ARCHIE made, as he thought, but one step down the stairs: he fell into the little passage, which led to the parlour, like a thunderbolt. “Aunt Jane, it is Mrs. Rowland,” he cried.
“And if it is Mrs. Rowland,” said Jane, “who is she to come here as if the place belonged to her? which it dis not, nor ever will, were she the queen o’ the whole land.”
“Archie,” said the voice of Evelyn from beyond the stout, full form that stood like a solid barrier between him and his father’s wife; “ask your aunt kindly to let me in. I have been travelling all night, and I bring you good news; but I am very tired. Please to let me in.”
Mrs. Brown was rent by conflicting sentiments. To resist such an entreaty is as hard for a Scotswoman of her class as for an Arab in the desert. The claims of hospitality are as urgent with one as with the other. She did not know how to refuse, to keep a tired woman, appealing to her, at arm’s length. Further, thoughts of fresh tea to be masked, and eggs to be boiled, flashed into her mind across the sullen background of enmity which made her stand fast in stubborn resistance. It was a sin against her house to close the door, to oppose the entrance of the stranger. She had never done such a thing, scarcely even to the gangrel body who was not to be trusted in the neighbourhood of a silver spoon, before, and the necessity hurt her. But to let in this fine lady, this proud woman, this stranger and alien person, who had (presumably) hunted Archie from his father’s house—— Oh, no, no!
“There are plenty hotels in Glasgow where the leddy can go,” she said, standing firm. “Ye can go with her, ye fool that ye are, and be beguiled by her flattering tongue, for anything I care.”
“May not I come in?” said Evelyn, with great surprise. “I have been hoping all night for a little rest and a welcome. You surely will not refuse me half-an-hour’s rest, if I promise to go away in half-an-hour?” She smiled and looked at Archie, whose anxious face appeared over Mrs. Brown’s shoulder. “I did not know,” she said, “that your aunt had any objection to me.”
“Ainy objection!” cried Mrs. Brown, “when you have just made his life a burden to him, and ruined all his prospects, poor lad, and closed the doors o’ his father’s house!”
“But I have not done that,” said Mrs. Rowland, surprised. “You are making a great mistake, surely. His prospects are not ruined, nor are his father’s doors closed against him, as he knows. But now,” she said, tears of weakness coming into her eyes, “they are thrown open as if with the sound of a trumpet. Archie, thank God that it is all cleared up and found out. Will you not let me in to tell him how it has been discovered and his honour cleared? Don’t you care for his honour and good name, you who have been a mother to him—more than for anything else in the world?”
“I never doubted either one or the other,” said Mrs. Brown; “it will be nae discovery to me.”
“Nor to me either,” said Evelyn, “as he knows: but proofs are good things. If you will not let me in,” she added, with a smile, which was very near the other manifestation of feeling—tears, “I must sit down on the steps, and he can hear my story here.”
“You can come in,” said Mrs. Brown, opening the door wide. “I will have nae play-acting on my doorsteps. Archie, ye can take this leddy into the parlour. It’s easy for the like of such a woman to get over a laddie like you. Ye ken nothing of their wiles; how should ye?” She followed as she spoke into the parlour, where she pulled forward an easy-chair violently, talking all the time. “They just get ye back under their thumb when it pleases them, until the time comes when your downfa’s doomed. Here’s a footstool till ye. It’ll no doubt be a great satisfaction to feel that Jane Brown’s house is but a poor place, no a chair good enough for the like of you to sit down——”
“Indeed, it is very comfortable, and a great ease to sit down and be quiet for a moment. Thank you kindly,” said Evelyn. “I have been travelling, I may say, for four days. On Tuesday night I went up to town—to London, I mean—and there I have been to and fro all the time, and came up again here during the night. So I have an excuse for being very tired.”
“Lord bless us,” said Mrs. Brown, with wide open eyes, “and what was the need of that? I’m thinking with Jim Rowland’s money in your pouch ye have little need to weary yourself in ainy way.”
Going down to the Kyles of Bute for a day’s holiday was the most exhausting experience Mrs. Brown had ever had, and she had not got the better of that fatigue for several days. She was a little overawed by this description, as indeed Evelyn, with pardonable guile, had intended her to be.
