“YOU will stay to your dinner?” Mrs. Brown said. The moment that these words, prompted by an inalienable Scotch hospitality, whose promptings are sometimes less than prudent, had left her lips, she reddened suddenly, and cast an alarmed look at Marion, who, for her part, was still standing contemplating her father, with a look in which a little defiance was concealed under a good deal of curiosity. The girl was considering how to approach and mollify this unknown parent, who, after all, was papa, the giver of all things, and upon whom was dependent the comfort, not to say grandeur, of life to come. It was a pity she had spoken so unadvisedly about his wife, but that, after all, was his own fault. Marion had some experience in novels, which supply so many precedents to the ignorant and young, and knew what a meeting between a father and his children ought to be. He ought to have taken them into his paternal arms. She, the girl, ought to have thrown herself upon his bosom in tears and rapture. He ought to have lifted his eyes to the skies or the ceiling, and have said: “Just like this was her mother when I saw her first!” None of these things had been done, and the girl was a little at fault. To look at his back as he stood at the window, evidently out of temper, discouraged and discouraging, was a thing that suggested no kind of original procedure to her mind. And she was consequently of no manner of comfort to her anxious aunt, who had instantly remembered that the midday dinner of the family was nothing but hotch-potch. And how was she to set down a rich man, who fared sumptuously every day, to a dinner of hotch-potch? Marion’s mind was occupied with much more important things. How was she to do away with the disadvantages of that first introduction, and make herself agreeable to papa? A girl in a novel, she began to think, would steal up to him and put her arm through his, where he stood looking out into the elderberry tree, and lean her head upon his shoulder, and perhaps say “Dear papa!” But Marion’s courage was not quite equal to that. As for Archie, he simply stood still and stared, too completely taken by surprise to make any movement whatever, contemplating his father’s back with unspoken disappointment and dismay.
“Weel,” said Mrs. Brown, after waiting in vain for a response, seizing dexterously the opportunity of escape; “I’ll just leave ye to make acquaintance with one another, for I have things to see to in the house; and Marion, you’ll just see that your papa has a glass of wine, for the dinner, as you’re aware, is no till two o’clock. I’ll send in the girl with the tray—she ought to have been here before now—and I’ll leave you two to entertain your papaw.”
Then there followed another rustling of the silken gown, and tinkle of the long gold chain, with its bunch of breloques, after which came another tinkle, that of glasses, as “the girl” brought in a tray with two decanters, a large plate of shortbread, and one of another kind of cake. The wax flowers had to be lifted from the centre of the table to make room for this, and the process occupied a little time and a good deal of commotion, of which Rowland was conscious with increasing irritation and annoyance. He began to feel, however, that the position was ridiculous, and that to stand at the window, with his back to the other occupants of the room, was certainly not to make the best of the situation in any way. He turned round accordingly, and threw himself into a chair, which rocked under him. The strangeness alike and familiarity of the scene were more bewildering to him than words could say. Mrs. Brown, in the wealth which he had supplied, had done all she could to be genteel, poor woman, according to her lights. The tray with the port and sherry was her best rendering of what a proper reception ought to be. In the foundry days it would no doubt have been a little whiskey and a bit of oatcake. The instinct was the same, but, according to all the good woman knew, this was the most lofty and cultured way of setting it forth.
“Will you take port wine or sherry wine, papa?” Marion said.
“I will take nothing, thank you. Shut the door, I beg. I want to speak to you, my dear.” He turned towards her, but his look stopped short at Archie—at Archie, the loutish lad whose lowering forehead was bent, over his mother’s honest blue eyes.
“I did wrong not to tell you at once who I was. I suppose I had some absurd idea that you might recognise me. To make up for this, I’ll forget all the foolish things you have said about my wife. As they arise from simple ignorance, and you have had unfortunately no acquaintance with ladies, I’ll look over all that, and well begin square.”
Marion listened, standing with the decanter in her hand. “Will you really take nothing, papa; not a little sherry to keep you going till dinner-time?” she said.
