CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE ALGÆ AND FUNGI.
The bazaar as an institution is played out. There can certainly be no two opinions about that. It has lived through a youth of humble usefulness, a middle life of gorgeous magnificence, and it is now far gone in an old age of decrepitude and shams. It has attained the elaboration and complexity which are incompatible with farther existence, and it must die. The cup of its abuses and iniquities is full. It has had its day; let it follow many things better than itself—great kingdoms, mighty systems—into the region of the things that have been and are not.
Yet even where the bazaar is already dead, we all seem to combine, sorely against our will, to keep the old mummy on its feet. Nor is the reason for our inconsistency far to seek. The bazaar knows its world; there is scarcely a human weakness—a weakness either for good or for evil—to which it does not appeal; so it dies hard, and, in spite of ourselves, we cherish it to the last.
How we hate it! How the very appearance of its name in print fills our minds with reminiscences of nerve-strain, and boredom, and shameless persecution!
This being so, it is a matter of profound regret to me that a bazaar should appear at all in the pages of my story; but it is bound up inextricably with the course of events, so I must beg my readers to bear up as best they may.
"My dear," said Rachel, coming into the shop one day, eager and breathless, "I have got a piece of news for you to-day. The Miss Bonthrons want you to help them with their stall at the bazaar! It seems they have been quite taken with your manner in the shop, and they think you'll be far more use than one of those dressed-up fusionless things that only want to amuse themselves, and don't know what's left if you take three-and-sixpence from the pound. Of course they are very glad, too, that you should have the ploy. I told them I was sure you would be only too delighted. They were asking if there was no word of your being baptised and joining the church yet."
Mona bent low over her account-book, and it was a full minute before she replied. Her first impulse was to refuse the engagement altogether; her second was to accept with an indignant protest; her third and last was to accept without a word. If she had been doomed to spend a lifetime with Rachel, things would have been different; as it was, there were not three more months of the appointed time to run. For those months she must do her very utmost to avoid all cause of offence.
"I think a bazaar is the very last thing I am fitted for," she said quietly; "but, if you have settled it with the Bonthrons, I suppose there is nothing more to be said."
"Oh, you'll manage fine, I'm sure. There's no doubt you've a gift for that kind of thing. I can tell you there's many a one would be glad to stand in your shoes. You'll see you'll get all your meals in the refreshment-room for nothing, and a ticket for the ball as well."
"I don't mean to go to the ball."
"Hoots, lassie, you'll never stay away when the ticket costs you nothing! I am thinking I might go myself, perhaps, to take care of you, like. It'll be a grand sight, they say, and it's not often I get the chance of wearing my green silk."
Again the infinite pathos of this woman, with all her vulgar, disappointed little ambitions, took Mona's heart by storm, as it had done on the night of her arrival at Borrowness; and a gentle answer came unbidden to her lips.
That afternoon, however, she considered herself fully entitled to set off and drink tea with Auntie Bell, and Rachel raised no objection when she suggested the idea.
"I would be glad if you would do a little business for me, as you pass through Kilwinnie," she said.
"I will, with pleasure."
"Just go into Mr Brown's," she said, "and ask him if he still has green ribbon like what he sold me for my bonnet last year. The strings are quite worn out. I think a yard and a half should do. I'll give you a pattern."
Mona fervently wished that the bit of business could have been transacted in any other shop, but it would not do to draw back from her promise now.
As she passed along the high street of Kilwinnie, she saw Miss Brown's face at the window above the shop, and she bowed as she crossed the street. Mr Brown was engaged with another customer, so Mona went up to the young man at the opposite counter, thankful to escape so easily. But it was no use. In the most barefaced way Mr Brown effected an exchange of customers, and came up to her, his solemn face all radiant with sudden pleasure. His eyes, like those of a faithful dog, more than atoned at times for his inability to speak.
"How is Miss Simpson?" he asked. This was his one idea of making a beginning.
