THIS sudden glimpse into her husband’s deeper nature which it was so easy to lose sight of in his genial and easy exterior, touched Evelyn more than words could say. She entered into his profound discontent with the tenderest sympathy, a little appalled by it indeed, and by the prospect of struggling in her own person with the two grown-up children, who were so much more difficult a problem at the age they had now reached than had they been younger. She contemplated the prospect with no little dismay. The words of his faltering disclosure, “little, common, foolish,” were of all others the words most difficult to reconcile with any higher or generous quality. The only thing that seemed to have broken the shock to James was that the boy had his mother’s eyes. But what, Evelyn said to herself with a little shudder, would the mother herself have appeared to Rowland now, if she had been living all these years stagnant in their old world, growing fat and prosaic, while he had gained so many new experiences? And how much might his disappointment have to do with herself, and that faculty of seeing things through other eyes which comes with sympathy and close intercourse. He might not have required so much from his little Marion, poor child, if it had not been for Evelyn. So much the greater, then, was her responsibility who had accustomed him to a different standard, and so unintentionally brought to him an acute pang. Evelyn said to herself that, however desillusioné her husband might be, she must try to keep a motherly glamour in her own eyes. She must endeavour to suffer long and be kind, to think no evil—neither to be disgusted nor discouraged. It was perhaps partly her fault. She must take it upon her own shoulders and refuse to see anything that was undesirable to be seen. But it was very difficult for her to form any just idea of what was the special trouble which she had to expect—even of how the littleness and commonness would show themselves. She thought of a wild girl speaking broad Scotch, a young man with sinewy limbs, and perhaps (forgive her ignorance) a kilt, speaking the language which in books is put into the lips of the Celt. They were not Celts, she knew, and Glasgow was not a place for gillies and wild Highlanders. But of the gillies and wild Highlanders she did know a little, though of Glasgow, nothing, no more than if it had been in the South Seas. She tried to compose the imagination which painted a highly coloured tableau, full of red hair and freckles, and a wonderful primitive speech. Always, she felt she must recollect, James might have judged them less severely but for herself, though she in her own person would be the last to throw any cold shade upon them. It is needless to say that this new light shed an illumination that was much less tempting upon the house of which he was so proud, and which her discriminating judgment soon made out, according to the graphic description of Marion, to be chiefly “a view.” She had learned to recognise the imposing object it must be from the Clyde steamer after the description which her husband had given her so often, and from the same source she recognised the corresponding view from the colonnade upon the Clyde and the passing boats. These were the chief things he had told her—and no society, and that unkempt, uncultured two. In her innermost retirement Evelyn shuddered a little at what was before her.
It was not a very pleasant prospect, especially with Rosamond’s clear eyes observing everything in the interior, and carrying back her report to the world. However, all this had to be faced courageously. She had undertaken the burden, and she must fit it to her back. No one could help her with it, nor was it fit that she should desire to elude it. It was henceforward her work in the world, and to comfort her husband in his discontentment; to charm it away; to persuade him that things were better than he thought; and, lastly and chiefly, to make them so, was her occupation, the trust she had received. She did not confess either to him or any one the alarm it gave her. She laughed him quietly out of his depression. “You will see things will arrange themselves,” she said. But it must be confessed that when Evelyn set out, surrounded by every luxury, with a railway director to hand her into a special carriage, and all the officials, great and small, bowing down before the great Indian railway man, she was disposed to think all this honour and glory something like a farce, considering what she was going to. Had she travelled in the simplest way, nobody taking any notice, with the humblest quiet house awaiting her, without these “complications,” how much more light-hearted would she have been! But fortunately James liked the attention of the railway people: a King’s Cross director was an important functionary in his eyes. The inspectors and porters to him were like the regiment to a military man. It was agreeable to have the recognition that he was somebody, that his life had not been spent in vain.
Meanwhile, the news of the approaching arrival had a very great effect in Sauchiehall Road, whither Mr. Rowland had written directing that Marion and Archie should proceed to Rosmore on Tuesday, to be there when he arrived with his wife. “You can go down in the morning,” he wrote, “and tell the housekeeper we shall be at home for dinner. Nothing more than this will be needed, she will know what to do. You can occupy the rooms you preferred when you were at Rosmore with me, but with this reservation, that Mrs. Rowland may make other arrangements when she comes.” This perhaps was not a very judicious way of presenting his wife to his children, but few men are judicious in this particular. He intended that they should understand at once that Evelyn was sovereign mistress of the house.
“Mrs. Rowland,” said Aunty Jane, “and the housekeeper!” her voice sank below her breath in apparent awe, but this was only the cloak of other emotions. “Oh, the ingratitude,” she cried, “of men—though many and many a time has he thankit me for being so good to you bairns, that have been like my ain. And now he has gotten a housekeeper, and never even offered me the place: there is nae gratitude in men.”
