IT was October when the young Saumarez’s arrived at Rosmore. October is very lovely in the west of Scotland. The trees are thinned but still glowing, the birches like lamps of gold among the darker woods, scattering round them, as the leaves drop, a golden underground that gives out light. The great line of mountains at the head of the loch were lightly touched with snow. The villas on the banks came out more brightly from the thinned foliage, and stood reflected in the shining water, with all the tints round them of red rowan berries and dazzling autumnal leaves. The air had a clearness as of the rarified air of high altitudes. There had not been any rain for ten days, so remarkable a fact that the district in general was beginning to fear the failure of its wells.
In such an evening, while the sun lavished its last rays upon the loch and the opposite shore, bathing them in golden light, Rosamond and Edward came across in the steamboat to the whole Rowland family, which awaited them on the pier. I am wrong, however, to say the whole family: for Archie, who had been seized by a strong repugnance to the newcomers without any reason—a fact which, of course, made it more strong—was not of the number. He had gone up the loch or the hill with a determined intention of returning only in time for dinner. If truth had been told, he was extremely curious, even anxious about the young man who was of his own age, about whom there could be no doubt that he was a gentleman born to everything which Archie had not been born to, yet possessed. He did not think at all about the pretty sister, who probably would have most engaged the interest of the ordinary youth of twenty. But the more Archie was curious, the less had he any intention of showing it. He listened himself to what was said, but he asked no questions. Finally he started, half an hour before they went to meet the newcomers, for a long walk up the hill.
“It is too lovely,” said Rosamond, presenting her cheek, as usual, that Mrs. Rowland should kiss it. “I wish some one had told me that it was a beautiful place. I never began to look till we got into the steamboat. I am not in the least tired, thank you. Eddy! where are you, Eddy? One never knows where to find him. He is always picking up everywhere some fellow he knows. He is not nice to travel with, because there are so many fellows he knows.”
Here there advanced from the other end of the boat, and bounded across the gangway just before it was withdrawn, a short young man, with a travelling cap upon one side of his head and a cigar in his mouth. He had to make a jump upon the pier amid a shout of “Take care, will ye!” and “What are ye doing, lad?” from the man at the pier; and dropped like a projectile in the midst of the group which, so undistinguished was Eddy’s appearance, were not looking for him except his sister, who put out a hand as if to help him. “That was cleverly done,” said Rowland, opposing his own substantial bulk to arrest the stranger who was standing in their midst; “but I would advise you, my young friend, to bestir yourself sooner, and not run such a risk again.”
“Oh, it is his way,” replied Rosamond. “You would not think it, but this is Eddy, Mrs. Rowland. He is like nobody one ever saw.”
Certainly he was not like his handsome father, the young Edward Saumarez whom Evelyn remembered so well. She had been half afraid of seeing a reproduction of his old look. But that was one of the anticipatory troubles that she might well have spared herself. He was short; his hair was light and scanty; his eyes half lost under many folds of loose eyebrows, and a brow which contracted with what some unkind critic has called the short-sighted soul, was rather small. His nose was turned up a little. Marion, who, in the interests of Archie, had been looking forward, half with hope and half with fear, to the arrival of a beautiful youth—a darling of society, exquisitely clothed and of distinguished appearance—felt a pang, half of disappointment, half of relief. Perhaps the relief was the stronger. Archie!—why Archie was taller, better looking, and more a man than this little shambling fellow! The foolish father felt much more cordial to Eddy, and grasped him strongly by the hand.
“You’re welcome to Rosmore, both you and your sister,” he said.
There came an answer from Eddy’s lips which sounded very much like “Who’s this?” but a glance from his sister brought him to himself, and he made his bow accordingly.
“I’m very glad to be here, I can tell you,” said Eddy. “Never knew such a beast of a journey—tumbled out of one carriage into another, and then Glasgow, and then a boat, and I don’t know all what. How do you do? Been here long?—and have you got any sport? It’s just like my luck to come so late.”