"She is very well, thank you," and Mona proceeded at once with the business in hand.
They had just settled the question, when, to Mona's infinite relief, Miss Brown tripped down the stair leading into the shop.
"Won't you come up-stairs and rest for ten minutes, Miss Maclean?" she said. "We are having an early cup of tea. No, no, Philip, we don't want you. Gentlemen have no business with afternoon tea."
Mona could not have told what induced her to accept the invitation. She certainly did not wish to do it. Perhaps she was glad to escape on any terms from those pathetic brown eyes.
Mr Brown's face fell, then brightened again.
"Perhaps while you are talking, you will arrange for another walk," he said.
Mona followed Miss Brown up the dark little stair into the house, and they entered the pleasant sitting-room. The ladies of the house received their visitor cordially, and proceeded to entertain her with conversation, which seemed to be friendly, if it was neither spirituel nor very profound. Presently it turned on the subject of husband-hunting.
"Now, Miss Maclean," said one, "would you call my brother an attractive man?"
Mona was somewhat taken aback by the directness of the question.
"I never thought of him in that connection," she answered honestly.
"Well, you know, he is not a marrying man at all. Anybody can see that; and yet you would not believe me if I were to tell you the number of women who have set their caps at him. Any other man would have his head turned completely; but he never seems to see it. We get the laugh all to ourselves."
"Clever as he is," put in another sister, "he is a regular simpleton where women are concerned. He treats them just as if they were men, and of course they take advantage of it, and get him talked about and laughed at."
"We tell him it really is too silly," said the third, "that, after all his experience, he should not know how to take care of himself."
Mona turned very pale, but she answered thoughtfully.
"When you asked me whether I considered if Mr Brown an attractive man, I was inclined at first to say no; but what you say of him crystallises my ideas somewhat. I think his great attraction lies in the fact that he can meet women on common ground, without regard to sex. He realises, perhaps, that a woman may care for knowledge, and even for friendship, as well as for a husband. I should not try to change him, if I were you. His views may be peculiar here, but they are not altogether uncommon among cultured people."
She said the last words gently, with a pleasant smile, and then proceeded to put on her furs with an air of quiet dignity that would not have discredited Lady Munro herself, and that seemed to throw the Browns to an infinite distance.
It was some moments before any of them found voice.
"Must you go?" said the eldest at last, somewhat feebly. "Won't you take another cup of tea?"
"Thank you very much, but I am on my way to drink tea with Mrs Easson."
"Queer homely body, isn't she?" said the second sister, recovering herself. "She is your cousin, is she not?"
"I am proud to say she is."
"Oh, we've never arranged about the walk," said the youngest. "Any day next week that will suit you, will suit me."
"Oh, thank you; I am afraid this wonderful bazaar is going to absorb all our energies for some time to come. I fear the walk will have to be postponed indefinitely."
She shook hands graciously with her hostesses, and went slowly down by the stair that opened on the street.
"If I were five years younger," she said to her herself, "I should be tempted to encourage Mr Brown, just the least little bit in the world, and then——"
But not even when Mona was a girl could she have been tempted, for more than a moment, to avenge a petty wrong at the expense of those great, sad eyes.
Mr Brown had been looking out, and he came forward to meet her, nervous, eager.
"Have you arranged a day?" he asked.
"No; I fear I am going to be very busy for the next few weeks. It is very kind of you to suggest another walk. Good-bye."
She was unconscious that her whole manner and bearing had changed in the last quarter of an hour, but he felt it keenly, and guessed something of what had happened.
"Miss Maclean," he said hoarsely, grasping the hand she tried to withdraw, "what do we want with one of them in our walks? Come with me. Come up-stairs with me now, and we'll tell them——"
"I have stayed too long already," said Mona hastily; "good-bye." And without trusting herself to look at him again, she hurried away.
Her cheeks were very bright, and her eyes suffused with tears, as she continued her walk.