“My Aunt,” said Archie, “is a very good woman; she has been everything that is kind to us, and my own mother’s sister—more than the grandest lady in the land. If she is not a lady, neither was my mother, I suppose?”
“Your mother was—like nobody else, nor to be compared with anybody else,” said Rowland hastily. “But you are quite right to stand up for your aunt. I don’t doubt she has been very kind to you.”
“Oh,” said Marion, turning her head, “no more than was just her duty, papa. We’ve done a great deal for her. There is just as much to be said on the one side as the other. You can take a piece of shortbread, Archie, and a wee drop of the sherry wine will do you good.”
The lad pushed her hand away somewhat rudely. “I wish,” he said, “you wouldn’t interrupt what papaw says.”
The girl broke off a little piece of the cake for herself. She poured out a little of the port and sipped it. “Aunty will be vexed if she thinks it hasn’t been touched,” she said, munching and sipping. Rowland turned his look from her to that pair of blue eyes which were like his Mary’s. They were the only comfort he had in the strange circumstances. He addressed himself to them as to something in which there was understanding in this uncongenial place.
“I am afraid, my boy,” he said gently, “that we’ve all been wrong. I first for forgetting that you were growing into a man. It was only my wife’s enquiries, anxious as she was to hear everything about you, that showed me my dreadful mistake in this respect. And your aunt has been wrong, which was very excusable on her part, in forgetting that your bringing up, for the position you are likely to have, should have been different. Where have you been at school?”
“I’ve been at a very good school,” said Archie; “it’s no fault of the school. I’ve maybe been a little idle. Aunty always said—that is, I thought, as there was plenty of money, what was the use of being a galley slave. So I just got through.”
“And what is the use,” said Marion, “of toiling like the lads that have to go up for exams, when you are such a rich man, papa, and he will never need to work for his living. It’s always a nice thing to get grand prizes; but he was not going in for anything, and what for should he have risked his health, that was of far more consequence?”
“Let’s alone, May. I was maybe wrong, but that was my own opinion, papaw.”
“Don’t say papa,” said Rowland, glad to give vent to a little of the intolerable impatience that possessed him. “Call me father. You talk about exams, and working for your living. Do you know what a young man of the upper classes, far better than you, is doing at your age?—I don’t mean the fops and the fools—I hope,” he said with some vehemence; “a son of mine will never be either the one or the other. Do you know what they do? They work in their colleges till they are older than you, or they go and travel, or they’re away with their regiment. There are idle ones, but they are no credit, any more than an idle working lad is a credit. Are you doing anything, boy?”
Archie’s countenance fell a little. “I’m in two or three debating societies,” he said; “there’s a great many students in them. We have very good debates. I’ve read a paper twice; on the Scotch question and about local government.”
“What’s the Scotch question?” said Mr. Rowland; but like other careless inquirers, he did not wait for an answer. “At your age,” he said, “you are better employed learning than teaching, in my opinion.”
“Oh, papa,” said Marion, who had finished her cake and her wine, “it’s not teaching! He doesn’t get anything for it. He subscribes to keep up the society. It’s quite a thing a gentleman might do.”
“Hold your tongue, May!” said her brother.
“Quite a thing a gentleman might do!—and he is not a gentleman, but only a wealthy engineer’s son,” said Rowland with a sudden flash of mortified pride. The boy in his badly-cut clothes filled him with an exasperation not less keen that it was mingled with tenderness for his mother’s eyes, and the ingenuous expression in his own countenance. “I’ve been a fool!” he said; “I thought, I suppose, that you would take my rise in life like nature, and start from where I ended. I hoped you would turn out like—the lads I’ve been accustomed to see. How should you? They all started from gentlemen’s houses, and had it in their vein from their birth.”
