MR. ROWLAND, when his children left him, was left with a very uncomfortable prick of thought, a sort of thorn lacerating the skin, so to speak, of his mind. The suggestion which had been thrown at him as the Spanish bullfighters throw their ornamented darts, stuck as they do, and kept up an irritating smart, though it was not, he said, to himself of the least importance. No society! He came out to the colonnade in the intervals of his anxious work of supervision, and looked round him wistfully. He walked indeed all round the house, looking out in every direction. Towards the west there were visible, by glimpses among the trees, some houses of the village of Kilrossie, a high roof or two, and the white spire of the newly built church; to the east, on the other side of the loch, another village-town extended along the edge of the gleaming water, shining in the sunshine. Plenty of human habitations, fellow-creatures on every side: but society! Wealth has a very curious effect upon the mind in this respect. The people who came to the handsome houses at Kilrossie for the bathing season were many of them much superior to James Rowland in birth and education, and quite equal to him in intelligence, except in his own particular sphere; yet this man who had been only a man in a foundry when those good people were enjoying the advantages of the saut water, and all the luxuries of comparative wealth, would now have felt himself humiliated had he been obliged to accept the society of the good people at Kilrossie as all he might hope to attain. Their neighbourhood was rather a trouble than an enlivenment to his mental vision. And the county people, who had their “places” scattered about at intervals, were in many cases neither so well off, nor so intelligent as these: and they would look down upon the railway man, while the others would regard him with respect. There was no possibility of doubt as to which of the two he would be most comfortable with. And yet he slurred them over cursorily as if they were not there, and sighed into the sweet vacant air which contained no loftier indication of society. How proud he would have been to have known the Kilrossie people fifteen years ago—how it would have elated him to be asked under their roof! and now their presence irritated him as a set of imposters who perhaps would thrust themselves upon him in the guise of society: that was not the society for which he cared.
The prick of the banderilla discharged by Marion’s trifling little hand was in him all day: and in the afternoon when he had done everything he could, and given all his orders about the arrangement of the furniture, he too went out to take a walk and to spy out the nakedness of the land. He did not go into the woods as his children had done, nor would the dogs have had any charm for him. He went down to the village, where there certainly was no society except in the one house which held modest sway over the cluster of whitewashed and red-tiled cottages—the manse, where the minister represented, if not the wealthier yet the educated portion of the community, and might at least furnish information, if nothing else, as to the prospects and possibilities of the place. In spite of himself Rowland’s discouragement reflected itself in his countenance, making him, as so often happens, look angry and discontented. There was something even in the way in which his heel spurned the gravel, making it fly behind him, which betrayed the unsatisfied state of his mind. He had scarcely emerged from his own gate when he met the minister in person, who turned with him and walked along the country road by his side with great complaisance, partly because he was glad to meet any one on that not much frequented road, and partly because it was a good thing to make a friend of the inhabitant of “The House.” The shower which had caught Marion and Archie at Rankin’s cottage, made the two gentlemen pause for a few moments but no more under the shade of an overhanging tree. A shower is too common a thing in that country to disturb any one. It discharged its harmless volley, and then cleared away with rapidity as if the sportive angel who had that brief job in hand was glad on the whole to get it over; which is very often the way with the sky officials in that particular in the west of Scotland. The cloud blew away in a second, dispersing what was left of it in floating rags of white, which fled towards the hills, leaving the sky radiant over Peterston on the other side of the loch, and the loch itself as blue, reflecting the sky, as was that capricious firmament itself—for the moment. The road ran inland, with fields of wheat between it and the margin of the shining water, beyond which rose the low banks of the loch, and further off a background of mountains. If it was not quite equal to the great “view” of Rosmore House, this prospect was at least very fine, soft and clear, in all the harmony of a blueness and whiteness such as a rainy climate confers; and Mr. Rowland too, like his daughter, was comforted by the singing of the birds, which all burst forth again with unusual energy after the subduing influence of the shower. He said, “It is certainly a beautiful place,” as he paused for a moment to look over the green field at the little steamers which seemed to hang suspended in the beatific air, one on the surface of the water, one reflected below.
“Yes, it is a lovely place,” said the minister with a sigh.
