business. To have breakfast in good condition and attend to the comfort of the house was hers, which perhaps is a view of the question which will commend itself to many. In return for this she expected to have a great deal of the trouble of life taken off her shoulders. She declared constantly that she knew nothing of business. She preferred to get her money just when she wanted it, instead of having a banking account of her own, as most ladies like to have nowadays, or a settled allowance. In short, Mrs. Dalyell was a woman whose very existence necessitated a husband behind her to do the rough work and see to the supplies. Within these limits there could not be a better mistress of a household. And she was exceedingly annoyed when her husband allowed his breakfast to get cold. It was a trick of his, of which it was her constant effort to mend him; but he was seldom so bad as this day.
“Go and tell your father,” she said at last, “that it is almost time for the train. And to let him go without his breakfast is what I will not do. So just tell him, once for all, if he does not come at once he must just give up all thoughts of going in to Edinburgh to-day.”
“Here I am—here I am, Amelia,” said Mr. Dalyell, running in and taking his seat at table. “What have you got there, Fred? Kidneys!—and this is bacon.”
“All just as cold as chucky-stones,” said the lady of the house solemnly.
“You know I don’t mind, my dear. I’ll have a little of that kidney—and a cup of coffee with plenty of milk. How often am I to tell you you should never mind me?”
“Just as often as I tell you I will mind you, Robert. Who should be minded if it’s not the master of the house?”
He cast upon her a look—which Fred, who had nearly but not quite forgotten the conversation of last night, caught and wondered at with a vague sense of pain, though his mother did not remark it. There was a great deal of affection and tenderness in the glance; but something else that puzzled him. There was trouble in it—but what trouble could there be in his father’s eyes looking at his mother? There was something in it which made him say quite inconsequently, looking up from his plateful of devilled kidney, “You’re not going away anywhere, are you, father?”
Then his father’s eyes fixed on himself with a startled glance: “Away?” he said. “Where should I be going? and what’s put that into your head?”
Fred replied with the familiar subterfuge of youth: “Oh, nothing!” But his mind was not satisfied; for that was no answer. And there passed through his thoughts a vague idea that if, later in the day, there came a telegram saying that Mr. Dalyell had been obliged to go to London on business, he would not be surprised.
“Where indeed!” said Mrs. Dalyell. “It’s not the time for business, which is a comfort: for you can’t be running up to London at a moment’s notice, as you did in the spring. You would find nobody there.”
“That is just it,” said Mr. Dalyell. And after he had made this unquestioned observation, he added, “I shall perhaps run down to Portobello and get a swim. Nothing puts a man right like the sea. I’ll just take a plunge and be back by the four o’clock train.”
“I hope you’ll have somebody with you; and don’t you be too venturesome with your plunging and your swimming.”
“Too venturesome on Portobello sands! I’ll get Pat Wedderburn to come and look after me,” said Mr. Dalyell with a laugh. He laughed with his lips, but his eyes were quite grave—which was all the more remarkable since he had laughing eyes, with humorous puckers all about them, exceedingly ready to light up at such a joke as that of being taken care of by Pat Wedderburn. He had still half-a-dozen things which kept him running out and in before he was ready to start, which his way, but always a source of exasperation to his orderly wife. Finally, when there was hardly time to catch the train, he dashed upstairs three steps at a time, explaining that he had forgotten something. Mrs. Dalyell stood wringing her hands at the open door.
“I wish you had ordered the dog-cart, Fred. He’ll never catch the train. You should remember your father’s ways, and that this is always what happens: and then he’ll just fly and get out of breath and over-heated—the very worst things for him. Dear, dear me! I might have had more sense. I might have ordered the dog-cart myself, there’s only ten minutes——”
“If he does lose the train I suppose it won’t matter so much,” said easy-minded Fred.