"How disgraceful!" she kept repeating; "how disgraceful! I must have been horribly to blame, or it never would have come to this."
But, as usual, before long her sense of the comic came to her rescue.
"Verily, my dear," she said, with a heavy sigh, "the study of the Algæ and Fungi is a large one, and leads us further than we anticipated."
Auntie Bell would not have been the shrewd woman she was, if she had not seen at a glance that something was wrong with her darling; but she showed her sympathy by hastily "masking the tea," and cutting great slices from a home-made cake.
"Eh, but ye're a sicht for sair een!" she said, as she bustled in and out of the sitting-room. "I declare ye're bonnier than iver i' that fur thing. Weel, hoo's a' wi' ye?"
"Oh, I am blooming, as you see. Rachel is well, too."
"An' what w'y suld she no' be weel? She's no' i' the w'y o' daein' onything that's like to mak' her ill, I fancy, eh? Hae ye been efter the butterflies again wi' Maister Broon?"
The unexpected question brought the tell-tale colour to Mona's cheek.
"No," she said, "I am not going any more. It is not the weather for that sort of thing."
"Na," said Auntie Bell tersely; "nor he isna the mon for that sort o' thing. He's a guid mon, nae doot, an' a cliver, they say, for a' he's sae quite an' sae canny, an' sae ta'en up wi's beasts and things; but he's no' the mon for the like o' you. Ye wadna tak' him, Mona?"
"Dear Auntie Bell," said Mona abashed, "such a thing never even occurred to me——"
She did not add "until," but her honest face said it for her.
"He's no' been askin' ye?"
"No, no," said Mona warmly, "and he never will. Can a man and woman not go 'after the butterflies,' as you call it, without thinking of love and marriage?"
Auntie Bell's face was worth looking at.
"I nae ken," she said grimly; "I hae ma doots."
"Well, I assure you Mr Brown has not even mentioned such a thing to me."
Auntie Bell eyed her keenly through the gold spectacles, but Mona did not flinch.
"Then his sisters have," thought the old woman shrewdly. "I'll gie them a piece o' ma mind the neist time I'm doun the toun."
Mona's visits were necessarily very short on these winter afternoons, and as soon as tea was over she rose to go.
"Are ye aye minded tae gang hame come Mairch?" said Auntie Bell.
"Oh yes, I cannot possibly stay longer."
"What's to come o' the shop?"
"I will look out for an intelligent young person to fill my place."
"Ay, ye may luik! Weel, I'll no' lift a finger tae gar ye bide. Yon's no' the place for ye. But I nae ken hoo I'm tae thole wi'oot the sicht o' yer bonny bricht een."
"Dear Auntie Bell," said Mona affectionately, "you are coming to see me, you know."
"Me! hoot awa', lassie! It's a far cry tae Lunnon, an' I'm ower auld tae traivel ma lane."
They were standing by the open door, and the moonlight fell full on the worn, eager face.
"Then come with me when I go. I can't tell you how pleased and proud I should be to have you."
The old woman's face beamed. "Ay? My word! an' ye'd tak' me in a first-cless cairriage, and treat me like a queen, I'll be boun'. Mrs Dodds o' the neist fairm is aye speirin' at me if I'll no' gang wi' the cheap trip tae Edinbury for the New Year. I'll tell her I could gang a' the w'y tae Lunnon, like a leddy, an' no' be the puirer for the ootin' by ae bawbee."
She executed a characteristic war-dance in the moonlight. "Aweel," she resumed, with sudden gravity, "ye'll mind me tae Rachel, and tell her auld Auntie Bell's as daft as iver!"
"Well, you promised to dance at my wedding, you know," and, waving her hand, Mona set off with a light, quick step.
Her thoughts were very busy as she hastened along, but her decision was made before she reached home. "I will write a short note to Mr Brown to-night," she said, "and tell him I find life too short for the study of the Algæ and Fungi.”