She darted out of the room as she spoke, perhaps that she might not yield more to the influence of this soft-spoken woman (“but they can speak soft enough, and sweet enough, when it’s for their ain ends,” she said to herself) leaving Evelyn alone with Archie. She held out her hand to him with a smile. “I am so tired,” she said, “that I am scarcely capable of telling you my story. I feel the wheels going in my head, and a sort of perpetual movement. Now, some people travel by night constantly, and are never the worse.”
She spoke thus, partly because she was indeed very tired, and partly to accustom Archie to the shock of seeing her, speaking with her, being thus brought back to all the stormy emotions of that last eventful night. She half understood him and the reluctance with which, now that his aunt’s violent opposition was taken away, he touched her hand, and accepted her confidence. Archie was not amiable though he might be weak. At the sight of her seated there, and no longer held at bay, all the hard things that had been said, and which he himself had united in saying, against her and her power over his father, surged up into his mind. For anything he knew she might be the malign influence that Jane Brown believed her to be. She might be, for some occult reason of her own, trying to draw him again within her power, to represent herself as his benefactress, only that she might more fully and completely ruin him the next time. This had been suggested to him so often that he almost believed it: and it came back with all that force of hostility which replaces remorse, in the reaction from a momentary softness, which is in itself a reaction too. He had been ready to pluck his aunt away—to bid her stand aside for shame, while she held this woman at bay: but now that the woman was there enthroned, without opposition, holding out her hand to him, with that grace of profoundest, unapproachable superiority, all his rebellious feelings started forth again. He felt no curiosity to know what she had been doing, or what was the result of which she seemed so proud. How could it affect him? He represented to himself that even to speak to him of being cleared was an insult, and her brag of her fatigue and exertions revolted him. What did it matter to him if she was tired or not? What did he care if the wheels were going in her head? He touched her hand because it would be uncivil, and show his bad breeding, if he refused it—and then he turned his back and stood looking out of the window. It was the same attitude as Eddy had assumed, though for a different reason, and Evelyn, in her exhaustion, smiled over the resemblance. She said to herself that boys of that age were very much alike, though so different, and that after all the most accomplished young man of the world had only the same ways of showing emotion as were patent to the simplest of his kind. She said after a moment: “You don’t seem to have much curiosity as to what I have been doing, Archie?”
“No,” he said curtly; “why should I? You were so polite as to say it had something to do with me: but I don’t see what you could have to do with me?”
“Come,” she said, “you must not be cross, Archie. Your aunt is, but I excuse her—for she does not know, and perhaps may even think I don’t know—that there is no virtue in being uncivil.”
“She is not uncivil,” he said, rudely. “She is the kindest woman in the world.”
“The one, unfortunately, does not always make the other impossible,” she said softly, and then she sighed. “Is it necessary to begin all over again? Archie,” she said, “I thought we had passed the preliminary stage?”
“I don’t know what you call the preliminary stage.”
“Well, well,” she said with an impatient sigh.
And then it occurred to Archie that there was something ludicrous in the position, in his sullen stand in front of the window, while she sat, shut out from the light by his shadow, endeavouring to bring him to reason, behind. He felt, too, that the reason was on her side, and the obstinacy and folly on his, which did not make him more amiable, nor help to free him from his angry resistance. What roused him was the jar of a rush against the door, which presently was flung open, striking against the wall, by the rapid entrance of a tray, borne by Mrs. Brown herself in front of her, covered with a white cloth, and bearing all the materials of an excellent breakfast. Jane set it down with a dash upon the table, pushing aside the carefully arranged books, and almost breaking, in her vehemence, the shade which covered a group of wax water-lilies which filled the place of honour. “Lift off the flowers and the books, Archie,” she cried; “you maunna let even your worst enemy hunger and thirst when ye bring him in to your house.”
“Thank you for your kindness,” said Evelyn, with a faint laugh. “But why am I to be supposed his enemy? It is a little cruel, don’t you think, without any proof.”
“What maitters that as long as ye get what you want?” said Jane, “and I’ll allow that you want a cup of tea after your journey, whatever is your objeck, maudam. And ye had better go ben and get your breakfast, Archie. I will see that the leddy gets everything she wants.”