“Not if he would think so,” replied the mother, “nothing at all—but when he sets his mind on a thing, possible or impossible, he will carry it out. ROBERT!” she cried, in capitals, going to the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouted. His voice came not from the direction of his room but from the west passage, where he had nothing to do, a fact which awoke a vague surprise in Mrs. Dalyell’s mind. He came downstairs “like a tempest,” she said afterwards, making as much noise, and caught her in his arms, to her great astonishment. “Good-bye, my dearest, good-bye!” he cried, giving her a loving kiss (“before the bairns, and that man Foggo looking on!”). “Keep well and don’t distress yourself about me.” He was gone almost before she could ask him why she should distress herself about him, flying down the road with Fred after him, which, indeed, was his usual way of catching a train. She stood at the door looking after him, and though he was in such a hurry and not a moment to lose, what did Robert do but turn round and take off his hat and wave his hand to her! Such nonsense! as if he were going away for years. She made a sign of impatience, hurrying him on. “Do you think they will do it this time, Foggo?” she said to the butler, who was also looking after them. Foggo had been standing ready to help his master on with his coat. But Mr. Dalyell had time only to snatch it and throw it over his shoulder, partly because of that unnecessary embrace which had so confused his wife under the servant’s eyes.
“Oh, ay, ma’am,” said Foggo, “they’ll do it; the maister’s aye just on the edge—but he’s never missed her yet——”
Mr. Dalyell, when he rushed upstairs, had not gone to his dressing-room as he proposed to do. He had darted down the west passage, a long vacant corridor with a few doors of unused bedrooms on one side. He went down to the end room of all, and opened the door. An old woman in a tremendous mutch and tartan shawl came forward to meet him. “I have come to say good-bye, Janet, my woman,” he said, grasping her hand. “And you’ll remember what you’ve promised.”
“That I will, my bonnie man: if you’re sure you must do it. As long as I live—but then I, may be, have not very long to live.”
“We’ll have to trust for that,” he said, holding both her hands.
“Could you no trust for other things? I’ve preachit to ye till I’m weariet, maister Robert! Nobody trusted yet and was disappointed.”
“We’ve gone over all that,” he said. “No, no, there’s no other way. We can’t ask the Lord for money, Janet.”
“What for no? And now I can scarce say God’s blessing on ye—for how can I ask His blessing when it’s for a——?”
“No more, Janet, no more. Good-bye!”
“Oh, maister Robert, bide a moment. Do you mind the Psalm:
‘If in your heart ye sin regard
The Lord you will not hear?’
Think of that! How can I bid Him bless ye, when——?”
“Good-bye, my dear old woman, good-bye!”
And it was at this moment that Mrs. Dalyell’s voice calling “Robert!” came small in the distance up the echoing passage. And in another moment he was gone.
Mrs. Dalyell went to her kitchen to give her orders to the cook as soon as her husband was out of sight. She was an excellent housekeeper, and enjoyed this part of her duties far too much to depute them to any other, although indeed in the tide of prosperity which Mr. Dalyell’s business had brought to Yalton she might have had a housekeeper had she pleased, and a much larger establishment. But she had thrifty instincts and that distrust of business which old-fashioned ladies used to have, with an inward conviction that it always collapsed at one time or another, and that the estate was the sheet-anchor: which had prevented her ever from launching out into expense. She dismissed the thoughts of Robert’s unusual embrace—for domestic endearments are sedulously kept in the background in Scotch houses of the old-fashioned type—and of any little peculiarity there might have been about him this morning more than other mornings—from her mind: which it required no effort to do, for she was not given to investigations below the surface, or reading between the lines, and a parting kiss (though absurd) was a parting kiss to Mrs. Dalyell, and it was nothing more. She took pains to order her husband a very good dinner, with due consideration of his special likings, which perhaps was as good a thing as she could have done. Then after luncheon there was Fred to send off in good time, so that he might not put out any of the Scrymgeours’ arrangements by arriving too late. He had a seven-miles drive, and never would have recollected to order the dog-cart in time if his mother had not taken that duty upon herself; and she likewise cast a glance at his other arrangements to make sure that his white ties were in good condition and his pumps as they ought to be—precautions quite unnecessary and rather distasteful to the young man in his new conviction, acquired at Oxford, that he knew better than any one what was essential to a perfect turn-out, either for horse or man. Susie, who was liberated from lessons after luncheon, spent her time in preparing messages for Lucy Scrymgeour which were intended to disturb and plant thorns in that young person’s mind. “You can tell her I never was so surprised in my life as when it came for you and not for me: for you never were such friends with them as me. But you’re only asked as a man. They must be badly off for men; though when one thinks of all the officers in the garrison—and Davie such friends with all of them! I don’t think you have got any amatory instincts, Fred—for you’ve no friends but Oxford men; and what good would they be to us if we had a ball? But you can tell Davie from me——”
“Has Davie amatory instincts?” cried Fred. “The little beast—I’ll take him no messages from you.”