“You the place—of the housekeeper? She’s just a servant,” said Marion.
“And what am I but just a servant? I’ve been ane, ye needna deny’t, to you: it’s been aye your pleasure that has been followed, no mine: and I was a servant lass before I was married, and thought no shame. No: I have nane of your silly pride about words. A housekeeper with a good wage and a good house behind her, and the command of all the orders, is a very responsible person. He might at least have given me the offer, and I would have thought it no discredit. It would have been a grand provision for me at my age.”
“I would never have consented,” said Archie, for once taking the first word. “A servant in my father’s house!”
“Nor me,” said Marion, “it’s just out of the question. I would never have spoken to him if he had dared to offer that to you.”
“I would have thought it nae discredit,” said Mrs. Brown. “And ye’ll maybe, with all your pride, tell me what’s to become of me now? It’s little, very little, I have laid away. My heart was aye set on to do ye full justice. A’ my young days ye have had the best of them. I’ve seen many a good place go past me, and even a good man, but I would never gie up my trust; and now ye are going away without a tear in your e’e, or a word in your mouth for your auld aunty—that was just too faithful to you. And I’ll have to take a place somegate for my living. He might have given me the offer at the least.”
“If you think my father will leave you without a provision,” said Archie——
“A provision!” said Marion, more doubtfully, “that’s a great thing—but a little assistance you may be quite sure—and we’ll always come and see you, and bring you anything we can. Aunty, ye need not be taking up time with little things of yours when there’s us to settle about. We must go, as papa says we are to go. Is there anything I will be wanting to wear?”
“We might all die and be buried, and Mey’s first thought would be what she would have to wear!”
“That’s reasonable enough,” said the aunt; “she would want mourning if ony one of the family—but we needna think of that till the time comes. There wouldna be much wanted for me,” she went on, beguiled, however, by the doleful, delightful subject, though it was contrary to her own injunction; “there’s little crape ever wasted on a poor aunty in these days. ‘Oh, it’s no a very near relation—just our aunt,’ they will say, and oot in a’ the colours of the rainbow in six months or less.”
“Aunty Jane,” said Marion, in her calm little voice; “it’s no a funeral we’re thinking of, but to go down to Rosmore on Tuesday to meet papa—and mamma.”
“I wouldna stoop to call her mamma. I would call her just Mrs. Rowland, as he says.”
“I have settled in my mind about that,” said the girl, “but not about my frock. Will I wear that one he bought me at MacColl’s shop? The body’s not made, but Miss Peebles would do it if she got her orders to-night; or I might wear my silk? If you would tell me what you think about that, and just let the other things alone.”
“Ye have nae mair feeling,” protested Mrs. Brown, “than a little cat—as ye are.”
“But a cat has no need to take thought about its dress,” said Marion, philosophically, “and see, I’m wanting to make a good impression. My silk would maybe look too grown up, and trying to be grand; and it’s a very rustling silk, like your red one, aunty. But I notice that very soft silks are the fashion, and white is becoming to me. If the body was made like that one of Janet MacColl’s——”
“With plenty of nice red ribbons——”
“No red ribbons at all,” cried Marion, “but just muslin work, and all white. In white,” she continued, with natural perception, “you cannot go far wrong. I wish I was as easy in my mind about Archie. His trousers are all bags at the knees, and there’s something about his coat—Papa,” said Marion, “is an old gentleman, but there’s something quite different about his coat.”
“I would just imagine sae,” said Mrs. Brown with contempt. “What is he caring about his coat, a man of his age, whereas Archie’s but a young lad! I would buy a pair of lavender gloves, Archie. With all that money in your pocket ye may weel allow yourself a pair of gloves, and Marion too.”
“Oh, I will buy her as many gloves as she likes,” said Archie, with something of the tone of the millionaire—as he felt himself to be. He had the remains of the twenty pounds in his pocket after having got many gratifications out of it, including the dinner to the lads, which had been highly successful, but not very costly, and he was on the whole very well satisfied with himself.
“I canna remember,” said Mrs. Brown, “that ye have offered gloves or onything else, or so much as a flower, to me. But that’s a very different question,” she added, with satirical briskness; “I’m just mysel’ the old glove that ye toss away. It’s done its part, poor thing, but ye’ve nae mair use for it.—Mey, slip the new frock on ye that I may see how it looks, and then you could run to Miss Peebles. If she canna do it, I will just have to cobble it up for you mysel’.”
“I’m going to have no cobbling up,” said Marion decisively. “She must just do it, whether she can or not. She would be very fain to get jobs from Rosmore.”
“Aunty, did ye mean yon—about my never giving ye anything?” said Archie, when May had gone.