“You treat me,” said Evelyn, put on her mettle, “a little as Jael did her enemy. Butter in a lordly dish, but the nail and the hammer ready for use behind.”
“There’s neither nail nor hammer in my hands,” said Mrs. Brown. “And I never liked the woman. It’s true that she was commended by the prophetess, but I often thought yon was a slip o’ the tongue in Deborah, carried away by her feelin’s, as is rale common with women, and no thinking what she was saying. Na, I am nae Jael. Besides he was weel kent for an enemy to Israel, and that’s mair than ony individual. I hope ye find the tea to your taste; there is no pushon in it: and the eggs are our ain laying, for I’ve aye kept a wheen poultry. It was good for the bairns to have them caller and good—when I had the bairns with me.”
“I have often thought of you,” said Evelyn, “and of how you must have missed them. It was too abrupt at last. If you had but come with them to Rosmore—”
“Na na, none o’ that. And ye may spare me your peety, Mrs. Rowland: I’m no a woman that is fond o’ peety. It was just done, and the thing is over, and there is no more to be said: if ye had kept them happy when ye had them!”
“That is always the hardest thing to do.”
“Eh, woman,” said Mrs. Brown, “if ye had been a woman like the women in the books! There’s such arises from time to time—that does her duty to the man’s bairns and puts her feelin’s in her pocket, if she doesna like them; though how it was possible no to like them is mair than I can tell. She should have been up and tellt him, when there was suspicion thrown upon that lad, that it wasna true. If they had threepit it till they were black in the face, she would have said she didna believe a word. She would have cried out, ‘Look at the lad,’ (a more sullen, hangdog countenance than Archie’s at this moment could scarcely have been conceived) ‘and hear his ain saying aboon a’ the world!’”
There was a little stir at the window, and a harsh voice broke out suddenly where Archie stood: “That’s just what she did,” he said.
“If it had been me,” cried Jane, inspired with her theme, and noting no interruption, “though I’m nae pattern, I would have cried out, ‘Oh, get away from me, ye ill-thinking man! will ye daur to say there’s a lie in that laddie’s bonny broo! I’m no his parent, like you (I would have said), but a woman with e’en in my head, and I ken the truth when I see it. My word for his! (I would have cried) yon’s the truth and a’ the rest is lies!’ Woman! oh woman! I’m no a pattern; I’m no a grand and bonny leddy like you; but that’s what I would have done—plain Jane Brown, standing here before ye—if it had been me!”
Jane plumped down into a seat at the end of this tirade, and burst, as was natural, into hot torrents of tears, to which she gave vent freely, rocking herself to and fro with the primitive usage of passion. Evelyn had not said a word. She had followed the wild eloquence of the other with a tremulous smile and tears in her eyes. She did not even look at Archie, to remind him. He, for his part, had not known how to contain himself while the scene went on. He caught at his aunt’s arm, which she used in the free gesture of her class to emphasize her words, and at her dress: but it was not till Mrs. Brown’s sobs began to grow less that the lad spoke.
“Aunt Jane,” he said, “it is you at the end that has put all the clouds away. We’ve been slanderers, and evil speakers, you and me. We have just done our utmost, and all failed. We have wanted to lay the blame of it on her, and to think that it was her doing. But you’ve cleared up all that Aunt Jane,” he said, with a quick touch of his hand upon her shoulder, “everything you said you would have done, she did. Do you hear me?—all you said, she said. She has just done that and more. My father, if he were here, would tell you. You’ve shown me the truth anyway, whether you will see it yourself or not. She has done all that—and more!”
Archie turned away and made a round of the room like a blind man, and then he went up to Evelyn on the other side. “I humbly beg your pardon with all my heart and soul,” he said. “I’ll maybe never enter my father’s doors. I’ll maybe never come to anything as long as I live. And what you have come to tell me is just like Hebrew and Greek to me, and I’m not caring what it is; but she’s cleared my eyes, and I just beg your pardon with all my heart and soul.”