“My son,” said Rowland with ineffable pleasure—for he did not feel ashamed of his son now, quite the reverse in sight of this shabby young lad, who looked like nothing at all—“has arranged a day for you, and I think you’ll find a bird or two yet.”
“That’s all right,” said Eddy. “How do you do, Mrs. Rowland! It is very pretty, as Rose says, but I’m not a man for the picturesque myself. Oh, you’re going to walk? Excuse me, I’m not much of a walking man: I’ll go with the ladies, if it’s the same to you.”
“Certainly,” said Rowland amazed, but always with a certain exultation on Archie’s account. This an example for Archie! the boy was twice the man this fellow was. It is not good to rejoice in the disadvantages of other people, but he had been so sure, and professed his pleasure in it, that Saumarez’s son—a man in the best society—could be a model for Archie, that the satisfaction in finding him so shabby a little fellow was more than words could say. He did not need to be ashamed of his own boy in this company at least. Mr. Rowland started to walk, while the little man jumped into his place in the carriage, with a certain elation, as if somebody had given him something he acknowledged to himself.
“How jolly of you to come to meet us,” said Eddy, “country fashion. We were wondering, Rose and I, if there would be a dog-cart or something. Never expected this luxury. Rose, did you see after the luggage? I had no time to think of it—met a fellow who was with me at Eton—one of the great plucked, don’t you know—run all over the country in crowds at this time of the year.”
“Yes,” said Rosamond with her calm air, “he was plucked of course, Mrs. Rowland. I told you we could not come any sooner because of his exam. Of course I knew quite well how it would turn out, and so I told father. But there are some things that people will not believe. I never can see the good, for my part, of going in for exams. that you are sure not to pass.”
“Oh,” said Eddy, light-heartedly, “it is always something to do—keeps you from feeling that you’ve got no centre to your life, don’t you know. I like a sort of fixed point; if you don’t work up to it, of course that’s your fault, but all the same an object,—a fine thing. Don’t you agree with me, Miss Rowland?” said the young man, turning round a little to look into the face of his companion on the front seat, who had given up her place to Rosamond without any pleasure, and was now studying that young lady in every line of her costume, with something of the same sensation of mingled disappointment and relief which her father had experienced. Marion was accustomed now to all the subtleties of the toilette. She was more respectful of Rosamond’s grey gown than she had been of Evelyn’s travelling dress; but she perceived at a glance that from this visitor there would be little to learn.
“I don’t know what you mean by an object. I think most gentlemen’s object is to please themselves,” Marion said.
“That’s what you call epigrammatic, ain’t it,” said Eddy, “and severe.”
“Oh, I just say what I think,” said Marion. She had not had a young man given her to play with since the days of the students, who laughed at her saucy speeches, and said among themselves that Rowland’s sister was clever, much cleverer than he was; and the prospect was agreeable to her. Not that there was anything attractive in Eddy personally, but still he was of the kind of mouse to her cat—or cat to her mouse, as sometimes happens in that sort of exercise. They eyed each other with furtive glances, both aware of this probable relationship.
“Father has left Aix,” said Rosamond, “they have sent him to some other place which it is supposed may do him good. Of course so long as he has Rogers with him we know that he is well attended to. I hope we shall not stay too long and bore you, Mrs. Rowland. Would it be too much to say a month? I hope you will be so kind as to tell us if you want our rooms for other visitors, or get tired of us. Of course people always do in society, or it would be impossible to get on.”
“Yes, I promise, my dear, I shall tell you if I get tired of you,” said Evelyn.
“We have been for a fortnight with grandmamma. I think we bored her very much. She told us she had people coming for the 22nd. But we really could not get away on the 22nd. One’s grandmother is not the same as any one else, do you think? However much she may be bored, it is right that she should put up with it. We don’t go there very much. Once in a year is not a great deal. She never has anything to say to father: he makes her so nervous, she says. She will soon say that Eddy makes her nervous too: when there is no smoking-room, perhaps it may be a little unpleasant to smell his cigars; but if there is anything at all in being a grandmother—then she is of course impatient that he has not passed his exam. I cannot see why, for my part. They ought to have known it from the first. If you will not even open a book, how can you expect to pass any exam.?”