“Me, laddie? No, no, I didna mean it. I was just in a girning humour. She doesna see it, and you dinna see it; and maybe I think more than I should about the dirty siller, and how I am to make my living after having been used to owre muckle comfort and ease. But it’s just my life that’s going from me,” cried Mrs. Brown, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. “If I did speak about the housekeeper’s place, it was no for the grand situation nor the wages, nor even the perquisites, it was just that I would have been near my bairns. I would have seen my bairns—them the young lady and the young gentleman, and me the servant woman; but I could have seen them every day, and now the Lord kens if I’ll ever see them mair.”
“Aunty, we’re not savages nor brute beasts: how can ye think ye will never see us mair?”
“My laddie,” she said in her tears; “it’s no only that you’ll be taken from me, but I’ll have to think of mysel’ too. I canna keep up a house like this over my head, nor a servant to do my work. I will have to get lodgers, or take a place, or do something for my bread. I will maybe leave Gleska a’ thegither,” she added in a tone of despair as who should have said leave paradise; “for I have my little pride like other folk, and I wouldna like them that have kent me here, with every comfort about me, to see me taiglin’ after a wheen lodgers, or standing about the register office looking for a place.”
“Aunty Jane, ye cannot for a moment think that my father would leave you like that without a provision. If he does, I will leave him.”
“Oh, Archie, hold your peace; it’s not your part to speak.”
“I will!” cried the boy, flushing red. “I will never go near his grand house. He may do what he likes, he will get nothing out of me. I was just in an awful state of delight when he was coming home,” said Archie; “you know I was. It was the king enjoying his ain again, like the songs. I thought everything in the world was coming right” He turned a little aside and dashed something out of the corner of his eye. “Aunty,” he said in an altered voice, “I will confess to you that I am real disappointed in my father. He’s no the man I expected. He’s like other men, crabbed and thinking of himself. Even when he does a kind thing, as he did about that money, it’s in such a way that you just want to fling it back in his face!”
“Oh dinna say that,” cried Mrs. Brown alarmed; “you mustna say that. He has his ain ways of thinking, but he’s a good father, Archie. Look how he has kept you all your lives with every luxury; he’s grudged you nothing. It was just for me to say what you wanted, and as much as you wanted it was aye ready; never an objection in his mind. Oh, no, no! you must never say that! To turn you against your papaw is the last thing in the world that would please me. Look what he’s done for us a’ for years and years. I always kent it had to stop some time or other. At first I thought when he came hame, we would just all go to him and keep thegither. I didna realise what a grand wealthy gentleman he had grown. I thought of the siller and nothing else. I expected he would be just like what he was in the foundry, but rich, and that’s what I brought you up to expect. It was just a dreadful mistake. I saw it all the moment I set eyes upon him. I just divined it before that when I heard of his new wife. It’s my fault: you’ve not been brought up as ye ought to have been, for I didna understand things, Archie. Now I understand. But oh, my bonnie man, dinna take up a grudge against your papaw! He’s been as kind to me as ever he could be. Now he’s done wi’ me, and I’m no more wanted. I’ve nae claim upon him that he should provide for me, a great, muckle, strong woman, no fifty, quite able to work. But for the Lord’s sake, Archie, whatever you do, dinna you turn on your papaw!”
“Aunty Jane,” said the lad who was half sobbing too, “I think he’s a just man, and, as you say, he has never grudged money. If he provides for you, I’ll give you my word I’ll do justice to him. I’ll listen to no prejudice. I’ll just give him my best attention, and maybe we’ll come to understand one another. But if he doesn’t, God forgive him for it, for I’ll not. I’ll come back here, and I’ll take a situation, and we’ll fend together. You shall have no lodger but me; you’ll be housekeeper to nobody but me. This shall just be the test for him, if he’s the man I thought him or no. And if it’s no, he may search the world for a son: he’ll get none of me!”
“Oh, my ain laddie!” said Mrs. Brown, choked by tears and emotion. She could say nothing more, for at this moment the door opened and Marion entered, wearing the skirt of the pretty dress which her father had allowed her to buy at Mr. MacColl’s splendid shop. The stuff intended to make the “body” was wound round her shoulders. She resembled exceedingly one of the figures which make so fine an appearance in the shops. It was an ideal which would certainly have satisfied her highest desires. She was too much absorbed to notice the emotion of the others. “You see,” she said as she came in, “the skirt is very nice and wants no altering. It is just my length, which is a providence. I think this is far better than my silk.”
Mrs. Brown awakening to a new interest, got up and walked round her, inspecting the garment closely. Perhaps she was glad of the occasion of concluding an interview which was agitating to both; but the attraction of the half-made dress would have been a great one in any circumstances. Archie took the opportunity to escape, neither having nor pretending to have any interest in the matter, while a very keen and close discussion went on about the manner of “making up the body.” In respect to this these ladies were not of the same mind, Mrs. Brown being reluctant to accept Marion’s new theory of simplicity, which the sharp little girl had picked up somehow since the change which had come in her fortunes. Aunty Jane wanted bright ribbons, a sash, a bow at the throat “to brighten it up,” as she said. But Marion held her own. It was only at the close of the controversy that she found out that anything had been amiss. She turned upon her aunt as if she were making an accusation. “Your eyes are red,” she said; “you’ve been crying!” with a tone in which there was a certain sense of injury, as of one who had been left out.