His two children stood opposite to him listening to this tirade, which they only half heard and did not half understand. They were quite bewildered by his heat and vehemence and apparent displeasure. What was it that made him angry? Marion thought that her brother was very like a gentleman, and he thought that she was very like a lady. It was the utmost length of their ambition. The MacColls, whose father had the splendid shop in Buchanan Street, were not so like ladies as May, though they had a carriage with a pair of ponies. And as for Archie, he was of opinion that he was himself one of those manly and independent thinkers, whose mission it was to pull down the aristocrats, and to abolish caste wherever it might appear.
Mr. Rowland took another turn to the window, and wiped his forehead and came back to his chair. He was very anxious to subdue himself, since the defects of the two young people were not their fault, nor were they at all likely to be cured in this way. He tried even to put on a smile as he said to Marion, “And what are you doing with yourself?”
“Oh,” said the girl, “I’m just like Archie. I am doing nothing to speak of. Aunty has always said it was not necessary, and there is very little to do. It’s no profit making our things at home, for you can buy them cheaper in the shops. At first Aunty used to make Archie’s shirts, but they never fitted him, and it was no saving. So I just fiddle about and plague everybody, Aunty says.”
“And who are the people you plague?” said her father.
“Oh!” The young lady hung her head a little and blushed and laughed. “Well! there’s Archie and Aunty first of all; and then there’s Archie’s Debating Boys, as we call them; and the Philosophers—fine philosophers to be so minding what a lassie says!” She laughed again consciously. “I am sure I never say a word to them but nonsense,” she cried.
Mr. Rowland drew a long sigh out of the bottom of his heart. He had not thought much of the young ladies at the Station, the General’s daughters and the others; but Marion, as she stood with her head down and that foolish laugh, conscious of her effect upon the Philosophers, and proud of it, was still another species less honourable to womankind. What Evelyn would say! flashed across his brain like an arrow. But it was not her fault, poor thing; and he could not mend it. It was his duty, at least, as her father, to bear with her, to find no fault. For, after all, this was the natural outlet for a girl who had no other interests in her life.
“You must have,” he said, “a little sense to talk to me now and then, for I am past the time for nonsense. There is nobody,” he added with a little hesitation, “who will teach you that better than my wife.”
“Oh!” said Marion; then she raised her eyes quickly, “she will be awfully clever, and know everything—for wasn’t she a governess when you were married to her, papa?”
“No, she was not a governess,” he said quickly. “That is a delusion which you seem to have got into your minds. Let me hear no more of it. She was a Miss Ferrars, of Langley Ferrars, one of the oldest families in England—as different from me in origin as she is superior to me in every quality. If you were in the very least like her, I should hope one day to be proud of you, Marion. But you will have to get rid of a great many defects first.”
Marion made a little moue which was not unnatural. It was of course a very unwise speech on her father’s part—but it is difficult under such exasperation to be always wise. She felt it, however, more prudent to take no notice, but to do her best to find out what were his intentions; which was a matter of the utmost importance to all.
“If you please, papa, are we going to live on here with Aunty?” she asked.
The question gave him a startling sensation of relief: was it possible that this might be done? Would it not be kinder to leave them in the life to which they were accustomed? Poor Jane would probably break her heart if her children were taken away. They were more her children than his, he reflected; and money was no object. He could arrange their income so as to give Archie the freedom of a young man, without obliging the poor boy to qualify himself suddenly for the rarified atmosphere of Rosmore. This calculation passed through Rowland’s mind with the speed of light. What a happy untying of the knot would it be! He would not require to saddle himself with the discomfort and disappointment which probably would result from any attempt to prepare them for Rosmore. And they would not like Rosmore. It would be dull for them. No debating societies or philosophers’ clubs to enliven their evenings. And the arrangements of the house would be so different. Oh, if he could but solve the question that was before him in that easy way!