He was a middle-aged man dressed in careful clerical fashion like an Anglican priest—a costume new and rather distressing to Rowland, no such thing having been thought of in his early days before he left Scotland. At that period a white tie (or neckcloth, to use the proper phraseology) rather limp, and a black coat often shabby, were all that were thought of as necessary. But Mr. Dean, which was the name of the minister of Rosmore, liked to be called a clergyman rather than a minister, and would not at all have objected to hold the ecclesiastical rank which is denoted by his name. He was of the new school. He had a harmonium in his church, and a choir which chanted the psalms. He was very advanced, and his wife still more so. He shook his head a little as he made this reply. Yes, it was a lovely place—but—this latter word was inferred and not said.
“I want to ask you,” said Rowland, by no means reassured by this, “about the society.”
Mr. Dean now shrugged his shoulders a little. “You have perhaps heard of the chapter about snakes in Ireland,” he said.
“I have always understood there weren’t any.” It is a very unjustifiable thing to cut in this way a quotation out of another person’s mouth. Mr. Dean was a little disconcerted, as was natural. “Well,” he said, “that’s just the thing, there is none. I answer the same to your question: there is no society. I hope that Chamberlayne did not bring you here on false pretences.”
“I cannot remember that I asked him anything about it, nor would it have made any difference if I had. Society or not, it’s always this place I’ve set my heart upon. But what do you do and the other people in the place?”
“Well,” said Mr. Dean, with a glance at his companion’s face, “the House, as we all call it, has been our great resource. Lady Jean—you must hear her quoted everywhere, and, I dare say, are sick of her name.”
“No; I have not heard her quoted.” He remembered that he had not cared anything about it, who was quoted, his whole heart being fixed upon the house.
“She’s very good company,” said the minister. “She was always our resource. And sometimes the Earl was here. I don’t want to speak evil of dignities, but his lordship was perhaps less of an acquisition. And they had visitors from time to time. That’s the great thing,” Mr. Dean added with perhaps just a touch of condescension to the simplicity of the millionaire, “in the country. You just fill the house, and one amuses the other. My wife and I have seen a great many interesting people in that way, which was a little compensation to us for being buried here. You will come in and take a cup of tea. This is the nearest way.”
The Manse garden was on the slope of the hillside, but the Manse itself was tucked in below, in what was supposed to be a sheltered position, out of the way of all sunshine, or other impertinent invasions. It surprised Mr. Rowland to see several pony carriages about, and to hear a noise of talk coming out into the garden all perfumed with sweetpeas and roses. He looked at the minister with an inquiring air.
“Oh, I don’t call this society,” said Mr. Dean, “though perhaps you will be of a different opinion,” he added. He was a little supercilious in his tone to the railway man, who was a rich person and no more; not that the minister had any inclination to break any tie that might be formed with “the House.” He was not himself fond of tea parties, and his expression had made it plain that dinners were chiefly to be found, if anywhere, at Rosmore.
“I have inveigled Mr. Rowland in for a cup of tea. I did not know you had guests.”
“Dear me, Henry!” said Mrs. Dean; “of course you knew. It’s my day: everybody in the parish knows, if you don’t. But I am very glad to see Mr. Rowland; he has just come at the very nick of time. I was saying to Mrs. Wedderburn, so much depends on who is at the House.”
“It is just the centre of everything,” said a fat lady who was thus referred to. She gave Mr. Rowland a little bow, half rising from her chair. “We all defer to the House,” she added with an ingratiating smile to which Rowland answered as best he could with a bow which was as deferential as hers was condescending. There were a dozen of people or more in the room, which was not very large, and hot with the fumes of tea. There were two or three matronly persons like Mrs. Wedderburn, and a few who were younger, and two men who were making themselves useful and handing the tea and the cake. There were also some queerly dressed, middle-aged ladies, of the class to which Scotch society owes so much, the rural single woman, individual and strong-minded: and there were some with a great air of fashion and the consciousness of fine clothes. These last Rowland set down, and justly, as sea-bathers from Kilrossie. One of the others was the minister’s wife from the next parish, also unmistakeable. His name caused a little rustle of interest among them, as he made his bow all round.
“I’m sure you’re very welcome among us,” said another lady rising up from the window where she sat. “Since we cannot have our dear Lady Jean, we’re well content to have a tenant that is creditable and a well-known name. You are just new from India, and our climate will be a great change to ye, at least for the first.”
“Oh, I am well accustomed to the climate,” said Rowland. “I don’t think that will trouble me much.”