“Weel if I have been crying, it’s naething extraordinary,” said Mrs. Brown; “naething to call for your notice.”
“What is it that’s the matter now?”
“You have just not as much heart as would lie on a sixpence, to ask me such a question. There’s your father will be just like you. He will think nothing about it. He will think I should just give ye up as I took ye; the one as pleasant as the other. Oh, it is very little that folk kens, when they begin, how it’s to end.”
“But I suppose,” said Marion, “you would like us to have the advantage now that he has come home? You never expected we were just to bide on with you.”
“Oh, no, I never expected it: I’m no just a fool for all the way that ye set up your little neb to me.”
“Well,” said Marion, “then what have ye to complain of, Aunty Jane? You knew all the time: it was always his meaning to come home; and ye have always spoken about it. Bot Archie and me, we’ve learned to look forward to it; and ye would like us to lose all the advantage now!”
“It’s you that just canna understand. It’s maybe not your fault. I was very muckle taken up with mysel’ and what I had to put on, when I was your age. No your mother: she was aye different. It’s me rather that you’re like—for all that ye’ll think shame to speak to me in the street three months after this day.”
“What for should I think shame to speak to you,” said Marion; “for everybody knows ye belong to us, Aunty Jane? There would be no reason for that: we cannot hide it if we wanted to hide it. It would just be bringing odium on ourselves.”
“And that’s a’ ye have to say?”
“What more should I say? I’ll just go and take off the skirt, and run round to Miss Peebles about the body; for between this and Tuesday there’s very little time.”
“There is none to lose, that’s true. Ye had better tell her that ye want it on Monday night, for they’re never to be lippen’t to, thae mantua-makers.”
“That will be the best way.” But perhaps she felt a little compunctious; for she paused at the door to throw a look back and a word. “I think ye may make your mind easy, Aunty Jane, that papa will not do a shabby thing either to us or to you.”
Mrs. Brown raised her hand to dismiss the subject with a certain natural pride. But though she would not discuss it with Marion, in whose calculations affection was not taken into account, it was not without a certain comfort that she adopted this conclusion. No, he would not do a shabby thing. It had never been his character. Even when he was a working man, Jims Rowland had never been shabby. He might be a wee hard to them that offended him, but shabby—no. There was comfort in that. So that perhaps, after all, Marion’s matter-of-fact consolation was practically of more importance than her brother’s feeling. “She’s no an ill creature after all,” Mrs. Brown said to herself.
The “body” was fortunately done in time, and the dress put on with much satisfaction when Tuesday came, which proved to be, fortunately, a fine day—a day on which a white dress was not inappropriate. Mrs. Brown wept plentifully as the young pair left her. To them it was only a “ploy,” but to her it was the parting—the end of her brighter life. She looked after them with maternal pride, proud of their good looks and their best clothes, and even the new boxes that were piled upon the top of the cab. She might have been invited to go down with them to break the parting a little. He might have thought of a little thing like that, not to treat her just as if she were an old nurse, to be dismissed when they were done with her. Jane looked after them with streaming eyes. They were not thinking that it was good-bye: they had left half of their things behind: they were coming back—oh, very often, and certainly in a day or two, they both said. It was only a ploy to them. And so well as they looked, two young things that anybody might be proud of. She thought of Rowland’s triumph in showing them to his wife, and how astonished that proud lady would be to see the two, just so lady-like and so gentleman-like! That was Mrs. Brown’s view of the case, and it gave her consolation in the middle of her woe.
The young people were surprised that their appearance in the boat and at the pier, where they landed, was not the subject of any demonstration. If their father had been received as a person of importance, how much more should they who were not elderly or old-fashioned like him, but in all the triumph of their youth—his heirs, to whom everything would eventually belong. There was, however, only the dog-cart, no more, waiting for them at the pier, with Sandy the groom, who was too friendly by half, and not nearly so much impressed as he ought to have been with their importance. They spent an hour or two by themselves, which would have hung very heavy on their hands had not Archie darted down to see the dogs, and Marion employed herself in arranging her “things” in her room, which was nearly as large as the whole area of the house in Sauchiehall Road. And then the important moment came. The dog-cart had been good enough for them, but it was not good enough for Mrs. Rowland, and it was in the great new resplendent landau that Marion solemnly drove down, all alone, and looking important enough to fill the whole carriage, to meet the lady whom she called mamma.