“My object, I allow, is to amuse myself,” said Eddy to Marion, dropping his voice, as it is the right thing to do when you wish to set up a separate conversation. “I am quite candid, as you are—and, tell me, isn’t that yours too?”
“I am afraid you will not find it very easy,” said Marion, “to amuse yourself at Rosmore.”
“What! is there nothing to do?” said Eddy, looking a little dismayed.
“We never see anybody from morning to night but the old maids out of the village. And we never go anywhere. There was a ball at Campbellton, but they refused it, and there was one at Eagle’s Craig, but they just went themselves.”
“Good heavens!” cried Eddy, “what depravity! you never mean to say that the old people, papa and mamma——”
“They just went themselves!” said Marion with an indignation almost too terrible for words.
“This must be looked into,” said Eddy, “it is almost beyond belief.”
“I will tell you after,” said Marion, as the conversation on the other side of the carriage came to a pause.
Thus Mr. Edward Saumarez, jun., procured for himself, without a moment’s delay, something to do at Rosmore. And Marion Rowland found at once an additional interest in life. It was quite innocent, and as trivial as could have been desired. In the evening after dinner she confided a part of her troubles to him, and then the next day, when the young visitors were conducted by the young people of the house to see the neighbourhood, Marion managed so that Rosamond went on with Archie, while she herself followed attended by Eddy. And the sight of the two pairs thus arranged was amusing enough. Rosamond went on in advance, very quickly, with her smooth firm step, and her head held high, as she walked in London, where, intent upon her own business, this young woman of the period passed where she pleased, as safe in her own protection and that, but in a most secondary degree, of her mastiff, as safely as Una with her lion; while Archie walked by her, a step behind, finding it slightly difficult to keep up with her long yet graceful steps, and still more difficult to answer the occasional questions which she addressed to him without turning her head. Archie for his own part could not, however he cudgelled his brains, find out anything to say to this beautiful young lady. He felt her to be miles, nay Alps above him, and that he could not say anything which did not feel common, vulgar, mean—like a boy in a shop talking to a princess. He kept striving to keep up with her, yet never quite kept up with her save when she stopped suddenly and turned with the same swiftness of movement with which she walked to look out on the water or up to the hills, when he would outgo her, and be compelled to swing himself round with an effort to get back to his place.
“What is the name of that hill?” she asked, all at once coming to one of those sudden pauses. “That?” said Archie, anxiously turning to quite another point; “oh that is Ben Ros—or no, I think it is what they call The Miller—if it is not Ros-dhu.”
“You don’t seem to know very much about them,” said the stately girl, and then she set off again, certainly indifferent to the blundering explanation he made that he was afraid he had a bad memory, and that one person said one thing and one another, so that it was difficult to know. At another time it was on the seaside that Rosamond paused, demanding to know the name of the lighthouse in the distance, and what was the shadowy height to be seen far off down the course of the Clyde. If it had cost him his life, poor Archie could not remember whether he had been told that this peak was Goatfell or if it was one of the Cumbraes, which he knew lay “that way.” And the light: what was it that Roderick called the light? If he had ever dreamt that he would be interrogated this way, Archie would have given his whole attention to the acquisition of local knowledge. A cold perspiration came out upon his forehead, as he stammered out answers which he was sure were all wrong. “Oh!” said Miss Saumarez, not even deigning to cast a glance at him. Eddy did not suffer half so much from his unsuccessful examination as poor Archie did from this totally unexpected process, which showed him the profound depth of his ignorance. What a fool she must think him! What an idiot he was!
“I am afraid, Mr. Rowland, you don’t admire your own country so much as I do,” Rosamond said at the end of the walk, with a smile that went over his head like an arrow, which she did not even take the trouble to aim at him. And he was tongue-tied and could not say a word, could not think of anything to say; though after she had gone on, a dozen little darts of words which he might have said, came into his mind, wounding himself with little pricks instead of compelling her to respect him a little, as, if they had but come soon enough, they might have done.