“What on earth is the child talking of?” said Mrs. Dalyell. “Where did she hear such a word? Amatory!”
“It means friendship,” cried Susie, with a burning blush. “I know—I know it does! I mean Davie has such lots of friends—and Fred has none; or at least none that would be of any use if we were to have a ball.”
“But we are not going to have a ball,” said the mother; “it is a great deal too much trouble. Ask the Scrymgeours what they think a week hence. The whole house will be turned upside down, and the servants put out of the way, and everybody made wretched. No, Susie, there will be no ball.”
“Then am I never to come out at all?” said Susie in a voice from which consternation had driven all the lighter tones. This was too solemn a thought to be expressed except with the gravity of fate.
“You should present her, mother,” said Fred; “that’s the right thing for a girl.”
“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “that’s a great trouble too! The gowns alone would cost about a hundred pounds; and your father, you know, never stays a day longer in London than he can help—and what would Susie and me do, two women by ourselves in that great big place? Besides, to make it worth the while we would need to know a number of people and get invitations. I’ve often heard of country people, very well thought of in their own place, that have just been humiliated to the very dust in London, with nobody to ask them out, or to call on them or anything. She’ll have to be content with something nearer home.”
“That is all because things are so conventionary and nothing natural,” said Susie; “that is what they say in all the books. But if papa would go up with us in his Deputy Lieutenant’s uniform, and knowing such quantities and quantities of people—and perhaps if you were to tell Mrs. Wauchope she might speak to the Duchess, and the Duchess would say just a little word to one of the Princesses—and then perhaps the Queen——”
“Are you out of your senses, Susie? What do you expect that the Queen would do?”
“Well! they might say we belonged to D’yell of Yalton that saved the life of James the Fourth, who is the Queen’s great, great, great (I don’t know how many greats) grandfather. And if she was passing this way, you know, mamma, my father would have to come out and offer her a drink of milk upon his knees. And it is a real old rule for thousands of years, a feudacious tenor, or something of that kind——”
“Where did you find all that, Susie? Is it true, mother? Do we hold Yalton like that?” cried Fred in great delight. “I never knew we were such distinguished people before.”
“I don’t see any distinction about it,” said Mrs. Dalyell: “I never paid much attention to such old stories. Oh, if you believe all the Dalyell stories—— By the way, Susie, I wish you to pronounce the name as I do—as everybody is doing now. ’D’yell’ is so common—it is what the ploughmen say.”
“It is the right old antiquous way,” said Susie with energy, “and I like it far the best. I heard about the horseman too—what it means,” she added in a low tone. “Papa will never let me speak, but I could tell you such things, Fred, if——” And here the little girl made various telegraphic signs, meaning that enlightenment might be afforded if they were alone together, with the mother well out of the way. These designs, however, were frustrated unconsciously by Mrs. Dalyell, who gave her daughter something to do in the way of replying to notes, which kept Susie busy until it was time for Fred to depart.
But yet there was a little time for talk when the girls went with him round to the stables to remind the groom that he must not be late.
“Where did you hear about that feudal business, Susie?” said Fred. “Did you get it out of a book?”