“Hush, Archie, hush,” said Mrs. Rowland, giving him her hand (which he shook awkwardly and dropped, poor boy, having no graceful suggestions in him, not knowing what to do with a lady’s hand in such circumstances, as Eddy did); “there is no pardon needed: and Mrs. Brown, shake hands with me, for we understand each other fully, and I agree in every word you say. If James did not do so, it was perhaps because he was a man, as you say, and wanted proof; and because, also, oh believe it, Archie! you are dearer to your father than to any one, and to doubt you is more than he can bear.”
“There is somebody at the door,” cried Mrs. Brown, hastily drying her tears; “and we are all begritten, and will do nothing but expose ourselves. I’m no quick enough to follow a’ you’ve said. And I canna tell what I’ve said to put ye baith in such a commotion; nothing but what was very simple, for I’m not a person of edication, like you. But if Archie’s pleased, I’m pleased: and you’re a bonny woman, Mrs. Rowland, and I canna resist ye. If ye’ll take it, I’ll gi’e ye my hand. And Archie, lad, go out to the door, and see that no strange person is let in here.”
Archie opened the door, and fell back with a cry of astonishment, and Rowland came in, looking round him upon all the signs of emotion which still were very apparent, with wondering eyes. He tried to veil his surprise in the sternness of aspect which was natural to a man whom all the persons present had bitterly offended. He was among a company, indeed, of offenders; all of them had sinned against him; and, perhaps, in present circumstances, his wife the most of all. He was still utterly perplexed as to the cause of her flight to London: and what connection there could be between that and her presence here, it was impossible to divine. He looked round upon them sternly, trying to suppress other sentiments. It was very strange to Evelyn to meet, for the first time in their life together, a look of disapproval in her husband’s eyes. After the first shock and surprise of his appearance, she had sunk again into her chair, holding out her hand: but he made no response, either to the smile or to the stretched-out hand.
“I saw my wife,” he said to Mrs. Brown briefly, with whom he had exchanged a silent greeting; “I saw my wife in the street, and followed her here. I know no business she could have here. I should apologise for the intrusion.” He took no notice of his son, who had instinctively drawn aside. “It surprises me very greatly, Evelyn, to see you here.”
“Oh Jims! sae did it me; but your bonny leddy has none but a good motive for coming: I can see that noo.”
“I do not wonder,” said Evelyn calmly: she was not afraid of her husband; “but you will soon understand. I am surprised also to see you. Did you get my telegram, James?”
“I got no telegram,” he cried angrily, “and I thought I had forbidden any intercourse with—with—”
“Oh, no,” she said, “you could not have done that: first because you have too much respect for your wife to give her an order which was unworthy: and because you could not interfere with my own judgment. On the contrary, I came here—to bring our boy home.”
“I gave no authority for any such mission,” Rowland cried, “and I will not have it! I will not have it!” He was trembling behind his anger, which was like a veil thrown on to disguise the strange movements and agitations in his mind. What did she mean? She had not disturbed herself, except for a moment, and still lay back in the big chair pale with weariness, yet smiling in his face the more dark he looked. What had she in her mind to make her smile so? Why did she say she had come to bring the boy? She said our boy. What, oh what was the meaning of it all? Archie stood dark as a thundercloud, dumb, taking no more note of his father than his father did of him. (They both saw every movement of each other, every change of countenance, every turn, had it been of a finger.) And Jane had evidently been crying, and was ready to burst out again at any moment. It was she that interposed now.
“Jims,” she said, “your bonny leddy is just aff a journey; she’s been travelling all night. I can’t tell where ye have been yoursel’, but you look very wearit too. You can see her cup o’ tea standing by her that she hasna touched. I poured it out, but I hadna the grace to hold my tongue, and just was mad at her, and abused her sae that the darlin’ creature, as she is, never swallowed a drop, and her faintin’ for want. But I’ve been convicted out of my ain very mouth,” cried Jane, “every word that I spoke has come back upon me: for I threepit up against her that I would have done this and that. Me! a bonnie person to set up for a pattern! and it turned out that everything I said she had done, and mair. And now you come bursting in, just as unreasonable. Say out, man, what ye would have her to do, and you’ll find she has done it—and mair! But for ainy sake,” cried Jane, sobbing, with her apron to her eyes, “Let the bonny leddy get a moment’s peace, and tak’ her cup o’ tea.”