“You’re really then a west-country man to begin with? so we’ve heard; but Mrs. Rowland, I’m afraid, will not be so used to it. Nor perhaps your young folk. You’ll think me bold,” added his interrogator, “but we hear there are young folk?”
“My wife is not Scotch,” said Rowland; “but the difference between Rosmore and an English county is not so very great.” He longed to say who she was—one of the oldest families—but the same pride which suggested this statement held him back.
“Oh,” said the ladies, two or three together; and then Mrs. Dean, bringing him his cup of tea, took up the parole.
“You’ll soon learn the weakness of a country neighbourhood, Mr. Rowland. We never rest till we’re at the bottom of everything. We had heard it was a lady from India that was to be the mistress of ‘the Hoose.’”
And now his opportunity arrived. “I will give you all the information in my power,” he said smiling. “My wife was a Miss Ferrars of Langley Ferrars, a very old family—Leicestershire people. She is a lady from India just as I am a man from India. We arrived about a fortnight ago. Is there anything else I can satisfy the ladies about?”
He knew of old that there was no such way of discomfiting the curious as to proclaim your own story, whatever it might be. And he had recovered his spirit, which Marion and Archie had subdued. Society at the station had endeavoured to keep him in his place, but in vain. Even the attachés and aid-de-camps had not been able to manage that. He was a little amused at the thought of this little rural tea party questioning him, sitting upon his claims to be considered one of them.—One of them! His suppressed sense of the absurdity of this gave a gleam of mischief to his eyes, and quite restored him to his own self-opinion, which had been so rudely interfered with of late. He stood with his back to the fireplace, which, even when there is no fire, is a commanding attitude for a man, and regarded them all with a smile.
“We are all looking forward to calling,” said fat Mrs. Wedderburn, who did not like the trouble of much talking, yet evidently felt that it lay with her to inaugurate every subject.
“That we are,” said his other questioner, who was called Miss Eliza by the other ladies. “I’m just a very pushing person, and ye’ll excuse me. Is it true, Mr. Rowland, what the folk say, that from a boy ye had set your heart on Rosmore House?”
“Quite true,” he said promptly, “when I seemed to have as much chance of it as of the moon. They say there’s nothing like boding of a golden gown—for you see there I am—”
“It’s a wonderful encouragement to the young,” said Miss Eliza. “The minister should put it into one of the papers he’s aye writing. Did ye not know that our minister was a leeterary character? Oh, that he is! and a real prop to the constitution; for though he may not be always so in the pulpit, he’s real sound in politics—that’s what I always say.”
“Miss Eliza,” said the other clergyman, “you must not raise a fama about a reverend brother. We’re all sound till we’re proved otherwise, and Presbytery proceedings are against the spirit of the time.”
“Oh,” said Miss Eliza, “Mr. Dean knows well what I think. There’s no man I like so well to hear, but his views are whiles very papistical. He would just like to be the bishop and more. He’s no sound for Presbytery. He would like vestments and that kind of thing, and incense, perhaps, for anything I can tell. I would not wonder but he would put on a white surplice, if that is what they call it, if he could get one over his decent black gown.”
“I was an Episcopalian before I married Mr. Wedderburn,” said the fat lady. “I do not regret it, for Mr. Dean knows we are all uncommonly well pleased with him. And a surplice would become him very well.”
“It’s a very becoming thing,” said another of the ladies. “We’re very glad to come to hear Mr. Dean, but we’re all Episcopalians when we’re at home.”
“It’s the fashion,” said Mrs. Wedderburn, folding her fat hands.
“I’ve no desire to enter into that question. I’m saying nothing but that the minister is no very sound on certain points. I’ve said it to his face, and he just laughs, as you see. But, bless me! this conversation has wandered far from where it began, for I was asking Mr. Rowland, in the interests of all the nieces and the nephews, whether he had not, as we’ve been informed, some young folk.”
Rowland had dropped out of the talk a little, and had forgotten that he was being cross-examined. He woke up suddenly at this question with a start. The lingering smile disappeared from his mouth. He put up shutters at all his windows, so to speak. The light went out in his eyes. “Yes,” he said in a voice which he felt to be as dull as his countenance was blank; “I have a son and a daughter.”