But then there occurred to him—the person who would suffer most, the one and only person who would oppose any such compromise with his duty—Evelyn! He dared not appear before her with the information that he had left his children behind because it was their original sphere, because they would be no credit, an impracticable pair. He could imagine the look with which she would listen, the astonishment in her face. As likely as not she would get her bonnet at once, and, before he could stop, set out to fetch them home. That was the sort of thing she would do. She would have no evasion, not even that about breaking their aunt’s heart. In that case, she was capable of suggesting that the aunt should be brought to Rosmore, but not that the responsibility of the children should be shuffled off. What a world of thoughts can be disposed of in a minute or two! This whole course of argument, question and reply, ran through his mind while Marion’s short question was being put, and before he could make up his mind what to say in reply. He played with it for a moment, still keeping that blissful possibility before him—“What would you like best?” he asked.
The girl and the boy looked at each other—they too had a multitudinous flood running through their minds, rushing like a mill race. They had an agreeable life enough so far as their instincts went: nothing to do—which, being on the very edge of the world that has to work hard for its living, and does not like it, was delightful to them, just as work is delightful to those whom nature provides with nothing to do. But then they were tired of this life all the same, as most people are, if the possibility of a fundamental change is put before them. And though they were rather afraid of their father, and what he might require from them, the excitement of the change to a great house, horses and carriages, and all the splendour they had dreamt of was a strong counterbalance. They did not take Aunty Jane’s heart much into consideration: and it would certainly be a terrible break-down from the vague future of glory before them, which all their friends believed in, did they step back into the monotony of Sauchiehall Road and the guardianship of Aunty Jane. They consulted each other with their eyes, and then Marion replied, “We would rather be with you, papa.”
“It is with me you ought to be,” said Rowland, with a sigh. “I have taken a house down the Clyde, which you may have seen if you have ever been down that way. You see it from the water as you come across. It is called Rosmore——”
“Rosmore!” they both said with bated breath.
“You know the place? It is a place I’ve always wanted since I was a lad like Archie. I used to stand on the deck and glance at it, but never said a word to anybody. That’s where I am going to live.”
“For a little while—for the salt water?” said they.
“For altogether; for as many years, I hope, as I live.”
“Oh!” they said again together, looking at each other. Rosmore was far more splendid than anything they had imagined. They had been with their aunt down to a cottage on the peninsula for the benefit of what Mrs. Brown picturesquely called “the salt water,” i.e., the sea-bathing: so they knew something of what it was. It was very grand, but perhaps a little oppressive to imaginations accustomed only to the cottage. Their eyes, looking at each other, had a question in them. They were overawed, but a little frightened too.
“I suppose—there will be a carriage, or a gig, or something. It is a long, long way up from the pier.”
“There will, I hope, be carriages enough for anything that is required, and horses to ride, and most things that may be found necessary. Archie, I hope,” said the father, unconsciously replying to Marion, “can ride?”
At this the boy burst into a great laugh. “I do not know, for I never did try,” he half sang, half said, with a big voice, inclining to be bass, but uncertain yet. His face grew red and his eyes shone. He communicated his pleasure to his sister by a look, but this time she did not respond.
“And I——” she said, with a contraction of her soft girlish forehead, “will have to bide at home.”
“No,” said Rowland, feeling at last a little pleasure in the idea of changing so entirely the lives of his children, and surrounding them with every good thing, “you will find plenty of pleasant things to do. But,” he added, pausing, “what will become of the poor Aunt Jane if I take you both away?”
They looked at each other again, and repeated in different tones the same “Oh!” Marion uttered that exclamation with a toss of her head, and a tone of indifference. “Aunty has made plenty out of us,” she said.
Archie here, for the first time, took the words out of her mouth. “She has aye expected it,” he said. “It would vex her more if you didn’t take us.”
“Are you sure of that? She has been like a mother to you.”
“But mothers expect,” said Archie, “that their families should go away.”
Marion shrugged her little shoulders. “She’ll be free then to go to the saut water or wherever she likes,” she said, “and not say she is doing this or doing that, not for herself, but for him and me.”
“Then you are not sorry to leave her solitary?” said Rowland.