Meanwhile the other pair had got on, as Eddy would have said, like a house on fire. Marion had given him the whole history of the ball at Eagle’s Craig, to which she had been invited with her stepmother; but to which Mrs. Rowland had gone alone—with diamonds round her neck and in her hair.
“She would not have had any diamonds but for papa,” said Marion. “She was quite nobody when he married her.”
“Oh, now I don’t think that can be true,” said Eddy, “for my governor, you know—” an impulse of wisdom checked the young man—“couldn’t have known her, could he, if she had been nobody?”
“Well, at least she was nobody out in India,” said Marion, “and to see her now! And I had to stay at home—me, papa’s own daughter, and the only one, and a very good dancer! And it was her that went to the ball, an old lady, and me, I had to stay at home!”
“It is a sort of thing that would justify an appeal to parliament,” said Eddy, “but there must have been some sort of reason alleged. Perhaps you had not a frock?”
“I have dozens of frocks,” said Marion, turning upon him with a gleam in her eye.
“Or you did not know the people?”
“I know heaps of people; that is, I did not know them myself, but what does it matter about that when I am papa’s daughter, and he could just—buy them all up!”
“Oh,” said Eddy, taken a little aback—for though he was accustomed to a great deal of slang and much frank speaking, it was not generally quite of this kind. “Then,” he said, “I am at my wit’s end, and I can’t think what they meant.”
“They said,” cried Marion, “that I was not out.”
“Oh,” said Eddy again.
“But what did that matter—for who would have ever known? And it was a delightful ball, with a great many officers. And I am a fine dancer,” said Marion with a deep sigh of mingled indignation and regret.
“Oh, as for that, there is no doubt,” said Eddy, “you are as light as a feather, and with those pretty little feet—”
“No, I am not as light as a feather: I am just the weight I ought to be, and my feet are just the same as other people’s; but I know,” said Marion with conviction, “that I am good at dancing. Archie is not very good at it, and he is not fond of it.”
“He does not look as if he would be,” said Eddy, with a look at the son of the house tramping on before them at a considerable distance in close pursuit of the lady who was in his charge.
“No,” said Marion, “he never was fond of it—are you?”
“Oh, I adore it,” said the young man, “when I have a partner to my mind. You and I, Miss Marion, would fly like the wind. We’d leave everybody behind us. I’ll tell you what we must do to make up for that Ravenscraig—no, Eagle’s Craig business—we’ll make them give a ball here.”
“A ball at Rosmore!”
“The very thing! while we are here. Rosamond has not come out either, but, as you say, who will ever know? We may as well have our fun, and you and she can keep each other in countenance. Nobody will tell—and what would it matter if they did? Why, girls not out are to be seen everywhere—always at balls at home. You put on a high dress.”
“No,” cried Marion, “I would rather die than go to a dance in a high dress.”
“Well, don’t then,” said the complacent Eddy, “anything you please. Oh, don’t be afraid. I will speak to Mrs. Rowland. I can be as independent as you like when there’s any occasion for it. And my governor, you know, poor old chap——”
“Do you mean ‘your papa,’” said Marion.
“Well, I don’t call him so,” said Eddy with a laugh. “There was a story, don’t you know, about him and your mamma-in-law. The governor behaved badly, but she has a sneaking kindness for him all the same. That’s why we are here.”
“Oh!” cried Marion, with a gasp of excitement, “tell me! for I know nothing about her. I want to know about her. I was sure there was some story.”
“The governor was a sad dog when he was young,” said Eddy. “Oh, he’s a nice fellow to blow a fellow up for some trifle not half so bad as himself. He was up to anything that was naughty. It’s funny, isn’t it, to hear of these anti-diluvian lovers—my old governor, who can’t move a limb, poor old chap, and this prim lady here who looks like a saint.”
“As if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,” said Marion; “but I always knew there was some story. Be quick and tell me, for they are coming back.”