“Dear Mrs. Brown,” cried Evelyn, between laughing and crying, “you’re a good friend! and I do want a little tea. And I am not afraid of him nor any of you. If you have not been home, nor got my telegram, you will want a full account of me, James, for I have been in London by myself, ever since you went away. Yes, it is true, I took advantage of your absence to go away. A wicked woman could not have done more. As soon as you had gone I set out. It would not be wonderful if you suspected me. But I do not know of what,” she added, with a low laugh. There was something in her laugh that overcame altogether her middle-aged angry husband. He was not angry: all that was a pretence; nor did he know what he suspected her of. At this moment he suspected her justly of what she had done, of having found some way, he could not tell how, of making an end of the trouble which was growing at his heart. When he had left Rosmore there was something in her eye that had made him believe she would do this. He had given her no permission, yet he had a confidence that she would act somehow—he could not tell how—and clear everything up. It had been a horrible disappointment to him coming back with that confidence in his mind, to find that she was absent, to be told that she had gone to ask advice—on his affairs. And here he had been utterly perplexed, and had not known what to think. That was the history of his many changes. Suspect her? No, he did not know, any more than she did, of what. He had never suspected her—unless it was of failing to fulfil that wild hope of his suffering heart. But something told him now that she had not failed. He stood by as grave as a whole bench of judges, and watched with a solemn countenance while she took her tea. There had been a little struggle with Mrs. Brown, who protested that it must be cold, and that she must make more. But Evelyn had been triumphant in this, and now sat eating and drinking before them all, while they looked on with solemnity. There was something of the highest comic absurdity in the aspect of the father and son, one more serious than the other, standing watching her at her simple meal. Mrs. Brown hovered about her, imploring her to take this and that—an egg, some scones, a chop that could be got in an instant, marmalade, that was considered very good, of her own making—and many things beside. But the two men stood in portentous silence, never moving a muscle, as grave as if her little piece of toast was a matter of life and death. Archie was agitated vaguely, he knew not how: but his father’s mind was like a great flowing river, held by a thread of ice, which the first ray of sunshine would clear away. He bore the aspect of anger still; the cloud hung upon his brow; but all restraint was ready to be swept away, and the full tide to flow forth. He stood, however, black as night, and watched his wife at her breakfast. The strangest, humorous, nay comic sight.
And Evelyn was worn out with all her exertions. She was so weak, with her nerves all so relaxed after their long tension, that they were able to resist no temptation. She watched her husband and his son with a growing sense of the ludicrous. They were so solemn, watching her like doctors over a case, as if the manner in which she set down her tea-cup, or put her morsel of bread into her mouth, were symptoms of the gravest kind. She watched them as long as nature would hold out. It was not until she had finished her cup of tea, and ate her last morsel. She put her plate away with her hand, and they both moved slightly with the touch, as if this were the signal for some revelation. And this in her weak condition was too much for Evelyn. She burst out with a laugh of such hilarity that all the silent room echoed. She laughed till the tears flowed down her cheeks.
“Oh James, forgive me,” she cried, “you are like an owl, serious as midnight and the dark: and Archie is just like you, as like you as—what is the word? two peas. Archie, come here and give me your hand. Do you remember that I once told you I believed every word you said?”
A murmur came from Archie’s throat. He was half affronted, half angry, offended by that laugh which had startled him in his unexpressed excitement. But yet he went and stood by her as she said.
“I was wrong to laugh,” said Evelyn, “but I could not help it. If you had seen yourselves, you would have laughed too. James, I got a clue just before you left home, but I could not tell you of it, because of Sir John: and then you went away with him. I don’t know that I should have told you: and I was glad you went away. It was the opportunity I wanted. I went up to town, and I saw the man who—James!—what is the matter. Do you know?”
He had lifted up his hands with a great exclamation of dismay. “Him!” he cried, and no more.
“I think,” said Evelyn with sudden gravity, “your father knows—independent of me. Archie, go and get ready to come home. It is a very sad story. Your father has the best heart, he is more sorry for him that has sinned than glad for him that is saved. I repent of my silly laugh. For though you have not done it, another poor boy has done it. James! God bless you, you have the best heart of us all.”