“That was just what I heard,” said Miss Eliza with triumph. “We have usually some young folk staying with us up at the Burn. My sister and me, we are overrun with nieces and nephews. It’s just a plague. There is scarcely a boat but brings one at the least. I hope your two will come and see them. There is aye something going on; a game at that tennis, or whatever they call it, or a party on the water, or a climb up the hills. If they will just not stand upon ceremony, but come any day——”
“When they are here,” said Rowland stolidly; “as yet they are not here. The house will not be ready for a week or more.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. We thought—there were so many waggons coming and going, and the dog-cart out at the pier.”
“I hope you don’t think,” he said, “that I would take home my wife either in a waggon or a dog-cart?”
The ladies looked at each other, and there came a faint “oh!” that universal British interjection which answers to every emergency—from some unidentified person. But a sort of awe stole over the party. Who was this lady that could not be taken home in a dog-cart? Lady Jean had been driven from the pier in a dog-cart many and many a day. Did the woman who had married this foundry lad from Glesco, this railway man, that had made his fortune in India, did she think herself better than Lady Jean?
Mr. Rowland walked away through his own woods, much amused by this incident generally. They were not his own woods: they were the Earl’s woods, which was a reflection very unpleasant to him. If money could smooth over the difficulty, they should be his own woods still before he was done with them; and in the meantime he had a long lease, and a strong determination to call them his own. He looked at every tree, and put a mental mark upon it, to prove to himself that he was right. There was a great silver fir, an unusually fine tree, near the gates, at which he paused, saying to himself, “this is not mine,” with an assumption that all the rest were, which was strange in such a sensible man; but his mind had a little twist in it so far as Rosmore was concerned. He smiled at the little society of the place with a sense of superiority, at which they would have been extremely indignant. The Miss Elizas of the peninsula were nothing to him, and their gracious intention of calling upon his wife, gave him such a feeling of the ridiculous, that he laughed aloud as he went on. Call upon Evelyn! Mr. Rowland had perhaps as exaggerated an idea of Evelyn’s claims as the village people had a humble one. They had heard that she was a governess whom he had picked up in India; and he was of opinion that she was a very high-born lady, as good as the Queen. He chuckled to himself as he realised how she would look amid the ladies who came to Kilrossie for the sea-bathing, and the ladies of the parish: Miss Eliza with her big rusty hat and shawl, and the two ministers’ wives. Evelyn with the look of a princess, and her beautiful dresses, that were like nothing else in the world, which her mere putting them on gave the air of royal robes to! This was his way of looking at the matter, which probably would not have been at all the way of the county ladies, who had a general idea what was the fashion, though they did not take the trouble to adopt it. But to Mr. Rowland whatever Evelyn wore was the fashion, and it was she, he felt, who ought to be everybody’s model, to dress after, as far as it was in vain flesh and blood to follow such an ideal. Lady Jean herself would be but a rural dowdy in presence of Evelyn. He thought of the impression she would make. The startled “oh!” of wonder which would burst from all their lips when she was first seen. It would be something altogether new to them to see such a lady! It restored him to his natural spirits and self-confidence to think of this; indeed, his pride in his wife was the very apex of Rowland’s self-esteem and proud sense of having acquired everything that man could hope to acquire, and all by his own exertions and good judgment. He reflected to himself with satisfaction that he had owed nothing to anybody; that it was all his own doing, not only his success in life, i. e., the fortune he had made, but all those still more dazzling successes, which he could not have got had not the fortune been made. Nobody, for instance, had ever suggested Rosmore to him: no benevolent teacher, or other guide of youth, had pointed out to him the house with the white colonnade as an inspiring object and stimulus to ambition. Himself alone had been his counsellor. Nor had anybody indicated to him at the Station the pale and graceful woman who was Mrs. Stanhope’s dependent and poor friend. He had for himself found out and chosen both the wife and the house. This triumphant thought returning to his mind wiped out the impression of the morning, and even the recollection that he had gone out to hunt for society, and had—found it! He remembered this a little later with a sense that it was the best joke in the world. He had found it! Mrs. Dean had a “day,” as if she lived in a novel or Mayfair; and the neighbouring gentry and the sea-bathers, when they came in force, elated her soul as if they had been all out of the peerage. He wondered, with a laugh to himself, what Evelyn would say to Miss Eliza and the fat Mrs. Wedderburn, and went back to Rosmore in high glee, really oblivious for a time of the two “difficulties,” the irreconcilable portion of his new life, whom he had left there.