“I will tell you another time. Can’t we come out to-night in the moonlight to smoke a cigarette. Did you ever try a cigarette? Oh, all the girls do! I’ll teach you how. It makes you much better company when you don’t mind a cigarette.—Hi! here’s Rosamond down upon us. Not a word to her, whatever I tell you. And your brother coming lagging behind as if she had given him a touch of the lash. She’s a rare one for that; keeps a fellow in his place, as if she was too grand to mind.”
“Oh, Archie is just as grand as she is,” said the girl, slightly offended; “and it is just his way to keep behind. I would like to see anybody giving my brother a touch of the lash!”
“It is not because he is your brother, but because he is himself,” said Eddy. “I don’t mean any offence. I mean that’s Rosamond’s way. She is like the governor, don’t you know. She has got a great deal of the devil in her. So have you, I should think.”
“Me!” said Marion, much shocked. “I am not what you think at all.”
“Yes,” said Eddy, “I am sure you are what I think. As nice as girls are made, but plenty of devilry, and a spirit for anything. That is precisely what I like best.”
“Well,” said Marion, “I will allow that I have a great deal of spirit, if that’s what you call the——; but you shouldn’t say bad words. Do you mean that girls are not made so nice as men? for I think you’re very impudent to say so, and me a girl that you are speaking to.”
“Girls,” said Eddy, with an air of authority, “are sometimes much better, and sometimes they are a great deal worse than men. There’s no medium in them. You are one of the nice ones, so of course you are a great deal nicer than a fellow like me, or even your brother. I am a dreadful little beggar, and that is the truth.”
“Oh, you like to say ill things of yourself.”
“No, I don’t, if they weren’t true. You hit me off exactly, the very first thing, when you said men had no object but to amuse themselves. You must be awfully clever as well as nice. I don’t see what we’re in the world for but to enjoy ourselves. I’m sure I didn’t ask to come, and I dare say I shan’t have a very long life, so I mean it to be a merry one, I can tell you. As for the governor,” said Eddy, “he has no right to complain. Rose is too good for him, but he deserves to have me to keep him in mind of how naughty he has been.”
“What have you done,” said Marion, interested, “that is so——naughty, as you say?”
“Oh, you would like to know?” he said, opening his eyes wide, with a laugh. “Perhaps if I were to tell you, you would never speak to me any more.”
“I am not that kind,” said Marion. “I would always speak to you, whatever you did—if you were sorry.”
“Ah! but the chief thing in me is that I am not a bit sorry,” said Eddy.—“Are you going back already you two? You go off like a hunter, Rose, never minding who toils after you. Miss Rowland and I are going further on.”
“There is a beautiful view up there,” said Rosamond, pointing to the west, “if you cared about views, and the mountains are beautiful in that direction, but as you never would look at a landscape in your life——”
“Not when I had mettle more attractive,” said Eddy, with a look at Marion, and then he laughed out, “When I can combine both, I like it very much.”
“Mary, it is perhaps going to rain. I would not advise you to go very far,” said Archie, who was more susceptible than his sister to the light compliment and the laughter. But Marion stood her ground.
“Since we came to Rosmore,” she said, “it has always been going to rain, and we can shelter under the trees, and it does no harm. I have promised to Mr. Saumarez to show him Ben Ros before we go in.”
“I am very anxious to make the acquaintance of Ben Ros,” said Eddy with a laugh. “Au revoir, you people who have accomplished that part already. I don’t suppose you are deeply attached to Ben Ros—what do you call him—are you? But it is always a good excuse for a walk—and a talk.”
“You never call me by my name,” said Marion; “you say just you, as if I were not a person at all.”
“Because you would be angry if I called you by your name.”
“Me, angry! Why I am just Miss Rowland to everybody, servants and all.”
“I suppose you don’t rank me with the servants? I shall say Marion or nothing—and of course you would not allow me—or May, that is your name too, and the prettiest of all.”
“May is short for Marion,” she said with a blush.
“And I’m to call you so? Then I shall do nothing but call you by it. May, May—it is the prettiest name in the world.”
Thus there came into conjunction another two who were not Mr. Rowland’s two, nor perhaps a two who were very desirable companions for each other, yet who suited each other, as Mr. Edward Saumarez eloquently expressed it, down to the ground.