“I got it out of something much funnier. I got it out of old Janet. You should just hear her; she knows more about us—oh! so much more—than we know about ourselves. She told me about——”
“Old Janet!” said Fred. He had forgotten his father’s grave talk and all that had passed on the terrace, and it was not till he had thought it over for a minute or two that it slowly came back to him what association that was which was linked with the name of old Janet. Not that he had not perfect acquaintance with her, as a matter of fact. She had been Mr. Dalyell’s nurse, and had always possessed a room of her own at Yalton, where she lived in a curious isolation and independence—respected, and, perhaps, a little feared by the household in general. Fred endeavoured to remember what it was as Susie’s voice ran on, and then it suddenly burst upon him. It was to her his father had advised him to go if he wanted help, in the supposed contingency of his own removal—old Janet, of all people in the world! The recollection made Fred indignant, yet gave him a sort of shiver of alarmed presentiment as well. Could his father have meant anything more than a mere passing fancy? Yet surely he must have meant something. And under what possible circumstances could he, Fred, a University-man, and acquainted with the world, require to take counsel with old Janet? It gave him the strangest thrill to his very finger-points. It must mean something different from what it seemed to mean. His father would never have given him such a recommendation without a reason. Fred thought with a sensation of horror of the family secrets which such an old woman might possess. She might know something that would ruin them all—there might be something hanging over them, something which she had to break to him. Fred flung this fancy out of his mind as if it had been a stone that some one had thrown into it, and came back to what Susie was saying. Indifferent to the fact that he was not listening, Susie was recounting the story of the family warning.
“‘And since that time there has always been a sound in the avenue as if some horseman was coming, heavy dunts on the road, and the tinkle of the bridle,’ she says. Always when there is trouble coming. I am sure it must be very fatiguing for a ghost, and monotonious—oh! just beyond description—to ride that little bit of road and never come near the house, and all just to frighten a person. I would dash into the hall and shake my bridle at them if it was me.”
“If you were a ghost, Susie?” said Alice with a shiver. “Oh, how can you think of yourself as a ghost?”
“I don’t: I’m not diaphanious,” said Susie; “but if you were to be a ghost at all it would be better to have something more to do than just dunting, dunting, over one bit of road.”
“Janet must have been telling you a lot of lies and nonsense,” said Fred indignantly; “I’ll have to speak to her if she goes on like that.”
“Or tell papa,” said Alice. “He never likes to hear about the horseman.”
“Yes, or tell papa,” said Fred. He could not tell what it meant, but he had a strange feeling as if it were he himself that must do this and shield his sisters from things that might frighten them—as if his father somehow had not much to do with it. But he was greatly shocked with himself when he became conscious of this thought. He was so much absorbed, indeed, in the uncomfortable fancies called up by Janet’s name, that Susie’s story of the King’s hunting and danger of his life, and how the goodwife of Yalton brought him a bowl of milk, and how the lands, as much as they could ride round in a day, according to the most approved romantic fashion, were bestowed upon the D’yells for that service, had little effect upon her brother. And presently the dog-cart came round to the door, and the sight of Fred seated in it with his portmanteau diverted Susie’s thoughts also and brought back her grievance. She stood watching his departure by the side of her mother, who had come out as was her wont to see the boy off.
“There he goes!” said Susie. “Oh, what fossilized hearts boys have! He never thinks of me that has to stay at home. Tell Lucy Scrymgeour if she thinks I will ask her to our ball she is in the greatest mistake, and it will be just as much splendider than theirs, as Yalton is better than Westwood. And tell her mamma is going to take me to London to be presented and make my three obeysances to the Queen, and when I have done that I can go to every place, and all the other queens are obliged to ask me. Well, if mamma doesn’t, it’s not my fault; but you can always tell her, Fred: and just say to that ichthyosaurious Davie that I’ll have all the grand guardsmen and equerries to talk to, and I wouldn’t look at him.”
“But it’s not his fault, Susie,” said Alice; “and perhaps he’ll tell Fred he is very sorry.”
“I don’t think he will, for boys have no hearts: they have vegetable things instead, when they are not fossilized. If he says he is sorry, Fred, you can say I don’t mind very much, only I’ll never speak to them again.”
“I hope you’ll have a nice ball, Fred,” said Mrs. Dalyell. “Come back as early as you can to-morrow, for there are some people coming to tea. And you may bring over Lucy and David, and any other young ones that are staying at Westwood. We can give them their tea on the terrace, it’s not too cold for that; and I am sure Mrs. Scrymgeour will be thankful to any one that will take them out of her way.”