They consulted each other again with their eyes, with a sort of frank surprise at the question. “Oh, she’ll have her friends,” said Marion; and she added, “It could never be thought that we would stay here with her, when our papa had come and was wanting us, and a grand house and horses and carriages. That’s very different from Sauchiehall Road.”
Archie looked as if he saw something more in the question—but he did not say anything. He was slow of expression, and perhaps not even so nimble of thought as his sister. He looked, however, a little wistfully at his father, studying his countenance.
“And what will become of her?” Rowland said.
“Oh, she will just bide on,” said Marion; “she has always expected it. She has her friends. There’s the church quite near, and she’ll go to all the prayer meetings. She aye says she has no time as long as we’re here, but that when we’re away, she will go to them, every one. But I think she’ll change her mind,” said the girl with a laugh, “and go out to her tea.”
Archie had caught his father’s eye, and was much confused. “It’ll not be any the worse for her?” he said.
Before the question could be answered, Mrs. Brown came in, a little flushed but beaming. “The dinner is just ready,” she said. “Bairns, did I not tell you to take up your papaw to the drawing-room till the cloth was laid. And you’ll be hungry, Jims, just off your journey.” She spoke as if she supposed him to have come straight from India without any chance of a meal upon the way.
The dinner was a curious mixture of what was excellent and what was bad. The hotch-potch, for which Mrs. Brown apologised, was excellent. It is a soup made with lamb and all the fresh young vegetables, which, in the characteristic Scotch cuisine, supplies the place in summer of the admirable broth. Rowland had never tasted anything better; but it was followed by what Mrs. Brown called a “made dish,” which was as bad as the other was excellent, but of which the good woman was very proud. “You see my hand has no forgotten its cunning,” she said, with a smirk across the table; and Rowland then recollected with dismay that in the distant ages, almost beyond his own recollection, Jane, his wife’s elder sister, had exercised the craft of a cook.
“Weel,” she said, after the meal, herself taking him upstairs to the glories of the drawing-room, “you’re satisfied? you would be ill to please if you were not, with these two bonnie bairns. And just as good as they are bonnie—Archie as steady as a rock, aye in to the minnint, though thae student lads are no that careful. Eh, Jims, what a pleasure it would have been to my poor sister to have seen them grown up like that.”
This softened, even while it exasperated Rowland—for no doubt poor Mary’s imagination, like her sister’s, could have gone no further than the pert intelligence of Marion and the steadiness of her boy. “I should have liked better if they had been kept to some occupation,” he said, “not suffered to lead useless lives.”
“Eh!” said the aunt in astonishment, “useless! but what would ye have them to be, and you a rich man? You wouldna have had me bring them up like a puir body’s bairns? They are just as well conditioned as can be, bidable, and pleased with what’s set before them. I’ve had no trouble with them: they will never have given me a sore heart but when they’re taken from me—Oh, I’m no saying a word! It’s your right and it’s your duty too. They maun go, and I’ve aye counted upon it—and God’s blessing’ll go with them. They’ve never given me a sleepless night nor a day’s trouble. Oh, man, be thankful! There’s no mony that can say as much. The first sore heart they’ll give me is when they go away.”
The good woman sat down upon one of the many gilded and decorated chairs of which she was so proud, and put her handkerchief over her face as she might have done the apron which she was no longer happy enough to wear, and lifted up her voice and wept: “My hoose will be left to me desolate,” she said, “me that has been, though with none of my ain, a joyful mother of children. But I’ll no say a word. It’s just what I’ve known would happen this many and many a year. And it’s my pride and pleasure to think that I give them back to you, everything that two good bairns should be.”
Rowland was silenced once and for all. He had not a word to say to the woman thus deeply conscious of having fulfilled her trust. There was something pathetic in the thought that the two children who were so unsatisfactory, so disappointing and incomplete to him were to this kind woman the highest achievement of careful training, everything that boy and girl could be, and that their mother would have been of the same opinion had she lived to see this day.